Reducing polygons, any tips?

[Guest lmbarns]

Hey guys I've found a great way to reduce mesh polygons while keeping the UV mapping from Steve's textures, but in blender I lose the animations, so at the moment I can only use it for non animated models.

 

The other way I can keep the animations, and reduce polygons using decimate modifier, but I lose the UV mapping so I'd have to texture it myself (i'm very bad at it)

 

 

So I'm interested to hear how others are able to reduce polygons while keeping the texture and animations...anyone?

 

For inanimate models like buildings and stuff here's what I've found:

 

1) There's a script in Blender 2.49b that was too hard to port to future versions, called "Polygon reducer". It is awesome for reducing polygons WHILE keeping the UV mapping.

 

2) So far what I've found is to work between new and old versions of blender saving as .obj seems to work between both well, if you save anything as a blend file in a new version you can't open it in older versions, so obj seems to be the answer there.

 

My workflow:

1) import obj in old version of blender.

2) reduce mesh with "polygon reducer" script.

3) Export blend in old version and open in new version

4) export fbx from new version of blender

 

Now I can use the castles and stuff I otherwise couldn't on mobile. Now I need to find a way to do it while keeping the animations, I reduced the new tiger from 9k to 2k polygons and it looked great, but I lost the animations...

 

Anyone have other tips to share?

[admin]

Thanks for sharing that information. Another good tool is unwrap3d to poly reduce. It is quite hard sometimes to reduce characters, especially on figer areas, which always seem the first to start reducing down - thus sometimes ending in not a satisfactory state after reduction.

[Guest lmbarns]

Thanks Steve. I'm really not picky about the looks I'll check unwrap3d out.

 

One other software I think is awesome but I had some issues cause I don't know much about 3d modeling and it didn't load all my textures on the models, but I'm sure someone more knowledgeable could bake them on, convert them, or something, but it lets you make sprite sheets from your animated models: http://www.garagegames.com/products/spriteworks they had a free trial when I tried it, not sure if they still do.

[Guest arrcomm]

I bought UnWrap and IT IS GREAT !!! Glad I took the plunge. I have been able to reduce MANY of my model counts up to 75% and still maintain great looks. If you want to really shorten Load time and reduce Final file size and maintain great looks, GET IT. David

[Guest arrcomm]

GO CHECK MY SITE at www.arrcomm.org

There is a shot from a child's game,(Noah's Ark), which I am finishing. The animals are in their pens. These models were Thousands of polycount, but I used UnWrap and reduced the size of each down 80-85%. I just checked my Originals. The animals are still SMOOTH. The smoothness comes out great in these cartoon colors.

 

 

[Guest lmbarns]

GO CHECK MY SITE at www.arrcomm.org

There is a shot from a child's game,(Noah's Ark), which I am finishing. The animals are in their pens. These models were Thousands of polycount, but I used UnWrap and reduced the size of each down 80-85%. I just checked my Originals. The animals are still SMOOTH. The smoothness comes out great in these cartoon colors.

Nice haha I'm making "non combat" childrens games with the animals, glad to see someone working in the same direction.

 

Here's a little platformer I mocked up this week, I tweaked the original texture to give it a cartoony look:

 

I'm working on another kids game where you can tame animals then ride them and enter competitions racing other animals, or taking jobs transporting resources between towns. Amount of resources tied to the animals strength which increases the more you ride the animal.

 

Here's how the riding controller works:

 

And here's an older version I was making for little kids, was going to be educational showing kids information about the animals and such:

[Guest arrcomm]

Oh, was IBoyi I made a Mistake I do use Utimate unwrap and reduced my models....BUT I was confusing the Ultimate Unwrap3D with my VizUp program. I am so sorry. I used the VizUp to REDUCE my models down 85%, NOT UnWrap. SORRY !!!! I may have led somebody astray. I use VizUp It costs a bit, but it is easy to use and it lets me select WHICH level of Detail I want.....From 10-90%. I didn't even try the UnWrap until after I used the VizUp on some models. I am not very good at using UnWrap, so I use the VizUp for ease of Reduction.