Model Optimization - Game Character Development with Maya - page 316

Note
Remember to undo (Z/Cmd+Z) the triangulation before you proceed.
Hand Optimization
Kila's hands at this point do house a lot of detail, so reducing them by 151 polygons each
should not significantly reduce their quality. We should be able to have all five fingers ar-
ticulated, without having to resort to a mitten hand or one with frozen fingers.
So what's available for optimization? We can start by removing the fingernails. Here we
have to remember that when working on the fingers, if we alter one we must do the same
on the other four. They all have to match or they will look odd.
1. On all the fingernails and the thumbnail, snap the inner vertices of the nails to the
outer ones and weld them, as demonstrated in the before-and-after shots in Figure
5.54 .
FIGURE 5.54 Start by removing the fingernails.