Hey guys, I've just got a question about the way the engine renders things...

Wanted I wanted to know the way faces are rendered and culled for a model. For example, let's take one of my gun models for example. I've built it almost totally to historical specs, making only reasonable compromises on poly count. I've got quite a bit of detail inside the breech, inside the magazine, and a few other places. When the player is using the gun, they will only being seeing the left side, for the most part, and very little of the butt, and none of the internal parts. The internal parts are only exposed during reloading.

So, during the majority of game play, when none of the internal parts or the butt are showing, do those polies get rendered by the engine? Or does the engine only render what the camera can directly see?

If my example doesn't make sense to you, just say you have a model of a garbage can with a lid on it. There is a bunch of garbage modeled inside of the can, but can only be seen when the lid is opened during animation (all part of the same mesh). So is the garbage actually rendered the whole time, or only when the lid is off to expose it?

I hope this makes sense. I really need to know this, to get a better idea of how detailing certain parts of our weapons can adversely effect performance (or not). If the engine does indeed cull the unexposed parts, that is great.

I really need a CERTAIN answer, from someone who knows for sure. This is going to dictate the way our artwork is done, so please don't speculate or pretend you know.

Thanks!