I next set about sliming down the polygon count on the basic Autiton model because the Autiton would be instanced 1.5 million times so the fewer polygons the better. Because the camera would be moving quickly and each Autiton would be rather small I wouldn’t need nearly as much detail as the original Autiton model and could use a far simpler version so I loaded the original Autiton model into LightWave Modeler and started simplifying and optimizing the geometry. The primary method I used was to dissolve edge loops that had been used to add edge detail and smooth curvatures. I then deleted any stray points that were left and welded extra points to maintain all quads. I was able to bring the polygon count of the model from 22,322 down to 2,716 reducing it by almost 90%. That should do the trick.

I reduced the polygon count on the Autiton model by almost 90%