Junk Carrier Spider Robot - In Game

[batworm]

This one is for the same MMORPG with the giant walker.

Tris: 8692
Texture: 1 x 1024 Diffuse
Size: About 3,5 meters high

Texture is symmetrical. Concept belongs to my mate Ali Tunç.

[Buzzy]

Cool design and neat model, but it is generally a bad practice to make a realtime model out of so many elements. It doesn't need to be entirely watertight, but those lower legs are comprised of 10-15+ elements each. For your next model, try making more watertight shapes.

[batworm]

Cool design and neat model, but it is generally a bad practice to make a realtime model out of so many elements. It doesn't need to be entirely watertight, but those lower legs are comprised of 10-15+ elements each. For your next model, try making more watertight shapes.

Thanks.

Out of curiosity; why are elements bad idea for real time model? I prioritize triangle optimization.

[The Prime]

Thanks.

Out of curiosity; why are elements bad idea for real time model? I prioritize triangle optimization.

They aren't hard and fast rules, but you can get some strange bugs with lighting, and Z-Fighting (which poly draws on top of the other). If you make a model watertight, these errors are far less likely to happen. This does depend on the engine, some handle these errors better than others.

Do you have a texture and UV shot?

[Buzzy]

Also, with a lot of overlapping and intersecting elements, you end up wasting texture space and it is more difficult to get clean and accurate texturing, especially if you are baking normal maps.
Another thing, clipping is kind of an expensive process (clipping = calculating and drawing intersecting triangles), so it should be avoided. It's not a big deal on more powerful platforms, but on something like the Wii or any mobile platform, it can be a significant resource drain.

[batworm]

Z fight happens only when 2 polys facing same direction and very close. At least on our engine. Never encountered any problem with lightmaps too. Did you ever encountered with lightning problems because of too many elements?

Yes you can lose some texturing space, you are right. But it is not that big most of the time. That's the decision we all have to make I guess. Less triangles and a bit of texture space loss. Or more triangles and less texture loss.

BTW thanks for feedback. I appreciate it.