Ben Matthews - Environment Artist. Lowering the Tri Count/ Mesh Optimization.

Within this post I will demonstrate the process I used to reduce the tri count on My low poly level. this is extremely important as i'm limited to a total budget of 100,000 tris, this includes assets. It is also a good habit to get into as reducing the number of tris lowers the impact the mesh has on a PC's performance. This creates a smoother and more enjoyable experience for the player.

This is something I will repeat for all objects within the scene.  

I selected and isolated the ground level.

I then selected all of the faces that will make up the floor and extracted them. This separates the floor from the walls. This will make it easier for Me to texture the level.

546 tris.

Once the floor was separated I selected all of the non crucial edges. These are edges that don't create or hold the shape of the floor.

Holding Control I deleted the edges. Both the edges and the vertices connected to them have now been deleted.

I then straightened the remaining edges by holding the V key and snapping the vertices in line with each other. Leaving Me with a neat and tidy, low poly mesh.

136 tris.

Alternately I could of deleted the floor and replaced it with a single plane like the one below. I adjusted the edge loops on this plane to match the walls of the lower level. I did this so that if I chose to use this plane instead of the already existing floor, I would be able to see an outline of the walls and floor when I saved it as a UV snapshot. This would allow Me to texture one room at a time.

I repeated this process with the walls then placed the floor back in as a separate object. Leaving Me with a much neater topology than before.

The finished result.

I later merged a number a vertices together using the target weld tool, this created triangles across my mesh. However triangles aren't a problem if your only applying diffuse maps and not taking the mesh into a program such as Z Brush.

Using the target weld tool helped Me to reduce the tri count even further without changing the shape of the objects I was optimizing.