I'm guessing I (like a lot of other people) am missing some objects from TS2 in TS3, most notably for me are some trees, shrubs and flowers, but I thought that the piano would be easier to quickly play with.

This is my first attempt. I only copied the mesh and didn't attempt the UV Mapping, because I wanted to see what it looked like before going to sleep. It looks okay (from my perspective), but the UV will have to be done as well. The material currently on the piano is what was left over from the object I cloned in TS3. I think it was one of the room divider screens.

I know this particular object will just be decorative, but at least it will fill a particular hole in some house designs.

I'll attempt the UV mapping today and update this thread.

Yeah, I think a lot of people would like to have the piano back in their game. Maybe you could split the mesh so that the chair could be a dining char, and the piano a table, so that the sims would be able to sit down at it.

Or make it from the picnic bench. Sims could at least eat at it then

I was thinking of cloning the display bench thing (Carter's Display Case) as it looks similar, but separating the mesh into piano and chair might be a good idea to allow sitting. Thanks for the ideas.

After looking at the display case, I thought it might not be suitable as it's an EP1 object and I'm not certain how it would affect people not owning TS3:WA, so I settled on cloning a stereo system for fun. Now the piano plays music

Did you have a meshing question? Otherwise this is probably more suited to the creator feedback forum. Just sayin'.

I think a piano will be added in future EPs as I saw a reference of it in the code.

Orangemittens, sorry. There was a meshing question, but I found the answer myself (partly). At the moment my uv mapping looks okay in Milkshape, but I'm struggling with what it looks like in game. You are most certainly right for the most part about my post so far. Would there be a way to move the thread to other category?

Thanks also treeaq, I hope it's not too long, I quite liked the piano and it would be sad to have it only as a decorative.

And this looks like where my questions come in

I must have now built and rebuilt the piano so many times... The mesh come out great and the UV seems to be okay as well, I'm using the one built into Milkshape as it seems to do what is needed. For a while I couldn't get the mapping into the game after fiddling around with the .dds images. At one stage I thought I'll just load it as a piano statue.

I've on my latest attempt got the texture and repainting back, but it sort of looks half and half. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because of the TS2 texture image I've been using which is only 256x512, while the TS3 image is 512x512. As you can see the piano is light on the one side and dark on the other side although I'm using the same "paint".

I've been reading quite a few of the tutorials across various sites to see what I can do in this part of the meshing, but people are either just greying the total image (which makes the piano look odd) or the cloned object is quite similar to the new one.

Any pointers would be highly appreciated. Thanks

Ceixari would you mind posting a picture of what the MS map looks like laid over this IMG?

Also, I'm having a tough time understanding what you mean by this, "For a while I couldn't get the mapping into the game after fiddling around with the .dds images"...could you explain that a little bit more?

And is the music sheet showing up right in the game?...your pic makes it seem like the music page is blank.

eta: Also, if the object has a Specular could you post that as well?

Hi Orangemittens,

Thank you for looking at this.

I'm including what happened at during a few attempts. I do't know whether it was caches or not, it might have been as I didn't clear the world cache until I downloaded Sims3Dashboard. Before then I only cleared the other four caches. The image attached is what it looks like in MS, but it looked like that ingame as well. I'm glad that it's now at least showing the woodgrain and the bumps at least.

The other image is what it looks like in MS with the mapping.

You are right about the music sheet and you'll also see only half of the keys remain white, while the other hald seems to have taken the colour of the paint. I was hoping to move from area to area solving as I go along

I don't think there was a specular. I had four img files, one for the normal map, one for the areas not to be painted, one for the red and green CAStables and then one that seemed to be a 512x512 transparent.

Hmmm.. okay, just kick me.. That one is the specular. I just checked them in S3PE and it looks different there. I'll have a go at that one for now.

How did things work out after you checked the Specular? That shading all over the piano looks like the mess I've seen on some of my own objects if I put them in the game without fixing the shading on the Specular.

Thanks again for coming back to have a look

In an earlier post I mentioned the TS2 images being 256x512 and the TS3 .dds dimensions being 512x512. Something kept telling my in the back of my head to change the dimensions of the .dds images and that's just what I did. In earleir images I attached you can see that I kept the 512x512 and just copied the TS2 images in the left side of the .dds beofre re-importing it into the .package.

I've today just taken a chance and only imported 256x512 .dds images back into the package and the result is a nicely textured piano. Even the music sheet and the keys are as they are supposed to be.

I did however just make the full 512x512 specular all black to minimise the work on that part. So it and the red/green .dds are still 512x512.

I have another question though, but I'll still work on it. I cloned a stereo, so of course when it first appears in the game, the texture is still the grey plastics from the radio and I need to replace the default textures as I can't expect people to select something which must immediately be recoloured before proper use.

Again any pointers would be great. I'll of course not sit around and just wait...

No worries, I've found a few tutorials, just need to work through them.

Any idea why exporting an ingame object would get an Export Failed message? I working through http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=2929235 and exporting my piano with the new pattern is causing that problem.

You're easy to help Ceixari...I haven't said one useful thing to you yet and you're zooming right along

I know BabaYaga was having a tough time with that tutorial but found a solution to the issue. There's a discussion of it in the tutorial thread but I'm not sure she posted her findings there. She, cmo, and HL were also discussing something about it in this thread here:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=386665

But I'm not sure the answer to your specific issue was covered. Maybe take a look and see if something there helps. Sorry I can't be more helpful than that.

It looks like you might be able to change the patterns by editing the various xml objects in the package, but I haven't tested this yet.

ObjectRgbMask contains references to the three patterns my objects has. I'll play with this for now, but I have changed the piano enough now that the defaults actually does not look bad anymore.

Upload coming soon.