with a texture stdMatAlphaTestEnabled should be set to 1. with a texture the see-through effect is gained by editing the alpha, not the MATD...

with a texture stdMatAlphaTestEnabled should be set to 1. and the see-through effect is gained by editing the alpha, not the MATD...

with a texture stdMatAlphaTestEnabled should be set to 1. and then the see-through effect is gained by editing the alpha, not the MATD...

OK, i'll do that. Also do you know anything about stdMatBaseTextureAlphaReplicate? because that is at 0 also. Thanks

sorry but I never played around with that prop. yet '0' appears to be the default setting

ok i just changed the stdMatAlphaTestEnabled to 1, and now in the game it seems as though the whole thing is transparent because it is not there.

can u upload your package pls ? I would need to have a look at it before I can come up with something...

Ok, here is the package, thank you.

first change the stdMatAlphaTestEnabled back to 0.
and then u seem to have deleted the shadow subsets. all the referneces are still there plus the texture. therefore u should add them back as well - or reclone your mesh

if instead you prefer to keep it without the shadows then u would need to have a look at IgnorantBliss' tute and do the instructions the other way round - after all u then want to delete subsets...

hello, sorry to bother you again, but that didn't work, and i don't know why.

well....here's your fixed package....

what you needed to do was to

1) set the stdMatAlphaBlendMode to blend

2)set the stdMatAlphaTestEnabled to 0

3) set the stdMatUntexturedDiffAlpha to 0.4 (you can increase this to make it LESS transparent, or decrease it to make it MORE transparent (i.e. 0.1 is almost invisible, 0.9 is almost solid)

Chrissy is right...you've deleted the groundshadow subset so this object will not have a shadow. If you want one, you need to add it back into the package (or reclone and start again, which will probaly be easier)


You need also to change your groundshadow texture. The way to get a correct goundshadow is:

Open your 3D editor,
take a screed dump of the 4 view windows
paste it into your graphics editor
crop the image leaving the overhead view only
crop to the object (but not too close)
reduce the colours to 2 (black/white)
erase unneccsary lines, (leaving the outline shape)
increase the colour depth to 16 million colours
magic wand the outline
invert it
delete the contents
fill with grey (128)
deselect
blur several times
resize it to 64 x64 pixels (dont worry if it looks disorted, it will look ok when mapped properly)
save as png
Import into your 3D editor
assign to the groundshadw subset
remap (if necessary)
export as .obj file
import into SimPE (doing NOTHING to the other subsets, and REPLACE the goundshadw)
CLEAR the bounding mesh
select the subsets you want to be selectable and click Add to bounding Mesh
go to the groundshadow texture....then Build DTX the new texture,
change the file type to ExtRaw8bit
update all sizes, commit
save your package.......phew!




Lastly, you used the Statue as your clone object....this has a bump map which you are not using, so it has unnecessary files. You would have been better cloning a different object which didn't use these files....however, it will still work ok. You might try deleting the unecessary bump map files (and their Mat Def's ....it should still work ok, and reduce the file size)

btw..... the basket's really cute! (maybe you could adjust the celophane mesh to completely cover the contents (unless you intended it to be this way....just a suggestion :confused

Omg! Thank you very much! It is fantastic! You are the best! You don't know how happy this makes me feel, i really appreciate it! I could never thank you enough, you are great boblishman

Ok thanks for the ideas, i changed the plastic wrap to cover the whole object and i made recolors. BTW this is going to be in a Easter Pack i am making:
http://www.simfantastic2.com/s2_easter_pack.htm
I am going to mention you once i update that page again. So thank you so much again! I really appreciate it! i also uploaded a pic with one without the original! Thank you

That water cooler and easter basket are fantastic. Really fresh ideas beautifully done.

And I am stumped (again) with the more mundane project I'm working on. It's cupboards to hang on the wall over the kitchen counters. The shadow is white and I didn't change aything but its size.
It is cloned from The Meaning of Fruit painting, which I chose for its number of groups and also its high room rating. I tried another clone from the same object with the same result. The shadow was ok until I changed its size. Which is odd because I have made other pictures from clones of the same painting and chaged the size of their shadows and they came out right.
I noticed the shadow for this object doesn't have a texture so I tried adding one following that part of IgnorantBliss' tutorial for adding a subset, but the shadow still shows up white.

As always I'll be really grateful if one of you can check this out for me. The first one is with my texture added the second and third with the material definition from the painting.

The shadow textures must be greyscale images (shades of grey on a black background), with no alpha channel, and must be in ExtRaw8bit format; the one in the cupboard #1 is in format DXT5, which happens when you import the image using the DDS utilities.

In order to fix it, display the texture in SimPE, select the ExtRaw8bit format, right-click on the image and choose Update all sizes; then Commit and save.
This procedure is needed every time you need to resize the shadow texture (which actually is quite infrequent: if you resize the shadow mesh to fit your new object, the image gets correctly stretched over the new mesh, without the need to change the size of the texture).

Thanks. I'll try that. But I'd likie to understand better why do I need to add a texture at all?

edit: Yes, thanks that worked.

Besides the texture image format, the texture reference on the Material Definition of the shadow on the main (number 1) cupboard is pointing to a wrong one that's not included in the package. When I fixed that, the shadow did show up dark. On the other two cupboards, there is no texture reference in the Material Definition at all. If you add a texture, do like with the first cupboard but make sure the texture references and texture formats are right.

It actually seemed to work for me after I changed to format ExtRaw8Bit, without fixing the name of the texture in the material definition. I guess that's because the texture I used does exist in another object in my downloads folder?

And I have another question if there is no alpha channel how do I avoid a solid black shadow? When I added this texture to the package I did also import an alpha channel. And when I opened the package up again the texture looked translucent. So how do I go about it with the othe two cupboards when I add the shadow texture?

There is no need for an alpha channel when you use the ExtRaw8Bit format. The white parts of the image are going to be solid and black parts transparent, and shades of grey will be partially transparent. When you add the shadow to the two other cupboards, do as with the first one, but just make sure to import the texture in the right format. And maybe copy the information of the shadow material from another object that has a "normal" shadow with a texture to begin with.

Yes, the shadow worked for you because you had that other object in your downloads folder. I've made the same mistake sometimes when adding Material Definitions, forgetting to change the texture reference but not noticing it since I had the other object in my downloads, as well.

Me again. I think I did the same thing on all 3 cupboards. In fact I did it all over 3 or 4 times but always with the same result. The first cupboard has a pretty good shadow, but I'd like it to be a bit lighter. The shadows on 2 and 3 are way too dark. Could you look at it again?
Also I've realized that for the corner piece to look right I'll need to add another shadow for the other wall. How hard is that?
How bad do you think it would be if there just weren't any shadows?
Thanks.

- It may be that since that original shadow has no texture, it hasn't been uv-mapped. You may want to try to map it.
- To make the shadow more transparent, make the shadow texture darker.
- You have to perform fix integrity on cupboards 2 and 3, without that the new shadow textures aren't correctly linked.
- The shadow texture on cupboard 3 is just a black square, unlike on the two other ones.
- I've never done it, but it's probably possible to make a shadow for the other wall, too. A shadow mesh is just a mesh like any other, you'll just have to place it exactly in the right place so that it appears to be against the wall and not floating, or sunken in the wall. Your shadow mesh would be like an L shape when looking from above, instead of just a flat I shape.

In any case, for objects that are mounted directly against the wall, the shadow is barely visible; it adds a sense of "reality" when in hi-res mode and in close-up view, but again, it's barely visible during normal play.

UV Mapping! You're brilliant! (And/or I'm a bit dim.) And perhaps the other part of the corner shadow wasn't showing up at all because I'd neglected to fix the integrity since I added it. Now it all looks pretty good. Whew. Thanks, thanks, and thanks.

i know that this is in another poost but there is no answer. is there a tut on combining 2 functional objects? if not, could someone make one? caues this is one thing i want to know really bad. hope its not to much trouble. :nod:

There is no tutorial that I'm aware of. Combining objects like that is very advanced modding, and I think a lot also depends on which objects you're combining, so I'm not sure if it's possible to have a general tutorial for combining all objects. What kind of objects are you planning on combining?