koobas.hobune.stream
Low Poly Crowd on iOS
Hello. I am finishing up production of a rhythm game for mobile devices. I am using Unity 4 Pro iPhone pro to release on iOS first.
Crowds are a tricky, non-trivial effect to pull off in games. I have about 15 levels in my game. The first level starts at about 30 crowd members. The last level, I have about 200 or so.
At any given time, the camera frustum may include up to a majority of the crowd members, if not all of them.
I started out with 2d planes representing a row of crowd members. The plane's shader had to allow for alpha testing since they were cutout silhouettes of people dancing. I then decided to switch to 3d models. I save performance by not using transparent shader but of course the poly count will increase.
I have worked hard to make a low poly model. It is currently at 192 triangles and I plan to cut more polygons down. Ideally I'm trying to reach 100 triangles. They will have to be textured but they wont use large textures.
Can I pull this off or is this too much to ask for?
In case your visual/art style allows it, did you thought about the following approach? 2D bodypart polygons to compose characters, so you can apply waving motions to them. Cut them out using a a polygon surface so you safe alpha - instead of just using rects. Have them all be part of one mesh (or one mesh per layer) so you get few draw calls.
hmm. i dont quite understand exactly what you mean. can you please elaborate a bit? What do you mean by "Cut them out using a polygon surface so you can save alpha" Do you mean just the arms will be 2d planes that are cutouts using alpha?
This example from Zynga should illustrate what I mean with "cutting out the 2D shapes with polygons" : http://code.zynga.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/$$anonymous$$eshGiraffe_DreamZoo.png
But ins$$anonymous$$d to do it for the entire character - cut them into body part pieces, so you can apply animation through rotation
oh wow. i see what you mean. this is a very clever approach. this can work for a particular style as you mentioned but it will not fit for what im trying to do. this style will still limit camera movement to face the character head on or from behind, not from the side. thank you for your response any how.
ok :) You could use billboarding sprites but again it's pseudo 3D and kinda cheap in visual terms. Or have sprite sheet with multiple angles rendered but thats consu$$anonymous$$g precious memory. I guess then you have no choice and go to extreme low-poly with 3D chars :)
yes. again thanks for your suggestion, it would work for when the camera doesn't need to be up close or rotate around these characters but i would like the camera to not have any restrictions. thus, i will need to go with ultra low poly characters.
