It's an attachment at the bottom of the first post as a zip (which contains the pdf).

Mage.. Thanks for your reply, you hit the nail on the head!

That was the problem and your solution worked perfectly. I apologise for not replying to you sooner, been a bit of a busy weekend and have been working on my first upload. So once again, thank you

I got problem too. I dont have the build DXT - or what ever - in the list when i click the picture.

Did you install the DDS Utilities? Take a look at the first post again, click on the link for those, install them, and set the path to the right folder in SimPE Preferences. Then you should have the Build DXT option .

I have them yes. Just doesn't work :/

In SimPE, go to Extra -> Preferences. The path pointing to the DDS Utilities has to be set correctly to the nVidia DDS Tool Folder box. If installed to the default location, the path should be C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\DDS Utilities

How to make some invisible recolours?

I just keep on failing to make an invisible recolour...:confused:
I thought I had just to delete the texture. What have I done wrong? How should I do to fix it?

Thanks in advance...

No, you should not delete the texture or you're going to have to edit a few other things, as well.

With subsets that do have a texture image, make a transparent image (create a new image with a transparent background and save it as a png), import that into SimPE making sure you're using DXT3 format, because DXT1 can't handle alpha channels. Otherwise import as normal. Then open the Material Definition for that subset and look for the line called stdMatAlphaBlendMode. If that value for that is "none", click on the line and change it to "blend", then commit and save. If it's blend already, you can leave it as a it is.

If the recolorable subset has no texture image, like glass often doesn't, open the Material Definition and find the line called stdMatUntexturedDiffAlpha, then change its value to "0". That should make it invisible.

But you can't remove things like shadows with a recolor like this. For that you'd have to make a new clone of the object.

Thanks IgnorantBliss,

I forgot to use DXT3 format when with the texture (:slap: myself) while I did add the "stdMatAlphaBlendMode" = "blend" into TXMT and "stdMatUntexturedDiffAlpha" = "0" when without any texture...

Actually, I prefer the one without any texture coz it's much smaller in size...


Update:

Note:
Numenor(MTS2)_SphereMatte_Moi_stand_nil.rar is the one I'd been editing. This one shows blue flashing in my game.

Numenor(MTS2)_SphereMatte_Moi_stand_GS is a new recolour file without texture but with those 2 lines added /edtied . This one shows characters in-game.

Numenor(MTS2)_SphereMatte_Moi_stand_GA000 is a new recolour file with empty transparent png imported in DXT3 format and without any line added/edited. This one shows up all black in-game.

:confused: still...


Update2 :
I've compared the txmt with a shadow txmt of a cloned Maxis miror and finally got most settings set to an estimated parttern. I've got an invisible recolour of the stand only that the shadow of the stand is still there... Check out the first from the right in the pic.
The file is Numenor(MTS2)_SphereMatte_Moi_stand_GS-nil.rar

In order to silence the stand shadow, have I to add shadow references from the original object, and/or I can simply edit a few settings...?

Like I mentioned, you can't edit a shadow with a recolor. The outdoor shadows are formed automatically according to the shape of the mesh. To remove the shadow for the stand, you'd have to clone the object, remove the stand mesh and all references to it, and only then you could get an outdoor shadow for just the sphere.

How to make a mirrory recolour?

Do you mean an object with an actual mirror in it, or just one with a surface that appears shiny?

Can it be somwhere in-between or complete like a mirror?

I don't think that you make it an actual mirror with just a recolor, that would include editing the original object. To make the object appear shiny, you can play with the reflectivity and specularity ("spec") values in the Material Definition of the recolor. You can take a look at the Material Definition of an existing object that appears shiny and copy some of the information. That will not make it mirror surrounding objects, though, just reflect light.

So, any tutorial for mirror making? Thanks...
I'll try to fool around those more to see what I can get though... :valentine (Now, I'm kinda in love with the mess-around!)

Update:
Can a shadow be made as a recolour itself?
(sorry for too many questions, I'm from wonderland... :bandit

Making a surface act like a real mirror, as IBliss said, it's not possible making a recolour.
In order to have such effect, the original object should be cloned and heavily edited; in particular, it's necessary to add a couple of "virtual" meshes to the GMDC, and edit the CRES in order to attach to the object a virtual camera (the "reflection" is actually the output of an invisible camera attached to the object).

I *should* know how to do that, because RaquelCesar, ages ago (during the crestion of the Grand Trianon), discovered and explained us how to do that.
But I've never done it myself, and anyway the explanation was *very* complex

As for the second question ("Can a shadow be made as a recolour itself?"), the answer is: technically, yes, but not completely. In any case you have to clone the original object.
The *indoor* shadows can be made recolourable, but if the object still has 2 recolourable subsets (like the Matte Sphere), you can't add a third recolourable subset.
The *outdoor* shadows are computed on the fly by the game, unregarding the tranparency of the meshes: if the mesh is invisible, it still exists, and therefore an outdoor shadow will be drawn for it. The only solution is to clone (again!) the object, and physically remove the unwanted meshes.

In your case, this last solution seems the more suitable: clone the Matte Sphere, and remove the stand and the shadow (and optionally link the recolours for the "sphere" subset to the original Matte Sphere, so to make all your recolours to both the orifinal Matte Sphere and the "Sphere Only" clone).


EDIT TO ADD:
Again about the mirrors - Please note that the mirrored surfaces must be flat. If the reflection is applied to a 3D mesh, the mesh will look flat anyway.
...Unless I've missed something important in the working principles of the mirrors

OK, I had some time on my hands and decided to give object recoloring a shot. I have to say - I did recolor a few things with the old SimPE, using RGiles' tutorial, and have them in my game, so this is particularly frustrating for me. I'm following everything in the tutorial step by step - I've tried turning the trash compactor white, and I've tried putting new images on two of the framed paintings, and they simply do not show up in my game. The NVidia utilities are there, that's not the problem, and I commit and Save. I made the files in My Documents so they wouldn't mess anything up, and even tried moving those files into downloads and installing with Sims2Pack, and nothing gets these objects into my game. Clearly, I'm missing something here. Can anyone help?

Do you have the CEP correctly installed?

For installing the recolors, you just put the package files into your downloads folder and they should work.

You can try posting your recolor packages here as attachments and I can take a look

Thanks. I'll do that. I did install the newest CEP, but you never know. This is one of the pictures.

The painting shows up fine in my game, so I don't think it's the package itself that's the problem. Either you don't have the package in the Downloads folder, or your CEP is not working right. Do other CEP recolors show up fine for you? When you click on the daisy painting in the catalog, do you get the "design model thumbnails", are there any thumbnails in the description window, at least the original one? If there aren't the CEP is not working and this recolor will not work since it requires the CEP.

I specifically downloaded the latest CEP. I know I did. I was absolutely positive, so I did a search to check.

OK, time for facial recolor, red. I sure did download it, I just never unzipped or installed it. Duh. Let me go back and try.

I'm having a problem recoloring modular stairs and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I selected the modular stairs and the recolor box was checked, so I clicked "start" and it created a package file. Then I went to "plugin" and there were no resources in the resource tree. I can't figure out what went wrong. I recolored some wall hangings with no problem, but now I'm stuck.

Help?

Not all the objects are recolourable. In particular, modular stairs are NOT recolourable.
The only way to recolour them is to download the specific *recolourable* versions that I have posted on MTS2 and create recolour packages for them.

Recolourable "Holy Smoke"
Recolourable "Wrought Iron"
Recolourable "Wooden Stairs"

Thanks.

I would have thought that if the object wasn't recolorable it just wouldn't give you the option at all. Oh well.