Thank you for the feedback. I agree with you that Paint.NET is wonderful for working with the dds files this game requires. There is no other program I've tried that lets me open them as easily or work with the alphas some of them have.

I'm glad the tutorial worked out for you

Thank you for this wonderful tutorial! I had been hoping to learn how to make my own paintings for sims 3 since I had never been able to for sims 2 (SimPE would never work on my comp for whatever reason) and now I'm just as pleased as punch because I just made my first painting, and it worked!

I had to use Paint.net since GIMP 2.6 would not save as an interpolated alpha, and Nvidia Utilites would not run at all for some reason, but everything else went off without a hitch, and now I'm off to makes loads of cutom paintings.

Again, thank you so much!

You're very welcome I use Paint.NET to make my alphas with too. It really is so easy to use it and all the other editors I've tried were very uncooperative. Since you're the second person in a row to mention it and I find it so helpful too I've edited the tutorial to provide a link about it. Thank you for the feedback.

Congrats on your first painting

Hi Orangemittens!!!! I am really beginning to love you

GIMP on mac has all of the tools needed to successfully edit DDS... so, if I can get S3OC and S3PE to work on Mono, then this should be something even Mac folks without windoze can do!
I wouldn't mind co-authoring a wiki page with you to include that :D

Hi again LF I don't know the first thing about Wiki pages or Mac so I probably wouldn't be of much help to you there...lol. But if you decide to take that project on and there's anything in my tutorial you want to use for it feel free

I can link to yours from this one too once it's finished so if a Mac user wanders here they can get information more appropriate for their system.

How can I find the polycount on a cloned painting?

Edit: nevermind. I saw your response on another thread so I opened my clone painting and exported the MLOD file to a folder where I could have S3Objtool read it and I got a faces and vertexes count which I think is what I need.

Thank you so much for this tutorial (I hope you won't mind my reply bumping an oldish thread). I only started messing with S3OC and S3PE yesterday after deciding I needed a new roof colour for my current build and whilst looking for a tutorial stumbled across this one. The roof turned out okay (after much messing about) and I decided to have a go at making portraits of my sims. Less than ten minutes later I have a portrait in game

Hello, thanks for this tutorial, but I'm having trouble with steps 17,18, and 19. When I import my dds file into s3pe, it shows up with the tag "UNKN" and doesn't replace the original file (no strikethrough). I did make sure "Replace duplicates" and "Use resource name" were checked.

Is it possible there's a problem with the format of my dds? I used Paint.NET to edit the image, and saved it in the DXT5 Interpolated Alpha format. However Paint.NET had several other formatting options which I'm not familiar with.

I appreciate the help.

Hi quasigoodandy When you're importing the new dds what is in the "Type" box in the Resource Details pop-up? Which painting are you working with?

I don't usually use Paint.Net for anything but making alphas with. But I did try editing a painting dds with it using a variety of the settings for dds and they all worked. I could be mistaken but I'm not sure that's where your problem lies.

Thank you soooo much orangemittens :lovestruc It was very easy to follow and now i have lovely paintings in my sims' house .

Thank you for letting me know the tutorial worked for you gabrielorie Ooo...and I meant to thank jeepjeepcat also so I'll do that now. Also, people who have questions about a tutorial shouldn't hesitate to post them even if no one has posted in the tutorial thread in awhile...threads in this section are different than in other places and it's not really bumping to get answers about a tutorial.

OK. I feel stupid.

I've done the 3OC thing, Opened the new package with S3PE, and when I right-click on the IMG to export, the import/export options are greyed out.

What have I missed?

(I'm doing the painting_cars option, wanting to do CMOMoney's tutorial).

I can export to a file from the main title bar option, but it won't open in PSP7.

Versions are:

S3PE: 1001-03-1524
S3OC: 10-1031-1514

I have installed a DDS filter for PSP7.

I've successfully done this once - so I'm at a loss about what I've forgotten this time?

(((Kiri!))) When you say you're doing the "painting_cars option" what do you mean?

The time(s) you've done this before were you using the same set-up in terms of s30c, s3pe, and your editor/plugins as you are now?

Can you post your package so I can look at it?

In your example you do paintingmodern. In the tutorial with the multiple images, she uses paintingcars - I suppose it's because it has multiple images.

To be honest, I don't remember the setup with S3OC last time, I redownloaded for this try out. It has different things in it - I've included bitmap screenshots of exactly what was ticked and not ticked.

The biggest difference is that I've got LateNight installed.

Since I posted, I downloaded Paint.net. It can open the DDS file, and it looks ok. So I think it's just that PSP7 must not be able to cope with DDS too well

But I still would like to work out why the right click menu doesn't appear to work for me. (I've included a bitmap screenshot of that as well).

http://www.simthing.net/5fam/KIRIproblemS3PE.rar << There's the attachment complete with packages and bitmaps.

I'm making Aussie Pub posters for my new pub - before I start on the scary thing of trying to mesh stuff for it.

If you want to use PSP to edit the dds you need to rename the dds before you try to open it with PSP. The name the dds comes out of s30c with is too long for PSP to handle. What I usually do is just make a copy of the dds, rename it something shorter, edit it, and then rename it back when I'm ready to import it back to the package.

I'm not sure why the import/export on your S3PE are greyed out like that...it could be the version you're using. There is a newer version available at SimLogical. I'd try that one and if you're still having the problem I would ask Inge about it. Sorry I can't help more with that one.

This error seems familiar, so as OM said make sure you have the latest version. But try going to the menu at the top rather than right clicking. Does PSP have any options to change for the filename length allowed? I would think it would handle filenames the same as the OS and not have it's own limits, but maybe it's a setting somewhere?

I hope this reply doesn't time-out.

Thanks for the tip about names in PSP7 - that worked perfectly, and I can now see the DDS in there! <hugs> OM!

The newer version of S3PE fixed the right-click menu problem. I feel like a real newb now for not checking that myself! Sorry for wasting your time on it.

@HL - I will look around in PSP7 to see if it can cope - I have done some checking but hadn't seen anything on long file names. It may be simply that it doesn't because it's such an old program.

Thanks again for your help! I'm off to finish the tutorials and make some paintings! :D

I don't think it's because it's that you have an older version of PSP. I've got one that's newer and it still has that problem. PSP and the long naming conventions we're blessed with in S3 just don't get along. And talking with you isn't ever a waste of time Kiri...hugs back to you ...I'm looking forward to seeing your paintings.

Step 01 is completed

Gotten further - but still have problems.

http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...487#post3366487

Thanks so much! A tutorial I can understand.
So far I have created and tested 2 custom images by following your instructions to the letter.

So far, so good, I managed to make my first custom painting without too much hassle with your tutorial. I'll try the multi-image painting and see how far I can go.

Thanx for the tut!

Orangemittens-
I am have been a fan of your creations, so it was easy to pick your tutorial first to try my hand at creating new wall art. Your tutorial is very concise and simple, containing precisely the amount of info needed for most to get rolling quickly. I did have some fits and starts, but I went back and found one...little...box...checked when it should have been blank (it was the one labeled "Default Resources Only" in s3oc). Since discovering that error, your procedure has worked perfectly!

I was a little confused when you wrote to "make sure Use Resource Name is 'checked off.'" I didn't know whether you meant checked or unchecked. I was able to sleuth that out quickly, as if the box is "unchecked," the IMG file replaced will not show in strikeout.

The newest version of S3OC is a little different from the version in your post, but not so much that it makes a difference.

Thanks again, and I look forward to your next creations- both decorative and informative!

Hi mfhorn. Thank you for the feedback

I'm wondering which painting it was you cloned that required you to uncheck the Default Resources Only box in s3oc. The overlay IMG usually gets pulled as a default resource and you shouldn't need to uncheck that box. If you do you end up getting a lot of resources you don't need in the package.

Your point about the Use Resource instructions is well-taken...I'll fix that. And I'm keeping my eye on the appearance of S3OC so that if it changes from the version I used in the tutorial too much I'll change the pictures.

Thanks again for the feedback

This is a great tutorial and once I got through all the basic bugs I had (i.e., using a very outdated version of the game lol!) I am able to do everything very smoothly. However, I get stuck at step #15. I'm using Gimp and have the appropriate DDS plug-in for it, but I'm not getting an option to save it as an interpolated alpha. Don't suppose anyone could help?

I don't really use GIMP so I'm probably not going to be much help but these are the first basic questions: Which version of GIMP do you have? Which plugin are you using? Where did you install the plugin?