Is it possible to subdivide a surface without increasing the number of visible polygons? If I have a low poly animal and want to put some kind of a pattern on it, can I subdivide the mesh without making the subdivisions visible?
I've tried using different subdivision modifiers but it just turns into a high-poly mesh. I figured out I could use the knife tool but it would take way too long to manually subdivide every single polygon.

So the question is, is there something like an automatic knife tool that doesn't make the cuts visible? And if not, is it even possible to subdivide a low-poly mesh and still keep it low-poly or at least low-poly looking?
it is possilble with the usual subdivision surface modifier, you just have to change it from „catmull clark“ to „simple“ then it is not going to be smoother but the resolution of the model is going to rise in a way that it stays in his original shape.