I installed today and took a couple of pictures.

My simself on the new motorcycle


The new scoooter



The race car and it's very fast


And my personal favorite the convertable

Wow, idk what it is, but EA always seem to screw up the bikes/scooters... Look at the size of that bike, it looks way out of proportion to me, although i'm no expert.
And also, the position they sit on the scooter, much like WA's scooter (i'm assuming its the same position) looks very unnatural.

The convertable looks okay though ;]

It's not really out of proportion. However the black color does hide how low poly that thing is. It looks pretty ugly in lighter colors imo. But that's EA for you. They're limited to low poly objects to make sure it works on everyones machine. This is why CC cars look better. They have better higher res textures and usually have a higher poly count and look more detailed

So here's hoping Fresh Prince comes out with some bikes soon

oh, it seems really huge compared to the sim, in my opinion, but like i said before, i ain't no biker expert...
And when you say restricted to using low poly models, they're not restricted at all, they're just lazy.

Same. That shit is huge. D: ... and not in the fun way. ;D



Actually, it's very easy to make a high poly thing, because if you're modelling it on something, you can accidentally use too much to get the perfect amount of detail. It's usually why hairs are ridiculously high, not because of all the magical strands that NewSea add, but rather because they've got tiny tiny faces, so tens of thousands of polys. :3

It is hard to make lower poly things, and they ARE restricted because it has to be able to run suitably on all systems. While CC makers don't worry as much and don't really care if your system is too low to be able to use it or not. Most of them even warn you what the poly count is while others will tell you if you have too much CC and you'll bog down your game

People with high-end video cards don't really need to worry about this, but EA needs to make sure it runs on lower end cards too

Ah, not this stupid point again.
No. They really don't.
It's called PROGRESSION in the whole video gaming industry... I actually hate this stupid excuse that EA use...

'oh it has to work well on old machines, so we made the graphics mediocre because of this..'

Erm. Well know, if ever video gaming company did this, video games would get nowhere... its just stupid, my opinion, and you can disagree, but personally, i don't think it had anything to do with wanting it to work on lower machine over laziness or other factors.

Charlie, they really are resricted by it. Even on CC sites you see people asking creators (I'm looking at hair mesher Anto) to make it lower poly. He's surprised when his hairs come out low poly. Everyone's surprised. He doesn't intend to make things high poly, because it makes games run slower, even high end ones, just not as noticably as lower on low end computers. Graphics are still improving, but it's two steps forwards and one step back. Many people still have old computers, so there is no way in hell EA are going to let that part of their audience be left behind. The more TS3 supports, the more money EA gets.

Oh, true about the target audience being 'every single person they can muster', but still, other games seemed to have managed...

Yeah, on consols. There aren't tonnes of games which target PC gamers only. You got the Sims Series and... that's all I can think of. Most other PC games are just branched off a console equivalent, so the company doesn't have to concentrate on trying to get it to work on most PCs.

I guess your right, I've never really thought about it, but most other games on PC are on console first, but sims is the other way round...

You have to understand the gaming industry, and the audience of the game. The Sims franchise is on the top 10 list in the world. EA needs to make it work on as many computers as possible, ranging from low end and up. It appeals to casual gamers and even hard core gamers, which means a greater range of computer specs. The hard core gamers are in the minority for this particular game, and the main target is casual gamers

When it comes to other games, it's a different target. The minimal specs are alot higher and the usual target is hard core gamers, who more than likely have better computers. The console is a completely different story on it's own. It has a set limit. It can't be upgraded. Every game has a set system spec, unlike computer games. For that reason, developers don't know if you'll have a pc that's better than a console, or worse. There for they must decide to either make the game playable on lower end pcs, or sacrifice potential sales and target higher end pc specs instead. If the target audience is hard core, they're not going to care about losing minor sales if they push the system specs, because they know hard core gamers will buy it up

People with low end computers most likely don't buy alot of games. Then they see the specs of Sims 3 and go "Hey, I can actually play this" and buy it

Not only does EA have to worry about poly count increase, but they have to take in account for future stuff packs and expansion packs. As time goes by, they're constantly adding more and more, and they have to keep that appeal to the lower end players. This is usually where you'll see that minor progression. As EPs come out, the specs might slightly increase, as they did with Sims 2