<whine>Please please please can someone help me - I'm very tired!</whine>

I know this thread has been posted before - I've been searching for the past um... lots of hours but only find partial responses, nothing I've been able to actually follow.

So my issue is I want to use the cheap stereo as a base (it's what's available). I don't want the speaker FX - because my target object won't have speakers.

I am using TSRW for the easy stuff, mesh, maps etc. I've identified the slot holding the FX, but the slot editing within TSRW does not allow me to get rid of the FX by removing the slot.

What I understand of this problem thus far:

1. With Atervera's plugins plus granny2.dll installed into my S3PE directory, I've opened up the package extracted via TSRW
2. I am supposed to open the _RIG resource to edit the FX by clicking on the Grid option...

That's as far as I get because the Grid option is not available - hex only.
I have downloaded the latest version of S3PE again today, as well as the plugins various, nada. I imagine that actually it's probably not that difficult past that point... the various threads I have found seem to run out of information there which suggests to me it's probably nothing tricky... but I seem to be stuck between here and there!

References:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=425964
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=3310099
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=431365

<lookpathetic>Can someone help me out and fill in the blanks before I go crazy?</lookpathetic>
Thanks!


Edit to add: I've checked and the package isn't read-only or some other nonsense and I closed down TSRW when trying to edit but it didn't (and shouldn't really) make a difference.

What I did to get rid of the weird warping FX in my stereo mod, was to change the bone name and slot name to 0x00000000 in the RSLT resource using S3pe. I can't remember if I tried using the _RIG resource and it didn't work or what though, I just know it did work altering the RSLT.

Using Grid / Chunk Entries / Chunk Entry / RCOLBlock / Effects / Part

Kate, you on;y need all that granny stuff if you have a really OLDE type rig. Since - some EP - rigs are no longer granny format. If you have atavera's old rig wrapper you won't see new style rigs

Thank you both for replying! Very much

I downloaded and re-installed S3PE again, I went back through all the pages I found and looked for alternate links to Atervera's plugins (on the assumption that I have an old and out of date version). I only found one working link to the same files I downloaded yesterday, but I downloaded them again and put them in the S3PE folder again.

For some peculiar reason now the RIG resource is now viewable (no arguments here).

What I still have no idea (and wasn't covered... I don't think) in any of the pages of stuff I read yesterday, was what to do next!

Huge Lunatic (which btw, in case you hadn't been told lately, is the BEST user name ever) - I also had a look at the RSLT. It seems to have the same information in it as the RIG, but I'm not sure which of the 3 to change! Everything seems to show up in the RIG, but I wouldn't know what to change to delete them - are they in the same order? Is there a null value to change the RIG FX name to, or should I just zero out the slot in Effects 1 (on the grounds its in the middle!)?

As far as i know you can only delete a fx by editing the script altho i didn't try it in the RLST file yet.(RIG file will not work, that i know....)

That's not good news

I realized since I do know the XYZ coordinates of the slot with the stereo FX that would make it easy to identify, but when I opened up the package again I was back to my original problem, the grid option is greyed out when selecting the RIG, and the RSLT has nothing in it to speak of, certainly not the entries that I looked at earlier.

Not that it matters, if it's a scripting issue then this project is toast as I have no head for this sort of stuff (it's all just squiggly lines on a grey background to me).

Thanks anyway everyone for your help - I think from now on I shall do my best to stick to projects I can do with just TSRW, save myself from the trauma of trying to get my dyslexic brain to deal with the stuff beyond the pretty shapes and patterns!

After trying to explain the issue to my DH (who unlike me sees the world as a series of 1's and 0's with the occasional perplexing 2, rather than pretty shapes and fluffy colors), he said that not being able to open these resources a second time is illogical and stupid and I must have done something wrong.

I tried again, but no dice, then restarted my computer and was able to open them just fine. It seems I get one shot, after which if I do anything at all to the file suddenly the Grid option for opening the RIG resource becomes unavailable and the RSLT displays something entirely different (and not editable)

In any case being able to access the thing I changed the FX name in the RIG resource to null instead of the stero FX name. Now it seems to play without the FX as desired BUT I'm wondering if this quick and dirty fix is in fact safe? I know this is more or less all that is required for Sims 2 (it can just be left blank in the text lists), but is it a viable solution for Sims 3 or will the object be trying to do all sorts of background processing which could be harmful to people's games (on however small a level)?

The rule is that if you alter something in the RSLT that has the same name as something in the _RIG you need to alter both of them to agree with each other. You will probably find entries in the RSLT that do not have a match, and it is ok to edit them unilaterally.

The RIG lists 5 entries for bones each of which has the following items listed: position (XYZ), orientation, scaling, name, opposingboneindex, parentboneindex, hash and unknown2

The RSLT has 3 entries listed under Effects (chunk entries, RCOL block) 1 of the 3 corresponds to the one concerned with the stereo FX, the entries are: slot name and bone name plus XYZ.

Other than the XYZ there don't appear to be any corresponding items listed in both (at least named the same), so does that mean there's nothing else to do?

RSLT entries have 3 values of rotation for each axis, as well as position along that axis (4 fields per axis). Those are what you need to match to the RIG. If you use atavera's rig editor (helper plugin for s3pe) that will translate the rig into something that looks more like what you can see on the RSLT.

Is it safe to assume those would still match if I haven't moved the FX position? Is there a particular advantage to editing those values in S3PE vs just moving the little slot arrows around in TSRW?

I'm more concerned with removing the FX in this particular instance, but I have a couple of tubs with taps which are not aligned with the original - visually lining up the slot in TSRW seems to work, but if it doesn't actually do this properly and it ought to be done this way in S3PE that would be useful to know for when I get around to processing those into objects.

well if you changethe mesh so that your effect would no longer look right coming out of its old place, then you will have to move some slot. I actually know nothing about effects specifically and do not know whether they typically have an associated RIG entry. As far as I know, and last time I asked the developer, TSRW does not move RIG entries automatically when you move a slot in workshop, meaning the rig still needs to be done. What I do is use TSRW to pull the slots, as you can see where you're putting them, then I export the RIG using the s3pe/tsrw interface and edit that in S3PE - using the new values that are now listed for the slots in workshop as a guide.

Good to know - thanks!

But for this particular project it's not a case of moving the FX, so much as the FX is completely unsuitable (being 2 sound-waves of a fixed proportional distance to each other plus some musical notes). Whilst it seems entirely possible to move the FX - both XYZ and rotation (possibly scale too by the looks of the items listed?), what I want to do is stop them from appearing at all. I could live with the musical notes, but with no speakers the sound wave doesn't make any sense.

There may be some mileage in looking at the scaling, except I strongly suspect what would happen is that an attempt to hide the sound waves inside the object, so only small musical notes are seen, would result in them clipping through anyway, or being rendered outside the mesh. That is assuming that it is possible to scale them of course.

It did occur to me after some head scratching that the smaller stereos like the OL and Gen ones don't have this FX. Obviously I'd rather not clone an EP item if it can be avoided (and certainly not an SP one), but I suppose it'll be the only option if there isn't a nice 'clean' way to stop the FX from showing up that doesn't involve a) scripting or b) the object running through a gazillion iterations trying to start an unspecified and non-existent FX until the end user's machine locks up.

If it only tries to run the FX once when the stereo is switched on, and then gracefully fails, ceasing to try until the next time the object is switched on, then it seems safe enough to break the name reference as a solution to the problem.