Nouvic Clock Journey Part 3

Reducing The Polygon Count

1. I decided not to use the 68 tri version because it lost the shape of the clock.

2. But first a quick delete all history before I start moving things round because it might effect the mesh in some way.

  

3. I duplicated the 114 tri version and looked carefully between the 114 tri and the 68 tri version to see how to reduce it further.

 

 4. The first thing I did was to reduce the top of the clock poly’s to become like the 68 tri version.

 5. I reduced the archways of both sides of the clock and I also removed some of the bottom as well. After that I just had to append a polygon the sides in order for me to sort out the bottom later.

6. Trial and error of trying to reduce as much poly’s as I can without loosing its shape.

 7. I looked closely at how to reduce the poly’s even further. The legs contained quite a lot of polys. So checking from different camera angles I found that I didn’t need the inner leg. I therefore applied this method to the rest and I managed to trim down some tri’s. 

 8. I had a second look at how to reduce the bottom again because of the reconstruction of the legs. I started of with a triangle design but when I had a look in perspective view there was a malevolent line that ruined the shape of the front arch therefore changed the design again to fit the front arch unfortunately this added 2 tris…

9. To get rid of the unattractive shape I redid the front layout. 

10. After I did the front I set my sights on redoing the back as well.

11. From doing all these small changes I managed to reduce the 114 tris to 80 tris. To have a nice finish I changed some of the normals to a softened edge.

12.

As you can see I have laid the screenshots out in a slightly jumbled order, the 238 tri, the 80 tri and then the 114 tri. They will look a lot more realistic with the textures on, normal maps and the overall render setting perfect. This practise will allow me to work more in the field of level of detail. When you get closer to the 3d object it will change itself to a higher poly and texture resolution.