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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 11th Jul 2009 at 8:08 PM
Pattern and CAS tool help?
Hi Guys,

I hope this doesn't come across as a post from a potential time waster! I have very genuine intentions of becoming a custom content creator for The Sims 3 and am a reasonably qualified graphic designer already, but for some reason I just can't get my head around the tutorials for Delphy's Pattern Packager and Delphy's CAS Texture Unitool - slightly embarassed!

I have Adobe Photoshop CS4, I have .net Framework 3.5 installed, and I have the NVidia DDS plugin installed too - yet I don't know where to begin when it comes to creating patterns, packaging them and then progressing on to creating custom items via the CAS Texture Unitool.

After looking around I see many people have made good use of these tools and i'd love to be the next to do so! I just need a little guidance to get going I think and wonder if anybody here would be prepared to take the time to give me a little step by step process for getting my first item together? :D

1. Where do I start? Create a new image in Photoshop? If so, do I somehow need to define the 4 channels of the 'pattern' or does one of those tools do that for me later on?

2. Exporting from Photoshop to a DDS? I've had a look around Photoshop and despite installing the relevant plugins I see no mention of DDS files, an NVidia toolbox or nothing like that.

I would appreciate any assistance you experts here are prepared to give me! I run a fansite which receives around 3,000 visitors a day, i'd like to offer them some good custom content eventually so i'm keen to master these tools :D

Thanks in advance guys.
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Eminence Grise
#2 Old 11th Jul 2009 at 10:24 PM Last edited by Srikandi : 11th Jul 2009 at 10:43 PM.
First off -- creating custom recolorable CaST patterns is a completely different process from creating stencils and so on with the Unitool (which is why we have different forums for each of them). Patterns are applied by the player to anything they want; stencils are applied by the modder to a particular mesh, and can't be placed on other objects in-game. Pick which one you want to do first and focus on that one

Question 1, which seems to be about patterns: the best method depends on the pattern, but I'd recommend starting with HP's tut , and following her step-by-step instructions; if you can master that technique, the others are a little easier. For that, you start with a vector or bitmap pattern (which you can create or find) and manipulate it in Illustrator as well as Photoshop. Just follow the steps

You define the four colorable regions using the R, G, B and Alpha channels in the image file; export it as DDS; and then use Delphy's pattern packager tool to specify the starting colors for those regions. Follow the tut, you'll get there

Question 2: when you install the .dds exporter for photoshop, you get another entry in the list of file types you can save as. When you get to that step, just choose .dds from the file type dropdown; then you'll get the dialog where you can specify options.
Mother Function
retired moderator
#3 Old 12th Jul 2009 at 10:04 AM
Just from a learning stand point, I find that making CAS Part stencils is the easiest thing to start with. You'll get a feel of working with meshes in 2D. Next I would move on to simple base texture edits, then RGBA masks. However that's assuming you want to work with the CAS part (clothing design) side of modding and not the patterns side.

I personally started off trying to make a pattern. And I failed at it. But that's just me

"Holy Shift! Check out the asymptotes on that mother function!"
Test Subject
Original Poster
#4 Old 12th Jul 2009 at 3:39 PM
I didn't realise the difference between modding patterns and cas parts was so big, I would prefer to concentrate on clothing design at the moment! I did follow your own tutorial on this, Daluved1, a few times infact as I had no luck in the beginning.

I have just moment ago managed to get something I created to appear in the game though - not to the standard I would like - but it's a start as previous items made by following the tutorial resulted in plain duplicates of the items I was basing my work on appearing in the game with no visual sign of the edits I made to it.

I feel I would have better results through Photoshop CS4 than Paint.net, but at the moment cannot work out how to handle DSS files in Photoshop - any ideas? I installed the NVidia plugin for it but still see no way of exporting DDS files in Photoshop at all. I'm far more used to Photoshop, whereas I only just download Paint.net yesterday for the sole purpose of trying this out.
Instructor
#5 Old 12th Jul 2009 at 7:40 PM
Quote: Originally posted by sims3website
I feel I would have better results through Photoshop CS4 than Paint.net, but at the moment cannot work out how to handle DSS files in Photoshop - any ideas? I installed the NVidia plugin for it but still see no way of exporting DDS files in Photoshop at all. I'm far more used to Photoshop, whereas I only just download Paint.net yesterday for the sole purpose of trying this out.


As Srikandi said above, the DDS plugins add an extra file type to the saving popup. So, if you have a file open in photoshop (a jpeg, a bmp or png image or whatever you want) and click 'save as...' in the drop down box labelled file type there should be an extra option somewhere in that list as 'D3D/DSD (*.DDS)' when you choose that option and click the save button another popup appears which lets you choose the type of DDS you want to save as.

If there's no extra file type option I can only suggest reinstalling the plugins and, if that fails, reinstalling photoshop.

To open a DDS file you have to first have photoshop open and use the 'open' option under the file menu. I hope you can get the plugins to work for you. Good luck!
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