Ok guys, I promised you that I would try and get to the bottom of this mystery....and it seems that I may have .... (hopefully!)

After extensive research and testing I can confirm that :

1) The catalogue picture is produced by the games 'catalogue' camera, whose 'zoom level' is generated by the entire mesh(es) of the the GMDC(s).

That is to say, the game's camera 'sees' the WHOLE object, including any shadows, light patterns or indeed, ANY and ALL mesh(es) contained withing (ALL) the GMDC(s). The 'closeness' (or zoom) is then set by the camera to include ALL these mesh(es).

2) The 'clickable area' is of no interest to the camera whatsoever. That is to say, that even if you import your new mesh(es) and untick the 'include in bounding mesh' option, the camera will still INCLUDE them for the purpose of taking the catalogue picture.

Whilst this is OK for most 'normal' objects, it's not for others, particularly objects with 'unusual' mesh arrangements, (like lights).

A good example of this are the wall sconces. Whilst the sconce itself is quite small, the light patterns are quite large. If the catalogue camera generates the catalogue picture in its 'usual' way, the resulting picture would not be very good (i.e. the sconce would be very small). To compensate for this, there are some 'fixed' camera postions built into individual cres files in the objects05.package. As discussed above by Numenor, these can overide the 'normal' camera postion in order to get a 'close up' of the object, and forget about the shadows or light patterns. These can be called by using the methed described by Numenor above (adding an array to the 'items' in the thumbnailExtention block of the cres).

Maxis appears to have decided that certain objects need these 'special'camera settings (quite rightly!) for better gameplay.....

However, there is one possible drawback to the new creator. If the creator wishes to make an object considerablly different in size (or position) than the clone they use to make it, there is a possibilty that there MAY be a 'camera preset' already in the cres's thumbnailExtention block.... and this will STOP the camera from generating the catalogue picture in the 'normal' way.

However, this 'preset' can easily be removed....and the game will generate the new objects picture in the 'normal' way....

To remove a camera 'preset' ....



1. Click on the Resource Node (CRES) (in the top left window)
2. Click on the Resource Node (in the top right window)
3. Make sure the Content tab is clicked
4. Using the drop down list, change the Blocklist to 'thumbnailExtention'
5. Click the array entry listed in 'Items' and then hit the 'Delete' button. Committ and Save.

(this is basically the reverse proceedure that Numenor describes above for ADDING a preset)


I'm posting this here because I know that many creators (including me) like to use the Musee Vase as a base clone object (because it has many 'qualities' that you may be looking for (2 subsets, two texture files, a 'reasonable' Material Defination etc.). This particular object however DOES have a camera preset (sculptureChinaVase_thumbnailShape) and as such, unless it is removed, the camera will not 'zoom' correctly to your new object.

Now, a 'word of warning' about shadows.... These meshes ARE seen by the game camera, and WILL affect the overall picture for the catalogue. Therefore it is advisable to ALWAYS pay attention to the shawdow meshes in your objects (as opposed to just 'blacking out' the shadow texture to make them dissappear!). Unnessesarily large shadow meshes WILL make your catalogue pictures smaller...

In this example, the wall shadow for the coat is unnecessarily large and results in a 'small' catalogue picture. Resizing the shadow meshes to within a reasonable size of your object will result in better catalogue pictures!. (This applies also to light patterns, although you MAY want to keep those quite large, in which case you can ADD a camera preset to the thumbnailExtention block to force the camera to 'zoom in'. (The objects05.package conatins quite a few 'presets' so it can be a case of finding the most appropriate one. (Incidentally, you can apply any 'preset' to any type of object.... it's just trial and error until you find the best one for your new object).


[insert pictures]

this mesh .....will produce .......this catalogue picture






whilst this (overly large wall shadow) mesh.......will produce this catalogue picture









Finally, mirrors.....

They usually contain a mesh called 'mirror bounding box'. (Do not confuse this with the 'clickable area' of the mesh....it's not for that purpose.)


This CAN be resized to match the size of your 'new mirror' (remember that this mesh will also be taken into consideration by the camera when it generates the catalogue picture, so if the box is very large, and you have a small mirror, the resulting picture will be of a small mirror).

****Always make sure when importing this mesh to UNCHECK the 'add to bounding box' option (which IS for setting the clickable area) This IS checked by default (because it does not contain the word 'shadow' in it) so you need to uncheck it ......otherwise you will have an incorrect 'clickable area'.****

It works brilliantly!! Thank you Congrats to boblishman and Numenor for following up on this and taking seriously something that has been a minor nuisance.

One other positive side effect I should note of boblishmans work is that the thumbnails that were reversed (right for left) have corrected themselves and now display properly

Thank you for the thorough explanation, boblishman . This should be very useful information to many object creators. The only thing I'm wondering if it always worked that way, that the thumbnail was formed based on the whole mesh, or if it's been changed at some point? I seem to remember having problems with getting correctly resized thumbnails when I first started creating objects, but it might be that a shadow mesh was the problem. Lately I've been resizing thr shadows to fit the size of the object, so that might explain it.

As I only have the base game installed (no expansion packs) it must have always worked this way, so I it's very likely that your 'unchanged' shadow meshes were causing your intitial problems ...

The only thing I'm now concened about is that there is no reference to any of this topic in any object creation tutorials (well, none that I've seen anywhere) ... and I'm wondering if it's worth posting this information as a 'sticky' (or maybe moving/reposting it the tutorial section?)

It seems to me that shadows (in particular) are somehow considered 'not important' in the (current) tutorials. They have been a particular interest of mine for a while, and now even more so...

...it seems a shame that this information may lay 'hidden' in this thread...?

I agree, shadows are too often ignored in object creation. One reason might be that many players have the shadows turned off in their graphics options, so they never see them, and therefore also don't see the mismatched shadows their objects have.

Editing shadows is not something that necessarily belongs into a beginners' object tutorial, in my opinion, but it's definitely worth its own tutorial, or its own mention in advanced object tutorials. In any case, it should get more attention than it is getting now . Often I notice that custom objects that are otherwise of high quality have shadows that don't match it at all. Missing shadows are not so much of a problem (sometimes I'm lazy and just remove them in my own objects instead of editing), but completely wrong kind of shadows are a problem, at least to me personally.

So, how about a separate shadow tutorial, then? I've answered to several creators' questions about editing shadows, so it seems there are people who would find it useful .

well..... I have already written a 'quick guide' to this in another post (in the OW thread I think...I'll find it and put a link in a while) ....but I do believe it would be a useful addition in the tutorial section...

I think many (particularly who have just begun like me) ignore the shadows because of just that - there is little information about creating a realistic shadow. If a shadow is a simple square, I leave it in..if it is an odd shape unrelated to the new object, I take it out.

ok the link is http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...7688#post977688

Thank you,boblishman for this easy thumbnail tutorial,I now have nice thumbs!

I'd like to use a TXTR swatch as a design mode thumbnail. I am making some wall-matching objects and the most important part of selecting for the player will be to see exactly which wall the recolour matches. If anyone finds a way to do this please let me know.

I think you can't prevent the game from rebuilding the thumbnails on-the-fly, whenever needed.

You could try to do something that I never attempted myself (but it shouldn't be difficult...), i.e. creating a custom "thumbnail" CRES for your object.

1) Using SimPE's "Finder", search for "thumbnail_cres": a list of files will appear; relying on their name, choose one that fits your object (as for the size of the object: 1-tile, 2-tiles etc)
2) Double-click on the chosen thumbnail CRES, wait for the package to load and then extract it
3) load the extracted CRES in your package
4) rename it, assigning exactly the same name of the main CRES, plus "_thumbnail" (so, the resulting name will be: yourCresName_thumbnail_cres); manually change the GroupID from 0x1532fa to 0x1c050000; FIX TGI and commit.
5) open the main CRES, select the "thumbnailExtention" block and fill in the exact name of the thumbnail CRES (without the _cres extension, but with the ##0x1c050000! prefix).
6) Re-open the thumbnail CRES and adjust the Translation and the Rotation parameters, so to point the camera facing the object, at the right height: in this way, the resulting thumbnail should resemble a swatch (I haven't run any tests about the right parameters to fill in the Translation fields...)

Important - If the main CRES does NOT have a "thumbnailExtention" block, all the above can't be done; at least, I have doubts that it's possible to add that block without making the CRES crash the game.

This seems like the best place to ask this. I have a problem with with blue thumbnails, and am wondering why they're doing it.

The set in question is a buyable grass mesh I released a while back.
It's a repository set, but certainly not the first one I made. It seems to be the first time the thumbnails are messed up, though.

Here's what the catalog looks like after 'refreshing' the thumbnails (deleting the lot and letting the game generate them)
The master object is rendered properly, but the two derived objects are an ugly blue.



However, if you click on them, you DO get the right display.



They're made using the stdMatAlphaTestEnabled '1' instead of stdMatAlphaBlendMode to make the invisible bits, and the game renders both sides of every face.

Any idea why the game seems to make a pic twice? And how to fix the normal thumbnail?

If the recolours appear correctly in the catalog, like in this case, I can think to two different causes:

1) The references to the default Material Definitions in the Shape are not correct (double check the name and if they correctly have the 0x1c050000! prefix)
2) The problem is just in the thumbnail: regenerate the thumbnails by holding down the CTRL key and right-clicking on them (or just delete the packages in the Thumbnail folder).

thanks Numenor, your first idea worked like a charm.
I'm a bit surprised the objects actually worked, since the shape referred to one of the slaves, instead of the master