How can I boolean in Maya without massively ramping up my poly count

watkinsCreatives

I'm kinda lost here. I'm trying to boolean this hex slot into this knife handle, but I need to keep the poly count down because this is going to be the game-version (not for an actual pipeline, this is a school project). I have the poly count pretty much where I want it for the handle, but when I try to boolean in the hex slots it applies like an add divisions or smooth to the entire model and nearly tripples the geometry. I've seen plenty of people boolean without ramping up their models like this, but I have no clue where I'm going wrong. I wanted it to only add the necessary geometry and not subdivide my whole model.

Eric Chadwick

Boolean is usually way overkill for an in game asset. Better method is to model it straight. See the sticky thread up above for tips and methods: 

 How The F*#% Do I Model This? - Reply for help with specific shapes - (Post attempt before asking)

sprunghunt

Booleans work best on simple geometry. It looks like the model has been subdivided before the Boolean operation. It's better to keep the geometry as simple as possible while getting the basic shapes right. 

Also - you can see a smoothed mesh in maya by pressing '3' - then you don't need to subdivide the mesh until you want to export to another program.