Asset Creation: Maya Scenography Modeling - Creating Games with Unity and Maya - page 27

Step 23: Optimize by combining . Select all of the roof (cubes and plane)
and select Polygons>Mesh>Combine. Then select Modify>Center Pivot.
Finally name it EntryWayRoof .
Why?
In my example, I have 29 rafters and one plane for the roof. This is 30
objects (and thus at least 30 draw calls on the video card). If each of these
rafters had a material on them, we would need at least 60 draw calls just
to draw the roof. By combining the meshes into one, and assigning one
material to it, we will go from over 60 draw calls to two (well actually a bit
more than that, but it's easiest to round off at this point in the process).
From 60 to two is a significant savings.
Why?
When meshes are combined, Maya automatically puts the axis of that
new mesh at 0,0,0 in world space, which is absolutely useless when trying
to organize and place an item. By using the Center Pivot command, we
get this pivot back into a place where the manipulator handles will be in a
useful location.
Cleaning or Deleting History
Step 24: Delete history; all of it. Choose Edit>Delete All by Type>History.
Why?
Maya keeps a history of the steps taken in construction. This history is
stored in series of nodes. This history can allow for an amazing amount
of flexibility because it allows you to go back to one step in the creation
process and make a change to that node, and all the nodes downstream
of that will be calculated based upon this tweak. However, keeping
track of this history increases the size of the data set by quite a bit, and
can yield some really funky results when things are taken out of Maya
(like into Unity). So cleaning the history (by deleting it) occasionally as
you go along will help you keep a clean Outliner and avoid hidden and
unexpected items showing up in Unity.
Tips and Tricks
For even more optimizing, delete the faces on the tops of those
rafters. This pays dividends in a couple of ways. First, it cuts down on
the polycount of the roof, but second, it frees up that UV space for
textures later.