More touchups for the asset remake. Like the fungal pods, high poly versions exist for pearls: shown in the comparison are those of High Poly Project. But I crave that very narrow window of better-than-vanilla-but-performs-like-vanilla.

That said, the pearlsmall nif is now actually larger than the regular pearl; there's no corners to cut to save polygons on an isosphere (literally) and unfortunately the increase in size on those is exponential - jumping from 80 triangles (two subdivisions, vanilla) to 320 (3 subdivisions). Still, it's ~60% that of HPP's mesh, so I consider it an improvement given they look identical in game. Even with mods that add pearls to the overworld, it shouldn't cause too much pain since they tend to only add two or three in any one location. I don't think vanilla has any at all.

The regular pearl, on the other hand, I'm very happy with. The vanilla mesh itself didn't look half bad with just a vertex smooth, and the addition of a couple faces to the blunt end makes it look great.

Model Comparison:
      Vanilla      Not Too High     HPP
pearl.nif5kb, 116 triangles7kb, 194 triangles61kb, 2.8k triangles
pearlsmall.nif3kb, 80 triangles9kb, 320 triangles13kb, 572 triangles

Other Not Too High Poly Models:
Salmon Roe
Swamp Fungal Pods
Tomatoes

Like the concept? Check out IWantATardis' improved meshes, which are also compatible with vanilla retextures:
Spider Eggs
Giant's Toes
Human Hearts


Q: Mods in screenshots?
A: Cathedral 3D Clover Plant, Whiterun Valley - Hold Expansion, and TPOS V10 AE with the Riverwood Grove Extension.