[MUSIC]

In this course we'll be creating a model of a vintage arcade game cabinet based on

this concept drawing.

In order for a video game to play smoothly and display images at a high and

steady frame rate, artists and engineers need to make sure the geometry

is created with as few polygons as possible.

This is an issue for all platforms including next generation consoles.

But memory resources for mobile games are especially limited so every poly counts.

A range of factors will influence the maximum number of polys for any given game

project but artists should always strive to keep game assets light and reserve as

much of the polygon budget as possible for principal characters and key props.

As a general rule, we should avoid creating any polygons that won't

substantially affect the silhouette of a model.

If we were creating this arcade model to be used as a background element

in a game environment, it would be reasonable to conserve polys and

only model larger shapes, indicating smaller surface details such as screws,

coin return panels and even game play buttons,

by applying texture maps which we'll discuss later in this course.

On the other hand if we were creating a game where the player interacted

closely with this prop and viewed it from multiple angles, we would want to model in

these additional details to create a more authentic experience.

The additional geometry would make for a more realistic silhouette and

result in more accurate lighting and shadows.

In this course we'll aim for a medium resolution model

creating actual geometry for most of the game console components,

while still keeping the overall poly count below three thousand polys.

You can keep track of the number of polygons in your scene

by looking at the heads up display, or HUD, in your camera view.

This information can be hidden and shown by going to the display menu, clicking on

the heads up display section and checking or unchecking the poly count check box.

You'll notice that the HUD indicates the total number of polygons and

triangles within the scene, as well as the number of polygons and

triangles of the selected objects.

Selected object poly counts appear on the right.

Poly counts for the entire scene are listed on the left.

As mentioned earlier a polygon is a face with three or more sides, but

when geometry is displayed in a game engine,

all polygons are automatically split into triangles.

So even if your model includes quads, or

faces with more than four sides The number of triangles rather than polygons should

be your standard measure as you keep track of asset poly count.