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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd May 2017 at 4:04 AM
Default Tried to add special effect to a lamp, now it crashes the game
So I have this lamp (cloned from a BV lamp) that I wanted to add fire to so that it would look like a brazier. I've read Numenor's Introduction to Slots and gone through this tutorial. I haven't added slots to an object before... but I have edited the Resource Node for other objects for other reasons, so I do have a tiny amount of experience with the concepts involved.

When I try to test the lamp in-game, the game crashes as soon as it is selected in Buy Mode. The best I can figure is that I did the "main" BHVR wrong somehow, since I've never understood BHVR's very well and usually avoided editing them; the lamp didn't initially have a "main" BHVR at all, so I imported the one from the bonfire (which only consisted of an idle) and edited that. This is what I have so far. Could someone with more knowledge on the subject please take a look and see if they can spot what I've done wrong?

I feel bad asking for this kind of help, but I've exhausted my own limited knowledge. Shame that the game doesn't give more detailed errors when you break it...
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Scholar
#2 Old 22nd May 2017 at 3:06 PM
Usually a faulty mesh will crash the game while problems with behaves will just throw errors.
Remove the child node from the new slot in the CRES. The second half of a child node, the Child Index must refer to a valid block.
Former Hamster
retired moderator
#3 Old 22nd May 2017 at 10:44 PM
Not only should your new slot for the fx NOT have a child node, the slot itself is supposed to be a CHILD node to the Practical - it's not.
Also - your init and main BHAVs have the same instance number.
And - your entries for the SLOT file do not match the example screenshot in Atavera's tutorial.

I'm curious here - why do you want to add fire to a lamp as an effect? You can have a lamp with fire, that functions as a lamp and you can turn it on and off, without adding an effect. I've made some wall torches that function like that and NixedSims has made braziers. I'm sure there are others as well.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#4 Old 23rd May 2017 at 1:00 AM
Adding an effect was the only way I knew to add decent looking fire bigger than a Sim's thumb... the only lamps I've seen that had fire without using an effect just used static textures for the fire (with an invisible texture for when the lamp is "off"). That works fine for a chandelier or a candlestick, but then the flame is small and compact... not fireplace-sized which is what I was trying to make.
Former Hamster
retired moderator
#5 Old 23rd May 2017 at 5:13 AM
Understandable. It's been awhile since I made the torches - I do know that the flames are animated and that they're an actual mesh so can be resized. BUT they're not an effect. So...

I'll link you to one of Nix's downloads: https://nixedsims.wordpress.com/201...zier/#more-7134 because she used a fire effect. She's got more braziers too if you care to take a look at them. I'm sure that looking at one of them in SimPE will give you a clue about what you need to do to make your lamp. I don't know how often she's online anymore - but if you wanted to try messaging her to ask if you can clone one of her braziers, she might say yes.

Don't give up on your lamp! A bit of advice? Your current lamp has a lot of errors that could be a bit more time consuming to fix since you're new to adding slots and effects. I'd suggest starting over with a fresh clone. (I'm not trying to be mean or rude here - just realistic. I've got loads of broken packages sitting around in folders from learning to add effects and whatnot. You should see all my Plumbbob of Praise rejects! So I know that sometimes starting over is easier than trying to fix what's broke. )
Scholar
#6 Old 23rd May 2017 at 7:31 AM
There is lots of errors that'll show up once you get past it crashing the game, it won't initialize because of the conflict with the op-codes and can't be placed anywhere until it does initialize.
I've placed a fixed version on box.net for you to look at.
https://app.box.com/s/97hgeiitoog5i80ss1lw155z0dmw01fn (Ghostfishe-lamp.zip 163kb)
Changes include correcting CRES and cleaning up all references to the ground shadow and light pattern since they don't exist in the GMDC. I changed the effect to fireplace_fireFXHearth since I'm not sure fire is an actual effect. The fire effect is switched on and off in the CT - Light - OFF and CT - Light - ON op-codes.
Although I lowered the fire and the light you will need to tweak the height of both a little more.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 23rd May 2017 at 12:28 PM
Thank you Chris! Adding slots and effects is something I want to learn to do correctly, even if I don't manage it with this particular lamp. Hopefully some day I'll be able to put a definite number on how many lamps it takes to create a functional effect from scratch... :P

The link to NixedSims is also helpful! I was aware of her braziers but did not realize that the fire was actually a part of the object... I came across someone else's conversion of the same braziers a while back, and they didn't have fire--you were expected to add it using some other standalone fire effect which I didn't have. When I saw pictures of Nixed's braziers, I didn't realize they weren't the same ones. Shame I didn't read the description, which would have cleared that up immediately. *doh* It looks like her posted policy is clone-friendly. Either way, now I have functional braziers for my medieval neighborhood too. Thank you, mustluvcatz!
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