Thanks Ignorantbliss, thats everything I need to know

Picture Quality
 

Hey all! First, thank you for the tutorial, I finally decided to give recolour a try, and it all worked perfect, but my picture quality...

I made a recolor of a big painting available in one of the Mango Sims Dining room sets (Set Trend), I worked with Photoshop, and it all works, but the picture quality in game is very very pixeled. I followed the advice of manually importing the different sized pictures and comitting, but it still appears like a pixel salad

I am attaching a picture so you can see. (yes, i flipped it horizontally because at my last attempt with other maxis painting it appeared flipped in game, so I wanted to be one step ahead with this one but it didnt require it, lol )

Thanx if anyone can help, my girls would appreciate it for their simmed room.

EDIT: How many dpi's do the images need? It says 96, but I don't know if this is right (must be, its only screen quality), and one more thing, Im working with BMP's since its only a painting... what depth do I need to save it with? 24? 32?

Thanx again!

May ensure it's not the case type mentioned in the following posts,

http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...5&postcount=166
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...6&postcount=170


How about adding this tip to the tutorial, so people will acknowledge that altogether in the tutorial?

Hope this may help.

Thanks Niol for the suggestion; I'm going to add this hint to the tutorial.

Hmm thank you, I already tried the different options of the DXT too, tried smoothen, sharpen and also none (forgot to mention it in my previous post). I wonder what am I doing wrong, I guess I'll have to try all of the options.

I really wonder how Maxis comes up with very good paintings, like the one with the bridge, it looks so clear, or the one with the silver kettle, looks sharp.

The base pictures I'm using are very big, usually from wallpapers that turned out to have 96 dpi, same as the pictures you need to replace in a recolour, then i shrink them and tweak them in photoshop so they have the exact shape and size.

Just a question: perhaps you, by chance, do an "Update all images" after having built the DXT? This would ruin the work done by the DDS utilities...

If this is not the case, then, please, put in a ZIP or RAR your package and the original PNG image, and I will take a look.

I will try again, thanx so much for your patience

@MyFairDiva
Are you sure the video option in your game for the textures are on high quality?

Try different option in DDS Builder.
Use:
Format: DXT3Format
Sharpen: none, or sharpenSoft (for a little contrast)

The .png are better than .bmp. Save your pictures in photoshop in .png and choose the default option for the compression.

thanks for this post... it helps a lot... i dont need to wait just to find out my post was rejected.. so many were...but would this way stated here work if i wanted to put a picture on top of the object?

Thanx May Lou. I actually have not tried setting the video quality to maximum because it slows my game a lot, i use it on medium. Maybe thats why I see it like that.

@Numenor: I tried with another image, I did the process again and I didnt update all the images so I wouldnt ruin the DDS work, however I left the options by default meaning, I didnt change from Smoothen to None and didnt change from DXT1 to DXT3. I still don't get a superb quality, so thats why I'm attaching my files. In it you can find: the original mango sims painting, my attempt, and the png picture I used to recolour.

Thanx a lot

Hi
I tried your painting in my game and it looks great !
Look at the screens 1,2 and 3 for the different textures quality.
Than I have cheanged your DDbuilding option and it looks better in medium quality (if you choose the DXT3 with sharpen soft effect). Look the screens 4,5 and 6.
Hope this help you to understand why you can't see your painting at the best in the game. Thera are3 option ( I don't know how they called in english:D) to set the maximum quality.
Bye

MyFairDiva,

In fact, you can build a bigger texture with the DXT DDS tools, just use a larger graphic to replace the older smaller one when necessary. Say, 512x512 instead of 256x256. Then, you may choose to compress the txtr file(s). Just in case one doesn't know how, may read here


Added:
MaryLou,
Nice tips... Hope Numenor adds at least a link reference to your post, or simply add the points to the front, too.
Thanks...


Further added:
I don't feel like to start a new thread for just a simplest tip on how to make an invisible recolour/recolor in its smallest size.

1. Just use "null" for the "name" at the material override files, and commit. (***Updated*** it should be "name" instead of "material" in some cases, just replace the strings for txmt linkage with "null")
2. delete all txmt and txtr files.
3. Save the package... Done.
Yeah, so the material overrides are the only essential files for invisible recolours because the base game has already included a null txmt type and the null_txmt file for invisible recolours. Just re-use it.

As for subsets using the same texture, one can use the repository method to link the second subset recolour back to the first. Yet for this practice, one has better tell users of the repository usage and probably add some suffix (like "-txtr") to indicate which recolour has the texture file.

YOU GUYS RULE!! muah muah! Luv Ya! Thanx a lot!

need help! I put the recolor package in the "Downloads" map but i can't find it in the game.please help me if you can!

Do you mean you put your recolor into the Downloads folder, where all your other downloads are? Which object did you recolor?

I did a recolor of the original guitar in the sims 2 university and then i put it in the map with all my other downloads.should i put it somwhere else?

The guitar is a special object regarding recolors: to get the recolor to show up, you need to use the Design tool and click on the guitar to select the color, the recolor will not show up in the catalog (only the amplifier recolor will be in the catalog, not the guitar itself).

ok,Thanx i think i have found it now!

sorry it's still not there

Can you please attach the recolor package to your post here so that we can take a look?

ok..................

sorry what do you mean with attach?...I'm from sweden

When you go to post a new reply (not a quick reply, but a normal one), there is a button called Manage Attachments. Click that and upload your package (after you've packed it into a ZIP or RAR).

And, please, don't post more than once in a row, if you have something to add to your previous post, use the Edit button to add to that instead of making a new post .

the recolor
 

here is the file!

MRObloodshoot, perhaps the recolour doesn't work because the filename is wrong: it must have a ".package" extension, otherwise the game doesnìt read it.
I suggest not to use, if possible, DOTS in the filenames.