Hiya, have modded this lamp and having a problem with it not giving off any light and the lit state of the bulbs and shade being unaltered. Here's an ingame pic... http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...007#post2044007

New = The extra colours have now been removed - my fault for not updating the object data's guid!


Changes made in "Material Definition"


triplehalogenfloorlampGCmax_paintedmetal_blackpaint_txmt
"Default Textures"
stdMatDiffCoef 255,255,255 (White) Custom
stdMatEmissiveCoef 191,191,191 (Silver) Custom
(Had problems with the diffuse being really dark, almost black, now okay)

triplehalogenfloorlampGCmax_bulb_lit_txmt
"Default Textures"
stdMatDiffCoef 127,127,255 (Unnamed) Custom
stdMatEmissiveCoef 191,191,255 (Unnamed) Custom

triplehalogenfloorlampGCmax_insideshade_lit_txmt
"Default Textures"
stdMatDiffCoef 146,112,218 (MediumPurple) Web
stdMatEmissiveCoef 127,127,255 (Unnamed) Custom

*Attached file.
Also changed the unlit states of bulb and shade but they are okay in the game. Can anyone shed any light on this problem? (excuse the pun!)

Damn... I've written for 20 minutes and then Firefox crashed!

I will sum up what I've found.

• Broken things.
  • Missing light: in the CRES there was a reference to a non.existing light; I've restored the original one, taken from the original floor lamp you cloned.
  • Clickable area: in your clone, only the bulbs were clickable. Fixed.
• Working things that needed to be improved.
  • Bulb colour: despite what you said, your lamp uses your custom lamp; only, it's too bright, and therefore it looks white
    You see, the "lit" TXMT has an "additive" blend, which means that the RGB values are added one another on the same surface; you have set very high values, so to simulate the "lit" state, and this caused an over-exposure. I replaced the RGB values of the lit material with the same values of the unlit one (while keeping the "additive" blending of the lit TXMT), and here is the final result:
    
    If this result doesn't match your taste, you can fiddle with the RGB values a little more.
  • Texture size: reduced to 512x512 (more than enough for this mesh); also, changed the compression from DXT5 to DXT3. Final result: the object shows no differences, while the package size has been reduced from 1554Kb to 532Kb.
  • Redundant MMATs: deleted the MMATs for the innershade and bulb; these subsets are not recolourable, and therefore they don't need MMATs (I guess that you already found them in the clone; if so, I'm not surprised: Maxis objects, especially lamps, are often badly built...)

Sorry for your crash, just had one half an hour ago myself and had to rewrite a post

This is a guess here, the selection for the object was limited to the upper half (including the stem) when this package was tested last though this part is hard to hit as it's quite thin geometry. So did you change the position of the gmdc painted metal object pivot to fix this? Just wondering because in the past the pivot placement seemed to determine the available area of selection.

In the cres, I made a small change which didn't seem to make any impact in the game so I failed to mention it - Generic Rcol Editor - Reference Tab - Settings - Changed to "Lighting (Linear Fog light)" from the dropdown selector - reason - wanted that falloff you get from these kind of high wattage lamps with a bit of distortion in there too.

One more guess, think I know what you are saying, is it this? That glow etc. is based upon the default texture and multiplied against whatever value you set in the material definition?
Was feeling that the blend mode was at fault though it was unaltered by me, you just prooved that! The hue is slightly too purple, it should be more blue for halogen but at least I have something to work from now I know what parameters are in question.

Thankyou so much Numenor, gonna play now

Additional -- checked the package in game after some minor changes to mat def and the glow was white still, decided to use the package supplied here without any modification and the glow was still white! I'm thinking there's something wrong with my game due to the recent uninstallation of Radiance lighting system? Only thing that comes to mind is that I don't have any lighting data in "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 University\TSData\Res\Lights" this folder is empty. Other than that lighting effects are working with other lamps like mrmclampyfourlegs so I don't know what to think.

In the CRES, reference tab, you only find references to existing files, not parameters that you can alter to modify something. Modifying the reference, you just lose the connection with the referenced resource.

And what you mean with "glow"? The colour of the glass that closes the metal cone? Doesn't it look purple like in my screenshot?
If you meant the light actually cast by the lamp, then this is a completely different problem: you need to create a custom light in order to change the colour of the light; changing the TXMT of the bulb only changes the colour of the bulb surface.
Probably, the easiest way to get a coloured light is to find a Maxis lamp that casts a nice coloured light, and re-use that light definition for your lamp. If, on the other hand, you want to create a custom light definition, then read this InfoCenter article.

As for your problem with the game lighting system, it's NOT normal that you don't have any file in EA Games\The Sims 2 University\TSData\Res\Lights. Again, you should use the Scriptorium in order to fully restore all the needed files where they need to be.

Hi again, downloaded Scriptorium and restored all the default lighting The game appears to be fully functional now and so re-tried the package in game several times and the same thing happens! When lit, the bulb and shade are pure white, so I don't have a clue how you got that effect working?

As you suggested have been experimenting with MrMcLampyFourLegs (the nightlife glowing disco tablelamp) got it to sit on the floor by changing the bhav as instructed in a helpful thread here but unfortunately all anims were stopped. boolprop revealed a texture problem - the lower half of the lamp was flashing blue but all I did was use the original textures, edit them and reinsert them into PE.

It gets stranger...

In the end I cloned the file 8 times! Everytime (even after only getting a new guid) the glow effect that the light casts was missing, this lamp is a nightmare! The only option not tried when cloning this was to not check pull only default colour as maybe it uses info from the other colours for the effect? Will try this and if no good go onto your next suggestion.

Thankyou for all the help and advice you are giving me and for being so patient with my lack of knowledge with the editor, I swear when I first looked at those bhav's I nearly fainted!

I was not suggesting to clone a different lamp; I was suggesting to find a game lamp that cast a suitable light, then discover the light name, and implement that specific light into your existing lamp.

You have to clone the desired lamp (MrMcLampyFourLegs), DESELECTING all the cloning options; then look into the CRES these two values:
- Hyerarchy tab: read the name of the node that has a little bulb next to it;
- Reference tab: read the type, group, subtype and instance of the light resource.

Then, you have to copy exactly these values into your clone, and your lamp will cast the same light as the MrMcLampyFourLegs lamp.


As for my fixed lamp still looking white when installed in your game, I'm quite sure that you have an old copy in your Downloads that conflicts with my fixed copy.
If this is not the case, maybe I see it purple, and you white, because I use the Radiance; try lowering the RGB values of the bulb_lit.

Ok, copied all values from the "Reference" tab in the "CRES" for 0x5 (the magenta glow) which is nearest to the halogen glow effect, according to the "CRES Hierachie" tab, magenta is the third value listed so I am presuming that both these tabs correspond in the same order? Also do I have to copy only the default lighting effect (presumably first on the list) green glow for it to work or is it just any one of them?

Made a mistake copying the shape value at the top of the list in the "Reference" tab and my lamp ended up being an exact copy of the MrMcLampy

As for the "CRES Hierachie" I have no idea how to exchange the values there, clicked on one of the effects (the bulbs you mentioned) and a whole new set of tabs show. The first one reads "cLightRefNode" with settings and some strings etc. that can be changed with text. Is that the one in question?

Geez! I forgot that the McFourlegs is one of those nasty multi-light Nightlife lamps.
However, you've found the right references, even in such difficult conditions
BTW, you guessed right: in the Reference tab, the 3rd light is the right one, but NOT because the magenta is the 3rd light in the Hyerarchy -
In order to be sure, you have to select the magenta light in the hyerarchy, then open (clicking on the little "+") the "Unknown2" panel, and look at the line [7]: the value written in this line is "3", right? This means that the corresponding Reference is the one in line 3 (the Shape is line 0).

Back to the instructions given in my previous post, you have already correctly noted the name of the light: "lightingtablenightclub_glassouter_magenta_lit_designmodelight"). Now go to the Reference tab, select the 3rd light (the one marked in green in your screenshot, and read the values in the right part of the screen: Filetype, Subtype, Group, Instance.
Close the Nightlife lamp and reopen your lamp, select the CRES, select the only light existing there, and write in the four fields on the right the values extracted earlier: Filetype, Subtype, Group, Instance.
Remember to COMMIT and save.

Then go to the Hyerarchy, select the light, go to the cObjectGraph tab, and write the exact name of the magenta light.
COMMIT and save.

Hi again, followed the instuctions and got the bulbs looking better Also changed those CRES values as instructed but the nightlife glow effect wasn't there, although the light emitted is a bit less bright and a very slightly different hue than the floorlamp that it was cloned from. (Maybe I should try re-installing the Radiance mod?)
*The effect isn't too bad but one thing is puzzling me, the thumbnail for the object now is identical to the nightlife table lamp but when clicked to place, the proper object is represented. Would it make any difference if I copied all the nightlife values in all the tabs from the CRES into the new light except for the shape?

Thanks again, I think I'm learning this slowly

No, no, don't change anything more in the CRES, beside the things I suggested.
The CRES is extremely delicate: the slightest error and your game will crash while loading.

The thumbnail is only outdated: it still remember whan you changed the reference for the Shape, in the CRES. You have to regenerate the thumbnails: go to The Sims 2\Thumbnails and delete the packages that you find in that folder; they will be recreated the next time you run the game.

As for the lamp not casting the magenta light, I'm not sure why it happens. Maybe you should attach your latest package, so I can check it.

hehe, okay I won't Would like to thank you so much for helping me with this, I feel I have learnt a little bit with effects here and there so things are starting to make more sense.
Haha, the thumbnail was okay! Actually I have been deleting the thumbnail for objects package lately, will have to remember to keep doing that
*File attached

We both have made a mistake...

You skipped this step:

In your latest package, in the CRES hyerarchy, the light is still named "lightingfloorvalue_light", while it should be "lightingtablenightclub_glassouter_magenta_lit_designmodelight".


But I made a mistake too (actually, I discovered an important thing only now): the lights that come with Nightlife, associated to multi-colour lamps (i.e. lamps that change light colour when you change the glass colour) can't be used in normal lamps. I tried changing the name in the CRES to "lightingtablenightclub_glassouter_magenta_lit_designmodelight", but the lamp stopped casting any light.

As fas as you know, is there another lamp (not multi-color) in the game that cast a suitable light? If so, we ca use that light; if not, we must create a custom light definition.

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, didn't have much time today.
hmm, so the actual diffuse texture for bulbs in both lit and unlit states dictates the colour of the glow effect for this particular lamp? That isn't good news then I just thought since you can make objects shine using material definitions with any textures that these effects are just multiplied as masks over a whole object or elements of an object. Seems like alot of things are seperated per object type.

Checked the lamps but they all seem to have a yellowish standard glow or very slightly yellow white, there's nothing close to coloured lights apart from the disco stuff and that is animated. Well the light in it's current state now casts a pure white light (I swear it is also ever so slightly with a blue tint too - unless my eyes are going wonky lol) that is less strong than other lamps, the effect is pretty good but I would love to learn how to make that custom defintion, that would be great!

It's not difficult...

The "long way" is to read this InfoCenter article (that explains also the relationships between the various light components and the different light types), and create yourself a custom light.

The "short way" (that I suspect you prefer ) is to download the attached zip, that contain the custom light definition (.nlo) and the lamp itself, fixed.
In order to use the custom light you (and anyone downloads your lamp) must install the Scriptorium and put the .nlo file into the folder "Scriptorium_CustomLights" (use the shortcut located in your Downloads folder).



NOTE: I've just extracted the Nightlife light that you liked. If the colour of the light doesn't match your tastes, you can change it at will (the meaning of the various parameters is explained in the InfoCenter article referenced above). Keep in mind that these parameters must have identical RGB values (or the light will look inconsistent):

- (in the .nlo) color
- (in the .nlo) diffusionSourceColor
- (in the LGHT resource of the .package) Red, Green, Blue

Wow, that looks amazing, thankyou Will download and reinstall scriptorium and the radiance lighting too Gonna mess around with those parameters after searching the file and bashing my head trying to understand some of the stuff in the info centre Will post back here with some changes.
Just wondering, is that nlo file attached to this particular light or can it be used in conjunction with any other custom light? Have two other lamps and a set like this would be so

*Edit - made some headway with the file, a strange thing was happening and that was in your render the glow from the lamp quite closely mimicked the original light but my system and setup didn't reproduce these effects (this was after reinstalling scriptorium and the radiance) so edited some values in the nlo, it's a bit too strong but almost exactly as the original lamp. The hue needs altering but it's a start, won't be long till finish. Thanks again Numenor

The light definition contained in the .nlo file can be used by multiple different lamps. The important thing is that all the lamps havein the CRES a light node named exactly triplehalogenfloorlamp-magenta_light.

Took a bit of time out and got it working, gives off a nice glow now that doesn't drown anything out Thanks again for all your help in the process, without you it would have been long and hard, if not impossible! Just to double check, people need nightlife to download and scriptorium too?

Nightlife is not needed any more: I have extracted the original light definition from Nightlife and transformed it in a custom light; therefore, the Scriptorium is the only requirement.

Wicked, that's great news, will get them in the queue and see what happens