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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 17th Mar 2008 at 10:35 PM Last edited by cloudlessnights : 17th Mar 2008 at 10:46 PM.
Default Overly bright and slightly displaced mesh
Hello everyone,

I've encountered a rather persistent problem with one of my meshes, and I was wondering if anyone else had ever had trouble like this or knew where I'd gone wrong.

The mesh in question is an age conversion (teen to adult), and its already posted here on MTS2 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=277297) because it was working perfectly on my own computer - both in the game and in bodyshop. The people downloading the mesh, however, reported that it was displaying overly bright in their games/bodyshops:



(picture was taken by a dowloader).

Now I've made a lot of age conversions, and they've pretty much all worked for me - I only had this problem once, but it went away when I redid the scaling in Milkshape and reimported the gmdc. Now, however, I've redone the entire project from scratch three times, and I always end up with the same problem - the mesh looks perfect in my own game, but overly bright and also slightly displaced on any other computer. When I look at the mesh in Milkshape, however, it's lining up perfectly at the neck.

So either I've managed to get myself totally confused and made the same mistake (though I don't know which one...) three times, resulting in a messed-up mesh each time, or there's another problem here. If anyone has any idea what the error may be, I'd be very grateful.
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Instructor
#2 Old 18th Mar 2008 at 3:43 AM
Does the mesh come with a bump map? If so, that's probably what's screwing up the body. Best way to fix it would to just make the bump map grey, or use a different starting mesh that doesn't have a bump map.

desperation makes you look like a tool

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Instructor
#3 Old 18th Mar 2008 at 4:47 AM Last edited by wndy26 : 18th Mar 2008 at 5:14 AM.
Cloudless, I am having the same problem with my mail carrier recolor - I haven't touched the mesh at all. Just the texture and bumpmap.



Your picture looks just like mine, although I can see mine on my computer - I bet your computer doesn't have bump mapping enabled which may be why you don't see it. I am going to try migamoo's suggestion with the bumpmap. If it works on mine I will post back and let you know.

FYI - I am at work for anothre 45 minutes so it will be a bit before I can test out graying out the bumpmap.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#4 Old 18th Mar 2008 at 5:20 AM
Hm, I'm not sure if that can be it - I do see bumpmaps on my computer, and though the outfit originally had bumpmaps, I did colour them grey because I don't like them... still, I'm going to try basing the mesh on an outfit that doesn't come with a bumpmap originally and see if that's any help.
Banned Asshat
#5 Old 18th Mar 2008 at 5:34 AM
check your ''stdMatNormalMapTextureName'' file in simpe.
The format should be raw8bitt.
Instructor
#6 Old 18th Mar 2008 at 7:11 AM
thanks bLURR, mine all say raw8bit - getting ready to test graying it out completely now...dunno what else to try
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#7 Old 18th Mar 2008 at 9:55 AM
Quote: Originally posted by bLURR
check your ''stdMatNormalMapTextureName'' file in simpe.
The format should be raw8bitt.


Well, it wasn't, and that seems to have been the problem - I based the outfit on a mesh without a bumpmap - not even a grey one - now, and now it's looking okay on my other computer as well, so it seems the problem is solved.

Thanks for your help, everyone!
Instructor
#8 Old 18th Mar 2008 at 10:43 AM
I managed to get mine fixed too...it was a texture resizing issue. Thanks for posting your question cloudlessnights - between this post and Phaenoh on chat, I learned alot!
Mad Poster
#9 Old 3rd Jan 2009 at 8:01 PM
I'm having a similar problem with one of my conversion meshes. Unfortunately, I can't see bump maps, so I can only take people's word for it.

The files are already "Raw8Bit", so there's nothing to change there. If I want to get rid of the bump map altogether, what do I need to remove from the Material Definition? The meshes use the Maxis textures, so I can't just go deleting TXTR files.

I hate bump maps. They're more trouble than they're worth. Especially when you can't see them!
Not actually evil.
#10 Old 8th Jan 2009 at 6:24 AM
fakepeeps You can tell your recolor package that it should not use bumpmaps. It's not hard at all, you can do it in a minute. BTW, I *love* bump maps, but then again, I can see them.

Open the recolor package with SimPE.
Look at the TXMT resource (material definition).
In the Plugin View, click the Content Tab, then the Categorized Properties subtab.
See the section of Default NormalMap properties?
Change stdMapNormalMapTextureEnabled from true to false.
Now it won't do bump mapping.
If the recolor uses a Maxis TXTR for the bump map, and it is NOT part of your recolor file, you're done.
If the recolor uses your bump map TXTR and this TXTR is part of the recolor package, you can get rid of the normal map TXTR resource at this point if you want to, since it is no longer being used. Just go to the resource list, click the TXTR resources, right click the normal TXTR, select Delete.

Was that what you were asking about?

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Mad Poster
#11 Old 8th Jan 2009 at 7:53 PM
Quote: Originally posted by CatOfEvilGenius
Was that what you were asking about?


Yes. Thanks. Now I can hopefully get these pajamas fixed!
Mad Poster
#12 Old 10th Apr 2009 at 4:30 AM
Is there anything else I can try? Every second comment I'm getting on these pajamas is "they look too bright!" or "they look too dark!". I turned off all the bumpmaps, so it's obviously not that.

I'm flying blind here, because I can't see the problem for myself.
Not actually evil.
#13 Old 10th Apr 2009 at 8:17 AM
Is there anything odd about the TXMT? Can you take a screenshot of all the TXMT settings and post it here? Maybe the base color is off, or some of the Phong lighting parameters? Don't know when and why those would have gotten messed up, but it's all that comes to mind.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Scholar
#14 Old 10th Apr 2009 at 1:31 PM
I second Cat's suggestion about TXMT settings picture..

Understand Material definition-TXMT and customize the look of your objects ! This way

"The longer something exists in this world, the more wear and tear it will have."
Mad Poster
#15 Old 10th Apr 2009 at 5:34 PM
Here are the screenshots:


Scholar
#16 Old 10th Apr 2009 at 7:22 PM
Reflectivity : the smaller the value, the stronger the effect : try middle value 0.5
stdMatDiffCoef : the values are at max, try 0.8,0.8,0.8,1

This should balance things a bit.

May I suggest to have a look at The TXMT guide linked in my sig.

Understand Material definition-TXMT and customize the look of your objects ! This way

"The longer something exists in this world, the more wear and tear it will have."
Mad Poster
#17 Old 10th Apr 2009 at 7:28 PM
Quote: Originally posted by pixelhate
Reflectivity : the smaller the value, the stronger the effect : try middle value 0.5
stdMatDiffCoef : the values are at max, try 0.8,0.8,0.8,1

This should balance things a bit.

May I suggest to have a look at The TXMT guide linked in my sig.


Thanks. But I will have no idea if it does anything or not. The people who are complaining can see bumpmaps; I can't. Everything looks fine to me.

If someone who can see bumpmaps could test this, that would be great. (Some people say it looks bad, others say it looks fine. I don't know who to believe!)
Not actually evil.
#18 Old 10th Apr 2009 at 10:24 PM
Post a version for us to test here and we'll take a look.

Change stdMatNormalMapTextureEnabled to true.
If its false, then I think it's just ignoring your bump map.
.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Mad Poster
#19 Old 11th Apr 2009 at 12:37 AM
Quote: Originally posted by CatOfEvilGenius
Post a version for us to test here and we'll take a look.

Change stdMatNormalMapTextureEnabled to true.
If its false, then I think it's just ignoring your bump map.
.


It's already uploaded.

Two-Piece Pajamas for Toddlers

When I first uploaded them, all the stdMatNormalMapTextureEnabled settings were on "true". People complained of the same problem. So I changed them all to false. People are still complaining, and I still can't see bumpmaps!

I wonder why they showed up okay for dustfinger...
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