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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 27th Mar 2021 at 3:05 AM
Default Merging Texture with Mesh into One Package File
Hello, simmers,

I believe the title says it all. What I am trying to accomplish here is to have a fully functional - in this case outfit - that consists only from one file. I have completed UniMesh Part 2 so far, hence my SimPE skills are not as advanced as I’d like to and I can’t quite put my finger on this. I’ve been searching everywhere yet I cannot find an answer nor find deeper understanding to this issue.

I’ve made my custom mesh with an altered texture edited in bodyshop (i shall change it in SimPE for a better quality results next time, now I know), so the fragments of this custom outift are now located in SavedSims, Projects & Downloads folders. That’s where the isssue occurs for me. In the SavedSims folder, there is the file that links textures to the mesh, in the Project folder is located the file with edited texture (i believe) and in Downloads there is a mesh itself in a .package format.

To my understanding, I somehow need to combine these three or two parts at least to make the outfit work; or perhaps to change texture’s linking directions within SimPE to the file itself. However, I have no idea how to do that, since anything I have tried so far didn’t work. The game/bodyshop didn’t show up an additional outfit/a duplication of the outfit I have made earlier.

Do I make a new .package from scratch or do I just edit a certain file? Please, let me know!

Thanks in advance.

Mayst thou thy peace discov'r.
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 27th Mar 2021 at 3:49 AM Last edited by simmer22 : 27th Mar 2021 at 4:09 AM.
You can completely disregard the "package" file in the Projects folder. It's just a template file, it doesn't show up ingame and doesn't do anything useful outside of the Projects folder in Bodyshop. You can even reuse projects, and the template file will continue to work as a template for new SavedSims files as long as you use that project. You always want to work with and use the SavedSims files when you link them to meshes, because they contain the full set of resources to make them work ingame.

The mesh and texture are supposed to be separate files.
You can link them via the PJSE tool in SimPE.

The Unimesh tutorial explains how you do it (part 4)
https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?ti...New_Mesh_Basics

The texture issue is easy to fix - when you've linked the SavedSims file to the mesh file via PJSE, you can replace the texture file in either Bodyshop by making a new recolor, or in SimPE (use DXT3 or 5). If need be, you can extract the texture from the Project file with SimPE (the file still holds textures even if it doesn't work).
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 27th Mar 2021 at 9:55 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
You can completely disregard the "package" file in the Projects folder. ....


Thank you for the explanation, it is always good to know there is one less file to worry about.

Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
The mesh and texture are supposed to be separate files.
You can link them via the PJSE tool in SimPE.


That is the issue. The mod in my game works perfectly fine, since the texture is in the separate file/folder. However, if I was to share this product with community, how do I do that? Do I include both texture file from SavedSims and the mesh from Downloads? If I tried to put the file from SavedSims to Downloads (as you normally do with downloaded mods from other creators), the outfit turned as if it had no alpha file - meaning that all I could see was sim’s body applied over the mesh.

Hence I want to merge texture and mesh within one package file instead of having a separate texture file referencing to the mesh - if that makes sense!

If that isn't possible, however, do I just drag out the file from SavedSims to Downloads folder and re-link it again?

Mayst thou thy peace discov'r.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 27th Mar 2021 at 5:09 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 27th Mar 2021 at 5:25 PM.
The most common way to share files nowadays is to put the files (recolor files, however many of them you want to share + mesh file) in a zip/rar archive file and upload that file. You'll see this all over the community. You can safely put files from SavedSims to Downloads, they'll work fine from there. You can also rename them (If uploading, give sensible names. Letters/numbers and _ are fine, possibly - too, avoid special characters, spaces, and long names, because people usually aren't too happy about those as there's some debate whether it can slow down game loading).

You'll want to make sure the files work properly first in your game, though. It is possible there's something wrong in the mesh or recolor file, but without looking at the files it's a bit difficult to tell exactly what (I'm thinking UV-map issues if it's a conversion, or problems with the group names not matching up between the mesh and PropertySet).

You also have to make sure the mesh and recolor(s) are in your game/Downloads folder at the same time, and that you don't have any old copies of the same files in SavedSims that use the old mesh, because those would overwrite the files in Downloads (due to loading order - I think files in SavedSims would load after Downloads alphabetically).

One thing you'll want to do when you've worked with Bodyshop and encounter bugs with a project is to delete the cache files (accessory.cache and groups.cache) and then retest if this did anything. These files frequently cause problems with meshes and recolors (along with Bodyshop/game loading), and can seemingly cause bugs in the files even when there are none, due to cached old information.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 27th Mar 2021 at 7:54 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
The most common way to share files nowadays...


Thank you so much for your insight! The mod works wonders now. ✔

Mayst thou thy peace discov'r.
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