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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 27th Feb 2012 at 6:07 PM
Default Neighbourhood deco that lights up at night?
I'm in the process of converting some TS3 buildings (the Late Night apartment building shells) into neighbourhood deco for TS2.

Ideally, I would like the buildings to light up at night, in the same way that the TS2 Nightlife apartment building does. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be as simple as cloning the Nightlife building - somehow the cloning process (specifically the fix integrity step I think) seems to break whatever causes the lit-up effect.

So, I just wondered whether anyone had any ideas what might be going wrong (is the lit effect somehow hard-coded for this particular object only?), and how I could achieve the effect I want?
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*shrugs*
retired moderator
#2 Old 28th Feb 2012 at 7:33 PM
I really wish I could be more helpful because I've always wanted someone to do more with that building. I've looked into it at least once, but my object creation skills are lackluster at best.

If I recall correctly, there were two textures with one or two mesh groups: one for the day version and another for the night version. The game somehow knows to switch between the two. Again, IIRC, I think when I messed with it I managed to make a version that was perma-lit. I believe I deleted unnecessary mesh groups and kept the names without performing Fix Integrity. Perhaps try keeping the names the same and just changing the GUID wherever appropriate?

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

I don't mind if you call me "MSD" or something for short.
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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#3 Old 28th Feb 2012 at 8:30 PM
Thanks for your reply! Yes, I saw the two textures for day and night (there are also two separate but identical model subsets), and replaced them with my own accordingly. And as you say, with the original building the game just seems to 'know' to switch between the two states.

As an experiment, I tried just changing the GUID and leaving the model names intact (no fix integrity), and that of course confused the game (the original building disappeared from the catalog), but it did work in that there was a lit state at night and unlit during the day. It's not a permanent fix though of course!

I'm wondering if this is just not possible!
Instructor
#4 Old 1st Mar 2012 at 2:32 AM
Peform fix integrity and then have a look at the TEXT LISTS in the Material Names Tab . If "##0x1C050000!" is missing from the names of the strings add them manually, commit and save. Don't do a fix integrity after as it will just break this and you will have to start again.
Instructor
#5 Old 17th Mar 2012 at 8:13 PM
So I guess my reply was not at all useful. Sorry about that.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#6 Old 17th Mar 2012 at 11:56 PM
Probably the OP hasn't read this yet; doesn't mean to say it won't help others.
Instructor
#7 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 1:37 PM
Adding ##0x1C050000! did not seem to fix the issue - the building stubbornly refuses to use the 'day' texture and uses the 'night' texture night and day.
What I could do is repository the two window mesh groups to the original in-game building at SHPE level, using only 'neighborhoodbuildingres1_windows_day' and 'neighborhoodbuildingres1_windows_night' as the mat. def. file name.
This restored the ability to switch between night and day textures, but of course required much fiddling with the tiny pieces of mesh I used as windows. It also limits the "window" textures to those found in the original building. If you feel up to it, a default replacement texture could be created for the original building, with additional window shapes/textures added (and the original building would need to be remapped to use the new texture).
Unless someone comes up with a better idea?
Screenshots
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#8 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 2:23 PM
Thank you, buggybooz for your reply - sorry I didn't respond sooner, but I've not been well and hadn't had a chance to try your suggestion.

And thank you also, Gwenke! I had already wondered about slaving my new buildings to the NL one (nice to know we were on the same lines), but I hadn't worked out the details of it. I'm happy to try editing the original NL building as you suggest, so I think I'll give that a go.

Could I possibly have a look at the package for your lit-up barn, just so that I understand how you did it?
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#9 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 2:57 PM
Instructor
#10 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 3:13 PM
CuriousB: Certainly

HL: The package does not have BHAVs at all, unfortunately, so it does not work by having states in that sense.
I was disapointed to see that the 'light' only comes from the TXMT, there is no real light in the package. It would have been nice to make other lit-up hood deco.
Attached files:
File Type: zip  Gwenke_LitUpBarn05.zip (47.5 KB, 76 downloads) - View custom content
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#11 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 3:33 PM
hrmm. So what is the name of this building and where can I find it in SimPE? When having just NL enabled in the file table I see no buildings in Other/Neighborhood section.
Instructor
#12 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 4:32 PM
It's in Other/Neighbourhood/Misc, called 'Building', and it's the first item in the list in my SimPE (all EPs/SPs enabled)
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#13 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 6:02 PM
Thanks Gwen. I noticed that when cloned the Text Lists becomes empty. Maybe try adding three lines (0,1,2), with the first line as Building, second empty, and third 0. The XNGB resource is labeled Building, so maybe the Text List needs this reference.

EDIT: Gwen what does the version 05 and version 06 reference in your barn?
Instructor
#14 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 7:10 PM
When I cloned the Text List had 'Building' in line 0, nothing in line 1 and '0' in line 2. Anyway, these lines only change the description that shows up for the hood deco, I've changed them many times in my hood decos.
The version number is just that, a version number to keep track of the mesh versions I used. (The version number in line 1 is what shows up in game, the version number in line 2 is just a left-over from my first try when I did not remember where to put the descriptive text.)

Also, sorry about the flashing groundshadow in the uploaded barn - I originally used the same mesh group names as in the original building and changed the group names to be descriptive of the barn mesh groups before uploading. It seems I messed up with the groundshadow and now I can't seem to fix it :/
It's really a pain that you can't do fix integrity on hood deco and Fix TGI also only seemed to work once.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#15 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 8:22 PM
Thanks, Gwenke, for uploading your file - I'm going to try your suggestion.

I wish there was a simpler way! :p
Instructor
#16 Old 22nd Mar 2012 at 1:05 AM
If you go the way of default replacing the original texture, could you please make the new texture huge and leave space in it for me? I think I need to make a monster that only shows up at night and has bright yellow eyes
Instructor
#17 Old 4th Apr 2012 at 8:11 PM
I'm so glad that something good happened in this thread. Way to go.
Test Subject
#18 Old 16th Sep 2016 at 6:03 PM
*Stealth mode off*

Oh, I have some news on the subject (yeah, I know this thread is too old, but anyways)
You need to do the following:

Go to material definition of ‘day’ version first.
And change the type of it from ‘StandardMaterial‘ to ‘NeighborhoodBuildingMaterial‘
Then, add two new properties to it:
‘TexMaterial’
‘showOnDay’

TexMaterial should have the same value as ‘stdMatBaseTextureName‘ has, only without this hex code thing before it.
ShowOnDay must have ‘true’ as its value

The same goes for the night version material definition. Change type to ‘NeighborhoodBuildingMaterial‘, add ‘texMaterial’ and ‘ShowOnDay’
With only difference:
ShowOnDay must have ‘false’ as its value

That’s pretty much it

Here I have the same with some screenshots from SimPE.
I've also attached working template package file based on NL building clone ready to be cloned for creating hood decos with night lit up feature.
And if you gonna use it, make sure to update ‘texMaterial’ values according to new material names generated by cloning process.

This was discovered browsing through neighborhood material shader, which has these properties for the original building with lit up night windows.
I've tried to add this directly to the material definitions of cloned deco, and it worked.

*Stealth mode on*
Attached files:
File Type: zip  crqtt_working_litup_template.package.zip (153.4 KB, 46 downloads) - View custom content
Lab Assistant
#19 Old 22nd Oct 2017 at 4:12 PM Last edited by manu_prieto_cruz1995 : 22nd Oct 2017 at 4:36 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by Bagfran
I'm in the process of converting some TS3 buildings (the Late Night apartment building shells) into neighbourhood deco for TS2.

Ideally, I would like the buildings to light up at night, in the same way that the TS2 Nightlife apartment building does. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be as simple as cloning the Nightlife building - somehow the cloning process (specifically the fix integrity step I think) seems to break whatever causes the lit-up effect.

So, I just wondered whether anyone had any ideas what might be going wrong (is the lit effect somehow hard-coded for this particular object only?), and how I could achieve the effect I want?



after all this years here is buildings for hood deco with lights http://deeleesstuff.tumblr.com/tagged/hood-deco and http://criquette-was-here.tumblr.com/tagged/hood-deco

Also working streetlights http://criquette-was-here.tumblr.co...s-hood-deco-set
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