Hi again I made an invisible recolor of a ceiling light, but the only way I could make it completely transparent was to delete the shape file. Otherwise, whenever the light was on, it would turn white (you can see this in the object selection preview).

Of course now after I place the light in a room it's impossible to pick it back up again. Is there any way to fix this while keeping the light completely invisible?

I've included the original lamp and my edited lamp in the .rar file

I think the SHPE resource is required. Maybe try edting the images and the TXMT for the lit resource?

In these two resources change the stdMatAlphaBlendMode to blend.

lightingceilinghangingfluorescent_glow_lit_txmt
glow_lit

In these two images change them to blank in your graphics program:

guob-alpha
lightingceilinghangingfluorescent-guob-alpha

Thanks for your reply, I really appreciate it

In my first edit, I already did these things :
Made all transparent .png files
Changed to DXT3
Set Reflectivity to 0.0
Set stdMatAlphaTestEnabled to 1
stdMatEnvCubeMode to none
Set stdMatAlphaBlendMode to blend
Set stdMatUntexturedDiffAlpha to 0
After this, the lamp still showed up when the light was "on". It only went away after I deleted the SHPE file. I know I must have done something wrong

I tried it again right now, doing only the things you instructed, and this was the result (pics):

nm..you made recolor?

I cloned the object, and recolored that. I wanted a separate object

Sorry, I did figure that out after I changed my above post. Unfortunately, my ride showed up right as I was trying to edit it again. So..here's what that post originally said:

HL- maybe the SHPE isn't needed? Logically it sounds like it is..but maybe not.

Asiya - try doing what you did the first time. Only this time- go back to the GMDC and click on the Model tab. Click "clear" over to your right. Go to the Groups tab, click on every line there (except for the shadow if there is one) one at a time- then click "add to bounding mesh" for each one. Commit and save. I'm curious to see if this is a bounding mesh issue. If it is, doing that will solve that and you'd be able to pick the lamp back up after placing it.

At the moment, my game is running so I can't open SimPE to be 100% sure I got the tab names right. When you click on the Model tab you should see "clear" over to your right as long as I got the right tab.

I still think the SHPE is required, it links to the GMND which links to the textures and such.

If you must have a separate object I suggest referencing the original mesh. In SimPE select Defaults, then add the ticky box for referencing original mesh. Edit the TXMT as above for the hood texture to be invisible. Then in the BHAVs, change the On state to reference the null texture just like the Off state is doing. This makes the glow for both states invisible.

Be sure to get a new GUID so that your object doesn't conflict with the games.

Hi again
I tried what catz suggested, and got blue flashy!

The blue flashing is related to the texture. Fixing the bounding mesh shouldn't affect that at all.

What you can do to see what's wrong: Open up the package, click on Tools>Object Tools>Scenegrapher. Is anything there listed as "false"?

Sorry for the late reply, I haven't been online.
Yes, Catz, These are listed as "false":
lightingceilinghangingsunlamp-[ORIGINAL-LAMP-86c1-42e6-9053-6aab867c6347]_hood_txmt
lightingceilinghangingsunlamp-[ORIGINAL-LAMP-86c1-42e6-9053-6aab867c6347]_glow_lit_txmt

Yep, that's texture related. Somehow the link between the SHPE and TXMT got broke. It could be something isn't spelled right or named right. Without being able to see your .package it's harder to tell.

Did you do EXACTLY what you did for the mesh you posted in your first post? That one worked the way you wanted it to- you just couldn't grab it after it was placed.The bounding mesh doesn't have anything to do with the texture.

If i understand it rite, you want to make object invisible while maintaining ability to edit it at design mode ?

You could add 2 BHAV's to OBJF's 'start live mode' and 'stop live mode'.

One BHAV will make your object invisible when you enter live mode,
and other one will make it appear when you enter design mode so you can move or delete it.

Set this function to 'start live mode' Action BHAV in OBJF
Function - Hide me ()
[prim 0x0002] Expression (My 0x0048 (Render Alpha) := Literal 0x0000) T-T / F-E
48000000000503070A0000FFFF000000

Set this function to 'stop live mode' Action BHAV in OBJF
Function - make me visible ()
[prim 0x0002] Expression (My 0x0048 (Render Alpha) := Literal 0x0064) T-T / F-E
48006400000503070A0000FFFF000000

Proof of concept : invisible lamp demo object attached to this post.
(object may require EP-OFB to work since it was cloned from OFB i think)