Cheap Polygon Reduction Software

http://www.action3d.net/download.htm

Haven't tried it yet, but I thought some of you might like to have a look. :)

Very good, haven't seen that before.

cheers,

John-Robin

50 bucks for a polygon reduction tool?

Download DX9 SDK and run the Meshviewer.
Basically does the same thing, works only with xfiles though but those are easy to convert.
Anyway, it's free.

You get what you pay for. Sony has a polygon reduction cool which costs a fortune ( thousands, I think ) but you should see the results.

Personally, I highly recommend Vizup Optimizer. It's a quality tool. I've toyed with Action3d Reducer, and I found it quite poor. Anything more than a tiny reduction and the geometry gets hosed.

Why not just create low poly models?

Indeed. Similarily, why not dig ditches with spoons?

Because it's less work to create a low poly model than a high and texturing less polys is easier than texturing more.

Now if you were creating a high poly model for normal maps I can understand why you would do it, but blitz can't do that yet so I wonder why you would create a high poly model in the first place.

Hence my question.

because the spoon is likely to break after a while, and whoever owns the spoon will get really mad?

and he might be really big, bigger than you.

I'm talking about titanium, reinforced spoons here.

Or alternatively, no spoon.

With a quality spoon like that, you wouldn't want to waste it on digging a ditch. I'd go straight for the International Ostrich Egg and Spoon race with something that good. Of course, you would need to build up your muscles a bit first, those Ostrich eggs are heavy you know?



Your hands would get dirty surely?

I'm afraid I'm with Dr Av on this, it makes absolutely no sense to spend a lot of time making a high polygon model and then passing it through an in-accurate piece of software to make a low polygon model from it!

Let's face it there is no better control than doing it properly yourself.

Unless you need both, but most people I know would make them separately if they had the choice.

I should add that people will never get the skill of low poly modelling unless they actually do it, and do it regularly. Like all things it takes work, there is no short easy way to learn it.

IPete2.

On the Caligari forums there is a discussion about a free polygon reduction tool. I have tried the tool before and it works great. However, I've forgotten the name of the product. So if you're interested you'll need to visit the caligari forums and do a search.

;-

create high polys character and reducing using modifier or tools will make the character's polys become worse... especially lighting receiving and sometimes the UV getting weird - Dr AV were right... for games, that the way it is...