The idea behind this group is to share techniques and ideas for repository items. Whether it be using a master object with a large set, or pulling from other objects.

I like to pull from commonly recoloured maxis objects, like bedding and the counter culture counters. But I think it would be fun to share ideas and the like. Anything that shrinks down the size of downloads and makes recolouring easier is my kind of meshing.

And welcome aboard!

I have a love-hate relationship with repository items. I love them when I'm recoloring and decorating. I fuss & fume at creators who have very natural repository sets, but didn't spend the time to actually make them repository. It is so tedious to recolor a big set of non-repository things. For very nice coordinating sets, it seems like I should recolor the whole set, even if all I will use is one or two pieces on that lot. You can never match again after the fact.

... Oh, but then I finish building ... Flashing blue makes me see red & turns the air blue around my computer. I curse & fume about those @!%$$@@ repository items. What & Where is the Master!! Very many unrelated repository items on a lot and you can spend all day chasing them down in preparation for upload. I positively loath repository things and swear I won't use them EVER!

I never stay passionately angry for long, so by the time I've got that house uploaded I'm ready to love them all over again.

Thats why I tend to use Maxis for repository, outside of my open stairs. Everyone should have those, so they just need the recolours.

Assuming that we are talking about a recolor of a Maxis objects then it doesn't make it easier (or harder) when preparing houses for upload. If you didn't use the Maxis repository item, the lot packager won't include the recolor. You still have to go hunt it down.

It is very helpful when the master info is included in the catalog info of the slave. It is also nice if they are given file names that are similar enough that they will be close to each other in a file list.

Well, I sort my own creations up so if i need to for a house, I'd just zip the whole folder - to my eye, it makes it easier since it keeps things idy for the downloadie as well.

And ageed - keeping things well labeled is just a general good practice, not just when doing repository stuff.

So, I'm new to everything, recoloring, all of it. I like how certain repository items work: like the Independent Expressions windows, those are perfect, and BuggyBooz' Basic Kitchen works well too. The windows are linked to Maxis, so a person can recolor that one window, and the kitchen is linked to I forget which items, but it's something logical and it works.

What I'm think of -- for my own use, I don't think I could line up all the permissions to do this for uploading -- is an architectural set, with matching pieces of different categories (some walls, some windows, some decorative buy things). Can you link things of very different categories? -- like a decorative-buy wall trim, could it be linked to a window frame or a wall?

My favorite repository item, is anything from the base game. It's one EP I know for sure that everyone has.

Lucy, just about anything can be repository. So far limitations include walls/floors/fences. I so wish to overcome the fence one though.

You can link different objects to other objects, but you can not link walls to an object (AFAIK - no one has figured out how yet.)

IMHO, there needs to be a 'strong' designer reason for linking things and a strong color relationship -- matching furniture, matching windows, coordinating drapes & upholstery can make good decorator sense. Tying a sofa & painting together as a repository would not generally make sense.

It is rather tedious to make things repository ... and of course I always have a typo or missed step the first time. For me, there needs to be a compelling reason to go thru the pain of making it repository.

If you are making new objects, it is a lot easier to managing the mapping if designed from the beginning to be a repository set.

Yes, you can use two different items as a master for your own things. I'm in the middle of making some stuff as part of a set of recolours and meshes. The chairs pull the wood textures from the Counter Culture counter in the base game and the chair cushions pull the bedding texture.

I wouldn't mix like that with items outside of EA objects, and I'd stick to base game when doing it, for simplicity, but that's just me.

Lunie -
What would be the point of a repository fence? Since fences aren't designable (i.e can only have 1 color), using it as the master seems pointless, plus most of the textures are small & very specialized. Assigning a fence as a slave would confuse the game and the builder. Assuming the game didn't crash immediately, how would either game or builder 'know' which color a fence was going to take?

Or did I miss the point?

I know it's not designable, I am studying why and if it can be changed. I know this was looked at before, and I probably won't figure this out since those before were much better at this. But it's a good exercise for understanding what everything does in the package too. The point is I am trying to do the impossible.

I only want to be able to design a fence and slave it to stairs, or possibly see about slaving to a specific recolor of a stair. And while the original texture is only 128x64 for stairs, you can import a larger, higher resolution texture and it works very nicely.

Having recolorable fences would be awesome.

It would. I do hope they fix that in Sims 3.

So far making the fence itself recolorable has been a bust. While looking in the txt files of fences, there is an boolean property maychangesurface. Was hopeful, but it's not working.

But... I did make the fence itself slave to my new stairs! lol Of course in the process of making my stairs recolorable they no longer place, and my game is crashing. So once I get them to place again, I am going to see if I can make the fence repository to a specific recolor file instead. And you know how that option of reference original mesh is in OW? I wonder if that would work to eliminate the need for the mesh itself to be in the file when you clone it?

Have you read this tutorial -- Fence Tutorial? About the 4th posting talks about making a 'psuedo fence recolor' -- it references the mesh in a different package.

Hope you get the crashing worked out and things running smooth again.

Thanks! I guess that is why I was remembering that option. Funny thing is I went ahead and did that but it still pulled my mesh files from my original. Wonder if something has changed in SimPE since then? I may have to go over there and question about that. I tried my "recolor" of my fence referencing another recolor, but it's invisible. Not sure if I screwed something up or if it's because it's a recolor of Numenor's stairs and not mine.

Got the crash and the placement worked out. Stairs are now recolorable with my fence mesh referencing that for color.

That is a really old tutorial -- but it was good enough to help a beginner like me to make a fence. Maybe you can write a new one that includes all the things you have learned about fences and includes nice comforting pictures.