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# Low Poly

The term low poly (also low-poly or lowpoly) is used for polygonal 3D models whose polygon count is relatively low -- so low that one can see the model approximates the ideal shape only very roughly. For typical models (animals, cars, guns, ...) the polygon count under which they are correctly called low poly is usually a few dozens or few hundreds at most. The opposite of low poly is high poly. A good example of low poly graphics can be seen e.g. in PS1 games such as Crash Bandicoot 3 or the first Harry Potter game.

WATCH OUT: Retards these days use the term "low poly" for stylized/untextured/flat shaded high poly models; they even use the term for models whose polygon count is lower than the number of atoms in observable universe, or just throw it around completely randomly just to slap a cool label onto their lame shit models (they confuse low poly with low effort). STOP THIS FUCKING INSANITY, DON'T CALL HIGH POLY MODELS LOW POLY.

The exact threshold on polygon count from which we call a model low poly can't be objectively set because firstly there's a subjective judgment at play and secondly such threshold depends on the ideal shape we're approximating. This means that not every model with low polygon count is low poly: if a shape, for example a cube, can simply be created with low number of polygons without it causing a distortion of the shape, it shouldn't be called low poly. And similarly a model with high polygon count can still be classified as low poly if even the high number of polygons still causes a significant distortion of the shape. However let's say that if it has more than 300 triangles it's quite likely not low poly.

Someone on the Internet once suggested the "rule of 256" as a good rule of the thumb: a low-poly model should consist of at most 256 vertices, 256 triangles and should use only one texture with resolution 256x256 and 256 colors.

The original purpose of creating low poly models was to improve performance, or rather to make it even possible to render something in the era of early computer graphics. Low poly models take less space in memory and on good, non-capitalist computers render faster. As computers became able to render more and more polygons, low poly models became more and more unnecessary and eventually ended up just as a form of "retro" art style -- many people still have nostalgia for PS1 graphics with very low poly models and new games sometimes try to mimic this look. In the world of capitalist consoomer computing/gayming nowadays no one really cares about saving polygons on models because "modern" GPUs aren't really affected by polygon count anymore, everyone just uses models with billions of polygons even for things that no one ever sees, soydevs don't care anymore about the art of carefully crafting models on a low polygon budget. However in the context of good, non-capitalist technology low poly models are still very important.

Low poly models are intended to be used in interactive/real-time graphics while high poly ones are for the use in offline (non-realtime) rendering. Sometimes (typically in games) a model is made in both a low poly and high poly version: the low poly version is used during gameplay, the high poly version is used in cutscenes. Sometimes even more than two versions of models are made, see level of detail.

Here are some stats for video game models (playable character) that might at least by a sterch be considered low(er) poly:

model | year | verts | tris
--- | --- | --- | ---
Crash Band. (PS1) | 1996 | 379 | 732
Mario (SM64) | 1996 | 436 | 809
Spyro (PS1) | 1998 | 237 | 431
Link, young (N64) | 1998 | 377 | 696
Pikachu (N64) | 1999 | 158 | 300
Claude (GTA3) | 2001 | 1435 | 1550
Tommy V. (GTA VC) | 2002 | 1059 | 1355
CJ (GTA SA) | 2004 | 1721 | 2332
Licar | 2025 | 124 | 228

## See Also

- minimalism
- pixel art
- ASCII art
- low fidelity
- low effort
- retro

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