Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 28th Jun 2018 at 8:35 AM
Default Painting Recolour Sizes
(First, if this question should be in WCIF, I apologise, and ask that it please be moved. I debated for a good ten minutes trying to decide where it belonged.)

I am looking for a list of the actual image sizes that fit the various meshes. For example, "Surfing the Universe" is a 256x512 texture, but the actual recolour needs to be 256x436 (or 437?...I'll know when I check my recolour in game) with the rest of the map referencing the back (I think). Any help finding (or compiling) such a list would be greatly appreciated!
Advertisement
Mad Poster
#2 Old 29th Jun 2018 at 9:40 AM
There may be templates for the pictures.I've never bothered with that, though.

Most of the pictures have a clear line where the picture goes, so it shouldn't be too hard to mark it and paste in your picture. In Photoshop and Gimp you can use masking (an alpha mask for the layer), and combined with the resizing tool it's fairly easy to replace the pictures.

One thing you can do is to extract the UVmap. That way you know what to cover.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#3 Old 4th Jul 2018 at 8:35 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
There may be templates for the pictures.I've never bothered with that, though.

Most of the pictures have a clear line where the picture goes, so it shouldn't be too hard to mark it and paste in your picture. In Photoshop and Gimp you can use masking (an alpha mask for the layer), and combined with the resizing tool it's fairly easy to replace the pictures.

One thing you can do is to extract the UVmap. That way you know what to cover.


True, I was just hoping to have a rough idea of what was needed before firing up Object Workshop. I guess it's time for me to make a set of templates. Right now I have so much art, and only a vague idea of which meshes will actually work.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 5th Jul 2018 at 12:18 AM
I tend to use Photoshop masking as templates. I make a layer with masking and it works for all the pictures, showing where to place the picture.

One thing you can do is to take a picture ingame of the paintings you want to use (ones you like the frame of, have the right size, etc.) and then you have a rough idea of how big they'll be ingame and which shape they have. Might make it easier findoing them in the Object Workshop.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#5 Old 5th Jul 2018 at 4:51 AM
Quote:
One thing you can do is to take a picture ingame of the paintings you want to use (ones you like the frame of, have the right size, etc.) and then you have a rough idea of how big they'll be ingame and which shape they have. Might make it easier findoing them in the Object Workshop.


That, that right there, is what started my search for templates!
I see a mesh that looks perfect, open it and export the texture...and discover again-yet-still that close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades. I've uploaded an example; that's a texture for the alien surfer poster mesh. You can see pretty clearly how much finagling I had to do to make the width-to-length differential between the image and the mesh look intentional rather than haphazard, and it's obviously still a wip.
Screenshots
Mad Poster
#6 Old 5th Jul 2018 at 9:56 AM
It's possible to scale your images to fit the texture. Find one that's close enough. If it's not too much stretch the difference isn't visible ingame.

If the picture is too big for the texture and you lose a lot of details, you can size up the texture (I do recommend to keep to 1024 as a maximum for either of the sides, though). If you use DXT3 or DXT5 to import the texture (Nvidia plugin for SimPE), you'll get a good result.

You can always make your own templates.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#7 Old 5th Jul 2018 at 10:24 AM Last edited by croiduire : 5th Jul 2018 at 5:47 PM.
How do I size up the image area? I've heard about that, and looked for a tutorial, but I haven't found one. That would be especially helpful with the BV poster mesh; that image area is tiny, but the frame and mat are lovely.
Mad Poster
#8 Old 5th Jul 2018 at 11:36 PM
I've got a Photoshop template for the BV mesh. Probably works in Gimp too.

You can do something similar for other paintings.

Basically just mark the visible area of the painting, put a layer with a color above it ( use masking layers or a color layer with a mask) so you see the area clearly, put your picture behind those edges, and resize/reshape until there's just a tiny bit left under the colored area (so you have a small buffer).

Mask layers are nice because as long as you do a proeper job of it there isn't a risk that your image will cover any other important bits of the texture.

If you want to be very precise, you can extract UVmaps (I prefer either Blender3D or Wings for this - but wings may be a little bit easier).
Attached files:
File Type: rar  BASE-BV-512.rar (422.5 KB, 5 downloads) - View custom content
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#9 Old 18th Jul 2018 at 2:16 AM
Thank you for the template and I apologise for the horribly late reply; I had to reinstall my game, and I am still struggling to recreate my downloads folder without all the things I downloaded but then never used... (We need a banging head against brick wall emoji.)
Mad Poster
#10 Old 20th Jul 2018 at 12:15 AM
Just a tip in case you don't know already - but as long as you're not changing computer, have corrupted the install files, or is doing major changes to the game like removing EPs, reinstalling the game isn't needed. If you just want to start a new game, you can remove or rename the "The Sims 2" folder in the Documents location, and the game will create a new folder with a fresh game the next time you play. If you rename the old folder instead of deleting, you'll have a backup of the files so you have all your downloads. You can even create several separate games this way, because the game will only run whatever folder is named "The Sims 2". Quite useful if you want themed games with different Downloads folders.
Back to top