[gyp5sy]

In the interests of not having to go back and redo anything, I have a couple of basic questions regarding modeling that might seem pretty newbish, but I hope you'll forgive me. 

When adding detail (greebling), or faced with a problematic joining of two objects, is it better to leave the objects separate with less total polies, or to go ahead and try to make one object per detail level with more polies?

Also, must every object be an enclosed 3-d affair, or can you have gaps and openings?  I guess what I'm asking is if you can use a plane or if you must make a plane a very, very thin box.

[Water]

When adding detail (greebling), or faced with a problematic joining of two objects, is it better to leave the objects separate with less total polies, or to go ahead and try to make one object per detail level with more polies?

Either is usable - Although boolian ops done badly can cause conversion errors.

Also, must every object be an enclosed 3-d affair, or can you have gaps and openings?  I guess what I'm asking is if you can use a plane or if you must make a plane a very, very thin box.

It's ok to delete every poly that you can't see.

[gyp5sy]

When adding detail (greebling), or faced with a problematic joining of two objects, is it better to leave the objects separate with less total polies, or to go ahead and try to make one object per detail level with more polies?

Either is usable - Although boolian ops done badly can cause conversion errors.

Also, must every object be an enclosed 3-d affair, or can you have gaps and openings?  I guess what I'm asking is if you can use a plane or if you must make a plane a very, very thin box.

It's ok to delete every poly that you can't see.

Thanks for the reply.

As for number one, I rarely use booleans, as I get really tired of cleaning up after them.  I was mostly concerned about excessive subobjects versus excessive polies.

I'm not worried about the polies I can't see, but rather if an object needs be be an enclosed thing or else give errors on converson.... I guess not, though.  (see cockpit glass)

[Water]

I was mostly concerned about excessive subobjects versus excessive polies.

but rather if an object needs be be an enclosed thing or else give errors on converson.... I guess not, though.  (see cockpit glass)

Well deleting faces is the same as putting holes in the mesh (not closed), so planes are fine.
Excessive named subobjects (in a pof) can be bad, but multiple meshes merged into one subobject are ok.

[Roanoke]

You're right to avoid using booleans on 3d objects. If it's unavoidable you can limit any damage by enclousing the area with edges (in Max terminology use the cut tool to draw edges around the area to be boolean'd, then remove them as you clean up any surface errors).

Booleans are great for adjusting 2d shapes incidentally.