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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 20th Jun 2009 at 12:15 AM
Creating patterns.. As a Mac user?
I've scoured the forum and didn't find any information about this..

But is it possible for a Mac user to create patterns for TS3?

I'd really, really like to be able to create my own patterns for the game, but methinks it's not happening..
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Lab Assistant
#2 Old 20th Jun 2009 at 12:53 AM
Ok, it looks like this tool is a universal graphics converter for Mac, it's not free though.

http://www.lemkesoft.com/

Although, the next problem you've got is that none of the tools are created to run in Mac though.. Have you thought of dual-booting and running Windows long enough to make your patterns?

My home site is http://www.sublimesims.net/
Test Subject
#3 Old 28th Jun 2009 at 9:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Saraswati5
Ok, it looks like this tool is a universal graphics converter for Mac, it's not free though.

http://www.lemkesoft.com/

Although, the next problem you've got is that none of the tools are created to run in Mac though.. Have you thought of dual-booting and running Windows long enough to make your patterns?


I think Mac users' problem, as you said, is that none of the current tools run on our computers. There are plenty of graphics programs we can use (I think the Gimp runs on Macs too) we just don't have the tools to get the patterns in our game. It's true that we can dual-boot and run Windows (if you own a Windows disk), but honestly it would be really annoying and time-consuming going back and forth between platforms. You have to restart each time. Just my thoughts as a Mac user though.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#4 Old 29th Jun 2009 at 6:43 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Saraswati5
Ok, it looks like this tool is a universal graphics converter for Mac, it's not free though.

http://www.lemkesoft.com/

Although, the next problem you've got is that none of the tools are created to run in Mac though.. Have you thought of dual-booting and running Windows long enough to make your patterns?


I don't think I need a graphic converter.. I have PS CS3, I think that would do the trick, right?

I've have the little partition thing set up on my iMac for Boot Camp, all I need to do is install Windows. And that's the hard part- I'm absolutely not paying for Vista to go on my beautiful Mac. Hahaha. I wouldn't mind XP but still.. I feel like it's sacreligious to put a Windows operating system on my iMac. My boyfriend has a PC and I've thought about using his computer to create patterns but he doesn't have PS and I absolutely hate the Gimp :/

Thank you very much for the help though! I really appreciate it!
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#5 Old 29th Jun 2009 at 1:56 PM
I would recommend using virtual if all your going to do is use the windows part for the tools. Boots faster than dual boot plus gives you the option to have PS open in OS X while having Windows open in the virtual.

I use VMware, I have XP and Suse Linux and both boot quickly and run with no issues. I wouldn't put Vista on it your iMac, it ran horrible as dual boot on my MBP and can only be worse in virtual. XP is a good choice. Windows 7 is out as a RC now, and is amazingly running well on an old P4 with a 6800 video card (much less specs than your Mac), so it would probably run well in virtual. If your comfortable with it you can install that, the license is good for a year, then it will no longer work.

VMware has something like a 30-day trial (mine is purchased), but there are other options out there as well, such as parallels. I know others at school who use it and like it. You can create your patterns also on your Mac and then copy them over to your bf computer just to use the tool.
Test Subject
#6 Old 2nd Jul 2009 at 1:44 AM
I'd definitely run Windows as a virtual machine. Rebooting every 10 minutes to switch OS's gets old fast :P. Parallels only costs $80, and runs like a charm. I have no experience with anything else, so I can't compare, but Parallels works well. My macbook is a year old, and I can run Sims and Parallels at the same time on it, which is helpful for testing things. Again, no idea what the resource consumption is for other virtual machines.

And, if you harbor hate-grudges against Windows as I do, there are plenty of ways out there to get a Windows OS without paying for it...

Otherwise, patterns are as easy to make on Macs as they are on PCs.
Lab Assistant
#7 Old 2nd Jul 2009 at 7:43 PM Last edited by TigerM : 2nd Jul 2009 at 11:43 PM.
Most the tools are either written in Java, or in .NET. While .NET is Microsoft specific, you can use the same thing that TS3 does by downloading mono, along with the windows.forms library for Mac. That may be enough to be able to run most of the tools on a mac.

I wish I could give more detailed directions, but I haven't actually tried it myself. All I can give is a few pointers...

Mono for OSX
Mono download page

You may need X11 to be able to install the windows forms stuff, it wasn't entirely clear.

Edit: Caveat to all this is *IF* you can get it to run, most tools will probably only actually work on Intel CPUs even if they would otherwise run - the reason being that most developers are probably assuming the byte order will be as Intel does it, or "little endian", while PPC processors are the opposite, or "big endian". (I admit I'm guilty of this as well.)

Edit2: Your best bet is probably Postal since it is Java http://www.simlogical.com/Sims3Tool....php?topic=85.0. I just loaded up the mono Linux vm to try various .NET offerings on non-windows environments, and they all failed. (I'll be remedying that for my save game editor, can't speak for other tools though.)
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