Lol...now I'm beginning to understand you I think. All along I've been thinking you altered the img size as a fix for distortion instead of something you did pretty close to the start which ended up causing distortion.

HL posted above about trying to fix pattern issues using the xml and she found that it didn't work if I'm remembering correctly. If she says this won't work to fix it I believe her.

Thanks for posting your object.

I really apologize for the double post. Matrixx your decorative item is really super-cute...I'm looking forward to downloading it when you're ready to share it. The little handles it has are adorable. I really wish we could have an object just like this that acted like a surface...wouldn't it look cute on the floor next to a low bed with a candle on it?...of course...that's not possibe (yet...typed hopefully)

Anyway, I guess there's always more than one way to fix something...choosing a different item to clone is one way to go. But this one definitely could have been fixed by just tweaking the map. You have so much space that's unused on the map that it wouldn't be difficult. Just my humble opinion. I guess I'm just so used to the weirdness of meshing in Sims 3 that I just start trying to conform my object/mapping to its weirdness and figure it's ok if my map is not how it would be for any other game...lol. And you're right...in any other format this map should work (which of course, you know). EA didn't go out of their way to make things easy. Meshing for this game is always an adventure.

eta: oh...and I forgot to mention...I'm not sure if this one was the one you had blurriness issues with...but it is crisp and clear in my game.

OM - I think you need new glasses. .

The box, while extremely adorable, does have some serious stretching issues. I've looked at the .mtlsrc and they are not all the same, which is probably causing some issues. All the .mtlsrc's need to be modified, for both the MLOD and MODL.

Attached is what happens in my game. It looks fine in CAST and once I click ok then it stretches. See top/bottom respectively.

So this is similar to the issue I had when trying to go from 256x512 to 512x512. It refused to see the new size and stretched it horrible. This is doing the same thing, instead of using the 256 wide its stretching the 128 to fit the 256. Maybe it needs to stay the same ratio?

Lol...I don't wear glasses. Maybe I just need the aliens to upgrade my brain implants. (<--- kidding, this forum is entirely too serious for me to believe everyone would understand that)

Honestly though...I see the stretch but I think I could fix this thing as-is without anything other than mapping to fit the game's quirks...I've done it before on my own objects and my bet is this one is no different. I've only had one object where I had to resort to modifying code in the mlod and modl for pattern issues...and it wasn't the mtlsrc's and it wasn't to fix pattern distortion. It was that single tile glass partition and I did it so the thing would tile correctly.

If you want to change the ratio of the img you have to change the map...it's pretty much that simple I think. You have to work within the limits that the game sets or else torture yourself trying to code your way out of them.

Simply opening the TCE, selecting a few pixels and pulling them horizontally seems to me to be far easier than trying to search through the code to find which number is out of whack and hoping you're in the right place and selecting the right line. Who cares if the map is pretty?

Of course you could do as you said and just fix the ratio of the map although I've never done it that way so I don't know if it would work although intuitively I guess that it should.

eta: the box texture looked crisp in my game...not like what you have in that picture at all:



Of course I made a new one using the same mesh and dds's without xml changes...could that be the issue? I just overwrote a new clone of the same object with Matrixx's mlod, modl, and dds's. I have no idea what xml changes could do to an object.

Wow, you two have been busy with my object
Thanks for the compliments of the object! I thought this was just something sims 3 CC is missing so far

I can see now that compensating EA's fundamental "features" by fixing the map, though it wouldn't suit to any other games anymore, isn't so bad option at all
That is if there isn't any object available which would already have square mapping (if square is what you need).

What comes to .mtlsrc files and the object, I just noticed that I have taken a shortcut with the second mlod. It doesn't contain any mesh, so I haven't exported that and though I have left the .mtlsrc for that untouched

Also I'm not sure, but if I remember correctly, the object didn't have any blurriness issues before I touched those .mtlsrc files, or another option was, that I earlier just didn't ever left from the CAST mode to see the blurriness.

Also I have to forgot that .xml, if the tiling changes made to it doesn't work, then they doesn't

This was a fine case to me, as a beginner, to see what kind of issues I might confront in the future. Also it's a lesson for me to don't try to fix things using the hardest way, the obvious way is sometimes better, even if the fix doesn't look so pretty

Thanks for both of you helping me, I hope I can thank you with a box (or three boxes) at some point soon

There are objects that have square maps, but what I look for in cloning is an object that has the number of recolorable channels that I want. You don't have to use an entire dds texture, you could use just part. It seems wasteful but it depends on how you want your object to look when textures are applied. Say for the top of this box if you think the wood texture at 256x256px looks good then map it to that size only. Or if you think it looks good mapped at 128x256px then map it to that. Regardless of the actual texture size. I try to avoid doing anything in the .mtlsrc since I seem to get mixed results. So I do what gives me solid, consistent results. =)

I find it odd that the package you posted worked fine for OM and not me though.

That is weird indeed, I actually just modified the object mapping just a bit and this time I left the .mtlsrc files alone. It had the MaskHeight and MaskWidth of 80, though my texture is 512 sized. And what I found amusing is, I didn't get any blurriness

Though I noticed two other things which aren't right:

1) When I zoomed far of my object, the game was blocked at the moment.
I think I have to study the MODL/MLOD files to find out for which of them I should lower polycount to get the game load it more quickly.

2) In the six CAST thumbnails, in three of them, there was the old texture visible though I've changed the alpha to black for using the whole area for pattern long time ago. I removed caches with the new cache script, thanks orangemittens for that by the way, works like a charm I made sure the caches were really gone, but still the thumbnails stayed, probably they are stored in some other place then

I actually didn't know the object had to had precise number of CASTable channels (the same you are going to need), without better knowledge, I would have probably tried to add one of my own

edit #1: Actually that might look good with the low bed and a candle.
Is it impossible to make surfaces lower than end tables, or what's the issue blocking this to be cloned from some end table and make it lower?
That would be really cool if it could be done, though I'm not experienced enough to move to tables yet, when I haven't even finished with my first object. I want to make it perfect first

The thumbnails are in the thumbnail folder which you can find in the same place as the caches.

Right now we are not able to edit the slot positions. You could clone a coffee table or end table but the surface would need to be the same height, either .5 or .8 respectively. You probably could clone a floor lamp and make your object have the box and candle on it. I thought someone mentioned that candles do not actually have "flame" in TS3, but a general bulb glow like lamps.

Matrixx, I'm curious about what you changed in the mtlsrcs and which mtlsrcs it was that you made the changes in. I've only ever changed texture using those...never information that caused changes to the pattern's crispness vs blurriness.

I noticed that about the second MLOD with this item also...it's weird that a line for it is there in S3PE even though there is nothing there to export.

You said, "Also it's a lesson for me to don't try to fix things using the hardest way, the obvious way is sometimes better..." If you figure out a way to absorb this lesson please teach me...lol...this is exactly what I often do and it's so annoying to see others sail through the same issue without hitting every darn hardest solution possible before arriving at something elegantly simple.

The second and third MLODs...that is, the ones that give you a giant mesh which is offset from the baseline are the ones to lower polycount on. These are just the sunshadow meshes and don't show up visibly in the game. (I apologize for posting that if you already knew.)

I'm glad you found the cache script useful...it's very nice to get rid of those pesky things with one click of a button. If the thumbnails are giving you issues you can add script to the empty thing to empty that folder too.

Trust me when I say that when you're satisfied with your first object you're ready to move on to tables or any other object in the game. Every single one has it's own little strange thing goin' on and you only find them out and figure on a solution once you try them. You'll never be more ready to tackle a new object than you are now I think. It will still give you fits trying to get it perfect no matter which thing you pick. The upside to that is, once you've made the thing you know it's little things so you can use it again without all the pain.

I'm with you HL...what I look for in an object to clone, besides the obvious functionality of the thing, is the number of recolorable channels or the number of groups. Thanks to your tutorial we're no longer limited to having to also consider footprint size That was a huge step forward in meshing for this game IMO.

"You probably could clone a floor lamp and make your object have the box and candle on it..." absolutely you can do this. I posted a pic of a test object exactly like that in the Christmas crown thread. There are no real flickering candles in Sims 3 so using a lamp to create a candle object gives you the same in-game candle appearance.

I find it odd that the package worked for my game but not yours also. Again, I cloned the same item and simply overwrote the MLOD/MODL/IMG parts so that the object would have the original xml though...so it wasn't the exact same object. Could the xml have anything to do with the disparity?

I think I'll add the command to delete the thumbnails too in the same clear cache script, cause they seem to lure me to think there is still something wrong in the object, though it doesn't look in the game same as in thumbnails

And yes, Huge thanks to HL for the footprint tutorial, I also used it to correct my object's footprint.

I don't think I'll remake a box with a candle from floor lamp. The reason for that is: it would make object kind of single purpose object, I'd like to keep the box and the candle separate, and make the objects for them later (if ever possible) and make this time a multi purpose decorative box

In the .mtlsrc files I tried to change MaskWidth and MaskHeight properties from every file which had those properties. If I remember correctly (at the object you are having there) the original values where ending to 80 and 100. I changed them both to be 100 to correspond 256 x 256 sized pixmaps.
Like HugeLunatic already have noticed, changing those have been given vague results, I decided to not to touch them in the new object I'm working on.
I wonder if the .xml had some effect, if not for tiling, then crispiness/blurriness, I'm also very new to this, so I decided to not to touch the .xml either if not necessary.

I cloned the original object (three pots) to see what kind of meshes it had before I rushed and replaced them with mine
1) The MODL file seems to be at the center of the grid, and it's low poly model.
2) The first MLOD file with 8 zeros in a file name seems to be also center of the grid, but it's higher poly and it has the shadow.
3) The second MLOD file with 00010000 in the file name seems to be also higher poly, but it has an offset from the center, and it's scaled two times bigger than 1 and 2.
4) The third MLOD file with 00010001 in the file name is otherwise similar than 3, but it is higher poly.

This seems to show that there is two meshes for the object itself (one with shadow and one without) and two meshes for sunshadow like you said orangemittens.
The difference seems to be that the sunshadow ones are not both low poly, and either are both MODL and first MLOD higher poly
I'm a little bit confused here, but does it mean that these meshes vary a lot from object to object?

Thanks for encouraging me to move to more difficult objects after this one
Though, now I'm starting to feel kind of sad that I have two months of time to finish my master's thesis, and I really would have to concentrate to that after finishing this object, but I hope I have plenty of spare time after I'm (hopefully) graduated

The situation you describe with the shadows for the decorative pottery object seems to be pretty typical for Sims 3 objects. Some of the objects don't have the two off-set models and some have only one model but most are how you describe the pots and have 4 models. The two offset ones are used by the game to create the sunshadow when your object is placed outdoors. I've never read that they do anything other than that so I guess it shouldn't matter how many polys either of them has...they can both be low poly since no one is going to see them anyway.

I guess what I'm saying is that, IMO, most objects in Sims 3 seem to be of equal difficulty to make. I get the impression that you're further along in basic meshing skills than I am and this is probably more important in determining what you can make than the little quirks of Sims 3. If I can make a table, most certainly you can

Good luck with your master's thesis!

Thanks for wishing me luck, I will need that

I think I got your point, what come to difficultyness of making different kind of objects

If I now understood right, the first MLOD file with bunch of zeros in the file name is really the only one for I should use the higher poly mesh, and other ones can cope with the lower poly mesh.

I hope I don't have to spend this many days for every next object I make