Hi all, I'm hoping a fresh pair (or more ) of eyes can help me understand what I'm doing wrong here. I'll try to keep it to the point.

I'm trying to remove the railings from the skating rinks from Seasons and make the rinks recolorable. I've successfully done the first part, but no matter what I do I can't seem to get the game to recognize the rink as the only recolorable section of the new .package. Here's my working process:

1) clone one of the rinks in S3OC, 'Deep Clone' option enabled;
2) create TSRW project with it;
3) in TSRW, delete railing groups from every one of the 3 LOD meshes (leaving only one group, the floor) and then export the meshes as WSO;
4) open the meshes in Milkshape and remap the texture according to this tutorial;
5) reimport the meshes into TSRW, export the project as .package;
6) open .package with Texture Tweaker 3, assign new images (mask, multiplier, specular), disable stencils and all channels except the first, edit texture tiling, save;
7) test in game: object is either unrecolorable with a transparent look (suspecting material issue) or unrecolorable with the scratches texture.

Some observations:
- after reopening the edited WSOs in Milkshape, the texture remapping appears to have been saved.
- I've tried exporting the meshes as both OBJ and WSO in turn, same result.
- Texture Tweaker 3 seems to recolor the first channel with any pattern, but none of that can be seen in-game.
- I haven't had any issue with reimporting meshes into TSRW, and the preview updates after reimporting them.
- I've cleared my caches between tests, including world caches because I'm paranoid. No change.
- at one point I did something and it worked, but I can't for the life of me remember what.
- in the edited .package, for some reason the EP icon next to the catalog thumbnail is the one for Late Night.
EDIT: I also tried changing the material of the mesh groups in TSRW and the whole thing just turns black

And here are the files I'm using: http://simfileshare.net/download/213753/
Contains: Cloned .package (unedited, renamed internally, deep clone), TSRW project after importing the edited WSOs, DDS textures, edited WSOs, .package after above edits in TSRW and TT3

Please ignore the shadows, I was too lazy to delete those ^^"

If anyone could lend a hand, I would be very very thankful!!

Hi!

It seems like you're doing it right, though I've noticed that those skating rails have 2 layers. One being the wooden/ice one and the one right under it, this stone-looking one. So I think (if you didn't add a fully-red colored mask) could be the reason for it, or it still having a connection to the overlay through the mlod/modl.

To check that, I'd first double click on all the IMG files in the package file (And make sure you opened your package file in S3PE first) And click 'Copy RK' or well... copying the name, instance, group, and type. And paste that in your text editor.
After that you want to click on the mlod with the 0x000000 (group) and click 'grid'. Now in the second window, you wanna expand the 'resources' one. And you should check the ones with the IMG type file and check if all the instances are exactly the same as the ones you copy/pasted on your notepad file.

If you found a file that isn't included within your package (Besides it being the shadow map of course , Unless you have that one included with your download as well.) Anyway, if you did, you want to open the TGIblocks window and delete it, since, I guess you could call them the so called 'expired leftovers' And test it of course and make sure you have a backed up version just in case! :D

If that didn't work, I wouldn't mind taking a look at the package file myself if you want me to look at it of course ^-~

I think the other layer is the drop shadow one, at least that's the material TSRW is displaying for that group; it's only there for the high LOD, too. Aaand now I think I left that in the edited mesh file, lol (going to pin that on laziness as well).


Oh. My. God. Becky You're right, the overlay is being referenced in all the MLODs and the MODL! But I'm experiencing some issues regarding the TGI blocks, in that I can't find the option to delete them (the 'Grid' button just pulls up an editable list with the options Collapse All, Expand All, Cancel and Commit).

IT WORKED *choir music in background*

I found the TGIBlocks panel (for other clueless people like me: click on the field, then the button with 3 dots to the right of it) and deleted the entries that referenced the overlay, and now I'm able to recolor the rinks properly! For some reason the textures look like ass when exiting CASt but that's nothing new and I don't even care about it, I can recolor the rinks!!

And I also edited some references in the TXTCs which referenced the old multiplier and specular.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :lovestruc:

You're welcome! Glad you found out about it! Heh yeah I forgot to mention about editing the TXTCs but you're the queen of texturing so i'm pretty sure that wouldn't be a problem ^-~

Anyway! I really love this idea! I mean imagine the things you can do with just it! ^-^