Making Cars and Invisible Driveways

[MissSimGameFan]

I would like to make some new cars, using the Ford Mustang GT (http://thesims2.ea.com/getcoolstuff/ford/index.php) For Non NL Owners as a base. I want to use the mesh and textures from some of the NPC cars. I would also like to make other people's custom cars into ones usable for myself (for personal use). How would I do that?

Also, how would I make an invisible recolor of the driveway for Non NL Owners?

[khakidoo]

Hi there :) I don't really have an answer for you...
but I posted about the new car and driveway here in the "modding discussion" area (I'm not too sure the difference between the 2 forums - tho ignorantbliss sure seems to get a workout from moving threads between the two of them ;) )
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=228056

there's not really any info there... but Fresh-Prince, 'the car making guru', and Niol - 'general smart guy' both replied, so maybe ask over there or just keep an eye on that thread for further info...

[Dr Pixel]

The invisible driveway is easy - that is, if that driveway is re-colorable (the NightLife ones are)

You would just make the recolor in the usual way, except - make your new .png image totally clear (transparent), and be sure to bring it back into SimPE as a DXT3 image.

Then in the Material Definition file, set:

stdMatAlphaBlendMode: none

stdMatAlphaTestEnabled: 1

This will give you an "invisible" color option for the driveway (or any other object for that matter)


As for the car, that will be more complicated. For one thing, it doesn't have any color options, and I think Numenor is the only one who knows how to add those to an object that doesn't have any.

Can you tell us what the car does, without NightLife? Can your Sims actually drive it to another lot? Or can they sit in it, play the radio, etc? Or is it strictly decorative?

[MissSimGameFan]

The car works just like the NL ones. You can drive places, turn the lights on, install an alarm, sit in it, take a spin (or whatever it's called), choose owner, etc. etc.

[Dr Pixel]

In that case, it may be possible to use existing user-made cars just as they are.

It depends on if Maxis did in fact include all the car animations and so on, since the existing user-made cars would have been cloned from the Maxis NightLife cars.

Have you tried any of them?

[MissSimGameFan]

Someone said (Maxis...? I can't remember) that their Driveway Kit (required for those who don't own NL) can only be used for the Mustang, any other cars won't work with it.

I could try cloning the mustang and then adding someone's custom mesh to it. I don't know how to do that, though.

[Fresh-Prince]

Well, I tested it, and I have to unfortunately confirm that custom cars will not work with the driveway kit if you dont have Nightlife.

If you want to add someone's custom mesh to the mustang, I dont know if that will even work, but if possible, very difficult. It seems like the cars from Nightlife and this ford mustang and quite different in a way. It could most likely be done if a custom car was made over again by cloning the mustang. But in more basic words, you wont be able to have a custom car in the game by adding a custom mesh to the mustang.

I think I'll try sometime and experiment with cloning the mustang. Since the mustang is the only car you guys can have at the moment, the car selection, if able to make custom cars, will be limited.

Sorry If I didn't explain clear enough, im not well at explaining things :)