"Secrets of Figure Creation with Poser 5" has been mentioned before in this thread. http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Figure-Creation-Poser-5/dp/0240519299/sr=8-1/qid=1168909770/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-7311033-8714536?ie=UTF8&s=books It has several short but good comments on designing a mesh for use in Poser. These days, with more and more people migrating to Poser 6 and above, the advice about edges is starting to change. Poser 6, for instance, allows you to set the smoothing angle on a per-object basis. Basically, with Poser 6 or 7 you don't have to worry about the edges any more. However, a small bevel/chamfer still makes a nicer-looking edge; it looks more natural, it takes light better -- and it will work properly in Poser 5 or below. Firefly goes beyond smoothing on certain objects; on long thin cylinders it tends to create the "Goodyear Blimp" effect. Smoothing angle won't fix this. Turning off smoothing will, but at the expense of making all your curved surfaces look faceted. Running up the render quality to the highest settings also sometimes fixes it. The best all-around strategy is, unfortunately, to not be an efficient modeler. Instead of cylinders that are one or two polys long in the extruded direction, go with a lot more; trying to never create a cylinder that is more than 10:1 length to diameter. More general advice: For inorganic objects, keep the total polygon count down as low as is reasonable. Especially for mechanical props, you may end up duplicating something like a bolt head or a toggle switch dozens of times -- and a hundred extra polys per bolt can add up quick. That said, SPEND polys on curved surfaces, especially if they are going to be able to cast a shadow or sit in front of another object. Smoothing does pretty well for surfaces but it doesn't always do well for edges. Use a regular polygon scheme so you don't have too many large, oddly shaped ones. Avoid "star points" -- where dozens of lines all merge at one vertex. These can render odd. And of course watch out for n-gons, detached edges, reversed normals, and all of that. Think ahead and you can do a lot towards duplicating smaller objects to build up larger. Think ahead, too, towards materials and UV mapping. UV map and assign materials BEFORE you duplicate things! It is much too much work to so the same dozen steps on each and every one of a dozen duplicates. For organic modeling, plan for movement and morphing. Use quads and look for edge loops; this is where you can trace a line or a row of polygons all the way around an object. Edge loops are good. Put lots of them at joints, around mouths and eyes, and other places where you will be wanting movement. And I've got no more time. Work is calling. Have fun!