Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd Apr 2017 at 4:38 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default Terrain color bleeds through between terrain paints
So I like using--and making--terrain paints, but my game is doing this thing that makes them look sucky if I overlap different ones. I'm stumped on how to fix it.

Basically, if I cover an area with a terrain paint, and then overlay parts of it with another terrain paint, the borders between them that are supposed to blend them together instead "bleeds through" the original color of the neighborhood grass. So if I am in a grassy neighborhood and try to overlay two orange sand terrain paints, there will be an ugly green border between them even though neither terrain paint has any green on it. This happens to me for ALL terrain paints, whether third-party or even basegame ones.

Here's an example of what I mean. I overlayed two orange terrain paints, and the gray concrete of the neighborhood shows through where they overlap, altering the color value between them. The more subtle the transition is supposed to be (eg. on the right-hand side), the more obvious the issue becomes.

There are ways to work around it... if I'm using a reddish terrain paint in a desert 'hood or a green terrain paint in a grassy 'hood, the color that bleeds through is similar enough that it isn't noticeable. But sometimes matching terrain paints to neighborhood terrains isn't an option (eg. with purple or blue terrain paints) and even when it is, it's still pretty limiting.

I see other people's terrain paints online, eg. Voeille's Sands terrain paints here on MTS2, where they have clearly overlapped multiple terrain paints and they don't seem to be experiencing this problem. So is there a way around it?

My graphics settings are all on "high", so I don't think that's an issue. I do have a newer computer, and I've already had to work around other issues pertaining to that because TS2 mistakes my graphics card for being low quality. Have tried Googling various topics like groundcover bleeding issue and terrain paint transparency border problem but to no avail.
Advertisement
Scholar
#2 Old 22nd Apr 2017 at 4:51 PM
You mean this oldie from 2009? I’m fairly sure I used a desert lot, so for sand terrain paints the border isn’t noticeable. It’s not possible to blend terrain paints like you want (and I want that too, that green border is extremely annoying on beach lots in grassy hoods), there can be only two layers of terrain texture – a terrain paint + hood texture. Not sure if that’s moddable, it might be defined in shaders, but it might not, I don’t know.

“Secret is only a secret when it is unspoken to another.”
Simblr
My profile on the official forums
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 22nd Apr 2017 at 5:18 PM
Yep, that's the one. Inspired me to make my own groundcover set... and lots of puzzlement for a while over what I was doing wrong. <g>

Shame there's no known fix--you'd think that after making such a nice terrain coloring system, Maxis would have made them blend together a little easier. But thanks for the quick response!
Scholar
#4 Old 22nd Apr 2017 at 5:27 PM
If you’re making terrain paints, I recommend texture size 1024x1024 (like the ones I shared at the end of 2016, the sand set you mentioned has textures 512x512) – Maxis default size is 256x256 (however they do have a few coverings that are 512x512), but it looks really blurred when you zoom in a bit (e.g. this comparison picture with my grass and Maxis grass). 512x512 is not bad and you can go with that if you’re not aiming at a HQ effect, but avoid 256x256.

“Secret is only a secret when it is unspoken to another.”
Simblr
My profile on the official forums
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 22nd Apr 2017 at 7:31 PM
Yes! I actually made mine 512x512, since I had the sand textures in game already and could see how they looked. Most of the textures I started with were already around that size, and the scale fits the matching rock recolors I'm packaging with them. But I'll definitely try to increase the texture size next time around!

I love how flexible this game is... that we can continue to improve on things like texture quality so far beyond what the original game contained.
Back to top