Noticed that the new object creators are now putting poly counts with their objects. Can someone please explain what the poly count is and why people are all of a sudden concerned with poly counts. Do they affect the game in some way?? Wanted to learn how to make new objects (currently I can only do recolors), but I have no idea about this poly count thing. Can someone please explain??!? Thanks in advance.

3d models are made from a group of connected 3 and 4 sided shapes. If you open a sims object up in a 3d program, you will see a wireframe, which shows all the individual squares and triangles (usually rectangles, which are made up of triangles, 4 sided shapes are always to be aimed for, as smoothing is easiest when done on 4 sided shapes, but that is not important right now).

Each individual shape is called a polygon, and if you have 100 polygons in a simple chair, then you have a polygon count (poly count) of 100. Simple, huh. This is an important number. The more polys in an object, the better it will look (providing you are a good modeler) but the harder the program will find painting it to the screen each frame. The Sims2 actually uses high poly counts for its items, in general, because it has an excellent fulcrum culling system, and this makes up for the lack of advanced texture passes on the rendering.

Some people make the mistake of using squares in their file, and think that is one poly, but technically it is actually 2 (as everything is ALWAYS broken down into triangles, and a square is therefore made up of 2 triangles, even if the program you are modelling in shows it as a simple square and calling it a single poly, it is really 2 polys.) There is nothing wrong using squares, it is usually the best way, so long as you understand that it will actually be 2 polys when used in the Sims.

Never (NEVER) use a shape with more than 4 sides unless you simply must (as you get better, you will find you never use more than 4 sides).

There is a really long thread in the Site News section that explains everything you need to ever now about polygons and then some... Read it! ~FG