UPDATE (2025.05.14):
- Added meshes version compatible with @simnopke Heterochromia. Choose only one: original or compatible. Notice that compatible version has the same overlapping issues as Heterochromia
- CAS thumbnails updated
Finally, I’m ready to present the Sclera Accessory!
What’s the point?
This accessory helps solve a long-standing issue:
In TS2, when the sclera was painted directly onto the eye texture or used as a makeup overlay, it moved along with the iris, which looked unnatural. Players had to choose between a more realistic texture and better animation compatibility.
Now you can use eye textures with just a plain or gradient white sclera, while the lacrimal caruncle and eyelash shadow are placed on the accessory texture instead.
Thus, when the eye moves, the sclera remains in place.
How it looks in motion
Close-up:
Here’s how my Sims look with and without the sclera accessory:
Details
The mesh is a separated and slightly edited part of the face mesh, which allows it to work perfectly with facial animations.
I also edited the UV map to make texturing easier.
The sclera works with any eye shape and is available for all ages and genders, including infants.
The PU-EU and BU meshes are separate files so you can easily relink your recolors for all ages.
Recolors
I made 4 recolors. I wanted the texture to be something between hyper-realistic and maxis match — something in the middle. I know many of you are talented and will create even more amazing textures in different styles. Here's the PSD.
Known issues
First, I had to change the material type to StandardMaterial to make the texture’s opacity look better. Since this material type isn’t native to CAS items, it may cause transparency issues when meshes with alpha textures intersect.
Second, blue flashing fix: I didn't use a placeholder. Instead, I removed all references to the “lens” group in the mesh and texture files. I didn’t get blue flashing in testing, but if it happens, let me know and I’ll upload a fixed version.
Added meshes version compatible with @simnopke Heterochromia. Choose only one: original or compatible. Notice that compatible version has the same overlapping issues as Heterochromia
Hi spockthewok, first of all, I'm a huge fan of your incredible work and was wondering if you could help me and @yolkema out in creating neighborhoods based on medium-sized SC4 maps like in Sims Castaway Stories (and possibly even completely new large-sized SC4 maps) ?
Basically, these are our main findings so far:
The game cannot create neighborhoods based on medium-sized/large-sized SC4 maps on its own. This pop-up appears:
So, basically we tried the following: copy/pasting one of the default small-sized SC4 maps and renaming it to match with the name of the medium-/large-sized SC4 map and create the neighborhood as usual... but right after the game entered loading screen, we minimized the game and swapped the small-sized SC4 map with the medium-/large-sized one. It did work and didn't crash the game!
But after creation, the game couldn't display the textures properly... it created a glitchy terrain texture but the terrain is there, you can at least place decorations on it...
For medium-sized maps you can use Mootilda's HoodReplace to fix the glitchy terrain, it will look somewhat OK without the roads but some texture mismatch (in terrain and sky) is visible
But if you try to place down roads using newest version of SimPE and all, it creates weird shadows... but at least you can change the terrain too and this should allow us to create custom maps
The game is OK with using Sims Castaway stories' hood maps but custom medium/large SC4 maps don't work... it will keep creating the glitchy terrain, even if it was perfectly fine before (see screenshot below which happened after importing from SC4 map using HoodReplace)
So, if you "fix" the map using HoodReplace by copying the Sims Castaway map over and later try to use HoodReplace again to import from .sc4 map in order to create your custom town with different terrain and roads and all, it will break the terrain texture again... so this does not come from the somewhat controversial creation process (mind you, if you use the exact same method and swap a small-sized SC4 map with another small-sized one, it will create the neighborhood just fine without any terrain texture issues)
If you try to change the terrain type to something other than lush, it doesn't work great for desert and dirt terrain types... weird black squares appear but the concrete terrain seems to be somewhat OK
(These are all medium-sized maps btww.. and also nevermind the first one since I didn't know how to use the road tool properly, so that's why the roads are all weird in that one).
One good thing though, even if the neighborhood terrain is broken in neighborhood view, in lot view it works just fine and you can see the entire neighborhood in lot view if you increase the lot skirt.
If you're interested and want to have a look into this, here's the folder including all the experimental maps above (+ a mini tutorial on how to create neighborhoods based on medium-sized/larged-sized SC4 maps) : Download!
Basically we have:
N001 is the medium-sized lush map after it was fixed using Hood Replace using Sims Castaway map (it's technically the same map as in Sims CS lol)
N002 is a medium-sized concrete map after it was fixed using Hood Replace and modified in SimPE using the built-in terrain sculpting and road rool
N003 is the unfixed medium-sized desert map (with the glitchy terrain still intact)
N004 is the unfixed large-sized lush map (also with the glitchy terrain since we don't have any pre-made large-sized neighborhoods to copy from)
Again, we'd greatly appreciate your efforts if you ever decide to have a look into this and can possibly come up with a solution. But either way, just know you're amazing and your contributions to the sims community are already incredible and greatly appreciated! <3
Hello jawusa!
I have literally never tried to import SC4 maps into TS2, so I didn't know this restriction existed.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's a function called IsSmallCity() which needs to return true for a map to be considered valid to import:
If we look at the same function from Castaway Stories, we can see that this check was completely removed:
Patching this check out in TS2 allows for medium/large maps to be imported without the game complaining, but it creates the glitchy terrain you and yolkema observed. Presumably, the code that reads the terrain data from the maps only processes things up to the maximum bounds of a small map, leaving everything else uninitialised.
It will be interesting to see what changes Aspyr made to allow Castaway Stories to support these maps - as long as they didn't add a load of new functionality, it should be feasible to backport this to TS2.
I've had several other requests that I need to finish off first, but I've added this to my list of things to look at in the future :)
I see you're using SimPE's road and terrain editing features. Have you tried increasing the map size there?
Custom-sized terrains can be easily created with Chris Hatch's SimPE edition.
To do this, use the NHTG resource and the Grid Editor tab.
Then change the Neighborhood Grid Size.
The shader issues will be the same, but things start to look a little better if you change "Shaders for neighborhood" values from 128 and 1280 to 256 and 2560, respectively, for the sections of code starting with the
texture "nhoodLightMap"
This is what Aspyr did in the same shader for Castaway Stories.
You can take a look at this small shader edition here.
The screenshots show maps with 192 grid size with desert terrain type (default replacement by Criquette) and 160 grid size with lush. Before/after shader editing.
Even with the modified shader, the 256 grid size maps looked bad. You could try increasing the shader values.
I know last time I posted about this I got some comments pushing back on my use of AI for this app. I understand the concerns that people have, so i'm trying to be more thoughtful going forward. I have never used AI like this in the past, it was simply because I got given "Free Access" with the purchase of my new computer and I thought I would utilize the fact it was free to finally create something that I wanted. That free era is almost over but I won't be using it again.
I also got way more comments / messages saying how much they enjoyed the app. Thank you for both kinds of messages, good or bad.
After talking and discussing with people on both sides of the fence I have come the decision to hire a HUMAN developer to look into the app, look at its code, check for any "nastiness" that some people were worried out, and genuinely review and audit / fix any coding errors.
Going forward I will acknowledge that yes, the initial set up for this app was built with the help of AI, but future updates / current changes and anything else will be done by a hired human developer.
This developer gave me a comprehensive review of the app and confirmed there was no nastiness or weird stuff going on with the code - which I knew anyway but it's nice to have that confirmed.
They had some recommendations for some changes, such as as only allowing the app to read .package files / its own files. When "uninstalling" it should make sure it is only removing files it created - it should be doing that anyway but they recommended some more checks in the back end.
So they have edited some of the code already. But I hired them again to address the tightening of the code regarding the file reading and other recommendations they have suggested. Which again, has now been implemented.
So that being said... here is the Sims CODEX - again!
Note - The Sims CODEX is currently unsigned, so Windows / Some antivirus programs may show a warning. This is because code signing requires paid identity verification which displays my personal details. The app is offline, reads local Sims 2 .package files, and has had its source reviewed for unsafe behavior.
Some strands were yeeted because barely noticeable, I don't think miniscule bitty pieces are worth an additional 2k poly :3 As you can see in the picture, recolors may look a tiny bit different on the sides due to one of these strands being yeeted. New alpha included for recolorists.
Download from simfileshare
Credits: @latmosims who taught me poly reducing. @goatskickin for the recolor used in the preview. @evannamari for the original conversion.
Hi everyone! This is an experimental (WIP) mod that makes lot skirts in TS2 looking like neighborhood terrain. TSCS inspired me to create this mod; as far as you remember, TSCS has visible neighborhood decals from lot view. It is set in assembly code so that TSCS lot skirts use neighborhood techniques for mapping. Original TS2 doesn't have such functionality. LD attempted to immitate that via fake neighborhood deco but it was created for particular terrains only. So I decided to attempt editing lot skirt shader and got some results; it adds cliffs, rough and meduim stages and improves shores from lot view! Though it is not perfect as it has some misconsistency with lighting (original lot skirts also do) and doesn't repeat the neighborhood terrain mapping but I think it's more practical than neighborhood deco. Hope you like it!
Features
Adds neighborhood decals (cliffs, rough and medium terrain) to lot skirts.
Decals are also visible with snow states.
No blue snow fix is included.
Works for every neighborhood automatically.
Supports lighting mods (dusk and dawn states).
Looks better with default replacements.
Installation
Put the .package file into your Downloads folder.
Compatibility
Incompatible with shader mods that modify lot skirts so rename the file adding "zzzz" prefix to make it load last to prevent conflicts if you use many shader mods.
Doesn't conflict with other no blue snow mods that modify the rest shaders (roofs, lot terrain).
Known Issues
May look weird in dusk and dawn states using some lighting mods (still have no idea how to fix that).
Seam between lot skirt and lot terrain (original TS2 lacks lot edge blend technique like in TSCS to make smooth transition between lot terrain and lot skirt).
Lot imposter terrain paint may be invisible sometimes for unknown causes.
Terrain Types
Recently it has been discovered that it's possible to create new terrain types. My shader contains standard terrain types (temperate, desert, dirt and concrete) and uses dependence of textures on lot texture so if you add custom terrain types it's required for my shader to have added such dependencies otherwise my shader will look buggy for your custom terrain types (you are free to contact with me for more detailed information).
DOWNLOAD
Vanilla:
It's finally here, my tutorial for adding new terrain types to The Sims 2!
This was tricky to write so I hope I documented everything correctly!
You can also get the guide as a PDF (including tutorial files) at SFS.
(2026-03-06: I messed up and deleted the upload, I reuploaded it…)
Tutorial: Adding a custom terrain and road in The Sims 2
By JodelieJodelie
Version 1.0
13-10-2025
This is a tutorial for adding new custom terrains with roads to the four existing terrains (temperate, desert, concrete, dirt) in The Sims 2.
This tutorial requires knowledge of SimPE and editing files.
Required software
The Sims 2
SimPE
A text editor such as Notepad
A hex editor such as https://hexed.it/
Files that will be edited
The files you will edit should be in the folder of your latest EP/SP. Since I have the Ultimate Collection (UC) I will refer to the Mansions & Gardens subfolder (SP9) in Fun with Pets folder.
In my case, my install folder looks like: C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection. I’ll refer to the installation path as ~.
~\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Sys\NeighborhoodTerrain.ini
~\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\Catalog\Scripts\terrainPaints.txt
~\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\Materials\Materials.package
OR if you have shaders installed such as LazyDuchess’ Lot Lighting Fixes or the Multi Road Mod (1, 2) you’ll need to edit those instead.
Optional: Instance 0xFF1AFA1C: Shaders for terrain tiles
Tutorial files
I have uploaded a package with texture files for a snow terrain based on this dirt default by Freezer Bunny (uploaded by Shastakiss). The road texture is based on the Rural Charm road by Criquette.
Download at SFS.
The terrain file contains the following textures:
lottexture-canvas-snow_detail_txtr
lottexture-canvas-snow_txtr
snow-rough_txtr
snow-rough-hsnow_txtr
snow-rough-lsnow_txtr
snow-rough-light_txtr
snow-rough-light-hsnow_txtr
snow-rough-light-lsnow_txtr
snow-smooth_txtr
snow-smooth-hsnow_txtr
snow-smooth-lsnow_txtr
snow-smooth-rougher_txtr
snow-smooth-rougher-hsnow_txtr
snow-smooth-rougher-lsnow_txtr
The road file contains the following textures:
lotskirtroad_snow_00000304_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00000304_hsnow_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00000304_lsnow_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00000f04_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00000f04_hsnow_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00000f04_lsnow_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00004b04_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00004b04_hsnow_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00004b04_lsnow_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00005704_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00005704_hsnow_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00005704_lsnow_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00020704_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00020704_hsnow_txtr
lotskirtroad_snow_00020704_lsnow_txtr
snow_roads_00000304_txtr
snow_roads_00000304_hsnow_txtr
snow_roads_00000f04_txtr
snow_roads_00000f04_hsnow_txtr
snow_roads_00004b04_txtr
snow_roads_00004b04_hsnow_txtr
snow_roads_00005704_txtr
snow_roads_00005704_hsnow_txtr
snow_roads_00020704_txtr
snow_roads_00020704_hsnow_txtr
Notice how all the textures have the word “snow” in them. If you want to create your own terrain, you can replace these with a word of your choosing (but don’t replace hsnow and lsnow, these are needed when it’s snowing in the game). Don’t forget to click “fix TGI” and “Commit” in SimPE if you do.
Step 1. Editing NeighborhoodTerrain.ini
Make a back-up of your NeighborhoodTerrain.ini file.
Open the file in a text editor.
You will need to add new text in three places.
First edit: PaintInfos
Under [PaintInfos] you will find all the terrains in your game. The last one will be the concrete terrain.
Under [TerrainTypeInfos] you will need to add your terrain with 0x10 and 0x11. These are the cliff and beach paints. Technically this means you could have different cliff and beach paints per terrain. But that’s for another time.
So the format is Name=Cliff_Paint_ID,Beach_Paint_ID.
In our case this means you will add the following line under the concrete one:
Snow=0x10,0x11
Third edit: PaintMapTable
In this last edit you will need to add a paintmaptable of your new terrain. This map will determine at what height which texture will get applied.
Copy a map of a terrain. I used the dirt one as my inspiration.
Note, I don’t know what other terrainTypeSoundSuffix types exist.
Save the file.
Step 3. Editing shaders
This step depends whether you use shader mods or not. If you don’t, you will need to edit ~\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\Materials\Materials.package. Otherwise, you will need to edit your mods.
Regardless, make back-ups.
Predefined neighborhood materials
Open the Materials.package or your mod.package in SimPE.
Look for instance 0xFF6BE964.
Scroll down and add the following to the other NHoodRoadMaterials.
This step is not required to make your new terrain functional but will improve how it looks, especially if you have a texture with multiple colors or a grid.
The edit will need to be done in another shader, namely the Shaders for terrain tiles (instance 0xFF1AFA1C). Note: these values apply to all other terrains and terrain paints.
So again, open the Materials.package or your mod.package in SimPE.
Directly underneath terrainMatDiffCoef you will find the following.
# Specifies the number of tiles over which the paint & bump textures should be applied.
setf canvasDetailTextureScale 4
setf canvasBaseTextureScale 20
setf paintTextureScale 20
setf paintDetailTextureScale 4.0
setb hasCutout false
These settings determine the size of both the terrain and terrain paints. For some mysterious reason, the developers put the values at 4. This means that the terrains will span 4x4 tiles. This means it will never line-up with the neighborhood terrain that is visible from the lot.
The default 4x4, this makes lining up textures difficult.
By editing it to 5x5, you can line up textures better.
As you can see, by increasing the texture by 5x5 it will be easier to make matching terrain defaults.
So change the values to the following.
# Specifies the number of tiles over which the paint & bump textures should be applied.
setf canvasDetailTextureScale 5
setf canvasBaseTextureScale 20
setf paintTextureScale 20
setf paintDetailTextureScale 5.0
setb hasCutout false
Click “Commit” and save your file.
Example with another texture.
Before:
After:
Step 4. Changing the terrain in your neighborhood
It’s time to start the game!
Either select an existing neighborhood or create a new one. If you want to apply it to an existing neighborhood I recommended creating a back-up.
When in the neighborhood, use CTRL + SHIFT + C to open the cheatconsole
Type “Terraintype Snow” and hit Enter.
The terrain will change, but will look a bit weird. That will fix itself when you either reload the neighborhood or restart the game.
But we’re not done yet, we need edit some values in SimPE.
Close the game if you haven’t already.
Step 5. Changing the road with SimPE
I learned about this from this thread on ModTheSims.
Open SimPE and use the Neighborhood Browser (via Tools) to open your neighborhood.
Extract the Neighborhood Memory (NGBH) and save it somewhere as SnowTutorial.simpe.
Open the .simpe file with a hex editor. I use an online version: https://hexed.it/.
Go to byte 14. This will have a number. This number corresponds with the number of letters in your terrain. In our case “snow” has 4 letters, so this value will need to be 4.
Starting at byte 18 you will find the letters of the terrain name. Depending on the length of the current terrain and the one you need, you might have to remove or add bytes. Replace the text with the name of your terrain and add/delete bytes if needed.
It will look like this in hexed.it:
Save the file and give it another name, such as SnowTutorialEDIT.simpe.
Return to SimPE and NGBH and replace (right click) the NGBH with the edited version. Click save.
Close SimPE and start the game again to check on your neighborhood.
If everything went alright you now have a snowy neighborhood terrain and matching road!
Note: any existing lots will need to be picked up and placed again. This will reset the terrain.
Result
I currently don’t have a lighting mod. Below you can see lot and neighborhood terrain comparisons per season. The difference is biggest for summer.
It’s not perfect, for instance snow during winter will do this to the terrain and neighborhood road from lot view. Maybe I’ll figure out how to fix this another time.
This tutorial deserves a lot more attention than it currently gets ☝️
I think I didn't even realize what it was when I liked this post some time ago. It's just a game changer. Thank you, @jodeliejodelie!
Now we can create completely unique neighborhoods. And we can also preserve the vanilla Maxis textures instead of replacing them. And what a cool trick with terrain tile scaling is described here!
And based on this tutorial I finally fulfill my long-time dream of different cliff/beach textures for different terrain types.
Now I'll have a landscape with imitation black volcanic sand like in Iceland, which will not conflict with anything. I test it with concrete terrain - looks very promising.
Have you ever noticed that by default, only a couple of textures from the game's files are used with Temperate terrain type in the neighborhood view?
I decided to find out what would happen if I forced the game to use all 4 textures for wet and dry areas. So I changed the settings in NeighborhoodTerrain.ini of the last EP and it works: all existed textures are rendered now.
I found @evannamari Sclera accessory the other day and realised I could finally use the bruno eyes I used to use without the struggle of the sclera being impossible to deal with when I took story photos, and so I may have... made a random 71 set of eyes on my own more-animation-friendly sclera. (idk man, it's friendly enough for me.)
The sclera itself is a mashup of about 7 different ones I've had over the years. I know it almost certainly uses AlfredAskew's sclera, but... I'm not sure what else if I'm being honest. in any case, in the end it's some frankensteined mish mash of things. so I can't really take credit for anything besides blending them together.
The irises and such themselves are also not mine in the slightest, because they're just a mix of Bruno eyes that I've liked.
All eyes are townified and geneticised, so if that's not your thing you'll have to fix them in simpe or wardrobe wrangler. The eyes ARE organized via what they're geneticised as, but this is how they're geneticised in general:
Dark Blue, Brown, very dark grey: 01 (vanilla brown/dkblue)
Dark Greens, Med Grey, Light Blue, Light Brown: 02 (vanilla grey/green/ltblue)
Light Green, Light Grey: 03 (even more recessive than all vanilla eyes.)
There is also a default set is also available (on the simblr.cc dl page only) with this sclera, and it is a set of Bruno's Kylie eyes (of which there are a few more mixed in with the non-defaults.) The default includes an alien default using Bruno's Gemstone Obsidian as the Alien default, so be warned. delete that if you wish to use a different alien default.
Estelle (the preview model) is wearing "brunosparkling_lightbrown", which is in the "01_brown" folder in the zip.
Ok, you guys know damn well I'm anti-gatekeeping resources and anti-cc-creator-competitions-to-see-who's-better-at-playing-digital-play-Doh. AND ABOUT THAT, I found out about MESH REPAIR TOOLS by SINEWAVE. It's a FREE add-on for blender. It does A LOT of things, but do you know what it also can do? DECIMATE MESHES BETTER THAN BLENDER.
Before (taken on sims4studio):
After (taken on blender):
All of this with two clicks on the "Reduce" button. Yes I'm in an awe but can you really blame me?? The mesh looks exactly THE SAME. I don't need to fix wonky UVs or replace textures. It does everything PERFECTLY.
I don't see how this could be something that would upset anyone, actually. This is a free plug-in that decimates with one click, making the process faster and easier for everyone. It really doesn't bother me that it uses the default decimate modifier, it does what it says it does, making the process faster and easier. That's what an automation does, just like using actions on photoshop to make a specific color palette to your cc piece.
Maybe it's the language barrier and I misunderstood you. I read in your post that this add-on "DECIMATE MESHES BETTER THAN BLENDER". But it seems that it's not.
I was misled by this. And if someone, like me, installed this addon just in the hope of this, then there is no point in it.
Ok, you guys know damn well I'm anti-gatekeeping resources and anti-cc-creator-competitions-to-see-who's-better-at-playing-digital-play-Doh. AND ABOUT THAT, I found out about MESH REPAIR TOOLS by SINEWAVE. It's a FREE add-on for blender. It does A LOT of things, but do you know what it also can do? DECIMATE MESHES BETTER THAN BLENDER.
Before (taken on sims4studio):
After (taken on blender):
All of this with two clicks on the "Reduce" button. Yes I'm in an awe but can you really blame me?? The mesh looks exactly THE SAME. I don't need to fix wonky UVs or replace textures. It does everything PERFECTLY.
One! One damn property in the SimStandardMaterial shader was making the alpha hairs look less beautiful than they actually are.
Just look at the difference between hair with the default alphaTest true 60 property and with alphaTest true 0.
And what's really great is that the hair also renders normally in-game; I didn't notice any strange transparency issues.
I'm completely clueless about code and shaders: I simply replaced the code for one of the Maxis shaders, changing just this one property.
There are probably some pitfalls, because Maxis introduced this limitation for a reason. And there may be conflicts with other popular shaders that I'm unaware of yet.
But I genuinely want to scream with joy. It's a kind of magic for me. So share this feeling with me 🙌
As far as I know, the transparency of other CAS objects, such as accessories and clothing, is affected by other alphaTest true properties, where the value is 128, which also cuts off some pixels on very delicate alpha. I'd also like to fix this and will be testing changes to these properties.
Unfortunately, the first problem discovered. Now it's clear why this threshold is needed.
If you want to test this threshold yourself, you need to find Maxis Material Shader B8D92FFE-1C0532FA-FF703EE0.matshad and scrolling all the way to the bottom to edit the parameter alphaTest true 60 inside the "Macro for setting alpha blending and alpha test state for sim hair materials".
Now I'm thinking it would be a good idea to slightly stylize the textures for The Sims 2 so they look good even with the default shader settings.
To visualize how the alpha channel will look in-game in Photoshop, a "Levels" adjustment can be used with the Shadow Input Level set to 60. I hope this option will give the most correct display.
One! One damn property in the SimStandardMaterial shader was making the alpha hairs look less beautiful than they actually are.
Just look at the difference between hair with the default alphaTest true 60 property and with alphaTest true 0.
And what's really great is that the hair also renders normally in-game; I didn't notice any strange transparency issues.
I'm completely clueless about code and shaders: I simply replaced the code for one of the Maxis shaders, changing just this one property.
There are probably some pitfalls, because Maxis introduced this limitation for a reason. And there may be conflicts with other popular shaders that I'm unaware of yet.
But I genuinely want to scream with joy. It's a kind of magic for me. So share this feeling with me 🙌
As far as I know, the transparency of other CAS objects, such as accessories and clothing, is affected by other alphaTest true properties, where the value is 128, which also cuts off some pixels on very delicate alpha. I'd also like to fix this and will be testing changes to these properties.
Unfortunately, the first problem discovered. Now it's clear why this threshold is needed.
If you want to test this threshold yourself, you need to find Maxis Material Shader B8D92FFE-1C0532FA-FF703EE0.matshad and scrolling all the way to the bottom to edit the parameter alphaTest true 60 inside the "Macro for setting alpha blending and alpha test state for sim hair materials".
One! One damn property in the SimStandardMaterial shader was making the alpha hairs look less beautiful than they actually are.
Just look at the difference between hair with the default alphaTest true 60 property and with alphaTest true 0.
And what's really great is that the hair also renders normally in-game; I didn't notice any strange transparency issues.
I'm completely clueless about code and shaders: I simply replaced the code for one of the Maxis shaders, changing just this one property.
There are probably some pitfalls, because Maxis introduced this limitation for a reason. And there may be conflicts with other popular shaders that I'm unaware of yet.
But I genuinely want to scream with joy. It's a kind of magic for me. So share this feeling with me 🙌
As far as I know, the transparency of other CAS objects, such as accessories and clothing, is affected by other alphaTest true properties, where the value is 128, which also cuts off some pixels on very delicate alpha. I'd also like to fix this and will be testing changes to these properties.
One! One damn property in the SimStandardMaterial shader was making the alpha hairs look less beautiful than they actually are.
Just look at the difference between hair with the default alphaTest true 60 property and with alphaTest true 0.
And what's really great is that the hair also renders normally in-game; I didn't notice any strange transparency issues.
I'm completely clueless about code and shaders: I simply replaced the code for one of the Maxis shaders, changing just this one property.
There are probably some pitfalls, because Maxis introduced this limitation for a reason. And there may be conflicts with other popular shaders that I'm unaware of yet.
But I genuinely want to scream with joy. It's a kind of magic for me. So share this feeling with me 🙌
As far as I know, the transparency of other CAS objects, such as accessories and clothing, is affected by other alphaTest true properties, where the value is 128, which also cuts off some pixels on very delicate alpha. I'd also like to fix this and will be testing changes to these properties.
I like @evannamari's sclera accessory, but the shadow under eyelashes didn't really match my style, so I made 4 shadowless recolors of Evannamari's scleras: base, rednessless, darker and darkest.
While I was working on recolors, I decided to make some unnatural scleras for aliens and other supernaturals as well. The unnatural recolors are: green mint, green, light blue, dark blue, red and black. Each unnatural recolor comes in two versions: with shadow and without shadow. You can keep all recolors at once.
Here's swatch:
As you can see green, green mint and light blue are quite similar.
However, I kept pinkish/reddish eye tint on unnatural recolors. Sclera matching the color of canthus looked too flat for me. If you don't like the reddish sclera, I added a psd file with my recolors - simply remove or recolor "eye tint" layer. :)
Here are some pictures of unnatural scleras with unnatural eyecolors or unnatural skintones:
Or if you want to for some reason you can download this specific version here
Try the web version here
New web version!
Display meshes and bounding meshes
Normal, tangent, and uv (texture) data
Wireframe mode
Performance information
Change subset names and opacity values
Test morph shapes
Export and import resources
You can export resources by right-clicking on the resource name, the same place where you open the resource by left-clicking. Importing resources works by dragging the resource file into the editor (the resource that will be replaced will show a box around it while hovering).
This update has been a long time in the making, and there is a lot of stuff that I still want to create and improve, but I have decided that the state that it is currently in is good enough to be usable for now, and that delaying the release any further would not make much sense.
GMDC display has been consistently a pain point for people playing the Sims on Linux, and with this update I hope to have improved the situation somewhat. I also made sure to add resource export and importing functions, so that those who can't get the SimPe mesh functions to work on Linux can still work with meshes.
As I said, I wanted to add a bunch more features to this update, but right now it seems that I will have to make some large refactors before I can do that, which will take some time to complete. With that I would like to ask you all: should I work on some smaller editors (sim descriptions, bhav constants, other 'smaller' resources) before starting the large refactor, or should I get it over with to work on larger features?
Should I work towards bigger updates, or do a couple of smaller updates first?
Start the large refactor for big updates (BHAV etc.) (might take 2-3+ months)
Do some smaller updates first (sim desc., BCON, etc.) (1-2 weeks per update)
