koobas.hobune.stream
Polygons = tris?
Hi all,
just been reading up on Unity and optimal polygon counts for characters on mobile devices. I presume this link means tris when it mentions polygons? can someone confirm?
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ModelingOptimizedCharacters.html
cheers
No first of all Polygons != tris. But Actually Half of Tris are almost equal to Polygons count. Usually we consider Half of Tris = Number of Polygons.
yes Polygons == tris and it equals quads and n-gons. If the one who wrote the guide is a programmer he/she probably meant it as tris but if he/she was an artist it was probably meant as quads. The important number for performance however is vertex count that is a combinations of UV splits, Normal Splits and shader complexity which all have little to do with polygon count. However since modelling packages don't show the correct GPU vertex count then a polycount is all you have to go by before previewing the mesh in engine.
Almost all modelers, whether they know Unity or not, use the terms Tri and Poly somewhat interchangeably. For example, I'm told it's best to make a model using quads, only using tris for the messy parts. Since everyone knows that, saying Polys is short and accurate.
$$anonymous$$y longer explanation of Unity vs. game design common knowledge: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/1252826/is-unity-for-beginners-if-not-what-else-should-i-k.html
Unity as well as the graphic cards itself will render everything as triangles. A triangle is a polygon. Of course not every polygon is a triangle, but every polygon can be splitted into triangles and that's what every GPU / graphics interface does when you actually provide it a polygon. In Unity you can now create / import quad meshes (a mesh that only consists of quads). However under the hood it will be rendered as triangles anyways.
The triangle or polygon count is actually a bad indicator of the complexity of a mesh. You shouldn't hold too tight to the "recommended" numbers. Every mesh / model is different. For example it makes a difference if you can actually see all triangles of a mesh at once or if about half of them are on the backside. It's not like the back facing triangles are not there, but it usually renders a bit faster. Likewise mobile devices usually have weak fillrates, so it's more important to avoid overdraw or expensive fragment shaders.
So the answer is yes: When someone talks about "polygons" in Unity he usually means triangles.
