Reduce polygons

What it does

It removes triangles from every mesh in your file while protecting the shape you can actually see — the budget is spent where the surface changes, so the silhouette survives long after the triangle count stops being impressive.

It is not only the geometry that is protected: the texture layout and the shading are weighed too. That is the difference between a model that just has fewer triangles and one whose texture still lines up afterwards.

What survives

UVs, textures, materials, vertex colours and skin weights all come through — anything attached to a vertex is carried with it. A rigged character still animates. A textured prop still looks like itself.

Open surfaces — capes, leaves, flat planes — keep their outline by default, because eroding a border is the one kind of damage a viewer notices immediately. Turn that off if you want the last few percent.

Four ways to set the target

A percentage slider when you know the fraction; device presets when you think in budgets — background prop, held prop, mobile or desktop character, web product viewer; an exact triangle count when a pipeline demands one; and Smart optimization, which measures the surface and picks the lowest count that stays within a deviation limit — Quality holds 0.2% of the model size, Aggressive allows 0.5% for the smallest possible file.

Every run ends with before and after renders and a deviation heat map, so you can judge what moved before you download anything. Small parts — eyes, buttons, trims — keep a minimum triangle floor instead of vanishing into a global ratio.

How far can you push it

AI generators (Meshy, Tripo, Rodin) are the extreme case: they routinely ship a hero-quality mesh for a prop, with hundreds of thousands of triangles describing a shape a few thousand would cover. Those models frequently survive 10–20% with nothing visible lost.

Hand-modelled game assets are already close to their budget, and 50–70% is a more realistic floor. Start at 50%, look at the result, and go lower — the tool is free and instant, so there is no reason to guess.

How many triangles a real-time model actually needs

Most people arrive here with a target in mind rather than a percentage, so here are the rules of thumb the percentage has to land on. A background prop that is never approached: 200–1,500 triangles. A prop the player picks up and holds near the camera: 1,500–8,000. A character on mobile or a standalone headset: 5,000–15,000. A character in a desktop game: 20,000–60,000. A hero character in a cinematic: 60,000 and up.

A text-to-3D generator will hand you 200,000–500,000 triangles regardless of which of those you asked for. That is the gap this page exists to close, and it is why the useful setting for a generated asset is usually between 3% and 15% — not the 50% that feels safe.

If your target platform publishes a hard limit — a headset performance rank, a mobile submission budget, an avatar uploader — take the published number as the ceiling and aim below it, because the triangle count is only one of several budgets that limit will also be checking.

One pass, not five

Reducing to 50%, looking at it, then reducing that result to 50% again is the intuitive way to sneak up on a target. It is also the worse way. Each pass works from the mesh it was handed, not from your original — so the second pass is already working on an approximation, and the losses compound. The silhouette erodes in a way a single 25% pass would not have caused.

Decide the number you actually want and go there in one move. If it is too aggressive, come back to the original file and pick a different number — not to the output you just made.

How to use it

1. Drop your .glb, .gltf or .fbx into the box above.
2. Pick how many triangles to keep. 50% is a safe first try; AI-generated models usually take far less.
3. Press Reduce polygons. Everything runs in this tab — the file is never uploaded.
4. Check the triangle count and file size, then download the GLB.

Questions

Is my model uploaded to a server?

No. It all runs in your browser tab. The file never leaves your machine, which is also why it works offline once the page has loaded.

Will it break my rig or my textures?

No. Skin weights, bones and UVs are carried through, so a rigged, textured model comes out rigged and textured. By default the texture files pass through byte-identical; the optional advanced RigBake optimization chain (free account, longer processing, discrete GPU recommended) rebuilds them as part of its pipeline.

Why is my output a GLB when I uploaded an FBX?

GLB is the format that carries geometry, materials, textures and animation in a single file, and every engine reads it. FBX export is not supported yet.

How is this different from Blender’s Decimate modifier?

The results are comparable. The difference is that this takes ten seconds, needs no install, and does not ask you to learn Blender first.

How do I reduce the triangle count without losing the silhouette?

Use a reducer that protects the shape rather than one that thins triangles uniformly, and let it keep the boundaries of open surfaces. The triangle budget should be spent where the shape actually changes — flat regions go first, curvature and outline survive. That is what this page does, with boundary preservation on by default.

My model came from a text prompt and is too heavy for real-time use. How far can I cut it?

Much further than feels safe. Text-to-3D output from Meshy, Tripo, Rodin, Luma or Sloyd is uniformly dense — the generator has no idea which parts of the shape matter, so it spends triangles evenly. Keeping 3–15% of the original count is normal for a prop and usually shows no visible difference, because the detail you care about is in the texture, not the mesh. Drop the file in, try 10%, and compare.

Is it better to reduce in one pass or several smaller ones?

One pass. Each run measures error against the mesh it was given, so decimating an already-decimated model compounds the approximation and erodes the silhouette faster than going to the same target directly. If a result is too aggressive, go back to the original file and pick a different number rather than re-reducing the output.

Do the textures still line up after the triangle count drops?

Yes. The texture layout is protected alongside the geometry, so reductions that would smear the texture are avoided even where they would be cheap. By default the image files are untouched and come out byte-identical; the optional optimization chain instead rebuilds the maps to fit the reduced surface.

Does reducing polygons make the file smaller?

Less than you would expect, and it is rarely the right lever for it. In a typical GLB the textures are most of the bytes; where the mesh genuinely is the weight — common on generated models — it can be packed 3–4× smaller with every triangle intact, which beats any decimation you would be willing to look at. Decimation buys frame rate. For download size, use Compress GLB, which does both and can work down to a file size you name.

The other tools

• Batch processing — Run any Rig Bake tool over a whole folder of models and get one zip back.
• Quad remesh — Rebuild any mesh as clean quads with real edge flow, in your browser — with the UVs and textures rebuilt onto the new surface too. Reads GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, STL, PLY, VOX and VRM, with no file size limit.
• Bake a normal map — Bake high-poly detail into a normal map (and ambient occlusion) for a light version of the model — the xNormal workflow, in your browser. Drop one heavy model, or add your own low-poly and the maps bake onto its UVs. No upload, no account, no file size limit.
• Compress GLB — Name the file size you need and get it. Drop a GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, STL, PLY, VOX or VRM — or a zipped model folder — and the page works down a list: dead weight first, then the mesh bytes, then the textures, and only then the triangles. In your browser, no file size limit.
• FBX to GLB — Convert an FBX — Mixamo, Blender, an AI generator — into a GLB, with the centimetre scale fixed on the way through. Any size, in your browser, nothing uploaded.
• Check a 3D model for problems — The Model doctor: find what is wrong with a model before it wastes your afternoon — wrong scale, broken bind pose, inverted normals, overlapping UVs, holes. Reads GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, STL, PLY, VOX and VRM, any size, in your browser.
• Repair a 3D model — Weld split vertices, drop degenerate faces and stray islands, fill holes, flip inverted normals. GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, STL, PLY, VOX or VRM — any size, in your browser, nothing uploaded.
• Pixel art from 3D — Drop an animated model, get a pixel-art spritesheet. The palette, the dither and the direction set are already chosen — fine-tuning lives in the editor.
• GLB to STL — Convert a 3D model to a printable STL — scaled to real millimetres, turned Z-up, and told plainly whether it is watertight. GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, PLY, VOX or VRM in, any size, in your browser.
• OBJ to GLB — Convert an .obj into a GLB that engines and browsers read. Geometry and UVs travel; OBJ has nothing else to carry. Any size, in your browser, nothing uploaded.
• GLB to USDZ — Convert a 3D model to USDZ for AR Quick Look on iPhone and iPad — textures included. Any size, in your browser, nothing uploaded.
• LOD Generator — Turn one model into a chain of LOD meshes — each level a measured step down, zipped together with per-level stats. In your browser, nothing uploaded.
• Merge Materials — Merge every mesh and material into one mesh with one atlased material — draw calls collapse to a single one. In your browser, nothing uploaded.
• Everything else Rig Bake does — rigging, retargeting, spritesheets, VFX.