StarTrek DS9

[tobian]

Thanks very much for your compliments al However I do separate non-destructive reductions and destructive one's as a separate thing. If you are going for a production thing then yes, it's excessive, but this is a hobby project. If he wants too many polies for his pipes THEN HE CAN, it's not an optimisation competition! If he wants the hints, he wants them, if not, he doesn't and I can't blame him from staying away, there are some heavyweights weighting in with their opinions, but it's just that: Lets remember this is about HELP not persecution, hence my post was about suggestion and ideas, not just opinion. Calm down people! this is about help, hints and suggestions, not absolutes of opinions, remeber: You can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink!

[JeffrySG]

I kind of wish we spent half as much time as we spent on all of this, discussing this in a new thread where we could show models and wire, talk about different optimization techniques, tips and 'rules', suggestion, etc. We could show models before and after. Show areas that needed to be adjusted. Show 'optimized' models, and talk about why in specific areas they were built a certain way. I know there is no absolute but there could be some general guidelines for such things that people in 'the industry' use on a daily basis. Now that would be really helpful for people that wanted to learn, and best of all it wouldn't really be connected to any one's specific model.

[Samurai]

^ Why not? I think it would be a useful and informative thing to discuss- you could put it in the 3D Q&A Section- and people could post their before and afters, and discuss the different techniques and approaches for modelling high-detail pieces. After all, Al will have approached his Falcon mesh in a different way to Craig's approach of his Veyron, but it is important for both of them to make effective use of the polygons available.

The key is to be intelligent with your poly allowance and distribution- more poly's is not necessarily "bad" or "wrong", when used appropriately- it's more important to ensure that the polygons that you do use are effective, and that I think is an area that many modellers need advice with.

[al3d]

Originally Posted by tobian

Thanks very much for your compliments al However I do separate non-destructive reductions and destructive one's as a separate thing. If you are going for a production thing then yes, it's excessive, but this is a hobby project. If he wants too many polies for his pipes THEN HE CAN, it's not an optimisation competition! If he wants the hints, he wants them, if not, he doesn't and I can't blame him from staying away, there are some heavyweights weighting in with their opinions, but it's just that: Lets remember this is about HELP not persecution, hence my post was about suggestion and ideas, not just opinion. Calm down people! this is about help, hints and suggestions, not absolutes of opinions, remeber: You can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink!

You're looking at this the wrong way mate. now one is talking about destructive reduction. As to the pro and hobbiest thing, that's BS and you know it..hehe. a good model is a good model period. Optimization as a much an part of CG as Painting, modeling, surfacing, etc etc. how many people on SFM can model as they want, yet can't paint for a New York Minute!..some for optimization realy. it's not a Choice, it's a skill every modeler needs to learn.

[gpdesigner]

WOW . . . lots of points of view going on in here . . . . cool.

Let me start by saying sorry for pumping up the aggression in this thread . . . I get protective of my work. @ Chrono, Tobian, Thanks for the assistance, and everyone else, thanks for the help and interest with my model. I am assuming everyone here has the best of intentions, otherwise you wouldn't have posted at all . . . .

The funny thing is everyone is right in a way . . . a high poly mesh servers no one any good. How on Earth are you going to use it in a scene Animated or not if the Mesh is too big? good point. . . . . Trust me when DS9 is done I will go back in and cut out unneeded polys.
The station is in it's basic form, when I do full renders I have to merge all the layers, mirror, radial array to get a full section, so going back in to fix things will be very easy.

The other side of the coin is my modeling methodology, as I said I am still learning but I have been doing this long enough to make better choices about SOME things rather than letting them slide.

Personal Choice is not a Bad Choice, you may prefer using 3 poly's in your rounded edges, I prefer using 5 . . .

You know this mesh isn't as out of control as you may think. I gave AL the part of the mesh which had the most concentration of detail in one spot and a lot of it was un needed polys, If you look at the images he posted you can see some of them.
My intention was to get help with this portion because as I said it was almost 1 million polys when you added in all 12 docks. What set me off a little was the way that section was made to reflect the entire mesh as being a mess. . . and that was incorrect.

My bevels uses one poly, this is a normal method . . . my rounded edges use no more than 5 poly's. This is my preference, if you think 3 is fine . . . Bravo, . . .
5 works well for me . . . I use 5 maximum everywhere on the station. The section I gave Al only had 2 rounded edges, one was the main face of the Docking port, and the second was the rubber sealing ring/docking collar, which I believe has 6 polys.

The only other place were there is concentrated detail is the sensor pallet but I constructed that with Optimization in mind so I know there is no waisted poly's there, hell I rebuilt that 3 times . . .

I could go on all morning but I am getting distracted now . . .
How about this . . . . when I do the Optimization on the station I will post the wires and work and get help were needed, plus you will get a chance to see all the so-called mess . . . .
gp