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Post by simsi45 on Jul 24, 2020 16:08:42 GMT -5
ChippedSim I'm not entirely sure if cloning a lamp would work, and even if it did it would be a HUGE hassle transferring tuning files, LOD properties etc. There is a way to make it completely BG compatible. I don't want to reveal the method as it would enable folks to release DLC assets and pirate expansions but I could give it a try for your aquarium considering it's a heavily modified mesh.
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Post by ChippedSim on Jul 24, 2020 17:43:02 GMT -5
simsi45 I tested the lamp and it works but yeah it requires some heavy editing. I nearly managed to set up the shaders correctly. Only the water shader is not working correctly yet. I understand the conflict of making it BG compatible. I thought it would be okay in this case since I edited it heavily and the aquarium tuning is BG anyway. Feel free to send me a PM if you want to move that discussion there. I created another package cloned from the C+D aquarium with some unnecessary mesh groups removed so I would use that as a base if you want to edit it.
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Post by freeasabird on Jul 25, 2020 6:40:19 GMT -5
When I made my first tank Studio popped up the message that it could not include the geometry states as I exporting the mesh, the water didn’t show and the plants didn’t move in the first tanks. When the Object mesh geometry state support was added I could make tanks with viewable water and moving plants. I suspect that anything that moves needs this even if it can't be seen in the mesh section of S4S. Geometry addedBlender 2.79 is either not really compatible with S4S or if I remember rightly can cause problems. I would try 2.78c, it works for me. The lights in the tanks are tricky, I can get them to show but because they are on the top facing down it's rare to see the light looking like the EA ones. They are lit from above making the light look grey or black even when vertex painted. It doesn’t matter because they still work but its annoying. I fixed it by putting the water on the top off the tank. I'm not that keen on the EA water effect, so I don’t mind the water just rippling across the top. I'm sure after many tries that the water effect is a core game file that is used for the fountains and basins. I have changed the colour but never the transparency, although I have only tried that once. The Spar Day tanks work well, the best one is the Perfect Private Aquarium. To get the best results, keep the light & plants where they are on the uv. If you move the plants to the other side of the uv map they may not work. Paint all the woodwork/base with black vertex paint to reduce glare. Make sure your glass and water is facing the right way in blender. I hope some of this helps.  |
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Post by ChippedSim on Jul 25, 2020 14:09:56 GMT -5
simsi45 I forgot to ask yesterday but what exactly did you change to make the water texture on the C+D version show up again?
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Post by ChippedSim on Jul 25, 2020 14:15:33 GMT -5
freeasabird Both the water and plant movement are controlled by shaders and the tank doesn't have geometry states so I'm still a little confused what you mean? The water vanishing happens even if I don't edit the mesh with blender so I just export the LOD reimport it again and the water is gone. So I didn't even open the blender file. Seems more like a S4S bug to me. The spa days tanks are fine. The vertex paint vainishing was also a problem with the clone not blender. I tried with an old blender version (2.7) yesterday and had the same thing happening. If I clone the C+D tank or a lamp the light works completely fine. Cloning the Spa Day tanks won't have any use to me in this case so sadly this is no solution. Also I want the tank as a separate object and the plants and bottom need to be gone for that.
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Post by simsi45 on Jul 25, 2020 15:14:47 GMT -5
ChippedSim My bad, I guess I should have mentioned what I did. I imagine you have a pretty good idea on editing the ModelLOD properties but just in case i'll be somewhat detailed: 1) Find the ModelLOD and click on the "Edit Items" button under the "Data" tab on the right. 2) A window will pop up, you then want to select the "Additive" mesh group (which is what contains the water) 3) Scroll down until you find the "Material" tab (towards the middle) and click on "Edit Items"4) Considering you only have 1 swatch there should be 2 Variant IDs. Click on one of them (you will be changing both) and click on "Edit Items" on the right. 5) Now, here you need to find the "UseVertAlpha" and change it to 0 (it should be 1) 6) After you do that click on the "Add" button, and to the right there should be a dropdown menu called "Field" click on that. 7) Now select the "AlphaBlended" option, and change the value to 1. Save, close the window and do that again for the other VariantID (just to be safe) 8) Once you are done with all that, repeat all these steps for all the different ModelLODS (should be 3 in total) I'm not sure why that is necessary to make the water appear, but it works so that's that. In the future I would suggest cloning the Spa Day aquariums as they function fine and work with their properties as the base. As about your aquarium, I would gladly make it BG compatible once you have it setup how you want it to. If something was unclear feel free to ask.
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Post by ChippedSim on Jul 25, 2020 17:56:56 GMT -5
simsi45 Thanks for the explanation! I already knew how to edit the shader settings I just wasn't sure what you edited in the settings. I set up a whole new package from scratch now. I removed the empty groups, tweaked the vertex paint and finished everything besides the recolors but I guess I can still add them later on. I just send you a PM with the simfileshare-link.
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Post by ChippedSim on Oct 11, 2020 9:14:11 GMT -5
I'm back at working at the tank and managed to fix the lamp issue but I'm still having trouble with getting the gradient of the C+D tank to be displayed correctly. I narrowed it down to the "UseVertAlpha" setting in the additive shader. As soon as I turn that to "1" like it is in the C+D tank my water texture is gone. I looked at the vertex paint of the tank again and noticed the water model has a slight gradient on it so I suspect that's what is making the water texture displayed differently in the original tank:  So somehow I just can't get my clone to recognize the vertex paint correctly. Does anyone experienced something similar to this? |
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Post by simsi45 on Oct 11, 2020 12:08:32 GMT -5
Hey there! First of all I'm very sorry I completely forgot to PM you back. Please check your PM's as I've sent you the link to the fixed aquarium.
About the vertex paint not working this has to do with the Blender version you are using.
You need version 2.7.9 (or newer) for the vertex paint feature to work. However you also NEED the 2.7 version (which is older than 2.7.9) as that is the only version that is compatible with cut numbers that S4Studio uses. You can easily get both versions on the same system, and use them accordingly. Whenever I work with lamps (that require vertex paint mode) I open the mesh in 2.7 assign the cut numbers, save and then I reopen it in 2.7.9 and Vertex paint it there.
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Post by ChippedSim on Oct 12, 2020 13:47:02 GMT -5
simsi45 I actually used blender 2.79. The vertex paint is sticking to the mesh and is still around if I re-export the mesh from S4S but it doesn't seem to recognize it correctly inside the shader settings so my water is just completely gone if I change the "UseVertAlpha" to "1". But if I turn it to "0" it's missing the gradient effect from the original tank (if you compare the tanks on my first post).
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Post by ChippedSim on Jan 14, 2021 7:18:24 GMT -5
I know this thread has been around for a while but I still haven't solved the problem. I have an idea what might cause the issue though:
It seems like the vertex paint is still there after exporting and reimporting the mesh (without opening it in blender) but the alpha channel of the vertex paint doesn't get recognized by the "UseVertAlpha" shader setting. So maybe the alpha channel is broken? I tried researching the topic and if I understand it correctly Blender doesn't support an alpha channel for Vertex paint so maybe saving it as blender file breaks the mesh? The spa day tanks don't use the "UseVertAlpha" so they work but look different.
So as a conclusion:
Is there any way to get the alpha channel in blender working? An addon maybe?
Or should I just gave up on this idea
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