A simmer at another site made some light swags and couldn't make them take the repository technique properly, so I decided to try. (She stated that if anyone wanted to try, they could.)
I followed all the usual steps and also changed the references to the lit and unlit states in the Text List and did one recolor to test.
The slaves DO take their texture, the original and my recolor- from the master and the lit and unlit states work just fine. However, there are blue and black rectangles on all the slaves.
Is this a shadow problem by any chance? I didn't delete the shadows from the TXTR and TXMT in SimPE. If it is a shadow problem, how can I fix it? In fact, is it anything that can be fixed in SimPE? (A mesher I am not, but I can do stuff in SimPE.)
She cloned them from a base game lamp. At the moment I can't remember which one.

Blue and black generally mean the txtr is missing. And yes it's possible its the shadows. Shadows can be slaved as well.

Thanks for answering so quickly, HL. I didn't know shadows could be slaved as well.
I'm going to try this out without asking any questions. If I run into any problems, I'll be back.

Ok. I thought I was smart enough to figure this out. Are the same steps followed to slave shadows? Nothing I've done has gotten rid of the blue and black.

Yep, steps should be the same. Can you post a pic? When you look at the mesh in simpe, does it look like it is the shadows? Or is it another mesh part? And you say the on/off is working fine? On/off states if not working properly also flash blue. Found that out the hard way. Uh, there is also in the...STR (?)...it connects to the light files. Sorry for being vague, but I'm not on my windows pc.

I just peeked at the files in SimPE- that's when I got reminded that the last thing I tried was removing all references to the shadows. Luckily I remember looking at all of them earlier today and the shadows show up as shadows when you preview in the GMDC. (And the lights show up as they should, too.)
I took pics earlier- so I've attached them. Yes, the lit and unlit states show up as they should. (I edited the Materials in the Text List.) My recolor works. Not sure if you'll be able to see them that clearly, but I did a Halloween recolor, alternating orange and black.
Oh, another thing- one of the lights (single strand just like the Maxis one) shows a shadow for the light pattern too. None of the others do.

just posted, but eta: I just looked at the pics I attached. The light pattern shadow I mentioned isn't showing in these. In fact, it didn't always show. When it did, it was an extra black box in front of everything else. From SimPE, I know that was from the light pattern.

Hi there! I'm jumping on board to add my 2 cents! (I came on this morning searching the forum for help on this subject)

If it helps the discussion, all the swags were cloned from the base game "Illuminating Angles" wall lamp. And mustluvcatz, you got an entirely different flashy blue thing than I did... When I tried to repository, the 'bulbs' were flashing blue on the lit or unlit state, so you've gotten farther than I did!!

The blue and black we are seeing in your pictures is definitely the shadow portion of the mesh and the 'string of lights' has a different size shadow and light pattern mesh and texture - which could cause a problem when repositorying?!? I made each shadow and light pattern texture different to match each swag shape... Were any changes made to the MMAT, TXMT and TXTR of the shadows and light patterns in the files you changed (as pictured in your attachments)? When I first tried repositorying - I left the TXMTs, MMATS and TXTRs for the shadow and light patterns untouched, because I was only trying to repository the 'surface' and 'glass'... So I'm wondering, is it absolutely necessary to repository the light and shadow, when those are all different for each mesh?

Thanks so much for taking the time to wrestle with this!

The flashing bulbs you got were a result of the Text List not being edited to match the master.

I did so many different things trying to get these to work! I THINK in those pics I left the shadows alone in the TXMT, MMAT and TXTR. Ah...I also think I got rid of the light patterns. Everything I've ever read said to leave the shadows alone when repositorying, so I most likely deleted the light patterns.

One thing I was going to try- cloning the swagoflights and going on from there. The only reason I haven't tried it is that I wasn't sure it would work. I've cloned a bookcase and replaced the mesh with an edited one, but that wasn't replacing a mesh with one that's not even the same shape/size. I'm still wondering if it would work though. (When you say they were all cloned from the same lamp- I take it you mean each one is a clone of that lamp.)

MLC I'm not sure what else you edited but the shadows/light patterns are causing the blue. I had already slaved these and I can share them if you like. I edited the GMND, SHPE, and STR. Didn't need to edit the GMDC since the subset names already were the same. I didn't slave the shadows or light patterns, and now that Holly has said she made them different for each mesh I am glad I didn't! Holly I am going to send you a pm over at BPS with links with updated meshes.

Yes, each one is a new clone of the base game 'Illuminating Angles' lamp - not a clone of the first swag I made... And.... thanks to you my dear, I have a working repositoried hwBGswagoflights2!!! Yipee!!

1. I followed the repository tutorial, except that I left all the TXMTs, TXTRs, and MMATs for the shadows and light patterns alone (including the 'null' txmt), and deleted *all* the rest; then changed the TEXT LIST 'Material Names' as you instructed...

I put the repositoried 'hwBGswagoflights2" in my game, fired it up, no blue or black boxes, but when I turned the lamp on, the string/surface stayed the recolor, but the lit bulb/glass went to white...

2. So, I did it all over again, and this time besides leaving all the shadow and light patterns TXMTs, TXTRs, and MMATs in tact, I also left the first MMAT for the glass_lit (instance ID 0x000050) in tact (I don't know if you noticed there were two of them - I deleted the second - Instance ID 0x00005002).

Voila! A working repository that keeps it's colored bulbs when turned on!

A little tricksy bit there with the MMATs, but hey, it works!

Thank you so much my dear for all your work and help on fixing these things! I appreciate you so much!

Would you like to have the repositoried hwBGswagoflights2 for testing and a look-see while I finish repositorying the rest?

Thank you again! :lovestruc

Oopsy! We were posting at the same time! Thank you so much HugeLunatic for working on these with us!! :lovestruc Awesome!!

Yep, and I was posting over at BPS too. Sorry for the spam.

Yay!

HL, I never touched the GMDC because the names were the same.

After reading your's and Holly's posts, I think my whole problem was that I DID delete the light patterns (at least at first). AND, no, I didn't notice the 2nd MMAT for the lit state. I'm sure I would've noticed that...eventually.

Just for info's sake, the two-'glass_lit'-MMAT point is moot with Hugelunatic's version of the repository files, as that was fixed by changing the "family" string of the lit and unlit states to match.

Thank you so much again to the both of you for all your work!!

(p.s. the repositoried files are available for download at BPS now!)

I really wish I could've figured this out myself. Not that I'm not happy someone did! I like to tinker with stuff and figure out how to make it work. So, for my sanity's sake- can you tell me exactly what it was I missed? (I ask because of the "family string".)

When I first got the lit and unlit states to show, this is what I did:
*(Didn't touch the GMDC)
*Changed the "surface" and "glass" in the SHPE to match the master.
*In the GMND- added the cDataListExtension block, added the tsMaterialsMeshName to that, added the line needed (sorry, I'm really tired and can't think of all the names for everything- after the line was added, I added an 8 and a 1...) then added 2 strings to the tsMaterialsMeshName block named "surface" and "glass" with the cres.
*Edited the Text List> Materials. Is that the same as the STR? After I did that, that's when the lit and unlit states showed up.
*I also deleted everything but the shadows from the TXMT, MMAT (deleted everything there actually) and TXTR. Which means that I must've deleted the light patterns, too.

Yep, those steps look right, and yes the STR is the text lists. I think you might have either deleted or changed the name of the shadows and/or light patterns. This could have been in either the STR or the SHPE, or simply deleted the TXTR's or MMAT's themselves. I bet if you started over and made sure to not touch the shadows/light patterns it would come our right. You may simply have deleted the TXTR along with the others, I know I have plenty of times.

Another question: I should've left the shadows alone in the MMAT? When I first started playing around with making things repository, I read to delete everything in the MMAT. I did for that sectional and it worked out alright. Or is that because it's different for lamps/lighting?
If I should've left the shadows alone in the MMAT (along with the light patterns) then that would be where I went wrong since I didn't touch any reference to them anywhere else. (At least the first time...after that, all bets were off, I was trying anything I could think of!)

For every TXTR there is a TXMT, and if it's recolorable then a MMAT. So shadows do have the TXMT to go along with the TXTR. The sectional may have had leftover's that were not needed, like if there is no shadow texture or subset.