I cloned the colonial side table and created my own mesh with its own map and texture. The mapping worked out with no problems (shwew) but the texture ended up looking really dark in the game. When I point at it in Buy mode it brightens enough for me to tell that my texture is on it correctly so the only issue is that it is so dark. How can I avoid having that happen again?

Also, I'm still wondering how to add more texture selections to an object so that when someone buys it they can choose from a few varieties of texture. I've downloaded user-made content with this feature so I know it's possible but I just can't figure out how to do it.

Thanks for any help.

OM

Can we see an image of your issue, that would help greatly Also i am not sure what you mean with regards to the latter part of your message.

DD

For the first question, it's possible that you use an older version of the Milkshape plugins which had a problem with plane faces in 90 degree, and it darkened the object a little bit. Try to download the latest plugins. Also, you have to make the Multiplier (the grey) texture bright, 128,128,128 RGB is the basic color.

For the second question, I don't think it's possible at the moment. If you downloaded objects with more color options, they were probably cloned from a base game object which originally had more color options.

I am almost certainly using an older version of the Milkshape plugins...which ones do I need to fix this problem?

Now that you mention it...the set I downloaded from Stylist Sims does have color options but they exactly match the color options of an EA object that it must have been cloned from.

Thanks for your answer

Thanks for responding Deluxe...and thanks again also for the tutorial you wrote. The only reason I'm able to make anything for Sims 3 at all is because of that.

OM

There are items editable only with great care that affect the materials, and thus the shading and colors of the objects. In theory, we should one day be able to revamp the materials on these clones, but since we don't have anything but the wiki definitions and hex editors to go on right now, it is nothing but some theory for advanced modding.

This has been getting some recent attention as far as research, Tiger has done a lot in the last couple of days. But we aren't at the "are we there yet" stage, either.

<* Wes *>

At this point I'm not sure whether the colonial chair is one of the items that needs great care to work with or whether it's just that I'm still learning...it was the first object I made with its own texture.

Other than the darkness issue I'm pretty happy with the whole process of creating for this game though...the tools are pretty straightforward and they function smoothly. The S3Obj tool you made in particular works so fast and so smoothly that at first I couldn't even tell it was working...I click recompile and the thing is just instantly recompiled...lol.

Is there any work being done on being able to add new textures to a pre-existing object? If we're able to do that we'll finally be able to have a painting with more than a single image to choose from...that would be great...the painting issue in Sims 3 is one of the drawbacks of the game I think.

Perhaps you know the answer to this one...is it possible to change the height of surfaces yet so that we can make tables that are lower or higher than the ones in the game?

Anyway, thanks as always for your reply and for all the work you're doing to make it possible to create things for this game.

OM

If selecting the patterns in the game but the object still have some parts dark, the problem comes from the .DDS file
Of all DDS files of an cloned object,there are two very important. One control the pattern parts looks green and red, another control the surface up and down(shadow and bright...this .DDS looks gray )
All you should check is the gray DDS with the surface's Up and down.. change it into whole gray. If you haven't do this, the new objects will get the old shadow surface and looks strange with some part dark.
If you change this DDS into whole white,your objects will turns too bright in the game..now you know how this DDS controls..
Finally,if you want to make sth. realiable, you should take time to redraw the shadow and bright in the DDS.

Thanks for your response. I'm thinking my problem may be that although I made my DDS all gray I may have made it too dark a gray...it was very dark when it turned to grayscale.

How does one go about redrawing the shadow and bright in the DDS?

OM

like this...
1 has a whole gray dds.. and 2 has a redrawed dds..
1.
2.
new DDS: