I wanted to create some cc from an EA buy mode item and unfortunately TSRW won't let me do it, because it's non-recoloable. I merely wanted to create more presets and replace the textures with mine. So, now I need to somehow make the item recolorable, so that TSRW will open it. Is there a way to do that?

Open the package in TextureTweaker3 and click 'Upgrade to 4 channel CASTable' (if you don't need 4 channels, you can simply switch off the extras in the presets themselves)
Then you can either keep editing in TT3, which can also handle presets and textures, or save and open in TSRW.

Wow, thanks! I think I've used that before. I was trying to remember what it was called but I couldn't. Hopefully this doesn't sound stupid but what can't TSRW incorporate this function, if it can't handle non recolorable objects?

It's basically just a matter of what the developers chose to include - and the fact that all of these tools were last updated 10+ years ago, so the time for potential improvements has passed :P s3pi being open-source also meant that any developer could make new programs derived from it, so there is a variety of smaller tools for just about everything, whereas TSRW is closed-source and only maintained by the TSR developers.

'Upgrade to 4 channel CASTable' was actually designed to extend 3 channel objects, it's just a lucky side effect that it can be used on any object.
Before TT3, the manual way around it was to export the meshes and textures of the unrecolorable object and import them into a clone of a recolorable object instead.

I see. It's such a shame though. I guess they haven't updated it due to the Sims 4 Studio, which is more popular. Oh well.


I would actually do that but after extensive googling it seemed there was no way to get the mesh as an .obj file without downloading a program like Milkshape or Blender to convert it and I didn't wanna do that, cause it was way too complicated for such a simple job. So, I thought I could make the object recolorable instead XD

For importing between two TSRW projects, to and from .wso would be acceptable. TSRW can also export to and from .obj, but the bone assignments would be lost in the process.
But indeed, taking an object apart and putting it back together from its parts is still a lot more tedious than clicking one button in TT3

Yeah, I've done that before. The problem was that TSRW wouldn't let me do anything with the object because it was non-recolorable. It didn't even show a preview and all of the tabs to the right were empty. So then I thought I could export the mesh with S3PE and import it into a base game object that's recolorable. But the exported file was .object, which TSRW wouldn't accept. I did find a helper for mesh exporting in S3PE but it was a format I'd never seen before. In the end, after looking at various tutorials on meshing, they all required Blender or Milkshape, so I ended up deciding I'll make the object recolorable, because I remembered using a program to do exactly that a few months ago. Thankfully, you were there to remind me of it, so thanks! XD

Sounds like something else was unsupported about the specific object you were working on.
I checked with PaintingOutdoorSport, a non-recolorable poster, and even though the Textures tab is empty the Mesh tab is still populated with options, including Export. Which should be the norm, but TSRW is not known for consistency :P

Hmm, I see. Tbh I do vaguely recall being able to export the mesh of a non recolorable object one time but this time clicking the export button wouldn't do anything. And yeah, TSRW can be inconsistent. I think it could have been programmed a little better but oh well, it is what it is.