I'm working on a locomotive model in Carrara and I'm running into some high poly counts. If I need lots of polys for better model fidelity then so be it. The magenta area, the left side of the locomotive frame, on the attached render represents about 6000 polys. Then its duplicated on the right side. I did some extensive rework to get the count down from 8100, picking up some good modeling habits along the way.

The number of tris and n-gons is minimal, I don't necessarily plan on exporting the model for use in another program, but I'd rather have that option, so I'm trying to use safe modeling methods. The drivers (spoked wheels) and counterweights and frame extensions bolted to the back of the frame probably add another 20,000 polys (at least, just guessing). And it's just going to get bigger.

Is this a high count for Carrara? The program seems to handle it so far with no problem. I imagine shading and lighting will affect render time to a greater degree than poly count. Is that a fair assumption? What would be considered the high end, or too many polys? I know a lot depends on the computer.

Thanks