I just tried recoloring the elixir of life with Object Workshop, but only the texture of the "stand" comes up, not the actual liquid. I already have a blue recolor of it so I know it's possible. How did they do it? It's a default replacement though (and I can't find it btw), but I also have recolors of the smart milk. Shouldn't it be possible to recolor the elixir in the same way?

The elixir color is decided with the "stdMatDiffCoef" value in the TXMT (aspirationelixirdispenser_liquid_txmt). Doesn't seem to have a texture.

Default replacement aren't recolors, but replacements. Unless you have both the green and blue option available at the same time in your game, most likely the liquid isn't recolorable.

Check if the item has a MMAT (material definition) for the liquid. MMATs are needed for objects to be recolorable. Not sure if the CEP makes the aspiration objects recolorable.

The shelf for the Imperial Lyon Basin uses the same method to set its color, and it seems to be recolorable, so I think making the elixir recolorable might be doable.

ETA: There are two subsets for the elixir: liquidtop and liquidbottom. Neither one is defined as a slave subset, but they use the same TXMT.

Probably because a lot of non-recolorable subsets in maxis items re-use TXMTs or textures from the same object. You can only have two MMATs for each object.

@Pideli - Not an answer to your problem but the Blue and Red, Elixir of Life, default replacements by joninmobile can be found HERE.

@Pideli, I'm not sure it's really do-able. I can make the game recognize a second subset for the Elixir, but doing that causes part of the liquid to become invisible when the object is placed in-game.

Maybe you can make a standalone clone of the object? Not sure if that would work for aspiration objects, but you could probably make it buyable.

It looks like the "liquid" TXMT is the only one that gives color to that part of the object, but since there are two mesh groups and they're animated (morphs, I think - they seem to morph independantly of each other, so you can't just squish them together into one group), making this into one MMAT might prove a bit difficult since they would each need a MMAT, and there's a limit on two. You'd have to pick between the liquid and the surface.

One alternative is to make one object with the glass and liquid, and a deco object of the surface.

Well, lamps with recolorable bases and shades dodge this by using tsDesignModeSlaveSubsets for the two sides of the shades. At least for BG lamps that works like this, the slave subsets have their own MMATs. I think you're right, though, the only way to have recolors of the elixir is to have each one be a standalone clone with its own GUID. I never registered GUIDs -- I never expected to get into creating -- so I'm not sure how to do this.

You should be able to make an account via SimPE (as long as the site still works), and just click the GUID button to create a new one, and make sure to do "update MMAT" for the main GUID (if there's more than one, it's the one supposed to show in the MMATs).

I thought I had an account once upon a time, at least for the forums, but I've forgotten it and it appears the site has, too.

Creating an account and registering a GUID block worked, and telling SimPE about it worked once I remembered about Quaxi's updated dll for GUIDs.

That works.

Thank you for all the answers! Sorry for late reply! (I have a guest over.)

Yes, the one Michelle linked is the default I have! I must have confused defaults for recolors because they must have colored it some way to make the default right?

I already have smart milk recolors:

So it is possible to recolor aspiration objects. I also have a mod that makes them buyable.

I'll check if it has a MMAT later, just wanted to reply asap. For the record, I only have intermediate/beginner skills about SimPE. I know how to recolor, change sim names and DNA and such. But it is easy to check right? (I think it says it in the right section, if I'm not mistaken.)

The smartmilk had a CEP update, I think - if I'm correct it's just the machine that's got the recolors, mot the bottles, right?

The problem with the elixir is that it has two liquid mesh groups in addition to the surface group because of how the fluid is animated. If it only had one, this would be an easy task.

Like I said, you can make the hour-glass shape and the fluid into one object, and the surface into another, so you can recolor them separately (both as a standalone object, possibly buyable). This would work fine and shouldn't cause any issues with recoloring.

@Pideli : The only MMAT the Elixir has is for the stand, which the CEP made recolorable. I've made semi-standalone clones with blue, red, and yellow liquid. They work fine. However, all but the default language got stripped from the catalog description, so the description is only in English.

How???? I can repository, and can make CEP-Extras for mesh subsets that already exist, but I have absolutely no idea of how to manipulate mesh groups.

For animated/morphed meshes, it's probably best not to mess with them too much. I don't think it would work with CEPextras, but if you make two separate objects, you can make MMATs for the liquid (top/bottom) in one object and for the surface in the second object (can be just a regular deco item). I took a peek at the mesh, and it's got quite a lot of morphs (not sure if all of them even got imported to Milkshape).

Another alternative is to make a default replacement version that removes the surface group and adds MMATs for the liquid, and instead have the surface as a deco object.

One "problem" with either of these methods is that I don't think you can link up the top and bottom so they change at the same time, so the liquid top/bottom would be separately recolorable. This does mean you could have some fun with a different colored top and bottom, though.

And you shouldn't need to mess with the mesh in a meshing program at all for any of these methods, since the Surface and Shadow group can be deleted in SimPE.

Another problem that I just realized is that the tap animation may be a problem for the surface object if you make them into two objects. You'd probably have to make do without it, or you could include the tap itself with the rest of the animated object, and leave it as a non-recolorable subset. Then again, to make it animated you would have to mess with the mesh in a meshing program, and I'm not sure it's possible to get all the morphs into Milkshape (I keep getting an error). Unless you make everything in the surface group partly invisible (not sure about this one, since the UVmap seems to have the entire tap mapped into one square).

As for slaved subsets compared to MMATs: You can slave as many subsets as you want to another object, but it can only have two ingame-recolorable slaved subsets - and these have to be linked to master subsets with MMATs.

Another alternative would be to decide on a permanent color for the surface, and make it non-recolorable. Then fix the MMATs so they recolor the liquid instead. Here you could also make a recolorable overlay object for the non-animated parts.