lightwave for blitz3d

hi

can anyone help
before i dive in and buy b3d,i am creating meshes for a game idea, can any one tell me about the
specs for creating meshes in lightwave,
eg:
can i use quads or triangles ?
whats a reasonable amount of polys i can use for the main character ?
how do i save out the animation ....do i save the layout Bones, key frames...does this mean b3d can load in layout stuff...?

guys i have a thousand and one questions.....but this will do for starters.....

thanks

perhaps ive worded this wrong....

what i mean is...how many polys for the main character do you guys consider enuff for b3d to handle at speed on an average machine

can b3d use meshes made of quad polys and triangle polys

i think thats what i mean ? (lol)

tris only

shi## there goes my quad mesh

cheers

You can use quads to model but realize the entire mesh will be triangulated when you export. Thus the polygon count as you work may be misleading (ie. a quad is two triangles.)

A "reasonable" polygon count for a main character varies a LOT. Among the things to consider are your target hardware specs (better computers can handle more polygons,) how many characters will be onscreen at the same time (the more characters the fewer polygons you can afford per character,) and how large characters appear onscreen (the closer characters appear the more detailed they have to be.) These days characters in first-person shooters are around 2,000 polygons; games range from just a couple hundred for characters in RTS games like "WarcraftIII" to over 10,000 polygons for characters in a one-on-one fighting game.

thanks joe

i was close i heading for sumwhere between 1 and 2k
for the main character and now only use tris to model


thanks