If you have a character who is made up of separate pieces, is it more economic (memory wise) to keep the pieces as separate objects each with their own skin modifier, or to just merge them all into one object as elements and have only one skin modifier?  I’m currently skinning a character for a group project, and I have each piece as a separate object, and I’m only adding the bones that object specifically uses to it’s skin modifier, and while it’s too late to go back and change it I was just wondering for future rigs I work on.  Thank you in advance for anyone who knows.

Well, from my very limited knowledge of 3Ds, I would assume that the few vertices you have the more efficient the skinning will be. If you have multiple objects the inside faces may decrease that efficiency.

Unless of course there is a specific reason you need to have all the objects broken up into separate objects.

But again, I don’t know for sure

hi,

in my opinion its simmilar to the previous answer.
overall more geometry doesnt only mean to have more objects (and object count is often a bottle neck in 3ds max) but it means more verteces as well.
I don’t see any need of separating objects - you can simply do the same with all geometry objects attached to one object having multiple elements within it.

have fun
masse