High Definition T-Shirt mesh

DXT texture compression is for textures-- not logos. Trying to create a T-shirt with a logo using a conventional Maxis mesh can lead to something like this:

In-game shot of attempt at Ramones T-shirt on conventional mesh:


In the above, not only were there simply not enough pixels available to render the logo correctly in the first place, by the time DXT got done splitting the data into textels and providing just four color possibilities for each pixel-- with two being mere interpolations between the high and low, no less-- everything has gone to Hades.

One solution: throw more bits at the problem...

MESH_szielins_HighDefinition_Tee34Bd.package splits a T-shirt into three groups: one for the neckline and arms, one for the "front plate" of the shirt, and one for the "back plate". Each has its own 1024x1024 texture. Better still, the front and backplate uvmaps waste less of the available space. While the mesh uses three times the texture memory, the bulk of the shirt has four times more data available for the render engine to work with.

In-game extreme close-up of central portion of Ramones logo shirt:


The mesh does have limitations, however. It can only handle shirts that extend all the way down to top-bottom join-- no belly shirts. Only the neckline & arms texture has access to the data of the Sim's underlying skintone, so this cannot be effectively used to create sheer shirts. The neckline is high, and cannot be moved far.

Quick roadmap for making use of this mesh:

(A) Export one of the distribution textures (the Ramones or Duerer shirt) normally.

(B) Create a texture for a T-shirt, using your usual image editing tools and skills, but with a 2048x2048 texture instead of a 1024x1024 texture. Save it.

(C) Scale it down to 1024x1024 ; copy to top~stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp .

(D) Go back to your 2048x2048 version. Grab the top right 1024x1024 bit; write it to alpha5~stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp (which is for the front plate.)

(E) Go back to your 2048x2048 version. Grab the top left 1024x1024 bit; write it to alpha7~stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp (which is for the back plate.)


Please do not upload any of this stuff, or anything derived from it, to pay sites.


Polygon Counts:
POLYGON COUNT: The same as a conventional Maxis T-shirt: 1246 faces, 852 vertices. However, it uses three times the texture memory.