Heyall, had a fairly dumb question, say if you would to make models and texture for a fighting game, think Tekken. Would it be logical to say that you could pump a whole lotta more polys into those textures and environments since the game area is so small ? And if so, about how much would we be talking then ? Thanks allot in advance

well, im no professional, but from what i DO know...
it depends on the engine of course first of all. if you are going into nintendo or playstation, or X-Box, then they would contact you and tell you what there systems can handle.

but as a general starting out rule... in fighting games its just the two characters so yea, you can get away with making them fairly high poly nowadays. id say you may get away with 5000 per character as a middle ball park number. probably higher as technolagy is greatly improving for the next generation of games.
as for backgrounds, you should always just use the bare minimum. the background is not the "first read" for the players, and in general the textures are all that matters anyway. theres alot of tricks you can get away with texturing things instead of actualy building them.

i duno if that helped or not, good luck!

Hey thanks allot for the answer, that was what Im looking for. Becasue I wanted to make the models very detailed and not that the texture made the model, but the model that makes the model. I only want my character textures to accentuate the model here and there, I dont want it to be a blocky shape with a terrific texture on it.

thanks for you help and input dude...