Trimming the triangles

Do you want your creation/s to make it into the game but find that it has too many triangles? Well this might just help you.

Introduction

This is my first guide ever so it'll be a wreck unless by magic it works out ok.

Who am I? I go by many names but Skeloton is my main moniker. Ive been playing Space Engineers for little over a year now, I know ive only logged a pittiful 1200ish hours.

What am I trying to achieve with this guide? Well now that you asked. I made a station for the new exploration update before the 500,000 triangle limit was announced. I went back to check and find it almost has 3x the triangles as the limit allows. Then I began trimming, which lead to me finding out the triangle count of every block and how the count works with multiple blocks joining one another.

Please note that this guide will focus primarily on Large ships and stations as I havent had much time with small ship trimming. Thats if small ships need it at all :P

What is a triangle?

If someone would like to correct me on this, that would be great.

From my understanding, and its a simple one. Every face/side is made up of these triangles, Polys for the sophisticated. The more complex the side of a block is, the more triangles its going to take to make it.

For example,

An armoured cube is 48 triangles, which means that at most each side is made of 8 triangles. Of course some of the 48 triangles might be used in that fancy bordering you get.

An Interior block with a whopping 2624 triangles has 2 flat sides and 4 very very complex sides.

Triangles Per Block

Ok so heres the list and you may find some surpising results. Please note these are just for large blocks. Small blocks may come later.

Name	Triangles
Cockpit	4531
Assembler	4202
Refinery	3489
Interior Block	2624
Gravity Gen	2532
Small Reactor	2520
Spherical Gravity Gen	2508
Medbay	2174
Large Reactor	2102
Projector	1796
Wheel 3x3	1728
Wheel 5x5	1728
Arc furnace	1602
Rocket Launcher	1496
Timer	1454
Full Cover Wall	1450
Warhead	1428
Large Container	1422
Welder	1295
Programming Block	1180
Wheel 1x1	1088
Large Thruster	1072
Small Thruster	1064
Grinder	1051
Gyro	1048
Small Container	997
Connector	829
Half Cover Wall	742
Passage	724
Conveyor	686
Antenna	648
Drill	630
Stairs	618
Control Station	617
Gatling Turret	601
Missile Turret	601
Interior Turret	586
Door	520
Spotlight	509
Passenger Seat	504
Flight Seat	496
Landing Gear	488
Wheel Suspension 5x5	454
Catwalk corner	452
Catwalk two sides	452
Wheel Suspension 1x1	440
Wheel Suspension 3x3	440
Remote Control	404
Sound block	384
Conveyor tube corner	372
Camera	342
Ramp	340
Interior light	324
Beacon	316
Old Angled Window	312
Ore detector	298
Piston Part	286
Control Panel	284
Sensor	284
Catwalk	282
Old Vertical Window	236
Text Panel	232
Conveyor tube	232
Merge block	230
Battery	212
Collector	202
Advanced rotor	194
Piston	193
Decoy	188
Rotor	182
Advanced rotor part	168
Button Panel	162
Solar Panel	146
Catwalk plate	132
Window 1x1 Slope	120
Rotor Part	92
Window 1x1 flat	90
Window 1x2 Slope	78
Window 1x2 flat	74
Window 2x3 flat	74
Window 3x3 flat	74
Window 1x1 face	61
Window 1x1 inverted	61
Window 1x1 side	55
Window 1x2 side	55
Window 1x2 face	55
Window 1x2 inverted	55
Interior Pillar	52
Armour cube	48
Armour Inverted Corner	40
Armour Slope	32
Blast door corner	24
Blast door inverted corner	24
Blast door edge	20
Armour Corner	16
Blast door	12

The method in this madness. Was to find the triangle count of the flight seat then attach blocks onto it, then subtract the flight seats count from the total. Occasionally i would have to use a armour cube as some blocks wouldnt work without it.

Things to know.

There are some things to know about how blocks interact and how this interaction affects the triangle count.


First thing on the list, Deformation. Deformed blocks have the same count as when they are pristine. I'll say again, deformation does not cause the count to change.

Second thing, joined faces. When you place certain blocks upon one another, like armour and interior blocks. The joined faces are removed so to speak which in turn removes those sides' triangles from the total.

Example

This is a 3x3x3 cube made of armour cubes. Thats 27 cubes for a total 1296 triangles but if you were to check it would only have 432. This is because all the sides you cant see due to being connected to the block next to them are removed.

Now if i were to remove the block from the centre so it would be hollow the Triangle count will increase to 480. Even though those 6 faces arent visible they still exist and are counted. Add a interior block to the middle and you get back down to 432 triangles. Interior blocks are like armour blocks in that completely connected sides are are removed.

Things like storage containers, conveyor cubes and gyros do not diminish the count. They will add to it.

Trimming the Triangles

I am going to use my own station as an example on how to trim the triangles. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=355122873

Ok so before, with 1,329,422 triangles

and after, with only 464,431 triangles

First thing i did was remove the overhanging arms. A lot of it was unnecessary. Even the solar panels. These arms were laden with interior blocks which with the 4th highest amount of triangles accounted for most of it.

This is what I ended up with.


Now with further editing highlighted in green, you can see what i changed. I replaced most of the interior blocks with armour blocks as each open face adds a boatload of triangles.



Moving on to the landing pads. I had a liberal use of full cover walls which have a fairly high count. Swapping some for catwalks can seriously help trim the triangles.

Filling corner gaps like the one below. Using a corner block there can help too, surprising i know.

At this point the station is at 600,286 triangles a remarkable improvment on the 1,329,422 that i began with.

Now we go through the door from the landing pad past the staircase and into the upper corridor. Now the interior blocks embedded into the ceiling and floor are fine as their most impacting sides are connected to other blocks.

The sides however are proving to be a problem. Behind each ramp block is a interior block. And behind the left and right walls are the control room and product/Storeroom. That means that one side thats only visible. Even that is a problem.

Here the green blocks are the ones behind the ramps in the corridor.

Next thing on the list of triangle culling, Hollows, gaps and empty spaces. This station of mine is horrible for it. You can use the spectator cam to whiz through and find them.

Like this
Just covering any interior block faces you cant see normally will help alot. But going whole hog and filling every space is better. Now before I began I took a count on how many triangles and it was at; 564,214. After I filled those spaces. 510,520.

Replace some of the remaining coverwalls with catwalks, fill in some corner gaps, remove one antenna and keep the other, remove 2 medbays leaving 2 and hey presto. you can get it below 500,000 to about 438,050 to give some wiggle room to add something like a small ship berth.

So to summarize:
Where possible use armour instead of interior blocks. Especcially where the aesthetics are not important or in view.
Fill gaps with armour or remold the hull so the gap is no more.
Where possible use catwalks instead of cover walls.
As far as functional blocks go, be modest.

Community Tips

Here I will add any tips from the community.

-"Various mod blocks will make your triangles count skyrocket (especially if you decide to make your entire ship/station out of mod blocks) and therefore bog down your game to a crawl if you get too careless with placing them everywhere." Mattacon

Other Exploration Creation Guides

Here is a link to a guide by WhiteWeasel on how to improve your Exploration Creations generally: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=372887240

[velvetsanity]

Please update this

[Altenarian™]

Mods that completely remove armour edges helps a ton with triangles and such, it also improved my Fps from 10 up to 30 and lately 50-60(with shadows off)

[Mattacon]

I know this is way out of the original topic of this guide (trimming triangles for Exploration submissions), but given today's huge abundance of mod blocks/packs there's something to consider here. The vast majority of mod blocks never have any faces removed when joined with another block, mod or default. Various mod blocks will make your triangles count skyrocket (especially if you decide to make your entire ship/station out of mod blocks) and therefore bog down your game to a crawl if you get too careless with placing them everywhere.

[crowbarzero]

Also windows look pretty

[crowbarzero]

Yeah between testing both replacing heavy armor blocks & int blocks with some windows while using that mod, they both really helped the speed in the world/around the giant ship I was constructing.

[Skeloton]

Yeah i thought that the bordering might contribute to that 48polys for one cube.

[crowbarzero]

I have been told armor without edges mod is pretty good for cutting downt he triangle counts too. Going to give it a shot and see.

[crowbarzero]

Couldn't find a great filler mod to replace the interior blocks but I did realize that the windows are suprisingly sturdy. While I'll probably end up increasing the overall mass of my ship, thinking of replacing some of the light armored and interior wall blocks with the 1x2 or 3x3 windows as they also have a lower triangle count. See how it goes when I get farther on this build.

[Skeloton]

@Gem, Crowbarzero, Twelve, Thanks for the feedback. I will have to add recent additions later. When i get time to count the triangles and add them to the list.

[Gem]

Thanks! This helped me reduce from 316,000 to 280,000! And that was just some of the interior blocks!