Tried my first sims 4 to 2 hair conversion. Finally got it working in Bodyshop, then discovered to my horror that its polycount was 46,974.

Recommended polycount for hairs - 3000.
Highest mentioned polycount - 15,000.

As it is noone will want to download it and I wouldn't even trust it in my own game. It's a pity, because I really like how it turned out.

Is there any way to lower the polycount? I guess Sims 4 can handle higher polys.

Absolutely, but it depends a bit on the mesh.

I wrote up a kind of tutorial/tiptorial a while back, that shows the method I prefer to use whenever possible (edge loops) - there are also a couple links, one to a more in-depth tutorial by Syb, which shows more how you can do it. And yes, this is something you need Blender (or a similar program) for, as Milkshape only works with tris (you need square polys for this) and doesn't have any tools that makes this process any easier (quite far from it).

Link:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/moo...icks-t2336.html (3rd post)

There's also a tool in Blender called Decimate, which is used a lot, but it leaves the mesh looking more and more like the one with a bad mesh flow seen in the picture, so you can only take it so far until it starts causing holes or other issues (depending on he mesh structure) - I personally don't use this one unless the mesh already looks like the one with the very bad mesh flow and is more or less beyond saving, and would need some heavy fixing before I'd even know where to begin with edge loops (I've on occasion remeshed some of the mesh using the original as a guide, though - sometimes that's easier)

When you preserve a good mesh flow, you can usually get away with a much smoother look and a lower polycount without any weird issues with the mesh.

It's also possible to fix up the topology of a bad mesh, but that often requires more work.

Sometimes you also need to remap the UVs after this, but that also depends on the mesh and how many changes you've done.

Thanks.

I think this stuff is above my pay grade lol. I understood none of that tutorial and I can't even work out how to open Sims 2 files in Blender. I shall avoid Sims 4 meshes for conversion from now on.

Honestly, I haven't figured out the GMDC/SMD plugins in Blender either, so mostly I just use a bunch of workarounds if I have a mesh with joint assignments I'm working on. Depends on how complicated the joint assignments are (I prefer doing these in Milkshape, even if it likely is a bit harder there, it's just that I'm used to how it works).

I mostly work with OBJ files between Blender and Milkshape, so this works fine for objects and jointed items like short hairs or accessories that don't need too complicated joint assignments (basically, easy enough to do manually in Milkshape, because I don't always want to deal with the auto-tools).

What you can do in Blender (especially if you're not too familiar with it) is to set up some "practice-meshes" you can test it out on. A sphere with a few too many polys, or extracting a mesh as an OBJ, and importing it in, to test out how to deal with making tris into square polys. Sometimes it's a bit of trial and failure to see what works and doesn't. Looking at beginner tutorials on the layout is also very useful. The tutorial I made assumes you already have some basic knowledge of the layout and controls, maybe some basic meshing skills, or that you can find other tutorials that explains those things.

I can't speak to HOW to open these files in blender. That's out of my scope, but I can tell you that if you need to reduce a polycount you should look into "retopology". That will allow you to reduce the polycount at your discretion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2GNyEUvpD4
This is my favorite tutorial on the subject.

GMDC plugins for Blender are here (not sure if the first one works for lower versions, so posted the older one too). There's probably some tutorial somewhere that explains how to use them, and I think the download topic has some info, too.
https://modthesims.info/d/656032/th...ender-2-80.html
https://modthesims.info/d/612164/up...ender-2-79.html

For OBJ files, it's file --> import --> Wavefront (obj)
(I usually delete the default box first - mark the box and click delete, then enter).