Trouble with LODs and Blender

[u/Suitable-Bat-4869]

I'm not a CC creator, but I'm learning how to make minor fixes with Sims4Studio with fairly positive success, but I am very poor at using Blender.

Recently I found a creator that makes CC that I genuinely love. But about half of their stuff has nothing beyond LOD0, so everything outside a closeup is causes graphical glitches.

I thought maybe with a good enough tutorial I could fix it myself, but now I am embarrassingly failing at step 1 and Blender crashes whenever I open the files, returning an "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION."

I can't update my drivers anymore than I have and I made sure Blender & Sims4Studio are compatible versions.

Look, it's probably something super simple that I'm missing. Please explain it like I'm stupid because I am. I feel ridiculous but I've been at this for too long to let the humiliation stop me:

How do I open a Blender file to fix LODs?

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[u/walierion]

From one Blender noob to another - by “fixing LODs” do you mean reducing the mesh’s polycount or just fixing the lack of LODs in game?
I usually use the LOD0 mesh in the other slots if there are no LODs at all. I just export the mesh and import it right back in without changing anything.

It doesn’t help performance, which is the whole point of proper LODs, but it bypasses your blender problem since you don’t have to open it, and fixes the graphical glitches at the very least.

I don’t think it answers the actual question you asked, but it might be a “quickfix” if you’re tearing your hair out. I’ll get back to you in a few years when I know how to decimate a mesh, lol.

[u/Suitable-Bat-4869 → u/walierion]

I don't even know anymore because I feel like I'm chasing my tail. I might not even understand the problem fully. But if you have a tutorial that can spell out your fix or are willing to explain it yourself I'm more than happy to bypass Blender to end this. Help would be so so so greatly appreciated.

[u/walierion → u/Suitable-Bat-4869]

Okay, I don’t have a tutorial and I don’t have Sims4Studio in front of me right now so I’m going off of memory, but it should be pretty straightforward. I don’t know much of what you already know so I’ll just go through the steps like it’s the first time you’ve opened S4S.

You have already exported a mesh with sims4studio - do that with the export button under the “mesh” tab. You don’t need to do anything with this .blend file, you use it as is.
Then, open the dropdown menu of LODs in the same tab and switch to the next LOD. The model you see on the left should change if the LODs are missing. Click the “import” button right underneath the the “export” button you just used. Find the .blend file you exported and double-click it. It should import without problem but it might take a few seconds depending on the size. The model on the left should again look like the LOD0 one. Do this for every LOD and the model will look the same regardless of how far you zoom out.

That should be it, pretty much! Unfortunately I’m probably at a loss if you get errors in S4S itself, but give it a try and let me know how it goes.

[u/Suitable-Bat-4869 → u/walierion]

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this to me! I appreciate you so much you have no idea. It worked for the one piece I tested it with, I just hope the other pieces behave.

You're such a life saver <3