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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 5th Mar 2021 at 11:01 PM Last edited by simdifference : 12th Apr 2021 at 2:46 PM.
Default Program/Tool- TS3 Build and Buy Object Vertice and Polycount Reader -checks the polycount of multiple objects at the same time
Hello.I have designed a program that can check the Geom and Polycount of CAS items such as clothing,hairstyles,shoes and accessories of multiple packages at the same time.If you haven't read about it,here is the link:
https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=653438

First things first I have to explain some things that I know from experience about objects from Build and Buy Mode in simple words,because I am not a programmer.
So each object has Vertices and a Polygon Count-Polycount.The higher the Polycount,the more time it gets for this to render and I heard it causes lag.
Back when the first creators were making CC such as objects,some of them were ignoring the polycount completely and only cared about making beautiful and realistic CC,which believe me ,I get.But this can get extreme:I once downloaded a plant that was 30k ! And I had no idea! When I heard about Polycount,I had been playing for almost 8 years and had collected thousands of CC.

So what do you do when you want to seperate the gameplay-safe ones and keep the high-poly ones for photoshoots or something,to avoid lag?
And now you'll tell me,why should I care? I'll tell you something.Some years ago I downloaded a beautiful house that contained CC that were high-poly and tried to place it in my world.Guess what happened?It was loading for over 10 minutes,to the point I got frustrated because I thought that my game had crashed.

Last year I found that website and I remembered the house.However this time I read the instructions:the creator had written sth along the lines of: ''It takes around 20 minutes to place the lot in world,not sure why''Then the creator updated the post saying sth like''Thank you (name) for identifying the CC that makes the lot slow,there are these (..)and these (..).Remove them if you want''
I later found out that those tiny items had over 10k Polycount each. It wasn’t a seperate case,as I’ve seen similar instructions on CC-heavy houses.Also,have you noticed that when creators upload high-poly or Alpha CC,they don't recommmend it for normal gameplay?There's a reason for that.

Now imagine have those items multiple times,your other furniture,plants,your household with amazing hairstyles and clothes,trying to interact in an open world with 100s of other sims.Yeah..not good.

Secondly,to identify the Vertice and Polycount there are two programs.The first one you already know,it's the TSRW (The TSR Workshop).The second one which absolutely love is S3PE,this quick program,known by many for merging packages.But there are some add-ons you can put that allow you to view the counts.

Here is the link for S3PE: http://www.simlogical.com/ContentUp...te/uploads/189/
Here is the link for S3PE'S wrappers: http://www.simlogical.com/ContentUp...te/uploads/859/
Here is the link of how to install them: https://mspoodle1.tumblr.com/post/1...ackage-files-in . S3PE and TSRW can only check the counts of one package at the time.This could take a lifetime to check each individual package manually.

So I present to you the : TS3 Build and Buy Object Vertice and Polycount Reader
What does it do exactly?:It reads the Vertice and Polycount of multiple packages of your choice at the same time, gives you the ability to choose based on the countings which ones you'd like to keep ,or move them to a seperate folder of your choice (ex. very high poly items for photoshoots).These counts could be taken from S3PE or TRSW.After using this program, you can merge them like normal with S3PE or CC Magic.This is designed for packages and not sims3packs,because they're easier to manage.

Here you see I have opened a top with S3PE.I have right-clicked on the ''MODL'' tag and a window has opened called ''Model Viewer''.There you can see the counts of a sofa.
[IMG][/IMG]

Excuse the messy design made on Paint.
Here's the 1st window of the program I thought about:
[IMG][/IMG]
Step 2:Display in the following order:
a.Ascending (size),
b.Descending (size),
c.Alphabetical
Alphabetically,in case you'd like to identify a package manualy.
Ascending or Descending:view items according to Polycount.
Edit:It should be checking the MLOD tag because it is the High-detail mesh we should care about,not the MODL tag (low detail).
Step 3: Click ''Read'

Step 4: The next window will appear.There will be shown in lists:the name of the item,the Vertice and Polycount of each object.
As I said above these counts of each object.will be taken from either S3PE or TSRW.

Next,down to the left there are 4 options:
Step 1.Select items with Polycount Value from: [..] to [..]
In the boxes you can type the Polycount of your choice.Example:I'd like my normal gameplay to have objects under 6k polys.So I type in the box:from: 0 (or blank) to: 6000.
Then I'll click ''OK''.Now the items under the count I chose (under 6k) will be highlighted in a colour (do you remember Dashboard?)

Step 2:If I don't want to remove the items manually,which is time-consuming,here are the quick and easy options.You can either:
-Move the items to the folder of your choice by clicking ''Select'',and a window with the destination directory will appear
-Or Delete the selected items,an option you can use if you don't want these items. Example:I don't want items over 4k:so I inserted ''select items from 4000 to (blank)'',I clicked ''OK'',it highlighted them,then I clicked ''Delete''.

Option to refresh the list,so you don't need to close and open the program every time.

The program was inspired by Dashboard and Sims3ThumbnailExtractor,but its use is different.

Now the only problem is: I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PROGRAMMING. I can’t make any of those 2 programs I designed.

So I am just putting the idea out there for the modders of the Sims 3 community to maybe make this idea come to life and do whatever they’d like with it.Maybe make this for ts2 or ts4,I don’t mind. It could be a useful tool, as it would help our fellow simmers organise their game better and maybe..maybe help with smoother gameplay.I hope somebody will be interested in making this.
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Test Subject
Original Poster
#2 Old 13th Mar 2021 at 12:24 PM
Quote: Originally posted by ritamiller
Looks good. Who to do this? Where you found a company or engineer for software development? I researched some information and my friends recommend work with https://mlsdev.com

Thanks for the recommendation.I am currently speaking with an independent programmer and maybe in 2 weeks I may have good news.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#3 Old 19th Mar 2021 at 10:01 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simdifference
Update: I need help with 2 questions:1.How do you find the total Polycount of objects?I noticed that some objects have multiple MODLs (ex.fireplaces).
According to this guide below, you have to add the counts of each MODL together?Did I understand correctly? And 2.what about CAS items-do you have to add the counts of each GEOM together?

I'd like to get as many opinions as possible just to be sure I don't tell my programmer sth wrong.Here's the guide: https://simswiki.info/wiki.php?titl...ts_for_Creators
Hiya!

All objects always have multiple MLOD/MODLs, this is because of their Level of details. Which are defined by their group ID (Since the TGI exists out of, Type, Group, Instance):
  • MLOD 00000000 High detail mesh
  • MLOD 10000001 High detail sunshadow
  • MODL 00000001 Low detail mesh
  • MLOD 10000001 Low detail sunshadow
Which can be easily checked in the header chunk of the MODL/MLOD if one desires to find the TGI of the MLOD/MODL  

Now, MLOD/MODLs could have Geostates (See bookcases, which are a different state of a mesh, when there are no books or a few books, or the bookcase is full) but one thing they always have is a MESH group and a SHADOW group (this plane underneath the object ). Sometimes indeed it can happen that they have 2 mesh groups and 1 shadow group. THis is because of shaders usually. (so, i.e when you got windows or something glass-like, you'd need to separate this from the mesh and make a separate group out of it  Else the entire table, wardrobe, etc will turn into glass lol)

So once you know how many groups there are you could choose to indeed in the code to get the vertex count, save that in a variable, check another group and add that up with that variable.

I'd also send this to your programmers since they'd need it  Else they have to decode/reverse engineering the entire files themselves and out of experience, that's a real pain lol: 

https://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_3:0x01D10F34
https://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_3:0x01661233
https://simswiki.info/wiki.php?titl...oding_Tutorials - Overall this is a good one for programmers who are making programs for the game

hope this helps!

EDIT: I was just thinking, most sims 3 tool creators actually used the S3PI dll libraries, which already got all this information. (S3PE uses these same dll files, as well as most of Cmar's tools) Here is the link to the documentation: http://s3pi.sourceforge.net/ (or http://peter.drealm.info/Help/Index)
and http://www.simlogical.com/ContentUp...s/204/index.htm

This is a .NET 4 library though, I'm assuming your programmers might use NET 5, so it's good to warn them beforehand if they choose to use the libraries
Test Subject
Original Poster
#4 Old 19th Mar 2021 at 3:15 PM Last edited by simdifference : 19th Mar 2021 at 11:03 PM.
@Lyralei Thank you so much for taking valuable time out of your day to try and help me.I have no experience in meshing or programming,but this program is my dream for this community.
I read some of your entries on polycount and they've been helpful.Thank you.

Tumblr: simdifference https://simdifference.tumblr.com/
Test Subject
#5 Old 23rd Jun 2021 at 8:47 AM
Thanks for useful info! I'll try do it. I am sure that everything will work out - a very detailed guide .. And the fact that the site is located in the game for 20 minutes - I have not had this since 2010
Test Subject
#6 Old 16th Dec 2022 at 3:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simdifference
Thanks for the recommendation.I am currently speaking with an independent programmer and maybe in 2 weeks I may have good news.


Thanks a lot for help!
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