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Mad Poster
Original Poster
#1 Old 1st Aug 2016 at 3:20 AM
Default TSRW- Removing Levels of Detail?
@Greenplumbbob & any others- Just wondering if it could be done. Some models only have high detail and medium detail, and the models I'm working on don't need three levels of detail.

It would probably help reduce the size of the mesh.

Levels of Detail are found under Mesh tab under a roll-down under the tab.
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Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#2 Old 1st Aug 2016 at 12:40 PM
I take it you're referring to an object? Because it is possible, just not in TSRW so far I know. It's done with S3PE actually. I just don't really know how to add the sunshadow in it, since I only succeeded doing this method by only having a high level of details and nothing else. Unless that's what you want? I know how to do it without any sunshadow meshes so >-<
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#3 Old 2nd Aug 2016 at 4:21 AM
Hmm, in that case, how would I go around adding new properties in the Material Editor?

I have a second object that has the two levels of detail I want, but it's missing some properties.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#4 Old 2nd Aug 2016 at 11:10 AM
Actually it's pretty simple. Go to the mesh tab. You'll see the groups there.

Click on the 'material' area of the group. Click on the "..."

At the top of the window that now pops up, there is a button called 'Add'. Click that one. You'll get another window. This is the window you can add the stuff you need to your textures. I would suggest using this page to figure out which type you need to use (Float, interger, etc): http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_3:Shaders
(I know it's a bunch of shaders you'll see, but the texture info are all in there. I'm not sure about the Num values though. I usually use 1).

Just add the texture you need (Or any other kind of materials). And now you can simply edit it. Make sure though, that everything you add is compatible with 'Phong' (Which is why I linked you that link). Say you would want to add a 'EmissiveBloomMultiplier', it wouldn't work out because these aren't compatible with Phong.

TSRW, however has this option. Say you switch to another shader, and when it asks to make changes to it so it's okay with the shader you choose, you could really do that. I usually end up deleting some though, but what it does is actually adding everything you see in that link I linked you for every shader. Which means, it will also add some... well not necessarily needed materials.

Hope that helps!

EDIT: Oh I've been stupid and not aware. So say you read that a texture/material is 'Float2'. TSRW only has 'Float'. The num Values are there to make it 'Float 2'. (So, in this case, click 'FLoat' in the type bar and '2' in the num value bar.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#5 Old 3rd Aug 2016 at 11:58 AM
Thanks! Do you know where I can find a list of what Parameters would correspond to? Ie if I want to add a new texture map, what I would select?

There's like 4 options and another 4 integers and it makes things tricky.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#6 Old 3rd Aug 2016 at 2:11 PM
That, I have tried to figure out for months! although, the only person I can think of who might know, who is actually around at the TSR forums for TSRW is Sim_man123: http://forums.thesimsresource.com/i...852-sim-man123/

I'll go message him and see if I can get something useful. I'll let you know in the same thread!
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#7 Old 3rd Aug 2016 at 5:38 PM
Sim_man123 just replied to my message:

"To add a texture map into a material, choose type "Reskey" and set "Num values" to "4" - when you click "OK" and go back to your material, you should see the map added, and by default it will fill in with the ground shadow atlas texture that you just have to import your new texture in it's place"
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#8 Old 4th Aug 2016 at 12:14 AM
Hmm, it didn't quite work for me-

I tried the method, and while I could get the texture map in, it didn't seem to have an effect.

I'm looking to insert a specular map- to the right is a building with a premade specular map (notice the windows), and to the left is the building which has a new specular map- it doesn't have the effect.



Do you want to take a look at the files?
Screenshots
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#9 Old 4th Aug 2016 at 11:02 AM
It's possible that it needs more info than a 'specular map'. Usually I take a look at a premade shader. (In TSRW that's pretty easy). If i'm right, the fact that you still need to add 'shininess' material to it to make the specular map function of course. Because, that's what specular maps are for, to control the shine.
And I would add reflective and Reflective.

I usually keep the default settings, shininess to 20, reflective to 0,5 and the Reflective 0,0,0 If you want it super shiny, you can make it like 50-100. (100 isn't even fun anymore, it's blinding XD).

(By the way, I would add these setting when you're using the phong shader)

Then you want to add these (because the one above is actually what works with CASparts and in the object's material data, I mean, it's worth a try but if it doens't work, add these):

0x9554D40F SpecStyle Float
0x2CE11842 Specular Float3
0xF12E27C3 SpecularUVScale Float2
0xB63546AC SpecularUVSelector Float3

Default settings:

SpecStyle: 2
Specular: (Controls how much there is to see of the specular map, in your case I would just do 255,255,255)
SpecularUVScale: 1;1
SpecularUVSelector : x: 3,02539756E-05 y: 3,02539756E-05 z: 0 (The X and Y should be compatible with the same numbers of the U v Scale, usually that's 3,02539756E-05.)
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#10 Old 4th Aug 2016 at 1:11 PM
Earlier, I directly copied the Parameters from a version that does work, but it doesn't seem to work in the new file.

Here's the files- you probably know more than I do!
Attached files:
File Type: zip  Apartment.zip (626.7 KB, 3 downloads) - View custom content
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#11 Old 4th Aug 2016 at 2:17 PM
Just so I know what to edit. So you actually want to make the windows really shiny?

Also, could you give me a package file instead? TSRW says it can't load the model and can't read the OBJD so I can fix that for you in case you don't know how to fix it ^-^ (it's likely the VXPY being not linked to the OBJD and the OBJD not having the correct instance or just can't be read by the OBJK)
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#12 Old 4th Aug 2016 at 4:28 PM
Yup- just the specular map.

I'll send you the obj and texture base files- I kinda want to keep it in TSRW because I can then clone the TSRW file for other buildings (I have a lot of buildings to convert).

Thanks for the help!
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#13 Old 5th Aug 2016 at 5:01 AM
Ok @Greenplumbbob, here are the files.

Here is the obj and the milkshape file, along with the texture files and base cloned object used.
Attached files:
File Type: zip  Mesh & Textures.zip (498.2 KB, 3 downloads) - View custom content
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#14 Old 5th Aug 2016 at 10:19 AM
Looking at it, I guess it would make the effect more recognizable if you would split the windows from the building so you have 2 groups. Then, add a shader of your liking for the windows and keep the building a phong (Unless CAW props like these actually have a different shader).

Also, looking at the materials in the building, you can delete the Multiply map and ambient occlusion (Unless that was for a different purpose. It seems to be all black to me. And you want to add a specular map, specular Uv scale and specular uv selector. (Else the game won't read the specular map properly.) and make sure the colour of the 'specular' is White, not black. Black means that it is turned off. It's a bit like layers and opacity. White is 100% visible, black is 0% visible.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#15 Old 8th Aug 2016 at 6:35 AM
Ok, so I kinda resolved the problem in the end by using the working file and essentially disabling the Low LOD level by setting its min and max points to be infinite, and then importing a one-triangle mesh to reduce the file size.

Thanks for the help though! TSRW is a weird program at times!
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