One of the first major decisions that must be made when creating a Low Polygon Model is what your polygon limit should be. A lot of games in development now are using more and more polygons per object because the new ultra-fast computers can handle them. You must decide how important this object is to the grand scheme of things in order to come up with a reasonable polygon count. A rock on the side of the road, for example, is not very important, and should be comprised of only 10-30 polygons. However, a fountain or small building is an eye-catching object and needs more detail, and therefore should be allowed 350-550 polygons, or more. (Depending on how large you need the building, etc.)

The final factor that should be considered is the speed the game will run when all the models are combined in one viewing window. Some of the older computers will not be able to run scenes with 5000 polygons being viewed at one time, whereas the newer machines will handle 6000-7000 no problem. It is always good to make the game playable by a wide variety of users at a decent speed, while still allowing the power users to get excellent frame rates. That is why this tutorial will be explained using three different polygon limits in each step.

We will start by creating a 3 simple cylinders that will eventually be the long post for the light-posts. (We will build all 3 light-posts at the same time and then compare the results at the end of the tutorial). After Resetting MAX, create 3 cylinders with the settings seen at the right. As you can see the changes from 1st to 2nd are  "Sides" and "Smooth". The changes from 2nd to 3rd are "Sides" and "Height Segments".

If we do a polygon count on each cylinder and render a picture of all three, you can immediately see the differences in polygon number, and the detail associated with each one.  Although the "Height Segment" change added in the 3rd cylinder isn't visible in the render, it will become apparent why it was included later on.

We will now add a small base to the light-post, once again using 3 different settings for the object.  Create 3 splines as shown and apply a lathe modifier to them with the 3 different settings shown at the right.  Move the 3 lathed objects into place at the bottom of each appropriate cylinder.  (The "Sides" should match up with the "Sides" used for the 3 different cylinders)

If we do a polygon count on each base and render a picture of all three, you can immediately see the difference in detail between the 3 new objects.  However, as you can also see, the polygon count of each suffers for the amount of detail the object has.

By now it should be quite clear to you what makes an object have a high number of polygons. We could've given our posts 100 sides, making the polygon count go into the thousands, but it wouldn't have looked much different than our 10 sided model with 60 polygons.  The objective is to make the model look satisfactory enough in terms of detail without sacrificing precious polygons to do so. The object on the left is the 10 sided light-post you created. The object on the right is a 100 sided light-post I created. Can you tell the difference? If you look at the polygon numbers of each one you can. 180 to 1800 polygons is an enormous difference, and as you can see, unnecessary in terms of object detail.

Make 2 splines as shown below, and copy them both 3 times.  Lathe each of the 3 groups of splines using the 3 different settings shown at right. 

These 3 groups of 2 objects will be the light housings at the top of each light-post. Once you have lathed all 3 sets of the objects, move them into position. Once again, the "Sides" should match up with the appropriate light-post.

Once again, if we do a render and a polygon count on each, we can see the difference in polygons and the difference in detail on each object.

Clone the 3 long posts of each light-post and reduce the height of them just enough so they all fit between the two objects of the light housing. When you're finished you should have a 5 sided cylinder, an 8 sided cylinder, and a 10 sided cylinder all between the two light housing objects of each appropriate light-post. You may want to change the radius of each of these a bit so they look better. You will also want to change the "Height Segments" of the last cylinder to 1, and not 2 as we had set for the post. These objects will be the glass panes that encase the light inside the light housing.  When you are done, the three light-posts should look exactly like the ones shown at right.

Congratulations!  The three light-posts are complete.  However, you aren't done just yet.  As you can see, we stayed well within our 3 polygon limits of 200, 300, and 400 set before we even began.  Even though we accomplished our goals, there are a few decisions still left to be made.

The first thing you should do at this point is texture the light-posts. I applied a  "Green Bronze" texture to the light-posts and a "Glass" texture to the light encasings.  Both of these materials come standard with 3D Studio MAX.  Now your light-posts should look just like the ones shown at right. This is where the very close examination comes in. If we look at the 3 light-posts, we have to ask ourselves what type of detail is expected of us, what is our polygon budget, and which light-post looks the best. A few ways you can look at this would be as follows, at right:

When these, and many other questions like it are brought into play, we have a better understanding of which light-post we should use. Your opinions may differ from mine and you may think a different one would be better to use, but I chose the middle one. It's polygon count isn't that devastating to the game engine and it still looks good. Who's to say that a light-post should be perfectly round anyway?

Before you make your final decision, you may want to open yourself up to the other options you have. Maybe the left light-post would look really good if all the sides were changed to 6 instead of 5. It would look less-boxy than it does now, and would still have fewer polygons than the middle one. Maybe the right one would look better if I scaled the center height segment added into the post a bit smaller or larger. Maybe I can design a different base that would be made up of less polygons allowing me more freedom with the number of sides on the rest of the light-post. These are all questions that you must take into consideration when making a low polygon model. Because you are working with such a small number of polygons, any little change will make the model look a great deal different. 

Small imperfections must be deleted as well. The extra height segment in the light-post on the right was purposely included to show what careless additions do. The effect of that segment is not visible whatsoever in the render, and yet it doubles the polygon count. When deleted, the polygon count goes down by 30 polygons, a dramatic change. Things like this must be fixed in order to create a perfect model.

Nevertheless, once you have made all your decisions and a final product is within grasp, you'll be glad you asked yourself all these questions. After all, if you answer all of them to your liking, what other outcome could you possibly have than the best one.