Making invisible recolors

[darkannie]

I can't seem to find a tutorial for doing invisible recolors. The only thing I have found are two thread posts that tell you to do very different things, neither of which seem to work for me. I've googled it and hardly anything can be found on the topic.

Here's the story. I'm playing Bigfoot for the first time since I got Bon Voyage. Until recently, he'd been the only secret lot I'd never been to because any sim other than Knowledge is afraid to meet him, and I don't play enough knowledge sims. Very few of them ever want to take mountain vacations, preferring to travel to Far East and such. Even rarer are the ones who do and find the map.

I decided when I found another Hidden Burrow map that my sim was going to meet him and bring him back regardless of his fear. I succeeded in bringing him back to the neighborhood and then moved him into his own place soon after. He's living in a cave on a single lot in the high levels of the neighborhood and I want him to live as rustically as possible. But some city objects you just can't get around, like the refrigerator, toilet. And with his two dogs to keep him company, he can't seem to get around needing a bathtub either.

I figured out a way to get around those objects by placing alternate decorations around them, but I'd like to be able to recolor the actual objects as invisible to complete the look. Instead of trying to find invisible recolors, I thought I'd learn how to do them myself, since I'm a little comfortable with SimPE. I just can't seem to find a tutorial that is working.

[bluetexasbonnie]

The quick answer. ... use a 'clear', totally transparent texture. It need not be very big -- I often use 8x8. Build new texture. Be sure you use the DXT3 format. Now go to the TXMT. Change stdMatAlphaTestEnabled to true (or 1, depending on where you are when changing).

Okay, now for the long answer ... First, this only works if everything is recolorable and will take your new transparent texture. Toilets and bathtubs are not. There is a water layer used in animations that will stick out like a sore thumb. This water is not recolorable. The only way to get rid of it is to make a new object. Refrigerators have food that will show up.

There are some custom objects out there that might work for you ...
-- This one would need recoloring into a worn old wood look, but it does have frig, counters & toilet that would work. KIS Kitchen & Bathset (http://thesorceressandcompany.com/Forum/index.php?topic=988.0). There is no food in that frig, so a transparent recolor would get you there if that is really what you wanted. The toilet has water, so it won't work.
-- The Simstones (http://www.modthesims.info/d/172481). These are more fantasy than you said, but, well they are just incredibly cute and seem so appropriate to a big foot fantasy. Do a download search on "Simstones" and you will come up with a lot of recolors and other little things folks have made.
-- Try a neanderthal (http://www.modthesims.info/browse.php?tag=neanderthal&go=Go&gs=1&f=38&gs=1) search. Lots of Big Foot appropriate possibilities.

Hope these get you started.

[darkannie]

Thanks for your help The fridge I'm not worried about now since I downloaded the seasoned pantry at DJs Sims. I built a cellar for that and lined it with shelves where he stores much of the fish he catches and crates of extra produce. He mostly eats the fish he catches, which he feeds to the dogs. I even took the time to train them to sim food (which I found out made them puke that I had to mod out) so I wouldn't have to watch him pull pet food out of his butt when he doesn't even go out and shop for anything. It's almost not worth it though. I guess pets weren't meant to live off sim food. Besides the puking that had to be modded out, the fish doesn't seem to sustain them for long and in two hours or so they're practically starving to death again. It was an issue for Biggy while he was sleeping. He sleeps in a tent in his cave which consists of just a small bonfire and a wooden bathtub he doesn't even need except the dogs get whiny when their hygiene bottoms out. But the tub is wooden, so I suppose I can live with it. Especially if I don't have to see it constantly.

I worked it out though. Since Biggy has to grill all of his food, he always makes group meals. Once he takes his plate off, I store the rest of the servings in his inventory so when the dogs get hungry, I can pull it out onto the ground. Unfortunately, they'll eat all the servings in one sitting regardless of their hunger satisfaction, and there's no way to cancel their actions even with pet control on, so I always have to be on stand by to force error them so they don't eat all the food and have some for later, since they're hungry constantly.

As for the toilet, a little creativity and some cheats, and I've managed to disguise it to look like a wooden spool, which is just a decoration from M&G. I tried various things, like plants, bushes, building tricks, but for some reason, the wooden spool doesn't make him stomp when prompted to sit down on it. You can still see a little bit of the toilet, but if angled right, it pretty much looks like he's taking a dump in the wooden spool, which works sort of like an outhouse as far as I'm concerned.

http://i54.tinypic.com/2yuj402.jpg

As for the tub. I found that Biggy will still use the tub if placed in the water pool of the Marvine waterfall shower. I thought if I could make the tub invisible, then it's like Bigfoot was giving the dog a bath in the waterfall rather than the stupid bathtub and dreamed and dreamed about making that tub invisible. Every time I use that tub, I end up going back out and trying to find another tutorial on invisible recoloring. :(