Hi keith, just one additional comment on this one:

> 2. If I made a model with a lovely render with moi + Simlab and put the OBJ on Renderosity.
> Do you think people would curse me for wasting their time because the model was not made
> in a subd or polygon modeling program?

Like Chipp said, I don't think so but it might be a good idea to include a shot of the wireframe as well just to make it clearer.

You also wouldn't want to claim that the model was something like "ready to animate", when someone is trying to use the model for an animation for something other than rigid body motion, like if they want it to walk around with flexing limbs and stuff like that, that's when a sub-d created model is helpful.

Other than that particular kind of flexing animation you would not want to be so worried so much about a low polygon count like you seem to be, for a static render you would actually want a higher polygon so it looks smooth. A low polygon count is usually only specifically desirable for a sub-d type model, especially one that will be animated, or for models that will be used in real-time game engines. For models that will be used in rendering you should not be so worried about it.

Also some rendering programs can have difficulty dealing with n-gons so for widest compatibility you'd probably want to export with "Output: Quads & Triangles" rather than "Output: N-gons", or maybe include both types.

- Michael