What does halo see as polies? Every tri or truly every flat plane no matter how many polies it may be made up of or twists it has?

I am just wondering this as far as figuring poly counts for objects and what I want to devote for certain things I am working on.

Halo renders every triangle.
If you are in polygon selection, and go "edit triangulation", that's how halo renders it.
Your smoothing groups and vert distribution is key here :)

edit, I think if you press 7 to bring up the poly counter, then there is also a hotkey to change between polys and triangles, but i dont remember it, so, just convert to patch, look at the triangle count, then revert back to poly, or w/e.
Edited by Maniac1000 on Feb 12, 2011 at 12:13 AM

There is a modifier "Turn to Mesh" that will allow you to see the triangles without turning your all you Quads into them. Just apply the modifier and Select/De-Select "Show Invisible Edges". As long as you don't collapse this you'll be able to see your model in tris but work in Polys.

And for future reference, all game and rendering engines (atleast all the onces I've worked in) calculate faces as triangles. Keeping good topology (quads with close to 90 angles) simplifies the triangle creation for the engine and makes it easier for you to work on! Hope that helps!
Edited by YakZSmelk on Feb 12, 2011 at 02:10 AM

I sort of figured. Thanks guys.