#Base Mesh

[show-tunes]

Turbug

[blacklegsanjienthusiast]

so you know how zeff says to sanji “you can walk right back into the ocean for all i care” after sanji threatens to walk? yeah i think about that line a lot and specifically the way zeff says back. he doesn’t just say sanji can walk into the ocean, he says he can walk back into the ocean. it’s such a simple distinction but it holds so much meaning because, for all intents and purposes, sanji came from the ocean, from that storm and that rock. that single word signifies that whatever happened before, whatever sanjis life was before, doesn’t matter to zeff and it never will because well, why would it? zeff doesn’t give a damn about his past, for all he cares this kid and responsibility for him was chucked at him by the waves of that storm 9 years ago and that was that. and as for sanji? yeah it’s even more meaningful. in his own words: “13 years ago, vinsmoke sanji escaped the kingdom of germa and died at sea”. vinsmoke sanji died and the person he is now, the one who was shaped by zeffs guidance was born. the sanji we see really did come from the ocean, from a random part of the east blue that carried the ship that took him away from germa. it was because of that ocean and that ship that he was able to live the life he deserved and be the man he was supposed to be.

[softichill]

To be loved is to be changed

[froggy-nebula]

it's pretty different to the way i've seen people usually depict him, but personally i don't really imagine signless as all that similar to kankri, or as just a general regular jesus guy

whenever i think about his personality i always think of him as more of a mix of karkat and wayward vagabound, because if you really think about it wv is the closest character in homestuck to him. i think people are really missing out by not thinking about the mayor and signless parallels

he's known for wearing robes. he starts out typing in all caps. he's rude and prickly at first. he's scrappy because he's had to learn how to survive in a harsh environment. he's deeply traumatized

he's a rebel, a lowly pawn, who rises up and inspires a rebellion that brings people together. no more hierarchies, no more derse versus prospit, no more kings and queens. and the flag he waves when he does is bright red

but then it fails.

to me, other than personal details, the biggest difference is wv survives

[fidgetspringer-art]

Lines galore. About 18 hours worth RIP.

[simandy]

Watching some random game's gameplay on yt and

Idk i have a ✨️feeling✨️ this game dev did not mesh this hair lmao

[bathsebah]

[dismas-n-dismay]

Having OSDD and playing STP and seeing how other people interpret the voices is crazy. Mostly because I attribute all the Voices as just being smaller parts of the Whole (You, the player) so it’s harder to take their flaws seriously when it’s like. Yeah but I’m not like that and I don’t wanna do that, ur just a thought bro.

Like L + Ratio imagine not being the guy in control of the body today, ANYWAYS-

(Mini ramble undercut!!)

It what makes certain routes like the Spectre so fun when she joins the mess and is like “??? Is it always this loud” because like yeah. Being apart of a system in real life is really just fine tuning the noise and making your own choices, especially since the voices are usually shown at face value and when you dig deeper they all usually want the same thing: To survive.

And when you realize that it’s easier to take agency of the control you Do have as the player and therefore the vessel. They each have their own different ways and thoughts of surviving but ultimately they either just want to survive or they want to survive and end the pain of the cycle they’re forced through.

They’re just thoughts, just voices, brought forth from trauma and trying to escape, give them grace.

All this to say, being apart of a system and playing a game that involves multiple voices is really just like playing a real life simulator and is probably why I have such an easy time playing and understanding the characters in the game

[sleepingsims]

a sim before classes (and my simblr hiatus) start :)

[anotherwellkeptsecret]

To a Stranger: Prologue & 1-5

This comic is based on a true story--about how a lonely waitress by day and artist by night crosses paths with the man who stood up for her when they were children.

This comic does not have a set update schedule. I will draw pages as time allows. Please enjoy!

[edmunderson]

finally unlocked niki's photography studio, so thorn's a model now on top of all his other jobs

[maddragonfruit]

In my mind the original Creativity and a Roman/Remus fusion would be entirely different sides

[ophernelia]

we're attempting a lil something. if all goes well then i'll put it up on kiricheu. if it doesn't go well then this never happened <3

[simgard]

🌿 Greenhouse Haven Reloaded – Part I is almost here! ✨

I can’t believe it’s finally happening — after days (and nights!) of intense work, Part I of my Greenhouse Haven Reloaded pack is nearly ready for release! 🎉

Right now I’m polishing the final details to make sure everything feels just right:

🪴 I'm finishing a second recolor swatch for the 67 (!) custom garden markers

🌱 I modeled and textured my very first original mesh: a cute set of custom seed packet that I will try to make functional!

🛠️ The deco version of the flower arranging table (BGC!) has been fully optimized 📸 I have to complete the promo material and we’re good to go!

This first release ended up including 20 objects!

And this is just the beginning — the original kit will be fully reimagined and released across three more parts, each one lovingly curated, enhanced, and expanded with new swatches, added functionality (I'll try!), and hopefully extra original content. 🌼✨

💚 Hope you enjoy this little sneak peek before the full launch on my Patreon of part 1!

Stay tuned — it’s almost time! 🌸

— Simgard

[simlicious]

Hi hey gurl! I've been trying to understand something... when it comes to performance, is it vertices or polycount that really matters? I’m trying to get a clearer picture of how they affect gameplay. Hope this isn’t too random tho 😂

Hey nonny, thanks for the great question! I'm not sure if you are looking for a non-creator answer or if you maybe have some experience with meshing, but I try to cover some technical aspects that hopefully will make you understand vertices and polygons better! It's a bit of a longer journey, so grab some snacks and settle in!

Disclaimer: This is my opinion and the definitions are how I came to understand them. I believe what I say to be correct, but I am also human and may have misunderstood something, and making mistakes can happen. Thanks for understanding! TL;DR There will be calculations made on every vertex and every face present in a mesh. So the more you have of either, the worse it is for performance, but if the vertex count is much higher than the poly count, the mesh is especially unoptimized and may impact performance more than it would in an optimized state. Vertex and polygons are actually connected, literally. To understand, we need to start with the basics.

Vertices are points in a 3d space that provide the foundations of a grid-like 3d structure, known as a mesh. Connected through lines known as edges, they form a 3d shape. Three edges form a triangle, or tri for short, also known as a face or polygon. These terms can be used interchangeably, but a tri always has three vertices, whereas faces and polygons can have more than three vertices.

A polygon with 4 vertices (known as a quad) is very commonly used in 3D-modelling, because it can be used to create very neat and well-structured meshes (it is easy to make grids using rectangular shapes). A mesh that is made in a grid-like way may have the same overall shape as one made out of triangles, but the flow of the edges is different, and this plays a role during animation. Having these grid-like lines is usually better for moving and animating characters and avoiding shading issues.

Most meshes for games are thus initially made with 4-sided polygons. These quads are usually further broken down into tris if they aren't already, and three is the least amount of vertices needed to form a coplanar surface.

When the quads of the left sphere are turned into triangles, the grid structure will remain intact:

We can further break down the elements of a polygon. Let's take a simple cube. It has 6 sides, or faces, and each face has 4 vertices that make up the corners. But if we count all the vertices, we will notice that each face shares vertices with other faces. So on a simple cube, we have 6 faces and 8 vertices.

Depending on how a mesh is made though, it may have a lot of edges. You can think of those like cuts in the mesh. If we wanted to cut up the cube, we would separate each face from each other. Now we still have the same number of faces (6), but the vertices are suddenly much higher, because now, every face has its own set of 4 vertices, meaning that we have a total of 24 vertices.

In video games, polygons are usually rendered as triangles. So for our cube, that would mean that every face would be diagonally cut in half, giving us a total number of 12 faces/polygons/tris.

If we take it to the next level and separate all of these triangles from each other, the vertex count would be 36! To recount, on a mesh that is not split, it's only 8. Having these cuts (or split edges, as they are commonly called) in strategic places in the mesh where vertices are split can be important for the final look of the mesh in the Sims games.

You may have already encountered some meshes that have dark spots or shading in some parts, often at the hems. That can happen if the mesh is not split correctly in these areas. It has to do with how the normals work (they are important to how light gets reflected off the mesh).

To not go too off-topic, I won't get into detail about that here.

Ideally, a mesh is only split where it needs to be so it will look right. If there are unnecessary cuts, then the vertex count (and with it, the polygon count) goes up when it doesn't really have to be. If a mesh has a lot of these areas where a lot of faces have their own vertices, then the vertex count is much higher than on a mesh with fewer split edges. This can be a sign that a mesh is not well-optimized. So if you see a mesh that has much more vertices than polys, you may want to question it in regards to performance. CC converters will probably know that Sims 4 meshes come with a lot of these cuts that are needed for Sims 4 because of the way the CC is made (for example, pants have such a split edge cut to allow boots to look tucked-in), but those are superfluous for TS3. So I encourage every Sims 3 CC creator to remove those to save on both vertices and polygons when they are converting! The thing is, in the game, the mesh will be processed and there will be calculations made on every vertex and every face present. Each vertex is indexed, and triangles need to be drawn from the information. Other processes will need to also use the vertices for their calculations. There is more going on during rendering than simply drawing the polygons. The shaders have to calculate their effects, the textures need to be rendered and applied accordingly, filtering such as anti-aliasing will be applied, etc. So the more geometry you have in a mesh, the worse it gets in terms of performance. More geometry means that the polygons are smaller and more numerous, which will in turn affect the vertex count too.

As CC creators, we cannot address all the factors that impact performance, as we can only influence a small part, but we can try to adhere to the game's standards to minimize the performance impact as best as we can. If we wish our meshes to be more detailed than what the game's standards are, then we impact the performance more.

Instead of just cranking up detail like crazy, it is good to see if we really need it. And ask questions such as how often will the player view the item closely? If the player is usually far away from the item or it is a very small item, making it super detailed will not really do much, since the item looks the same as a low-poly item from a certain distance. We can also make compromises and maybe make an item 50% more detailed instead of 200% more detailed, providing a more detailed item while minimizing the performance impact.

This is a bit off-topic, but since I'm here already, we may refrain from using a bigger texture for a very plain piece without any notable intricate detail (like a basic T-shirt, for example), since it already looks fine with a smaller texture, but it may pay off for a highly detailed texture which looks visibly better with a bigger texture, warranting the performance impact (like a lace blouse with an intricate pattern, stitching, and small buttons).

On that note, using the texture space efficiently can also do wonders to increase detail. Use all the real estate you have on that UV map (that is a 2d representation of your 3d mesh and used to apply the texture to the mesh). Have you tried upscaling the texture yet? Okay okay, I'll stop now and get...

Back on topic: The number of polygons also matters, not just the vertex count. When a mesh has lots of smaller polygons, a lot of them are necessary to form the entire mesh. Bigger polys will not provide as much fine details, but will have less impact on hardware because fewer calculations to be made. A good mesh uses only as much detail as needed while using as few polygons as possible to still maintain functionality.

Sims clothing meshes need to animate and move well, so they need to be able to flex at the joints, and the shape must also be able to change to accommodate body sizes, thus the mesh needs the minimum amount of geometry to achieve this and still look decent, which is a sweet spot the developers have to find to craft meshes that perform well while looking reasonably good.

A good habit for creators looking to make meshes for the Sims games is to look at similar meshes in the game and study them (so for TS3, check the original TS3 game meshes, for TS4, check the original TS4 game meshes). Check how many polys they use and how good the topology (structure) of the mesh is.

For example, how many rows of edges do they usually have, and what sizes are the polys usually? How many vertices are in one round of edge loops, for example for the arms? How are the different mesh parts connected to each other, where are split edges used? Then imitate that.

The professionals who made these original meshes knew what they were doing, and they optimized them to be gameplay-friendly, so if in doubt, copy what they do.

Game meshes are usually especially optimized and it is very much game-dependent how they are structured, so a mesh from a different game can look totally different. CC Creators looking to optimize performance in their meshes should try to match the original game's mesh in terms of structure and polycounts. This will also ensure they animate well!

If you made it this far: well done, thanks for bearing with me! I hope you feel more knowledgeable and ready to apply what you've learned to your own meshes or when selecting CC for your favorite Sims game.

[bluecookiesabi]

Would transformers be able to go to catholic heaven?