Quote: "I don't triangulate until I've finished the model and exported. It's such a hassle to have them triangulated if your not finished with the actual model. There is no reason to have them triangulated within your main file unless you imported them from a 3ds/x/(other formats that force triangulate objects) format."
I almost always model with triangles. I am no expert, but through experience, I have found that it gives me more control with shading, smoothing groups, mesh curves(for silhouettes) and the such. I mean, a quad is just two triangles together, with a hidden seam. If a 1x1 plain is laying on the ground, and you drag a vert up, it's going to make a horrible seam down the middle of the plain, which will affect the silhouette and give it some bad shading. Why not be prepared and see where those hidden seems are before you start manipulating the mesh?
(sorry for the quality... it's just a quick paintbrush copy/paste .jpg)
I especially prefer triangles when I am working on a non-organic model and am trying to conserve polys. And even when I am modeling with organic things, I still use triangles on certain spots. Especially in areas where an arm might bend, or the inside of the knees. I would rather not have a quad collapse when I rig it and animate it.
I'm not saying whether they are stolen are not, (I tend to give the benefit of the doubt, anyway) but I will say that I see extra polygons throughout the models that could have been deleted to save on poly count that I don't think would have come from a AAA game where normals could have given the same effect.
My green thumb grew the tree my Trojan War horse was crafted from. With roses in our pockets we rally round the tombstones. Ashes to ashes, we all fall down.
