Anyone who has ever worked with 3D files will have noticed that preserving the quality of a 3D model is sometimes only achieved at the expense of heavy models. Either subdivisions or higher resolution texture files make models look better. But, with RapidCompact, we like challenging ourselves in order to make our software better every day. The following pictures show the April model of the month (almost 100MB) and our less than 10MB version of it. Are you able to tell the difference?

This 3D wicker chair was created with sculpting software. The cushion alone had 790K polygons in its original state. So, the total number of faces in the model was 917K. Thanks to RapidCompact’s decimation system, the optimized model has only 197K polygons. Despite this, we kept the silhouette of the chair in such a way that there is no noticeable difference.

On the other hand, textures were kept at 2K resolution to avoid loss of quality. This was specially important on the normal map. However, the texture optimization made use of the “Atlas Baking” mode. This way, the original 4 materials were unified into 1. Similarly, the original 12 maps became just 3. This was possible thanks to the use of ORM (Occlusion-Roughness-Metallic) map.

Following a few simple steps, we have converted a 95.5MB model into a 7.39MB model. All this while not influencing the shape or the material appearance. In short: Preserving the Quality of a 3D model is possible with RapidCompact. Now the model is ready for web platforms or augmented reality. You can take a look at it in our viewer.

In case you missed it, read more about material extensions from the Khronos Group and how we applied them on our Model of the Month from March.

And to solve our little riddle from the beginning: On the left is the high poly model, on the right our optimized one.