I like that you guys didn't hate on me for my comments
I try to help, always, but at all the cost that come with it.

That black armor still sucks. I want to love it, but I cannot.
Convince me otherwise.
(Ofc you do not have to. It is just some half assed dare on the internet.)
Make it great, something I would wear, and I will advertise for you, wherever I am.

I missed this post. Um... that armor has quite a deep normal map, actually, and a good amount of leathery shine where I wanted it. Like you, not to come across as rude, but maybe your computer graphics aren't giving you a good veiw? Or maybe it's the pic I posted?



Hard to cut it harder and deeper than that. Well I could, but it would look like poop in game.

I assume it is just the pic then. If you say you have a good normal map, I believe you. It just didn't show in the pic.
I mean... open the picture yourself and see how satisfied you are with it.
And don't ever do anything above 1024, if you want to cater to the masses.
I do not run any tex above 1024 on any sim I do not control or regularly interact with. Having default 4k skins and such is a sure fire way to kill your game.

I really like the armor. I was about to say it looks very elven and then I saw the ears of the Sim wearing it lol, so I'm assuming you were aiming for that. It looks kinda like the Thalmor embassy armor from Skyrim (or exactly like it, I dunno...I haven't played Skyrim in a while lol)

Do not get me wrong. I LOVE that armor!
I just think it could be so much better. Add some shine to the metal parts, maybe even some runes, in a different lit up color. It is all possible. That is where speculars kick in.
You want a part of your armor glowing at night? Speculars will handle that.
That is stuff no "Swiss Army Knife of Modding"will teach you about. And that is what we place all our hopes on? Na. I am tapping out of that experience. It has no value over doing it myself in the code. The simple evaluation (Given the many KW Instances we have, over the effort of rewriting the code) shows that I am better off without the random mods here.

Well, the armor is pretty much true to the original models, both by Plazasims and the XPS on DeviantArt. Leather and feathers don't shine much.

Using Plumbot shaders is far more effective for both metals and glowing parts. Alice is a 5 group "chassis", and true Plumbot. 3 different shaders, converted from MMD by me. Intentionally blank normal mapping as not to mess up the metal look. Both shine and glow are toned down. I have other bots with more shine and glow.

And quite a few of my recent projects are 2048. It's how it had to be. Grouping 4, 5, or more 1024 textures and sometimes already 2048 into a single map looks like poop if you shrink it to 1024. I've tried. It's even worse converting some TS4 from 4K if I can't find a 2K version.

https://thumbs.modthesims.info/geti...hp?file=2262055

It's a pretty good conversion for the limitations this game has (too many polygons make morphs explosive lol). I've heard even TS2 is more liberal with poly count than TS3, meaning this game is the hardest to convert to.

I assume it probably just doesn't come across right on screenshots.
On things like armor and such, that have a lot of nooks and crannies, I tend to be pretty liberal with the contrast in my bump maps.
This one I made (or rather adapted) back in 2022 for another game (That was released in 2002 and has zero built-in mod support. We injected modern DirectX support at a runtime level. PervokPeter... you rule, man!) and yeah... I had to crank up the bump map contrast a wee bit in order for it to look acceptable. There is no one fits all bump map setting.
Added a bit of specular for that matte shine.
Also had to mess with the pass file a lot to add glow on the instruments, where it needed to be. It was the moment I learned how to do proper mapping with the help of others from that community. I am originally a coder, mind you, no modeller. But, man, were they all helpful.
But yeah, if you look at it, it is hard to believe that most of the surface is done via mapping and not the model itself, I think.
Especially the part around the logo on the front part. None of that is modelled. In Blender that surface is flat af. It's just bump mapping.
This is an actual image of how it appears in-game. And that's a 2002 game, mind you. Don't just accept bump and speculars as they come from whatever tool you are using. Work with them. Verify the results in game. Then work on them some more, until you have the result you want. To get this rocket bike looking the way I wanted it to be (and as it is on that screenie), probably took me around 10 to 20 in game sessions, modifying maps and verifying the result in the actual game. There will never be an easy step around this process.
None of the mapping was done in blender or such. It was trial and error and using GIMP for adjustments..
Up your game, modders.

I wanted to upload the maps I used, but every single one of them already exceeds the upload limitations on this site XD

Yup. Total polycount has it's limits. That's why I decided to make several pieces without morphs. No way to bring down poly and maintain a good looking mesh. Started with my FemmeBots. I have some over 65K vertices. Fang has no morphs. The armor is 20K and also has no morphs.

It came to a point where you have a crappy looking mesh that morphs, or a good looking mesh that doesn't. Fang is a character that isn't fat or skinny, and the same could be said of most Elven soldiers, so....



I may decide to add that to my hoverbikes, although I can't use the original 4K textures in TS3 that you used. I probably wouldn't have cut the normals as deep, since the lettering, etc appears to be scratched up paint in the original.

Your model looks great, but it's apples to oranges, since trying to use 4096 x 4096 textures in TS3 is insanity. I wonder what you could do trying to use a 1024 x 1024 texture, being rendered by 32 bit TS3?

These are functioning hoverbikes I made a while ago from XPS. On right is basic original model. Left is my custom with minigun from another model. Reflections are exactly as I want, considering limits of TS3 rendering. May go back to them to see if I can get the landing gear to work.

It is literally from a 2002 game. We simply added modern graphic support to it, because we had to
A single dude, PervokPetr, from our community, implemented this whole thing, known now as hook5, injecting modern graphic routines into the already running ancient code.
It's fucking beautiful to watch that code in action!


P.S.: I do love your bike, tho.
And yeah, I am aware of the scratched lettering. It was a decision made in favor of looks over logical issues.

@LadySmoks
The rocket bike is here, albeit I do not have the original blender files anymore. But the maps and such are included here, as well.
It was my really first master piece, I think. I had never done any modelling or used Blender up to that moment (outside of implementing a pitchfork, that is).
And, yes, my opinions come across as strong. Just take them with a grain of salt.

That's fine... but you can't compare that to the limits modders face in TS3. Just having to make dxt5 .dds look good is more than many want to deal with, as artifacts get generated all the time. Graphics are in the game, it doesn't matter if I made a perfect render in Cycles or EEVEE... it won't be what the game produces.

I got my model on Shetch Fab via link on DeviantArt, where I get most of my models. Probably the same one.

Listen, I really like your opinion, I think you are a good modeller, from what I saw.
BUT.... here is the thing:
You are complaining about restraints in a 2009 released game that we solved in a game from 2002?
Come on. It can't be that serious then.
We enabled DirectX support on a game that wasn't even conceived when DirectX became a thing.
I am left stood here like "Okay... what is your issue?"
That model I posted above? It is running exclusively on a game from 2002.
Yes, it runs on an engine that is over 20 years old. And it does look like that in game.

I'm hardly "complaining" merely stating the factual limits that non-programmers deal with. And exactly how many people have access to your version of that old game? Can you legally share it with the world? Are you going to update TS3 for everyone that has the game, so it will use your new graghics? Probably not.

It's nice that you and your friends are programmers and hacked the code of a game you play, and made a personal version for yourselves. This doesn't alter the existing limits that others have with that game, or with TS3 graghics. So, those of us who are not programmers working in a team of programmers, but simple dress makers who expanded into other CC, we have to work inside the limits of the game made in 2009, using 32 bit and .dds textures.

Talking about what you can't share, how wonderful it looks, and minimalizing what others have to work with, just isn't very helpful. As I said, that model uses 4096 textures, which is not something TS3 takes joy in rendering.

Destropean you said that you've tried using WxWidgets before with C++? Were you having difficulties because the Sim's DLLs weren't compatible with the same library? I'm a little confused here. I've been currently working on a project for my wife involving a database she needs, so I've been using WxWidgets with C++. As it stands now I just write it in VsCode, which is available for Linux, and I use a combination of GCC++ and Ninja.