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#1 Old 3rd Jan 2025 at 10:27 PM Last edited by vegan_kaktus : 8th Jan 2025 at 2:10 PM.
Default Thumbnail flashing blue
I have a problem I can't seem to solve. I'm editing this pet toy by hmiller61615. I swapped the mesh, repo'd it to EA's treat texture (in the txmt), edited the shadow's texture to better match the new mesh and changed the animations to use the ones from bon voyage (explanation here). For some reason, the thumbnail looks like this in-game (the object itself is showing up correctly):



I found this thread, but my object doesn't have a "thumbnailExtension" in the CRES? CTRL+right-clicking (to update the thumbnail) doesn't solve it, and the original file doesn't have this problem at all. I feel like I've come across various tutorials on how to fix this, but I can't seem to find any now that I need one haha. I also tried to add the "thumbnailExtension" manually to the CRES, but it was not included in the list (of things to add) under "Generic Rcol Editor" :-(

Any ideas? I'll attach the file in question if anyone would like to take a look at it. Many thanks in advance!

Edit 2025-01-08: removed file, newer one can be found further down!
Screenshots
Former Hamster
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#2 Old 6th Jan 2025 at 11:02 PM
Sounds like the TXTR isn't linked right in the TXMT. I'd also check to make sure you have the subset named correctly.

(I'd take a close look but no internet at the moment and I can't see the SimPE screen worth a damn anymore anyway.)
Mad Poster
#3 Old 6th Jan 2025 at 11:54 PM
I had a look, and it does seem like everything is linked correctly. The only thing I can think of is if the thumbnail for some reason doesn't read the out-of-file TXTR, but that's a bit weird, too.

It's a slightly unusual way to repo an item, but it does seem to work for the object, and even recoloring seems to work fine (do recolors show up, by the way? Have you tried?)
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#4 Old 7th Jan 2025 at 7:49 AM
Quote: Originally posted by mustluvcatz
Sounds like the TXTR isn't linked right in the TXMT. I'd also check to make sure you have the subset named correctly.

(I'd take a close look but no internet at the moment and I can't see the SimPE screen worth a damn anymore anyway.)

If the txmt wasn’t linked correctly, shouldn’t the mesh also flash blue then? hope you manage to fix your SimPE problem soon!

Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
I had a look, and it does seem like everything is linked correctly. The only thing I can think of is if the thumbnail for some reason doesn't read the out-of-file TXTR, but that's a bit weird, too.

It's a slightly unusual way to repo an item, but it does seem to work for the object, and even recoloring seems to work fine (do recolors show up, by the way? Have you tried?)

Right! I’ve repo’d items this way before without problem, and what makes me scratch my head is the shadow. Why does that break the thumbnail when all I did was swap the texture? and it’s in the right format as well. I could try repoing the “long” way (i.e the correct way) but I’m not sure if the “bone” will be recolorable then? since EA’s treat accessory (the texture I repo’d) isn’t. Haven’t tried recoloring this specific mesh, but other meshes I’ve repo’d this way has been recolorable and made recolors without problem!

Thank you both for your replies
Former Hamster
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#5 Old 7th Jan 2025 at 4:12 PM
Quote: Originally posted by vegan_kaktus
If the txmt wasn’t linked correctly, shouldn’t the mesh also flash blue then? hope you manage to fix your SimPE problem soon!


Not necessarily. I did manage to have a look and the TXTR shows false in the scenegrapher. That tells me that it's not linked properly somewhere. It could be as simple as the subset name not matching. It could be the TXMT, it could even be a mistake in the SHPE, In my experience (I break my own meshes all.the.time), the prob;em is usually the TXMT and/or the SHPE when I've repo'd something. ALSO, very rarely - a mistake in the GMND, either subsets not named properly or a mistake in the tsMaterialsMeshName.

Another thing I noticed is that you have a MMAT for the mesh. Since you've repo'd it to the game mesh you don't need the MMAT.

(P.S. It's not SimPE, it's my eyes. I'm legally blind and the screens in some programs just don't play nicely with that.)
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
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#6 Old 7th Jan 2025 at 4:56 PM
The txtr shows as false because there is no texture in the package. The scenegraph only shows the actual package, not when something is repo'd.

I wonder if the issue is the internal name is the same as the bone in game, I've seen weirdness before due to lack of the ##0x1C050000! prefix.
Former Hamster
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#7 Old 7th Jan 2025 at 5:04 PM
Quote: Originally posted by HugeLunatic
The txtr shows as false because there is no texture in the package. The scenegraph only shows the actual package, not when something is repo'd.

Good grief. I knew that.

Just ignore my whole reply. I mean, I KNEW the mesh is repo'd yet... I typed like it isn't.

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#8 Old 8th Jan 2025 at 12:52 AM Last edited by vegan_kaktus : 8th Jan 2025 at 1:54 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by mustluvcatz
(P.S. It's not SimPE, it's my eyes. I'm legally blind and the screens in some programs just don't play nicely with that.)

Oh sorry I misunderstood! That sounds rough :-( I work in a food store (english.exe stopped working? is it called that way?) and it dawned on me last year that society is not customized for people with bad eyesight (I have glasses too, but my eyesight isn't that bad - yet). An elderly woman asked me for help reading the price and ingredients on a product, and she didn't even have that bad eyesight! Like, just normal elderly bad eyesight, and still she couldn't read because the text was too small. Why make the font so small when you could just.. idk.. make it bigger and more accessible for people? Being nearly blind however, must be even harder. how did I even start rambling about this

Quote: Originally posted by HugeLunatic
The txtr shows as false because there is no texture in the package. The scenegraph only shows the actual package, not when something is repo'd.

I wonder if the issue is the internal name is the same as the bone in game, I've seen weirdness before due to lack of the ##0x1C050000! prefix.

"Internal name", are you refering to the objd's name? I could try editing that one (never done that before, do I have to update anything after editing its name? Like you have to update the MMAT after changing the guid?). Now that I took a closer look, the object's resources are called "chew treat" with a space, that's not preferable, right? I used SimPE's "fix integrity" tool to change the name to "chewtreat" and put a ##0x1C050000! prefix in the shadow's texture's name, and I think it fixed something because the mesh's thumbnail is now working! but I also found out that the shadow is a black square indoors. I'm not sure what I did to break that one, I tried building DXT (DXT5), choosing the texture, OK, right click - update all sizes, changing format to ExtRaw8Bit and commit but it's still a black box indoors. I swear I've seen a tutorial for solving this as well, but now all I can find is this thread. When previewing the shadow in SimPE though, it looks okay? I'm confused.


Edit: I'm dumb, I had set the shadow's texture to DXT5, not ExtRaw8Bit! Now all my problems have been solved, many thanks!!
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#9 Old 8th Jan 2025 at 1:43 PM
The shadow texture is set to DXT 5, changing that makes the shadow show properly. Although, it shows with two recolors in game. Not sure why. But also not sure why you want to repo a recolorable object to a non recolorable object. xD
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#10 Old 8th Jan 2025 at 1:45 PM
Quote: Originally posted by HugeLunatic
The shadow texture is set to DXT 5, changing that makes the shadow show properly. Although, it shows with two recolors in game. Not sure why. But also not sure why you want to repo a recolorable object to a non recolorable object. xD

I saw that hahaha my bad! Not sure why you have two recolors though? I only have one in-game, hmm..
Mad Poster
#11 Old 8th Jan 2025 at 11:18 PM
Just so you're aware, "update all sizes" combined with "build DXT" is generally not necessary, as "Build DXT" updates all sizes. In some cases, doing "update all sizes" after "Build DXT" can cause issues (not 100% sure about shadows, but for regular textures it can be a problem). The update function is there mostly (I'd think) for the "import" option, since it doesn't update the mipmaps automatically.
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#12 Old 9th Jan 2025 at 12:28 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
Just so you're aware, "update all sizes" combined with "build DXT" is generally not necessary, as "Build DXT" updates all sizes. In some cases, doing "update all sizes" after "Build DXT" can cause issues (not 100% sure about shadows, but for regular textures it can be a problem). The update function is there mostly (I'd think) for the "import" option, since it doesn't update the mipmaps automatically.

Oh! I read somewhere that you should "update all sizes" when importing shadow-textures, so I've only done that on them (not "normal" textures). Not sure where I read that... Thank you for letting me know though, I'll skip that going forward
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