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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 18th Feb 2009 at 6:20 AM Last edited by SimArchitect : 18th Feb 2009 at 6:44 AM.
Default Roofs - Engine-Generated Geometry (Maxis Roofs)
This question may never be answered due to the few people who have VERY advanced knowledge about The Sims 2 game files/data. Thus placing this question in this forum would be appropriate.

I have questioned myself for years now about the maxis roofs.

Intrigued list:
1. You can drag them any size that you want.
2. They can go from a 15 degree pitch to 75 degree pitch.
3. There are 23 different roof shapes to choose from. (With all expansions)
4. Each roof cuts holes in its self and connects with other pieces to get the desired look.
5. The roofs have a set eave drop, and thickness.

Questions/Discussion:
1. Where “in the thousands of game files” is the information that controls these roofs?
2. Is there a way to make a custom roof? Not an object, but an actual generated roof that can have all the “Intrigued List” above and allow maxis textures to be used on them.

This is very advanced and I know very little about it, but I hope to hear some clarified discussion for the first time.

~ ҉ SimArchitect ҉ ~
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Fat Obstreperous Jerk
#2 Old 18th Feb 2009 at 11:25 AM
As far as I can tell, roof behavior is hardcoded.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill because they pissed me off.
One horse disagreer of the Apocalypse
#3 Old 18th Feb 2009 at 11:59 AM
I agree.

"You can do refraction by raymarching through the depth buffer" (c. Reddeyfish 2017)
Fat Obstreperous Jerk
#4 Old 18th Feb 2009 at 12:53 PM
The most annoying thing about roofs is the way it pointlessly demands you to move EVERY SINGLE OBJECT ON THE FLOOR just so you can then put them all back afterwards, even if move_objects is on.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill because they pissed me off.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#5 Old 18th Feb 2009 at 6:29 PM Last edited by SimArchitect : 19th Feb 2009 at 7:25 PM.
Hardcoded...but where? It has to be somewhere in the files.

I was searching last night for an hour and found stuff about the roofs.
Scripts
Images
Text
Strings

The scripts were the most intesting to me...but that couldnt possibly be it.

I also searched in similar places in each expansion folder and found some different files that werent in the others. OFB and BV both added new roof shapes, so I focused on those and also M&G because of its UI change.

J. M. Pescado - Yes it is very annoying!!! I wish there was a way to make it not do that.
Attached files:
File Type: rar  Roofs.rar (20.8 KB, 13 downloads) - View custom content
Description: Roof .txt files (Scripts)

~ ҉ SimArchitect ҉ ~
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#6 Old 19th Feb 2009 at 7:25 PM
What makes me wonder so much about the location, etc...is because in SimPE you can clone a roof texture and make your own, which means SimPE knows where some of those files are located.

Also, many people have altered the games walls, and made fences and fireplaces which are not the common game objects. Fireplaces for example, take more to do then just "putting" them in the downloads folder. Scripts have had to be written by Numenor and others to make them function in SimPE.

Im just curious, as is there a way to mess with the games roofing???

EDIT: It turns out there are 1321 different shapes of The Sims 2 roofs (with all expansion packs). That is of course including the 60 different angles you can apply to 22 out of the 23 roofs (individually).

~ ҉ SimArchitect ҉ ~
Mad Poster
#7 Old 2nd Jun 2009 at 6:00 AM
Roofs - Engine-Generated Geometry (Maxis Roofs)


Quote: Originally posted by J. M. Pescado
As far as I can tell, roof behavior is hardcoded

resonated here, too
Quote: Originally posted by J. M. Pescado

The most annoying thing about roofs is the way it pointlessly demands you to move EVERY SINGLE OBJECT ON THE FLOOR just so you can then put them all back afterwards, even if move_objects is on.

One has to finish the roof-tool-based roof before the placement of objects and modular/connecting stairs.



SimArchitect,

May join Mod the Sims 2 > Social > Social Groups > Moo Tools
May check out Roof Pitch Adjuster

"hardcoded" here likely means codes implemented in the "exe", "dll" or else files. I personally believe such modding is not the goal of this site. :rolleye:
Thus, not much can be done about certain hardcoded roof components here.


The followering is just a generally known roadmap for infos pertaining to TS2 roof.

It seems to me that the roof' are composed of the followings (please keep in mind, some of the followerings are speculations based on what i've known):

1. the roof meshes (not counting the attic walls or other roof components):
It's believed that the roofs have their own hard-coded equations for assigning/computing temporary vertex for graphical presentation based on some sets of x and y coordinates and other parameters recorded in a lot, given what's found in the AB9406AA roof file in a given saved-at-least-once lot package file. The same file apparently holds other data like the roof pattern (eg. the roof recolours), the roof style (eg. cone, octagon),. roof pitch; angle of slope.
It assumed that there're some modular components as well as the non-modular components (esp. those with odd shapes or the edgy ones.)
wiki source:
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=ROOF
We may be able to change the roof pitch, roof angle, x and ycoordinates, and afew more features of built roof-tool-based roofs in lot package files.

2. the roof recolours for roof pattern:
Basically it's a set of some graphical elements, as texture files and their reference files to the game engine, for the roof. We can add in customly made roof recolours.

3. the roof shader file:
This file has several shaders responsible to various graphical states and presentation of roofs:
a. roof-structures: the roof top, RoofUnder, RoofTrim (as seen in roof recolours, coz these shaders decide how those textures are drawn in-game)
roof shader modding:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=192699
b. the roof preview materials
c. the roof bump mapping
d. various snowed roof states
e. misc. like highlight or else
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?...Talk:ShaderRoof
We can alter how the roof are drawn out in-game.

4. the attic wall
This is actually a special type of the general walls. Many of its special definitive properties related to the build tools are enlisted in the wall.txt
Partitions:
Modding InfoCenter - Partitions: walls, fences, fence arches
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=106473
Wall and WAllPS shaders accounts for the graphical states and components (including but not limited to wallpaper, wallpaer bumpping, etc) for all walls in-game including attic walls.
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?...Talk:ShaderWall
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?...lk:ShaderWallPS
We can alter some wall properties of attic walls and their graphical presentations.

5. 3D arrays (2A51171B) Instances ID 0x09, 0x0A, or 0x0B, has some related values to closed-rooms done by roof-tool-based roofs
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=3ARY
We may alter the light, load, and place properties of roof rooms.

6. WGRA files can have specific pattern(s) of data and values for attic wall
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=WGRA
We may alter the locations of attic walls or even somedays switch it to other wall types relatively safely.

7. There may still be something not stated in this list.


Related thread linkage for roof-products modding:

lot files
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=ROOF
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=3ARY
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=WGRA

attic wall
Modding InfoCenter - Partitions: walls, fences, fence arches
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=106473

shaders
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?...Talk:ShaderRoof
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?...Talk:ShaderWall
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?...lk:ShaderWallPS

threads
Mod the Sims 2 > Modding and Creation > Sims 2 Creation > Modding Discussion > Research & Development
Roofs > Roofs - Engine-Generated Geometry (Maxis Roofs)
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=318988
Mod the Sims 2 > Modding and Creation > Sims 2 Creation > Modding Discussion > Research & Development > modding - roof - material shader modded at the roof top texture definition
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=192699
Mod the Sims 2 > Social > Social Groups > Moo Tools > Roof Pitch Adjuster
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=328329
Mod The Sims > Modding and Creation > Sims 2 Creation > Modding Discussion > How Do I Change The Defoult Roof Colors?
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=225532

tutorials
Recolouring Roofs with Object Workshop (NEW Tutorial)
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=103082
Test Subject
#8 Old 2nd Jul 2009 at 6:17 AM
hello sims 2 modders. ive been lurking quite a bit here for the past 2 days, gathering awesome mods and doing research so i can so some of my own, and now i really gotta speak up about this.

i spent the better part of today familiarizing myself with the asset layout of sims2 with simPE, and i came across the meshes for the roofs (the geometry data file in the original packs, sorry im not too versed yet), after more digging i was able to find their related resource files, geometry nodes, Cres' Txtr's and light files, non of which im really sure how to work with.

anyways i have a point, and i see a couple of you brushing roofs off as "calculated" well im sure you guys are more versed with this and understand the engine better than i can at the moment, but is it possible that these "placeholder" (im assuming here that they are the visuals that cue you to your roof placement) meshes also have something to do with how the end result is calculated? has anyone actually tryed toying around with these?

first, the visual placeholder scales when you are placing it, so honestly i could see the engine dynamically scaling them based on a particular bit of code, but at the same time, they do seem to exist as a base mesh to be scaled from. maybe once the base placeholder is set to the desired dimensions, it calculates the end result from that. if that is the case, i do not see why new meshes could not be cloned in to test.

i apologize if i have provided nothing of previous value to this topic, just felt the need to throw out ideas.

happy modding
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