Thought I'd share. This is a spreadsheet I created with the help of my son's Geom tool, that shows the exported polycounts of all the accessories I had installed before I started my current rounds of review and curating for my accessories.
Everything I've removed is shown with strikeout text. Some removed for high polycount (over 5k poly), some because they were too high poly (over 1k poly) to enable for random, but not something I'd be likely to choose for my own sims, etc.
As a special note, most 'socks' are not shown in this spreadsheet, because most stockings and hosiery for TS3 are textures painted directly on the skin and have literally zero polycount.
Sims 3 Reset: Bittersweet CC Cuts, Bigger Stories 🧜🏽♀️💎
So recently, I have been going through a lot with my Game. I have been going through a lot of growing pains trying to fix my CC folder and one thing that always happens to me is that first I start out small-ish, not very small, but small enough and the game is working even though it takes forever to load and all that stuff. But I keep thinking to myself that it's worth it as long as everything loads. Or I keep thinking that it's worth it once I get all the things (CC) I want.
Those of you who watch my YouTube content, I am definitely a create-a-sim girlie. I absolutely love creating sims. I'll stay in there for hours. If it was possible that I knew the game would never crash and I could add all the create-a-sim CC I wanted, I would be in there for hours creating modernized versions of cartoon characters, creating beautiful sims, creating main characters for stories. I always have a story in my head. But recently I realized that I'd be doing too much and I think we all go through that sometimes in our CC journey. We pick up everything we find, whether it is that you're a builder. So you pick up every furniture piece of CC or a new wall or a new pattern. Or if you're a create-a-sim girlie like me and every time you see a hair that be looking good that was originally a sims 4 hair, you're like, oh my god. Hell, yeah. I got to stop myself.
So I'm just going to bring you guys through what I plan to do. Honestly, I am going to be focusing on my stories more. Honestly, I am such a story girlie, and I've been losing that. I've been spending so much time trying to work with aesthetics and I've made so many create-a-sim videos, a good like 10 to 20 that haven't even been posted. I feel like I can take a take a little break, for right now. So, I will just be putting in what is already needed. For example, if you've seen a let's play that I've done and you like the way a certain sim looks that CC will be in my game. When it comes to makeup and stuff like that, I'll just leave all of that in there. But when it comes to hairs, I'm going to have to be a little bit more careful. Also, when it comes to clothes, I'll just try to only put in what's necessary.
Now when it comes to accessories, that's a little bit more difficult. Because accessories always be loading slow, but you kind of need the accessories. Or maybe you don't. Please let me know below. These sims don't need necklaces and nails and glasses. Even just saying that hurt me. But yeah, this is what I plan to do.
Also as it comes into the building because I do have a lot of build by CC and as some of you know watching some of my videos, I've been getting into my building. Well, not really building more like interior designing and you can see the progression of how much better I got. But honestly, I think at this point I'm just going to be using other creators houses that they post here on this platform and giving them credit in the videos. That'll have to be it for now. That way I get the small, curated amount of CC that they placed in their houses. And if anybody's like, oh my god, where'd you get that? I'll just be like I downloaded this from this creator. Just get that because even though I do like doing it myself, my game is not stable enough where I can do every little creative thing I want in there right now. My storytelling is being sacrificed because I'm spending so much time with all the aesthetics.
So please give me any tips you have for better game optimization, and the way that you curated your Sims 3 saves folder. I'm not going to delete all my CC. It's in a database, but I'm not going to be putting all of it in my game anymore. I'm slowly finding default skins, default eyes, and maybe even a little bit of default makeup. It's a bittersweet, but it has to be done. Thank you, guys, for taking a moment to read this.
Ahahaha... so... I had paused for a short bit on playing, due to crashes, right? TLDR: I've spent the last few weeks better curating and 'fixing' some of my CAS CC, with a break in the middle. I rambled a lot, so... below the cut for more details.
Something I've found repeatedly to be the case with my Sims3 game is that if I start getting Error12 memory issues, often uninstalling CC resolves the problem. Even if what I uninstall isn't currently being used in my game.
Why does this work? I have no idea. Everything I've read about Error12 that's been documented tells me that this should not work... yet I've done this at least half a dozen times now and had it work even when other methods of beating Error12 did not work.
In any case! Since I was getting memory issues again, after stuffing like 1200 new files into my game (not surprising, really... I always say it's more surprising that my game usually functions just fine), I decided to uninstall some things to resolve the issue.
In the past I would sometimes just go and uninstall a bunch of random CC that I didn't *think* I was using. But every single time I did that I ended up uninstalling things I -WAS- using. T_T So I started making semi-regular exports of my sims and lots and annotating in CCMagic's notes field what items were in use, to avoid that.
For a long time I've meant to further curate my CC, especially CAS CC, to distill things down to what I thought I'd actually use because it looked good AND had reasonable polycounts.
So all my time in sims these last few weeks has been spent doing just that. I started by testing out hairs in-game, and uninstalling them if I found something about them I didn't like. (Five-head, weird shadows, just not a hairstyle I could see myself using, etc.) I already culled hairs that were excessively high in poly years ago, so this review process was purely aesthetic.
I then did the same with clothing. Go in-game, try it on, then uninstall it if there was anything I thought would prevent me from using it. A process looking purely at the aesthetics.
Then I looked at accessories. First step, remove anything over 5k poly. (1k is actually the standard for EA accessories, but I decided to be generous.) You saw the posts I made where I was searching for replacements to Candace's 16k necklace. When I finished that I realized she was also wearing 20k earrings. T_T So I replaced those too. Candace now sports a variety of different earrings scattered across her various outfits. They're nearly all stars. I'm super grateful to CC converters/creators - they've expanded Candace's star options by a lot in the past couple of years.
After finding replacements for those two high-poly accessories, and removing nearly everything that was over 5k poly... while I was testing things out with Nene in my testing save... I saw the game had generated tourists that were wearing... ah... things that should never be available to randomly generated sims.
So I decided to review my accessories AGAIN... this time with an eye to:
Is this over the 1k poly I'd consider acceptable for random sims?
If so, is it something I'd ever use on one of my own sims?
If 1=yes and 2=no, the accessory was removed.
If 2=yes, the accessory was examined for CASP categories, made available in every or nearly every category, and ensured it was not enabled for random.
If 1=no and 2=no, the accessory was examined for CASP categories, made available ONLY in categories it wouldn't enrage me to see random sims wearing, and then made available for random.
I didn't get very far in this process before I started getting burned out due to eye strain. I've always been sensitive to bright lights, but it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. Both CCMagic and S3pe have very white backgrounds that completely ignore windows color schemes. I had trouble finding the brightness controls on my monitors... I ended up taking a break for nearly a week, and then only resuming a few days ago after I finally found the menu buttons on my monitors.
I'm currently looking at bracelets, with only glasses left to go after this.
For the curious/my own records... I currently have installed:
100 'necklaces'
138 'Piercings'
84 'socks'
28 'gloves'
20 'armbands'
20 'rings'
8 weapons - mostly pistols
80 'bracelets' (Currently reviewing these- I expect the number to drop a bit, as I already removed like six this morning)
125 'glasses' (Will be the last category reviewed, so I expect this number to drop a bit also.)
Edit: Forgot to include the 40 accessories in the separate category of 'used' ie: one of my sims is using this. It's a mixture of all the accessory categories.
The quotes around the categories are there because I categorize based on the accessory category they're assigned to, regardless of what the item actually is. ie: Hats that appear under the glasses category in-game are counted here as 'glasses'. Nails that appear under gloves are counted as 'gloves'. Etc.
By the way, after removing all the high poly accessories... my game, even in my test save, started running more smoothly. CAS was stuttering when I tried to rotate the sim, and now they rotate swiftly and with zero stuttering.
So yeah. It’s been 6 years since I last posted to this blog. I thought I was done making new Canon Companions, but since my last post I have created (checks notes) six brand new playlists and a massive playlist extension.
The specific playlists will be coming soon(ish). In the meantime, here are some of the minor changes I made:
Order switching to be more accurate continuity- and character-wise
Harry Potter and the Playlist of Mystery:
Moved “If I Wasn’t Shy” between “Drowning You in Fear” and “Supremist”
Total Drama Playlist:
Swapped the placements of “Vivian” and the other individual Genius song (detailed below)
Swapped the placements of “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight” and “Because It’s Midnite”
Devil’s Island:
Moved “Sweet Sacrifice” between “Born to Lead” and “They”
Individual new songs
El Goonish Songs
Added “Immortals” by Fall Out Boy between “One of Those Girls” and “Things I’ll Never Say”
Coming soon: Playlist Extension
Total Drama Playlist
Added “Lazy Days- Livin’ in Paradise” by Ted Poley between “Do I Creep You Out” and “Eat It”
Added “Theme from Rugrats” between “Race to Win” and “Reality Show”
Replaced “Bizarro Genius Baby” with “Science Genius Girl” by Freezepop
(I haven’t seen the new seasons yet, so no large expansion of it yet, but I do intend to once I see it)
ZooTunes:
Added “Racist, Sexist Boy” by The Linda Lindas followed by “Don’t Be Racist” by Magnolia Park between “Much More Beautiful Person” and “18 Wheeler.”
Because 25 rules is a lot for a single Smart Playlist, Canon Companions is now a superset of playlists. Each medium type now has a specialized CC offshoot. Video Game Companions, Comic Companions, Cartoon Companions, Book Companions, and Live-Action Companions now exist. I know there's a Captain Planet reference in here somewhere.
Databases are for my own reference and help keep things organized. I currently have six documents and a spreadsheet:
1. A reference for section beginnings, ends, and lengths, including single-section playlists
2. A reference for how many unique songs each artist has
3. A reference for how many duplicates there are, what playlists they're on, and the overall proportion of duplicates among the total songs
4. A reference for what and how many medium types duplicates cover, exact proportions of different duplication levels, and the average length and proportion per playlist
5. A reference for songs' locations (1 or more playlist, section if needed)
6. A reference for the songs artists provide and where they are
The spreadsheet keeps track of 14 stats about the artists. It's both vague and unwieldy, but immensely useful to gain an artist-related top 10 list off-hand due to it being formatted as a table that can be reorganized.
