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Original Poster
#1 Old 3rd Jun 2020 at 10:41 PM
Default Where are these stripes coming from?
I've been looking at making replacements for the "town car" carpool. I've been using the recolors Skyline-X made for Willem81's drivable version, since Skyline-X is long-gone, and doesn't have any stated policy on reusing textures. The textures seem to work reasonably well with the carpool mesh, but I can't figure out what's causing the whitish strips to appear on the doors, since the textures don't appear to contain anything which is that color. I'm also not sure of what causes the black stripe to appear.

I've attached a screenshot and a copy of the texture.
Screenshots
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#2 Old 4th Jun 2020 at 8:13 AM Last edited by vegan_kaktus : 4th Jun 2020 at 1:47 PM.
I extracted the town car mesh, opened it up in Milkshape and slapped on the texture. In Milkshape it looks normal though. Is your default only replacing vehicletowncar-main_txtr? If so, what DXT format did you use? DXT3? Then perhaps you could try DXT5? I'm not sure this could help, but it might be worth a try. (I was going to try this out, but I haven't actually played the game for years (been working on my neighborhood) so I don't know how to make the town car appear haha).
Screenshots
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Original Poster
#3 Old 4th Jun 2020 at 1:21 PM
Thanks. I can use SimPE to extract a mesh, but I'm completely lost in Milkshape or Blender.

I've been using DXT1, which is what Maxis uses. The default only replaces vehicletowncar-main_txtr, the only other textures that carpool uses are one for the ground shadow and a "chrome" texture for the metal bits.

I get the carpool to appear by using InSim sectionals to manipulate the Sim's career and career level, and the in-game date and time.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 4th Jun 2020 at 1:25 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 4th Jun 2020 at 1:40 PM.
Use DXT3 or 5, as DXT1 (and Import) sometimes makes artefacts on the textures.

The black stripe is mapped under the grille, but there's nothing to suggest a white stripe. Everything around the black stripe is mapped where there's blue. There's also no chrome parts or anything of the sort in that area.
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#5 Old 4th Jun 2020 at 1:37 PM
I second simmer22, DXT3 or 5! I've never actually used DXT1 for anything (because it makes the textures shit), even though EA uses it. EA's lifo files are usually DXT3 though :-)

Also, thank you for explaining! *heads over to download*
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Original Poster
#6 Old 4th Jun 2020 at 1:57 PM
Well, it certainly sounds like the white stripes qualify as an "artifact", so I'll try DXT3. Thanks, folks.
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Original Poster
#7 Old 5th Jun 2020 at 6:49 PM
sigh... Using DXT3 and DXT5 didn't make any difference.
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#8 Old 5th Jun 2020 at 7:49 PM Last edited by vegan_kaktus : 5th Jun 2020 at 9:07 PM.
Really? That's weird, hmm.. I'll try to make a quick DR myself to see if it happens for me as well.

Edit: as expected, it did.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 5th Jun 2020 at 8:46 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 5th Jun 2020 at 8:58 PM.
I can not figure out where those stripes are coming from. They seem to be mapped in the blue area (the black stripe is mapped under the grille, as I said before - that's why it's black), there's no white area close by, and if the envcube or chrome had anything to do with it, I think more of the car would be involved.


The UVmap appears to have a "mapped below the designated area" bug. It's a problem that rarely affects objects, but is known to cause problems with CAS items (like invisible textures - I think it has to do with whether the material shader handles tiling, which seems to be a "no" for certain CAS items, can't remember if it's SimSkin or SimStandardmaterial, or both). Anyway - it doesn't seem to affect this particular item. The car also appears to have a lot of normal issues, but that could be a problem between export/import since I can't see the same issues on the mesh in the pictures of the original download. That could also be the case for the UVmap bug. I've had some meshes completely bug out for normals and UVmaps between Milkshape and SimPE (mostly OBJs), but it is weird it's happening for the GMDC.
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#10 Old 5th Jun 2020 at 9:12 PM Last edited by vegan_kaktus : 11th May 2022 at 10:09 AM.
I think I might have found the problem. The group named "vehicletowncar_chrome" is repo'd to "metal-chrome_txtr", and when assigning it to that texture in Milkshape it looks like this:


Like it does in-game. I'm thinking it should be possible to edit the mesh or remap it homehow. I'll play around with it a bit!

Edit: I think I might have fixed it? I cut out the parts on the handles + the stripes below and then merged them with the vehicletowncar_gloss group, then it looked like the attached image in-game. I'm thinking this might be a way to do it?
Screenshots
Mad Poster
#11 Old 5th Jun 2020 at 9:24 PM
Are we looking at the same mesh?
Just wondering, because the closest I can find in the "VDPD_vehicletowncar" file is "vehiclesedanwhite_chrome" and there's no stripes in that mesh group. Everything even remotely related to the stripes is in the "main" mesh group.

If you're using a different mesh but the same textures, then I'm guessing that mesh could have the mesh stripes. The car you linked to above does not have the meshed chrome stripes, though.

If you're looking at the extracted town car mesh, then I'm guessing that one looks a bit different. If you have the default file for it I wouldn't mind taking a look and see if anything could be done with the stripes (remapping or doing a bit of trickery with the resources).
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#12 Old 5th Jun 2020 at 9:27 PM
The mesh I extracted is "vehicleTowncar_tslocator_gmdc", or am I looking at the wrong mesh here haha? :-D
Mad Poster
#13 Old 5th Jun 2020 at 9:32 PM
^ Looks like you found the one with the fault, so it's probably the right one
I was just looking at the files in the first post.
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#14 Old 5th Jun 2020 at 9:38 PM Last edited by vegan_kaktus : 5th Jun 2020 at 9:49 PM.
Ahhh now I understand, haha! Sorry for me being confused. I'm assuming this is what dharden is after, so I'll attach the defaulted mesh (with my edit) here. I haven't tested it much, and I'm not sure if what I did will affect anything else, but I'm thinking it shouldn't. I'm not even sure what the parts I merged are supposed to do, since they don't look like they "do" anything at all.

Edit: I didn't replace the texture in the default, just so you know :-)
Screenshots
Attached files:
File Type: zip  vehicleTowncar_default.zip (263.1 KB, 2 downloads)
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Original Poster
#15 Old 6th Jun 2020 at 3:07 AM
Thanks, @vegan_kaktus, that's exactly what I was after.
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#16 Old 6th Jun 2020 at 7:18 AM
You’re welcome! Glad I could be of help :-D
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