Wallpaper distortion
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Blogpost added Jan 22, 2010, read 482 times
Some people may notice some distortion with the wallpapers they download (not just mine but any). Here's the issue: Apartment Life expansion pack: This expansion pack altered the hight of walls by a fair amount and the game mearly stretches wallpaper files to fit the new dimension. The result is a circle made to be a circle on a 256x512 template or from any ealier EA release becomes an oval, a square is now a vertical rectangle.
This can be compensated for in the creation proccess: start with an oversized image and shrink it on the vertical by 70%. This will look like a sqat oval or horizontal recatagle in your image editor. Be sure to still fill the entire 512 pixel hight. Once imported it will be stretched back into the proper shape.
Basicly for proper shaping in Apartment Life you should use a 256 x 732 pixel template then reduce the hight 30% to 256 x 512 & then import it with homecrafter.
Problem with doing this: Anyone useing that pattern who dose not have Apartment Life will see it as being squished.
Best solution: Comprimise: Granted no body will have a perfect circle /everyone will have some distortion but it won't be tragicly noticable to anyone. 85% is the perfect middle (256 x 603 pixel original shrunk down 15% to 256 x 512 & imported). Viola! Everybody's happy!
Another issue with wallpapers I've noticed is with the crown molding, Especialy if your designing a detailed crown. Any crown looks great in normal mode, but in screen shots, video or any viewing with where the cieling is applied, crowns get buried in the cieling. Basicly the cieling covers the top 24 pixel rows. Solution: Use a 24 pixel high header on your crown, any critical detailing should be below the 24th row. This, I believe, applies to games with or without Apartment Life expansion.
Have fun & play well,
SKS
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2 Comment(s) posted so far
On Apr 22, 2011 MsBarrows wrote:
Actually this is incorrect, the walls have always been three tiles high, any wallpaper designed at 256x512 has always ended up stretched in game. Walls designed at 756x256 and then squished to 512x256 has always been the only way to maintain wallpaper proportions, a fact of which sadly few wallpaper creators have been aware, which explains why the vast majority of CC wallpapers available for download have always had non-square tiles, non-round circles, extremely poor proportions for things like chair rail placement, and so forth.
On May 1, 2011 71robert13 wrote:
Not to be argumentative but I completely disagree with MS Barrows (whom, mind you I think is a great artist & if you haven't yet you should check out her stuff). I run Sims 2 on computers, 1 has double deluxe only (& occasionally a temp install of other expansions for specific tests) & 1 has the full installation including Apartment Life. There is a very distinct and obvious difference in the height of walls in apartment life. I often make wallpapers in 2 versions: regular & AL. check it out, you can download both versions & place both side by side on the same wall. if you have AL the BG version will be squished but the AL will be correct, whereas if you do not have AL then the AL version will be stretch but the BG version will be correct. The AL versions that I do generally have 1 additional "repeat" of the vertical pattern to compensate for the extra wall height.