Here's a fun Vox explainer from Cleo Abram explaining how 3D graphics are rendered in games -- and exactly why more and more details require more and more computing power. "You'd think that a more powerful computer would make it easier to render games, and it does. Except game makers compete to add more and more detail, pushing the limits to what even the latest technology can do," as she puts it.
Her main case study is the new open world game Red Dead Redemption 2, and as it happens, that's also the title we discussed when talking about the massive hit to user performance caused by 3D content creators who don't optimize the amount of triangles/polygons in their objects:
As you can see, the Maitreya body here uses well over 100,000 polygons. How much is that? By contrast, a character in Red Dead Redemption 2, the latest AAA hit, has polycounts estimated in the 40,000-60,000 polygon range. (Here's a handy site showing character polycounts for other top AAA games with high-end graphics.) You want to see something insane? Here's a Belleza body with over 500,000 polygons.
Or to put it another way, many of Second Life's top content creators and their customers are enabling the polycount equivalent of several Red Dead Redemption 2s in every multiplayer event. More on that here.
BOYCOTT THESE BODIES
Posted by: boring | Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 03:39 PM