Is it possible to create a pattern with some transparency?
Thanks (:

Yes but it'll just layer on whatever is underneath (ie the clothing).

Hi Delphy,

Does that mean that, for instance, it's not possible to use alpha to create a skirt with a slit?

I'm curious partly because the Pattern Packager seems to force the background filler to opaque. Is it possible to make the background filler transparent (e.g. by hex editing), and if so, what is the result (e.g. when applying a side-slit pattern to the skirt)? Will the clothing mesh in that area render transparent, or is there a clothing base colour which goes underneath that?

BTW - Thanks so much for your very cool tool!

EDIT: Well, I fired up the old hex editor and tried it myself. Results:

- Simply setting the background alpha to 0 has no effect. The game still treats it as if it has alpha 1.

- I tried deleting the entire ColorFill step for the background fill. This produced pretty funky results; the game would draw in the supposedly empty area with what appeared to be random colours (for example, the contents of the previous pattern texture, or another fill colour from the same piece of clothing, or some very tasteful shade of green from goodness knows where).

- Right now I am wondering whether it is possible to insert blending instructions into the background ColorFill step, and what the effect of that would be. Also, knowing a bit about DirectX, isn't it odd that they're using DestAlpha and not SrcAlpha for the blending functions? Am continuing my hackery-pokery to see what happens. (Edit: Doesn't work either. Same result. I am provisionally assuming that the game is combining the clothing texture with the pattern texture in a manner that always falls back on the clothing texture's alpha when the pattern is semi-transparent, even without a base colour.)

I do hope that alpha cutouts are possible at least when we finally get to mess with the actual clothing textures. Otherwise it's gonna be a royal pain to do things like ripped jeans, lace edges, and so on.

Last edited by 5parrowhawk : 6th Jun 2009 at 8:59 AM.

From what I can understand the patterns themselves aren't the things that control whether or not a particular part of the mesh is see through. There is another file that would specify that.

Probably the best area to look here would be the lacy tops of nighties and that kind of thing, to see how they are done up.

Looking at the lacy top of afBodyChemise (i.e. this outfit), it appears that transparency is controled via the alpha channel on the base texture, upon which is layered the Create a Style textures. We don't yet know how to make new base textures, but a particular outfit can have multiple ones (the tee shirts with different designs on them come to mind) and the alpha is not greyscale but pure black and white, making it a cutout, not sheer, but I'm sure more research in this area will be possible once we sort out more of the internal gubbins.

@HystericalParoxysm

How do you get the alpha channel and base texture of an outfit in Sims 3? I want to take a look at the base textures of the outfits. Maybe they are usefull to create some outfits for Sims 2. (Making Sims 3 outfits for Sims 2).

oepu - I'm using a beta tool called s3pull to grab all the DDS files out at once. I don't think it's actually been released due to it, well, being a command-line only tool and grabbing EVERYTHING of a particular type - dumping the DDS files gives you 4.43 gigs of files. XD Peter may have a tool over at the Sims3Tools site that can grab out files, but not sure.

Thanks for the quick answer. I have installed this program: http://www.simlogical.com/Sims3Tool....php?topic=21.0 (Demo front end for S3PI library). It opens packages to view them in hex code. is this helpfull? In which package are the clothing files?

In Sims 2 it was: TSData\Res\3D. Where to look in Sims 3?

Edit: I will try http://www.simlogical.com/Sims3Tool....php?topic=85.0 (A Lepid Llama Package Editor by Echo)

Last edited by oepu : 6th Jun 2009 at 1:23 PM.

Same question.

EDIT:

Last edited by lminchillo : 6th Jun 2009 at 8:49 PM.

the base textures are inside the Fullbuild2.package. In the folder
C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\Packages

You can extract them, edit them and import them again as DDS using echo's package editor.

They are just greyscale images so all the details on the cloth mesh is just an overlay image showing stuff like zips, ribbons or lace. Underneath the Create-a-style tilable is placed. Atleast I think that's how it sorta goes...

I've used Echo's Postal (package editor), but so far the only option is to export the DDS, not replace or import one of your own.

I tried it through importing the HEX code of the DDS image, but no go... the saved packaged file is completely askew (I've been trying to make my own skintone overlays).

I hope we'll be able to make our own overlays soon :-D

importing the HEX code of the DDS seemed to work for me.
(although some DDS formats came out weird, but others worked fine)
only it took 6 hours to save the new package file since it's over a gig

I've also tried to change the skin overlay, but the defualt still shows in the game, perhaps I'm editing the wrong one...

You absolutely should NOT put things directly into FullBuild2. For 1, it's likely this will get overridden in an EP, and 2 if you break anything you trash your game.

It's much better to make a smaller file that contains ONLY the default replacement you want to use. I have a 2 click process to do this, but I don't know about the other tools.

I don't know how to do that
I'm not good at coding.
Could you explain that two click process?

I was smart enough to make a backup of the original though

I said *I* have a 2 click process. It's just for me, and not available for anybody else.

Hey, can you tell me the group number (from Postal) of this outfit?
Thanks a lot.

now I'm sad