#ts3cc tutorial

[simlicious]

Hi, I’m loving the advent so far! How do you get your patterns to look so natural? Whenever I make patterns I either get these crusty lines at the edges of some channels where one channel bleeds into the other. Or, I get these super sharp unnatural edges on them that never look any good. Teach me your magic please lol.

Thank you so much for the compliment :) I made a fancy tutorial, because more people might be interested in this topic!

There are a few things you can do to solve color bleed and crusty lines while making the Sims 3 patterns. These tips are for Photoshop and the TSR Workshop pattern tool, though they also work for Delphy's pattern tool. The EA CAP tool compresses its image files automatically, so you have no control over it afaik. Save your textures uncompressed! Most of your problem should be solved by saving your images in an uncompressed DDS file format (depending on what DDS plugin you use, it "8.8.8.8 argb 32bpp unsigned" or, in newer versions, "8.8.8.8 bgra 32bpp unsigned". This is an image of the newer dds plugin export dialog with the settings I use:

This reduces blockiness and color bleed significantly! Note: For maximum visual clarity and the sake of our eyes, starting from now, I will show just the contents of the individual color channels of the image, specifically green and blue. If you click on a single color channel in Photoshop, it will be represented in greyscale. My screenshots therefore also represent a single color channel and do not show how the colors interact with each other. I thought it would be distracting and hard to see if I presented everything in color and this tutorial is not about how to build a pattern, but how to get crisp outlines and the best possible quality.

What is the issue with compressed textures? EA's pattern textures are DDS files that use DXT compression (DXT1 for non-alpha/5 for alpha images, BC1/3 in the newer plugin). If you save your image as a compressed DDS file and reopen it, you will notice that certain areas are blocky/blotchy. That is because lightness and color information is not retained for every pixel, but areas get grouped together in a more or less chessboard-like fashion. In this first example, I increased the contrast to make these compression artifacts more visible so you can see what's going on: Notice the grey blocky areas?

These cause color bleed in the final pattern and the textures look blurry or washed out. EA's textures have this issue too, because they use compression. In some patterns, the effect is less noticeable than in others, but compressed files will always have a reduced image quality compared to the original image. Deciding to go with uncompressed textures was essential for me to achieve the quality I offer. I reasoned that the patterns are only 256px in size and the performance impact should not be very noticeable. I once made a survey in which I asked whether my patterns cause performance issues, and most said they did not, so I stuck with it.

You could test it out for yourself and decide! If you want to continue to use compression, make sure to change the quality of the compression algorithm to get the best possible result. In the screenshot I posted at the beginning of the tutorial, you can see that I set it to "highest" instead of the usual default "fastest", though this is not really needed if you save uncompressed files. The old DDS plugin used on older Photoshop versions also has that setting, it is just a bit more obscure. I do not have that anymore so I cannot say where exactly. Is it a bug? Lines all around the edges of some channels could also be a Photoshop bug*. This was a regular occurring bug in older versions (before CC 2020 or so.) The issue was that when you scaled down or sometimes even just saved an image that was not just the background layer but had stuff on other layers, there would be a faint line around the whole image. Suuuper annoying! *clarification: It's not an official bug, but a lot of people get annoyed by it. I still had this happen to me with the current 2023 Photoshop version when using bicubic (sharper) on an image with layers, but I do feel there are less problems with saving layered images now. Idk, this might be "feature quirk" after all... Anyway, to avoid the faint lines around your image, follow these tips: Using the bilinear mode when reducing an image's size helps, as does flattening the image before image reduction or file export. I like to create a copy of the entire document using the shortcuts ctrl+shift+alt+e to make sure it appears flattened without actually flattening everything. You could also paste the flattened copy into a new document, merge it down and export the dds file from there. Just try what works best for you. Retaining maximum quality on resizing Most images need to be resized to the pattern size, or you might have made a larger pattern and want that in smaller sizes. You may never have paid much attention to the settings in that image size dialogue, but it holds some key elements to make sure your pattern comes out in the best way possible! Per default, the resizing mode that is used by Photoshop to make an image smaller is "bicubic (sharper)". This mode has a sharpening algorithm that causes halos if the pixels are not white or black, which can create unwanted effects such as white outlines around grey pixels, or grey ones around black areas. Note: even if you have the "bicubic (automatic)" setting, it will still use the "bicubic (sharper)" if you reduce the image size! Let me show you an example: Below, you can see a comparison of bicubic (sharper) reduction vs bilinear reduction. The channel with the black and white checkers has some greyish edges after using bicubic (sharper), which can cause the texture to become unwantedly transparent in these areas, making the colors become muddled in these areas. Using bilinear or nearest neighbor modes (the latter is great for very geometric, crisp shapes), the result is very clean.

This is why do not recommend to use the bicubic algorithm on your textures. Go for bilinear and nearest neighbor modes, these are perfect for patterns. I do any sharpening of the channels in a more controlled way later.

The best way to sharpen your texture To make the textures look as crisp as possible, you immediately think about the "unsharp mask" feature, right? This might not be your best option though!

If you have a white shape on a black background with a rim of dark grey pixels around it and you want to make it crisp and want that dark grey outline to disappear, unsharp mask will actually do a pretty good job, because it mainly targets those grey pixels and there is nothing to lighten or darken on pure white or pure black. But if you have a lot of grey tones, the algorithm "attacks" a lot in your image, depending on how you set your radius in the options dialogue. Most of the time, the radius is set to a small number, for sharpening details, but it creates a problem for us in the form of halos/bright or dark rims around shapes.

I like to increase the contrast of the individual channels to make the image appear sharper without those halo effects that the "unsharp mask " feature often creates. I love to use the "levels" tool for adjusting the contrast, I use it all the time! I have grey pixels as a starting point and then applied an aggressive "unsharp mask" (strength 100, radius: 1px) to it so you can see the effect. The results are bright halos around the shapes. This will make the edges of the shapes more opaque on the final pattern and can look strange! On very delicate lines, this might be what you want, but for larger areas, this is less desirable.

Sharpening without actually sharpening

Instead of using "unsharp mask", I like to increase the contrast of the individual channels to make the image appear sharper entirely without those halo effects that the "unsharp mask " feature often creates. I love to use the "levels" tool for adjusting the contrast, I use it all the time!

On this layer, I have some intricate shapes, which should appear fully opaque. The are already bright white, but the edges are a bit too soft right now to get a truly crisp result, so I use the "levels" tool to increase the contrast and make the edges crisper. You can also use the curves tool for this, but I find the levels tool a bit more intuitive for this process! The curves tool gives you even more control over pixel values and lets you adjust them individually, which can be great, but for the purpose of creating controlled contrast, the levels tool will suffice.

By moving the marked sliders towards the middle, the contrast is increased. This also works nicely on grey pixels without creating the halo problem.

Another use for the levels tool in this context is to control the thickness of your shapes by moving the middle slider too, like this:

Final words "Levels" is your friend when adjusting contrast and making things sharper. In some cases, "unsharp mask" or other sharpened options can create a desired effect, such as on more realistic textures such as carpet/fabric textures, wood and stone, where you might want these halos to increase the depth of details. There is always a right time to use any tool, so if levels alone do not give the effect you desire, by all means, give "unsharp mask" a go! Experiment, and find the best way for you. The biggest gain in quality will come from saving in an uncompressed format though. Thanks for reading through the tutorial, I hope it was helpful!

[amuhav]

Tutorial - Hiding objects from the Build/Buy catalog - A slightly faster method for CCMagic users.

AKA Declutter your Misc Decor section!

So, I found tutorials on how to hide things from the catalog that requires manually opening and editing each package using s3pe, but I’ve found a somewhat faster way to do this, whilst keeping the original file unchanged, that I haven’t seen anyone else mention, so thought I’d share (I mean, someone else has almost certainly worked this out before me but I couldn’t find it anywhere). This requires CCMagic, and an understanding of how to make collections using CCMagic (very straightforward), and s3pe. Doing this will mean you can find all the items in collections, but they won’t be clogging up your catalog, eg Misc Decor (I had to do this as my Misc Decor had become so full, it often crashed my game when loading haha).

(This is also possible if you manually merge your CC, but you will have to add them to collections however you do that without CCMagic, I assume in game.)

Now, this is still a rather tedious process, and goddamn if someone could just create a program to do this for us I would die of gratefulness lol. But anyway, it’s still faster than the other method. And hey, maybe this will help someone 😊:

Step 1:

For this method, you need the CC you want to hide to be in their own CCMagic folders. If there are any files you don’t want to hide in that folder, I suggest temporarily moving them to another folder until you’ve extracted the files needed. For this example I’ll be using my ‘Misc Ornaments’ folder. You will need to have the objects in a collection, otherwise you won’t be able to access them in game lol. That’s kinda the point of this 😂

Make sure to hit rebuild if necessary!

Step 2:

Open up your Mods folder and then find the folder for the set you want to hide. So for me, that was F:\My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Mods\Cache\Sets\Misc_Ornaments. Inside that folder, there will be a package named something like ‘ModBUILD0′. Open that with s3pe.

Step 3:

In s3pe, sort all the files by ‘Tag’ and find all the ‘OBJD’ files. Select them all and Export them as a package. Name the package something useful (like mine lol; Misc_Ornaments_Hidden.) (I then later renamed the packages to be ‘Hidden_’ first to make things more organised lol)

Step 4:

Open that new package in s3pe. Now this is where things start to get super tedious, and the same as other tutorials for hiding CC. Select each item, and open ‘Grid’.

Under ‘CommonBlock’, find ‘BuildBuyProductStatusFlags’. Now, you can either manually change ‘ShowInCatalog’ from ‘True’ to ‘False’, or change ‘0x61′ to ‘0x60′ (if the code is different, which as far as I can tell it shouldn’t be, then just change the flag manually to ‘False’).

Then find ‘MovementFlags’ and either manually change ‘HandToolCanDuplicateWhenHiddenInCatelog’ to ‘True’, or just change 0x00000000 to 0x00000020. (I have seen some with  0x00000002, just change those to  0x00000022, or manually change the flag to ‘True’.)

Hit Commit. Now do this for ALL THE OBJD files. Like I said, this is the tedious bit, but it’s still faster than doing this for each and every package separately. For example, it took me about 10-15 minutes to do a packge with ~100 files in it, vs however the fuck long it would have taken me to find and edit each package.

Step 5:

Save the package, and move it into your Overrides in your Mods folder. Now, in theory, if this worked (it did for me anyway lol), this override should hide the items, but the original package files are untouched! And if you ever want them to show up in the catalog again, you can just move this file out of your overrides, rather than have to edit the files again!

Step 6:

Repeat this for all the folders of CC you want to hide! Ta-dah! All these objects can now be found in whatever collections you put them in, but hidden from the catelog! Yay, no more clogged up Misc Desc! Woohoo!!!

Now, for some bizarre reason, your game *may* tell you that some items were missing and have been replaced, but even if it does, they were literally replaced by themselves, so it’s fiiiiiiine.

Hope this is helpful 😁

If you aren’t using CCMagic and you manually merge your packages instead, you can export the OBJD files from your merged packages and do the rest of the steps the same, but you will have to manually add all the CC into collections beforehand, I assume in game as I don’t know of any program that just makes collections for you?

[simlicious]

This tutorial shows you what to do if you accidentally removed double vertices or if your creation does not have proper double vertices to begin with. I work with Blender and Milkshape. It is for somewhat advanced meshers that know the basic concepts of meshing already. Image 1: This is a mesh with edges that are properly split (has double vertices at the seams.)

Image 2: Ideally, a mesh has double vertices at a seam. This ensures that the uvmap is split properly. if I select this edge on the uvmap, only one side gets selected. The other side is connected to the other row of vertices. Every vertex has one uv coordinate. Image 3: I went and removed all double vertices for the sake of this tutorial. Notice how the vertex count went down? My creation has no sharp edges anymore, but the uvmap is still looking normal. Hey that's great, you might say. I can save vertices that way! We'll see...

Image 4: But If I try to select one edge of the uvmap, another edge gets selected with it - because they are not separated anymore. So I have two uvmap coordinates for only one set of vertices... That will cause trouble! Let's go ahead though and use this mesh like this to see what happens. Image 5: I assigned bones with the Mesh Toolkit and loaded the creation into TSR Workshop, clicking NO on the popup.  The effects aren't pretty... the mesh has black areas (these are the normals that try to smoothen the mesh, because it has no defined hard edges anymore). The textures are stretched and form weird lines.

Image 6: Now let's do an experiment. Re-export that mesh out of TSR Workshop (red export button). Now open that up in Milkshape and view it in the Texture Coordinate Editor. You see that the coordinates are all connected to each other... no wonder we saw wonky textures! so how do we fix that? Well, we'll go back to our other mesh before we imported it into TSR Workshop (this mesh we just exported is beyond saving, so throw that away).

Image 7: We now use the model cleaner on our mesh. Click NO on the popup! Very important!!! No export that and reassign the bones and morphs with the Meshing toolkit.

Image 8: Now import the mesh back to TSR Workshop (remember to click NO on the first popup and yes to the second). Look, textures are all intact! The vertex count ist the same we had in blender in the first image. The model cleaner made sure there were double vertices where they had to be!

Info: I did not smooth the mesh or anything, this was just to demonstrate the effects of the model cleaner. With an actual mesh, you'd have to take the time to copy and smooth the neck seams, arms and so on, but you get the idea... :) For more tips and tricks for meshing with Milkshape and Blender, check out this tutorial!