Jakojako777
I drew the Su30 from scratch. I used quad patch to model the main body. sliders were used for the control surfaces.I made the mistake by using a shell modifier and had to delete many polygons on the inside.
I do not know if the Quad patch was the right way to go.
Thanks for your help
I did some animation using this model and it looks good.
the poly count including weapons is 119,580
I'll give you here few tips for future (it is up to you if you going to use them of course)
........"using a shell modifier"....
1)It's not problem to apply some tool(modifier) as long as you don't collapse stack(I could see 3DS MAX on snapshot so it's stack) so you can easily go on any previous stage of your work
2) BEFORE you collapse the stack or do some irreversible change to your model ALWAYS save it as SEPARATE file first !
3)If you don't know how to model high precision models without using splines than use patches (but as you've noticed there is problem of CONTROL of resolution the way one wants)Solution for people who work with patches is once model is finished (in resolution closest to one wanted) they must COLLAPSE stack and convert it into poly and only than manually reduce resolution(there is no way I can explain everything be cause every situation require different resolution so you ill must do some test by reducing resolution on different levels and then do test rendering to see which option is the best for you)
There is no magic formula in few words! (that formula comes only with knowledge and
experience but can't be explained in few words!)
CONCLUSION
Reduce resolution manually on converted poly and than do test rendering - that is the only way to do it on your own (also see wire of models of some professionals that will guide you in write direction (resolution-wise))
Photo realism model with close up rendering has
huge difference in resolution to plane modeled for games for example(don't forget that)
Save SEPARATE files for each irreversible changes!
That's all, good luck!