Ok then, i am not sure if this is in the right section and if it isnt please move it. Anyway well im making my first mod for oblivion, basically its going to be a weapon mod.

I have never actually made anything like a weapon before in max or anything for a game. So this is new to me and i know it needs to be low poly but after making it (what i think was) low poly i have just realised the poly count is about 600. Now that seems far too low for oblivion and i cant see where i can put more in as it looks smooth so far and cant see any details i can put in.

Here are some pics of it, (i have just deleted the hand guard or whatever it is called)
Can anyone tell me the average poly count for a sword in obivion, and what details could be put on instead of a texture.
http://img709.imageshack.us/i/katanad.jpg/
http://img69.imageshack.us/i/katanawire.jpg/

Thanks

There is no 'too low'. There is only 'too high' and even that is a matter of personal preference. I think an average Oblivion sword has about 2000 triangles. Some have up to ~4000 IIRC. If you look at some mods you will see that people will go much higher than that (just downloaded the Dread Knight armor, the weapons have 20000+ triangles, but you can see why at least). A good mesh is worth nothing if you have a bad UV map, bad texture and bad normal map. And that is were most people fail at in my opinion. Try to get these three things right and your mesh will look really nice. No need to add unnecessary details only to get the poly count a bit higher. If that is how you want the sword to look, then why add more geometry?

Thanks, i am firstly going to add a few small details on and do the guard. The major part of this really is the UV map, texture and normal map. I have attempted textures before but never turned out great. So i am going to spend a lot of time just perfecting each of them.

When i do high poly models i have to put all the little details on for example a missile launcher i made had a total of 1.2M polys. But this is because i modelled the screws and bolts but in the end worth it. Only problem is that when i get round to do the animation its going to take me months just to render a 30 second animation . Also all the detail is necessary on the model i didnt go too overboard on it.