thankx for the heads up Jay. ill try and find some refs for that area.

as for N-gons, since im not going to do any displacement mapping, n-gons are really not an issue.
i try to keep them less than 6 sides and in areas that will not collapse on themselves when deformed, or i have them where i would need a bias in the weights [ when skinning] where they do need to collapse on themselves [ a la steven stalghberg :p ].
thanx for comments.
and the gun is the pulse rifle from aliens.