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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 8:47 PM
Default Invisible bookcases
Hi,

I made a new bookcase mesh, but when I import it into the game it shows up invisible, only the glass parts shows.

I tried to clone several ones, but I had the same result with all. The interesting thing is that the thumbnail shows fine. I'm pretty sure I did everything right, the mesh is assigned to the joints and the textures are fine. This problem only occours with bookcases.

Here is a screenshot:



Thanks for any help.
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Alchemist
#2 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 11:11 PM
This is much like the problems we are having with the videogame system. Preview works, object is invisible, except for one little part.

Can you post up this broken bookcase?

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 11:54 PM
Here's the file. It's only a test package so I imported only one Mlod and the texturing is not finished.

Thank you very much for looking into this.
Attached files:
File Type: rar  StylistSims_Bookshelf01.rar (781.3 KB, 11 downloads) - View custom content
Alchemist
#4 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 2:23 AM
OK. I worked on this.
I am pretty sure it is not the mesh, or your meshing. It is something in the texturing, and I believe it is related to the texture stepping.
But I don't know how to change it, or even exactly which part is not right. I can only disprove that it is a mesh problem.
I extracted the mesh from your .package. I transferred it using .obj to a package I had previously made from a clone of the cheap stereo. I regrouped the glass with the bookshelf, and saved it all out, tested in the game, and a screen cap is below. Other than not being textured properly and lacking a glass material, the mesh is fine.

When I look at your package in the game, carefully, the glass doors are absolutely perfect. However, the only part of the entire shelf that appears is half of the single, globe shaped pot on the left shelf. You can rotate around and see the front faces from that as you move at different angles. It has to be that how the texturing works and what we think we are doing is at odds with each other, or we are trying to link to textures that are not there.

If I thought this was something in the mesh exporter or compiler, I would work on it. It is something in the texturing or the clone that is linking to an almost invisible texture, except for the one small "porthole" that allows that one globe to be partly visible.

I hope we can get someone that has studied the textures to help, as I am out of ideas, although I am pretty certain this is the same problem that bit the person trying to make the playstation clone I looked at a day or so ago.

<* Wes *>
Screenshots

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 11:16 AM
Thanks a lot for taking your time! I wonder if this has to do something with the overlay texture. The glass might appeared fine because it wasn't mapped in that texture. I'll try to make a new clone of the bookcase and don't change the overlay, and see what happens.
Wiki Wizard
#6 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 11:17 AM
I think i can see the problem, it is the same issue that people where having when trying to texture cars, and i realised the problem wasn't all that big, let me download this package, check it out, then come back to you later to see if i can get it working


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Check out some of my other stuff here.
Wiki Wizard
#7 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 11:25 AM
Just after taking a poke around in the package i see a totally white image, which i think is your issue, you have taken the part alpha texture and slapped white all over it, destroying the alpha channel and covering up the correct areas of your texture, so unfortunately i am not able to correct it for you, you will need to clone another bookcase alltogether

For future reference: Because you clone an object with a recolourable part but also has a non recolourable part, the issue you have is that you have a special extra texture which is mostly an alpha channel, the bit you make an alpha is the bit that you want to be recolourable, the bit that you don't will have it's own texture which you need to put on top but in the correct place! I will write a tutorial on it at some point to help everyone out with this


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Check out some of my other stuff here.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#8 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 11:46 AM
Thanks. I think the extra texture you are talking about is what I called overlay. It works similar to clothes, the overlay is used to the non recolorable parts like books etc and it's on the top of the multiplier.

What I did was that I erased the overlay texture and filled it's alpha with black, so there is no visible overlay on the multiplier. But it looks like it erased the multiplier texture somehow.

Edit: now I see it. I opened my package and the overlay appeared without alpha. I made it with a completely black alpha, so it looks like the image lost it's alpha during compression/save etc.
Wiki Wizard
#9 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 11:51 AM
Ok i just wrote a tutorial on it if you want to read it, it should correct your issue:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=365552


It's ok, we all laugh-snort occasionally!
Check out some of my other stuff here.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#10 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 3:21 PM
Thanks for the tutorial. I tried it, but had no luck.

I cloned a new bookcase, only replaced the main mlod and didn't change the textures. The result was this:



I think there is something in the bookcase files that modifies something. See, the game creates a face which wasn't there and some parts are still invisible, although the texture covered everything.


I tried to clone a cd rack which has the same texture structure with an overlay image. I changed the mesh, and all textures. It worked, so it's not a texturing problem and it's not a problem with the mesh.

I hope that it helps that I mentioned this issue. I'm incredibly thankful for all the programs and plugins which are available and I know there is a lot of work in them.
Alchemist
#11 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 3:23 PM
Well, I am trying to follow this, as I want to learn, too.
Norbi, can you show me which textures you changed to fix this?

Quote:
Edit: now I see it. I opened my package and the overlay appeared without alpha. I made it with a completely black alpha, so it looks like the image lost it's alpha during compression/save etc.


This in particular... which texture map?
Do you think it was a change in the DDS format? Some do not have alpha layers available.

<* Wes *>

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#12 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 3:35 PM
I had an object that was invisible as well. I chalked it up to not knowing what the heck I was doing, but I suppose there is a small chance that it suffers from a similar issue as the bookcase.

I cloned the candle light, added two more and resized them. All done in Milkshape, and then exported. I changed nothing else in the package, none of the textures or texture maps. I've already thrown it and apparently emptied the recycle bin already. Don't know if this is going to help you at all.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#13 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 3:38 PM
It was this texture, the overlay. It's the texture for non-recolorable parts, like books, vases etc which are put on top of the multiplier.


The original one for the game looks like this. It has an alpha channel, where you can set which parts are visible. Which is black in the alpha is invisible, which is white shows on the top of the multiplier.


But fixing it didn't help. I noticed that for some reason the Photoshop plugins doesn't import the alpha channel if it's completely black. Than I checked the texture with Nvidia DDS viewer and it showed that it had a completely black alpha channel.

The overlay worked fine when I cloned it from a cd case and I already made a dresser which had an overlay image on it, and it showed fine. So it looks like it's something with the bookcase file structure.
I hope it's easy to understand what I wrote. My english is not perfect.
Alchemist
#14 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 3:47 PM Last edited by WesHowe : 21st Aug 2009 at 4:03 PM.
I tried changing that texture, but I didn't have any success, either.
As I said, I looked carefully and there was one small shelf item partly visible. I can understand broken meshes, but this just seems to be broken rendering.
And because it involves invisibility, the alpha issues sure look suspect.

<* Wes *>

EDIT: The only part that showed up was the little yellow thing that was on the second shelf, next to the CDs. Only it wasn't yellow, it was black and white and a hint of another color.

And I did not see that image in the package I got. I looked at all the images with WTV, and did not see any in color... just the greyscale ones.

<* Wes *>

The attached was what that texture looked like after I decompressed the package and looked at in... it is devoid of any picture information.
Screenshots

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#15 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 3:59 PM
It was the image from the original Maxis bookcase. I attached a picture in my earlier post that what my bookcase mesh looked like with original Maxis textures. It was still invisible, but this time different parts.
I tried to clone the cd rack and used the same textures, same meshes, and the bookcase showed fine.

That's why I thought it has nothing to do with the texturing, but I could be wrong.
Wiki Wizard
#16 Old 21st Aug 2009 at 6:22 PM
Well at least it isn't completely invisible anymore


It's ok, we all laugh-snort occasionally!
Check out some of my other stuff here.
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