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Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd Mar 2010 at 12:54 PM
Default Make my object a mirror
So hi!

I made this Crystal Ball here:

Crystal Ball

And seeing the awesome new magic mod I'd like to make my crystal ball function as a mirror. Is there any way I can do this with my existing package or do I need to start over completely from scratch? (Meaning clone a mirror and then do all the steps to get it in the shape of the Crystal Ball).

I hope I don't need to start over, because I had trouble with the recolouring part and even had to use the Sims Resource Workshop (gasp!) to make the recolours work.

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Alchemist
#2 Old 22nd Mar 2010 at 1:05 PM Last edited by orangemittens : 22nd Mar 2010 at 1:17 PM.
Hi Nukael That looks like a floor object and using a floor mirror could end up being problematic. From the few experiments I've done you can only get reflection on the part of your object that is actually in the same place as the EA object's reflective parts. I posted a thread about it with a picture showing a floor mirror I made that had issues in case you want to see a picture of what I'm talking about.

The other alternative, and one which I've also not had real good success with, would be to clone something that has two materials...not two recolorable parts but two separate materials, and then change one of those materials to the mirror slider by editing the mtlsrc's. Some items look better than others when you try this and I can't say how yours would end up looking. (Of course, if the object you cloned wasn't a mirror this option would give you a mirror appearance but not a mirror function.)

If you take the item you've already made and try to apply the mirror slider to it, unless it has two material types, the entire object will take on the mirror material. As far as I know, there is no way to add a new material type to an object as yet. So you have to start with one that already has two material types.

If what you want is mirror function alone without a mirror appearance it may be possible to clone a floor mirror and then change the mirror portion to glass by editing the mtlsrcs. Or, perhaps it would be possible to use S3PE to replace the original (non-mirror) clone's rig? I've never tried either of those two things but that's what I would try...it would be a 'speriment.

eta: if you decide to experiment you wouldn't have to re-do the meshing part. You could use the pre-existing mesh you already have to replace the EA mesh on any clone you make. You might have to tweak it to match group number or whatever but you shouldn't have to re-do the whole mesh I wouldn't think.
Instructor
Original Poster
#3 Old 22nd Mar 2010 at 2:03 PM
Thanks for the reply Orangemittens!
I'm sorry I was so uninformative in my post... my crystal ball already reflects the room around it, so it already has the appearance of a mirror, but thanks anyway for your info (I don't even know anymore how I managed to do that, it's been so long ago I made that ball)!

What I would like to add is just the mirror interaction, or make the game think it's a mirror, so the magic skill (from the magic mod) will show up as well.

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Alchemist
#4 Old 22nd Mar 2010 at 11:39 PM
In the pictures that you posted the crystal part looks like it's on a glass slider not a mirror slider...is this not right?

If you're using the glass slider, all I know of to try to get mirror interactions for the object are what I posted above: If what you want is mirror function alone without a mirror appearance it may be possible to clone a floor mirror and then change the mirror portion to glass by editing the mtlsrcs. Or, perhaps it would be possible to use S3PE to replace the original (non-mirror) clone's rig?

Again I've never done either of those things but it might be worth a try.

If you already have a mirror slider on your object, and it's working how you want it to, I think you could try making a copy of that object, rename it, use S3OC to get new TGI's for it, and then try replacing the object's original rig with a rig from a floor mirror. Again, I've never tried it so I don't know if this would work or be sufficient to make the object act like a mirror.

What object did you clone for this crystal ball and which slider did you apply to it?
Instructor
Original Poster
#5 Old 23rd Mar 2010 at 8:53 AM
The pictures are indeed a little fuzzy... if you have the object in game you can see the crystal ball reflects the room around it and it is also a glass shader applied to it. I don't know how I managed to do it, I cloned the silver ball from WA, which has reflection applied to it already, and even though I added a glass shader, it retained the reflection, which is exactly what I wanted.

Now the other stuff makes me confused as I'm not up to speed with the terms you're using... to replace the rig, what entries would I need to export from the Mirror package into the Ball package? The "rig", does that mean the object interactions? I don't know if TGI's will give it interactions... I can try though.

I know I can add the interactions through scripting, but I don't know if this will make the game think it's a mirror, which is necessary for it to work with the magic mod. Anyway, I'm off to experiment!

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Alchemist
#6 Old 23rd Mar 2010 at 12:25 PM
Ok, I get it now...I couldn't see that in the picture and don't use WA except to test things with. But that's a very clever object

The rig and rslt are in S3PE when you open the object. I've changed them for other objects when I wanted certain properties of one object to be applied to another. But I don't know if mirror interactions are among the properties in the rig and rslt. It wouldn't be difficult to try it out on your object though.

I suggested changing the TGI's before starting not to cause mirror interactions but to make the new copy of your mirror unique from the first one while you're in your testing phase.

Have you looked at the WA item to determine where it's getting its reflective properties even though it's on a glass slider? If the scripting and other ideas don't work do you think it might be possible to take that part of your object (the part that allows it to keep reflectiveness) and add it into something you cloned from a mirror?

Anyway, it's an interesting project and interesting questions...I hope you'll post your findings because I'd like to know how it all works out for you
˙uʍop ǝpᴉsdn ǝɹ,noʎ 'oN
#7 Old 23rd Mar 2010 at 2:07 PM
To add the mirror interactions to your object you have to change the script class in the OBJK to that of a mirror, i.e., Sims3.Gameplay.Objects.Decorations.Mimics.MirrorWallCountry.

"Part of being a mesher is being persistent through your own confusedness" - HystericalParoxysm
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Alchemist
#8 Old 24th Mar 2010 at 4:30 AM
When you say change does that mean copy the script class in the OBJK in the object we want interactions from and then use that to replace the same in the object we want to have new interactions for? Like how we do for the parts of an object when we're changing the footprint? Sorry to once again ask questions but I'm not sure what you're meaning. I'm wanting to try this for my floor mirror and it would be great if this was a work-around for EA's borked floor mirror clones
˙uʍop ǝpᴉsdn ǝɹ,noʎ 'oN
#9 Old 24th Mar 2010 at 5:32 AM
That's what I'm saying

"Part of being a mesher is being persistent through your own confusedness" - HystericalParoxysm
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Instructor
Original Poster
#10 Old 24th Mar 2010 at 7:37 AM
That's so cool, thanks! I'll remember that for future projects. Sadly, that trick doesn't work with my package. My package was made with The Sims Resource Workshop, and it borks internal references apparently. Because every time I change anything in the package the object ends up not showing in game.

So I guess I will have to start over (decompiling and recompiling the model).

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Alchemist
#11 Old 24th Mar 2010 at 12:42 PM
Thank you for the answer cmo...this is pretty great!
Instructor
Original Poster
#12 Old 24th Mar 2010 at 2:49 PM
It works, it works! I eventually did have to do the package from scratch, because the Sims Resource Workshop borks a lot of things, making the package basically unusable for later editing. But now I've got my crystal ball with mirror interactions, with reflection AND with the glass shader! Woohoo!

Orangemittens, I see you trailblazed the way for glass shaders. I found out that it's very easy to customize a glass shader (or any shader for that matter, you can choose your color for the glass from swatches even) in the Sims Resource Workshop, you can then export a Sims3pack from there, extract the package, decompile the model, and you have the perfect code for any glass shader in any color you want (as the Sims Resource Workshop does all the coding for you).

You can then copy that glass shader to the object that you make with S3pe. Which is what I did, I copied over the original glass shader from my original model to my new model.
Thank you all for your help :D

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˙uʍop ǝpᴉsdn ǝɹ,noʎ 'oN
#13 Old 24th Mar 2010 at 6:36 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Nukael
It works, it works! I eventually did have to do the package from scratch, because the Sims Resource Workshop borks a lot of things, making the package basically unusable for later editing. But now I've got my crystal ball with mirror interactions, with reflection AND with the glass shader! Woohoo!

Glad to hear you got it working.

"Part of being a mesher is being persistent through your own confusedness" - HystericalParoxysm
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Alchemist
#14 Old 24th Mar 2010 at 10:13 PM
Great news on your object...I was wondering how things were going with it.

Thanks for info on TSRW...even though I don't use it I'm curious about the various things it can do. It's too bad that once you've made an object with it the object is basically not amenable to editing anymore. I find that I almost always have to go back and tweak something or another to get an object looking exactly how I want it to look...lol.
Instructor
Original Poster
#15 Old 25th Mar 2010 at 8:02 AM
It's sort of is and isn't editable anymore, you can save your work in a special TSRW format, which allows you to go back and edit the object to be more to your liking. But it can only be edited with the TSRW and that program severely limits what you can do with an object (you can't add interactions as far as I'm aware). But for shader coding, it's super nifty and you can just copy that shader code into an object you made with S3pe!

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Lab Assistant
#16 Old 25th Mar 2010 at 9:10 AM
There are several 'doors' to export/import the data from TSRW and work with other programs such as S3PE.

For creating a new project:
File -> New -> New Import (.wrk, .package, .sims3pack)
Attention, New Import is currently buggy as it deletes the textures in the project. This needs to be fixed. Just import them again if you choose to use this.

Ongoing project:
Edit -> Project Contents -> Import/Export (.package)

Minisite

TSR Workshop
A Custom Content Tool for The Sims 3
Instructor
Original Poster
#17 Old 25th Mar 2010 at 9:58 AM
That's true, but what I noticed is that once you export a package out of TSRW and edit that package with S3PE, it messes up something, causing the object not to show up in game. Nor will the object have any interactions when starting from a cloned object, whereas S3PE keeps the original script reference. TSRW does keeps the reference too if you look at the package inside, but there's no link apparently because in game the object comes up with "no interactions".

I have to say though that I made that original package with TSRW a couple of months ago, so I'm assuming things have changed.

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