Hello, I was just looking for some direction... I would like to make some objects for the sims 3 but I try to clone some objetcs and they have many _IMG files and such. What are some good objects that are easy to change the mesh and texture.. or could you help me understand how to deal with multiple files? The main things I want is:
1 x 1 (something that fits on a desk)
I would like to make a sculpture the same size as this: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=38306
2 x 2 (mat)

Thankyou!

Most objects in Sims 3 are built along similar lines. There are a few exceptions but the exceptions give them properties that are different than other Sims 3 objects in-game.

So, for example, the EA small clutter items like the tissue box are somewhat easier to work with as they have only two IMG's that need to be changed to make a decent looking object and they have only MLOD and MODL rather than 3 MLODs and MODL. The downside is that because they don't have the red/green IMG they are not recolorable. Because they don't have sun-shadow MLOD's they have no outdoor shadow that can be changed to fit the new item you replace their mesh with.

All the IMG's that a typical item has are needed for it to have the in-game properties it has. The trick is to select the EA item that has properties most closely matching the properties you want your item to have. This limits the amount of editing you have to do to hone your item to exactly what you want.

For 1x1 on a desk, the little clutter items are fine as long as you don't want your item recolorable.

For a 2x2 mat you could use one of the smaller EA rugs as-is or you could attempt to change the footprint of it to make it more closely approximate the size of your new mat.

I can't tell from the picture how big that sculpture is. But the decorative screen gives you a 2x1 footprint which you could expand (by editing in s3pe) to 2x2.

If what you're wanting is a good tutorial on the purpose of, and means of changing, the various parts of an EA object I would look at Ella's meshing tutorial which is near the top of the list right now in the meshing tutorials section.

Yes... but when I open up the tissue box and start editing, the .dds file (_IMG) has not one UV but many, then a couple of squares with numbers. How do I deal with this?

I'm not sure what you mean by UV in this context. The tissue holder has a 512x512 dds for putting a non-recolorable image onto your object. Just paste your image on the dds and map your object so that it fits on the parts of your image. Now that I looked at the jar I made to refresh my memory, I realize you don't even have a greyscale IMG on that object to change. Just the one with the actual image on it that you want to use to replace the tissue image.

You can ignore the number parts and paste your image right over them. I've made a couple items using the tissue box. One, a ceramic jar, available at my site Indigo, used the entire 512x512 dds space. All I did was take the pieces of my image, paste them onto the dds, map my jar over them appropriately, and overwrote the EA dds with my new one (using the same name as the EA dds of course.) If you need an example of what I did download the ceramic jar and take a look at it.