Ok... I've been looking into this for a while now, and now I think I'll need to mess around with it... but if I need to use photoshop, then my testing is probably not going to go very far because I hate that stuff... I also need to look around quite a bit because this is absolutely something I know nothing about... but it's a pretty cool tool.

Is there any info on EL's trash and clean overlays and if they are VFX? Do you think it's possible to adjust those?

Sorry, noob question, this is the first time i download this tool XD How do I get a working .package file for an effect? I'm trying to get the images of the Laundry Day washer control panel FX but it keeps exporting a package with one entry that is unknown to both Studio and S4pe

Hi Dica! The effect tool does not contain the images, only the actual VFX, if that makes sense. If you want to edit the image that is displayed by that VFX, you need to find it in S4S. This post explains slightly what I mean: http://modthesims.info/showthread.p...123#post5623123

oh got it! Thanks for the response! Hoping that one day we'll be able to fully create our own VFXs, or even simply edit them in one tool. would be absolutely awesome

I think the trash are just objects placed in the base conditional layers, some of the objects may have a VFX attached for various effects.

These are the build/buy objects:

sculptFloor1x1_EP09GENtrash01 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248931)
sculptFloor1x1_EP09GENtrash02 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248933)
sculptFloor1x1_EP09GENtrash03 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248945)
sculptFloor1x1_EP09GENtrash04 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248947)
sculptFloor2x2_EP09GENtrash01 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248935)
sculptFloor2x2_EP09GENtrash02 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248949)
sculptFloor2x2_EP09GENtrash03 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248951)
sculptFloor2x2_EP09GENtrash04 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248953)
sculptFloor4x4_EP09GENtrash01 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248937)
sculptFloor4x4_EP09GENtrash02 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248939)
sculptFloor4x4_EP09GENtrash03 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248941)
sculptFloor4x4_EP09GENtrash04 - prototype_RetailCompatible (248943)

and these are the world objects:

streetDeco_ep09_eco_billboard_lights_industrial_trash_1 - (251458)
streetDeco_ep09_eco_billboard_lights_industrial_trash_2 - (251457)
streetDeco_ep09_ep09_eco_billboard_lights_suburbs_trash - (251460)
StreetDeco_EP09_EP09_eco_env_pipes_water_trash - (251487)
StreetDeco_EP09_EP09_world_smokestack_smoke_trash - (251480)
streetDeco_ep09_round_tank_trash - (251455)
streetDeco_ep09_trash_blowing - (251456)
streetDeco_EP09BillboardLightsInnerCityGreen_01 - (251143)
streetDeco_EP09BillboardLightsInnerCityTrash_01 - (251121)
streetDeco_EP09BillboardLightsInnerCityTrash_02 - (251140)
streetDeco_EP09BillboardLightsInnerCityTrash_03 - (251141)
streetDeco_EP09TrashBag01_black - (244361)
streetDeco_EP09TrashBag01_green - (244362)
streetDeco_EP09TrashBag01_white - (244363)
streetDeco_EP09TrashBag02_black - (244364)
streetDeco_EP09TrashBag02_green - (244365)
streetDeco_EP09TrashBag02_white - (244366)
streetDeco_EP09TrashBathtub - (244318)
streetDeco_EP09TrashDresser - (244315)
streetDeco_EP09TrashFridge - (244260)
streetDeco_EP09TrashFridgeDoor - (244314)
streetDeco_EP09Trashpile_01 - (244351)
streetDeco_EP09Trashpile_02 - (244352)
streetDeco_EP09Trashpile_03 - (244353)
streetDeco_EP09Trashpile_04 - (244354)
streetDeco_EP09TrashpileLine_01 - (244355)
streetDeco_EP09TrashpileLine_02 - (244356)
streetDeco_EP09TrashpileLine_03 - (244357)
streetDeco_EP09TrashSingle_canGreen - (244372)
streetDeco_EP09TrashSingle_canRed - (244371)
streetDeco_EP09TrashSingle_cartonBlue - (244375)
streetDeco_EP09TrashSingle_cartonGreen - (244374)
streetDeco_EP09TrashSingle_cartonRed - (244373)
streetDeco_EP09TrashSingle_ChineseTakeout - (244376)
streetDeco_EP09TrashSingle_pizzaBox - (244377)
streetDeco_EP09TrashSingle_waterBottle - (244378)
streetDeco_EP09TrashStove - (244316)
streetDeco_EP09TrashStoveDoor - (244317)

I may have missed some.

I was wondering if you know where we can find the settings of an effect as in whether it only plays a single time or if it loops automaticaly. Also things as spawning at certain times and disappearing at certain times. Or only spawning in certain seasons or wheather conditions. I don't think it's in the tuning, but somehere to be found in your tool...the question though is where..? Do you have any idea?

In the EmitRateCurve group, if you set the field Cycles to zero the effect will loop continuously.

I think most of the seasonal effects/changes are world objects in conditional layers, they are found in the .world files but I haven't done much research into this yet so I don’t know much about it.

This is amazing! Going to be taking a look at it today for one of my new mods. It's using some EA VFX from one of the game packs. Any luck or updates on cloning VFX instead of only overrides?

edit nvm I can't read and misunderstood you description lol

Does this need an update for Nifty Knitting?

Version numbers hasn't changed since Eco Lifestyle, have you encountered any problems ?

No, sorry, I thought it would require an update each patch. I was just checking to see if it needed one. Thanks!

Edit: Actually, I did notice that Custom Colors did not save no matter what, can that be added as well as the ability to remove the custom colors once we are done with them?
Also the reload button becomes unclickable once you save the package.

Also, just wanted to let you know we did eventually figure out the occult plumbobs! Turns out they are mesh replacements.

I will have a look at this for the next release, regarding the Custom Colors, I will make them persistent while the tool is running but I will not save them to disk (for now).

Did the new patch break the tool?

I am getting an error when I click the "Main" button



If I click continue and click on the Main button again I get a few effects to show up but it's not all of them

Getting the same error!

Just a little update, Sound Effects, of all things, has been updated to version 8, something has also changed with MetaParticleEffects and I am still working on figuring out that part.

I have updated SoundEffects to version 8, added Distribute Effects and fixed a mapping error in MetaParticleEffects, new version is now 2.0.7.

I've a question about a missing Texture (Instance) in the tool.
In the past I made an effect texture override for the sulani chickens. Now as you made it possible to clone effects, I thought I might be able to make the override into a standalone effect, so I can make my own chicken breeds.
The thing is though, that when cloning the "ep07_island_chickens" effect code, the Instance of the chicken texture (Group: 0051185B **** Instance: 6010E7B4922ECB22 ****Type: 1B192049) is no where to be found.

Am I missing something or is the tool missing something? (Probably it's me)

ep07_island_chickens is a MetaParticleEffect that references island_chicken which uses the following Object models found in the base game files:

MODL 0x971D02FC7D786496
MODL 0x971D02FC7D786488
MODL 0x30F57B4C7CC502B2
MODL 0x30F57B4C7CC502AC
MODL 0x842D0D172846EFB1

ParticleEffects can reference both Image resources and Object models, I think DrawFlags is used to determine the type but I need to do more research on that, I am going to add an Image viewer and later also an Object viewer, just need to find the time to work on it.

Thaks for the answer back then, I eventually found the 'missing textures', although I couldn't get it to work to make a clone working with another texture. I need to do some more testing I guess.
I've just tested the tool again, but since we just had an update, it's giving the "Unable to read beyond te end of the stream" error again.

I hope you can fix it this time too, but I'm quite sure you can.

Yes, they do seem to change the Swarm binary format quite often, but I have now uploaded a new version that should work.

One suggestion @denton47 - the program can run into an error while going through the registry(?) in determining where TS4's installation location is, and can't start up as a result.

I think that a separate entry to manually type in the installation folder (like in most other programs) would be helpful.

I forgot to mention this in the original post, you can create a file called Install_Dir.txt containing a line with your TS4 install directory, if you put that file in the TS4VFXTool directory the tool will use this information instead.