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Post by peacemaker on Jan 23, 2019 3:17:14 GMT -5
Glad you posted the package files here so I didn't have to ask on tumblr. There are quite a few things that are wrong, and definitely contributing to your problem and also emphasising it. The solution to your main concern is quite simple though. firstly: you have split every vertex in the mesh. Unless you are after geometric design, this isn't going to give you smooth lighting over the mesh. This is going to have to be fixed in blender. Enter edit mode, press W key and select "remove doubles." Now on the right under Modifiers menu add the "edge split" modifier Adjust angle slider and add "sharp" edges as needed. I have talked about how to use this more indepth in these 2 threads: sims4studio.com/post/116977/threadsims4studio.com/post/111488/threadYou should always view meshes in smooth shading (highlight everything then press W key and select "Shade Smooth" because that is how it will look ingame). That will solve part of the issue. The next is your NM and Specular. The NM is mostly fine, but since it is blank it can be shrunk down to 4 X 4px (like the blank NM Maxis uses). Now for the specular, that is definitely wrong. That is contributing to the weird lighting (along with all the split vertices). I remember you saying you downloaded it off someone. It was probably for CAS, not objects. Whatever it is, that is totally messing with your lighting as it has a solid white alpha. It should be black and appear fully transparent in the warehouse. Anyway, here are mine I use that I have extracted from Maxis objects: Ondrive Spec and NM BlanksYou also do have a second UV map and that can mess things up by offsetting textures (on second version I downloaded). I did mention this in the tumblr messages i sent, but you did say this was a new version so maybe you didn't remove it from this version. I removed UV_1. There is also the matter of your textures. Unless you have transparent or semi-transparent parts on your mesh, your alpha layer can simply be white, it does not need to cut around the UV islands like yours. Not only does this lead to weirdness when you zoom out, but also increases package size because of all the extra transprancy information. Just colour the alpha layer white, or just export as a PNG. Also, a bake margin of 8-16px is good as it helps minimise issues with MipMap scaling and bleeding of other areas of your texture and makes it look smoother when zooming out, thats just a personal thing though. You are also not obeying the DDS image rules. The size needs to be a multiple of 4 and your images are 1024x2028 which is incorrect. At that size (which is a about 2x too big tbh) should be 1024x2048px. this is actually what is causing the main issue here. Looks like the off size messed up your MipMaps and hence why the issue was apparent when zooming out. So be sure to make sure you are following the size rules when making textures. it goes 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048px and the ratio of the width to height should be 1:1, 1:2, or 1:4. Try to maximise texuture mapping while keeping is as small (or similar size to EA items) because it seriously affects performance when you increase textures sizes. This is not really a concern for people with decent computers, but those that don't may see issues. If you prefer the larger sizes, I would definitely say that in any download post so people with slower computers are aware, just as a cautionary remark. I have packaged up all the files and images I have edited so you can look them over and make the corrections to your other sizes. SV Love Seat Edited
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Post by peacemaker on Jan 14, 2019 23:20:50 GMT -5
This seems to be vertex paint which is used by the game to tell where light is hitting. There is a tutorial done by OM on how to edit this in blender.
The other option is just setting the intensity of the light from 100 to 0 which effectively turns off the light and hopefully wont corrupt your object. The first option is the best but you do need to be familiar with blender to do it. All objects come by default with white vertex paint and when applied to a light object, it makes them glow, hence your issue here.
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done
Jan 14, 2019 23:13:57 GMT -5
Post by peacemaker on Jan 14, 2019 23:13:57 GMT -5
Cats being able to sit on an object is governed by both tuning and the footprint (max height). The only objects with specific rigging for pets to use is seating. So i can tell you it is 100% the footprint resource that determines the height at which a cat sits on the coffee table. What is complicating issue is you are updating older content. Generally all I need to do to make an object work is import the mesh and that updates the object bounds which in turn makes the object usable for pets. So what I would try is importing your mesh again to update those bounds since it doesn't look like you have tried that yet. I would do this after importing the footprint resource of a new coffee table to make sure anything changed since making it is now included.
I also had an issue checking this in my game just now where one household the cat (when controlled with the playable pets mod) would only investigate a coffee table (both cc and Maxis) while another household the cat would sit on the surface. I wouldn't say that is a cc issue if they wont interact with the object but may be determined by a trait? Or perhaps items are too close for the animation? Anyway, I hope the suggestion helps.
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Post by peacemaker on Jan 14, 2019 22:33:51 GMT -5
Ok, so the SSAO issue seems to be caused by the same issue that caused the sunshadows of windows to not correctly show up after the C+D patch (which was fixed after finding the cause). In the materials section, the PosScale should stay at the values 1,1,1,1 but upon importing a texture or mesh, these values are altered. By changing them manually for each entry in each sunshadow lod group, the sunshadow now correctly blocks out the SSAO from behind the object. This can be done by going to each sunshadow mesh resource in the warehouse tab (group 00100000, 00100001, 00100002 etc). Scrolling down to the fifth edit items button for Materials "items" and selecting PosScale in the popup. Change each value to 1, save and repeat for all entries, then all shadow mesh groups. there does seem to be an issue where using Reshade the program doesn't recognise the alpha cuttout after editing and cannot seem to find the value that affects this but it is a small issue as only people with reshade would experience it, and most have SSAO off which solves the issue.
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Post by peacemaker on Jan 14, 2019 20:51:42 GMT -5
It looks like part of the issue happening while importing the texture with S4S. I tried importing the texture with S4PE to compare to the S4S version and it does not suffer from the SSAO showing though the mesh. Not sure what sort of process the image goes through when imported. I know PNG gets converted to DDS formart, but not sure if anything is done to a DDS image when importing. Here is the comparison:
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Post by peacemaker on Dec 5, 2018 5:04:49 GMT -5
Yep, i always suggest you view meshes in blender with smooth shading on, that is how they will be rendered ingame (flat shading is specific to blender only and wont translate to the game without splitting edges) and can allow you to pick up on shading issues like this. Just highlight all the mesh in edit mode, hit W key and select "shade smooth." From there you can use the edge split shader along with the mark sharp tool to split edges as needed.
In this case you just just adjust the edge split angle since it is all 90 degrees without having to mark the edges you want sharp. The modifier is definitely handy to learn how to use for different scenarios.
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Post by peacemaker on Sept 2, 2018 23:43:19 GMT -5
Thanks Andrew! I did fix the pets focus issue with my candles when the EP came out so i will be sure to double check the new file as well. I just couldn't figure out the multiple effects issue.
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Post by peacemaker on Aug 28, 2018 6:31:27 GMT -5
orangemittens I would like to know if you found a solution as well. I've had no luck trying to add multiple effect coding to a newer tuning file as it seams the format has changed and i can't find a reference tuning file to look at for guidance.
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Post by peacemaker on Aug 21, 2018 0:13:30 GMT -5
I know this is closed, but I see the issue and you don't need to go to the extent of editing the cube map. It is your normals on the mesh. Basically, you are making your mesh with flat normals, and this is not representative of what you are going to see in game. Always set a mesh to Smooth normals to see how it looks in blender otherwise you are going to get a rude surprise ingame when you test it. So what is happening, each end you have on the horizontal and vertical bars are being seen as smooth corners and altering how the game is 'bending' the light on it. On flat surfaces, you get 1 cube map spread over it, but once you start adding curves and corners, it starts adding them. You are seeing 2 cube maps over the horizontal bars because you effectively have 2 corners instead of making them hard edges. to fix take all the end flat peices that aren't bevelled and highlight them with the face tool. Then under the edge tool select "mark sharp" which will highlight those edges aqua. Under the modifiers menu on the right, add a new modifier called "spilt edges". Untick "edge angle" so only "sharp edges" remain. Save and import. You should end up with something like what I got here: www.dropbox.com/s/agwu8hnekn7q793/Screenshot%202018-08-21%2013.07.24.png?dl=0Now, its not exactly what you had intially, but it looks far more metallic to me then you other version, hopefully saving you from scrapping the metallic finish.
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Post by peacemaker on Jul 20, 2018 2:56:22 GMT -5
I would really like a "are you sure?" popup to confirm deleting the cache files. I have lost count of how many times I clicked that option instead of the modding menu
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Post by peacemaker on Jul 3, 2018 8:26:54 GMT -5
When using selective clone, I would love the option to specify the starting instance value for the object resource/catalogue entry. Why? Remaking older content. Sometimes it's just not possible to fix an old package file (or add to it) whether the reason is because its made with another program or was made years ago. The goal of a lot of updating is to redo a package, and have it replace the original in-game so it is hassle-free. Currently you need to go through manually and change the values by hand which is quite tedious, and prone to human error (especially if you have 100 instances to change per package like me LOL). Since S4S has incrementally increased the value for each consecutive swatch added to a package for some time now, by allowing the option in this advanced section to specify the starting value instead of a random number when cloning, it could help greatly in the process of updating older cc made with S4S that needs to be remade and added to.
Edit: Also adding the universal shortcut Crtl+Shift+S for "Save As" would be wonderful too.
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Post by peacemaker on Jun 22, 2018 2:42:22 GMT -5
Hi! First time trying the geostate feature and having problems. I cloned the Pandora Toybox for a custom mesh, with the difference between the 2 geostates being a single pane with a toy texture on it for full, and no plane for empty. When i try to import my meshes, S4S is setting the empty state mesh as both empty and full, and I cannot import a unique mesh into the full geostate. A change is meshes is only visible when I import into the empty geostate as well so I am unable to take advantage of this feature.
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Post by peacemaker on Apr 1, 2018 6:55:17 GMT -5
I generally do the whole mesh as a precaution incase I didn't see an area that had the issue prior. Even EA's content does it so its not really a mesh issue, but actually an anti-aliasing issue with thenVidia cards when playing TS4. the tutorial by ivo-sims applying the antialiasing fix. As to the exact reason why, I am not sure but my guess is because blender doesn't support smoothing group functionality which seems to attribute to the issue. Good to know you solved the issue
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Post by peacemaker on Mar 25, 2018 21:34:00 GMT -5
It is hard to see exactly what us going on here, but i think I know the issue. If it is what I think it is, its actually a graphics card problem which I experience with my GTX970 (common issue with higher-end nVidia cards when playing TS4). You can either fix your entire game for this issue with this tutorial but its quite advanced and you need to use a third party program. The other way i fix it in a similar manner to my glass tutorial which is go into blender and edit mode. Select the entire mesh and press crtl+T to triangulate (this is very important). Next make sure any edge split modifier is applied (if used) or that your mesh has all its hard edges in place. With the entire mesh still selected, press P then on the menu select "by loose parts". This separated all joined vertices into separate groups. To me, this works very much like assigning smoothing groups. Press tab to exit edit mode, then ensuring all groups are still selected and you active group is still selected (light orange and all other groups are dark orange) press crtl+J to merge them together. Import back into s4s and test ingame. Note, this technique works best on objects with at least a few split edges to get a few groups when separating. It sucks for things like fully smooth spheres. Hopefully that solves the issue. However, if it doesn't, could you post a bigger picture so we can see exactly what is going on?
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Post by peacemaker on Mar 22, 2018 22:00:11 GMT -5
I can confirm this is happening as I was trying to help BrazenLotus on tumblr. I tried removing doubles which did nothing, and changing the shader (it is listed as instanced which is odd for indoor plants) and I just made it disappear. The plant containers are mirrored and what you see if the NM only being applied to one side of the mirrored object.
The issue appears to be on import. Something in the mesh coding is changing (or being cleared) that is removing the data needed to tell the game to render the NM on both sides of the mirrored mesh.
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