I don't really know how to even identify this problem. I made conversion of SilverMoonSims Crystal Queen tiara from Sims 4. After a lot of grief (remapping the thing so it didn't get so shiny in CAS that I can't even tell what color the thing was), I finally got the mesh to 3. I load it in TSRW and there's no problem. Looks great. But then, I load it up in game, and I get what's in the image. I can (sometimes) get it to minimize to much smaller if I recolor the item, but when I reload the save, the effect is back. I did notice that it became less noticeable if I removed every single other accessory the sim is wearing (sometimes it completely disappears, sometimes not). I know that too many accessories can be an issue, but I don't think I've seen this particular distortion happening.

I'm just super frustrated because it was going so well.

send the .wrk file
i have a couple of ideas of why it might be happening, but it would be faster for me to look at it myself instead of guessing

No problem. I think this is the right file. I've tried a couple of things hoping I could puzzle it out myself, so I may have grabbed the wrong one.

Anyway, it's not completely finished here. Just the first lod, but usually that's enough for me to make sure things are working right.

for whatever reason i couldn't reproduce that exact issue, unfortunately. there is a bit of bleeding, but not as bad as in your picture. i've attached my edits below, try them out (just don't forget to remove your own version from your mod folder or it might overwrite mine)
it looks like a uv issue, but i don't see any real problems with the project you've sent, so i increased edge padding just in case

if it's fixed, then here's an explanation for what i've changed:
as far as i know, when you put a lot of accessories on a sim, the game combines their textures and starts to shrink each of them down so that they don't overload the system
because of that, at some point different parts of a texture start to blend together, bleeding into the uv. here's a pretty extreme example, you can see how the blue gem is a bit red on its edges:



to avoid that, you need edge padding:



the recommended sizes are:
512 = 4px
1024 = 8px
2048 = 16px
your textures are 2048px, but some parts have padding as low as 5 pixels, which isn't great

i'm still not sure this is the real issue, but that's all i could think about (especially since your screenshot doesn't seem to have any texture detail, suggesting that the texture is so small that all details blended together into one solid color)

i edited textures a bit because it felt like it, adding ambient occlusion and changing contrast of the multiplier and the specular (this version is in the .wrk file). this is with like 7 other accessories:



i also made an aggressively shiny version for fun lol (this is the package)

in my game:



in desiree-uk's game (with reshade):

Thanks for looking at it. Loaded it up in my game, and no sign of it doing what it was. I was even able to give her her accessories back.

Yeah, what you said made sense about the accessories stacking, though it had just been my experience before that they got less defined not whatever that weirdness is.. As for my textures, I try to remember that buffer, but I don't always get the size right. With the details, I know I need to work on those. Between making the pieces smaller than I really wanted to, coupled with still being a total beginner at Blender, I wasn't super happy with it (still tweaking them files constantly as I learn). And as for all the fun shiny stuff like AO, yeah, I'm still totally baffled by that. I know what it is of course, just no clue how to implement it.

That said, I really love your super shiny version. That's actually closer to how I really wanted to look.

> And as for all the fun shiny stuff like AO, yeah, I'm still totally baffled by that. I know what it is of course, just no clue how to implement it.

there should be videos about baking ao on youtube. i don't know which version of blender you use and can't really think of a good video to recommend anyway
short version: open mesh in blender, make a new empty texture, bake ao onto it, export image, open it in photoshop (or a graphic editor of your choice), overlay it on top of your multiplier with the 'darken' overlay mode (or 'multiply' if you don't have it), reduce opacity to 20-50%, profit
the ao i added is pretty rough and took me like 2 minutes, but it helps different parts of the mesh stand out and not blend together into one yellow blob

> That said, I really love your super shiny version. That's actually closer to how I really wanted to look.

i wonder how it looks in your game lol
i just added the plumbot shader and made the specular really light
here's an explanation of how to do that by ladysmoks:

I've been looking at videos for working with Blender, so I'm sure I'll get there eventually. I knew about the tutorial about using Blender to bake textures and such, but most of what she says in there whooshes right over my nooby head. I won't give up though. lol And I'll keep tweaking away at the thing. I'm never happy with my work.

As for in my game, I took a screenshot. The color is different, because it's the preset I plan to replace my rough version with, but I do love it. Unfortunately, now I'm gonna have to mess with a couple other of her accessories, because they don't look as fabulously shiny as the tiara. lol

> With the details, I know I need to work on those. Between making the pieces smaller than I really wanted to,

i didn't understand what you meant at first but i think i get it now. do you mean that your texture details turn out too blurry? to fix that, instead of making mesh parts smaller you should give more uv space to parts of the mesh that need more detail. i'm not gonna try explaining all rules of uv mapping, but here's an example

one of these uses a 2048px texture. the other uses a 512px texture. can you guess which is which?




this is because i gave detailed parts more uv space than the solid colored parts:




it's not perfect, but you get the idea
keep in mind that in the sims 3 an entire outfit with shoes uses a single 1024px texture. using 2048px on a tiara is way too expensive, especially since most of it isn't detailed

>keep in mind that in the sims 3 an entire outfit with shoes uses a single 1024px texture. using 2048px on a tiara is way too expensive, especially since most of it isn't detailed

Oh, I know. That's actually the first I did the texture that big. Normally, I do them 1024. I was just playing around with another mesh that was much more detailed and forget to lower the size when making the texture for the tiara. And yeah, I know about deciding what to make bigger and smaller. I have a version in Blender that I'm still messing around with (trying to fix some of his very odd creation decisions for one and removing unnecessary vertices that aren't seen for two), and I will probably do some more work with the UV map as I do that. That layout was just a quick and dirty just so I could make the conversion playable.

Like I said, work in progress. But, you've helped a ton, and reminded me of several tips I had been stupidly lax on making sure I follow. Again I am deeply grateful for the help you've given me. Thanks.

Edit: oh, and I will definitely take your advice on which to enlarge. Didn't want to seem like I was ignoring your very logical adivce. ^o^

I do not have time right now to pull one up, but everything in a Sim's outfit goes on a single image, within the game. I believe the standard is 2048 x 1024. Garmets (outfits or tops and bottoms), hair, face, makeup, shoes and accessories, including things like vampire teeth. The spaces are predesignated sizes, and the total space for accessories is as it is. As more accessories are added, they will begin to blur. Smaller textures help. Unless you are using some HD mod, a 2048 x 2048 accy texture will be squeezed down to fit, and as it is squeezed with other accys, your texture will blur even worse than if it was 512 x 512.

Also note that when using the Plumbot shader, the specular map has a great effect on shine, as it does with Simskin shader. I have used from almost white (like a mirror finish) to near black (shines, but not like a mirror). Also, playing with reflectivity and shine in TSRW mesh tab gives varying results.

OK... had some time this morning to find a Sim texture image. I reduced this pic from 2048 x 1024 to 1024 x 512. I saw that some EA made NPC's are on 512 x 256! Not sure if size is increased, if you modify them, but suspect they are.



You see the top right corner, is where all accys are placed. As your 2048 texture is reduced to fit this area, you lose even more detail. There are "tricks" I use in GIMP 2.10 to ease the detail loss when reducing textures. As with many things, I do not have a magic formula, but I will use "sharpen" and "noise reduction" to get the best image I can on a smaller sized texture.

I also forgot to mention that when replacing a shader in s3pe, I will then open that package in TSRW, save the new work file, and make a new package. That way, the new shader is part of the work file, if you ever need to go back to adjust anything.

Cool. That's all super good to know and something I will definitely remember going forward. I never intended to leave the textures as big as they were, it was totally an oversight on my part. For my testing version in game I had already shrunk them down to 1024 (though I'll probably go for 512 in my final) and just forgot to incorporate the smaller ones into the work file as I'm still tweaking them depending on how to look in game.

Thank so much superior knowledge people for helping a noob not feel totally lost. \^.^/