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Mad Poster
Original Poster
#1 Old 30th May 2016 at 3:07 PM
Default Increasing specularity on CAStable rabbit holes?
So in my main save, I use quite a lot of AussomeDays' awesome CAStable reddit holes. And right by the city's waterfront, I have a whacking great ITF building. (pic for reference)

But as you can see, the windows are a giant slab of unrealistic blueness. It doesn't look awful, but I figure it could look a lot better. Now in the package file for this building's CAStable version, which in my case is called Merged_CAStableRHs-OasisLanding.package, there's textures and config files for all the different CAStable parts, since these buildings are made up of several different meshes. However, I can't find a way to increase the specularity on the windows. It already shines a little bit, but I think that if I can make it shine more, I won't need the blue colour on the windows. Not too much, since you'll end up looking at an ugly low-detail cubemap (which is another thing I would love to have a go at, but I don't think that's possible)

If anyone knows how I could do that, I'd much appreciate it.
- the Pi

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Mad Poster
#2 Old 31st May 2016 at 6:30 AM
I think in TSRW there's some specular settings you can play with as well as shader options.

You could export the cloned object and then splice in the changed settings (dunno which one it might be)
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#3 Old 31st May 2016 at 7:47 AM
Quote: Originally posted by jje1000
I think in TSRW there's some specular settings you can play with as well as shader options.

You could export the cloned object and then splice in the changed settings (dunno which one it might be)

Yeah, but I need to maintain the original file structure. If I can modify the specularity in any way in S3PE, I'll prefer to do that.

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Instructor
#4 Old 31st May 2016 at 4:12 PM Last edited by Blyss : 31st May 2016 at 6:55 PM. Reason: a working link is better...
With TextureTweaker3 (direct link and yes, still using that), you can very easily add a specular.

Just tested this and making the specular from the windows multiplier (increased brightness, white alpha), you could obtain something like this:



It's more visible with darker colors.



Now I don't know if it does achieve what you had in mind in terms of shininess.
This is just the quick and dirty way of doing it.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#5 Old 31st May 2016 at 5:32 PM Last edited by Grijze Pilion : 31st May 2016 at 5:43 PM.
TextureTweaker doesn't work for me. It crashes with nearly everything I do. I open the merged package and go to RH - OasisLanding - Community Hospital & Science Center_Windows and click Select, and I get a popup about it not being able to find resource handlers or something. The same error pops up for everything else I click.

Man, modding this game would be so much easier if the tools weren't all broken. S3PE's the only tool - literally the only one - that doesn't regularly crash on me.

The windows look good though. Could you maybe send me that, I assume I'll just be able to replace the current rabbit hole I have in the merged package?

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Instructor
#6 Old 31st May 2016 at 7:02 PM
I had the same "resource handlers" error. With Winrar, I did a repair on the archive, extracted again and it works fine now.

But if you still have problems, I've attached the package. As I did the edits on the original file, I suppose that yes, you can just import it in your merged package and it should work.
Attached files:
File Type: rar  oasislanding-hospital-specularedit.rar (1.59 MB, 6 downloads) - View custom content
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#7 Old 31st May 2016 at 9:45 PM
That's definitely a step in the right direction, it looks a lot nicer now. The subtle shine really works, I feel.

But uh, it's not shiny enough. The spec map's as white as it gets but it doesn't shine as much as I'd hoped. I do think that's kind of weird, because if you apply a metal texture to any random Buy Mode object, it'll turn into a freaking mirror. How come this one doesn't? I don't want a mirror, I just want a little more shine.

Also, I found out this Roaring Heights building, which has really shiny windows despite not having a spec map of any sort, has a separate texture for ambient occlusion. What's that supposed to be about? I've never heard of AO in texture form, and yet this building totally has it. I'm pretty sure it shows in the picture. And this is the only building that has it.

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Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#8 Old 2nd Jun 2016 at 7:42 PM
You could check the shader these windows are using, because if it's not a texture doing this all, it's usually a shader doing it's work. This is basically how you change shaders: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=575754

You just need an package file of the building. I would recommend using S3OC since TSRW will probably not export much you want or need.
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