I'll throw a comment in here too that if your art director wants a bunch of light bulbs in the players face ... they're going to have to accept some polygons. :)
Might want to try and get it working on a simple polygon plane and sphere or somthing simple first. Do it in a new scene. It will help rule out some of the variables.
Something that did a halfway decent job of auto UV mapping. Something that did a halfway decent job of polygonal reduction to take the pain out of making LOD's.
Can't open a Max2010 file, but I'll take a wild guess here...delete the polygons at the symmetry plane...edit Poly doesn't allow for Non-Manifold Geometry...
Why not re-release the original two? Because SCEA would appreciate it if all PSP titles used polygons to appear like they couldn't be done on the DS or GBA?
Thanks for everyone's help. It really helps. I was wondering, how come the lines looks so curvy and smooth in your model? Is it a Nurbs model instead of polygon?