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UPDATES:

23 Dec 2007 - Updated the thread to reflect the changes due to the new Kitchen set. Added info about extending the existing recolour packages to the Kitchen Counters.

24 July 2005 - Added Hints about recolouring the Frame (wood) texture.
23 July 2005 - Added tutorial about recolouring the Etched Glass textures + Edited the "Golden Rule"
23 July 2005 - Posted first version

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1 - INTRODUCTION
The Grand Trianon collection makes a wide use of the "Texture Repository" tecnique; this means that almost all the recolourable textures are contained into one object, that functions as a repository, and all the other objects "borrow" the textures from it. The "Repository" is the Floor Mirror (part of the Mirror Bedroom collection): you must keep it in your downloads folder, otherwise all the Grand Trianon objects will show a flashing blue texture.
The repository technique comes in hand for recolours, too, because creating a recolour for the Poster Floor Mirror will automatically recolour the whole set!
Please notice, also, as some textures are linked together: for instance, the colour of the handles will automatically change according to the wood colour, or the glass that covers the paintings will appear and disappear according to the type of painting (modern paintings have the glass, classic paintings don't).
Since the structure of the Grand Trianon is quite complex, all the recolour artists are strongly invited to respect the recolouring rules that we are going to state in the next paragraphs.

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2 - GOLDEN RULE: Recolour all the 5 textures of the attached Template at once
If you are not going to read this document to its end , then this is the first and only rule to apply, always and without exceptions:


Please note that when we ask to "CLONE" the template, we don't mean just save it with a different name: you have to actually CLONE it using SimPE's Object Workshop.

This rule is important, because if the recolour package lacks some textures, some objects may have flashing blue parts; and if you include all the 5 textures, but you "forget" to recolour one or more of them, then the users will find in the catalog multiple identical colour options.

If your recolour complies with this rule, your recolour is entitled to earn the Dream Team Seal of Approval (please apply for the Seal by posting on the main Grand Trianon thread).

HINT --> The "Frame" (wood) texture is divided into several sections; apart from the white part (reserved for future use), the "wood" comes in 4 different shades. The "main" part is the large square located in the top-left: most of the objects parts are mapped on it; the upper-right portion has a lighter shade and it's generally used for the front panels of the drawers; the lower-left portion is medium dark, and is used for the foot and the top of the object; lastly, the small square in the lower-right corner is very dark, and it's only used for (mostly hidden) back panels of the objects.
HINT --> The wood texture has vertical veining (except for the mid-dark section in the lower-left corner): if your recolour will respect the direction of the veining, the objects will look more natural.

[Technical insight - Start]
Many Grand Trianon items use the so-called "slave subsets": e.g. when a new "frame" colour is applied to the object, the game looks a matching "glass", or a matching "metal" inside the same package; and if the slave subset isn't found into the package, a flashing blue texture is applied.
The slave subset technique is used, for instance, by the double beds (the glass is slave of the frame) and all the doors (the metal is slave of the frame). Most of the object that have a metal part have the "metal" set as slave subset of the "frame".
The Kitchen Counters are slightly different, because they have the "countertop" set as master subset; the Frame and theMetal are slave of the Countertop (this way, "old" recolours not updated for the kitchen will just be ignored by the counters, instead of producing flashing-blue countertops).
[Technical insight - End]

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3 - EXCEPTIONS TO THE GOLDEN RULE
It is true indeed that the 4 textures in the Floor Mirror are linked together, but - to be exact - these links work one-way:
a custom texture for the "Frame" subset needs to have corresponding custom textures for the "Glass", the "Fabric", the "Metal" and the "Countertop"; but the opposite is not always true. A custom texture for Glass, Metal or Fabric don't need to have a corresponding custom texture for the Frame. As a consequence, here is an

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4 - RECOLOURABLE TEXTURES NOT INCLUDED IN THE FLOOR MIRROR
Some objects have recolourable textures that were not included in the Repository (the Floor Mirror) because no other objects shared those textures. Here's a complete list of the textures that are autonomously recolourable:

Glass Candle: glass and surface.

HINT --> This is a completely stand-alone object; therefore, when creating a recolour package, you can choose freely the subset(s) you want to recolur (you can recolour only one subset).

Horizontal Painting and Vertical Painting: painting.

HINT --> In the recolour package there will be only one texture (the painting), but you'll find two Material Definitions: infact, every painting has it's own glass in front of it, and the second Material Definition is related to the glass; you choose to keep this MATD as is, or edit it in order to give the glass a custom look. In particular, the very last parameter ("stdMatUntexturedDiffAlpha") can be altered to change the transparency of the glass: the value can range from 0 (completely transparent = invisible), to 1 (completely opaque: the painting won't be visible behind the glass).

Poster Desk & Hutch (both the EP and the non-EP versions): books.

HINT --> There is only 1 subset to choose from, but in the recolour package you'll find two textures: one for the books, and one for the props, i.e. the stuffed bear and the boxes visible on the hutch. Both textures should be recoloured at once.

Mirror Bathroom (all the items of the set): surfaces.

HINT --> All the items in the Bathroom set borrow the textures from the Maxis expensive toilet. Therefore, in order to recolour the Bathroom, you should create a standard recolour package for the expensive toilet.

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5 - HOW TO RECOLOUR THE ETCHED GLASS: Mini Tutorial
The glass texture contains the so-called Alpha channel (often called also "mask"): it's basically a second image, embedded in the main one, that contains information about the transparency of the texture. The Alpha channel is a grey-scale texture that can be exported and imported separately from the main image, if needed.

In order to recolour the glass, you need: SimPE (latest version), with the DDS utilities correctly installed, and any paint program (even the MS Paint!).
Note: there are several alternative methods to achieve the same results: the method explained here is a little longer, but it's easy and can be performed with any paint program.

A) - Open your paint program and create a 256x256 blank image; fill it with the colour that you want the etching for (we have used a ligh grey for all the etchings, but you can use white, black or any other colour: the etching will appear in that colour).

B) - Create a second 256x256 image, convert it to grey-scale and fill it in black: this will be the "Mask". Use a white pencil to draw on the map the etching shape: all the white parts of the mask will look opaque, thus letting the main image to show up; the black parts will make the main image look transparent. See picture.

HINT --> You can use any 256x256 Black&White image as template, instead of drawing manually the etching.
HINT --> You can lower the contrast of the "mask" to achieve a more natural result: the transparent parts will be a bit less transparent, and the etching will not "jump off" the glass.

C) - Save both images (the Main and the Mask), either in .png or .bmp format. The paint program is no longer needed: you can close it.

D) - Open SimPE and load the recolour package that you have already created (if you haven't created it yet, create it now ).

E) - Select the TXTR for the glass: the original etching will appear in the lower-left part of the screen.

F) - Now it comes the tricky part... - Click on the "Import" button and select the Main image: a plain coloured texture will be displayed. Do not click Commit! Instead, right-click on the image and select "Import Alpha"; browse to the Mask image and load it: the image will show the actual etchings. Again, do not click Commit. Click on the "Export" button and save the image as .png.

G) - Right-click again on the image and select "Build DXT" (if you can't see it, or it is greyed out, this means that you haven't installed correctly the DDS utilities: read here).

H) - When the DDS utilities window opens up, be sure that the Format is set to "DXT3", then click "Open Image"; select the .png image that you have saved at step F and load it. Now you can Commit and save the package.

HINT --> Don't use SimPE's "Update all sizes" function: it tends to corrupt the transparent textures

6 - HOW TO "EXTEND" THE EXISTING RECOLOURS TO THE KITCHEN SET
With the introduction of the new Kitchen Set, the overall number of recolourable parts raised from 4 to 5. Therefore, the existing recolours lack one needed texture, and will be ignored from the kitchen counters.
We at the Dream Team have modified our Recolour Packs to reflect the new internal structure of the Grand Trianon. All the other users that have created recolours for the Grand Trianon must update their packages, or they won't work with the GT Kitchen.
Though there is a way to modify the existing packages, the easiest way to accomplish the task is to recreate it anew, by following these simple steps:

• Download the recolour template attached to this post.
• Clone it using SimPE's Object Workshop.
• Save the cloned package assigning the very same name of the original recolour.
• Replace the textures contained in the template with the ones taken from your old recolour. Of course, you can replace only four textures with your own (Frame, Glass, Fabric and Metal). The 5th texture contained in the template (Countertop) must be manually edited (the only part of the texture to be edited is the one painted in the template, the other parts are unused).
• Update the thread where you posted the recolour, specifying clearly that your recolour has been updated to work with the Grand Trianon Kitchen.

All recolour artists, please post here any question/request regarding the recolour tecnique.

could you guys give some hints or tricks about re-coloring the mirror ?because a lot of people has asked me and I really dont explain things well thats one of my many faults

I dont type well either

I used wizards to do a recolour, i select the floor mirror - but it only showed 3 textures - wood, glass & metal no fabric. Any clues?

Thanks

Luslipz - That is one of the promised "Additional hints next to come"

Xianah - The Wizard was built to deal with standard 2-subsets objects: probably Quaxi never imagined that the Object Workshop would have been used, one day, with an object containing four recolourable subsets...
My suggestion is to use the standard Object Workshop (not the Wizard): it's a little more difficult, but it's way more feasible! Read this tutorial, but remember, as soon as you open the Object workshop, to select the "Load Object" tab, and then browse to the Floor Mirror.
In the new SimPE, the Object Workshop is located in the Tools/Object Creation menu.

ADDED A TUTORIAL ABOUT RECOLOURING THE ETCHED GLASS

ALSO, THE "GOLDEN RULE" HAS BEEN CLARIFIED

I cannot adequately tell you how happy I am to see this thread. It is bookmarked!

You have now taken the mystery of recoloring the glass away. You say your way is longer but I find it easier than what I was doing! I have printed it for easy reference purposes.

Since we also know that after a well deserved break that the team will continue with Grand Trianon addons, I think this thread will be beneficial for a long time to come.

Thank you again for taking your personal time to write the tutorial and start this thread! I am very appreciative, :0

I would also like to think you for adding the tutorial for the glass etchings I understand alphas/mask perfectly but I cant explain it to other people correctly its good to have someone to put it into words were someone that is reading it can understand and will actually know what the hell their talking about lol ....thanks a lot for doing this its much appreciative

Thanks for the heads up on the recoloring Dream Team!! Is it about time for you all to actually get to take your vacation?? You've done a marvelous job at fixing all the "broken" furniture :D
Thank you for ALL you've done for all of us with this set!

traci

I was wondering if I cloned the Grand Vanity(I seen that in you guys thread and it fits) to recolor the marble would that work or would it still be linked?.....not for posting just for my own game

The Vanity contains the marble texture, therefore if you clone it (for personal use), you can recolour it.
I can understand that the mild pink tint of that marble not always matches the rest of the furniture, or even the wood colour itself! Sometimes, this hard limit of two recolouable parts per object is really... limiting

I would love to know how u managed to get the mirror on all these diff kind of items ... door, bed .. or a floor tile...

That was the most difficult part of the work... Raquelcesar explained to all of us how to do that, and still something it's not clear to me.
In brief, the mirrors are not an "effect" like the reflectivity, that can easily applied to a surface: they actually need an additional mesh and a special "camera", stitched on the mirror via a heavy editing of the Resource Node.
Definitely not a walk in the park, believe me; so don't expect a tutorial about this in the near future...

ohhhhhhhhh noooo !!! and I intended to go create some items and have plans on what to do with them in a lot... bummer !! but... I... wanna... know!!!! *stomps feet*

(no offense ment...)

I'm sorry, but really this subject is too blurred to me to explain it to other people...
Let's hope Raquelcesar will soon come back!

A question - Would it be possible to get a tutorial on how to make none-mirrored items for the set, again for our own use - though if I made something worth sharing, I will. I love the whole set, but the loft pieces have potential for a dorm. Thing is, most dorm lofts I've seen have had things like chairs and couches under the bed part, which was upper. Was thinking that making a few other pieces might be cool.

That or would this be under request for please make more pieces? This set would be lovely for a whole house too.

If you mean other pieces of furniture to be placed under the upper loft bed, then you can proceed the usual way: any object can be placed under the upper beds. Obviously, I suggest you to carefully tweak the dimensions of your object (possibly, using the mesh from the upper bed as a reference).

True, and there is always turning off the snaptogrid for finetuning.

Still would be nice to see a full house of this set - I love the simplicity of line.

Also, if I made a recolour, where would I post it? I tried to find the guidelines for that, and didn't see one.

There's not a specific thread for the GT recolours. Just remember, when you post it, to put a link to the Grand Trianon main thread, in the proper field of the uploading form. This way, a link to your recolour will appear in the Grand Trianon thread.

An if you'd like to have the "Dream Team Seal of Approval", PM me with a link to your recolour

I have a big problam. when i download any of your objects and save it into the downloads folder it dosnt show up on the game . iv tryed downloading it 4 times and iv restarted the games heaps. but still no objects.

I tried a test recolour, and it applied to the entire Mirror Bathroom set; in the screenshot, I've included the Maxis expensive toilet, just to prove that the recolour applies to it, as well. Ignore the flashing blue glass and mirror: I've... ehm... forgotten to install the Floor Mirror!





I suggest to starting from scratch, and re-create the recolour. Be sure to select the Maxis expensive toilet. If it still doesn't work, please post here your package, and I will take a look.

The recolor showed up one day...don't know why it wasn't showing up in one and not he other but hey now it is there.

Okay, I know this is 2 years too late posting but the link for the floor mirrors downloads is corrupt or something because when I click on it it says a load of text (the source of it?)

It did download for me, although very slowly. In any case, you can also find a link for it here .