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ilvansims3conversion · 2 years ago

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Conversion process/tutorial for freefall water wall

As inquired by @dailycard, I’m sharing the conversion process for my recent creation: Freefall Water Wall. This guide is NOT intended for beginners as I only show what I think the important steps. If this is the first time you tried to make a conversion, I suggest you try something like Pixel Jackpot’s 4to3 wall decor video tutorial first.

This tutorial will cover:

Using counter shader (part C step 9)

Using phong alpha shader and UV scroll parameter (part C step 6-8)

Making occluder shadow (Part D step 4-15)

This tutorial will NOT cover:

Setting up TSR Workshop (TSRW)

Making object mask

Tools used:

1. Older TSRW (I used the 2.0.86.0 version) for:

Cloning TS3 object base item you want to work on

Importing mesh, because sometimes you can get an error when doing this in the newer TSRW

Changing shader

Adding shader parameter

2. Newer TSRW (I used the latest 2.2.114 version) for:

Exporting TS4 mesh & maps

Changing footprint

Changing bones position

Changing occluder shadow

3. Milkshape & its plugin for TSR Workshop 4. Photoshop

Part A. Prepare the required resources.

A1. In NEWER TSRW:

1. Open the Sims 4 small freefall water wall object. Copy the object’s name, description & price information to a notepad txt file.

2. Export the object mesh. In my case, there is only hLOD available. Considering the mesh is quite low poly anyway, I believe it can be used for as the mLOD as well. The sunshadow is not necessary whatsoever.

3. Export the diffuse map of material 1 (fountain body) & 2 (waterfall effect) as png. Material 0 diffuse map is not necessary because it’s just for drop shadow.

4. Open a similar looking object that has an occluder shadow. I used TS4 Romantic Garden’s Thriumphal Arch of Gluteus Maximus because it has an empty center & covered the upper part (I tested them in game first). Note the value for each of occluder entry (number 3). For this, I just took a photo each with my phone for convenience.

A2. In OLDER TSRW:

Open a Sims 3 object that fit perfectly against a wall. I used the bookshelf modern high 1x1. Export its hLOD mesh and name it along the line of “Wall Fit Reference Mesh”. I suggest using the older TSRW because sometimes I got an error when exporting in the newer version.

Part A check list:

Object’s name, description & price in a notepad txt file.

Small freefall water wall TS4 hLOD mesh as wso file.

Fountain body diffuse map as png file.

Waterfall effect diffuse map as png file.

EACH of occluder shadow entries value as notes/pictures.

Wall fit reference TS3 object mesh as wso file.

Part B. Editing the resources.

B1. In milkshape:

1. Import the small freefall water wall TS4 hLOD mesh. Then import the wall fit reference TS3 object mesh. Your workspace will looked like this:

2. Go to Groups tab. Double click each of the upper “Group 0″, “Group 1″, and “Group 2″ to select them.

3. Go to Model tabs. Choose Move (Number 2). Change the Z value to 0.08 and click Move (Number 3). The waterfall should clip slightly through the reference bookshelf.

4. Go back to the groups tab. Double click each group again to deselect the upper group 0-2 (Number 1). Select the lower group 0 and click delete. Select the lower group 1 and click delete (Number 2&3).

5. Export as “hLOD edit”.

6. Delete the “Group 0″ (red box). Select “Group 1″, rename to “Group 0”. Select “Group 2″, rename to “Group 1” (green box). Export as “mLOD edit”.

B2. In photoshop:

1. Import your fountain body diffuse map png file. Your workspace should looked like this:

2. Add the hue/saturation & levels adjustment layer.

3. In the hue/saturation adjustment layer, under the master control I changed the saturation value to -100 and lightness to -15. Save as “multiplier map” in png format.

4. You can also use the level adjustment layer to tweak its brightness and make the (optional) “specular map” in png format. I didn’t do this step as the lion fountain I’m using as clone doesn’t require it.

5. Make the masking map in png format. This is more of trial & error though, so I will not explain much. Here’s the mask map comparison I created as reference against the original diffuse map:

Part B check list:

1. Combined these item in milkshape:

Small freefall water wall TS4 hLOD mesh as wso file.

Wall fit reference TS3 object mesh as wso file.

To make:

hLOD edit mesh as wso file.

mLOD edit mesh as wso file.

2. Edited the “fountain body diffuse map as png file” in photoshop to make:

Multiplier map as png file.

Specular map as png file (optional).

Mask map as png file.

3. Unused part A items:

Object’s name, description & price in a notepad txt file.

Waterfall effect diffuse map as png file.

EACH of occluder shadow entries value as notes/pictures.

Part C. Building the object. In OLDER TSRW:

1. Clone the fountain france statue 2x2 TS3 object. Under the project tab, input the object’s name, description & price. Change the item flags. In my case, I do not change anything because I want the waterfall fountain to be found and placed similarly to the lion fountain. Save your project!

2. Go to textures. Choose the 2nd swatch dropdown option. Click on the smaller dropdown option on the left of it and choose delete.

3. Import your mask map. Do the same to your multiplier & (optional) specular map. Make sure your overlay & stencil maps is empty. You can also change the pattern now or just leave it the same as default. Save your file.

4. Go to mesh tab. Import your “hLOD edit” and “mLOD edit” mesh.

5. Select the “Shadow high level of detail”. Click on the generate shadow mesh. Choose the “160 vertices, 92 faces”. In my case, I can do the same for “Shadow medium level of detail”. Ignore the weird white square for now. We will remove it later. Save your file.

6. Select the “High level of detail” from the drop down menu again (Number 1). Edit the Group 2 material (Number 2). Choose the Phong alpha shader (Number 3). When prompted, choose YES! (Number 4)

7. Click the blue “+ Add” to show a new property window. Choose the UVScrollSpeed from the drop down menu. Click OK.

8. Replace the alpha map & diffuse map with “waterfall effect diffuse map” (Number 1&2). Make empty the Specular map (Number 3). Change the UV scroll speed parameter to 0 ; -0,8 (Number 4). When prompted to update the material definition to all LOD, choose YES (Number 5).

NOTE: If the object animation played in a different direction than intended here, change the UV Scroll Speed Parameter to positive or vice versa.

9. Go back to the main mesh tab, now choose to edit the group 1 material (number 1). Change the phong shader to counters shader (Number 2 & 3). If prompted to use the common values for this shader, choose NO! (Number 4). Click Done (Number 5). When prompted to update the material definition to all LOD, choose YES! (Number 6). Don’t forget to check if the changes has been made in the Medium Level of Detail. Save your file.

Part C check list:

1. In the “Project” tab: Edited the object’s name, description & price.

2. In the “Textures” tab:

Imported multiplier, specular (optional), and mask map.

Make sure your overlay & stencil maps is empty or disabled.

Change the pattern (optional).

3. In the “Mesh” tab:

Imported hLOD and mLOD edit mesh.

Generated the sunshadow in “Shadow High” and “Shadow Medium Level of Detail”.

Change the Group 2 Material to phong alpha shader, add the UV Scroll Speed parameter to 0 ; -0,8, import the alpha & diffuse map, and empty the specular map.

Change the Group 1 Material to counter shader.

Part D. Finishing the object. In NEWER TSRW:

1. Open your saved project. Go to the Slots tab (Number 1). Edit the Footprints (Number 2). Select the first 160 vertices (Number 3&4) and click calculate (Number 5). Change the Z value of 0,0114142708 to exactly 0. Change the value of -0,425990343 to exactly -0,425 (Number 6). Click OK (Number 7).

2. Expand the bones group (Number 1). Select the fountainTop entry to edit (Number 2). Change the Translation Y to -0,1 (Number 3). Click OK (Number 4). Save your project.

3. In the Misc tab, change the floor cutout bounds length to 0. This will remove the weird white square from before.

4. It’s recommended to create a new save file now as we will be editing the occulders. Expand the lights section and edit the Light 0 to show the Lite Editor Window (Number 1). Manually replace every occlusion entry value with the ones you noted/took photo of (Number 2). In my case the entry listed here is up to 8 occulders while the reference only had 6, so you can just delete the entry 7 & 8 using the - button.

NOTE: When manually inputing the value, use the tab key to quickly switch to the next value. You can also opt out the last zeroes from the value. If the original value was 1,51974000; you can just input 1,51974 and the zeroes will be automatically added after clicking OK.

5. The occluders should looked like this now. Try familiarizing yourself with each of the occluders by clicking on the light 56 entries one by one before we edit them to fit the object.

6. This is what I think how the occluder value works. Since I couldn’t find other sources, please let me know if I am incorrect. This is based on our occluder #1.

7. Now I want to change the starting point z value so it could fit much better. This whole part is a trial and error process. I changed the value from 0,444477 to -0,1.

8. Referencing to Pocci’s Blog, for the green note I wrote the value are more accurately called inversely proportional (as in 1/n). For example if I know the height of the object is exactly 3 tiles (n), equate 1/3 and I can input the value 0,3333333 to get the perfect height.

9. Next, I think the thickness of the object was 1/3 tiles, so using the equation 1/n and input 3 as the Y-axis z value without changing the - mark.

10. Lastly, I want the pair occluder to be closer, so I changed the pair offset value from 0,733... to just 0,28. Now we are finished with occluder #1.

11. Let’s jump to occluder #3 as it was the mirror of occluder #1. We can change the value similar to the occluder #1 while preserving the - value only for the orange circle shown below:

Occluder #3 result:

12.For occluder #6, the starting point is okay. We just need to change the plane size, shown red below:

13. Occluder #5 is similar to occluder #6, but with extra step fixing the starting point. Shown red below:

14. For occluder #2, I wanted to move it to the ground because when placed near the ceiling, the shadow they cast seemed less noticeable anyway. The values changed are shown red below:

15. For the final occluder #4, you can either delete them or fixing a few value shown red below. They intersect with the ceiling anyway so they won’t be noticeable if you delete them.

16. DONE! Export your file & test in game :)

thanks for @sims3tutorialhub for a few initial references I used :3

PS: this tutorial does not fully reflect the final published version of the conversion object I made, i.e. it has 2 more variations than described here.

#sims 3 tutorial #ts4 to ts3 #sims 3 conversion #tutorial

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