Posted a related question in the Tools forum, but no answer so I'm trying here

I want to do some walls, and Homecrafter won't start for me under Vista 64. I've tried all the tips and tricks I've found here and elsewhere on the web, but no go. So currently I'm trying to work around it.

I see from the SimPE info and a forum search that theoretically one CAN do walls and floors using SimPE alone; but I'm not sure where to start. Pretty much the only advice I've seen given is "since you can use HomeCrafter, why bother with SimPE for this?"

However, now I know it's possible, and I need some direction No tuts anywhere that I can dig up. Object Workshop doesn't include walls and floors, nor does the Recolor Wizard. Any hints on how to go about this?

Object Workshop _does_ includes walls and floors - under Other category - if you have Advanced mode turned on. Advanced mode is set in Extra->Preferences.

There's not much options to mess with when cloning a wall or floor - so just clone one from proper category, and replace texture as with usual recolor
A nice extra option - you can make walls and floors bumpmapped if you use SimPE

ahhhh thank you Jasana I thought I was in advanced mode, but I guess I wasn't :O

Proceeding then :D

Hmmm I'm still stuck. I'm sorry, newb with SimPE here

I can clone a wall with no problem; but I don't understand how to export the texture from the clone in Object Workshop. I click "Open" to load a custom package, and select my cloned wall. In the next window, the only option available is still "clone", not "recolor".

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious please point it out!

Um, I'm not sure if it's OK to 'clone' non-Maxis wall, but it's certainly OK to 'clone' a Maxis one - because creating new wall/floor is a bit more complex, on technical level, then usual recolor. But it's much the same afterwards - you'll get a package with TXTR resources to change, and STR# resource to put wallpaper name, description and price into. Name, description and price are also repeated in XOBJ - I'm too lazy to check which ones are actually used, so I make them the same, to be sure.

Since texture is in TXTR, you work with it exactly the same as you'd do with an object recolor. Right-click on texture and Export to export, right-click and Build DXT or Import to import.

There really should be a tutorial on this, since as far as I know this is the only way to extract the Maxis floors and walls to edit them.

To change the price, description, and name of your floor you have to edit the XOBJ file and the text list. The cost in the XOBJ file is in hex code (I think?) though so you would have to know how to convert. For example a flooring that cost $2 would be 0x00000002. Conversion is pretty simple up to $9 after that it gets complicated.

Hmmm...if someone were to make a tutorial about this where would you post it to?

A tutorial would be awesome Searching around the web for this problem I learned that I'm not the only person that wants to know, but there aren't a lot of answers out there. Pretty much people get told to just use Homecrafter, which is apparently not an option if you use Vista 64 (in addition to the bump-map issue).

Post it here This is where I always look first for tuts, anyway And if you put a link at the SimPE forums people should be able to find it.

P.S. I see what I was doing wrong; I assumed I should be able to do the recolor from inside object workshop, instead of in the main SimPE window. Thanks for clearing it up, Jasana

Okay, I'm definitely in Advanced mode on SimsPE, but no "Walls" appears under other. Did I do something wrong?

Help! Very frustrating!

P.S. Yes, there really should be a tutorial about this somewhere.

For tutorial seehere.

Did you restart SimPE after changing to advanced mode? Sometimes you have to to get it to load everything after changing your settings.

Thanks so much Charisa I followed your tut and am still having some problems... flashing walls... but I'm sure it's an elementary error I made. I'll try again tomorrow.

Hard to believe it's your first tut, it's very clear!

Um, flashing walls can happen if you broke the resource chain. You didn't changed any names other than in the first Fix Integrity?

Charisa, good work on tutorial