Dog Boy Model WIP Update: What is the DEAL with poly count???????

So I started to UV unwrap my dog model intended for VR chat implementation. I was pretty excited to be pretty far into this because I had received offers for model commissions for this game in the past, and I want to learn the entire process for creating one from scratch before opening to model commissions.

So I unwrapped it, realized I needed to change it, added fur particles, unwrapped again, changed again...

And got this mess.

What a monstrosity.

Ok lets just fix this real quick...

Ok this works now.

And then I had an epiphany: what even IS the poly count requirement for a game like VR chat? I'm probably over it at this point with this body mesh and clothing.

But I wasn't ready for the truth.

My model was about 4x worse than the LOWEST possible optimization for a mesh.

GOD

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN

Oh god decimating the mesh only makes it worse

Ouch.

Bluhhhh

After remeshing in a third party program, this is what I ended up with:

But even after THAT the polycount is still too high by far, with clothes on still clocking in around 14k tris.

The body's Tri count alone is way too high.

So I dissolved a LOT of edge loops, and got rid of the feet so I can replace them with low poly shoes.

Ok, MUCH better.

The total Tri count with clothes, hair, and ears included is still pretty high, but much more manageable than before. I'll be skirting the edge of 10k after adding the shoes, fingers, and inside of the mouth, but it should just barely be enough.

That's enough of this headache for now. Normal mapping is probably going to play a big part in how the final model looks because of the large reduction in geometry.