I debated whether to place this here or CAW, but I guessed it was more of an object issue, so hopefully this is the right place!

I used this tutorial to flag Cyclone Sue's telegraph poles as visible in World Editor so I could place them off of lots in a CAW project. However, when I do that, the textures disappear and are replaced by very flat, generic ones. This happens when I place the items in CAW, but also when I place them via the World Editor in an actual game.

So then I tried recoloring them by dragging the textures from a telephone pole placed on a lot, to one of the flat ones off the lot...and it gave the telephone poll a face.

I opened the package file again to look at all the images to see if anything looks like a face, but I don't see anything like that.

Does anyone know what could be happening? Is this something I can fix? I've only found two other utility pole CCs, and both are too tall and don't seem to include the wires, so I would love to make this set work.


Here is an image:
Right: Textures correct; object placed on lot in EIG
Center: Textures flat; object placed in CAW (looks the same when placed in World Editor)
Left: FACE! Achieved by dragging the CASt palette from the pole on the lot to the pole on the sidewalk while in EIG

I have potentially another clue. The pole object on the lot has 3 different texture slots in CASt, while the off-lot object only has 2. Does that help at all? (Sorry, tried to take a screenshot while in CASt, but of course the UI doesn't show up.)

I think I found the source of the face, but I don't know how to fix it. Can anyone help with that? Here is what I found:

I tried to follow this tutorial, because I did indeed convert these to package files first. While I couldn't find the instances the tutorial indicated, I decided to have a look at the xml files anyway, and found what you see in the attached image. I assume this is Venus's face on the pole. Maybe the new object was originally cloned from the Venus statue? How could I fix this?

I assumed from the title this would mean 'face' in the geometry sense and it was really much more cursed than I could have imagined

Good sleuthing on finding the reference to the Venus statue. This very much seems like leftover clone parts.
A lot of texture references are in the XMLs and they usually get ignored ingame, but world edit must read from these with priority.
The 0x0A1C37D328683034 seems to be the problem child in the package, containing keys for the old object.

A little tricky for me to test without CAW, so I shall give you options I would try in order of least to most tedious:
- Replace the XML in S3PE with the one I have attached. I replaced the main texture keys with the ones they should be using, but there's no guarantee this won't have other visual issues because it just isn't made for this object.
- Delete the XML, then open the package in S3OC and use Tools > Fix Integrity. This should clean up the references to it, will either boot CAW into loading another preset or error in another way.
- Use TextureTweaker to swap the references. Open the package with it, click on 'Model Defaults' tab, and select each reference that isn't a 00B2D882 file and click 'Switch'. Commit, then Save.
- When at one's wits ends with some TSRW creation nonsense... extract important resources and remake it more sensibly.

Good luck!

Thank you thank you! I'll have time to try this all tomorrow, and I'll report back with how it goes!

Alright, I've done the first three things. Option 1 unfortunately didn't change anything. #2 made the poles I'd already placed in CAW (only a few so far) disappear, and new ones that I placed had that flat texture sort of...baked in permanently? When I dragged a CASt palette on to it, I got a red x and was unable to apply the palette to the pole. #3 caused the entire model to have a shiny appearance, as if the IMAG tagged texture had been stretched over the whole thing (see image). I could drag CASt palettes onto it, but its appearance wouldn't change.

I guess I'm on to #4, remaking. I've never done that before, so I'll look up some tutorials and hopefully will be able to fix it!

I'm sorry none of those had any luck! Hopefully some object creators may see this thread and share a more straightforward way to go about removing old preset references.

I have the S3PE knowledge but not the specific object experience, so frustratingly I know what I'm looking at but can't quite pinpoint a clean way to do it.
In the meantime, I'll continue looking into it and report back if nobody else has illuminated the issue.

Edit:
If you have an example of a recolourable object that works as intended when placed in world edit, that would be helpful. Perhaps easier to solve the default appearance issue than the leftover preset one.

Let me find a recolorable object that works, and I'll get right back to you.

However, because object creation was melting my brain, I decided to try Option 1 again, except this time instead of importing your XML, I just copied and pasted its contents into the existing one...and it partially worked. No more creepy face! The only thing wrong now is that the pole off the lot is still reading only two channels instead of three, so the metal bits that hold the wires have no texture. In the attached image, you can see:

Left: cursed
Middle: XML changed, third channel is missing (only two in CASt) and has no texture.
Right: correct object, placed on lot.

Alright, I enabled another object for CAW, this one a rocket from AtS3. It correctly uses the first preset when placed in CAW, though it breaks completely if I try to drag another preset onto it. I'd be completely happy with just the first preset of the telephone poll working correctly, if I could manage to make that happen.

Here is the rocket, modded to show up in CAW and in package format: http://www.simfileshare.net/download/4025212/

The attached pictures show the rockets (left placed off the lot, right placed on a lot), plus the broken version after I tried dragging a new preset to it.

Progress!

I spent some time examining your XML, plus the ones from AtS3's rocket, and noticed that one of the telephone pole XMLs had "pattern C" set to false. So I changed it to true, and now the third channel is showing up. Recoloring by dragging the CASt palette now works properly for all three presets!

The remaining problem is, ideally, getting preset 1 to show up by default when I place the pole in CAW, so that I don't have to recolor each one from a lot. However, at least it's not cursed anymore! And if I still have to recolor each one, then so be it.

From left to right in the attached image:
1. Old pole, with only 2 of 3 channels active in CAW.
2. New, fixed pole, with all 3 channels active.
3. New, fixed pole, placed in CAW but not recolored.
4. New, fixed pole, placed on lot.

I'm so glad you made so much progress!

I'm assuming it's also grabbing the pattern from the old XML, defaultWood, defaultMarble, and defaultFlatColor.
Most frustrating is that the correct preset seems to be stored in a slightly different format, so it cannot just be pasted over this old XML.

I can find the correct pattern keys from TextureTweaker, which can export the other preset format.
Pattern A is key:0333406C:00000000:0CD3D99CE84548CE
Pattern B is key:0333406C:00000000:25929BB63AE3C3D6
Pattern C is key:0333406C:00000000:21C51F8BBA2AFFBF

These should replace the parts of the XML within the quotation marks with those (whole thing, including the word 'key'):


But there's also a larger set of pattern details at the end of the XML, defining the colour and such.
May still look slightly different without replacing those manually as well. Not sure if that's less tedious than recolouring them, I suppose it depends how many of these you need to place

Thank you! I'll give that a try, and then look at the end of the XML also.

Alright, I replaced these keys, as well as the following:

• At the bottom of the same xml, I put these same keys where it says reskey=, and used TextureTweaker to find the correct name for the resource where it says pattern name=.
• On the xml that starts with complate name="ObjectRgbMask", there is a place for each pattern that says default=, where the previous material names were given ("OLD\defaultwood" or whatever it was). I put the correct texture names here instead, as found in TextureTweaker.
• I noticed each of the default materials (those flat ones that have been showing up in CAW) had their own xml in the package, so I clicked each texture in TextureTweaker, chose "view XML", and then used these to replace the materials xml's in the package.

Unfortunately, this didn't change anything. The pole still shows up with those flat textures in CAW. However, it also didn't break anything, as the poles are still recoloring correctly by dragging the CASt palette, so that's good news at least.

There is one more xml in the package that I can't figure out what it does, but it does have "old" in it, so I wonder if it could be to blame for the flat textures still showing up. Here is what that xml says:


-----
I was able to reproduce what you initially did with replacing the keys on a second item from the set, so that it is now recolorable with no weird leftover textures. Now I just have to do the last two items in the set. At least I will be able to recolor them from items placed on a lot. I never would have been able to figure this out without you! You saved these items, seriously.

Hi there- I'm back with a slight improvement!
I found a way to regenerate the XML from an unrelated tutorial- I was reinstalling Store worlds tonight and stumbled upon a tutorial for fixing counters that is caused by much the same problem of deep referencing.
If you ever need to quickly reset the entire preset XML, you can do these same steps instead of replacing the keys by hand like I did.
In short- open in TT3, untick preset and retick, Commit, Save.

This still needs to be recoloured, even though it corrects those last parts we couldn't do manually, so there must be another part yet to be found.
I can also confirm this issue is caused by TSRW.

Ah, sweet! I'll try this and then poke around the file to see what else I can find :D