Task 6 – Constraints

Polygon Count and File Size

Polygon count and file size are the two most common measurements of an object's cost and or polygon and vertex count. An example of this would be like a game character can stretch anywhere from 200 polygons to 50,000+ polygons. High end consoles and PC's also use vertices or polygons per character.

Polygons Vs. Triangles

When people talk about the poly count of models, they really mean the number of triangles that are used to create the model. Games almost always use triangles over polygons because of the built in accelerator modern day graphics cards have for rendering triangles. The polygon count in a models reporting station is always wrong because the triangle count is always higher. With this information you should always change in the settings that you are counting the triangles than polygons because you will get a more precise report. Polygons are useful thought especially for game developers with them mostly using four sided polygons which work well with transform methods and edge loop selections which speeds up the modelling process making your project run smother in general.

Artists find polygons easier to use so they will use them but in the end they will be changed to triangles because games engines do it automatically.

Triangle Count vs. Vertex Count

Vertex count is important for performance and memory improvements. Basically the triangle count and the vertex count are similar if they are connected together. The way triangles and vertex's work is that for every 1 triangle you get 3 vertices but when you have 2 triangles you get 4 vertices and when you get 3 triangles you get 5 vertices and so on. The pattern is for the number of triangles you have 2 more vertices on.

Rendering Time

The rendering is basically the final process you go through when you are creating your 2D or 3D image or animation and everything in between. You can compare rendering to when you take a photograph with a camera and the picture renders onto you screen for you to see. Rendering your work can be done in several different ways nowadays from non realistic wireframe rendering to advanced scanline rendering, ray tracing and even radiosity. Depending on the method of rendering you choose from the time expectancy of the work to be rendered varies from seconds to hours to days so its best to pick which one works best for you.

Source of facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_(computer_graphics)

Real-time

The goal of Real time rendering is to show as much information as possible to a degree. The goal is to achieve a photo-realistic picture at an acceptable rendering speed which is usually 24 frames. Rendering software represents visual effects and flares and in dept motion blur. These are basic methods used for games. The incredible increase in processing power has allowed us to create amazing realism in real time rendering such as HDR rendering

Source of facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_rendering

Non Real-time

Non real time productions are great for slow limited processing power and still obtaining high quality images. Rendering non real time scenes can vary between seconds and days usually more than real time. Rendered frames are stored on hard disks and can be easily transfered to other media platforms such as optical disks. The frames are typically set between 24 and 30 frames which achieves the illusion of movement.

To get a photo-realism appearance the technique of ray tracing and radiosity are used because this is best for this look.

Rendering can be expensive depending on the time you want to get your rendering done if you are cheap you can be waiting for days or weeks and if you have the money to pay for top quality equipment you can be done in minutes or seconds. With the increase in technology its getting cheaper and cheaper to get top quality equipment though.