3DS Max polygon reductiont tools

    So what tool do you guys use for making low-poly versions of your models?

    Back in the day I just used Max's Optimise tool then used the MultiRes modifier but even still, that tends to screw up my models sometimes. I've been playing with Poly Cruncher a bit although I find the "Frenglish" user manual a bit confusing sometimes.

    What other options are out there?

    Always by hand. Usually I start by making the lowpoly even, pick out what parts I'll need and then start working on a highpoly.

    I haven't found the result with a tool for doing this even close to being good enough so far. Of course that may depend on what kind of mesh you're working with. Landscapes for example would work better to optimize with a tool than most other things.

    So you're saying that with something like a 1800 poly characher head you hand collapse every poly to make a low-poly version for LOD levels???

    Yeah it usually goes really quite quick if you have some nice edge loops to collapse It is very hard sometimes to create good additional LOD steps but its worth some extra time to get that right as it totally ruins a lot of the feel to see bad popping in a game.

    I'm not saying it's wrong to use any tools for this but from what I've tried I rather stick to doing it manually as I feel by using a tool I don't only loose control over the how the acual mesh is optimized but also the texture mapping (which you usually want to keep as intact as possible when working with further LOD steps).

    At first I thought you were talking about a highpoly that you'd use for baking the normal to a lowpoly that you want to create from the highpoly.

    I don't do characters but it appears in many (most?) cases they build the lowpoly from scratch instead or perhaps work up a good lowpoly first then do the high.

    try combining polycruncher/by hand.. dont trust generators and procedures like polycruncher to much, dont let the computer do the job you have to do..

    In 98% of the cases I do it by hand, and by creating a new model. The other two percent are models that have simplistic mapping, like rocks and such.

    I normally copy the early stages of a model (the original primatives) and move them somewhere else in the scene while i work on the full model. Takes a bit of forward planning to make it worthwhile though. Once the model is at a stage where you want to start making it more detailed, just save the basic version out as another file for use as the lod later.

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