Since starting recoloring, I've been perplexed as to why TS2 uses bump maps the way they do (I've surmised that it has to do with multiple-color-option efficiency, so the designers did not have to handle bump-mapping on a per-texture basis; obviously this efficiency comes with drastically reduced flexibility), and now that I'm peeking into the meshes, I'm perplexed as to WHERE it is occurring.

Take the Ancient Transport Urn as an example. If you recolor it with just a flat color, the decorative details still show up - the indentation at the bottom, the bumps on the rim, etc. Now, traditionally, I would assume that given that the object is not taking its bump map from the *texture,* it must be in the model. Yet, when I open the mesh for that Urn, those details are NOT present.

I'm still digging into the mesh stuff, so it is possible that I've overlooked a separate file - a file that exists completely separately from the texture file and acts as a the bump map - but I haven't seen any references to such a thing anywhere. So I'm quite curious. Clearly the bump mapping is altered with substituting a new mesh, but I am unclear on exactly how/why/when that is happening. Any thoughts (assuming I'm not asking a question with an obvious answer - heaven knows it's happened before )

-y

It is a completely different texture that acts as a bumpmap. It applies over the rest. In the matd for the item you mentioned you'll see this line: stdMatNormalMapTextureName: sculptureurn-body-base-bump.

OW doesn't grab that, but you could put something else there (and in the filelist) and add a corresponding texture file.

Edit: I thought I'd add that you could add your own to a recolor of that urn, too, since the reference is in your matd. You wouldn't need a clone to change the bump map.

Hm, so it is a separate file. That is interesting (and is really the only thing that makes sense) - especially if I can get rid of it without a clone. Would be great if SimPE provided an option to extract it, but I'm sure Quaxi has more important things to do

As soon as I get the hang of the mesh thing, maybe I can stop wanting to bap Maxis on the head every time I open an object :D

Thanks!

-y