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Body Shop Created Clothes Have Weird Lightning Issues
Nindl
Posts: 510 Member
in The Sims 2
Help! I did some very basic recolours of base game tops in Body Shop and they look perfectly fine with some bottoms (see first pic), but with others they don't (see second pic). As you can see on the second picture, the lightning is just not right. It's too bright and there are weird shadowy parts on her neck and shoulders.
I have no idea why that is. All I did was open them in paint.net and change the colour hue, which should normaly work, right? I also tried editing a top in paint with the same weird buggy result.
I would be very glad if someone could help me!
I have no idea why that is. All I did was open them in paint.net and change the colour hue, which should normaly work, right? I also tried editing a top in paint with the same weird buggy result.
I would be very glad if someone could help me!
0
Comments
You can't change the hue and or saturation on the sweaters that have that glow effect in the MatBaseAlphaTexture. If you look some sweaters have a default (extra) mesh for the actual Texture, too. Those have to be overwritten if you want to get rid of that, but I won't go into that unless you are aware of how to write over Maxis Meshes and Texture Alpha files. It is risky. So, I would suggest instead of you trying to change hue or saturation on those paste over the Matbase Texture (make sure it isn't an alpha file mesh) with a color of swatch you want to use instead of just trying to change hue. They will all glow like that since Maxis has put that sheen on the MatTextureAlphas (different from the Alpha Mesh).
ETA: When you open meshes in Paint if they have three...one is MatTexture you can paste on or change color, and then MatAlpha is the actual black and white actual mesh, there is sometimes a third...that contains that glow. It's the MatTextureAlpha, and it's not advised to ever tough it, even by cc creators who use a MatAlphaTexture for an outfit to have a particular cut, style etc. Only try to change colors which don't have three, but only two. Because as I said if it has three then Maxis has put the sheen on it.
ETA: If you need an example of what I'm talking about anyone can look at the sweater that is open and has a shirt under it (red sweater) this mesh has three things, An Alpha Mesh (the actual mesh) The MatBaseTexture (the color and texture) and a third A MatBaseTextureAlpha (it contains a default sheen). Trying to change hue and saturation on that sweater outfit (layerd look) will always be bad with different bottoms, it will always glow if you tried to change the hue.
Thank you a lot for trying to help, but I am afraid I think that is not the solution to the issue. I tried creating a top in bodyshop without changing the hue or saturation, just pasted a heart onto it, and I still got that same problem with the weird lightning.
I have recolored that sweather but I pasted over the MatbaseTexture instead of hue because I found out that sweater has a hidden sheen Alpha texture somewhere. lol I agree it is a weird sweater to try to paste on or change color. I didn't take time one day to try to go through all it's colors to see if I could find the hidden default MatbaseTexture Alpha, but it sure has one somewhere. I notice some things won't work well together and others will or they may glow, because a bottom will have a Maxis default TextureAlpha and then you don't know it, and you try to mix them in CAS and they glow, you might have to just wear it with one particular bottom to keep it from glowing.
Try to stay away from hue and saturation, brighness etc. They are set for a particular reason, most of Maxis clothes in TS2 and TS3 have that sheen and yes, it's a headache to some of us. (by that they will look great in BodyShop but then you go to CAS and they will be glowing like a big orb from outer space, lol).
Lol, I see.
But I don't understand, why did this occur also when I didn't change hue, brightness or saturation? Shouldn't simple pasting work?
So now I can only make Body Shop stuff with clothing that doesn't have Normal Maps, which is very few clothing.
Does anyone know a bit more about this than I do or has more experience with / knowledge of Normal Maps or SimPe? Because I can't find any more help online and would really, really like to be able to make more clothing.
second - after so many years there are T O N S of all sorts of recolors, multiple recolors, new textures & new meshes as well
i would rather advice to search more acurately for what you're looking for than to do your own cc
it's already work to just search, find, download, install & test in game the already existing cc
nowadays also is tumblr probably the best source for anything sims
one can drown in the amount of TS2 cc there
but if you are determined anyway to try your hand at doing the same job hundreds of cc makers have already done before you, then maybe start here
Faylen's Clothing Recolor Tutorial Part 1: Basic Recoloring
there are also in the age of youtube videos teaching how to recolor stuff
& that's just the tip of the iceberg when i google sims 2 clothing recolor tutorial
Thank you for trying to help, but that doesn't solve my problem. I do know how to recolour and these basic tutorials don't teach me anything new and don't say anything about my normal maps problem. And I do know that there is lot's of great CC out there and I use a lot of it. I don't want to create stuff because I can't find what I want, I want to create stuff because I like doing it.
I already created CC with clothes that don't have normal maps and they worked out really nice. But I would like to be able to work with all the base game clothing (that has normal maps) as well.
if you're serious about doing cc then you will probably have to get yourself a better paiting program & will have to dive into the abyss of 3D & learn how & what textures are assigned to meshes
i can't help you there, cause making cc is just too much work for me, i gave up with cc already with TS2 because one has to deal with 3D programs & that's a pain, since 2004 nothing changed in that area, it got probably worse to deal with than easier for the average person not studying design that is
i made few cc for TS2 then, but that's ages ago
so you'll have to learn to find tutorials, there are such, after so many years most stuff is already covered by the community
as i wrote - try tumblr as starting point maybe
also you will have to get a good painting program, a wacom pen/tablet & a 3D program (Milkshape i suppose, it's not worse than those paid, if i recall correctly there was also Blender)
your question sounds innocent but opens a can of design worms
Thanks again but I have the feeling you don't quite understand what my problem is.
I don't need new programs as I don't want to create new meshes. I have all the programs I need to create what I want. All I want to know is why any clothing with normal maps that I import with Body Shop has that weird lightning bug, whereas clothing without normal maps doesn't - and how to solve this problem.
you think that your question is an easy to answer one
Cinebar has already tried to answer more or less understandably to your current level of knowledge, but since you want to make cc in that area so you will have to deal with a 3D program, sooner or later, there are no sims textures in a sims game without dealing with a 3D program
you have to understand how 3D works & especially how it is dealt with in a sims game, otherwise you will get errors
that shine you ask about is an error produced by the game because your knowledge of the files needed is incomplete
edit
Body Shop - Recolouring
That doesn't help either.
I don't think that my question is easy to answer. But neither of you has answered my question yet - Why does importing of clothing without normal maps work and why doesn't it work with clothing with normal maps?
If anyone knows an answer to this question, I would like to hear it.
Simply telling me that it is complicated and that my knowledge is incomplete does not help. I already know that, otherwise I wouldn't have this problem in the first place. If you don't know how to help me with my problem, that is okay. I hope others do.
Thanks for helping again! Her skin is the normal Maxis skin from the game. It seems like everything from her neck down turns weirdly bright whenever I equip her any top (with bump maps) that I imported with Body Shop - I even tried it with tops where I didn't even change anything.
Yes, I did mean bump map, I read here that they cause such issues - but deleting them did not work for me.
The skirt works perfectly fine with other tops that are not imported from Body Shop AND with tops that are imported from Body Shop but have no bump maps, which makes me again think that they are connected to the problem.
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I vaguely remember that there were some people complaining about how Body Shop gave them bad/buggy previews of their CC, when it looked as expected in the game. And since your major lighting changes are at the edges of the top and bottom meshes, as well as the sides of the skirt and blouse, I think that might be related.
Another question: does paint.net do layers? Because GIMP was a pain for me until I learned what to do about layers and transparency.
TS2 Graphics Fix Tutorial]
O.K. I'm not as savvy as I would like to believe, lol, however that discussion you linked leads to a better one, and is basically what I told you from the beginning. In this case that particular sweater (almost all of Maxis sweaters in game) have a third file which I have seen named MatTextureAlpha, they have a glow built into them or in this case will call it bumpmapping. Sometimes, this third file has a particular design to an outfit (contained in the links which I explained earlier) which though you may alter them with new texture say to get rid of some buttons etc., the MatTextureAlpha will still have those buttons once you get over into CAS. Does that make sense? However, with some of Maxis sweaters I have been unable to locate the original file they have used to clone all those sweaters which may be where the 'bumpmapping' or MatTextureAlpha is located. So, rule of thumb don't use Paint.Net, Retail Paint or Gimp to change Hue or Brightness or Saturation on Maxis Sweaters. It will never turn out good. Your first statement says you changed the hue. Get rid of your cc sweater and try again.
ETA: This link you provided (linked from MTS) is a good article and I should study it more, but until you are better at what you do, stick with texturing, and stay away from Hue.
This explains what you are talking about if you go by this then follow the detail to the T. ETA: If you are using SimPE then make sure you follow her instructions to the very last detail. No skipping around.
http://skellington7d.livejournal.com/89327.html?style=mine#comments
And last thought, keep trying, that article should help you. If you enjoy creating cc, then go for it! I like to try my hand at it too, no matter how much is out there I enjoy trying and sometimes, I make something good, and so keep going!
Happy Simming!
ETA: Corrections I opened body shop and simple paint to have a look at the sweater in question. Indeed it has a third file Named: top_stdMatNormalTexture.
Notice it says Normal Texture...this third file is what makes it have the sheen they added to most of the sweaters. If you alter the one you should alter ( topstdMatBaseTexture) and did everything right it will still have that sheen. The article linked explains how to get rid of those etc. files hidden and found in SimPE. What I do is get rid of the top_stdMatNormalTexture (without using SimPe) by pasting my new texture from top-stdMatBaseTexture, over it. But don't do that until you are willing to take more risk because you can mess up your game. But I have done it.
No, I haven't yet, but that sounds like a good idea.
@Scribal_Goddess
The problem occurs after importing it to the game. It looks perfectly fine in Body Shop.
Yes, paint.net does layers.
@Cinebar
Thanks for the encouraging words.
The issue occurs all the time with any top that has a normal map, even when I don't mess with hue. It happens even when I dont even touch the top and just import it.
Yes, the hidden Normal Texture in SimPe is the bump map which adds the sheen and which I should delete according to them. I have tried several times to get rid of it in SimPe using skellington's tutorial but it didn't work.
I am sorry, but I don't quite understand what you mean with "pasting my new texture.... over it". You mean I should simply replace the normal texture file with the base texture file?
What I did (and I don't know if it does it to that shine layer from the other layers) was once the edits were done in Gimp with the layers, I'd copy the work from Gimp then open it Micsoft Paint and paste the work over it and Save. M-Paint doesn't do layers so BodyShop* seems to copy it well.
I want to open that up and see what's going on but I'm only a recolor/cut-paste in Body Shop so I don't have much experience to help.
Thank you for that info! However, the issue doesn't seem to be connected to layers as it happens also when I don't use layers.
I discovered that the lightning issue only arises with bottoms that have bump (normal) maps. As you can see in the picture I posted at the beginning, it works with one skirt whereas with the other skirt it looks buggy. The skirt where it works doesn't have a bump (normal) map, the other one does.
So an imported top without normal maps works with bottoms both with and without normal maps.
But an imported top with normal maps only works with a bottom without normal maps but not with a bottom with normal maps.
Here, the first row shows the files of a skirt that works, the second row the files of a skirt that doesn't work.
So it seems the root of the problem are those normal maps and that they somehow conflict. I wish there was a way to just delete or disable all of them.
Isn't that basically what we all said? We said some tops will not work with some bottoms. We don't know why, a top without bump mapping will not work well with a bottom with bump mapping. I know the NormalMatTexture will override everything you do unless you change it, but I don't know if it changes the default outfit and would replace it as a default, I don't clone from SimPE, I just do as Rflong does and use transparency and layers stuff to make my new outfits from Maxis meshes.
The article says you have to replace the bumpmapping with the writer's bumpmapping. Maybe try that but make sure to follow those instructions without skipping any steps. Remove what you did install and try again, that is the only advise I can do. As for me, I have a long way to grow before I start cloning and using SimPE. I have found layers and transparancy (even in MS Paint) can do a lot I thought wasn't possible and I learned the hard way that sheen is on all Maxis tops. The NormalMat Texture is the key but ask over on MTS if it would be o.k. to copy over it, unless you want to wind up with default replacements. The writer over the article you supplied is supplying default replacement files for download so maybe follow those instructions carefully. I'm not savvy enough to tell you if her textures work or not.
ETA: Many archived sites offer meshes (without textures) and ready to download, for you to recolor or texture etc. Just because something looks like a sweater doesn't have to remain one when you use an outfit to cut and paste over and change it to something else, like a coat. Good luck, and keep researching it will help you and I appreciate the article, too, it will help me learn more I need to know later.
Well, you didn't clearly say that they don't work with bottoms due to them having bump maps as well, I wouldn't have written a post about it if it wasn't new to me. As I said, I already followed skellington's instructions multiple times and they unfortunately didn't work.
Where exactly did you find those default replacement files from that author? I would be interested in checking those out.
Did you scroll down to where it says Download TXMTs? They have provided everything you need to replace or remove the bumpmaps. I have not read all of their instructions, because I like bumpmaps. Some people don't. I stay away from Maxis sweaters to recolor as I stated you shouldn't use hue on them. If you want meshes to texture try the old site of Milano and Liana they have quite a few I have been working with lately and you might find something there you would enjoy texturing for your own use. They are free to share with your own textures and on your own site if you have one.
ETA: You can download any of these meshes to texture, enjoy!
http://lianasims2.net/meshes.php?cat=all
Of course. And, as already mentioned, replacing / removing the bump maps following these instructions did not work for me. Thank you very much for showing me the link, I will try to work with them.
ETA: I just realised - is it even possible to work with only a mesh using Body Shop? I do need a texture to edit, don't I?
ETA: My bug can't solely be related to Maxis clothing. I just tried it with different custom clothing with bump maps and the issue always occured.
Yes, you can work with the meshes in bodyshop from the site I linked. (No you don't need a texture with any of those). Maybe more tutorials would be helpful. ETA: concerning the meshes I linked, you are going to create your own texture they have supplied the file for that, too. But most will be empty/blank you have to create the texture.