I apologize if this is a common thread, but I wanted to know what is your recommended polygons for characters in console games. I have to report this to my 3D Character Artist ASAP, he said somewhere around 30K to 50K. After all the baking, normal and displacement and stuff. The different thing about this is that this is a fighting game, which in simple terms has 2 (TWO) characters on-screen. Which is why I thought there probably could be more, like around 80K - 100K. So tell me what is you recommendation based on the 80K-100K for 2 characters on screen. Then if you can do a little bonus and tell me the average Poly for an Environment a whole environment. Thanks!
What is your target platform? XBO? PS4? I know you said console, so I assume you don’t mean PC/Mac.
Generally, you can get away with a lot of polys. Most modern engines are good at pushing polys, Unreal included. It really depends on your lighting, number of bones in your characters, post-processing, screen resolution, texture resolution, material instructions, environments, etc. There’s no easy number. I try not to go above 40k for main characters, but really you can go as high as 100k or more if your scene isn’t too demanding otherwise. Really, you should use as many polys as it takes to get the shape, style and tone of the character you wish to convey, then mould the rest of your game around that. Go as low as you can, but don’t sacrifice the integrity of your characters. I really don’t think you’ll need more than 50k unless your characters have many intricate pieces of clothing and hair that must look incredibly smooth and detailed.
Well our rule of thumb is to get it in and get it working based on the design intent. Does a model need 30k to look right or needs to be as high as 100k can be “discovered” through practical evaluation and as far as best practice goes it’s easier to make to much less than it is to make not enough do more.
So my recommendation would be to make things for your game the way you want it to “look” with out limitations to unfixed budgets like Polycounts.
P.S. Keep in mind that you can increase tessellation of a model using a material value so one can go from 50k to 100k with out having to add more geometry into the source asset.
10 years from now though your kids are going to ask “Dad whats a polycount?” 
Here is something I did up that makes you go hummmm. 
