In the early days of 3D games, the number of polygons was a much more critical issue than today, even in such delicate domains as mobile devices. The calculation power of hardware was pretty limited. This means that game developers had to adjust the overall number of polygons in a scene to a specific minimum level. Each game object should have the lowest number of geometric faces for the game to run smooth and fast. For example, a character in the original Quake from id Software, published in 1996, was constructed using 200 polygons (many modern games spend more than ten thousand tris). Game designers always tried to make games as realistic as possible because the craft of 3D modeling was based on two opposite points: an economy of polygons and an ambition to make the 3D model look fine.
To find the correct balance, various tricks in 3D modeling and texture design were used.
Nowadays, this intention has successfully transformed into a form of art. The past...