KEEP MESH CLEAN!! that is one of the most important rule that even the best modellers dont do.
Mesh clean up consists of making sure all ur edge loops flow nicely EXAMPLE: ___ yes __/ no.
Also make sure u delete unneccessary faces/polys like ones inside the model that u will never see.
keep the geometry consistent dont use quads in one part and tris in another do one or the other.
Delete stray vertices, stray verts r vertices with no edges intersecting, they cause alot of problems.
And one more thing try not to model something and then just combine it to another model, for example if u model a mech arm and u want to have some stuff popping out for detailing it, just extrude faces from the mesh of the arm DONT model the details on another model then combine it to the arm. it makes the mesh look bad and may cause texturing, rigging or animating problems.
so ya just think about the pipline in the production. Just b/c u model something and u know it in and out doesnt mean the next person that has to do work on it does, like the texture artist, the rigger, and the animator. That's why it is important that mesh be kept clean. Hope u learnt something.
