What's the current polygon count of the object you want to reduce?

i dont know how to find out.

Bowbow, if you select the entire object, the stats will be shown in the upper left corner (see pic).

As for reducing the poly count, there's no function in Wings similar to Milkshape's DirectX plugin; the only way is to create a simpler mesh, starting from the ground up, using the original mesh as reference. Obviously, this is possible only for simple objects: table, chairs...; not for cars or other complex meshes.

If you download the meshes from the internet (this is the most frequent case when a poly count reduction is needed), check if the creator has posted a double version, detailed and simple (sometimes called "mass" mesh).


Chrissy - The problem is that the catalog, in the fences section, doesn't support multiple colour options; we should rewrite the game code, in order to enable them. I wonder why Maxis did so... :confused:

P.S.: The attachment has been removed, as requested.

now that makes me think: maybe thats one of their incentives for a future EP? that EP will then provide recolorable fences by adding that bit of game code ???

I´m a little hesitant to ask another question since the last two turned out to be misspelles...hmmm.

But since this problem is non fixable for me I turn to the experts for help...

I cloned the modern sofa with the metal frame. I´m not quite happy with it but it shows up fine. The problem is that the frame are not showing my texture/color. It shows the black maxis one. I have been poking around and in the material definition the name has "glossblack" attached to it.
How do I go about this???

Thanks for any help you can provide...

Line

linegud: could u pls upload your file ?

Sure chrissy..... I´m a litte selfconsious though, since i´m not happy with the design *SS*
But I do want to learn......

Most likely your stdMatDiffCoef is set too dark. So your texture is showing, but you just can't tell because there is too much dark(black) tones being applied to it. I think the couch you use, defaults to 0,0,0 try changing to 0.8,0.8,0.8.

the only thing I could think of are the cDataListExtensions 'fabric' and 'metal'. they list all kind of stuff without them being around in the package - apart from the glossblack and tanleather.

my guess would be to delete the entries that refer to stuff u cannot find in the package... but I am not sure about that... Numenor ? pls ?

YES that did the trick :yippee:

But now i´m getting curious.... the stdMatDiffCoef has 4 digits - 0,0,0,1 - What do the 1 refer to?
Also there are 3 other "Coef" hmm... lines with numbers. what do they refer to? Can they be played with :devil:

Thanks a million Line

linegud: yup ! u can play with the MATD - Numenor has a thread about it. its a long story with multiple possibililities. thus best I can advice is to read the complete thread. its loaded with information...

Numenor's MATD thread

Thanks Chrissy....i´ll dig in

I still couldn't find a reason for those blocks to exist I usually delete them (updating the Datalist Extension Referece, obviously), and my objects work like a charm without them. I asked MaxoidTom for an explanation, but I still didn't get any answer... Probably neither Maxis know their purpose! :D




The fourth digit in the DiffCoeff is unknown to me, either (there are a lot of things that I ignore... ); I only know that in most cases there are only three digits (the RGB values), and if there is the fourth one, it is always 1...

As for the various "Coeff", in brief, they are used as follows:

• stdMatDiffCoef is the "diffusion" colour; if the mesh hasn't a texture, these RGB values determine the colour of the surface; if there is a texture, this parameter adds a tint to the texture (in this case, the best value are 0.8,0.8,0.8 so to give the right brightness to the texture).
• stdMatEmissiveCoef is the "emissive" colour, i.e. a sort of "inner light" coming from the surface (note: this "light" is a fake: the object will look like it is lit up, but it won't emit any light!); these values are usually 0,0,0.
• stdMatEnvCubeCoef is the colour of the "Environment Cube" reflection. You know the windows of the taxi cab? Where you can see trees and mountains reflected in it? Those trees are actually a texture, called "EnvCube" (there are several, in the game), and its only purpose is to be reflected in windows; you can add a tint to this reflection, to simulate a coloured reflective glass.
• stdMatSpecCoef is the tint of the "Specularity", i.e. the ability of the surface to reflect the ambient light; NOTE: "Specularity" doesn't mean that you will see the surrounding objects or sims reflected in the object: only the light is reflected!

OK, that's enough for now... I said it should have been a "brief" explanation...! :D

Numenor I´m so gratefull.... this will be a print out untill I get the hang of it *SS*

Wow I can almost feel the little gray ones working overtime and with the help I get in this forum, pushing me further into the meshing scene.

Thanks all...... you will probably see me again *SS*

Ok this is new to me and I don't think I've seen it anywhere. I just made a new mirror mesh. It turned out about the way I was hoping but once I have placed it in the room, the hand tool, the design tool, and the eyedropper can only pick the mirror, no matter what they are actually pointing at. The green box with the arrow on the floor seems to be normal... I'm putting it up in case anyone wants to take a look for me. Thanks.

It had the same problem in my game when I tested it. I tried re-importing the mirror frame into SimPE and use the "add to bounding mesh" while importing (this makes the clickable area of the object the same size and shape as the mesh you import using it, I think), but it did not fix it. I don't know how to fix this package, but if I were you I'd try cloning some other mirror, importing the meshes and textures into that one, and see if it works better. I've successfully cloned a mirror using the small, cheap square mirror, at least.

Thanks for looking at it for me. It is a clone of the Porcelain Oval Mirror. I actually picked it because I have made a clone ot it before. But I've also had success with the small square one so let me see if that works better.

Mage, I tested your mirror, but I don't have the problem you mention :confused:

Anyway, here is the procedure to fix the clickable area for any object:

1) Open the GMDC and go to the "Model" tab; on the right, there is the section related to the Bounding Mesh control (i.e. the clickable area), with a link labeled "Clear". Click it.
2) Switch to the "Groups" tab, select in turn the listed groups and, for each of them, click "Add to Bounding Mesh". IMPORTANT - Some groups must *not* be added to the bounding mesh: the shadows, the "subset0" of the mirrors and, in general, all the Groups that are not visible and solid parts of the object mesh.
3) Commit and save; repeat with the next GMDC (if any). NOTE: if a GMDC contains only shadows or other irrelevant groups, "Clear" the Bounding Mesh, anyway!

I am lookn for the thread that details the best program to use for meshes and etc. Anyone know where that might be?

Was it this one?

last night I started doing some recolors but while by then the internal filenames looked like this:

me.mymesh-[chrissy6930-14.11.2005-132cc]_extension

now they look like this:

me.mymesh-cfac9f89-9739-48a3-a728-22e3fd276e2e_extension

any idea how I can get the first version back ? I'm not really fond of seeing a hash in filenames...
thanx in advance!

Im not sure but it definately works thank you soo much!

Thanks. Could the problem have been that the shadows and or subset 0 did get added? I did get a bit confused as to what was what when I was importing.
Then I went ahead and made it over as a clone of a different mirror so I can't test it, but I'll try to remember for future reference.

Did you by chance reinstall Simpe? Usually that happens when SimPE looses your user name to the guid database. If you goto the register guid dialog, and put your login info back in, the next time you clone it should go back to the user-date-uniquenum format.

not quite! instead I got an error that ended with an it will reset settings. while I entered the paths of the DDS and checked most of the rest I missed to go to the identity tab. doing so now solved it.

thanx 4 the hint !!!