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Alchemist
Original Poster
#1 Old 14th Dec 2009 at 10:33 PM
Default Distorted bookcase mesh
I cloned the Colonial Bookcase and imported my bookcase into the game. It came into the game with a lot of distortion. Thinking it might be the placement of the books which was the problem I made a test bookcase by just using my frame and leaving the EA books alone. The pic below shows this bookcase (so the books are not sitting on shelves and run through the walls of the book nooks of the shelf...and I didn't touch the mapping at all so it looks awful) with the books still distorted.



The strange thing is that the distortion does not always look the same:



and sometimes there is no distortion although the extra books don't show up either:



However, if it distorts on placement, the distortion is fixed and does not change or go away with movement.

I tried taking the Colonial Bookcase and making it into an obj and then overwriting the MLOD and MODL with the unchanged obj. This bookcase looks fine in the game and has no distortion. So I know the issue is something I'm doing in MS but I can't figure out what. I saw the previous thread here about bookcases and it seems that bookcase had a different issue than this one and no firm resolution was reached on how to fix it anyway.

I'm hoping that since then someone has managed to create a working bookcase and any help or ideas on what to try to fix this is appreciated. I've been trying for days to get this thing to work.
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Alchemist
Original Poster
#2 Old 16th Dec 2009 at 2:06 AM
Sorry for the double post...but let me rephrase this question.

Does anyone know of a user-made bookcase that doesn't distort in the game and would provide a link to it? I'm trying to find one so I can look at it and see if I can figure this out myself.

I've searched MTS and the 'net looking and I've found one bookcase. This bookcase distorts in my base (no patch) game just like the ones that I've made.

Thanks for any help.
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#3 Old 16th Dec 2009 at 3:12 AM
LoL Well the one bookcase I've made so far asploded in game. Everything asploded outward when placed and now it just has tons of faces missing/invisible. I will let you know if I ever get it fixed.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#4 Old 16th Dec 2009 at 4:24 AM Last edited by orangemittens : 16th Dec 2009 at 4:47 AM.
There are only two which will make the round trip through the tools...the Colonial and the Modern Modular. I haven't tried the Modern Modular yet but the Colonial still gives me exploded books if I try to change the bookshelf frame in MS at all. If you try any but these two they are guaranteed to explode without question...the original object won't go through without changes.

The Colonial, on the other hand, should work because this one will make a round trip through the tools...but for some reason it just won't and it is puzzling. It is something involving what goes on in MS and the way that the mesh is interacting with the tools...I've tried every which way from Sunday but no luck.

Edited to add: "There are only two which will make the round trip through the tools'...at least this is my supposition based on the fact that these are the only two with three groups for the MLOD. I've actually tried two of the others that have only two groups for the MLOD and they both became horribly distorted in the game...asploded as you say...they actually look kind of scary IMO.

I haven't tried them all although I did clone/decompile them all...so I could be wrong about assuming the others won't go in without distortion. My guess is, though, that they would not.
Lab Assistant
#5 Old 18th Dec 2009 at 9:50 AM
Hi,

2 months ago I made a bookshell by cloning the Mission Bookshell. It was ok for me and I had no problems. But finding my texture not very nice I decided to redo it. So yesterday, I tried to clone Mission bookshell one more time, but when I opened the mesh in Milkshape I was surprise to find more groups that the first time. The mesh was different !!!
I explain : the first time I had 3 groups one for the bookshell, one for some alone books and one for the shadow (the first time I cloned it I had only the Base game and used S3EP, S3OC, ..., yesterday I had World Adventures and TSR) ; yesterday I had 5 groups : the 3 I had the first time and 2 others.
So I decided to try with others bookshelves ; result, there always more groups : 1 for the shadow, at least 3 for the bookshell (one, with bookshell alone, one with few books and the bookshell and one for more books and the bookshell) ; we can't see them without select them and move them near the others groups.
Why not ? all could be no problem, but in the Mission Bookshell's mesh one of the 3 groups seemed to have a problem, it seemed distorded. You can see it on the picture ; I've colored the groups in Milkshape so you can see the 3 groups that I talked about and the blue one has a distortion.

It's not normal, I think and It could explain the distortion Orangemittens Had in her bookshell by cloning this Mission bookshell.

What is more strange to me I think is that I've no distortion in my own game for my bookshell and for Orangemittens's one... I don't know why. Like Orangemittens I have the same game and patches but she has distortion and not me... She has asked me to talk about this strange blue group here so I do, but if someone has some idea to help us ...

Créa Sims 3

If you find I'm talking strange, don't forget I'm frenchy ... ;o)
Lab Assistant
#6 Old 18th Dec 2009 at 2:35 PM
Did you think about the geostates bookshelves have? I'm unsure how geostates relate to each other but the exploding could be explained quite good with a morph issue.

I don't know how to edit geostates in S3PE but I thought I could give you a hint anyway.

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Lab Assistant
#7 Old 18th Dec 2009 at 5:56 PM
I don't understand "geostates" ... What is this ? Could you explain with simple words ? ;o)

Créa Sims 3

If you find I'm talking strange, don't forget I'm frenchy ... ;o)
Alchemist
Original Poster
#8 Old 19th Dec 2009 at 12:18 AM
Thank you for posting your findings Samelo...the picture you posted lets me know that this isn't a meshing mistake I'm making in MS but, rather, is something integral to the object that needs to be dealt with in a fashion currently not possible with any tool...or maybe possible with S3PE but not yet described.

Thank you also for your response Teko...it is very kind of you. I'm with Samelo...I have no idea what the term geostates refers to and a Google search didn't help at all. All Google had to say on the topic is that dishwashers in Sims 3 have the same issue and that TSRW currently cannot make bookcases or dishwashers because of the problem with geostates.

If you can would you mind posting what a geostate is? Thanks again for your help.

Also, I'm wondering, if you know, why the geostate problem causes the bookcase to appear correctly in one person's game but distorted in another's. This is very confusing.
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 22nd Dec 2009 at 10:57 AM
I have no technical background of geostates other than they are part of one group, but I can show you some pics to clarify what they are at least visually.




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#10 Old 22nd Dec 2009 at 2:26 PM
So geostates are morphs. Multiple mesh subsets that are called and displayed based on something else. Like your bookshelf as empty when purchased, and more books when being used and your putting books in it.
Sockpuppet
#11 Old 22nd Dec 2009 at 3:07 PM
That explains it why one has a correct one ingame while the other hasn't.
Its the morph causing trouble.
Orange should prolly look for the morph and update it with the same edits, i guess.
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
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#12 Old 22nd Dec 2009 at 3:22 PM
I don't think there was a morph in the MLOD/MODL's. I don't remember one in my bookcase. I wonder where it is? If it's not being pulled with S3OC or if it is lost during decompiling?
Sockpuppet
#13 Old 22nd Dec 2009 at 4:27 PM Last edited by Base1980 : 22nd Dec 2009 at 4:38 PM.
Might be even a morph used for all bookcases, if thats the case cloned bookcases can give problems in some one elses game.

@Sameleo, maybe that blue group is the burnt morph
Lab Assistant
#14 Old 22nd Dec 2009 at 10:15 PM
The more I think about it I doubt geostates follow the nature of morphs. It's not really vertices moving in a goal direction. I guess that the geostate data defines how many rows of the mesh data are read. Geostate data includes stuff like Face Count, IndexBuffer Offset, VertexBuffer Offset and Vertex Count.

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Alchemist
Original Poster
#15 Old 23rd Dec 2009 at 12:35 AM
HL, what is a morph? Do any objects have one that you know of or is this something found in skins and hairs?

I've cloned all the bookcases from the base game and all but two have only two groups. These bookcases cannot survive a round trip through the tools even if you don't open them in MS. They turn to bizarre pointed shapes with angles flying everywhere.

Of the two bookcases that have three groups instead of two the Colonial will make a round trip through the tools as long as you don't alter the frame in MS. You can open it, change it to an obj, overwrite the original MLOD and MODL with the obj, recompile and etc. and put it in the game and it will work. I don't know about the other one since I haven't tried it but my guess is it would go through just fine also.

In any case, no bookcase I've looked at shows the geostate thingy in MS. The odd shapes I see in my bookcase correspond to the shape of the light blue group in Samelo's picture although that is not the only oddness I've seen out of the user-made bookcases. For one thing, sometimes if you place the bookcase close to a staircase this very long and pointed bar-like thing radiates outward from the bookcase and will even pierce walls inside the house to enter other rooms.

Teko, it sounds like you're saying that a given bookcase has sections of code which determine what state the bookcase is in and that these sections are tied to the mesh via the geostate thing. A given interaction with the geostate in-game should open a new section of code so that books are added appropriately. This makes sense with what I'm seeing in-game with my test bookcase. It looks fine until the moment when books are supposed to appear on the shelves...then the triangles appear instead of books. They are textured like books but shaped like the geostate thing.

It's unclear to me how to alter the shape of the mesh, ie. change the MLOD and MODL without also affecting the geostate. EA seems to have tied these things together in some diabolical fashion. If we could see the geostate in MS would it be possible to delete the bookcase frame but leave the geostate and then build a new frame around it? I wonder if that would work.
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#16 Old 23rd Dec 2009 at 2:35 AM
Morphs are also in shower doors and crib rails in TS2. TS3 seems to use groups instead. I've looked at a shower for TS3 and all the door sections are now groups.

Not sure how to explain, but it sounds like geostates are linked globally. Tied directly to the number of vertices. So it might be possible to change the bookcase frame and not the books. Not sure I would need to experiment a bit more. I was talking a bit with ChaosMageX in chat and I think it might work without changing the books. :/ So it's only similar to a morph in that it changes form based on something a sim does.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#17 Old 23rd Dec 2009 at 2:58 AM Last edited by orangemittens : 23rd Dec 2009 at 11:05 AM. Reason: tried test again/add pic
No...it will not work changing the frame while not changing the books. I just tried that again and it didn't work unfortunately.

The issue is the geostates that aren't showing up.

The pictures above show a mesh that has only been changed by changing the bookcase *frame*...no change was made to the books or their IMG and I just got the same result again with a retest.

The geostate thingy is either separate from the whole thing we're seeing in MS after the tools or it is somehow tied to the bookcase frame.

The one thing I can tell you...it isn't tied to the books. If only it were.

Edited again: In the hope that the Modern Modular might work if the books were left alone I tried that one too. All I did was delete the frame part from around the books and then make a new frame to fit. This is what it looked like in the game:

Sockpuppet
#18 Old 23rd Dec 2009 at 12:13 PM
Also delete your caches when restarting your game after a edit.
Even better is not to save a lot when placing your new object, or go to a new lot every time you test it.
I remember with sims 2 caches often get messed up with edited objects
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
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#19 Old 23rd Dec 2009 at 2:46 PM
That is highly amusing. That is exactly what my mesh had done too. I was chatting with ChaosMageX and he had mentioned that the geostates are linked to the MLOD/MDOL's with a fnv32 hash. I kinda get what he means, but I really can't explain it. But basically there is a geostate in your package being linked to another via a fnv32 (I think it's an instance number). Which means it's being renumbered.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#20 Old 24th Dec 2009 at 12:14 AM
Thank you both for continuing to consider the problem...and ChaosMage as well.

Base, I try to remember to delete my caches prior to every object test but just to be sure, since you pointed it out as a possible issue, I retested after emptying the caches but both bookcases still showed up with the geostate problem.

HL, I don't know what an fnv32 hash is but I can get the idea of it from the way the bookcases behave...it's just as if they are linking to something else that needs changed that isn't changeable in MS. Do either you or CM think there might be some way of editing the fnv32 hash using s3pe?
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
Lab Assistant
#22 Old 25th Dec 2009 at 10:00 AM
The FVN32 hash is actually used to identify the geostate. The geostates themselves are tied into the the MLOD and don't act as a separate resource.

Apparently there's quite a lot of information for geostates in the wiki:
http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?t...ms_3:0x01D10F34

If you'd like to experiment with the geostates values I recommend the Workshop because it's able to display you the immediate results. Unfortunately it doesn't allow yet to export meshes with geostates but you can use the interface Edit -> Project Contents -> Import/Export from/to .package.

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Alchemist
Original Poster
#23 Old 25th Dec 2009 at 11:31 AM
Thank you for the link Teko. I guess I need to work on my Wiki surfing and not rely so much on just Google.

HL, thanks for the suggestion. I think at one point I accidentally did that and the bookcase still didn't come out right...but I'll give it another shot intentionally just to be sure I'm not misremembering.

Reading the Wiki article makes me think that bookcases are just going to have to sit on the back burner right now...at least for me. It looks like a programmer-level problem. It's good to know that people are looking at the issue though.
Lab Assistant
#24 Old 26th Dec 2009 at 6:32 PM
Hello,
it's so strange... I make mesh with TSR and with the previest (RC1) version I could export booksheves's mesh without any problem, so I saw that the mesh had 3 groups for one (like I said last time) ; I think they were the famous "geostates" but now I'm not at home for hollidays so I had to upload TSR one more time onanother computer so I upload the last version (RC2) and I can't export bookshelves's mesh ; it said that we can't export mesh with "geostates" !!! But I could before ...
Perhaps could we make bookshelves mesh with this version of TSR ? (version RC1)

If someone would try it.

Créa Sims 3

If you find I'm talking strange, don't forget I'm frenchy ... ;o)
Alchemist
#25 Old 29th Dec 2009 at 12:38 AM
None of the bookshelves I examined (including the colonial one) or beds have geostates in them. They are used to transform the mesh during game play to a different mesh. They are not very common, all I know that has them is the stand for the guitar.

Geostates are like alternate meshes, and may have widely differing face counts, not like morphs, which just move vertices around. I have not seen anything that works like morphs do in the TS3 objects. The Objtool does not extract the alternate meshes, nor does it repackage them.

The bed, certainly the BedDoubleCountry, have group divisions that are unusual. Part of one pillow is included in the group with the frame on that one. Why it does this I do not know, as it is disassembled using the same method as any other object. However, that difference is probably related to why you cannot easily reproduce at least some beds.

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
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