You can reduce file size and increase performance in several ways, one of which is by careful management of the objects you create.
Before you begin modeling a scene for the Web, set a face (polygon) "budget" appropriate for the complexity of the scene and then roughly portion out the number of faces for the different objects.
The Polygon Counter (a utility that comes with the VRML Exporter) helps you stay within your budget.
If you have a 3D model that has about 2750 faces, for example, its file size is about 150KB, while the compressed size is less than 30KB-still a large file.
Reducing the number of segments: The simplest thing you can do to cut your face count is to reduce the number of segments in any primitive you create.
The default segment settings for 3D primitives give you more faces than you want for a virtual world.
When you create a primitive in a scene destined for export to virtual, go immediately to the Modify panel and use the spinners to reduce the number of segments.
Two rows of primitives rendered in your 3D Program will show the upper row with the primitives and the default number of segments.
The lower row shows the same set of primitives after segment reduction.
How much you reduce depends on how the primitive will be viewed in the scene.
Objects that remain in the background can be reduced much more than objects intended to be viewed up close.
You can easily cut the face count in half (or more) without losing an enormous amount of quality.
The face savings between these two sets of primitives is huge following the proper modeling methods.
Another very simple thing you can do is delete any faces that will never be visible from the objects in your scene.
In a scene of an ancient city, for example, deleting the faces on the underside of the landscape object cuts the number of faces from 1072 to 709.
This particular object is a box with 14 segments each way, which was molded with the Free form Deformation modifier to create slopes and hills.
If you were happy with a completely flat landscape, you could reduce the face count to 12 by using a simple box.
Before you begin modeling a scene for the Web, set a face (polygon) "budget" appropriate for the complexity of the scene and then roughly portion out the number of faces for the different objects.
The Polygon Counter (a utility that comes with the VRML Exporter) helps you stay within your budget.
If you have a 3D model that has about 2750 faces, for example, its file size is about 150KB, while the compressed size is less than 30KB-still a large file.
Reducing the number of segments: The simplest thing you can do to cut your face count is to reduce the number of segments in any primitive you create.
The default segment settings for 3D primitives give you more faces than you want for a virtual world.
When you create a primitive in a scene destined for export to virtual, go immediately to the Modify panel and use the spinners to reduce the number of segments.
Two rows of primitives rendered in your 3D Program will show the upper row with the primitives and the default number of segments.
The lower row shows the same set of primitives after segment reduction.
How much you reduce depends on how the primitive will be viewed in the scene.
Objects that remain in the background can be reduced much more than objects intended to be viewed up close.
You can easily cut the face count in half (or more) without losing an enormous amount of quality.
The face savings between these two sets of primitives is huge following the proper modeling methods.
Another very simple thing you can do is delete any faces that will never be visible from the objects in your scene.
In a scene of an ancient city, for example, deleting the faces on the underside of the landscape object cuts the number of faces from 1072 to 709.
This particular object is a box with 14 segments each way, which was molded with the Free form Deformation modifier to create slopes and hills.
If you were happy with a completely flat landscape, you could reduce the face count to 12 by using a simple box.