's Blog

Object Texturing for both brainy and bewildered

We have today released an epic two-part Object Creation series for you.  The first part, written by riccinumbers is the eagerly-awaited Beginner's Guide to Object Meshing, and the following part is a less eagerly-awaited Object Textures, written by yours truly (yes, me)!

Object texturing - who's it for?

I will resist answering "for makeup artists" because I'm stiill under some BE NICE rule (which is getting real old after all these years).  So, this second part of the series is for beginners and experienced alike.  Beginners will be shown, step by step, how to make the standard images of an object (no experience necessary), import them into Workshop and finish off the object they started in the Beginner's Guide to meshing tutorial.  More experienced people will secretly be reading how to use the specular properly (you all know who you are) and how not to make images the size of table cloths!  Oh, and all that clever transparency and wall-mask stuff too.

What's covered?

• Image sizes (and how to map EA-style)
• Multipliers
• Speculars (including coloured speculars)
  
• RGB/RGBA Masks
• Overlays
• Stencils
• Dirty-state overlays
• Non-recolourable textures
• Wall masks (and the automatic wallmask generator)
• Sheers and transparency
• Importing textures into Workshop
• Defining patterns
• Making texture variations
• Using useful EA textures
• Outputting a complate for Sims 2 conversions
• Working with alpha channels

Does it work?

Oh ye of little faith!  We beta tested both guides with a small group of absolute beginners and we have seen some stunning results for first meshes already.  These testers are still making new meshes, and one of our newest testers, Illiana of lot-building fame, has already uploaded an incredible first set here.  There are other beautiful examples by our testers too, only they're still creating rather than uploading right now (we hope to see some new creations popping up on TSR soon)!

Who wrote it really?

I can't believe you even asked that.

Working on some buildstuff

Ok.. while working on my Liams Corner series i was building a modern home for it, but was still missing some doors and windows to match what i'd like to see. so i thought, well let's just make some for this series.

Here you can see some first results of what i have in mind.

Friday!

Friday today!:)

Without any sims now.

Yes... My brother deleted my sims... His stupid computer crashed. New stupid computer. Now I have 4 computers, and 3 of them don't work. It's crazy, I know, and now I have to play on mother's one, but it has no memory (my mother is an interior designer, so she has to have a lot of work on the computer). And only one thing is good-I have Internet!!!

Starting Over

Well, my laptop broke and I'm still trying to figure out a way to get my old files, especially my custom content, onto my new computer. Now I'm in the process of starting all over again, with new Sims families and story lines. So... I'll be keeping my old screenshots but there will be newer ones posted. I really wanted to continue one family and follow it but I have no choice right now to do so.

I really missed contributing to the site and talking to the other users. Now onto downloading more content for my new game and sharing photos.

Oh, good news though. My new desktop allows me to play on high settings for all graphics so I'm really happy about that since using low settings on my old laptop was no fun at all. I didn't really get to experience all of what the game had to offer until now and it's more amazing than I thought it would be.

Handy Hint or another D'oh! moment

Whew...  a few hours have zoomed by again.  Wanted to make a poster this time.  Rejigging the teener poster was easy, thanks to a quick refresh of Vanilla Sim's tutorial.  Then I had the great idea of twiddling with the frames.  I wanted a metal brushed one, so changed the pattern, looks fine, tried it in game.  D'oh!  The whole poster looks woozy as the pattern is plastered all over the poster.  Grrr... change back to original generic one.

Scrolling through all the possibilities of the project tab, ticking some more boxes.  Oh, I can add a thumb, that should be pretty.  Add the original pic as thumb.  Save.  Create package.  What the... 15 Mb pack??  Back.  Remove thumb, make itty bitty pic of the .dds used to make the pack. Save. Create package.  That's better - 950 something kb.  Can't have a poster as large as a house now, can we? :D

Alright, have a quick sneak preview of the poster - I hung a row of them in the Art Gallery ;)

So here's our handy hint of the day: when adding a thumbprint picture to a package for easy recognition, make sure it is a thumb and not a whole body slam.  It's the little things that count ;)

Hmmm... now let's see, what pictures can we make posters of next?

I lost Sunny..

Hi everybody..I lost today's published clothes "Sunny"..I think something happened wrong..So I edit it on 11 March..

Sorry for the late..Enjoy it..

Sims 3 Ambitions

How exciting! I love new expansions :D If anyone's interested to see the official trailer, you can see it here - http://mysims3blog.blogspot.com/2010/03/sims-3-ambitions-official-trailer.html#links.

Looks good! I mean it would have been good to get seasons or pets but this is still good :) The release date for us in Australia is June 4, those in the US and Europe is June 2!

The Start Of Something Beautiful..

Okay, for anyone who reads my story "The Start Of Something Beautiful" i need help. I had plans for the story but i've lost the plans and cant find them nor can i remember what i'd written. Thats the reason the chapters havent been coming out quickly. If you have any ideas how to make the story more interesting, please share. If i chose your idea, i will say that it was your idea, i wont take credit!!
Thank you
-Katie

Mall is going to be my next Lot *Sneak Peek Enclosed*

So I started working on a Mall. Its taking me alot longer then I thought. Also I was hoping I could furnish the whole mall but probably won't be able to because of space. If the the file is too big I won't be able to upload it for share. Tell me what you think if you have any comments or suggestions I welcome them :D

-B