Rahkis Andel

It depends. My understanding is that overall there is more potential for mesh to be optimized, but it isn't intrinsically going to mean lower land impact. Particularly with mesh not being as stable and mature as other methods. I have to wonder if the scale of what you want will be a factor. Sorry, the wasn't a helpful answer. I'm curious too.

Blender does have that capability (In the most recent version). That said, I think we're both on the same page here. You said it best. The answer is simple: No.

That said, he wanted "easy". Reducing polycount and adjusting weights is not easy if you don't already know how to do it...or even if you do know how to do it, for that matter.

Did you ensure you don't have any doubles? It doesn't look like you do, but it's worth a try. Select all verts and (w -> remove doubles).

No. Asides from the liscensing nightmare what you want would cause, the Poser models are not optimized for a real time online simulated environment. Honestly, they aren't optimized for anything at all. Sorry to dash your hopes.

I know you're done messing with this, but when you said "I cannot add edge loops any longer", that sent up a red flag for me. That doesn't just happen for no reason. If you can't add an edge loop, you have some disconnect in the continuity of your topology such as an n-gon. I know I'm going into TL;DR territory, but I actually might be able to tell you exactly what was wrong without even seeing the .blend file -- You said you used dissolve, right? Well, if you use any of the newer commands that cause n-gons (such as dissolve, or filling a face across more than 4 vertices) and then you use old vertex connect techniques such as selecting two verts and pressing f to fill the edge, you will wind up with an n-gon with a non-manifold edge floating on top of it. That would easily account for this, as there is no reliable way to know how any n-gon will triangulate upon usage in a game engine. The single edge wouldn't appear at all since vertices and edges have no real thickness. I've done this more times than I'd like to admit -- try to get used to filling large gaps with ngons and using the knife tool (k) and vertex junction (j) to add in more edges. PS: The camera didn't look right with all that shine anyway. This clearly happened for a reason. Hehe.

That was my position about a year ago. I don't regret the decision to get serious about learning properly. A bit of advice: blenderatists.org and cgcookie.com/blender are your best friends. Watch all the tutorials you can and ask for help immediately on blenderartists if you get stuck. I made the mistake of trying to figure things out myself too often and could have saved myself a lot of trouble. Once you're ready to try 3ds Max, cgcookie.com/max will be your best friend too. I wish you the best of luck.

I usually agree with chosen, and I certainly agree with his or her sentiment, but for your circumstance, based on how you worded your question. I would never in a million years recommend expensive industry standard software to someone who just wanted to give modelling a try. Blender by a country mile.

I have nothing useful to add to this thread, except to say thank you for going through the trouble. I just find it funny that not two days ago was I wondering if Second life did any optimization via instancing and then as if you had read my mind...

No, you don't need blender. You can use any image editing software to texture it. Just use the maps they supply as a base and use layers to overlay a new texture over the top of it. If you've ever added a texture to anything, I don't think the process is any different.

It's likely that you already know this (otherwise you've been suffering greatly), but play with the weld/align options. Press the "w" hotkey to get to those; Straighten will flatten out a selected edge by averaging the selected vertices (as far as I can tell), align will flatten your selection out by snapping it to the grid on the axis you choose(which sounds like what you want). Now we just need the "unwrap perfectly and actually mark our seams for us too while you're at it" button. Edit: Well, looks like I took too long to type that out.

Follow these steps and see if you get a better result: Open a default scene. Select the default cube if it isn't already selected and Tab into Edit Mode. Scale the cube down to 25cm Add an array modifier In the array modifier's properties, set the fit type to "Fit Curve" and leave the curve target blank for now. Add a curve nurbs path to your scene. Size it down until it is just a little longer than your cube. Tab into edit mode and remove all but the 2 end points if you want. Select the cube again, and in the array modifier's properties set the curve target to the nurbs path you just created. Change the relative offset in the x axis to something reasonable to you. Play around with the control points of your curve, noting that it now adds new iterations of your cube as you make the nurbs path longer. Add a curve modifier to your cube and set the target to your nurbs path as well. You shouldn't need to change anything else. Extrude, subdivide and shape your nurbs path as you like to get your necklace shape. Note that you want to fine-tune the control points so they don't fall within one of the cubes, or else the cube on that point will become distorted. You can adjust the bevel depth and resolution of your curve if you want to give it physical shape. I am assuming you already know how that works. I think Chosen's explaination was basically correct, though I'm no expert. You were probably performing your scale operations in Object mode instead of edit mode. That does not actually apply real transformations to the object's mesh data. That can be problematic down the line if you never apply your transformations -- particularly when you are using modifiers to do work for you. Let me know if those steps work for you or if you need clarification.

I do not use Maya, so I don't know what copy skin weights does, but it stands to reason that the weight information from one object cannot simply be applied to another when their vertex data is completely different. Unfortunately what you are trying to accomplish has no easy button, as Chosen already made abundantly clear. With that out of the way, you have a much larger problem on your hands. You're approaching mesh modeling as if you were building an object in Second life the old way; the point of using mesh is to not cram 200 objects together to make something that could have been represented just as easily with one simple object. Don't get me wrong. Your ninja uniform is fine -- great even...But it's not a game-ready model. You need to retopologize what you have into something that more closely matches the poly-distribution of the body wearing it. For that matter, you don't need that body under the uniform. You could cut that out entirely and save a great deal of polys (that would solve your clipping issues). If you don't know how to retopo, look up a tutorial on youtube. I'm sure there are hundreds -- If you used Blender, I could be more direct. Good luck.