(3ds Max) Looking for tips to reduce poly/vert counts (skyrim meshes)

[Cyndi]

Just wondering if anyone knows of any good tips. or modifiers in 3ds, that can shave down vertex counts.  *Specifically for detailed parts*

I'm still pretty much a novice when it comes it to 3ds, but I am having fun xD.

 

I have taken to doing what I would call "step-welding"

in that I convert the mesh to an editable poly,  select all the verts, and then using the weld button, I weld everything starting at 0.01, then the same for 0.02, 0.03, and so on.  The problem is, often when going above 0.05, ~ 0.07  I usually loose a lot of mesh definition, especially at edges where I have created the appearance of a seam.  If I start at 0.05 or higher, the mesh instantly looks like something chewed on it.

 

I will mention that I am also a compulsive turbo/mesh smooth user xD (Although, usually not more than 1 iteration)

 

I have probably scraped 6 or 7 dresses in as many days due to just thinking my vertex count is insane. (20 ~ 40 thousand +)

My most resent project, started at about 44k verts, and I finagled it down to about 20k, but at about 18k the mesh just starts  to  look like ...

poop

Anyway 18k is still ridiculously high never mind the 20k that looks right despite the fact that it still seems to "play" without performance loss, but even the body it's going on is only 7k verts lol.... So any suggestions out there?

 

 

 

 

~Edit, and crap wrong section.  Would a mod mind shifting this over to technical?

[canderes]

 

 

Make normal maps if you can. Try to use only 1-2 steps in mesh smooth. If you end up with too many verts rebuild the mesh. The lower the count the easier it will be to rig. This will be a big help: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~emaslows/forums/documents/GEN_SubD-ThreadHighlights.pdf

 

I have an unfinished video I'm gonna put up in a bit for armor creation; it shows what I do to build the clothing and in the next part I am going to show how to morph it (looking to alternatives to plugins or scripts because I want to preserve the shape between _0 and _1 for the slider).

[Cyndi]

 

Those and a few other related vids....   A whole lot of things make a lot more sense now, and that looks a whole <Ihaveapottymouth> of a lot easier than how I was going about doing things.  Excellent post, thank you very much.