My computer can't handle high-polygon amounts in 3d software

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Okay, first of all, I like to make 3d computer graphics, and wish to someday make either short films, or 3d games, or both. I know my computer has Windows 7 as the operating system, but I don't know all the other information about my computer, and where to find it. I'm more of an artist than a technical type of person.

When I make 3d graphics, I try to keep the polygon count lower, because my computer slows down to a "crawl" when there are 100's of thousands of polygons in one scene. It's hard to navigate the scenes then, as well as the animations, if there are any.

Although I'm still trying to learn to make better animations, models, and textures, I have learned about making models starting when I was maybe about 13 years old. I still have my bad times when trying to animate, model and make textures, but I think I have improved my skills over time. My mom sometimes used to think the human head models I made looked like monkey heads, but she now thinks that I have greatly improved my models I make too, when I try for a realistic type of human.

What do you suggest for me to do, if I want to make high-quality short animations in 3d (about the polygon count and my computer)?

What are the specifications of your computer?

If you don't know, click START, right click on COMPUTER and then PROPERTIES.

In the middle it will state your CPU and RAM, grab that for us.

Next, click on DEVICE MANAGER in the left.
Another window will pop open, in the list there look for "Display Adaptors", expand it you should see what kind of video card you have. Grab that for us too.

I have some interest myself in graphics like this. It started when I first used Autodesk Inventor, a top-of-the-line mechanical drafting program. Two years later, I'd gotten good at it. I made ships and whatnot from Stargate, and I also learned to use the animation feature. I replicated the supergate scene from "Camelot" and a model stargate with switchable tracks, so I could make the SG1 and Atlantis gates, and I made the SG1 gate dial Abydos - it was that detailed. As my design of the supergate and Ori ships improved, the computers at school started complaining more. One fillet at the front of the Ori ship actually crashed the computer twice. I'd more or less reached the limit, but considering I'd been using a program designed for mechanical drafting (creates highly accurate blueprints that machinists would read, can design and test and entire car engine virtually) I figure'd I'd done well.

What I have can be found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev0u4qa6 ... ideo_title
http://s437.photobucket.com/albums/qq95/TheLastArisan/
(few pages in)



As far as your issues, you should definitely have a big graphics processor, and hopefully a big main processor as well. RAM is also good to have, at least 4 GB, but given the polygon issues I'm leaning towards graphic processors. Check out the Alienware site, for example - even their lower-end models would be capable of significant graphics processing capabilities, though they are designed for gaming, which is the end result of what you are doing.

Also, check the software you are using. Autodesk had a RAMometer in the corner, and I happened to notice that every time an animation ran through, it took up more RAM. I had a hard time believing this was accurate, so I left an animation on loop for the better part of an hour and it crashed. No, I wasn't a very good student. The point is, your program could have a bug, which may have a patch, and you should always close as many programs as you can while using intense software like that.

As Apera said the main thing is to have a decent GPU (graphics card). While actually modelling most high end programs will use this primarily, via either DirectX or OpenGL. A decent bit of RAM is also wise as the program has to store information about the scene. When it comes time to render though, it's the processor and ram that gets a workout. So to do everything (modelling, rendering) you really need as much power as you can get across the board. I recently built my current pc so I can do more Cinema 4D work. But I like doing dynamic simulations and it still often grinds to a crawl. I don't think NURBS modelling helps much because splines still have to be tessellated to poly's for display.

Open the "run" dialog and type dxdiag then hit enter.
This will show you your comp specs.

Look at these three things Primarily:

CPU - RAM - GPU

Graphics is best done with the latest equipment and lots of it.

CPU should probably be a xeon, phenom, or i7 core. CPU is used in some small tasks in the viewport and 3d package, but primarily will be utilized for rendering.

RAM and GPU are important for the viewport. RAM will hold the layer/window data, maintains the basic object number, position and data, and some other crude information. The GPU will usually handle the rest in the viewport and is key for why you want a strong graphics card. There are specialized cards for 3d in the FireGL and Quadro lineups. However, they can be expensive. It would be most cost effective to get the latest in Radeon or GeForce brand of cards. Having multiple cards in one computer will increase performance.

Recent Render engines have started to utilize both the GPU and CPU in the rendering process giving an even greater importance for having a strong graphics card.

I would recommend at least 6GBs of Ram for high end 3d graphics. I utilize 12 GBs myself.

As for your computer getting bogged down while working on animations there are several things to consider. It may help to manage your objects in the scene into layers that you can turn on and off thereby limiting the amount of data in memory used at any one time. Additionally something to consider is the program itself. What 3d program are you using? The Mainstream general 3d packages are 3dmax and maya. They can generally handle about 100,000 simple objects, and about 5million polygons before you will notice significant performance issues. This really has less to do with your computer and more to do with the program optimization.

Packages for pure modeling such as Mudbox or Zbrush can handle up to about 100million polygons before you reach speeds of around 1fps. If you want a high detailed character, it may be best to build a very simply polygonal structure in a general 3d package and then do your detail work in mudbox or zbrush. Project the high detailed model onto the lower detailed mesh and create a normal map. Textures can be done this way as well or you could use photoshop or some other 2d package for that effort. Then simply link your diffuse, normal bump, and specular map to a material slot in the general 3d package and you will be left with an easy to manipulate/rig/animate model, that looks very realistic.