What is Low-poly and Hi-poly?

When developing video games, in one way or another, there is a need to create and implement textures and models. They can be either Hi-poly or Low-poly. Each of these types suits a particular purpose, which we will talk about below. But first, let's look at what these two terms mean in general:

Hi-poly

Hi-poly - this is about a large number of polygons and a high level of detail. Usually when they say Hi-poly, they mean textures with a resolution of 4096x4096px, 8192x8192px or even higher. They are perfect for rendering or video. Even the small details here are made geometric. Hi-poly is extremely resource intensive as it can have up to tens of millions of polygons at a time.

Hi-poly is mostly used in the game industry. Do something else with them does not always seem appropriate, although sometimes with the help of Hi-poly can make good layouts for example, to demonstrate some products.

Low-poly

Low-poly is characterized by a much smaller number of polygons, but that does not mean they look so bad. Typically, the average resolution of Low-poly textures is 2048x2048px. They are often used in games, and in real-time graphics projects. Creating Low-poly is easy enough, but keep in mind that you have to create all the flat texture details, while only the objects that give the silhouette should have geometric properties. By the way, you can also use Low-poly not only in games, but also in other areas. For example, in furniture design, photography, typography, digital design, etc.

The baking process is used to transfer detail information from a Hi-poly model to a Low-poly model. This can be done quite conveniently in, for example, 3ds Max, Maya or Blender. By the way, you can find guides on interacting with textures on our site.

If you are in the mood for an extremely serious job, it would be better to look at Marmoset Toolbag and Substance Painter instead of the programs mentioned above. As a result of your work, you will get a map of normals, which in this case will have fewer polygons, but will still look great. This way you can tighten up your texture optimization considerably.

Each level of detail models perform a different task. And while on desktop systems and gaming consoles, Low-poly models will not be used in the near future, on mobile devices, due to tight budgets and technical limitations, they will be used for more than one or two years.

You can download both Hi-poly and Low-poly models from our website. They were all made by professionals and will be suitable for any of your video game projects. If you decide to use the content from our site, you will make your life much easier, because you will have something to work with. If you don't like the models on our site, you can edit them manually in any program you like. You can also use them as a reference.

Read more:

• Using Shader Graph to Create Realistic Materials in Unity
  
• Texturing in Blender - source
  
• How to make a quality weapon for the game? - link