I'd just keep it all one piece. If you want to lower poly-count you might wanna use less divisions on the cylinders. If you plan to use the proxy subdivision or smooth it later it will add divisions anyway.
I don't know how to optimize it for game engines, but for now.. I'd just focus on one thing: the visual appeal of the model instead of limitations of game engines.. there's A LOT to learn in just hard surface modelling itself. I imagine other areas of 3D are also quite vast.
I actually got to learn how to sculpt in one single peace. I just don't know how to build a cylinder out of the top bridge piece for example.
Regarding the game engine: I don't want it to be playable. As stated in my first post, I just want to recreate a scene from my beloved FF8. The endgoal is to make that one isolated room with as good as possible looking interior, rendered in realtime in cryengine 3 free sdk.
Last edited by Hermi1988; 20-03-2012 at 09:43 PM.