9.5.2

424 • CHAPTER 7
OBJECTS MENU • DEFORMERS • 425
Noise Scale
The higher you set this value, the more irregular the surface becomes during the melt deformation.
Polygon Reduction
The Polygon Reduction deformer enables you to reduce the number of polygons of any CINEMA 4D
geometric object and operates in a exible and intuitive way. Polygon Reduction is available from the
Objects > Deformation menu and behaves like any other deformer – just choose Polygon Reduction
and place the resultant object into the Object manager hierarchy of the object that you want to
affect.
Why use polygon reduction?
Many 3D tasks demand models that use as few polygons as possible. Unfortunately, the various
techniques used to create models often means that more polygons are created than are necessary.
Worse still, without polygon reduction tools, these models must be reduced by hand. Here are a few
examples to show the importance of polygon reduction:
 Modern 3D games need characters with low polygon counts for smooth
animation in realtime.
 Models for the Internet, in formats such as VRML, need a low polygon count
for quick download.
 Models created by 3D scanners often have an extremely high number of
polygons; reducing the number of polygons makes these objects easier to
handle.
To summarize: reduce the number of polygons for faster renders and lower memory requirements.
What does polygon reduction do?
The Polygon Reduction deformer works hard to reduce the number of polygons in the chosen object
quickly and accurately – this is its mission in life. It always tries to reduce the polygon count according
to your wishes and provides many options for user control.
Polygon Reduction works with triangles (not quads) and, if necessary, an
automatic triangulation of the object will be performed before reduction.
Polygon Reduction is great for simplifying an object mesh, taking care of any resulting mesh
inconsistencies (e.g. fold-overs, boundary cracks) but it does not create a dynamic map of this process
(for multiple LODs — levels of detail).