Low-poly 3D models light enough for a phone, a browser or a headset

A polygon is one of the flat faces that make up a 3D surface; engines count them as triangles. Every triangle has to be drawn each frame, so a device can only draw so many before the frame rate drops. Low-poly modelling keeps the count small by putting only the silhouette and the main forms into the mesh and letting the textures carry the rest.

Low-poly does not mean crude. A well-built low-poly chair looks like a chair from every angle a player sees it from, because the triangles are spent on the outline and the normal map supplies the bevels and the grain. It also does not mean a fixed number. The right count depends on the device, the distance and how many objects share the scene.

Choose it when the model will be drawn on a device with limited graphics power, when many copies share one scene, or when the file travels over mobile data.

• Mobile games, where the whole scene has a budget a mid-range phone can draw
• Web viewers on product pages, where the file must load before the shopper scrolls away
• AR on a phone, where the model is drawn on top of a live camera feed
• VR, where every frame is drawn twice at a high frame rate
• Crowded scenes, where many props share the budget
• Background objects, which are seen from a distance and never up close

We ask for the platform, the typical viewing distance and the number of objects on screen. From those we propose a triangle count per object, or we work to a budget you already have. A hero prop the player can pick up gets more than a shelf in the background. For a set, counts are assigned by size class so the budget is spent evenly. Where an object is seen both near and far, we add LODs rather than compromise the near view; the guide to poly count and LODs explains the trade.

A low-poly model is quoted per model or per set, like any game asset. The detail tier is Low, so the price turns on the texture resolution and on whether a detailed source exists to bake from. Baking from a high-poly source we already have is quick. Building a detailed source first, because the object has fine detail that must be carried in the normal map, adds to the price. Variants that share the mesh and change only the texture are quoted below new objects.

The quote lists each object, its triangle count, the maps and sizes, the formats and the schedule.

If you already have a detailed model from CAD, a scan or a render job, you do not need a new build. LODs and optimisation rebuilds the surface as a light mesh and bakes the detail from the original. If you need a product to turn on a web page, the 3D models for websites page covers the viewer as well as the file.