Hello,

First I'd like to know if there's a (preferably simple) way to know the poly counts of what I'm downloading on other sites, as MTS is the only one so far where I've systematically seen the polygon counts for new meshes.

Then I'd also like to know the poly count limits in the Sims 3. Are they the same as in the Sims 2 ?

And finally, could someone explain to me the meaning of the multiple poly counts labelled "lod 1, lod 2, etc..." on some of the objects here. Like in this post by joninmobile for example.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide...

Last edited by Nan : 17th Mar 2010 at 04:56 AM.

If a site doesn't list it, ask them to. They should know their poly counts and if they're not routinely listing them, there very well might be something wrong with their counts. In order to see the count yourself you'd have to open the file in S3PE, export the meshes, and import them into something that'll tell you the poly count, like Milkshape. I don't think S3PE shows poly counts at all.

Poly counts for TS3 are sort of... roughly doubled-ish, from TS2. So where a hair mesh for TS2 would be pushing toward the high side at 3000, that's perfectly acceptable for TS3 and it wouldn't be crazy to see one at 6000. But even so, simple things like a painting mesh with no real detail to the frame should still be super low poly (less than 50), and stuff should be done as low poly as possible. I'd look REAL careful at anything that's over, say, 1000-1500 polygons per tile, and decide whether I was willing to put so many polys in my game (based on how often it'd be used and how much I like it - a really pretty decorative statue that you'd use once, sure, that can be a bit higher - a generic dining room chair that you'll use many times, not so much).

LODs are Level of Detail. You see the highest polygon count when you're zoomed all the way in. As you zoom out or your sims move further away from you, you see less polygons - other LODs, as the game switches to a lower detail mesh since you don't need all that detail for a speck on the horizon. When worrying about poly count you usually just want to focus on the highest one (though it's possible to run into a situation of someone not bothering to change the LODs at all and just using the highest polys for all of them).

I hope this de-confuses ya a little bit.

Thank you for your quick and complete answer HP, and yes, it definitely de-confused me.
Regarding the rather complicated manipulations to get the poly count myself with Milkshape, I thing I will save it for objects I really really want. And I know I could try and ask the creators, but I have no illusions : I'm pretty sure that if they'd feel in the least concerned by this matter, they would put the poly counts on their pages. Some of them might not even know such a thing exists.
Anyway. Case solved...