I've made the mad decision to attempt to convert the large fish aquarium from TS2 into my TS3 game.

I have the basic item working but some effects aren't in the right place, textures don't seem to be behaving properly and there is routing where I don't want it (and in the process of taking pictures for this thread I've just noticed it clips through walls). So here goes.

First point; can I remove routing entries? The original aquarium tank from HELS allows access from both the front and back of the object but I only want to allow routing from the front as some animations clip through the light on the back when Sims interact. See TankRouting.JPG taken from TSR Workshop.

Second point; can the effects inside the tank be moved? If so, how do I go about it? Ideally I need to move the bubble effects to line up with the treasure chest and air filter, and to move the weeds around so that they don't intersect with the decorative objects. I assume I will need to do any effect editing in S3PE as I can't seem to find anything that references them, at least not by name, within Workshop. See Screenshot-3.JPG

Finally, patterns with their own lighting properties don't seem to be displaying them. Screenshot-2.JPG shows the tank with the Chrome metal pattern applied to it but it stays matte and doesn't reflect any surrounding object colours.

This is turning out to be a more complicated project than I thought. So, does anybody have any advice, tips, help, tutorials that would be useful?
If you want to look at the package as it stands at the moment, I've attached that too.

someone tried to do the same on TSR, got to look for the thread.
He ran into similar issues.

efit,
unfortunate he gave up on it:
http://forums.thesimsresource.com/i..._1#entry2283518

In theory what you're trying to do should be doable. For the routing use TSRW to find the names or at least the positions (xyz) of those unwanted routes. While you're in TSRW add a new slot and write down the position (xyz) of where you need the new effects to be, DON"T SAVE. I'm pretty sure you will need the test version of S3PE for the rest. Now open the package up in s3pe, first go to the RSLT file and find those routes you don't want and delete them. They should be in the routes tab but check all the others as sometimes they are listed more than once in there. Sometimes they're named obviously other times they're not, that's when the positions you wrote down come in handy. Now while you're in the RSLT do the same for the effects. You will also need to do this in the RIG file. Maybe in the morning I'll dig around in the file you posted if I have time.

I think I have removed the route entries, I'm about to test in game. I haven't attempted to do anything with the effects yet but from looking in S3PE I can only find one effect mentioned which is simply "_FX_1_fxFish" so I don't know if that means the bubbles, fish and weeds are all one effect or not.

ETA: Okay, that didn't go as planned. My Sim was STILL able to route to the tank from behind only this time when attempting to stock the tank, his arms stretched and went through the glass. The fish never showed up, the tank had no weeds and the only effect showing was the treasure chest bubbles which were playing on the floor instead of inside the tank.

I'm back!
Decided against trying to alter/remove the route/effect slots as I couldn't seem to figure it out so I've modified the mesh to fit the HELS original. I guess it's a semi-conversion now.

Now the only problem is the textures still. The picture below shows the tank with Chrome applied to every CAStable part. None of them are reflective!


What can I do to try and fix this?! Also, the tank seems to be glowing a little too much. Probably something to do with the light it has built in?

have a look wat setup the original specular uses, DXT1 or DXT5
If DXT5 make sure to enable the alpha channel for the reflective parts.

If the light is to bright change the settings in the LITe file(Miscl tab)

Original specular is DXT5. At least I think it is. How would I check for sure?
I've updated the specular and now I have the opposite problem; EVERYTHING is shiny and reflective regardless of what pattern is applied.
What colour does the alpha need to be to block or enable reflectivity?

I don't know about reflectivity but the more white the specular is the shinier an object will be, the more black makes it dull or flat. I would check the material settings of the original compared to yours. Is the metal the default material?

The original has a chrome trim with a black plastic base, both of which are shiny.
What I don't understand and am trying to fix is how some objects do not have a permanent shine until a pattern such as metal or plastic is applied to them. All I seem to be able to achieve is either all shine or no shine.
When I set the specular to mostly dark colours there was no visible shine even when a shiny material was applied. With the specular set to white all materials shine even if they shouldn't e.g. wood.
The entire object is made up of four mesh groups; shadow, glass, water surface, rest of object.
Would it help if I attached the current file for you to take a look at?

Maybe it's a TSRW thing? I'm going to check some of my objects made in TSRW to see if the chrome texture shines.

The parts you want shiny you enable on the alpha channel of the DXT5 texture by making them white.
Same wit the RGB channels(black/greyscale and white)

I dont think TSRW can handle the diffrences between shiny(like Chrome) and Non shiny(wood)
I always create a 2nd textureset, one with shiny parts and one with Non shiny parts(i wont use the DXT5 then but 2 DXT1's

I'm ready to punch my computer!
As I don't think I'm explaining myself properly this is what I'm trying to replicate:


In the upper image, when a textile pattern is applied the object is not shiny, when chrome is applied it becomes shiny.
The bottom half of the picture shows my fish tank with wood and plastic applied on the left, with all chrome on the right. The shine doesn't alter for either. If anything, the chrome one looks like it's had tracing paper wrapped around it.

Yes, but like i said TSRW can not replicate those states.
You best make 2 seperate designs, one shiny and one non shiny

I swapped over to S3OC and S3PE and started again. Not completely from scratch as I took the meshes and textures from the TSR project but the tank does now apply chrome and shiny plastic textures correctly (apart from on the light strip bar across the top of the tank but I think that's due to bad UV mapping which I can't fix).

There is still a problem though that I don't know how to fix. The stand below the tank glows. I thought it was probably something to do with the intensity of the tank light but even after setting that to 0.3 and making the specular completely black it still glows.



When it is placed near to other light sources (or outside at night) there is a visible halo effect.

maybe the tank has burnt or dirt states that interfear?

The clone didn't include any burnt or dirty textures but then it didn't include the textures for the weed plant effects either.
The object is set to be unable to burn.
I did find the texture files for the weeds and a dirty state in one of the deltabuild files though. Could copying those and including them in the file help? I'll give it a try and see eitherway.

If you're doing the S3OC route just do a deep clone, that'll include all that stuff.

did you also edit the alpha channel for the specular?

Had a quick look:

the specular should have its shiny parts enabled on the RGB while its alpha channel is completly black(unless there are parts that are always shiny)
Wood or fabric most likly uses the full RGBA(and since its black it wont enable the RGB channels, so no shine)
Chrome and other reflective patterns prolly only use the RGB, so they become shiny

Try to setup the texture like that.

omegastarr82, I DID do a deep clone (at least I think I did) and those textures still weren't included.

BloomsBase, it didn't seem to matter what I did to the specular alpha, I could never see any visual difference.

Since my last post, I made several versions with altered light parameters and the only way to get rid of the staying-bright-in-the-dark effect was to remove the light completely. It doesn't glow radioactively when placed near other light sources now either.
I've already gone ahead and removed the light strip from the mesh so I may just go ahead and release it as is.

That isn't to say that I'm not grateful for all of the help and assistance you have given though. I don't think I'd have got even this far without it.

Maybe its the LITE file and/or occluders
Did you check those in the Misc tab(tsrw)?

They're what I messed about with, yes.
Two of the occluders were large rectangular cubes that overlapped across the tank stand. I altered those so that their boundaries did not touch the tank stand and instead started in front and behind the stand. This made no difference. Deleting them just stopped the tank casting light on the surrounding walls and floor.
The third occluder was a flat plane level with the top of the stand/ base of the tank. Removing this also had no effect.
I didn't really know what to edit with the main light source. I tried changing the type of light but this just seemed to cause the tank to cast shadows instead of light and make all objects in the same room turn black. That's when I deleted it to see if it was the light source causing the issue and the tank stopped glowing.