Proteus Shape-Shifting Modular Stairs System

Here's a sample of the stairs in this download:



Actually, that's a bit misleading. Because they are all the SAME single modular stair package.

I'm soooo excited to share this upload with you guys, because, finally, I've been able to create an object that does everything I want it to. I've been frustrated for the last year or so that I can't mix and match rail types on modular stairs. Mainly, because I wanted to make a set of modular stairs for my Sims that had balusters every 2 or 3 steps instead of every. single. step. Back when I was working on the Glass Rail Stairs, I recalled marvine's Designable modular stone stairs, and had a closer look at how she pulled off the trick of changing the step shapes. Now I had not only the idea of shape-shifting modular stairs, but some clues of how to pull it off, too. So I've been working on these and researching different aspects of object creation since September in order to make this modular stair mod happen. I'm quite proud of the result, and I hope you like them as much as I do.

Here's the staircase I had in mind back when I first started this project:



Installation:

These are modular stairs, and since they are custom, they need to be put into the game's script files to be recognized and enabled to work. With the stair file is included a text file designed to work with Numenor's Scriptorium to do just that. If you don't have the Scriptorium installed, I highly, highly recommend that you grab it and get it installed right away. If you still insist on doing it the old-fashioned way, there are instructions included in the .rar file for manual installation. With the Scriptorium , all you have to do is click the Modular Stairs shortcut inside your Downloads folder and copy the text file into the folder that opens.

Recolorable Subsets:
The steps and balusters are recolorable.
There are four wood colors, which cover the steps, the handrails, & the baluster posts.
There are four glass colors, and four hardware colors.



The hardware and handrail colors are slaved to the baluster colors. This means there are a few limitations on recolorability: The recolor choices have both a wood color and a shape in the name. (You can view them in-game by using the boolprop testingcheatsallowed true cheat, thus invoking debug mode.) Hardware colors Dullmetal, Copper, Gold, and Silver are linked to the wood colors Ltwood, Redwood, Darkwood, and Varnished, respectively. (Redwood will always have copper hardware, ltwood will always have dull, dark will always have gold, varnish will always have silver.)

The step wood colors are independent of these, so you can have lightwood steps with redwood rails, or whatever combo you want, but the rail (technically, the baluster color) color will determine the color of hardware.


Changeable Shapes:
Steps and balusters have changeable shapes. And, through the magic of slaved Subsets, the rails and hardware change to match the baluster shape you chose.

There are two shapes for steps: closed and open
There are three shapes for balusters: post (what most modular stairs already have), glass, and empty

*Shapes are changed via the design tool, by picking the right recolor choices. ( I wish I could fix the design tool popup icons to make this easier, but the debug method outlined above is the best I can do at this time. Sorry.)

**There is a a small limitation on baluster shapes: The top and bottom steps can only have post baluster shape. The other options will be available, but I only included a mesh on those steps to support the post.



Technical info:

All textures are EAxis, manipulated in GIMP
OR, created in GIMP, SimPE, and/or Blender

In-game price - 61
Catalog Placement - Staircases>Connecting Stairs





Polygon Counts:
norail: 88 (step-82, baluster-2, hardware-2, rail-2)

leftrail: 432 (step-62, baluster-230, hardware-116, rail-24)

leftrailend: 242 (step-80, baluster-66, hardware-72, rail-24)

leftrailtop: 258 (step-96, baluster-66, hardware-72, rail-24)

rightrail: 432 (step-62, baluster-230, hardware-116, rail-24)

rightrailend: 242 (step-80, baluster-66, hardware-72, rail-24)

rightrailtop: 258 (step-96, baluster-66, hardware-72, rail-24)

railing: 802 step-62, baluster-460, hardware-232, rail-48

railingend: step-80, baluster-132, hardware-144, rail-48

railingtop: step-96, baluster-132, hardware-144, rail-48

Additional Credits: SimPE - thanks to Quaxi and all the talented people who helped him create this essential tool CEP (another essential tool) - thanks to Numenor and RGiles

MTS - thanks to Tashiketh for perhaps this MOST essential tool

thanks to jfade for the Compressorizer
thanks to HugeLunatic for her guidelines for building modular stairs

very special thanks and recognition for marvine whose brilliance and innovations are still inspirations for any aspiring Sims2 creator