Hello

Does anyone have any tips or tricks for modeling a bunch of wire, without sending my poly count through the roof?

If you aren’t going to be too close to the wire, then you could try using opacity maps.  Or you could create renderable splines which give you easy control over the amount of polys.

3ds Max 2013, Maya 2013
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Core i7, 12GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX 3700 (Driver 267.17)

I will be close to it.  Splines were the way I was leaning.  Just though i would do a quick post to see if anyone had a better idea.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Or try applying a bump map to a cylinder. That way you can still get the effect of the wire spool without many polygons.

EDIT: This might not be a great idea, if you are up close. But could maybe use a combination of a bump map on an inner cylinder and then a spline on the outside if you are up close?

Windows XP 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon X5482 3.20GHz
32GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700
Dual 20” Dell LCD monitors.
3ds Max 2009 64-bit
Adobe Creative Suite 2

The wire wont be on a spool.  I just have a bunch or wires running everywhere.  The hole model will be going into a game engine.  That is why I need to keep an eye on my poly count.

Sorry about that! Don’t know why I assumed it would be on a spool! I don’t think there is going to be any easy way to reduce the poly count. I would do what Valen suggested. Renderable splines is what I use when creating wiring.

Windows XP 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon X5482 3.20GHz
32GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700
Dual 20” Dell LCD monitors.
3ds Max 2009 64-bit
Adobe Creative Suite 2

Thanks for all your help.

If you’re not extremely close, you can reduce the polycount a lot by setting the number of sides to a low value and assigning the same smoothing group to all the polys. The continuity in the shading will make the wire look cylindrical.
In the pic below, the renderable spline has only 3 sides.

max 9
Photoshop CS3
Windows XP
tin box + plug
Wacom Intuos3

	Attachment

I love it. thanks.

Does the engine support normal maps?

You could do strips with a normal map that makes them look cylindrical. It might not
work for all of them, but might help keep the overall polycount down.

The big trick is to avoid the profile view where the illusion is broken. Recessed areas and
unreachable areas are best for that.

Hope that helps.

I am not sure if the engine supports that or not.  This is for training purposes. So the student will be up close and personal with the objects.