I am trying to experiment with overrides to the in-game materials - the ones found in the Objects02.package in the "3D" folder - by extracting the resource, making it into a new .package, and editing it.

Where should I put it so the game will actually use it as an override?

Inge Jones,
lol, just dump them into the downloads folder to override the defaults... unless the materials were hard-coded to be in that package in the 3D folder.

Thanks, yes that works. I had just misunderstood what the material was actually for. I thought I was editing the roof material but it was only the roof that shows up in build mode

The thumbnail ones? If so, yes, they even have thumbnail and interface materials. :D

I just wanted to let people know that starting with SimPE 0.69 (QA) there is a TXMT import/export feature that reads and writes xml files for the properties. It also has a merge feature (again from an xml file) which means that if you have a handful of settings you want to quickly change or add in a few material definitions you can do partial updates of your TXMTs quite quickly.

THanks for the infos, gonna try it...

Hi everyone,
I hope this is not the wrong thread for my question but I didn't find any other...
I want to make a sofa with steel frame. I t would be quite nice to have a shiny metal texture but I don't have much TXMT experience .
Do you know how I can make a glossy silver texture? What parameters do I have to change?
All I could find about it was Khaibits post below. Is that useful for me?


Best Regards jon119

jon119 - Take a look at the settings on my shiny silver ape: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=280006

I'll admit ignorance of exactly which settings are important, but I just yanked the settings off of something else that shined the way I wanted, adding/changing those that were different or not present and it worked just fine.

Hiya, having a problem with a floorlamp, got the default texture (my replacement texture) to show up okay in the game and the unlit state reflects the changes made in SimPE to the diffuse and emissive colours but the lit state just shows up bright white despite changing to violet, can anyone help?

Also I have just uninstalled Gunmods Radiance lighting to make the game faster for testing stuff and found that the backups offered here on the site don't have the light files for the base and university. Sims action heads are silhouettes and lights do not emit light, does anyone have a backup of these please?

Thanks.

(sorry for double posting)

Edit - found the res light data on ts2 base game disc and extracted to the folder so that's sorted, seems that university doesn't have any lighting info and this stuff was only updated in later expansions so it's enirely fixed in that context but the other problem with the object still remains, HELP!

Edit again! Excellent, thankyou Numenor, will duplicate and have a look at those text lists So I am thinking from what you say, not only do those text lists retain data for a master settings/shader file, they also hold the original lighting data for lit states?

Diffuse problems sorted -Actually did have quite a few issues with this object when cloning as my texture turned up alot darker, then I read through this thread and experimented - Changed the material properties in stdMatDiffCoef and stdMatEmissiveCoef to white and silver respectively for the original shade of my diffuse texture to show up properly.

As for the problem with your lamp, I suggest to post the package in the Repair Center; I suspect there is a problem with the MMATs or the Text List 0x88.

Regarding the problem with the Radiance, the easiest way to completely wipe it off, and restore the Maxis lights is using the Scriptorium installer: if you are not interested in the additional features of the Scriptorium, run the installer and choose "Restore Maxis Lights and Uninstall Scriptorium".

First of all thankyou to everyone who's contributed to this thread I've learnt loads from this general chit chat and queries!

I find that this envcube (to add to the list above by jon) gives the best effect for shiny things, and also different colours can be changed to make the reflections different colours

gothlivingroom_01-envcube

I used this MATD (TXMT or whatever) to get the shiny look on a gift I made for the ReflexSims Forum



And I read earlier on in this thread that you can go into a graphic program to get an RGB value, which is one alternative. But I found that also in the 'Categorized Properties' there is a dropdown list of colours which you can use to set an RGB colour for the base texture as well as the reflections.



I'm finding this really hard to explain. jasana used this technique with I think it was her silky beddings to achieve the different colours in the one package file.

There's really not much to it. You can take a look at the package file attached if you want to have a nosey (mesh & recolours included) and if anyone wants me to explain then feel free to ask.

Thank you MangaMoon for your contribution!
You say that the envcube "gives the best effect for shiny things": it actually work only with reflective surfaces (non-reflective surfaces are not interested at all by the envcube).
As for the trick about using a paint program to get the RGB values, it was written before Quaxi created the 'Categorized Properties' for the TXMT wrapper -

Hi,
I've made an object with a part that was meant to be transparent water. I figured out that it would look best with blendmode: additive but whwn I tested it in the basegame the water part was flashing from a bright purple to black all the time . In my Fullgame with BV everything was okay, it's really frustrating!

AFAIK flashing purple is the same as flashing blue - meaning that TXMT is not found, or other linking problems. Are you certain it's not the case? does Scenegrapher shows all the links right?

I think it is really a problem of the texture. phoenix_phaerie had a similar issue with agrden light and there Numenor wrote that additive blending is only meant to be used with greyscale textures or something like that...

I found another solution to fix that issue even if I don't know what originally caused the problem.

Thanks for your help!

Thanks all. I could, now, make reflected objects by mylself.

I don't know if it was discussed, but, in my tests, the gothlivingroom_01-envcubemakes the object more "shiny", and the reflectionkitchenhighcontrast-envcube makes the object reflected and a little shiny.

And, a doubt... whats exactly the difference between stdMatDiffCoef and stdMatEmissiveCoef
All i can think is DiffCoef chances de "color" os the object itself and EmissiveCef changes the "color" of the "shiny". Is it?

- I think, but I might be wrong, that stdMatDiffCoef deals with how the diffuse (ambient) light impact on the object while stdMatEmissiveCoef regulate the light that is emitted by the object . Hight values for stdMatEmissiveCoef will make your object "glowing in the dark". The 3 values for each parameter stands for R,G,B (red, green, blue).


- In my testing, changing the parameter reflectivity doesn't show its effect. I wonder what am i missing ? Is that parameter interconnected with other ?

- I don't find info about the deprecatedstdMatInvDiffuseCoeffMultiplier.
Could someone help ?

Thanks.

Hi guys! Jumping on board to ask a reflectivity question.

I've achieved *almost* the exact reflectivity that I'm after for an object by copying the TXMT settings of the Base Game 'Sink-Counter-Club' ("Hydronomic CleenSheen Basin"). I would like to crank the reflectivity down just a *smidge* on these settings (to decrease the amount of color washout/brightness) and then it'll be exactly what I'm aiming for...

I dutifully went through each page of this thread, doing an Edit>Find on this Page for 'reflect', and I think I found a post that said *decreasing* the value for the 'reflectivity' *increases* the look of reflectivity... Is that correct? If I want the object just a little *less* shiny than the sink, I should *increase* the 'reflectivity' number value?

Also, I notice that the sink's texture is very dark, so the TXMT settings are affecting the 'brightness' of the color of the texture - I would like to crank that down a little also... I'm guessing that has something to do with some of the specular settings, but again, I don't know in which direction to tweak the number values...

Thanks in advance for any input anyone has the time to share!

Exactly. Reflectivity=1 creates a dull, opaque surface, while Reflectivity=0.1 is extremely reflective. NOTE: Reflection=0 deactivates completely the reflection (therefore, it's similar to 1).


The overall brightness is tweaked with the "stdMatDiffCoef" (the "diffusion" colour); in order to avoid any alteration of the texture, you should use three identical values for the R, G and B. "0.8,0.8,0.8" is the normal value, that ensures the most "natural" look to your texture. If your TXMT already has thre "0.8", then try increase all the three values to 0.85 or 0.9.

Another reason why a texture may look too dark is a bad smoothing of the mesh (if it's a custom mesh, of course); this can be fixed with UVmapper pro or Milkshape.

Ok my dear! I'll try adjusting the reflectivity, now that I know which way to go. Thank you for clarifying!

One thing I found out while experimenting was that the "stdMatSpecCoef" controls the color of the 'sheen' when I'm spinning the camera around the object, if that makes sense... I found that out by experimenting with the different colors of that particular sink.

My problem wasn't that my object is too dark though... I have the colors as I'd like them, but the TXMT settings of the sink left as they were were washing the colors of my object out to very pale colors (i.e. turning light pink to white, etc.). Based on what you've said about the "stdMatDiffCoef", it's most likely that I can't have it both ways - keep my color integrity while also having that nice 'shine' when the camera spins...

At least I know which direction to go in now! Thanks so much for the quick and kind response!!
:lovestruc

Pixelhate asked me to share some info concerning the TXMT and reflectivity... so I'm going to share some bits that I've been working just for illustration purposes...

Please be aware that I've only been Simming since February of '08, and by no means consider myself an expert... I'm just plundering my way through, but I'm happy to share my plundering!!

My best advice concerning reflectivity is to find an object that has the reflection that you like, and copy it. I have an older version of SimPE set to only load base game objects, so it doesn't eat up my system resources to have two SimPE windows running, then I simply copy and paste the values from the object I want to copy, to my new object or recolor....

An illustration of the 'sheen'/colored 'shine' achieved with the stdMatSpecCoef:
Here's the table, front view, the colors almost true:


Here's the bronze 'sheen' or shine I got by changing the color of the stdMatSpecCoef:
See how the table top kinda turned orangey in the light?

This was done by copying a highly reflective object (in this case the "Hydronomic CleenSheen Basin" - Sink - Counter - Club) using these settings:
Categorized View:

Property View of the settings that achieved the colored shine:


As for the subtle metallic look of the legs, I copied the settings from the Base Game "Gliteri & Co. Trieste End Table" - Table - End - Loft:

A nice subtle metallic sheen, in my opinion...

Here's an illustration of the color 'washing out' I was talking about earlier in the thread:
Tables front view:

Tables reflecting:

The gold table top has a more 'yellowish' tint to the stdMatSpecCoef while the silver/gray table top has a gray color...
The silver table top has these settings, which I'm going to have to crank down/darken, I think, so the color doesn't 'wash out' so much:
Categorized view:

Property view:


That's about all I have to add at the moment, please feel free to question me! I may not have the answer, but I'm willing to try! I hope that a careful perusal of these SimPE property screenshots might help someone a little bit when experimenting with reflectivity; perhaps to note the differences between the table leg and table top settings for more illumination...

Ah Thank you very much ! I still don't understand why I see difference on your example but not in my experimentation.
I'll dissect your post and I'll make a bunch of new tests, coz I really want to understand how it works... and I'm not giving it up !
If anyone have more insight, I'll buy it !

I forgot to say thank you Pixelhate, the reference guide is great! So... thank you!! And it's my pleasure to share and contribute, so please feel free to dissect and do with my material what you like/need!

EDIT:
p.s. I *think* (from my experimenting) that the stdMatSpecPower is the value that decreases and increases the appearance of that sheen... The highest number I've seen is '20', which would be nearly a complete washout when the camera spins around the object, in the case of the silver table, even '13' is too much...

EDIT AGAIN: I had to experiment just to be sure... and *decreasing* the stdMatSpecPower value *increases* the sheen... the value set to '5' washed it out much greater; set to '20' the appearance was much less...

Tech Discussion: The Material Definition ("TXMT", a.k.a. "MATD")
http://linna.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=35769







groovilicious,

thanks for your nice demonstraions and descriptions... :claps:

Actually, true that stdMatSpecPower is to control the strength of the specular coefficints, stdMatSpecCoef .



To those who may be concerned,

Please point out my mistake if any, I can be wrong on certain things.

From the following codes for the TS2 base game common standard material shader:

1. "stdMatSpecPower=0" is equivalent to "stdMatSpecPower=0", which means no specular shading added to the drawing of the presented texture.

2. When specular shading is enabled, both stdMatDiffCoef and stdMatEmissiveCoef become half of their original values as set in the txmt files.

3. by default, stdMatSpecPower = 0, and so the specular shading is disabled.

4. all3 sets of alpha values by means of stdMatAlphaMultiplier are unaffected by the specular shading.

Note: this is solely specific to the common standard material we normally use for object recolouring and some sims-related objects using this material type. Other material types may have other definition(s).