Okay, pokedude9777

I guess you are right...

But it was very early in the morning.

Heh, we all do that sometimes

ok I had the nivida downloaded but I didn't tell simpe. now that's done and I was doing fine up untill,

"Repeat the step 3, replacing the second texture in the package, the one used for the "lit" state of the lamp. When editing it, remember to make it a little brighter that the "unlit" one. Import the edited image into SimPE using the DDS utilities, as explained above. COMMIT AND SAVE again.


The recolour is finished
Copy the package into the downloads folder and fire up the game: your brand new colour option will be available in the Buy Mode catalog, when selecting the "4by4 Designer Chandelier" ceiling lamp."

When did we recolor the lamp? I'm lost again

After you have export the image from SimPE.

You need a graphic editor like Photoshop. I have only find this thread...

http://www.modthesims2.com/wiki.php...raphics_Editors

Hello Numenor,

I wanted to thank you for this tutorial... 4 weeks ago I finally sat down and did my first recolour after years of waiting cause I thought it's too difficult... Oh my god I am so embarressed with myself that I waited sooo long. Because understanding SimPE is the easiest part concerning recolouring. And I am lucky... I have a good hand using photoshop... meaning it makes most of the time what I want :-).

Well... may I add what information I missed in this tutorial after 4 weeks experience... it's of course only a few things but they came in sooo handy now that I learned them elsewhere. i thought it would be good for newbies to know instantly:

1) In the tutorial you recommend to use DXT1 as long as I don't know what I do...
Well first time recolouring a plant I had a big problem there... and was told with transperencies I have to use DXT3. This info is necessary to know. (I still don't know what DXT 5 is good for though).

2) The preview button! It's a real nerves and time safer! Especially with complicated objects I love to make a fake texture (lots of bright colours all over the given texture) first just to see where which part goes.
I know you know but if someone is reading it who does not:
After building the DXT, hitting commit and save(!!!) even without building, just commit and safe (with original texture then), being still in plugin view click in the resource tree matarial override (insteat of texture definition for dxt building), at the buttom right corner you find the preview button. It takes time for the preview to show up... be patient!
If there are 2 parts the preview will show only the choosen material override parts... other parts will be original.

It so good you can have a glimpse at your recolour without the need to start the game. I guess I am not the only one who's game needs about 20 minutes from start to lot enter.

Thank you again for this tutorial! It was really easy following and well... there are no more meshes I can't use, because I dislike it's colours - and that's great!

Greetings
lichtje

Eugh.. When I try to recolour the worldy hue streetlight from Ofb. In the resource tree/list thing it doesnt have anything I can recolour/export etc..
Nothing appears on the plugin view

I have done recolouring before but this one just cant be recoloured :S

Is it un-recolourable or something?

*Edit* Never Mind I answered the question myself

Hello, Im new and sorry my english. Thanks yours tutorials I started to make meshes and recolors but they (recolors) finish too polished and shiny, the grey look like crome, the yelow is too golden. If I need a "mate" or non polished or dimmed colors ¿what can I do...? Thanks... (I always use DXT1 Format...). What are the other formats?, DXT5, DXT7...

This is not a problem of Texture Image but rather Material Definition. It depends on the object you cloned. If the original object is shiny in game, your object will be shiny too. You need to fix the Material Definition.

Ok, thanks you, in Mat.Def. I found a list, ¡what the list! there are many things to change there, I will see where to start...

Do We have to have SimPe???

Yes, "Object Workshop" is part of SimPE, it's not an autonomous tool.

Ok, so it is very simple to recolor but I was wondering how do you make an object, such as a chair, look like its "inflated" or "blown up" I can't figure out how to make transparent colors. Please help!!!

You ask a lot of different questions. Look in the Create forum (the link is on top of each MTS2 page). There are tutorial for creating objects, and dealing with (semi)transparent textures. There is NOT a tutorial dealing with advanced modeling techniques: in order to read about them, you should find on the Net some forums specific to your 3D editor.

Ok here is my issue, I was following the tutorial but I realize that there is a window that is not coming up for me and I was wondering how do I fix it. When I get to step 3 and I click on the Texture Image in the resource tree I dont have the window on the right hand side that let me choose the texture to import so I can move on with the tutorial. In case this does not make sense, I provided a two screen shots below. Thank you!

Go to Extra -> Preferences -> SimPE settings and click "Reset Layout". You must have closed the missing window by mistake.

Thank you so much Numenor, I would have never known to look there.

Have a great day!

Darlingest Numenor - the link under "OTHER USEFUL RESOURCES" to the
"Enabling transparency on textures - Beginner level - by Mike190870" -
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=79870
Is broked...
Just thought you might like to know! As always, I'm totally grateful for all you do!

~big sloppy hugs and smooches~ :lovestruc

what does DXT5 format do? also what do the different sharpen and filter options do.Sorry if this has been adressed before, I just really need to know, thanks.

The DXT5 format is double the size (in bytes) than the DXT3 format, because it uses double the information to store the image; the detail (especially in the smaller mipmaps) are better, but the excessive resulting size discourages the use of this format, if not absolutely needed (for example a greyish images with transparent parts).
Both the DXT3 and the DXT5 formats support the alpha channel (i.e. the transparency map); while the DXT1 doesn't support it, but on the other hand it's the smallest format available.

As for the various filters, they do what they say: the resulting image is made sharper or softer (or whatever else ), compared to the imported original. The difference is visible in the smaller mipmaps, not in the main image (that is always identical to the imported original).
Personally, I use the "Soft Sharpen" filter almost always.

More interesting info on the Txtr formats! Thanks a bunch for the explanation, and it's helpful to know what settings you prefer too! I've always been a chicken to try anything but 'None' - but I may give the 'Soft Sharpen' a whirl sometime!

I'm TRYING to make my first recolor using SimPE. I am using v.72 and have been thoroughly confused by the many older tutorials. This tutorial, so far, has been the best—even for the latest version. However, I have a few questions:

1. How do you Preview Content?

2. How do you run Sims 2 from the Extras tab? I get an error. My paths look fine in the preferences.

LATER that night:
BTW, I finally succeeded! But, how do you get those earlier mistakes from showing up in the game? Where are those files located? [Recolors which never changed but showed up with asterisks in the game and are now just duplicates?]

I'm not sure to understand...
The "earlier mistakes" you mention are bad recolours that you created and now you don't want them in your game any more? They appear in the game because you must have copied the bad recolour packages into you Download folder; therefore, you should check your downloads and delete those old unwanted recolours. Sorting the file by "Last modification date" may help.
In some cases (depending on the EP that you have), you should be able to delete the bad recolours directly from within the game catalog, using one of these methods:

1. Open the Buy Mode catalog, select the object the you recoloured (all the recolours will show up), select the unwanted recolour, that should have an asterisk and lastly click the little trashcan icon to delete it. In some games the trashcan icon does NOT appear.
2. Open the Buy Mode catalog, select the Design Tool (i.e. the too that lets you change the colour of an object already existing in the lot); then click on the object (already placed on the lot) that you created the bad recolour for; lastly, select the bad recolour from the list and click the trashcan icon.

Sorry for not being clear. My EP does not allow delete from the BUY Mode.
I was able to delete one of the items using the Design Tool, after I deleted it, the second "bad recolor" lost its asterisk and is not able to be deleted now.

I did look in the Download folder and it doesn't exist there. Now, when I select the second bad recolor, it shows up, but it's white. Since I don't know much about meshes, I am only guessing that what I'm seeing is the mesh?

Well, I can live with the bad content in the game.

As for SimPE, how does one use the Content Preview function? Someone in this thread mentioned being able to see the item created without having to open the game. Should I post these specific SimPE questions elsewhere?

You can try deleting the files Accessory.cache, cigen.package, ContentRegistry and Groups.cache in My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2. This will make the game regenerate the game list of all custom contents.

And 2nd. In SimPE, what I know, you can preview recolors. You can only preview meshs using GMDC preview. Since the .package don't have any GMDC, you can't.

In SimPE you can actually preview even the recolours (without GMDC), but if you don't find the package in the Downloads, there's nothing to preview -
However, just for information, SimPE has 2 different preview features:

1) Select one MMAT (either in a cloned object or in a simple recolour) and click "Preview"

2) Select the menu Tools -> Content Preview; SimPE will spawn a small preview window, where you can drag&drop packages or even ZIP/RAR archives.

NOTE: both previews can sometimes fail, they are not 100% functional; but in most cases they work.

NOTE2: if you want to preview a recolour created for a custom object, SimPE must be set up so to *find* the original object; in order to do so, open the menu Extras -> Preferences -> File Table and click "Add Downloads Folder".