Interesting modelling question

[Peasant Fool]

So, right now I'm making a "Comic Book Guy" model. If you don't know him (I pity you) then here's a picture of him. He's from the TV show The Simpsons.

Spoiler:

Now that you know what he looks like, here are some pictures of my model so far. It's not quite right, and I realize that. I especially know he looks enormously fat from the front view, but don't worry, I'll fix it. By the way, that huge bulge in the middle of his torso will look much much better once the shirt and shorts have been skinned on. Believe me, I do notice how funky it looks. Although, if you have any comments about how it looks besides the small adjustments needing to be made on shorts, stomach, and head, feel free to tell me. Just don't get too picky.

Spoiler:

My question is about the skeleton that will go into this character. All of the characters in Jedi Knight Academy are in good shape. There are no obese Jedi. So to apply all of the animations and skeletons and assorted things like that to this Comic Book Guy model would be pretty strange.

Is there a simple way around this? Or at least a way to not make it look so bad when chunky Comic Book Guy swings his lightsaber? Thanks for the help in advance.

[Yggdrasil]

there is a homer moel ask the author of it about how he got his model to fit

[Peasant Fool]

In the description of the model (written by the staff on the website) it says:

But this is Homer Simpson. Who cares if his arms disappear into his belly? Who cares if his legs seem a little disjointed? And who really cares if he's not perfect!? He's Homer Simpson, ffs!

So basically whoever made this Homer model had the same problem. However, Homer is slimmer than Comic Book Guy and his arms moving through his torso isn't as noticeable as it will be on my character. There has to be some way around this.

[minilogoguy18]

whoa, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many polies, and nothing is really connected, like the fingers to the hands or hands to the arms. you only need to use enough polies to get the shape, you dont have to make him perfectly smooth, its way too much.

[Peasant Fool]

Yeah I was having trouble making things work so I'd often divide polygons to make stuff easier to use. Is there a way I can undo this? Also, yes it's true that none of the objects in there are connected. How do I connect them?

But still, my question is about making his animations look right, not about how poorly he is made.

EDIT: alright so even though my thread is about animations I'd rather talk about the amount of polygons. I have two questions: First, how can I tell it to count the number of polygons (after I manage to merge all of the objects), and second what is the limit to the number of polygons on a character?

I know I can easily redo certain parts like his legs, arms, and fingers, because they are basically just cylinders (except the fingers, but that was easy). His torso I probably could completely redo, but it'd be a pain in the butt. His shorts, his shoes, his entire head including the hair - NO WAY.

ANOTHER EDIT: Ok so I found how to count my polygons. It's not a very pretty number either. In total, there are 4630 polygons. I don't know much about this, but I do know that 4630 is way too much. I do know that if I'm able to merge all of these objects, that number will get smaller, but until then, you know how much there is.

[Inyri Forge]

1) If you're using 3DS Max, hit 7.
2) You can have 1000 polies per object maximum. I'd not try and approach that, though. Most models can be done in under 2000 or 3000 polies.

[Peasant Fool]

Alright, now when you say 1000 polygons per object, does that mean head, arm, shoe, leg... ? And I wanted to merge all of them together into one object (meaning that if I clicked anywhere on the model, it would all be highlighted, whereas now if I click a specific body part it highlights only that). So then if I made them all one object, the poly-count would be lower, but also it would still excede 1000.

EDIT: I just made the arms 192 polygons smaller each! That saves a little bit of space. Each arm just went from 240 to 48 polygons. The sleeves of the shirt just got 60 polygons smaller each. Everything else has to be remade to be adjusted. For those two things, I just hit enter on them and changed their settings.

[Inyri Forge]

Even if you merge everything into one object, you will eventually need to separate it into the sections all Jedi Academy models are separated into: head, torso, hips, r_arm, r_leg, r_hand, l_arm, l_hand, l_leg, etc. Those will all be separate objects.

[Peasant Fool]

Alright well that's good because the torso is 394 polygons, both legs including the shorts put together equal 950, and each arm is 659. It's bad because the entire head is 909. I bet if I merged the hair into the "skull" then it wouldn't be as many. Although it will have to get higher becaues I haven't even made a lower jaw yet, all he has is his Simpsons-style upper lip.

Speaking of merging, does anybody know how to merge seperate polygon meshes into each other using XSI?

[Peasant Fool]

(If I could edit my message, I would, but sorry, here's my double post.)

I've now got the head down to 849 polygons. About 20 minutes ago, it was over 1300, but I kept editing my messages, so that's why you don't see it.

The overall count of polygons is 3512, whereas before it was 4,630 I think.


NO MORE TALK OF POLYGON COUNTS PLEASE


Now that I've made the polygon count low enough, can somebody help me with the following things?

1. Is there anything I can do about Comic Book Guy's arms moving through his torso during animations?

2. How do I merge seperate polygon meshes into each other using the XSI Mod Tool (it is probably the same in a full version of XSI)?