Quote: "Here is the properties for the pitchfork, it doesn't say the poly-count, just faces which isn't the same apparently."
That is an insanely high count, a face is essentially 2 poly's together creating a 4 sided "face". In general that is. With a face count over 3000, thats a rough poly count of over 6000. A model like that should be 500 at most. 300 would be better. 200 would be nice. Just my $0.02. You should practice just using the base poly modeling tools, and stay away from the mesh smooth modifer. Edit mesh, select face, extrude, move it around, repeat and sculpt your model. Using a mesh smooth modifier on a low poly game model is a huge no-no. I'll see if I can dig up some of my old low-poly modeling tutorials and post them.
You're on the right track, just always keep in mind the poly count should be as low as you can make it, while keeping nice detail. Thats the trick of low poly modeling. Fewer poly's, more detail.
Also, under the last panel in max (can't remember the name, think its the utility panel) you will find a poly count tool, that will tell you the currently selected objects poly count, and the scene poly count.
Cheers.
