I just made a picture have a hole in it. The trick for me was making a matching alpha for the layer and the multiplier.

Thank you for adding more information Inge. It's always helpful to learn more about alphas. I still find them somewhat confusing and almost every object I make with them is a challenge.

This is especially so because I still haven't figured out how to make Paint.net show anything *but* the alpha layer on Sims 3 IMG's that have alphas. To see the other layer I have to open the thing in PSP so I'm always bouncing back and forth between the two.

I downloaded the trial version of photoshop cs4 and it's made life a lot easier for sims modding. But I am not sure I can afford to buy it after the trial period. I gather cs3 works as well for this purpose though, and that's a lot cheaper.

Inge, university students can buy expensive programs like CS4 for a discount price. Maybe you know one that can buy you CS4? Its still expensive tho, I think.
I too have difficulties with transparencies in objects and clothing. Must be that stupid alpha channel!
On the SimsSupply are some video tutorials from Daluved1, that showed me how to edit basetextures for clothing that helped me understand the alphachannel somewhat.

I've been trying to make the most simple of all simple tables for days now and this is just startin' to get ridiculous...I am so restraining self from major ranting about EA and their rat-maze of a game right now.

I started out with a dining table but because of where I want my table's legs to go (and inability to change slotting for where chairs sit in relation to the legs) and due to texture issues with re-tiling had to abandon that.

So I switched to the EA desk that has that hutch thing on top but, duh, of course the chair doesn't go in the middle on that mesh, it goes on the side. Another slotting issue I don't know how to fix.

So now I'm on the EA really expensive desk...the antique looking one that costs 900 dollars. This desk has 4 recolorable parts and I need only 3. I need to change the size of the IMG's and I need to change the red/green IMG so that it corresponds to my object's map.

When I look at the red/green IMG in PSP it looks like this:



When I look at it in paint.NET it looks like this:



I figured I could just get rid of the orange part and make my IMG have only red/green/blue but when my object came into the game all the parts were mapped to the little green square (fourth part) even though that isn't where I mapped them. This fourth part (I think) is mapped on the orange part that I completely got rid of.

So basically, aside from needing to vent about this mess before I pull every last hair out of my head, I have two questions. 1. Does anyone have any idea how to deal with this 4 color IMG so that you can use the red/green/blue parts and leave the orange part unused? or, perhaps even better 2. is there a way of just changing the chair slotting so that my other desk can have the chair sit in the middle and not off to the side of the table?

Thank you for any help.

You can probably disable the fourth channel, look at Sims_3:Catalog_Resource/StringTable^wiki. I don't see the fourth channel listed but it must be a combination of those to disable it. I know I've got some stuff in the works where I've enabled channels (the stupid colors are holding me up). I can't help with paint.net or Gimp, but in Photoshop I would simply delete the orange color and create the RGB layers and map to that.

Slots are as yet uneditable since they are controlled by not only the RLST but the _RIG, and the _RIG is what is uneditable.

Thank you for the answer. Couple more questions.

1. If I like the way the Antique desk places the chair can I just copy the _RIG from that and paste it into my new object that is cloned from the hutch-like desk? Would that work? I ask rather than trying because I've been working on this desk for days now and I'm just runnin' out of steam on it. Having that little lead ball fall on the floor in the game would be the last straw...lol.

2. I never create RGB layers. I just use the map that's there, select the part I want to change the color of, get the right color using my eye-dropper, and fill it in. Do you think it's necessary to actually create layers to use this particular clone?

3. What do you mean when you say the stupid colors are holding you up?

I did copy the _RIG and RSLT from stuff before. Once it changed my mesh. Or I screwed up something else. I would say make a copy of it and save it to desktop, and then change the filename a bit of the one in your downloads folder and go ahead and try it. That little marble is amusing at first...

If you have had no issue with your method before then no you don't need to create new layers. Just do what you normally do and remove the orange layers. However, if you can't get the fourth channel to disappear in CAST in game then I wouldn't remove that fourth layer in your mask image.

I'm trying to make default overrides for non recolorable things, and I can get the channels enabled but for some reason I can't change the default textures. Or screwing them up. Or deleted a resource I needed.

The fourth pattern is pattern D, and that can be disabled by changing TypeCode 51 to "0".

Yeah..the little marble is amusing at first...then it breaks your heart...lol.

The issue with the IMG that I'm having is that I did do what I normally do and just removed the orange layer...this is what ended up with everything apparently on the very layer I removed...I just can't understand that.

I'm thinking that the orange layer may be some weird alpha and that my IMG needs to have a blank alpha for that to work? But I'm having trouble constructing an IMG like that since the only alphas I know how to make are the opposite kind. I'm thinking that this is what you mean by, "if you can't get the fourth channel to disappear in CAST in game then I wouldn't remove that fourth layer in your mask image" but so far my meager alpha skills aren't allowing me to accomplish this. If anyone has some instruction about how to make an alpha like this I'd be very grateful.

When you say, "I did copy the _RIG and RSLT from stuff before. Once it changed my mesh. Or I screwed up something else." Do you mean once you made it work doing this?...or that every time you've tried that it screwed up your object?

When you say, "I'm trying to make default overrides for non recolorable things..." I'm not sure what that means...don't you just change the IMG for that? Sorry if that's a silly question.

cmo...will disabling this fourth pattern, pattern D, cause the object mapping to switch to red/green/blue? Will it cause it to ignore the fourth pattern choice and force the object to accept my new three color map?

Thank you both for your answers. It seems I've got some testing ahead

If I had to guess (and I seem to be doing alot of that with this game) I would say by disabling that fourth channel the game would ignore the orange layer on the IMG.

I've had things work by replacing the _RIG and RSLT. I had a floating sink above a table. Experimenting with random stuff to see what it did.

Thanks for pointing out that value for the fourth channel cmo. It is really weird how separated values are. I am attempting to change the colors and patterns for each channel, which is in the OBJD and not the images.

I tried changing the RIG and RSLT first and...whoo-hoo!...that worked The hutch desk clone now causes the chair to be positioned at the middle just like the antique desk does instead of off to one side as it did before.

All I did was export the RIG and RSLT for both. I copied the name of the hutch clone's RIG and used that to rename the antique desk's RIG. I then imported that newly named RIG into my hutch desk clone to overwrite the old one. Did the same for the RSLT and like magic it worked.

I want to eventually try out the method you described too cmo because it would be nice to be able to use the antique desk as a clone...it has a nicer room score I think.

I answered based on the string table info, but when I attempted to try it, there was no typecode 51. The typecode listing should be:

for Materials (not material blocks)
0x10 Pattern D tiling
0x11 Pattern D enable
0x12 Pattern D linked
x013 Pattern D rotation

So, you would change the orange color in your mask to one of the other colors and under Materials (not material block) change typecode 0x11 to "0". You mask will no longer need an alpha, unless you're going to use the fourth pattern in another preset.

When using pattern D, you use that orange as the fourth color and on the alpha it should be white where the orange is, black everywhere else.

Thank you for the extra information and help cmo.