Hey, its TB, and atm its Tom(tomvanroosmalen). I am a huge novice at meshing, and have started a window, which looks great.. Apart from one huge problem. There is a huge gap either side of the window. I don't know how to get rid of it, and I was wondering if you could help me. I have included the file for the window, and if you think you know how, you can give it a go, thanks in advance.

You have to edit the wallmask to fit your window.

How do I do that?

Thankyou.

Ack. I shouldn't have deleted that, sorry. My game was being slow so I couldn't tell if my edit worked. But yes, windowIntl0... Then fill it with white. Using the UVmap will help.

Im really confused.. Where do I get it, and what file extension is it, and what do I open it in.. I just cannot seem to find it.

Open your package in S3PE. Its an IMG tag, .dds file extension.

Okay, done that. Theres like 8 files. Opened in PS, Is it the one with the black rectangle surrounded by a border of white?

Yes, it is. Edit the white to fit your mesh, as the black corresponds to the transparent part of your window.

ah, Okay. Thanks alot, Ri.

I edited it, to what I thought was right, and in game, it just appears with no glass behind it. Did I do it wrong, or what?

I don't know how the UV Map is going to help me either..


EDIT: I have tried in total, 20 times to get the wallmask right, but everytime, the window comes up in game with no glass, just wall inside the frame.. Can anyone offer any assistance?

Hi
I will go and do a quick memory refresh (have not made stuff for a while) and come back with a short guide

Ok, here we go -

1) using S3OC clone object but dont renumber
2) Open new object in S3PE 3) find that file with the black square on a white background (screen shot one)
4) Export and open in graphics editor - I use photoshop 7
5) Open the channels view so you can see 5 channels (screen shot 2)
6) Edit the first and last channel - do not forget the alpha as last channel (Screen shot 3) Black area is the hole for the window
7) Edit to a good size and save as in Screen shot 4
8) Import back to package
9) test in game - see example.
10) Repeats steps 5 - 9 until happy with result
11) when you are happy with the result fix clone etc so its not a default replacement.
12) Done

Of course that wall mask is the wrong size - there is an excellent tip from Numenor for sims2 wall masks that works in sims3 as well. It saves you snuffling in and out of game and resizing. In sims3 dont worry about the diagonals - they appear magically with a good wallmask

Here is the thread:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=153754

Thankyou very much Leesester

For the glass of you window disappearing, it happened to me a lot at first, until I started using the original glass panes from the cloned window, instead of creating new ones (there are usually two panes). That fixed it.
I have no idea why it does that though, nor if everybody has that problem…

I hope that fix works for you .

Hmm, maybe I misunderstood Toms post? I thought his issue was that the wall mask was not showing correctly - I did not realise the glass was missing as well. Indeed, in that case I would follow hazuitokage's advice.

Nope I think you are right Lee. He said . This to me says the wall mask. I think it was...step 5-ish regarding the channel parts. I suspect he changed the image but did not copy it over to the channel. I know this from experience. I just wish Photoshop would quit eating my alphas.

No, I messaged Flabaliki, and we solved it. The problem was that Photoshop wasn't reading the .DDS file properly, so instead of transparent for glass, it had black. Me being a novice, didnt realise that it wasn't supposed to be black. So, I downloaded Paint.net and its fixed, tested and ready. I am going to make a tonne of windows, and offer them up in a collection called Metric Windows.

Well congrats !

The alpha's are decidedly borked whenever we turn. So THAT was the problem. Of course, keeping the original panes would work, since there would be no need to edit them in the first place…

I've been using a program called Dxtbmp to get around PS borking alphas.