How can I reduce the size/polycount of my file?

[comical_wenger]

Hi, I have created a building which seems to load really slowly and crash upon rendering. I have only just started with max and am lost to why its got so big. I have attached a download link if anyone has time to take a look and suggest some methods in which I can make the file a lot smaller and reduce my render time/stop it from crashing… I think my polygon count maybe quite high, and is this because I have used nurbs (if so, do i simplify the nurbs)?
thankyou so much and sorry for all the posts.
sam.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12454306/model%20adjusted.max

[kyle.sutherland]

There is a modifier you can place on an object called ProOptomizer. You can use this modifier to reduce the number of verticies on any given element. I use this very often when working with buildings simply because they typically have so many verticies and I'd say about 80% of them can be removed without distorting the element.

[loydg]

A few other things to when your file crashes on render:

1) System configuration (64X OS & Max, RAM, & processor speed/amount). Although it's still possible to hit a ceiling in a 64X environment, those should help.

2) The number of objects in the scene can break the processing. The fewer and more simple objects Max has to parse, the better and faster your file will be (sounds Yoda-ish). If you have a bunch of similar objects I would suggest attaching them together into one. Other high poly objects like trees and such should be converted to proxy objects. Also, complex modifier stacks can slow down the render train as well. Collapsing the stack down to just an edit poly will add another simplification that Max won't have to figure out at render time.

3) Large bitmaps in materials will also squeeze your hardware/softwareinto crashing. Remeber that the map only needs to be as large as it will display in the camera at 100%. For example, if your aerial is 2400 pixels wide and you camera is only showing 50% of it (at 1280x720) it should be about 1480 pixels wide.

Make sense?