Murano moved all his stuffs to TSR!

[Moune]

Wow, thanks very much for those kind words. I'm sure you all know that I heartily agree that the slimmed down packages should have stayed free and never should have been uploaded to TSR. Nothing should ever be uploaded to TSR in my opinion! I'd volunteer to take a look at the packages to solve the mystery as to what was done to them, but I've just sent my computer away (again) and am currently on a little old thing that won't run neither the game nor SimPE. So it'll have to wait until the new one arrives.

Saraswati, do drop by, but please be warned that some of the oldest sets still needs revisiting. Basically I continue to find stuff that can be left out or reduced in size, so the newer the set the leaner you can be sure the files are.

Tsu, while I'm definetely no Numenor or Ignorant Bliss you bet I know enough about object making to start giving lessons to people I don't know. What you fail to understand is that an object package is much more than a 3D model and a texture. For instance when taking the shadow off my sofa I deleted 1 TXMT file, 1 MMAT file, 1 GMDC file, 4 or 5 OBJ files and 1 texture map, which in this case was tiny and therefore didn't take up much space. My 3D mesh stayed at 1922 faces and I've left the same two 'non-shadow' texture maps of 512x512, but I still saved 510 KB of your hard drive space.

However, when I first started out making objects I didn't know any of that was possible. I also had no idea what size texture map I'd need for anything or how shadows and material definitions and CRES files and a ton more stuff worked. Hence why my older objects could benefit from a 'renovation'. I expect every other creator find themselves in the same stuation. You seem to expect that we all start out as all-knowing experts who make perfect packages from the start. Not so, my friend.

As you point out Teko's files were fine a few days ago. You're also saying it's bad that he has made them even better (i.e. smaller), and that is a crap thing to say, no matter if he's a pay or a free creator. Why he has chosen to do it now I can't tell you, but I have an idea. Personally I still have several older files that work fine, but that could do with a clean-up. Unfortunately I'm always occupied making new stuff so I tend to forget about them and just let them sit there quietly on the server. But if for instance I ever had to reupload them I would most likely take the opportunity to improve and clean them up. Seems to me that's exactly what Teko has done.

In any case he just saved you more than 1 MB of disk space and you're slamming him for it. Why don't you go and download something nice to fill up that 1 MB instead of complaining about people who do you a favour?

One last thing, although others have already pointed it out: Reducing the size of your texture map does not necessarily reduce quality - at least not in any visible way. Rather a large detailed texture is completely wasted on a small object - which again is a waste of space. I've seen stuff like plates and glasses with 1024x1024 texture maps. Madness! Reduce that to 128x128 and you won't notice any difference, but you'll propably save close to 1 MB space for each package. Incidentially making your texture map in a lower resolution might save you a few KB's, but nothing compared to what you save by simply using a smaller texture map.

[Saraswati]

Moune I went and downloaded the whole kitchen with the dark wood.. very practical peice of furniture that one, the Maxis kitchens always feel like they're designed by boys, somehow..

And I can tell they're effective sized files from just downloading them.

One of the best efforts I've ever seen when it came to an effective size and aesthetics balance would have to have been Lethe's low poly grass.. I used it when I did my Hippy Commune lot. It looks absolutely fantastic in-game even if you use a bit of it, and it doesn't make your game lag. At all.  http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=202811 and that grass is between 50-144 poly a peice, which is a marvel of efficiency and being very, very kind to people with older pcs.

[Pavs]

really pees me off when you have old files and you grab them at the booty as there updated, however murano changes the names of the package files for instance takes the name off teko and replaces with murano, i ended up with 2 sets of the lumeo bathroom.

hugs


Cheeky (Pavs Partner)

[deelink]

As to WHY Murano moved all his/hers stuff to pay and so forth.. well more than likely he/she knows they are in hot demand.
So you could pressume they went 100% pay because they realised they could eaily make a lot of money with CC/TSR but you could also easily pressume that Murano didn't want to create anymore, but money is a great incentive isn't it?
And we all know Thomas can do one thing well.. and that is Push.

I am not by any means supporting his paysite decision or even justifing it. I can just see how the monopoly that is TSR can affect creators. Murano is in so much demand that even if they wanted to quit there is so much pressure not to.
I don't know the full story, all I know is that TSR sucks.

They turn a simple hobby into a work horse and treat creators like meal tickets. Come on.. this is hardly a news breaking revelation.

[calalily]

Well, maybe I was not clear enough, but first Moune, if you know so much about modeling to start giving lessons to those you don’t know, you should also know that reducing a texture definition is the same as reducing quality (ofcourse it saves lots of size, duhh!).

Actually it is possible to reduce filesize by making a smaller texture without compromising on quality.  If everything is mapped at 1024 the first time round, you're not actually reducing quality by reducing that to 512. You'd be reducing the filesize easily by making the image smaller and increasing the dpi.  Sometimes there's other little bits and peices too - taking out erroneous little bits and peices, if you change the file considerably. You can reduce the filesize if the first mesh is ridiculously high poly though - I took 100k from a file for that.

[chemistrycourtney]

Well, like I said before, I think it's grand when things are made smaller, less bloat, efficient, and look nice in my game.  Take things moune makes for example.  They are just lovely, and yet, no lag!  I also have a grand affection for all of calalily's houses and beddings.  They are full of win. 

If they say they can reduce the size of a file and not lose any integrity to it, I will believe them.  And I'll be glad of it. 

Now, If they'd said they reduced the size of a file, but only for moneys, I'd be forced to call them greedy bitches.  Also, as a quasi-sidenote, doesn't the compresserizor just remove filesize in your folder, but has to uncompress to run in the game?