I've been working on my first-ever custom object. It's based on the gnome, so I believe is basegame compatible, kickable and stealable.

I'm working on attaching BHAVs to make it work as an autonomous 'trap' which will give food poisoning (at least the anims if not the disease) or, if successfully disarmed, cooking points plus some motive changes. That's all going okay, although certainly not finished yet.

Being round, I understand the mesh will be relatively high-poly. I've already reduced the count significantly by filling the cauldron with 'soup'. It is currently 1340 polys and 678 vertices - is this reasonable? Can I do something to reduce it further? The shape is a bit blocky, but any further smoothing makes it a much bigger file.

I'm still working on the texture too - for some reason, the map doesn't seem to fit perfectly. Although I colour between the lines in Paintshop, there are white gaps on the object in-game. I'm having to colour areas that are definitely outside the shapes on the map. Is this just something that happens, or am I making the map wrong?

Thanks for your feedback.

Oh, wow!!! But are the handles actually lying on the pot itself?? It looks to me as if they're up a little from it.

The rings don't touch the bowl sides, but the knobs are supporting them. I was imagining them very stiff, so they aren't going to flop down compeletely.

I suppose, if you wanted to, you could make two versions...

Personally for my computer I would have to pass, but my computer is old and lame.
800 polys per tile was kind of the old norm, but most new computers running all EPs probably won't have any issue. I think the polys standard now are much higher with the newer computers.

I like the pot, the colors seem a bit bright to me. Something more dark and grungy? I guess if it's poisoning Sims I expect it dreary. lol I like the handles as they are, it's giving nice definition. It's possible you could lower the polys if you changed the round knob holding the handles to something more square.

You might find this tutorial helpful, http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=323671, it's mapping a sphere. It's definitely a difference between the actual mapping and the map your using as your template.

hmmm, you're having trouble with the UV Map? Would you mind attaching the mesh and the texture, perhaps I can help? i also believe I may be able to help you reduce the polycount, but I'd need to see the mesh itself before i could point anything out. a .OBJ file would work fine. (I use milkshape, but I think .obj files are pretty universal)

I'm using Wings3D. Thanks for offering, I'm happy to give you the files to look at. Obj attached below.

HL, I'm still working on the textures - for some reason the stone comes out a lot brighter in-game than in Paintshop. Must find some algae or something. The gold has more texture on it now too. Don't have a pic of that just now.

The animations are rather jerky, I need to find a way to smooth them out. Possibly leading in with more animations? I've attached the entire package and recolour - happy for someone to test and offer feedback.

I also need to find out how to add a popup window to tell the player what has happened. I expect there's a tute for that around here somewhere. Edit - found one eventually - they're calling it 'dialogue'. http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...highlight=popup

EDIT: I've got the dialogues working, that's excellent. However, I'm getting an error at the end of the last (hula) animation - "object referred to must be a person".

And I noticed another mesh issue - there's a small plinth that seems to have disappeared underground in-game. Of course, it might be best just to remove it if not needed, for the sake of a few polys.

Can someone tell me why I have to triangulate everything before mapping it? I could have saved some polys by not triangulating the soup, which is just a flat piece anyway. I assume it needs to be done for some reason.

EVEN MORE EDIT:

okay, I've got it placeable on coffee tables and end tables.

The animation jerkiness bothers me much less now that the popups are interrupting the visual flow, but I'd still like to slow down the whole sequence a bit more. It's all been and gone before you've wondered if you made the right choice about letting them taste it.

I've made some grungier recolours. Most of them still need work, but they're coming along. Not sure how much to do while the mesh still needs tweaking. (I noticed it isn't centred on the tile either, even though I checked that in Wings.)

I've posted the latest mesh and removed the previous version. Let me know how it goes.

Enough with the editing.

Should I remove the gnome-related animations now that it's placeable on tables? Would stealing / kicking attempts break something?

I've beavered away at this on my own until it's almost right. The only things I'd still prefer to fix are:

- the placement - it doesn't sit in the middle of the tile, but too far back, which makes it poke into the wall a little.

- the polycount - either it isn't possible, or I have no idea how to use Wings - most likely the latter of course. I found a tute:
http://nene.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=289974
but I'm having trouble figuring out how it relates to my object.

let me take a look.

can you attach the texture file you're using, please?

Edit: okay, a few pointers:

1. Since this is the bottom of the object and you'll never see the bottom in-game, you can delete this vertex, saving you 16 polygons.



2. By hiding part of the "soup" part, we see that you actually have an inside to the cauldron. since your "soup" is opaque, you'll never see the inside of the cauldron, and though it's a nice touch, it's costing you LOTS of polygons, so we need to axe that.



3. Looking up at the bottom of your "soup" we see that you have a bottom to the soup, which costs you a few polygons, and it's not really necessary.



Also, you could reduce the polygon count of the soup by making it have less "sides," meaning less than the cauldron has itself.

Thanks, Rapsheba.

I actually figured out mostly how to fix it this evening - it's down to 804 polys, mainly by re-doing the handles and knobs. I reduced the soup as well.

I tried to get rid of the pot insides, but couldn't figure out how to select that part - I found an option that cut away half the object so I could see inside, but when I try to select those faces, I'm actually selecting the (invisible) outside section.

I think the polycount is acceptable as it is now, but if I can get it lower, I suppose I should.

Oh, maybe I have to move the soup out of the bowl so I can access the hidden parts? That's an idea.

EDIT: Yes, that worked!

Not sure if I'm using the correct method for removing faces: I tride 'hide', which made the faces black but when combined, blackness extruded from the top. Weird. No good.

So I used the 'dissolve' option, which appears to be okay. In fact, it did what I was trying for in the first place - flattening the inside of the cauldron so the 'soup' was made out of that original sphere.

I'm down to 657 polys now, much better. Thanks for the tips.

Do you know why the object isn't centring on its tile? How can I fix that? The original object (gnome) seems to be centred.

just try selecting the vertexes then hitting the delete key on your keyboard.

How is the gnome centered on the tile? Because if it's off-center, yours should be as well.

The gnome does seem to be centred. That's why it's confusing me.

hmmmm, try looking into if the slot has been moved.

How would I know?

I found this: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=242079

which talks about altering CRES files when an object has been made smaller than it was. The footprint of my caludron isn't off-centre, just the cauldron itslef. But I'll see if I can make something of it.

Go to the resource node for the main cauldron group, then go to CRES Hierarchy, and look for something called "slot." Click it, and look at the values in the bottom left corner to see if any of the values are anything other than "0.00000000"

In wings have your gnome imported, select it, go to tools, save bounding box. Unselect gnome, select pot and select tools, move to bounding box. Then decide if you want to move x, y, or z.

Also for removing parts that are textured in wings, select the face(s) then right click / texture / hidden. It usually shows as blue. This works for reducing polys by say taking the entire underside faces of the soup part, deleting all lines and vertex, then setting it to use hidden texture. It looks like you've managed this part well, just thought I'd throw that out for the next mesh.

You mean where it says Translation? None of the values are 0, in fact.

Can I just alter them then, or is it more complicated than that?

Also, thanks for the tips, HugeLunatic. I'll try to remember for next time. I'm not sure if that method would save more than what I've done, but perhaps it would. This current mesh won't be nearly so hard on your computer as it was, anyway.

EDIT: Altering the CRES values made no discernible difference. Possibly there was more I needed to know about that. However, comparing the mesh with the original gnome worked. Thanks, HL!

New problem - changing the mesh means I had to re-map it, and I can't get it the same shape as it was. Consequently, the recolours have a terrible line on them now. What setting do I need to cxhange in UVMapper?

The map where the bowl shape covers the top half is the old one, what on earth did I choose to get it that way? I've been trying everything I can see.

Pics attached, also the current mesh.
Thanks for your help.

It seems that dissolving the inside of the bowl produces this mapping problem. I still can't figure out a way to correct it though.

Presumably making the base and inside of the bowl into separate groups might allow me to use the map space beter, but I can't seem to do it. Aaargh.EDIT: I figured it out in the end. With great care, it was possible to select just the main part of the bowl, and let that stretch over the top of the lines representing the base and top of the sphere.

HugeLunatic, I can't figrue out this that you said:


I find no texture menu when right-clicking. Probably because nothing is textured, but then I can't find out how to texture them. There's an old tute by Abstractsimmer that might be the answer, but I can't get it to work for me.

I've rebuilt the package so that the kick interaction remians, but is non-autonomous, and my new interaction is also autonomous again. Thank goodness I saved all the earlier versions as I went along.

Currently, the issue remaining is that the BHAV has gone a bit wrong. It's following the entire code through instead of leaping to the end when told to do so. It used to work; wonder what I've done this time.

As usual my memory remembered the incorrect word. Not sure what's up with the BAHV but for future use I will post how to remove some faces in Wings. I had to do this for my Madrid dining set because the chairs were too high, and I was close to scrapping it.

Pic 01
I created a sphere, selected the top faces I want to inset, right click and intrude. Do Not unselect.


Pic 02
After the Intrude, I then press delete key to remove all lines/vertices that are highlighted. Do Not unselect.

Pic 03
Right Click / .Material. - Next pop up box select _hole_
It then turns blue and will have no texture applied.

This sphere started at ~208 and after the intrude/delete/hole it was around 113 polys.

Oh, thankyou - those terms do look familiar, so I can probably do that next time.

I'm calling the cauldron finished now, and starting work on the next trap for the set. You wouldn't believe how hard it can be to make a simple box with a curved lid! However, I think I got it in the end. Haven't tested it yet.

what else are you making?

I'm hoping to make a set of different trap objects, each with its own challenges. They are to be autonomously usable, with the idea that you can create a Tomb Raider/ Indiana Jones etc type of scenario and see how your sims perform.

One down, quite a few more to go!