Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 13th Dec 2020 at 5:09 AM Last edited by Cidira : 13th Dec 2020 at 8:13 PM.
Default Snow accumulation, roof trim shadow, clone/recolor from scratch, etc.
I've been working on a project for a while that involves making invisible build mode pieces, and it's largely been pretty successful. I started with someone's request to make a wall disappear and found I was able to create a frameless, invisible window with a massive wall cutout. From there I had a bunch of ideas and added an invisible door, roof pattern, and roof trim; I'm thinking I might also want to add an invisible ladder, since there are already invisible floor objects and one of the uses of invisible build mode pieces is to improve the playability of "building" with objects.

The stuff I already have, I could finish prettying up and release as-is, particularly since there are some visual issues I don't expect will ever go away as far as shadows and snow, but I still feel like there must BE a solution to a couple of problems I haven't been able to solve, so I want to take one last stab at it. This is... long... but that's because I've sunk a lot of time into Macguyvering a lot of things, and most of them actually turned out beautifully... these are the ones that I haven't been able to do with a paper clip and a wad of chewing gum. (And also because I figured I shouldn't make three different threads at once. -.-)

First, I can't figure out how to stop snow from accumulating on the roof by making changes to my roof pattern. I've tried going into the Roof Pattern resource and adding Func_NeverReceivesSnow under Tags, adding SnowDisallowed in the Material Definitions (Material - Items - Edit Items), fiddling with SnowHeightParams in the same place (and even SnowLocalNormalUvScaleOffsets just for giggles), changing the value of the Seasons field in the Roof Pattern resource (it had different values for glass, thatch, and most other roofs, iirc, and if I had to guess I'd say it's probably something to do with temperature regulation underneath those roofs, since it certainly didn't affect snow accumulation, but I've not tried testing it), and possibly some other stuff I forgot.

Package file for the roof pattern can be found here if anyone wants to look at it or try something.

I've had it suggested I might need to clone an actual roof type (the hipped roof is the one I actually use for putting down invisible roofs, since it doesn't generate any wall segments but fits actual buildings better than, say, the round roof) and not just a roof pattern in order to do it, which is something I could potentially do, but not without a) knowing the best practices for cloning objects that no existing tool supports cloning, b) knowing which resources I actually need to include, and c) knowing it'll actually work to eliminate snow accumulating and what to do to make that happen. That actually ties into a later question I have, but before we get there...

Second, I can't figure out how to get my roof trim to stop casting a shadow. I've killed the shadows on the window, the wall it's making invisible, the door, and the roof pattern, through various different methods... but the roof trim shadow just won't go away no matter what I try. I unchecked the Shadow Caster checkbox in the Flags section, I screwed around with SSAOIntensity, tried adding a ShadowOpacity entry, changed the shader to a few different things, edited both the Material Set entries and the ones under Model - Lods - Edit Items -> Meshes - Edit Items. About the only thing I've thought of but not tried yet is reducing the mesh down to nothing, since I don't mesh... will probably try it anyway, maybe even right after this, but I'm leery of doing something that could so easily introduce new issues.

The roof trim package can be found here if you want to look at or mess with it.

A possible issue there is that the package was created with TSRW and not S4S (since S4S doesn't support cloning/recoloring roof trims) and I don't know if it's equivalent to 'Create 3D Mesh' or to 'Standalone Recolor' or whether the things I'd need to edit to eliminate its shadow would be present in either or only the equivalent of the former. If it's the latter and needs to be the former, it all comes right back to the same issue as with the roof...

Which brings me to my third quandary, which is the possibility of an invisible ladder. There isn't ANY tool that currently supports cloning and recoloring ladders. And I'd really like some ladder recolors regardless, frankly, plus there's the question of whether I might need this technique in order to solve one or both of the other two problems above... so I'm wondering if there's a tutorial out there, perhaps a very old one, that explains what I need to do in order to create a clone or recolor package for an object from scratch, or if someone can explain it.

I know parts of how to do it already -- I know how to use the Game File Cruiser in S4S at least somewhat, and how to create an empty package and insert resources into it from the GFC, and I know that all the content types involved in what I've been working on have special resources (Ladder, Roof, Roof Trim, even Roof Pattern), and most of them don't use Object Catalog or Object Definition (though I see that ladders do, now that I look), I sort of know how to make something NOT be a default replacement (new instance numbers instead of keeping the old ones) -- but I don't really know how to distinguish between a plain standalone recolor and a full clone, or how to add additional swatches without the Studio tab (some idea, not how to do it right), or which resources my package actually needs (or how to tell), or how to add the bit that lets me give it its own name and description and so on, or the best way to generate new instances (I do know how to use the hash generator), etc. etc. etc.

(I'll probably take a stab at it eventually even if nobody ever has any pointers for me, since even a method that only other people as stubborn and willing to climb around inside the game file cruiser as me can use would still be valuable if it gets us recolors for more of the build stuff that either only TSRW, or none of the available tools at all, can currently make packages for. But a step by step explanation would be awfully nice.)

Finally, a few other small questions:
  • If I've already created an invisible door that works as a front door, is there a game functionality reason to also have an arch? I thought at first I needed to make one, but then couldn't actually find a difference in how they worked or what it looked like when Sims used them.
  • Is there any way to get rid of the shadows generated by the very ends of a wall that has otherwise been made invisible, the short "sides" of a wall that are only as long as the wall is thick? The invisible windows get rid of the entire rest of the wall's shadow, but not those. I've not even pursued this since they're small and I don't think anything I can do to my existing files will affect them, but for all I know someone could have come up with an object that covers them that might kill the shadows if it were invisible.
  • Any suggestions on what to do about the shadows that the game generates inside rooms, which look kind of funny when it's high noon and to the eye there aren't any walls? Also not directly related to my objects, and both of these shadow issues can probably be improved a bunch with how a lot is decorated, but I figured it was still worth a shot.
Back to top