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Post by gibi on Oct 1, 2021 12:03:01 GMT -5
I would love to hear what people's preferences are for mods they publish and/or use, regarding things like file size, poly count, swatches, etc.
For me, I play on really low rendering settings, and even then my game was almost unplayably slow when I had both Island Living and Cottage Living installed at the same time. (I up the settings for screenshots and testing, and wow it makes my computer unhappy.) I haven't noticed any gameplay issues with individual mods, but especially since I tend to add a bunch at a time, I'm not sure if I'd know if a particular mod was causing my game to lag? But I know that there's a big range of player equipment, so I'd like to build with that in mind.
Is it possible to have a package with a reasonable file size but still add game lag because of a high swatch count or high poly mesh?
I've seen some comments around about meshes having too high a poly count, or too many swatches, and I wanted to get a feel for what people like? Can ppl reply with their personal preferences?
Thanks!
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Post by mauvemorn on Oct 2, 2021 18:41:06 GMT -5
Hi. The logic behind making any 3d content for games is that its file size has to be as small as possible. This way the game will have an easier time rendering it. Polycount: as low as you can go while preserving those details that cannot be preserved through textures. Maxis meshes do not go above 10k tris, so you should try to not go above that as well, especially for objects, otherwise there will be shading issues. Textures: there is no reason to give 2048 textures to furniture that has no patterns. No reason to give them to a small decor object no one will be looking at up close. Makes sense to give it to a food stall or anything else that is complex. Color options: the more textures there is, the higher the file size, the longer it takes for the game to load. Choose practical colors and color combinations. For example, if you’re making furniture, always choose the same colors for wood so that all your cc works with each other. If someone needs your bathtub to be purple, they will simply recolor it themselves, so go for common choice of colors for bathtubs. But if you’re making something very commonly used (say, a rug or curtains), it is reasonable to add more than 10 swatches
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Post by freeasabird on Oct 18, 2021 20:36:13 GMT -5
In answer to your question about reasonable size file and still causing game lag, is yes I found that. I create myself so I should have checked but I had a beautiful fridge set, loved it and all was well until an update, then the lag in any house that had these fridges (all of them) was monumental So I took a look and the texture map was 2048, no idea why as there’s not a lot of detail on a fridge and the player may only glance at them when the sim is hungry. Anyway I remove my beloved fridges and all was well for a while, until the next update. I read a long while back that one of these updates made it so the game couldn’t read/recognise maps over 1024, I'm assuming this means its ignores the details and just displays a 1024 no matter what. I try to keep my objects as low poly as possible, curves are very desirable in life but in Blender they can rack up a huge amount of polys. I try to start a circular object using 20 then see how it looks, this helps keep the count low. Swatches, I lose interest after 15, but that’s just me, I also delete all the grey and green swatches and any camouflage and animal print swatches on clothes, but these are personal dislikes, but it does make the packages lighter so it's all good. I make objects for me, I never think about colour matches with EA, I make things because I dislike the maxis smears they call textures. I have a sort of mad inspired way of creating, if others like it it's good if not well no worries. I do try to make sure that everything I share is a reasonable size and fully working before I upload, because a corrupt package can cause problems too. The other thing I always forget is that the mesh may be low poly but a texture can rack up lag by being high res or intense as I think of it. I have a fairly decent PC that should run the sims 4 in its sleep but the game has problems so I actively avoid anything that is described as high resolution or anything with a texture map over 1024. That said, things do get past me.
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Post by mauvemorn on Oct 19, 2021 7:36:33 GMT -5
In answer to your question about reasonable size file and still causing game lag, is yes I found that. I create myself so I should have checked but I had a beautiful fridge set, loved it and all was well until an update, then the lag in any house that had these fridges (all of them) was monumental So I took a look and the texture map was 2048, no idea why as there’s not a lot of detail on a fridge and the player may only glance at them when the sim is hungry. Anyway I remove my beloved fridges and all was well for a while, until the next update. I read a long while back that one of these updates made it so the game couldn’t read/recognise maps over 1024, I'm assuming this means its ignores the details and just displays a 1024 no matter what. Was this an intentional decision on maxis part or a bug? Do you happen to know if they fixed it or is this still a thing?
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Post by freeasabird on Oct 22, 2021 17:47:30 GMT -5
I think it was intentional, I only wish I could find the post I read, I have searched but no luck. I was just surfing and came across it and thought Ahhh?!
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