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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 19th Aug 2007 at 8:07 PM
Making a Maxis Object into a Sculpture
Okay, this is a bit of a weird project but I'd like to make a copy (not replacement) of the Maxis drum set as a sculpture. It would look just like the drum set but the only interaction would be "view." I tried to do this by cloning the drum set and deleting bits and pieces (okay, even I didn't think that would work but I'm stupid enough to try). Then I tried cloning a sculpture and replacing the GMDC, SHP, CRES, GMND, TXTR, and TXMT components with the equivilants from the cloned drum set but that resulted in an invisible object. After giving it a couple of goes I'm pulling my hair out (mostly at my own idiocy) and the tutorials I've found seem to deal more with importing meshes from 3rd party programs rather than ripping them from Maxis objects - I'm not savvy enough to make the leap between the two. I'm hoping that this is a simple issue and would be very thankful if someone could give me a couple hints or point me in the direction of a tutorial that will clear things up.
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Alchemist
#2 Old 20th Aug 2007 at 1:22 AM
Well, you did good with starting from a clone of the drum set.
You need to do that first as a 'standalone' object (including renaming, fix ibntegrity, etc.)
Connecting it to the catalog:
You need an OBJD (which you might extract from one of the sculptures) which will give you the item data, and allow you to put a new GUID in it.
But to make everything link up, you need to make sure string 1 in the textlist with an instance value 0x00000085 is the name of the CRES, without the _cres tagged on the end.
If you don't have that text string, get one and edit it properly. Otherwise you will get the catalog entry, but nothing tangible happens when you try to buy it.
<* Wes *>

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#3 Old 20th Aug 2007 at 3:41 PM
Thanks for the reply, Wes. I'm so over my head on this... I naively thought this would be an easy matter of replacing a few files or something. Uhg, not so much. I've tried reading through the object creation tutorial but I just can't make it make sense in my head as far as this particular project of mine goes. I feel like such a moron. I've tried quite a few (probably stupid) things but haven't had any success in getting a workable object - nothing shows at all when I start with a clone of the drum set like you said (before I read your post I was trying with a sculpture clone and at least I could make that invisible - not success by any stretch but at least there was something in the catalog). Anyway, here's what I've done so far that I think is probably okay:

- Open Object Workshop (SimPe version 0.62.1.100), find the drum set in the list, and select Clone from the pulldown menu. Of the 11 options all are checked except: pull animations, and reference original mesh.

- Hit next and enter a name and description.

- Hit finish.

- Enter a model name in the scenegraph rename screen, hit OK then save the file with my filename.

Is that okay so far? Unfortunately, I get a bit lost after that point. You'd mentioned extracting an OBJD from a sculpture. When I look at my drum set clone, there are several OBJD files - do I delete those? Then do I need to replace an equal number from a sculpture or can I just replace one OBJD file? If I need an equal number of OBJD's what do I do if the sculpture file doesn't have that many? I tried deleting the drum set clone's OBJD's and putting in one from a sculpture, giving it a GUID, and such but nothing showed up in game so clearly I screwed up somewhere. Do I need to delete/replace any other files from the drum set clone?

You'd also mentioned making sure that the text list in the field with instance 0x00000085 matches the CRES name, which it does. Do I actually do anything else with those files because there's no reason they wouldn't match in the clone, right (e.g. they match by default so unless I was replacing the CRES file or mucking around in the text list they should match, yes?)?

I'm obviously missing something critical here but I'm so clueless. I hate to beg for somebody to hold my hand through this but I'm just so lost. I don't know how people actually create real objects... here I thought this would be so quick and easy and here I am days later with nothing but grey hairs to show for my efforts. Thanks for your patience with my idiocy.
Alchemist
#4 Old 21st Aug 2007 at 1:22 AM
Well, what you described in your original post was something like a hybrid drum sculpture. When you moved the CRES and the other entities from the drum clone into the scuplture clone (this is what I remember you doing) you must either rename the whole chain (from CRES on) to the original names, and relink the pieces, or just edit textlist 0x00000085 to the new cres name.

What you are working on should work, amd should not be too hard to do. I have made sculptures before from other meshes. But for those, I cloned the sculpture, and replaced the GMDC and the TXMT+TXTR files with new ones. That requires you to manually relink these new items to the rest of the clone, although maybe Fix Integrity can do that.

The other way would probably to start the way you are describing, then clone a scuplture and look at all the options in the OBJD and make the drumset have these choices (and also a new description in the CTSS).

You also need the same semi globals, I think these are the painting ones. And the BHAVs from the sculpture need to go into the package in place of the ones that go with the drums.

Let me tell you a great hint that will help you find problems before you try in the game. After editing and saving, use the Object Tools/Scenegrapher on your creation. It gives you a visual presentation of the components, and will tell you if a part is not found, and any that are orphans. Until the scenegrapher finds all the parts linked correctly, placing the object in the game will be a waste of time.

In the scenegrapher, if you know, for example, that the TXTR file is in there, and the scenegrapher shows it is an orphan and that some other TXTR is missing, look carefully at the names, as there is some discrepancy. Also, when you rename anything, you need to Fix TGI and make sure the new TGI are used in any link to your new named component.

<* Wes *>

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#5 Old 21st Aug 2007 at 9:56 AM
Wes, you're a saint. I finally got it to work and it's just what I wanted. Thank you so much for your time and advice!!
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