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#1 Old 14th Apr 2010 at 5:13 AM Last edited by leefish : 13th Dec 2013 at 11:08 AM.
Default Tutorial for Creating Walls
This tutorial will show you how to make new walls in the sims 3. You can also make floors using this method, but new floors in The Sims 3 are rather pointless, as you can just make a new pattern that will give you the same effect.

A few things you will need:

S3OC:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=362413

S3PE:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=362412

Gimp:

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

DDS Plugins for Gimp:

http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/dds/

The Sims 2 Homecrafter Plus (Optional, only used for TS2 conversions):

To download Homecrafter Plus, click here.
Or here for the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Thai version.

Open S3OC and at the top click wall/floor patterns



Select a wall you wish to clone from. You should select a wall that has the same amount of recolorable channels you want your wall to have, and that is located in the same area of the wall catalog you want your wall to have. It's best if the wall you select has the default patterns you wish to use in your new wall. After you have selected an appropiate wall, then click Clone or Fix.



In the next screen you will see the cloning options area. If you want your wall to be a new wall, then leave checked Renumber/rename internally. If you want your wall to be a default replacement then uncheck that box. Click start. Wait for it to clone your wall completely, then when the pop up says ok, click it and close out s3oc.



Open s3pe, and click file/open at the top, and browse to your cloned wall from s3oc.



Select all the IMG with wall in the filename by holding down ctrl while clicking on them, right click, then select export to file. Leave S3PE open.



Now you will need to find a good texture for your wall. If you are doing a sims 2 conversion you can follow these steps, if not, you can omit this part.

Open The Sims 2 Homecrater Plus. When it finishes loading, click create wall. Find a suitable wall you wish to create from the areas shown. Then you can click on the area that says clone selected content. It looks like 2 rounded squares.



To find your texture browse to User/Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Projects/Homecrafter Plus/Working Directory. Open the file there in gimp. Once you have it open go to tool/color tools/hue and saturation at the top of the image window in gimp.



Bring the saturation down to -100 (negative 100)



Currently the trim of the image is too dark to be used as a sims 3 texture. You will need to lighten it some. It should look a tone of medium grey. Go to rectangle select in your gimp toolbox.



You will need to select just the trim. To do this, hold down shift while clicking and dragging over the top area of the trim. With shift still held down click and drag the bottom area of the trim. Now you have only the trim selected.



Now go to tools/color tools/hue and saturation again at the top of your image screen in gimp. This time you will need to bring the lightness up some for this particular wall 60 as a lightness looks good. Some walls will be lighter, and you will need to bring the lightness down. Basically, you need to have just a plain medium grey as your texture for the sims 3. Nothing too white or black or too dark or light grey.



Now you need to save this. Go to file/save as at the top of your image screen and save it over your texture (multiplier) exported from s3pe. In the dds save screen make sure Compression is set to BC3/DXT5 and generate mip maps is slected and press ok.







Now you will need to make your RGB Mask for your wall. To do this, you will need to change the foreground color double click on the current foreground color in your toolbox. The first channel is always bright red. So to achieve the exact tone of bright red needed, input ff0000 into the html notation and click okay. The html notation for the second channel (bright yellow) is ffff00. The html notation for the third channel (bright fuschia) is ff00ff. For now, we only need to make the first channel so just input ff0000.





Now you need to select the area that will be our first channel. in the middle of your image right click and do select/invert. Now you can bucket fill with the red you selected as your foreground. Find the bucket fill tool in your gimp toolbox, and bucket fill the middle part of the wall with red.







Now you can right click and do select/invert again, change the foreground color to yellow using the input number for the html notation for yellow and bucket fill the trim with yellow.









Now you will need to save this over your RGB channel exported from s3pe. When you get to the dds save as screen as always make sure compression is set to BC3/DXT5 and generate mip maps is selected.





Now you must make your bump map for the wall. Since you already have the RGB channel and the texture saved, you can undo all the changes you just made by clicking edit/undo. If you want to go quicker, you can just press ctrl + z and it will undo it faster.







Now you can go to select/select none



Go to filters/map/bump map. In the pop up screen, click invert bump map. you can move the sliders to get a nice subtle bump map you would like.





Now you need to set the layer opacity lower. To do this go to windows/dockable dialogs/layers. In the pop up screen use the slider to bring down the layer opacity a little over halfway. Something around 60% generally looks good. When you are done, you can close out the layers pop up without doing anything.







Now you can save this over your exported Bump Map from s3pe. As always select BC3/DXT5 under compression, and make sure generate mip maps is slected. You should also save this over the transparent looking file (it looks like a bunch of grey squares). But make sure that when you save over the transparent looking one you bring your opacity down very low.





Now you are ready to make your wall in s3pe. Go back in S3PE and in the space with all the text right click and select import/from file. Select all of your exported, newly written over IMGs and then in the next screen select import.







Now you can change the price. You can also do this in S3OC if you like, but I prefer to just do it in s3pe. Click on CWAL and then click on grid. Expand common blocks, there you can change the price to what you want. click ok, then commit.





Now you can change the catalog description. You can also do this step in S3OC if you like, I just prefer to do it in S3PE to save time. Select STBL and your own language. So if your language is English slect Strings_Eng STBL and then edit STBL. In the next pop up rename to what you want your wall to be then click once the old string to the left to activate, then click save.





Now you can save your .package, and you are done. Go to File/Save as at the top and save it with a filename describing your wall, your creator initals if you like, e.c.t. this saves it as a .package ready to be installed into The Sims 3.



One thing you should know. Walls are a bit different from objects, If you are trying to go back and make changes after you have already installed it to your game, it will not overwrite the existing .package. You will have to go in, make your changes in s3pe, then open the .package in S3OC and then do clone or fix and make sure that renumber/rename internally is selected.

*New Information!

There is a way to move your walls to another area of the wall catalog. You will have to clone a wall in S3OC that is the category you want. Open that newly cloned wall for the category you want in s3pe. Click on CWAL then click grid. Click the 3 dots by Materials (Collection) copy the unknown 4 number by selecting the whole number and right clicking and selecting copy. Then go to the same area in your wall you want to change and paste that number. Click ok, then commit. Thanks so much to cmomoney at mts for providing this information.

For better quality walls, you can use paint.net to create a .dds of 256x768, gimp can't produce a .dds that size though, but paint.net is another free program you can use, and the dds plugins for that are included.Thanks to Inge Jones for providing this information.

Also, I've found a way to have less default patterns so you won't have tons of walls or floors in your catalog. Using this method will also save on loading times, and will decrease the overall size of your .package. This is what you do for that:

Click on CWAL and click grid. Click on the three dots by Materials (Collection..). You will see them numbered from 0 upward. Click delete on all of them except for 0. Click ok, then commit. Your walls only have one pattern choice now.

I've also found a good way to disable channels if you need to. This is how you do that:

Click on the empty xml file. This is the one that just xml as a description. Click on notepad. You will see an area when you scroll down a bit that says Pattern A enabled, linked, Pattern B enabled, linked, Pattern C enabled, linked. There you can change the value to enabled false on the channels you want to disable. Now you need to go to the CWAL click grid, and click materials collection, then click material type, then click type codes. Scroll down the list til you see control code 0x35. Change 0x01 to 0x00. Pattern choice C is now disabled. Now if you want only one channel, scroll down to control code 0x34, and change 0x01 to 0x00, Pattern choice B is now disabled.

Packaging Walls as Sims3Packs:

Thanks to the people at thesimsresource, we now know that we can package walls as Sims3Pack format. It's a little different than creating walls with s3pe, as you will be mainly creating your wall in game. To package a wall as a sims3pack, you will need one or more custom patterns. Go in game and apply your patterns to the areas of an EA wall you think looks nice. Then in the catalog screen to your upper left hand corner, you will see an area with icons. Click on the folder icon (save) then click on the star icon (share). You will get a message saying that your file has been successfully saved and is ready to be shared. Remember to take pics of your new wall to be packaged as Sims3Pack, and then exit your game. You will find your Sims3Packs in User/Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Exports.

*
Screenshots
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Sesquipedalian Pisciform
retired moderator
#2 Old 14th Apr 2010 at 11:33 PM
Excellent Jon - thanks for sharing. I hate the EA walls, so this is handy indeed.

More downloads by Leesester, BoilingOil and others at Leefish.nl | My Stuff at Leefish.nl | LeeFish RSS | Sims4 News Blog | TumblinLeefish
One horse disagreer of the Apocalypse
#3 Old 15th Apr 2010 at 11:35 AM
I'd just like to add that I have experimented and found out the game will accept 768x256 walls, if your image editor will allow you to save DDS of that size (not all will). The advantage of this is that the game won't be stretching your wall and losing definition. In Sims 3, such walls also work for Mac users.

"You can do refraction by raymarching through the depth buffer" (c. Reddeyfish 2017)
Forum Resident
#4 Old 18th Apr 2010 at 9:36 PM
Thank you so much for the great tutorial with all the pictures and you use GIMP too! Not only will I learn how to make walls but will finally learn how to use GIMP. You are wonderful!

Sometimes the Dragon wins and I AM the Dragon!
Forum Resident
#5 Old 18th Apr 2010 at 11:47 PM Last edited by Winterhart : 19th Apr 2010 at 12:37 AM. Reason: Found the answer to 1 question
Default Moving walls and having less defaults
I think I understand how to do it. Say I want change something from the paint category to misc. I clone a wall from misc category. Do I leave the Renumber/rename box checked or not? I get where to find the number to copy but, where do I find the the wall I want to change?

I have another question. I got carried away with CAST recoloring to make castle walls before you posted your wonderful ones. So now, I want to get rid of most of those. Do you know how get to those to delete them? Would I use the same process as making less defaults. Again, where do I find the the wall I want to change?

--Edit--
I found the answer to the above. Just delete user presets. I either need to be more careful about what I save or figure out a way to identify the preset instances so I can delete only the ones I really want to get rid of.
-----

Off topic (a little)
Do you know if there is a way recatagorize custom patterns or hide EA ones? I don't download many patterns I would love to have because there is no way to identify which are custom and which are EA.

Thank you for your time and great tutorial again! :lovestruc

Sometimes the Dragon wins and I AM the Dragon!
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#6 Old 5th May 2010 at 12:23 AM
Your bit about not being able to enable/disable channels later is incorrect. You can do this at any time, along with deleting/copying/changing presets and even changing which texture you want to apply to a channel.
Test Subject
#7 Old 14th Jun 2010 at 4:46 PM
I use photoshop cs and have been trying to figure this out for a while now. So what I did was make everything I could in photoshop and then make the bump map in gimp (I have no idea how to make a bump map in photoshop) and it worked for me. It wasnt the most beautiful thing I made but It worked so now Im going to go back and perfect all the details. Thank you for the help
Site Helper
#8 Old 1st Mar 2011 at 5:31 PM
Just a note: S3PE and S3OC are now hosted at simlogical again. Simlogical is now at http://dino.drealm.info/den/denforum/index.php

I am Ghost. My husband is sidneydoj. I post, he downloads, and I wanted to keep my post count.
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Test Subject
#9 Old 13th May 2011 at 2:37 AM
Default Bump Maps in Photoshop??
Quote: Originally posted by dixie_blue012000
I use photoshop cs and have been trying to figure this out for a while now. So what I did was make everything I could in photoshop and then make the bump map in gimp (I have no idea how to make a bump map in photoshop) and it worked for me. It wasnt the most beautiful thing I made but It worked so now Im going to go back and perfect all the details. Thank you for the help


Hi I was wondering if anyone knew how to do bump maps in photoshop? I had Gimp downloaded, but I couldn't get the dds plugins for it, when i try the link it kept coming up with "the Connection was Reset". I also did a google search for the link and the same thing came up.
So I can't exactly do what dixie_blue has done, this is my first attempt at creating anything and I was wondering if anyone knew how to do bumps maps in photoshop or alternatively if there was a different link where I can download the dds plugins for Gimp...
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Field Researcher
#10 Old 1st Jun 2011 at 1:45 PM
Stupid firefox won't let me copy and paste a link (fcol...)

If you type Nvidia DDS Photoshop Plugin into Google you should pretty easily find the download page for it. Once you've done your normal map image, just save it as DXT5 and it should work (assuming you are using these tools and not the Workshop which currently doesn't support normal maps for walls properly).

www.parsimonious.org
Artists - Get your own Studio! Always be featured!
Scholar
#11 Old 2nd Jun 2011 at 9:32 PM
I am getting only 1 IMG file when cloning a wall. Anyone know why?
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#12 Old 2nd Jun 2011 at 10:20 PM
I had this issue a while back, and I believe it was an error in s3oc. Make sure you have the latest stable release and try again, because I thought it was fixed. If you still get only one of the four images required then maybe post over at simlogical so it can be addressed.
Knitting fiend
retired moderator
#13 Old 29th Jul 2011 at 11:07 PM
Default Nifty bump map maker
Nifty little program CrazyBump

"Evil genius is still genius." Asura NPC GW2
Knitting fiend
retired moderator
#14 Old 1st Aug 2011 at 12:26 AM
Actually the one Pistachio mentioned works better. Um, question. How the heck do you know which file is which? I've exported the scalloped siding and for the life of me cannot find the bump map file to overwrite.

"Evil genius is still genius." Asura NPC GW2
Test Subject
#15 Old 14th Aug 2011 at 7:21 PM
Thanks so much for making this. It can also be easily adapted for Paint.NET, and the directions are clear and easy to follow. Thank you!
Test Subject
#16 Old 23rd Aug 2011 at 10:59 PM
Okay i might be missing something but when you say skip this part, where do we pick it back up if were not doing a sims 2 conversion?
Site Helper
#17 Old 24th Aug 2011 at 11:20 AM
You pick it back up at the point where you have an image to work on.

I am Ghost. My husband is sidneydoj. I post, he downloads, and I wanted to keep my post count.
Group for Avatar Makers* Funny Stories *2017 Yearbook
Test Subject
#18 Old 17th Dec 2011 at 8:50 AM
very nice tutorial, I'm planning on making halo like walls :P
Echezzman Nwokeoma
staff: senior moderator
#19 Old 13th Feb 2012 at 11:36 AM
This was breath taking.You did an awesome job here on this tutorial
Test Subject
#20 Old 31st May 2012 at 7:01 PM
How can I just make a simple wall without recolorable parts. I just want to make a simple wall with a wall texture I have.
Sockpuppet
#21 Old 31st May 2012 at 9:13 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Bobbyx
How can I just make a simple wall without recolorable parts. I just want to make a simple wall with a wall texture I have.


you clone wall wit S3OC like described and open it with s3pe.
export the textures, among them it is also a small blanc 32x32 texture.
You can update it with your texture after resizing it to 256x512

Make sure you clone a wall that does not have normalmap attached to it.
Test Subject
#22 Old 31st May 2012 at 10:01 PM
Quote: Originally posted by BloomsBase
you clone wall wit S3OC like described and open it with s3pe.
export the textures, among them it is also a small blanc 32x32 texture.
You can update it with your texture after resizing it to 256x512

Make sure you clone a wall that does not have normalmap attached to it.


Thanks, I didn't see you posted it here. So, when I just replace that 32x32 file with my texture (at the right 256x512 size), I will have a new wall pattern with my texture?
Sockpuppet
#23 Old 4th Jun 2012 at 12:49 PM
not a new pattern, just your full 256x512 texture
Test Subject
#24 Old 1st Aug 2012 at 7:01 AM
Default Error Message help
I'm stuck on step 1 S3OC gave me this nice little message



I looked at the game folder & all where enabled, but with no path.
So what path do I need to tell it to look

My documents> Electronic Arts>Sims3>..............
Test Subject
#25 Old 12th Aug 2012 at 7:49 AM
Default I'm just needing to know
I've followed this tutorial all the way to the part about the masking and of course my wall that I want to use is just simple strips, nothing that can be recolored since it's for my own personal use (not that I wouldn't share if I could) but the point is, when I ask I get chastised at every turn and it makes me not want to be apart of this site anymore. All I'm asking is how to get a simple wallpaper into sims 3 without masking anything since it's not going to be used by anyone but me anyway and not be turned away or made rude remarks to when I'm asking a simple question that someone should know the answer to. Being called names even if it's only in fun is hurtful and rude to someone trying to learn something. Not to mention that I have searched almost every thread, every Google page and every site that I could all day long and still have not found the answer to this question. So I came here to ask and got treated with disrespect. So I'm going to ask one more time and hope that I don't get banned or chastised once again for the same question that never got answered.

I get it, I'm new and I have no experience at making things for sims 3. I'm finding that no one wants to help those that are new since the questions they are asking are ones that many have answered millions of time before. But I have made enough for sims 1 and 2 in my time, but sims 3 is different and you just can't drop the wallpaper into the download folder and hope it works or import it Via the homecrafter cause i'm not certain if the sims 3 works off the same file extension and according to this thread it's doesn't.

so all I'm needed to know is, how to make my wallpaper that's already finished usable in the sims 3 game without having to go through the whole masking option or even the whole cloning someone else's wallpaper? (I'm just trying to finish building the Smart house and I'm becoming frustrated/upset at the fact that I can't use my wallpaper already created for it.)

and for the record, I couldn't get the plug in to work in Gimp (it gave me an error message saying that it was missing the libgimp-2.0-0.dll) so I'm using my PSCS5 since the plug in is already in there. (Nvidia) even if it's a little different I'm hoping it will work.

And I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm being rude, it wasn't written that way, it was written in a very calming fashion with no hateful intentions. I've just been searching all day and I do mean all day for a tutorial on how to do this with nothing coming up. This was the closest I could find.

So if you want to ban me from the site cause I went off on a rant, then feel free to do what you see is fit. Just tell me how to do this before you do and I will gracefully leave the site and never come back.

thanks
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