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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 7th Apr 2010 at 11:00 PM Last edited by Akutbajsa : 7th Apr 2010 at 11:35 PM.
Default Bench clone issue
I cloned the loveseat park bench and tried making a simple backless bench as practise since I just started meshing but I've run into some problems.

I made my bench in blender and then I imported it to milkshape, assigned the bones from the wso-file and then I used tsr workshop to do the rest. Only the problem is that the original bench has three groups (the bench, groundshadow and some shadow from the back), but since my bench doesn't have a back it gets this ugly shadow that i can't remove cause then it has one group too little when I import it to tsr workshop. Can I just remove it and change it for some hidden object?

And then another freaky thing is that the top of my bench is gone so you see like the inside (legs sticking out on the inside) of the bench which isn't very practical. I thought that maybe rotating the top 180 degree would fix it but I haven't tested it yet. Am just wondering if this is a common issue.

Here's a picture.
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retired moderator
#2 Old 8th Apr 2010 at 12:21 AM
I'm not quite sure (because your picture is taken at an angle where this is hard to see), but do you perhaps still have the old sunshadow meshes in there, from the orginal bench? That would explain why you see a sunshadow with a back rest.

If you need to get rid of a group you can shrink it to one tiny face and hide it somewhere inside your mesh.

Top of the bench being gone looks like it could be a problem with the normals being flipped. I'm not familiar with TSRW so I don't know whether you could fix it there, but in blender this would be in the contextual menu (shift) Edit > Normals > Flip. Rotating just the top could work the same if it's mapped accordingly (can't tell when there is no texture).

Stuff for TS2 · TS3 · TS4 | Please do not PM me with technical questions – we have Create forums for that.

In the kingdom of the blind, do as the Romans do.
Alchemist
#3 Old 8th Apr 2010 at 1:20 AM Last edited by orangemittens : 8th Apr 2010 at 1:34 AM.
It was my understanding that one of the benefits of TSRW is that it is supposed to generate accurate sunshadows for you...is this not true? If not, and you didn't change the MLOD2 and MLOD3 you could, quite possibly, end up with the back still causing a shadow on your mesh.

Although, from looking at your picture, that would be odd since yours shows a back shadow (the one on the seat part) that indicates the sun is in an opposite place from where the ground shadow shows the sun to be sitting. You can see that they are shadows going in opposite directions.

If you test the original object in-game it doesn't have the back-shadow reversed in this manner from the ground shadow. To me, and I might be wrong, this indicates that the seat shadow is not being generated from the MLOD2 and MLOD3. Perhaps it is being generated by the weird back part which is something I haven't seen before on any other S3 item I've cloned. The other alternative is that somehow TSRW's sun-shadow code is being confused in some way by this object leading to the problem of a shadow in one direction on the seat and in a different direction on the ground. Either way, if the sun is casting a ground shadow that is behind the seat, the object shouldn't have a back shadow on the seat.

That weird back piece is definitely a part of the mesh. Since the whole object is on an alpha you could disappear it by changing the alpha or you could shrink it to a single pixel and merge it with the rest of the bench. If you did the shrinking thing perhaps it would then remove the shadow from the seat of your (should-be) backless bench.

I see you changed the legs on the bench. Did you remap this bench at all? There are alphas to consider and perhaps it is that those are contributing to your problem.

I would offer to look at the item but I'm completely unfamiliar with TSRW. Have you tried asking your question at the TSRW forum? It might be that someone there could help you with issues that could be specific to that tool.

eta: I suppose one other possibility about that reversal of back shadow and sun-shadow is that somehow you've flipped the weird group00 in the z-direction. The shape of the shadow kinda looks as if that's what's going on there...you can see little long parts opposite of the side you've pointed to as being "weird back" that look like the little metal brace parts the original object has while the part of your shadow that is lies over the back of the seat is perfectly straight as it is in the original object in-game more towards the front of the seat. I apologize if that's confusing and if a picture is needed to better illustrate what I mean I can post one.
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staff: administrator
#4 Old 8th Apr 2010 at 1:27 AM
Sunshadows can be auto generated, but they don't auto generate. You still have to press the button and stuff.

I think you have that weird mesh part that you didn't delete, which left the proper number of groups. Because you can't import a wso into TSRW without it balking at you for incorrect group numbers.
Alchemist
#5 Old 8th Apr 2010 at 1:38 AM
There is still the issue though that those shadows are going in a reverse direction. It's strange and I wonder how that happened. The "weird back" piece *is* on the back of the mesh. But the seat shadow is clearly going in the wrong direction.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#6 Old 8th Apr 2010 at 10:21 AM
I did change the sunshadows in tsrw cause the shadow on the ground is the shadow from my bench, not the loveseat bench. I'll try to shrink it to see if it gets rid of the weird back.

And as for this:

Quote: Originally posted by orangemittens
That weird back piece is definitely a part of the mesh. Since the whole object is on an alpha you could disappear it by changing the alpha or you could shrink it to a single pixel and merge it with the rest of the bench. If you did the shrinking thing perhaps it would then remove the shadow from the seat of your (should-be) backless bench.

I see you changed the legs on the bench. Did you remap this bench at all? There are alphas to consider and perhaps it is that those are contributing to your problem.


... I don't get that at all XD can I find some tutorial that talks about the alpha and remap stuff that you say here. I only looked through flabaliki's tutorial and some tsrw tutorial :s
Alchemist
#7 Old 8th Apr 2010 at 12:20 PM
I think EllaCharms's tutorial for making a mesh in S3 is the best and most comprehensive one I've seen. It goes through the making of a mesh from start to finish and is heavily illustrated with pictures showing the steps. You can find that here:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...t=375349&page=1

If you haven't read that yet I think it will be really helpful in terms of showing the importance of mapping your object. I'm not sure if it goes over alphas though. Alphas (and I apologize if you already know this) are a channel added to the dds that allow parts of the mesh to be invisible in the game or which allow parts of the mesh to have certain pictures on them in the game that will appear no matter how the object is recolored. An example of this second kind of alpha is seen on the dds that makes it so that the gnome has a face that isn't recolorable in the game.

The shadow issue you're having, IMO anyway, isn't related to the alpha. I think it's related to that weird back piece somehow. But I'm still curious about why that weird back piece is showing on one side of the object and, apparently, the shadow it's casting is going in a direction which is opposite to the direction the sunshadow is going.

If you look at the original object in-game, if the sunshadow is extending behind the weird back piece (as it is in the picture you posted of your bench) there is no shadow on the seat. This makes sense because, if the sun is in front of the bench, the shadow the bench casts & the shadow the bench back casts should both be behind the bench and not on the seat at all. How exactly did you handle the shadow making portion of creating this object?
Test Subject
Original Poster
#8 Old 8th Apr 2010 at 12:39 PM
To be honest I don't know much about making sims stuff at all so most of the time I just guess so maybe that's why it's so weird XD The only shadow thing I did was changing the sunshadow I think. I am gonna read some more about mapping and shadows I guess, and take a look at the tutorial you linked too and try again from the start.

I tried making the same object without tsrw using these scripts - http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=389058 - and got an error when I tried recompiling it, and as you can read in the latest post in that thread:

Quote: Originally posted by Ceixari
Ahh, this object is one of the ones with two UV maps. I was wondering when we'd come up against one. I hope to have this fixed today.


Could that be related somehow?

Maybe I just bit off more than I can chew starting out with this object. I think I'll start over with something simpler.
Alchemist
#9 Old 8th Apr 2010 at 12:55 PM
That probably isn't related since you got this problem before you tried using those scripts. I think the issue is somehow related to that weird back piece. I'm not sure what that thing is for but it seems like it's causing the shadow in some way and that, on your object, the code is reading it backwards.

Reading Ella's tut and making the table she made for it is a great place to start learning how to mesh for S3. Each object has so many little things to know about it that it's a good idea to have a basic foundation of knowledge before branching out into objects that have weird parts like this bench does IMO. Sorry to not be able to help more but I've just not dealt with an object that has some part to it like the bench weird back before.
Field Researcher
#10 Old 8th Apr 2010 at 1:34 PM
From my point of perspective I'm of course quite happy that you did try this object. It means I can fix things which would make creating these object easier.
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