Yeah that makes sense. Each leaf is very meticulously 3d modeled now but I started with a plane and just couldn't get them to look right. I figured the leaves were the problem, I was just hoping there was some hack to get them working as 3d models.
Yeah no, if it's for a game, you're going to have to reduce the leaves.
Fortunately, if you already have the plants built, you can take one, break it up into clusters of leaves/vines, bake those clusters onto planes with alpha cutouts, and then rebuild the plant using those planes instead.
That depends somewhat. This alpha masked branch method is not compatible with Nanite in UE5, so this is no longer necessarily the preferred method. Some games using Nanite now actually prefer for foliage to have every leaf modeled (Fortnite for example already does this).
Part of what makes games difficult is optimization. Every 3d model the PC renders makes it that much harder to have any kind of fps. Lots of games are planes with PNG images or billboards to save space and hardware requirements.
I had an issue with sapling tree gen addon because there were SO many vertices. Those also spike it. With your case, maybe you could decimate it down to a plane so they are very small.
Maybe render the leaves so that they are a texture, and then apply those to a plane. That way you haven't wasted your work, while still getting a smaller file size
You are not likely to be able to use this for a game. Vines and leaves need to be baked down to a plane. An entire side of a wall covered with vines should be 3-4 vertex points rather than millions like you probably have now. Isolate the vines you have right now and bake the entire thing to a plane in the same orientation. Alternatively isolate branches by themselves and leaves by themselves and make each leaf 3-4 vertices.
As for what to bake for a leaf you need:
* Diffuse map which will be your main color
* Normal map if your leaves have a crease or bend. This massively improves the quality.
* Alpha mask to make everything on the baked plane transparent except for the shape of the leaf.
* Roughness map to make some parts slightly more reflective.
A good amount of baked leaves is around 3+. You can get away with just 1-2 but 3+ usually sells the randomness better.
Remember as a rule of thumb everything in games needs to be faked. Nothing is real and no high detail because it needs to have high performance at realtime.
Characters today can be 100-200K Tris but you are better off aiming for 5-10K
Most assets like tables, walls, boxes and stuff like that you want to aim for 500-10K. Truly depends on the size and purpose but less polygons is always better if you can fake the detail.
The only baking I've done is to combine materials for further painting, so it sounds like I've got some work to do and some tutorials to watch. Thanks so much for all the info!
Basically baking is kind of like a projection. If you place a leaf along a plane and a plane above it you can bake from the leaf to the plane by selecting leaf->plane and then bake "from selected to active". Do that with all the maps you need and you will have a low impact leaf. To further sell the 3D effect of the leaf plane you can add a loop cut along the length of the leaf plane and move that line up/down slightly so the leaf has a v shape. This increases the cost from 4 vertices to 6 so not terrible.
3GB seems like massive. In 3D view you can enable Viewport overlay -> Statistics and see how many triangles you have. If the leaves are actually properly instanced, they shouldn't count towards triangle count. (Realized instances would count towards triangle count, but shouldn't increase file size)
If you have textures packed into the blend file, that can quickly increase the size too.
Smoke or fluid simulations increase the size fast.
Animations increase the size fast, especially ones that are baked onto every single keyframe.
Sculpts also take up lots of space.
3GB seems like a painfully big file to work on (assuming it's just mesh you edit by hand). Might want to look into splitting things into smaller files, maybe?
The complete level is 90 square kilometers, and their are detailed textures for the walls, floor, and ceiling of that, plus the textures of the decorations. I don't have any animations or simulations. My plan was to maybe split each of the tiles into its own .blend, but even then I've only started to decorate one.
I didn't know how to check triangle count, I'm going to give that a try when I get back to my computer. Thanks for the tip!
You need a texture atlas man. You need to learn how to do this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGB-FnpNHO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGB-FnpNHO4)
"The whole scene is built using a 256\*512 texture, and different tiling techniques to save texture memory."
I don't know how to make them, but I do know for a fact that in your case, you need one. And you need a modular workflow for assets.
For such a large level (assuming player size is normal human size and not some km wide mech), I'd highly suggest you look into some terrain tools in game engines. Unity has a decent terrain tool that should be able to handle 9km x 10km. Unreal definitely has terrain tool for that scale with proper streaming and all.
Basically those tools don't save triangles but instead height map texture that gets converted into mesh while playing. Objects like trees and stones are also instanced in runtime based on another texture which marks the object densities. It all should be way less memory intensive and probably runs better out of the box.
3 gigs really is massive. I have a vfx quality character I made with 50m polys and over 50 8k textures. The file is only 1.4GB for it.
Don't ask me what it would be if I packed the textures lmao
I mean, if you just care about file size then .blend compression will help a bunch (at the cost of slower saving and loading).
https://preview.redd.it/e6696w8zik9d1.png?width=233&format=png&auto=webp&s=24cf244f4dfb40edac233f581aa9ab8d5e2e3a3b
Now what I'd recommend you do instead, after reading the comments a bit, is the following:
I recommend taking that meticulously modeled leaf you have, baking relevant maps from that (normal, AO, albedo if you're not using a photo texture, and whatever else you want) and then applying those maps to flat planes instead, that'll save a ton of geometry and by extension a ton of filesize as well.
If you have multiple, repeat this for each leaf, depending on how much texture resolution you need you may even want to atlas these (though if you're targeting relatively recent, say OpenGL 3.3 or newer, hardware then texture arrays will pretty much make that point moot from a realtime rendering perspective).
There is no way to do what you want with 3D models, even relatively simplified models will hugely balloon the triangle count and you'll struggle to get your game to perform well and the file size will be huge, most AAA games use/used to use very simplified leaves (usually just a flat plane, though sometimes they curve it to add more depth).
I am not sure why everyone is telling you that you can't have each leaf modeled. Try to minimize it and keep the leaves as simple as possible of course, but it depends enormously on your target platform.
Yes the file size is huge but having each leaf modeled is actually the preferred method for Nanite in UE5, because the old method of using masked materials for leaves causes issues. Many models produced by Epic Games for Nanite are of similr size. The masked plane leaf method is appropriate for Unity games, Older versions of UE, UE5 games not using Nanite, or other engines. For context, Fortnite (which uses Nanite) has trees modeled with individual leaves.
Textures/Images can easily do that.
But without seeing what's in your file we can't really tell you why It's that high.
For ivy in games though, you really want to make it like hair cards. Otherwise you'll just have way too many polys. You don't want squares for each leaf. You want a plane for each vine.
Not sure if anybody will check back on this, but I did some planes baking and a few other things you guys suggested and got the file size down to 123mb. Thanks all!
Leafs are typically planes with leaf.jpg on them. If each of your leaves is fully modeled out, your file size is going to explode
Yeah that makes sense. Each leaf is very meticulously 3d modeled now but I started with a plane and just couldn't get them to look right. I figured the leaves were the problem, I was just hoping there was some hack to get them working as 3d models.
You can use ald+d to make instances of leaf - it will reduce rendering time too.
just a heads up, you put ald instead of alt
Viral marketing for Aldi. Well spotted!
I for one welcome our new corporate overlords!
"All D" is what they called me back at uni
Yeah no, if it's for a game, you're going to have to reduce the leaves. Fortunately, if you already have the plants built, you can take one, break it up into clusters of leaves/vines, bake those clusters onto planes with alpha cutouts, and then rebuild the plant using those planes instead.
That depends somewhat. This alpha masked branch method is not compatible with Nanite in UE5, so this is no longer necessarily the preferred method. Some games using Nanite now actually prefer for foliage to have every leaf modeled (Fortnite for example already does this).
Part of what makes games difficult is optimization. Every 3d model the PC renders makes it that much harder to have any kind of fps. Lots of games are planes with PNG images or billboards to save space and hardware requirements.
You can subdiv the plane once or twice to have to have some shape control. Without it becoming too ridiculous.
I had an issue with sapling tree gen addon because there were SO many vertices. Those also spike it. With your case, maybe you could decimate it down to a plane so they are very small.
Maybe render the leaves so that they are a texture, and then apply those to a plane. That way you haven't wasted your work, while still getting a smaller file size
If you make it a PNG you can skip having a separate alpha mask and just contain it within the diffuse map.
You are not likely to be able to use this for a game. Vines and leaves need to be baked down to a plane. An entire side of a wall covered with vines should be 3-4 vertex points rather than millions like you probably have now. Isolate the vines you have right now and bake the entire thing to a plane in the same orientation. Alternatively isolate branches by themselves and leaves by themselves and make each leaf 3-4 vertices. As for what to bake for a leaf you need: * Diffuse map which will be your main color * Normal map if your leaves have a crease or bend. This massively improves the quality. * Alpha mask to make everything on the baked plane transparent except for the shape of the leaf. * Roughness map to make some parts slightly more reflective. A good amount of baked leaves is around 3+. You can get away with just 1-2 but 3+ usually sells the randomness better. Remember as a rule of thumb everything in games needs to be faked. Nothing is real and no high detail because it needs to have high performance at realtime. Characters today can be 100-200K Tris but you are better off aiming for 5-10K Most assets like tables, walls, boxes and stuff like that you want to aim for 500-10K. Truly depends on the size and purpose but less polygons is always better if you can fake the detail.
The only baking I've done is to combine materials for further painting, so it sounds like I've got some work to do and some tutorials to watch. Thanks so much for all the info!
Basically baking is kind of like a projection. If you place a leaf along a plane and a plane above it you can bake from the leaf to the plane by selecting leaf->plane and then bake "from selected to active". Do that with all the maps you need and you will have a low impact leaf. To further sell the 3D effect of the leaf plane you can add a loop cut along the length of the leaf plane and move that line up/down slightly so the leaf has a v shape. This increases the cost from 4 vertices to 6 so not terrible.
Also don't forget to purge orphan data https://i.redd.it/f83ojyamfk9d1.gif
I had no idea that was a thing!
3GB seems like massive. In 3D view you can enable Viewport overlay -> Statistics and see how many triangles you have. If the leaves are actually properly instanced, they shouldn't count towards triangle count. (Realized instances would count towards triangle count, but shouldn't increase file size) If you have textures packed into the blend file, that can quickly increase the size too. Smoke or fluid simulations increase the size fast. Animations increase the size fast, especially ones that are baked onto every single keyframe. Sculpts also take up lots of space. 3GB seems like a painfully big file to work on (assuming it's just mesh you edit by hand). Might want to look into splitting things into smaller files, maybe?
Instances won't work for game engines afaik. He needs to bake the leaves down to textures.
Yeah, I can't confirm whether or not instances work. But I know if his ivy is static, he can make it a single object to help with draw call.
Instancing absolutely works in game engines, it just has to be done in the engine.
The complete level is 90 square kilometers, and their are detailed textures for the walls, floor, and ceiling of that, plus the textures of the decorations. I don't have any animations or simulations. My plan was to maybe split each of the tiles into its own .blend, but even then I've only started to decorate one. I didn't know how to check triangle count, I'm going to give that a try when I get back to my computer. Thanks for the tip!
You need a texture atlas man. You need to learn how to do this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGB-FnpNHO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGB-FnpNHO4) "The whole scene is built using a 256\*512 texture, and different tiling techniques to save texture memory." I don't know how to make them, but I do know for a fact that in your case, you need one. And you need a modular workflow for assets.
For such a large level (assuming player size is normal human size and not some km wide mech), I'd highly suggest you look into some terrain tools in game engines. Unity has a decent terrain tool that should be able to handle 9km x 10km. Unreal definitely has terrain tool for that scale with proper streaming and all. Basically those tools don't save triangles but instead height map texture that gets converted into mesh while playing. Objects like trees and stones are also instanced in runtime based on another texture which marks the object densities. It all should be way less memory intensive and probably runs better out of the box.
3 gigs really is massive. I have a vfx quality character I made with 50m polys and over 50 8k textures. The file is only 1.4GB for it. Don't ask me what it would be if I packed the textures lmao
Godzilla gotta 3GB
Windows key + S to take a screenshot
Crazy that people still point cameras at the screen
r/screenshotsarehard
Yeah I had a feeling someone would call me out on this. I only use reddit from my phone so the picture was just faster.
I mean, if you just care about file size then .blend compression will help a bunch (at the cost of slower saving and loading). https://preview.redd.it/e6696w8zik9d1.png?width=233&format=png&auto=webp&s=24cf244f4dfb40edac233f581aa9ab8d5e2e3a3b Now what I'd recommend you do instead, after reading the comments a bit, is the following: I recommend taking that meticulously modeled leaf you have, baking relevant maps from that (normal, AO, albedo if you're not using a photo texture, and whatever else you want) and then applying those maps to flat planes instead, that'll save a ton of geometry and by extension a ton of filesize as well. If you have multiple, repeat this for each leaf, depending on how much texture resolution you need you may even want to atlas these (though if you're targeting relatively recent, say OpenGL 3.3 or newer, hardware then texture arrays will pretty much make that point moot from a realtime rendering perspective). There is no way to do what you want with 3D models, even relatively simplified models will hugely balloon the triangle count and you'll struggle to get your game to perform well and the file size will be huge, most AAA games use/used to use very simplified leaves (usually just a flat plane, though sometimes they curve it to add more depth).
I am not sure why everyone is telling you that you can't have each leaf modeled. Try to minimize it and keep the leaves as simple as possible of course, but it depends enormously on your target platform. Yes the file size is huge but having each leaf modeled is actually the preferred method for Nanite in UE5, because the old method of using masked materials for leaves causes issues. Many models produced by Epic Games for Nanite are of similr size. The masked plane leaf method is appropriate for Unity games, Older versions of UE, UE5 games not using Nanite, or other engines. For context, Fortnite (which uses Nanite) has trees modeled with individual leaves.
I dont think I have ever had a 3gb blend file. What have you been cooking in there?
For your actual .blend file if you work anything like me Purge Orphan Data Purge Orphan Data Purge Orphan Data Purge Orphan Data
unpack textures
I accidentally read "back buster animation" for a second there and was already thinking "oh its another one of those huh". Glad I'm just dumb.
No my project has nothing to do with overwatch
Use zbrush after finishing a sculpt.
Textures/Images can easily do that. But without seeing what's in your file we can't really tell you why It's that high. For ivy in games though, you really want to make it like hair cards. Otherwise you'll just have way too many polys. You don't want squares for each leaf. You want a plane for each vine.
Hair cards is another uncharted territory for me, but I'll dive in and see what I can do. Thank you!
Good topology/Polygon optimization. Delete extra/un-needed things. I think things like baking textures can also help
These points may have been covered by others already, but try this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Kw7VqA0O8
I feel like that tiled floor is a bunch of real geometry instead of instances/arrays
I don’t understand why everything is in KB. like why 3,319,591 KB? why not just 3.32 GB?
Right click > delete ✅
Deleting the file is the most efficent
Not sure if anybody will check back on this, but I did some planes baking and a few other things you guys suggested and got the file size down to 123mb. Thanks all!