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Alchemist
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Nov 2009 at 12:50 PM Last edited by orangemittens : 13th Nov 2009 at 11:58 AM.
Default Floor lamp: disappearing & specular issues
I hope this isn't another question no one knows the answer to and I apologize if something similar has been previously posted. I looked but didn't see anything quite like it.

Anyway, I made a floor candle cloned from the EA wooden floor candle. The thing turned out ok but in-game when I move the camera close to it the object disappears. If I place an EA floor candle or lamp next to it these objects do not disappear up close and the camera will zoom and pass through them. Has anyone else had this kind of problem and if so, were you able to fix it? It isn't a deal-breaker for the object I think, but it is strange.

As a second issue with it, the texture of the candle has gotten very glossy...almost glassy even though I didn't alter the texture files at all. Again, for this object it doesn't render it unusable IMO but it is strange.

Any help is appreciated.

OM
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Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#2 Old 12th Nov 2009 at 2:33 PM
It's hard to trouble objects in this game still. :/

The glossy look sounds like an alpha being white. I know you said you didn't alter the texture files, but man do I get a lot of issues with that! LOL I can never get the alpha color right, CS3 continues to make them all white. I have no idea if its' possible for the cloner to lose the alphas. Maybe try editing them to see if it fixes it?

As far as the zoom, I would have to guess that it's one of the MLOD's right? Have you tried cloning and putting in your game without making any changes to it? This way you would know where the issue lies, with the tool or with something you did.
Forum Resident
#3 Old 12th Nov 2009 at 6:13 PM
This disappearing thing is mysterious.

I had this issue once, when I was trying to make a tabletop hosta out of the hanging hosta, by just pulling it down in milkshape (my first meshing babysteps!). It never got fixed, I just remade the thing on another (tabletop object) clone. Also when relocating game objects like that, they become hard to select, in that case only from the top.
Hazuitokage had recently a disappearing issue with a window. No one knows the answer

The glossy candle made me think of the table candle object. That actually has 2 groups and one of them is glass (it's the little plate thing under it). I only noticed this when I accidentally switched the groups and got a glossy candle in game. But you said you cloned the "floorlamp"-candle, I don't know if that has a glass group or not.
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#4 Old 12th Nov 2009 at 9:25 PM
hmmm...lemoncandy you pointed out the bounding box in the other thread. Do you suppose the zoom rendering is based on those values? So if you zoom in on the table height it disappears since the game is looking at the values from the ceiling height? I wonder if this also affects the ability to select them.
Forum Resident
#5 Old 12th Nov 2009 at 10:04 PM
Yes I would think it is so.
Lab Assistant
#6 Old 12th Nov 2009 at 11:04 PM
lemoncandy-- when you say you didn't alter the texture files on the candle that became shiny, does that include opening them and re-saving them unchanged?

Because I have found that even just opening and resaving breaks the specular texture and makes it too bright and therefore shiny. It seems like there is some alpha info that gets lost on import by the Photoshop DDS plugin.
Forum Resident
#7 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 12:00 AM
It wasn't the lemon, orange asked the question But yeah I think we are all aware of the photoshop issue that it just eats the black alpha channel on opening.
Lab Assistant
#8 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 12:06 AM
Oops, sorry for the name mistake! I guess I'm easily confused by citrus

And, um, well, I'm late to the party again, because I wasn't aware of the black alpha channel problem until recently. Is it the alpha channel that gets eaten just entirely plain black?
Forum Resident
#9 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 12:09 AM
Yes, if it contains transparency data (any white parts) then it's imported intact.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#10 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 12:10 AM
Thanks for the help y'all. BabaYaga when you say opening and closing breaks the specular do you mean the slider number is changed or that the object just seems to no longer respond to the slider number as-is?

LC, the floor candle doesn't have a glass group but the candle part is turning almost like glass. It even has that sort of pale blue relfective line that glass gets. It doesn't look bad but it *is* odd that it's doing this. Actually, on second thought I have to admit that I did edit one of the dds files which I forgot that I had done when I posted. But all I did was put a gradient (all in grays) so that my object would not be flat and wouldn't have patches of bright and dark where they didn't belong. I've done this before on other objects and had no issue. It's a mystery.

HL for this object I only changed the MLOD with shadow and the MODL. I figured I would first check those and if it looked right I would go back and change the other two MLOD's. So maybe this is the issue with the disappearing. I'm going to fix those and if it still does the disappearing act I'll then move on to just cloning the object and placing it in the game as-is to see if it's me or something else.

OM
Lab Assistant
#11 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 12:14 AM
Huh. So the specular images that I see when I clone an object are not actually affecting how the object displays in game? Since almost all of them have all-black alpha channels?

EA is weird.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#12 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 12:21 AM Last edited by orangemittens : 13th Nov 2009 at 12:55 AM.
Now I'm confused by what you meant when you said specular. You didn't mean the specular slider but one of the IMG's?

As far as I can tell, the greyscale IMG's determine the shading of an object. That is the darker areas will appear as darker shades of whatever pattern you've applied to an object while the lighter areas will come out brighter. But they don't determine the material's texture.

At least, this is what I've always thought.

Edited to add: it may help to think of me more as OM or mittens...I *never* go by just plain orange...it would clash with my hair. Meanwhile LC is just that...a little lemon and a little candy. Just kiddin' LC...honestly just kiddin'. I just noticed the fruit punch thing going on upthread...lol.

Edited to add: well I just redid the two MLODs and that wasn't the issue. Next up I'll clone the object and stick it in the game as-is to figure out if it's me or the mesh.

OM
Lab Assistant
#13 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 1:03 AM
I'm confused too! I don't know what or where the specular slider is, but now I want to know, please tell me?

I was talking about one of the greyscale IMG files-- not the multiplier one which sounds like what you're talking about, but the other one, which is usually higher contrast when you open it in Photoshop. If it's all white, for instance, it will make your objects very very shiny. But as discussed above, the original versions seem to mostly be masked out by all-black alphas.

Also, I do think of you as OM, actually, since that's what you put on your packages. I was just making up an excuse for my brain fart...
Alchemist
Original Poster
#14 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 1:17 AM
The specular is in the mtlsrc. files for the MLOD with shadow and the MODL.

What is this multiplier file? I mean, I know which one of the IMG's you mean. But what does multiplier mean?

Lol...I prefer to think of those as brain gone a-beggin'. I have that all the time myself.

OM
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#15 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 1:23 AM
Well there is a multiplier and specular and mask for dds images.

I think (big think!) that the multiplier adds the shading and texturing details. The specular defines how bright? And the mask is the red/green christmas colored one that defines the channels.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#16 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 1:28 AM
HL, at the risk of asking you to rebuild the wheel here, which of the IMG's is which? The grayscale ones always seem to be present in pairs. There is one which is really bright and one which is darker. Which of those is the multiplier and which the specular? And why are they called that?

I thought I understood all of this but the more this conversation goes on the less sure of that I become.

OM
Alchemist
Original Poster
#17 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 1:40 AM Last edited by orangemittens : 13th Nov 2009 at 1:55 AM. Reason: question
Sorry for the double post. I cloned the EA floor candle and imported as-is and it is fine.

I think what is happening with my candle is that the visual footprint of it is smaller than the actual footprint of the object it is cloned from. So that when the object "should" drop down is just slightly smaller than when it actually does drop down if you know what I mean. I'm just being sort of anal-compulsive about having it be exactly like the EA object.

I think this is something that really can't be fixed without figuring out how to change the size of the footprint the object has. But the issue really isn't significant enough to affect the share-ability of the object so I'm not going to worry about it further.

Although I am still hoping for information about the IMG's. That problem with this object still does need fixed.

OM
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#18 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 1:59 AM
The multiplier is the dark grey and the specular is white. I've found this because some items I've cloned have an s or m or ma (sk) attached to it. A recent example is the designer sofa. It's possible the type of object you clone changes how they look. You and I are cloning different things for the most part.

Oh, footprints. See this thread a little further down from this one. Killa*c changed the bounding box via the VPXY adn it fixed where the object could be placed. Maybe this would be related to your candle.

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=377113

ETA: I'm going to create a jar, that for each double post you place a dollar in it. I will be rich!!! You should really be editing your posts, especially since it was so close to the original post time. Chances are good it hadn't been read yet.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#19 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 2:15 AM
Oh HL...you are already becoming moddy...resist girl...lol. I really do try my best to follow the rules. I just never always know what they are. I sincerely apologize if I've done something wrong. I thought from the FAQ thing that if there was new information we should double post while if we were just changing something without adding significant new information we should edit. Is this not right?

This part of your post I don't understand, "some items I've cloned have an s or m or ma (sk) attached to it."

Could you explain that?

OM
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#20 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 2:32 AM
I just try to follow the rules too. I think your ok, but I will go dust off that rule book to clarify if/when double posting is ok. But your so apologetic with your double postings that I had to tease you a bit with the tip jar. LOL

S3_00B2D882_00000000_81E959814646BDFB_sofaDesigner_m_0xcbe6d936b7698f43%%+_IMG.dds
S3_00B2D882_00000000_62472D9983B204EE_sofaDesigner_mask_0x7c94c60490bd3a4a%%+_IMG.dds
S3_00B2D882_00000000_36219616A7CC0C49_sofaDesigner_s_0xcbe6d936b7698f5d%%+_IMG.dds

Those are the file names from my recent sofa. Notice the bolded parts. The first is the multiplier which is a dark grey. The second is the mask which is the red/green one, sometimes the mask part is just ma. Must be a length delimeter in there. The third one is the specular and in almost all of my objects are an off-white with light grey shading. Basically a brightened version of the multiplier.

But since some objects don't have the bolded parts I am guessing there is a size delimiter on the naming. I think the specular and mulitplier images go along with the specular and multiplier in the mtlscr that you've edited.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#21 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 2:49 AM Last edited by orangemittens : 13th Nov 2009 at 3:15 AM.
Well I *feel* ok...lol. I'm apologetic because I don't want to offend unless I'm intending to be offensive...and that isn't always easy online.

I'm glad there's someone else here who teases...this place often seems so serious and I'm almost incapable of being serious in Simland for very long. It's a game and not something which should require the lamentation of women to paraphrase a recent post.

Anyway, spell out the rules clearly and I'll follow them to the letter.

And thank you for the information. I do appreciate it.

Hmmm...edited to add: And so...if I am slower on the uptake I can post my new findings in a new post instead of an edit without breaking the rules? I think that is the ramification of saying time is the limiting factor here. Just wondering. That doesn't seem quite fair to those of us who are having a quick-think moment. Just teasing...do what you have to do. Nothing ever fits into the rules perfectly. That's why they're rules and not just going about things as usual.

OM
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#22 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 4:17 AM
hmmm...not sure your ok. I think you should clone two objects and call me someone else in the morning. :P

And your welcome. If I'm off on some of the multiplier/specular info I sure hope someone pops in to correct me.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#23 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 4:41 AM
Guess I'm missing what you're meaning by that...sorry. But I am seeing by the crossed off "me" that you would prefer not to continue conversation. Ok.

OM
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
Alchemist
Original Poster
#25 Old 13th Nov 2009 at 11:44 AM Last edited by orangemittens : 13th Nov 2009 at 12:48 PM.
It sailed right over my head...sorry about that

Edited to add: I didn't see the and I thought I had ticked you off.

OM
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