Animation Swapping and Poly Pushing

Okay, so I've noticed _a lot_ of different talk of the cinimatic Arthas here on this forum, and haven't really noticed anyone doing a whole lot with it. For any serious modeler the idea of throwing a 2259 poly model in a real time game, especially a RTS with 50 units on your screen, is insane - needless to say it would still work for such game types as an RPG, where you lack the massive amounts of units.

Now, my question is two fold. I have just exacted the Arthas model. I quickly cleaned it up to just him standing in the standard anatomical pose. I choked when I saw that 2259 polycount, so I suppose I'll ask that first.
- Does anyone know the limits of the polycount currently being viewed by the player? I know stuff like terrain has to be taken into account, but I have no idea on the polycount for the units, or buildings.
- Secondly, would anyone know how to properly change over animations from one model, to another. As mentioned, there's been a lot of talk about Arthas, and if I could fairly easilly just 'transfer' animations (importing GameModelA, deleting geosets, then importat HighPolyArthasA without his animations and attach the bones, save, done without working with geosets in Notepad, save for maybe texture stuff) I would just do so, and throw the model out there as-is, or for a base for anyone who wants to do anymore.

Well first of all this thing first:

A high poly model for arthas exists , which is of course the rocking arthas. I once gave him regular paladin animations on request, but in my opinion it was not good as the details were too cramped on eachother, which caused a nasty yellow blur (and his face was too pale) . The animation were done correctly though., and it didnt look that bad when it was scaled 5 times as usual.....

anyways, regarding your questions:

-depends on what view you use? bird like view would probably be dependant on the height etc. My advice is to stick to 2k at maximum for high detailed models that are big (and hence it justifies the small details in the model ) and around 1k for regular units and stuff (this for very detailed stuff of course). Regular use like mass production in a rts should be around 350 or even less. Dont use particles like fish and chips, as particles do contribute in the laggyness (balrog of rightfield for example even chokes PIV 2 gig with ti4200)
- For second question I suggest to ceck the topic of oinkerwinkles animation transfer program, as the names of the model of the high poly arthas is always using logical names (arms, legs and stuff) so merging animations would be a snap.

Yes, I am aware. This is the model I have stated being 2259 polygons - not a model I've created.
Continuing, I don't suppose you happen to have this model on your PC, and could send it to me, or post it here at any point?

I shall do so, might be a useful program to get my hands on, expecially whenever I begin working on custom models, as opposed to just edits.

Sorry, I dont have it anymore after i cleansed most of my files. You COULD try contacting berry2k on the forums, but mostly, I doubt it is still there

Are you sure about that? I tried just a stright animation transfer on them, and the animation sequences were in fact transfered, however didn't sync with the model, IE - model didn't move.
I used the rockin' one, since it had the least crap. I ditched four geosets total. The 'amps,' guitar, glow, and the rings for the speakers. This also deleted a ring around his neck that was part of the same geoset, but I'm not concerned about that. I forgot the particle emiters, but I can change them whenever I can get this to work.
I also did try one with all the geosets intact, and it didn't seem to make any difference. I'm considering poping it into 3D Studio and renaming the bones to match the Arthas paladin model, but I want to explore other options first.

Any help on how you acomplished this is apprichated.

well ask Xaran Alamas then, he will help you on that matter persoally..

Well I imported everything to see how it worked. While I discovered a general problem I need to work around at some point later, I experienced a slightly different problem whenever I imported the Arthas model.
An error window, reading "-- Unknown property: "mesh" in undefined" appeared, and it's one of those happy ones people look at and cock their head to the side at.
Needless to say, this isn't a happy error. It uploaded the geometry, but not the animations - or more importantly - the bones that I need to rename.

Joy.