Character Study: Decimating Models in Blender

[RazorclawX]

Posting this here because there is nothing people on other sites can do to squelch me.

This is generally the model straight, with a 512x512 skin size

Orphea.jpg

This is the same model, using the Decimation model by half. Skin size 256x256

OrpheaDeciHalf.jpg

Same thing, Decimation model to 25%, skin size 256x256. Perhaps roughly similar to a mobile game.

OrpheaDeciQuarter.jpg

Same thing, full Decimation, skin size 128x128

OrpheaDeciFull.jpg

All models took a similar amount of time to fix by hand except the last one, which required a lot more cleanup because of random pixel placement. You can only pick one method you want to spend your time on without regard to any other combinations. You only have time for one.

Decimation is not a foolproof solution to reducing model size; you're almost certainly going to lose something if you don't have complete control of a model's parts (which means you developed the model in the first place or someone pieced it out for you). The fourth example looks completely silly, but there IS a reason to do this-- lets say if it were a tiny, disposable unit like a Zergling that you need a lot of instances of. The first example might be wildly inappropriate for that, but in this example the model in question would never be used for that purpose (you would think).

The question is, are the in-between forms acceptable?

[RazorclawX]

The same models from the above if you'd like to mess around with them. Note that none of these are any versions of the model I've ever posted previously and are designed for the smallest download size possible (uses 100% sorceress animations and straight size reductions to the orignal skin; the original skin is not included)

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What you're seeing is not an accident-- for whatever 'gain' you may get from file size between half decimation and quarter decimation you're actually not saving a lot on compression.

[IskatuMesk]

Just judging by the screenshots, the second example would be pretty good if the face was fixed up a bit. The Quarter's decimation is a bit more accurate to the source there but the Half's eyes and mouth are a bit more warped and make the expression look different.

I'm assuming Decimation is some script/automation? There's a few tools like that for production software like Unreal, but the general rule of thumb I've seen is that bone/animation decimation is by far the most destructive of the tools (lots of the jittering seen in modern games is due to automatic decimation and/or mocap/compression).

/e Got mixed up on the order of screenshots/files.

I'm currently exploring ways to do sort of the reverse - updating WoW models for Unreal 4. I might make a post on it later when I am a bit more confident in my results.

[RazorclawX]

I did consider the idea of decimating everything but the head, but that comes with its own set of issues. The other thing is to try to find that sweet spot between 50 and 100, but in that range your savings are barely noticeable.

I think what really happened is I just hit bad luck on the 50% one.