That's actually pushing considerably beyond our internal guidelines (for
Holodesk Communicator). We generally suggest 4,000 as a maximum limit
(mostly due to file size), with no more than 1,000 in a field of view (there
are heavier worlds, but they run fairly slowly). With room switching and a
few other tricks you can get almost-linear performance going beyond the
4,000, but the 1,000/field of view still remains fairly critical.
Keep in mind that you only want to spend about 1/2 of your rendering/cpu
budget on the world, since avatars tend to be much heavier than their size
would indicate (especially when you get into avatars with facial
expressions, fidget cycles, or complex scripting). Most avatars I'm seeing
getting built these days are over 1,000 polys, with a few still around the
600 mark (I know you're planning on non-traditional avatars, so that might
not be relevant).
So, with 10 people in a world (visible to you), expect to have ~2.5 avatars
(2500 polys with special effects) plus the 1000 polys of the world in any
field of view. That generally renders okay on a modern machine.
Note, this is all assuming judicious use of textures and/or prelighting.
Also note, we have been criticised in the past for targeting only
higher-power (modern) computers. Holodesk Communicator will run on my
Pentium 166, but the frame rates are only about 4fps in most worlds
(unacceptable for interactive work). If you're thesis is supposed to be
viewable by "the masses", you'd likely want to reduce the polygon counts
even further or do more aggressive optimisation.
HTH,
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: melinda rackham [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2000 3:16 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: poly number
someone told me today that when making a multiuser vrml world its
best to keep it below 5,000 polygons, 10,000 at the max..
is this true?
melinda rackham
sHe needs to know your name
http://www.subtle.net/carrier
