1. When I'm working with models and need to join them together into one is it better to just Combine and leave them be as one or is it better to bring them in close to one another, Combine, and then vertice stitch them together?? When I vertice stitch things it often means I need to add more split edges and basically geometry to one piece or the other and I'm trying to keep my polycount as low as possible, clean.

2. I'm looking for some Lighting guide to show off my models, however meager they are. Can some one help me out? My lighted models look horrible compared to those I see on this site and I want to change that.

Thank you very much.