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Post by kamyk2000 on Sept 7, 2016 3:32:24 GMT -5
I have followed the tutorial sims4studio.com/thread/108 to the letter. Sometimes the walls or floors I create become stand alone, sometimes they replace the wall or floor I cloned them from. I am using the latest beta build of S4S. There is no standalone recolor option available for walls and floors and it feels very much like random luck whether I end up making a default replacement or standalone item. Just for the amount of effort I have gone to here, let me tell you I have created 36 different colored tile walls in all heights twice. One solid, one with partial tile and partial wallpaper with crown molding and chair rail. I have also created 36 matching tile floors. That's 72 individual walls multiplied by 3 for the various heights, so I've spent quite a lot of effort on this mod. I'm not a modding newb, nor am I having a problem with making a simple recolor. I am familiar with texturing, meshing and all prior versions of sims modding. I am doing what I always do with a new game, beginning with what ought to be the simplest part of modding for it to get my feet wet. My texturing and packaging work is done for them, except that one of the two wall packages insists on overwriting the other. They all look just fine in game, and work as expected except for this stupid default replacement issue. If someone would be so kind as to tell me precisely where in all the warehouse stuff the instance numbers for things are, and precisely how many places I will have to change them to create standalones out of my packages, I'd greatly appreciate it. If I sound frustrated, I apologize. I've just dpne a great deal of texturing work making these walls and floors, and am frustrated by this stumbling block. I'm not anxious to recreate the package files over and over again until one finally decides it isn't going to be a replacement. |
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Post by kamyk2000 on Sept 7, 2016 17:57:35 GMT -5
Anyone? Is it that I ask the hard questions, or the questions no one cares about, or do I come off as abrasive in some way? I almost never get replies to any of my modding questions about sims... Not since sims 2 anyway.
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Post by MisterS on Sept 7, 2016 19:40:56 GMT -5
Maybe no ones knows, I don't or I would of answered you
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Post by inabadromance on Sept 7, 2016 21:35:37 GMT -5
hi! i'm not really sure what other questions you never got reply.. since you only have 3 posts here. I read your question, but i didn't reply since i don't know either what could be wrong. Maybe it's a bug in the program. I would suggest waiting until either an administrator replies to this or someone else that has experienced the issue comes to comment with something. If you end up with no replies, i would suggest posting this on the bugs report thread of the version of s4s you're using. |
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Post by kamyk2000 on Sept 7, 2016 23:13:30 GMT -5
Thank you both for replying. At least I don't feel like I"m standing alone in the desert shouting into the wind.  I was referring to other things I've asked about regarding sims 3 modding that I asked at MTS and TSR. I have about a dozen or so things I created for sims 3, ranging from simple recolors to brand new meshes including both clothing and hair, but I never uploaded them anywhere because in several of the cases I had minor to major issues like textures not aligning properly to meshes misbehaving, I asked about it on both of those sites, and in all cases was entirely ignored except by two old friends. All my sims 3 creations work well enough for me, but without answers I didn't feel any of it was good enough to release publicly. I have no idea why I was ignored, I got plenty of help when I made and released things for sims 2. I even had people approaching me for help and contributions to their personal sims sites. No idea why I began to be ignored. I've been wondering if MTS and TSR turned into exclusive "clubs" or something where only old friends bother replying to each other. As far as my topic here is concerned, I'd still love an answer because it would be useful to know, but I bit the bullet and remade the problem package 3 more times, until one of them finally didn't end up a default replacer. Now I just have one more wall set to go to complete my set. After that I'm wondering where to release it. Is there anything against releasing a mod on multiple sites? Nevermind, I see you don't host files here. I guess I'll have to use MTS and TSR. |
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Post by amoebae on Sept 9, 2016 10:10:13 GMT -5
I'm sorry I can't offer any insight into why it might be happening, as it's never happened to me with all the walls and floors I've used.
Does it happen when you clone a specific wall type, or at random?
One thing I would say is that while you're trying to get to the bottom of this I would recommend making test packages of your recolours where you only import a couple of swatches, rather than all of them at once. That way, if it screws up you haven't spent ages on it. As someone who makes walls with 72/73 swatches in multiple versions I can tell you I NEVER import them all without testing in-game first. (One of my last projects had 876 files to import... you can bet your sweet a$$ I tested those babies after the first few swatches.)
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Post by amoebae on Sept 9, 2016 10:22:38 GMT -5
On the ignore thing: in 99% of cases if someone's query goes unanswered it's not because of a personal grudge or being outright ignored - it's a combination of people not having a solution to share and simply the luck of the draw as to whether anyone is around to look at the query before it drops off the front page and is replaced by other threads.
Not that it applies here because yours was fine, but a general rule of thumb is to always have a descriptive title. I flat out won't click on posts that have the title of "HELP!" or "WHAT WENT WRONG?" - not because I don't care but because there's only so much time in the day and I'll focus my energy where I know I can help from the outset.
Secondly, it's best practice to ensure the opening post be as clear as possible, and always polite. Now, we all get frustrated when something goes wrong, but people are more likely to want to help out if they can a) understand what the problem is, and b) aren't antagonised. This applies to follow-up posts as well if 'bumping' a thread that hasn't had replies: keeping it polite and saying something like "just wondering if anyone's had a chance to think about this yet? Any ideas? I still haven't solved it" goes across much better than "Why won't any of you reply to me?????!!!!?!?!?!?"
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As for where to host and upload things: There is a creator's corner here, where you can start a thread to showcase your creations, but the audience is likely going to be reasonably small unless you're linking to it from somewhere else (like tumblr). A lot of people use services like dropbox, mega, or google drive, and there's SimFileShare specifically for Sims content. Obviously as I said you'll need to be linking to them from somewhere like tumblr to get the audience. MTS and TSR are of course also options, but be aware of being restricted by whatever terms they have in place. There are lots of options available to you, depending on your preferences.
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Post by orangemittens on Sept 9, 2016 12:26:49 GMT -5
If your walls will not show up in the game at the same time, it's because they have the same instance number. This can occur when you copy a .package, give it a new .package name, and proceed to recolor it as if it were a new clone. While I'm perfectly willing to entertain the idea that Studio has a bug, I've made many walls and have never seen Studio create an override when making a new wall.package clone (nor has anyone else reported this issue in the over one-year history of Studio's wall-making ability). Having it make an override of a specific wall that you just made would require it to select the same random instance number twice in a row or have that instance number "stuck" in the cloning process somewhere.
As far as getting answers at Sims forums goes, I cannot speak for other sites. At this site, people do get answers, but often it takes a bit of time as everyone does this as a hobby and most people have jobs/kids/other things to do. If time goes by and you still have not received an answer, a friendly bump of your post is completely fine.
Sims 4 Studio has a Creator Studios section where creators are welcome to upload their creations to share. While it did have a small audience when it started, it has been around for awhile now and the traffic there has increased and will continue to do so as more creators post there. Also, there are no directions telling you how to present your items and no moderation queue. As most people who download items for Sims 4 use the various Sim updates sites (like My Sims 4 Blog and Sims 4 Updates) traffic shows up as long as your items are posted on the finds sites no matter where you post them. For that reason, I do not agree with the above assessment that it is necessary to post at TSR or MTS in order to have people download your items.
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Post by kamyk2000 on Sept 9, 2016 18:44:53 GMT -5
If your walls will not show up in the game at the same time, it's because they have the same instance number. This can occur when you copy a .package, give it a new .package name, and proceed to recolor it as if it were a new clone. While I'm perfectly willing to entertain the idea that Studio has a bug, I've made many walls and have never seen Studio create an override when making a new wall.package clone (nor has anyone else reported this issue in the over one-year history of Studio's wall-making ability). Having it make an override of a specific wall that you just made would require it to select the same random instance number twice in a row or have that instance number "stuck" in the cloning process somewhere. Yeah that's what I figured was going on was the instance numbers were the same, My problem is I don't know which of those instance numbers would need changing to convert it to a standalone package... As far as hosting/sharing is concerned I see MTS and TSR as my only options because other than mega.nz I don't have anywhere to host files. I certainly can't afford to pay for hosting space anywhere. Nor are filesharing sites any guarantee of permanent storage without paying for it. It's not that I necessarily mind posting to those two sites. MTS was very good to me during sims 2 modding. It's just that for the entirety of sims 3 both sites seemed to blow me off. And to Amobae, just plain wow. I thought 36 swatches x3 heights x3 wall sets was insane. I'd go mad doing that for 72 swatches. On a related side note why did stupid EA have to make 3 different textures for three different wall heights, make all of them understandable numbers like 768x256, 1024x256 and 1280x256, then go and bork it all up by squashing them? It adds tons of work to making the stupid swatches. I hate having to make 3 different wall heights at the correct proportions then squashing each one one at a time. And yet floors seem to be 512x512... All I have to say is thank god to you Orangemittens for posting the actual height ratios Tall - 256 x 1280 Medium - 256 x 1024 Short - 256 x 768 and the squished sizes, etc in your tutorial, or I'd never have even started making these bloody walls. Let me take a few in game screenies, and figure out somewhere to post them so I can show you guys I'm not just wasting everyone's time here... Full wall ||| vvv       Precisely counter height ||| vvv       I also intend to add a set that has the tile at mid height to go behind counters as a backsplash, and another set like the second, but with a copper or steel backsplash above the chair rail. I am open to suggestion for other placement combinations of tile, and plaster, and color suggestions. I'm already thinking about adding terra-cotta. I detest how sims games always have poo for choices tiles to use in the bathroom and kitchen. Sorry for any blurriness or oddities in the pictures, I can assure you they all look flawless in game. After this will come wallpaper with full wall trim in every color I end up adding to these, and matching plush rug. I may not aspire to 72 swatches per item, but I like to be thorough when I create. I'd also like to know if it's possible to reorder swatches without having to do them all over. As you can see some of the afterthought colors are not where they ought to be in the color spectrum. |
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Post by orangemittens on Sept 29, 2016 11:38:12 GMT -5
kamyk2000, sorry for the late reply. You do not need to change any instance numbers. What you need to do is make a brand new clone for each collection of swatches that you want in its own catalog entry. What it sounds like you are doing is opening your custom wall .package, making changes to it, and then saving it as a different .package name. This will create a default override of the original .package because no new clone was made in that process. The cloning process is where instance numbers are generated. If there is no cloning process Studio cannot make new instance numbers. If you want a new wall.package you have to go to the main page and choose to make a new wall.package. The wall.package that is made will have unique instance numbers and it will not override any other wall in the game, custom or otherwise. As far as good free hosting goes, I use One Drive for all my uploads. It is free and, because its provided by Microsoft, I don't think it will vanish overnight. DropBox is another good free option for online storage. EA did the wall squish thing to save render times most likely but I agree, it's an extra step that makes wall creation a little more painful than is desirable. At some point we may automate that step so creators don't have to worry about it. Swatch reordering is definitely on the list of things to add. This feature will be included in the next beta series after Jackpot or in the series after that one.
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