***A tree****
 

wow....i have just seen the coolest truck ever......(wd brian, chuck a FREE tutorial up please ;)...


anyway, back to my *cough* amateurish *cough* work. History: I am working for a mod called crimson strife, modeling. (go to www.crimsonstrife.com to see it). I have been landed the job of plants, which i have been doing so far. Now i have just finished the trunk of a tree, but my question is........To extrude, or to use-seperate-cylinders for the branches? post opinions here, and general criticisms....just not about the texturing....not my domain...luckily...;)...thanks

isp_of_doom

i dunno much about game engines, but i would extrude and use as little mesh as possible to keep it low poly.
then again i dunno which game engine u r using, different engines have different capabilities...
if it's Unreal Engine, i guess u could get away with descent models with textures....

I would extrude it but again it deoends on what engine you are using. Extruding it and keeping one mesh would probably make it easier to load into the engin (from my limited experience with loaders). You will need to triangulate it and for a tree it's looking a little heavy in terms of polys at the moment. What's your limit?

yes it is the unreal engine,, latest version, poly limit is probably around 2000?? i guess, its basically as low as i can get it while still looking good. ATM its 500 polys (1000triangulated), but i can edit it down afterwards.

I was going to comment that it is looking a little heavy in poly's as well. You could probably get away with deleting the top edges and maybe a few of the sides while keeping the general shape you want, excluding the outer rim, and remember to delete the bottom faces, unless the tree will be uprooted.

It looks like you could get rid of at least half of those, and then just use a map. Try starting with a simple cylinder, with like 6 divisions, and then just pull and ad where you need to (noob remark)

yea i know what you mean about polys, normally i just leave it till the end (but dont go into excess) and then i do all the poly reducing process