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[im not a people person73]

what do you categorize as low poly (o-1000,500-600 etc.)?

how does one start a poll?

[hihosilver]

First, I'm not sure you're able to create a poll.
Secondly, that's a somewhat tricky question.  There are different low poly forms.  There's the new generation low poly which can be 9,000 polys or more, or the really low poly which would be 250-500.  It all depends on what you're making it for.

[im not a people person73]

woooooah!9,000 polys omg thats insane

[hihosilver]

well, not polies, tris.  With lowpoly models people don't count polygons, they count the triangles, as that's what's required for a game model.  So 9,000 tri's would equal 4,500 quads.  Yes, it still is a lot.  But I'm referring to next generation games, and characters for that matter which are normally the most detailed things in a game.  So it depends on what you're making, what game/system you're making the model for.  And remember, it's counted in tris.

[Dosser]

whoa! I was disappointed when my latest 'lowpoly' rapier model had 120 triangles.

I think the best example of lowpoly I've seen is Warcraft III graphics. They look amazing, and are exactly as detailed as they need to be (from your godlike 100 metres above the ground position). But when you zoom in, you can see exactly how few polys they use. I would be curious to know if anyone has managed to extract the models and check how many it is, I would say most of them are less than 100-200 polys.

So the best definition of low poly would be to use as few as you can, be willing to accept a bit of jaggedness, and to use textures to compensate. It's all relative what is and isn't lowpoly.

[hihosilver]

Remember what I'm talking about here is next generation graphics.  My computer now couldn't probably even run the games they're making these for.  That would include games like Crysis for the computer, and Xbox 360 or PS3 games.  You're right though that the best models use the lowest amount you can.  Still, you want the models to look good.  One of the major things artists look at when creating low poly models is the silhouette.  That's why you may see something like this:

This is, again, mostly for nex gen models again though, since they use normal maps now.  Normal maps are great tricks to give the models MUCH more detail than before, but the sillouettes still remain lowpoly, so artists just try to get the silhouette as good as possible with the least amount of polys.