Accessory Weirdness

[IronBeard]

I've noticed some extremely weird things about accessories based on glasses in my game and in BodyShop. Something somewhere is definitely not right and I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on it.
I have installed Uni, OFB, NL and Pets.

The problems noted so far as follows:
• Some items appear in the game in their various categories (every day, formal, etc.) but might only appear in BodyShop once or not at all.

• One particular item from the adult site (by Bloom, rings for the female top figure, if you get my drift) won't appear at all in BodyShop and, get this, they only show on female Sims after their folder, including the mesh, is removed from my downloads folder to the desktop!

• Quite often, sandals and slippers turn blue in the game, though I think there's a fix-it tutorial for that somewhere by Numenor.

• There are also a couple of non-custom glasses items (ie. they don't have the little custom asterisk) that don't appear to do anything, one base game and another with the NightLife mark. They only appear in BodyShop and once selected, they stay selected irrespective of any other glasses/accessories I select.

Now, I don't have very much in the way of accessories, just Bloom's sandals and slippers, a few of his blah rings for the limited range of body shapes I use, and a few Tu-Tus. That's all.
There are no duplicated items to confuse matters either; my downloads folder is squeaky clean and spick-and-span!
I've tried all the usual things, removing items, re-generating the cigen.package and Accessory.cache, plus a recently performed periodic re-install of the whole game and EPs has not corrected anything.

It's a bit of a puzzle to me.

[BlooM]

hey

Been a while but if i remember correct the rings are assigned to swim/undies and sleepwear only.
So if you want to view them in bodyshop you first have to dress the sim into one of those.

The blue accesoires often means a missing mesh or the link to it.
To check if your missing the mesh undress the accesoire at the mirror then go back to the mirror and repick them,
If the mesh is installed this will usually fix it.

[IronBeard]

Thanks for replying, Bloom.

hey
Been a while but if i remember correct the rings are assigned to swim/undies and sleepwear only.
So if you want to view them in bodyshop you first have to dress the sim into one of those.

That's true, but they still don't show in BodyShop or CAS. They don't actually show in the game until, as I say, I remove them from the downloads folder. I know that sounds totally off the wall, but it's a fact. I have to take the Sim to a mirror, select whichever size of ring they should have, though they won't show up as they should, save and quit, then take the rings folder out of my Downloads folder, go back into the game and the Sim will now be wearing the rings. How weird is that!!
Actually, I got that tip from someone who posted the same issue on the adult site.

The blue accesoires often means a missing mesh or the link to it.
To check if your missing the mesh undress the accesoire at the mirror then go back to the mirror and repick them,
If the mesh is installed this will usually fix it.

Yes, I usually change from the sandals to the slippers or visa-versa and that solves the problem for a while, and I know the meshes are all present and accounted for. I wish I could remember where I saw a tutorial for fixing the blue accessories glitch in SimPE. I will have a trawl around the tutes at MTS2 to see if I can find it.

[BlooM]

The problem lays within the group names in the mesh itself.
All of those blue flashing accessoires are based on the glasses who has 2 or 3 groups, the frame or rims and the lenses.
With custom acc the lens group often will be deleted but the recolor file still contains a link to it, that is the error.

There are 2 ways to fix this:
Make a placeholder for the deleted lenses in the mesh file:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=283059
Think you need Milkshape and Simpe for this.

Or delete the link to it in the recolorfile:
http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,79628.0.html
Done with Simpe

[IronBeard]

Okay, thanks for the links Bloom. I have access to SimPE and can take a look, but am I likely to find errors with your Sandals and Slippers packages? These are the only accessories I currently have installed that turn blue.

I also wonder what is going on with those N***le Rings, as there is no good reason why they should work when they ought not to, and not work when they should.

Is it possible that data relating to accessories is somehow being stored, misinterpreted or corrupted invisibly by the game and/or BodyShop? That might explain why the rings appear when they are physically removed from the downloads folder.
Of course, the workaround is fine, but it really irks me that I don't understand why this is happening.

[BlooM]

I had some problems with the rings at the time, seems to me you can have only have a maximum of 15 custom accesoires installed.(based on the glasses)
But prolly not the case here.
I cant believe they work ok when you take them out of the downloadfolder tho...there must be a mesh installed somewhere.
Might be a saved sim that was wearring them.

[IronBeard]

I cant believe they work ok when you take them out of the downloadfolder tho...there must be a mesh installed somewhere.
Might be a saved sim that was wearring them.

That's what I thought, but my downloads folder is super-tidy and I know exactly what is in every sub-folder... believe me, there's nothing I cannot identify. I recently weeded out all those annoying packages with just strings of numbers too; most were just duplicated outfits from years ago, some saved Sims and the rest I took a chance on removing, so far without any obvious side-effects.
As for the saved Sims, I re-cloned the ones I liked, one by one, and re-named their packages so that I can identify them as files in future. I deleted all the old ones.
So you see, I've thoroughly explored all the obvious possibilities, and still nothing makes sense. I can't even say that taking a look at the files in SimPE would enlighten me as I wouldn't know what to look for. Besides, these items work correctly for other folk, so perhaps it's something to do with the porting for the Mac.

[BlooM]

i never had the blue accesoires, it normally doesn't accur, only when you move arround the meshes.
For the sandals, i can update the files with the correct names and links to see if that helps?
Wich ones are you using?

[IronBeard]

i never had the blue accesoires, it normally doesn't accur, only when you move arround the meshes.
For the sandals, i can update the files with the correct names and links to see if that helps?
Wich ones are you using?

Thanks Bloom. When you say 'move around the meshes' do you mean physically putting the meshes into a different location in the Downloads folder? I do try to keep things tidy so, anything new that I download goes into a temporary folder then, when I'm sure I like it, I move the meshes and textures into separate, permanent folders. But it's been quite some time since I installed your footwear items.

I have a suspicion it may be the texture files that cause the problem on my system. You might remember my earlier post about alpha mesh glitches, where the problem was solved by re-building the raw32 bit textures with DXT3 or 5 - it seems my graphics card doesn't like the raw32 bit textures that BodyShop produces, unless they are on a bog-standard chunky Maxis mesh!
I don't know about your sandals/slippers textures and I can't get at SimPE to test my theory, as my wife took her Windows lap top to work with her! Maybe next week.
Anyway, to answer your question, there are three meshes I use by you with your original textures, no re-colors:
Bloom_Sandals_Mesh.package
Bloom_NTsandals_Mesh.package
Bloom_slippers_Mesh.package

[BlooM]

uhm, bodyshop doesn't generates 32 bit textures, only raw8bit for the normalmap.
Others are DXT1,3 and 5.

Yes, by moving your files arround in the downloadfolder, well more in the subfolders.
If im not mistaken all files get stored/linked(registred) in one of the cache files.
Those caches normally get updated when moving files arround but some files(and i think accesoires is one of them) get ignored.
So if you moving those meshes arround make sure you delete your caches!
Same story when you assigne the shoes to a sim and save the game, delete your caches when moving the files in diffrent folders.

I have no idea why some files get automaticly updsated and others not, maybe due some internal namechanges of the files.
But i have no intrest to examine them all....

[IronBeard]

uhm, bodyshop doesn't generates 32 bit textures, only raw8bit for the normalmap.
Others are DXT1,3 and 5.

Interesting! That may be true for the Windows version, but all of my re-color textures appear as raw32bit when examined in SimPE, certainly those which I had to re-build to correct the glitching I wrote of earlier.
I suspect that most of the 'weirdness' that occasionally affects outfits items in my game can be put down to a poor conversion of BodyShop to the Mac OS, as there seem to be a number of anomalies between it and CAS, not least of which is the mysterious case of the n•••le rings!

Yes, by moving your files arround in the downloadfolder, well more in the subfolders.
If im not mistaken all files get stored/linked(registred) in one of the cache files.
Those caches normally get updated when moving files arround but some files(and i think accesoires is one of them) get ignored.
So if you moving those meshes arround make sure you delete your caches!
Same story when you assigne the shoes to a sim and save the game, delete your caches when moving the files in diffrent folders.

I have no idea why some files get automaticly updsated and others not, maybe due some internal namechanges of the files.
But i have no intrest to examine them all....

I see. Well, I haven't noticed it happening in the last few days and I did re-generate caches as you suggested. Changing a Sim from slippers to sandals will correct the glitch when it occurs, hopefully everything will settle down in time.

Thank you for your thoughts on all of this Bloom, it's been really helpful in my understanding how the 'weirdness' occurs and highlighting some of the shortcomings of the Mac Pets BodyShop!

[BlooM]

So pets is the latest/last  EP you installed?
If i remember correct pets came with a few errors when it comes to material settings(related to the textures)
Search for the fix for Pets made by Marvine.

[Theraven]

Pets accessories are quite buggy, yes.

I have to remake any accessories made with a pets-free game, since the recolors usually shows up entirely wrong. At least those remakes will work for all ages/genders, won't flash blue, and won't look as if they're turned inside out...
I'm not entirely sure how to fix the bugginess, but I figured out that cloning an already fixed mesh was the only thing that worked for me. I tend to use the animal parts or shrek ears from MTS2, since those work for all ages. Only thing is that removing the toddler age tends to make eyebrows disappear. No idea why...

[IronBeard]

So pets is the latest/last  EP you installed?
If i remember correct pets came with a few errors when it comes to material settings(related to the textures)
Search for the fix for Pets made by Marvine.

I was beginning to get the impression that Pets was an issue, reading around the boards. Tsk! I've done a search for the fix you mention but all I came back with was an empty grave, some London fog and a brain in a jar. I also noted a sticky in Mesh Creation & Recoloring help on fixing a thumbnails issue with Pets derived outfits.
At least if I ever get around to uploading any outfits, I know how to fix my packages and re-build textures so that they will show up correctly for other players.

Pets accessories are quite buggy, yes.
I have to remake any accessories made with a pets-free game, since the recolors usually shows up entirely wrong. At least those remakes will work for all ages/genders, won't flash blue, and won't look as if they're turned inside out...
I'm not entirely sure how to fix the bugginess, but I figured out that cloning an already fixed mesh was the only thing that worked for me. I tend to use the animal parts or shrek ears from MTS2, since those work for all ages. Only thing is that removing the toddler age tends to make eyebrows disappear. No idea why...

This sounds interesting. Can you tell me what you mean when you say 'remake any accessories made with a pets-free game' and 'cloning an already fixed mesh'. I would very much like to fix the issue I have with Bloom's n•••le rings so that I don't have to remove them from the downloads folder in order for them to work! Is this something that can be achieved in SimPE?

[Theraven]

So far I've done Boblishman's face mask, the crutches and a cola box from Rose, and a few more. For me, the originals all show up as if the mesh is turned inside out, and looks horrible ingame, especially after I got a new computer.

I tried everything I could think of in SimPE, but ended up having to clone this mesh (you could use one of the animal accessories, too. As long as they show up right for you in BS/ingame, they're fine to use), then I extracted the obj meshes from the original, made resized meshes for the extra ages, and (well, first) made a new recolor from the shrek ears recolor with Bodyshop. Then linking the recolor to the mesh. Same process you normally use for making accesories, except you don't have to make the mesh from scratch.

I know there probably is a Pets issue with the blend setting, too. That one has given me a huge lot of troubles, especially when making objects, so now I do everything I can to avoid it, like cloning/extracting subsets with the blend setting already done, or avoiding using the setting entirely. Which naturally means that alpha clothing with transparent parts is a pain in the a**... But I don't do much of that, anyway. Accessories can bypass the blend setting anyway, since they already have an alpha layer. Transparent recolors show up strange in Bodyshop, but look great ingame. I think that might be my game only, since other transparent accessories tend to show up ok. If they're not having Pets issues, that is...