Since searching for a 3 letter word is sort of nuts, I want to ask, what are your guys' preferred methods for creating LODs for your models? Do you just manually remove things and save it as a new model? or do you let XSI reduce the polygons for you?

I've got a couple of models I'd like to make LODs for, and I'm not sure what the best route is.

Personally speaking, it depends on the model.

Most often I used 3DS Max's built in Multi-Res modifier which nicely does the job. You can lock specific vertices from being collapsed if their in critical areas (such as a face) and then spin the ploycount down until you get where you want. Only issue sometimes is you have sometimes tweak smoothing groups for the LOD afterwards but its usually only minor.

Occasionally a model can be a bit tricky so often I'll do a basic LOD with Multi-Res and then maybe tweak it by hand some more. The PAK40 model I made is a good example - the wheels have a lot of polys in and so after LOD 4, I simply replace the hubs with just flat polygon with the wheel texture on it instead. That I had to do by hand.