How Do I: Create my OWN Textures for my custom mesh?

[Nightywolf]

I'm familiar with creating objects, creating it's parts with the GMDC, and UV mapping, etc, but I have a question reguarding textures...is it possible to create your own textures on defined parts of an object and can it only be done using the default TXTR files provided in the object's package? I'm asking these questions and I'm also asking how would I create my own user-made TEXTR file and make effective use of it on my mesh? Maybe I didn't look hard enough for "how tos", but I didn't find anything that covers this question. I hope someone can help me with this. once I manage to get the texture stuff done I'll be able to begin the BHAV work and other lovely things to make my object (and future objects) interesting :)

[WesHowe]

OK. I hope I understood your question well enough.

I think you want to know if you can change the texture image (TXTR) for just a portion of your object?

That answer is yes, if you add groups. Adding additional groups to an object is is not a trivial task, but can be done. How this works is that each group can (not must) have a different texture image.

The simplest way to just change part of your objects texture is to copy the Maxis TXMT, and just color the part you want. Or, if you added new parts, UV map them into an unused part of the texture image and just recolor that part of the TXMT.

<* Wes *>

[Nightywolf]

So that means for each "object" in my groups in my GMDC file, of which there are 6, I could also have a total of 6 "TXTR" image in Png format for each individual group? Thats part of what I think I understand what you're telling me, and I can make good sense of that. I'm starting to understand a lot about the things about Textures, but I'm baffled with a problem that I didn't address in my post above which is although I have TXTR files, I deleted the original group object that the TXTR was assigned to and my object now has absolutely no texture on it. There TXTR files are perfectly fine as far as I can tell, but I do not know how to tell the TXTR files to color the textures it contains to the group objects in the GMDC file. If the solution to assigning textures to the group objects lies in the TMXT files, then there is another problem. maybe if it is the problem a brief explanation of how to work with it could be given, or a link about TMXT files.

[WesHowe]

Well, I don't want to try to write a tutorial 'on-the-fly' here, but what you want to study to answer these questions is something called the 'scenegraph'. I don't have a link handy, but searching this site should reveal a posting with a nice discussion of this topic by Numenor.

The scenegraph is a term for all the files that get collected together to form the core of the object, whether it is a statue, painting or a Sim. It starts at an anchor we call the CRES (Resource File in SimPE), and each file has a reference to the next part. It takes a little study to understand the layout, because there is a branch such that it looks more like a tree.

When I described the texture per group, I used a shortcut. The actual construction is that in the SHPE file, for each group in the GMDC there should be a line that has the group name and the texture material (called either TXMT or an older name MATD).

The texture material has a lot of descriptive information about the texture, like shininess and brightness and such. The TXMT then references the Texture Image, which is the PNG (actually, a series of scaled sizes called a MIPMAP).

While I didn't quite follow exactly what you did, it appears to me that you broke the package because you didn't know about the role all the parts play in relation to each other. In addition, when you are making clones of objects and changing names so as to make standalone things that do not merely replace a game item, there are special things about how the new parts are named and numbered (including hashing) that are important to get your desired results.

For starting out, one of the easiest things I can suggest is that you use Object Workshop (in SimPE) to clone something similar. Then you can replace the GMDC and the TXTR of this clone with your own creations (being careful to use the name that OW gave them). The options you want will include making a standalone object and not reference the original mesh. This will allow you to exercise your meshing and coloring talents without tripping over errors in naming files. Then you can try rebuilding your object, if needed, knowing that your mesh and texture image are sound.

<* Wes *>

[Proudane101]

I just finished Mod_BV's Object Creation Tutorial, but my end table has the texture of the Sentinal End Table, which doesn't fit on my end table. I have the same question posted in that forum, but I saw this one and decided that this might be another place that could be of help.

[Echo]

Hmm... Can't find the old scenegraph thread, but this tutorial covers what I think you're trying to do anyway:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=103379

Proudane: That sounds like a different problem. You may need to retry the steps where you import your image into the TXTR, and make sure you click the "commit" button once it's done. :)

[WesHowe]

I located the scenegraph tutorial, only it isn't called that. It is in the Modding InfoCenter and was titled "An overview over the Package structure". The link is:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=121294

Good luck.

<* Wes *>