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Mad Poster
Original Poster
#1 Old 25th Sep 2016 at 2:54 PM
Glowing Object Fix?
Right now I'm doing a mesh replacement for a streetlight, and I find that this issue occurs- the entire light glows at night!

The original light which I used as a base is to the right- the only things changed were the mesh and textures.

Any ideas as of how to fix this?

Nighttime
Screenshots
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Instructor
#2 Old 25th Sep 2016 at 3:49 PM Last edited by linesa : 25th Sep 2016 at 4:57 PM.
Hello @jje1000 :D

Maybe this link can help you ? http://forums.thesimsresource.com/i...like-a-diamond/

One of the posts at least might help you with your problem ^^

If it don't work, don't hesitate to post your file through the file attachment option in the post, maybe I or someone else here will be able to help you ^^
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#3 Old 25th Sep 2016 at 4:58 PM
Thanks for the link!

Hmm, it still doesn't work even after I adjusted the normals slider in TSRW.

Here are the TSRW files- would this help?
Attached files:
File Type: zip  Streetlights.zip (1.36 MB, 20 downloads) - View custom content
Instructor
#4 Old 25th Sep 2016 at 5:02 PM
You're welcome @jje1000 ^^

Thanks for the file, I'll take a look and see if I can do something ^^
Instructor
#5 Old 25th Sep 2016 at 7:26 PM
Ok, I checked your TSRW files and I didn't see anything wrong with them ^^

To try, I modified the flags so the lamps could be seen and bought in game since they weren't flagged, it worked and it's not glowing at all ^^

In the download, you'll find your 2 TSRW files with the flags I used to see them in game and the 2 package files with the same name and flags ^^
The lamps are in the Lightning Category, in the Outdoor section ^^
I kept the same name for all the files and the packages were made with the export option of TSRW with the files I edited ^^

Here's the pics :





Given the yellow lines on your pics, you tried it in CAW ? If so, did you try in Edit in Game mode ?

How did you clone your lamps and what did you modify exactly ?

[edit]
Added pics and fixed post.
Attached files:
File Type: rar  jje1000 1646333 Streetlights edit by linesa.rar (811.0 KB, 10 downloads) - View custom content
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#6 Old 26th Sep 2016 at 12:49 AM Last edited by jje1000 : 26th Sep 2016 at 1:55 AM.
Thanks! The pictures were taken in CAW, and I used the basegame Seramorson Streetlight as a base.

One more thing- for Street Light 01 (the whole light), is there any way of getting shading on the mesh instead of having the whole object evenly glowing?

Picture showing the original on the left and the new object on the right. Notice the shading on the original base.


Edit: Also- how would the glowing light on the original be possible?

Screenshots
Instructor
#7 Old 26th Sep 2016 at 11:59 AM Last edited by linesa : 26th Sep 2016 at 3:16 PM.
Frankly I don't know how they did that, especially since everything is in one group @jje1000 ^^

In fact, I'm quite knew with creating objects too, and my experience with lamps come from experimenting with making a table lamp here : http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=583330

The only way I know to fix that is to separate your mesh of the lamp in 2 groups in your 3d program : one for the body, the other for the bulb who will be lit.
Name these groups properly.
You should then have 3 mesh in your High Lod : group 0 who's your shadow, group 1 who's the body, group 2 who's the bulb.
Do the same for your Med Lod, but make so there's only 2 groups : group 0 the body and group 1 the bulb since there's no shadow mesh in Med Lod.

Here's how I did it in Milkshape : I opened the High Lod, duplicated the lamp (group 1), then deleted the parts I didn't want on the copy, keeping only the bulb. On the group 1, I also deleted the parts I didn't want and kept only the body, renamed the groups properly.
And instead of reducing the Lod (I know I could I have done it with the DirectX Mesh Tool, but I wanted to keep your Med Lod as it was), I did the same with the Med Lod : opened it, duplicated the body's group, deleted the part uneeded on the copy, did the same on the original body's group, renamed the groups properly.

Then in TSRW, go to your mesh tab, you should be on High Level by default, click on group 1 and not on group 0 since it the shadow's mesh, then click duplicate, that new group should have the name group 2 by default (you can add/rename/delete groups), import your mesh, and do the same with the Med Level.

Now, you can go in Tool, Normals Editor, there, adjust the values as you wish ^^

That's what I did on the pic :



In the Normal Editors, I modified the value of group 1 in High Detail to 0.60 and didn't touch the value of Group 2 in High Detail since 0.75 was still making the body a bit glowy.
I did the same for the values fo the Med Detail ^^

Why ? Because In our case, the Group 2 in High Detail and the Group 1 in Med Detail modify the values of the bulb, but not the body who is modified by the Group 1 in High and by the Group 0 in Med, and I thought the values for the bulb were good enough for my test, but you can change them however you want ^^

The lower the number is, the less reflective it will be

In the rar file, you'll find the TSRW file with the news modifications I made, as well as the package made from it with the same names.
You'll also find the ms3d files (Milkshape save file) of the High and Med lamp as well as their wso versions ^^

By curiosity, how did you make your multiplier and specular ? :D

[Edit]Fixed text.
Attached files:
File Type: rar  jje1000 1646333 Streetlights edit by linesa 2.rar (441.3 KB, 10 downloads) - View custom content
Instructor
#8 Old 26th Sep 2016 at 3:42 PM
To make this lamp more coherent with the others street lamp, I fixed 2 flags in TSRW, since the ones I used were for table lamp

In the rar file you'll find the TSRW file and the package file with the flags fixed :D
Attached files:
File Type: rar  jje1000 1646333 Streetlights edit by linesa 3.rar (418.4 KB, 14 downloads) - View custom content
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#9 Old 26th Sep 2016 at 5:38 PM
Yeah TSRW usually resets the shader settings, or the correct shader settings for me. So Always make sure to edit those. And like @linesa mentioned, adding another group is the only way to make the lamp to know which vertices are actually where it should shine.
EA probably had a tool for that, but you gotta do with what you have. >-<

Also, I usually, duplicate the (mesh not shadow group) and split the lamp in 2, so you got the bulb separated from the actual lamp. Then I usually use the 'full bright' shader and use the phong shader for the lamp. So there are always more ways to do it ^-^

Or just split them like explained, and change some phong values. But usually any shine issues are caused by the data from the MATD (which are the shading settings in most cases) ^-^

Also, great explanation! Really helpful! ^-^
Instructor
#10 Old 26th Sep 2016 at 6:16 PM
Your explanations are interesting too @Greenplumbbob :D

I'm glad you liked my explanations ^^

You're probably right by saying they probably had a tool allowing them to do that setting on a mesh with one group :o
And your technique is pretty good too :D

By curiosity, which values do you modify on a phong, if you don't use the Full Bright option ? I love to learn new things about creating in this game, it's so funny and interesting I think ^^
Instructor
#11 Old 26th Sep 2016 at 7:16 PM
Oh my, I forgot to tell you a little thing @jje1000 : On your texture tab, for your Pattern B, select Enabled, and chose True since your Mask as two part recolorable (the red and green) :D
Instructor
#12 Old 26th Sep 2016 at 7:36 PM
If you need it @jje1000, here's the TSRW file and the package with the pattern enabled ^^
Attached files:
File Type: rar  jje1000 1646333 Streetlights edit by linesa 4.rar (418.4 KB, 10 downloads) - View custom content
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#13 Old 27th Sep 2016 at 5:27 AM
Thanks for the help!
Instructor
#14 Old 27th Sep 2016 at 8:05 AM
You're welcome @jje1000 ^^
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#15 Old 28th Sep 2016 at 5:57 PM
Quote: Originally posted by linesa
Your explanations are interesting too @Greenplumbbob :D

I'm glad you liked my explanations ^^

You're probably right by saying they probably had a tool allowing them to do that setting on a mesh with one group :o
And your technique is pretty good too :D

By curiosity, which values do you modify on a phong, if you don't use the Full Bright option ? I love to learn new things about creating in this game, it's so funny and interesting I think ^^


I usually leave the phong in it's default. I rarely notice any weird shine (which really shows up at full moon when in-game) but that's probably because of the HQ mod I use.
I usually manage to add some normals/bump map to it as well, but that's not really useful for lamps... Unless it's a special kind of lamp, like EA's duck lamp! (not that it has one). But TSRW has some great tips about shader settings. I think there was one about the glass shader somewhere in the object tutorial on their wiki. It pretty much explained to me about the shininess values, because those values are probably the most interesting ones.
Instructor
#16 Old 28th Sep 2016 at 7:00 PM
Oh oh, that's pretty interesting @Greenplumbbob :D

Yeah, TSR got some pretty helpful tutos, I agree ^^
Instructor
#17 Old 29th Sep 2016 at 6:04 AM
@Greenplumbbob

Quote: Originally posted by Greenplumbbob
I usually manage to add some normals/bump map to it as well, but that's not really useful for lamps...


TS3 objects can use bump maps? How?

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Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#18 Old 29th Sep 2016 at 6:34 PM
It needs a lot of testing when you do, but since the phong has these values you can add to it:

0x6E56548A NormalMap Texture
0x3C45E334 NormalMapScale Float
0x415368B4 NormalMapUVSelector Float3
0xBA2D1AB9 NormalUVScale Float2

It's pretty easy to add it within TSRW. I do know some objects EA made, (like some CAW-looking objects) that works with normal maps. I guess you know how to add new data into a TSRW shader? (like with the blue add button on top?). Else I could give a more detailed explanation if you like. ^-^
Instructor
#19 Old 29th Sep 2016 at 11:07 PM Last edited by Butterbot : 30th Sep 2016 at 5:19 AM.
@Greenplumbbob

Thanks for sharing that. I've seen those values but always assumed they don't work since I've read that people have tried adding bump maps but they are not rendered in-game. If you've gotten this to actually work, that would be very neat! Do you have an example of an object with an added bump map?

I know how to add new data into a shader, but in this case have no idea what "reasonable" values would be for NormalMapScale, NormalMapUVSelector, and NormalUVScale. What would be good default values to use, in your experience?

ETA: Just added a bump map to an object, using the default values in TSRW (for NormalMapUVSelector, I borrowed the UVSelector values from the specular since there are no defaults). There seems to be no effect in-game, unfortunately. I was hoping that there's been some new development since this post: http://forums.thesimsresource.com/i...32-normal-maps/

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Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#20 Old 30th Sep 2016 at 5:18 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Butterbot
@Greenplumbbob

Thanks for sharing that. I've seen those values but always assumed they don't work since I've read that people have tried adding bump maps but they are not rendered in-game. If you've gotten this to actually work, that would be very neat! Do you have an example of an object with an added bump map?

I know how to add new data into a shader, but in this case have no idea what "reasonable" values would be for NormalMapScale, NormalMapUVSelector, and NormalUVScale. What would be good default values to use, in your experience?

ETA: Just added a bump map to an object, using the default values in TSRW (for NormalMapUVSelector, I borrowed the UVSelector values from the specular since there are no defaults). There seems to be no effect in-game, unfortunately. I was hoping that there's been some new development since this post: http://forums.thesimsresource.com/i...32-normal-maps/


Strange... I knew TSRW wasn't really capable of showing/using normal maps, in fact, it's already a miracle it shows the specular map, but at a really not-good-looking level (like, it's barely there). Because, looking at how it's build up, TSRW's own 3D is, sims 3 compatible but not really great at displaying anything different than the diffuse texture. At least, to my knowledge (since I know another program, using the same kind of build-up and scripts, it just doesn't have these annoying memory errors).

I think I did manage to do it with a really old object, so I guess I could take a look at that one and make a really strong looking normal map so you can actually see it and post the values. And then there is the fact that TSRW probably made a different setup/3D script for objects since the button 'show bump map' isn't actually there.

I did hear though, that someone managed to do it with using the same shader that CASparts uses. Not sure if he/she managed to actually finish it entirely. I'll go ask and I'll go take a look at the object.
Instructor
#21 Old 1st Oct 2016 at 12:01 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Greenplumbbob
Strange... I knew TSRW wasn't really capable of showing/using normal maps [...]


Yeah, TSRW's 3D renderer has some issues, so I made sure to load the object into the game to check the bump map. It doesn't show up there either.

Quote: Originally posted by Greenplumbbob
I did hear though, that someone managed to do it with using the same shader that CASparts uses. Not sure if he/she managed to actually finish it entirely. I'll go ask and I'll go take a look at the object.


That would be great! Thanks for digging into this--looking forward to your findings.

OP, sorry for threadjacking. We can move this discussion elsewhere if you prefer.

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Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#22 Old 1st Oct 2016 at 7:24 PM
Soooo apparently, it was the contrast of the specular map that made it look like a bump map... a bit like simlicious awesome pattern preview: http://simlicious.tumblr.com/post/1...rns-with-custom (full screen to see the details a bit better)

But I noticed that TSRW basically ignored my normal map while making a package. So that's the main issue here. If I knew a bit more about TXTC files, I guess I could have easily added the texture file to it. Can't say the other values were working though. Also, I haven't tried doing it with simhair, or simskin to see if it works. But it's mainly TSRW fault it seems.
Instructor
#23 Old 1st Oct 2016 at 11:31 PM
Thanks for clarifying. Looks like object bump maps remain elusive.

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