Comments on: A Few Words on Polys and Portfolios

By: Polycount | Tim Wahlström Workbook

Polycount | Tim Wahlström Workbook — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 15:44:19 +0000

[…] Darius Kazemi. (2010). A Few Words on Polys and Portfolios http://tinysubversions.com/2010/04/a-few-words-on-polys-and-portfolios/ […]

By: Darius Kazemi

Darius Kazemi — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:06:27 +0000

Agreed — but I’m more responding to students who think that just showing a 40k poly model is the way to go. Definitely showing a low and high poly version of a model side by side is a great thing to do. Also good low poly models are still extremely important for lower-tech games you’d find on the web, DS, etc.

By: NSH

NSH — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:04:20 +0000

I think keeping poly-count down is less important nowadays as it once was. Obviously demonstrating you are aware of triangle budgets and knowing how to use triangles efficiently is important, but often nowadays the art pipeline consists of making a high-poly model, running it through a tool chain to produce a lower-poly version and corresponding normal/height-maps, and hand-tweaking the resulting geometry.

What I would ideally like to see in a portfolio is both a high-poly source model, and a side-by-side view of a simplified version that shows that you know how to extract the maximum detail from your budget. If you’ve got a 5,000 triangle model sitting next to a 500 one that looks almost as good, you’ve demonstrated not only artistic skill, but proficiency with your tools and a knowledge of the domain and practices as well that some Technical Artist isn’t going to have to spend man-hours teaching you.

By: SJML

SJML — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:39:12 +0000

One of the things I like to see most in a demo reel is a rendered model and then a wireframe view, so I can get a sense of how much detail they can provide in a tiny amount of space. (Displaying a numeric polycount is also nice, since it can be tough to eyeball.)