UPDATE: Animated Digital Photoframe (+vertical version) + photo recolors

UPDATE (Sept. 27, 2011):
- AL version of the photoframe + all recolors are replaced by BASE game version.
Attention to recolorists: if you want to share your recolors with the community, make sure they are recolored from Base game version.
- New recolor is added: High-Quality city nights 16-photo recolor (don't abuse it if your computer is slow)
- Vertical "portrait" version of the frame is added

UPDATED INFO (Sept. 18, 2011):
ATTENTION FOR RECOLORISTS:
I have totally forgotten to mention that if you use my recolors for 32 or 64 photos as a base, DON'T FORGET TO DO FIX INTEGRITY IN SimPE otherwise the original recolor it was cloned from will override your recolor!!!!!!!!!!!
You can download updated version of Tutorial for your future reference!!

Hi, guys! Here's one of my personal favorite clutter projects: a working electronic photoframe for your sims to store their digital photos! I had this idea in mind for quite awhile, but only now I have been able to figure out how to realize it. So after many many hours of meshing, texturing, mapping, tweaking and arranging photos I have finally completed it (phewww)



Description:
Sony DPF-D820 photoframe
Picture format Normal Ratio 4:3 (800x600, etc)
Storage: up to 256 photos (NOT recommended as pics will be very small and thus of very low quality, best: 16 or 64)
Animation type: tile texture animation
Animation speed: 0.5 frames/sec
Category sort: Electronics > TVs & Computers
Placeable on: all surfaces.
Size: real size
Price: 150 simoleons
Environment: 10
Recolourable: Screen subset with changing photos
Non-recolourable: base photoframe mesh
Other: moderately glowing screen, custom shadow
Known issues: found and fixed. Please report any bugs you might encounter.



Included:
- Base mesh + 16 photos screen recolour of eye candy space digital art pictures
- 32 photos screen recolour of my Pleasantview sims
- 64 photos screen recolour of gorgeous nature & animals photos for your sims’ aesthetic pleasure (all pictures are free and taken from here and here in case you need bigger versions of them)
- HQ 16 photos screen recolour of world cities at night
- Vertical "portrait" version of the photoframe (mesh + 16 photos screen recolour of sim portraits).
- Recolouring tutorial + 3 base “checker” maps (for 16, 32 and 64 photos)



If you want to make your own 32 or 64 photo recolors, my 32 and 64 photo recolors can serve you as a BASE (just replace textures with your own, DON'T forget to Fix Integrity, and give package a different name). However, if you need detailed info on how to resize photos for your recolors (I used Photoshop) or would like to make recolors with a different than 16, 32 or 64 number of pics but are not familiar with tile animation (Material Definition properties), you can refer to my tutorial included here. It also includes links to tutorials where this subject is described in more detail. You can also find these links below.
You CANNOT have ANY number of pics, the number should be the power of 2 (texture size up to 1024x1024).

Tip: don’t view the pics too close, they will appear of bad quality due to their size (resized for texture: 128x128). Of course, you can use 1024x1024 texture for 16 photo recolor, but it puts additional strain on your graphics card (especially if your computer is slow).

Links to Material Definition Tutorials (also included in my tutorial):
In English by Pixelhate (Part 4)
in Russian by Dara_Savelly

Special thanks to:
Pixelhate, Dara_Savelly and IgnorantBliss for their comprehensive tutorials on Material Definition and more. Without them I wouldn't have been able to figure out how to put this all together.

Polygon Counts:
Faces=235
Vertices=232

I hope your pixel dollies will enjoy it!! Don't forget to hit “Thanks” button for them!!!

Get more HQ screen recolors at my blog here (update Jan, 20th 2013: nature RCs optimized)