Ground Cover Help needed

[mrbisonm]

I play the basegame only and wanted to create some new groundcovers in the game, after I saw and downloaded some good and nice ones. I downloaded about 18 of them and then tried them ingame, but somehow they ALL are not showing as in the pictures on the sites. Somehow they are much bigger in size then they were showed on the sites. Nothing to do with the sites because I downloaded from about half a dozen of sites and all groundcovers are like this.
Now I am pretty sure that I am missing something or don't know something to get the right size of the groundtextures. I never used the original goundtextures, but they also are like this......
But what?

That is where you come in.....lol.... Please? Can you help?

Picture of some of my covers I layed............



Picture of an original as it is supposed to be...........



Thanks.

[mrbisonm]

Anyone Please?......unless no one really knows (like me) what's going on.

[johndian]

Im assuming that the textures are seamless and tileable .
if so, take them into photoshop -psp  and make a new file twice the height and width of your texture. Next copy your texture and paste them side by side into your new file. Flatten the image and resize to 256x256 72 dpi. save this as a .bmp file and use this as your new texture. If it's still to large, use 3 times the height and width or larger untill you get the desired size in the game .remember before you save , it has to be resized to 256x256.

[mrbisonm]

Thanks johndian, but I am no good at these things to alter files, no matter which ones. I don't even know where to find these files.....lol.
 I cannot imagine why it does that. These files come from a dozen or so different sites and at least one or two should be ok, no? But none are, they are ALL way too big. Is that a common problem that everyone has? Or is it just me? Do we all have to resize the texturefiles? Why don't they make them in the exact size in the first place? This is stupid!
I can't use any of my groundtextures, they are all like this, it's just plein frustrating and discouraging.

[johndian]

First:
Just be calm. We were all new to this once and we all had our moments of frustration just like you.

Second:
Do a google search for "the Gimp" its a free graphics editing program thats really easy to learn. While your downloading, you also need to get home builder from the sims2 official ea site. (it will let you build your own walls, floors and groundcovers for the sims .) Also very easy to learn and use.

Third:
Practice, practice, practice.
Nobody here or anywhere else was able to create a great work of art the first time . You have to screw up many times before you get it right. Your not going to be judged while you are learning and asking questions.

Fourth :
Remember that any file you have downloaded or created goes into the following folder:
C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads

Thats the default.

Fifth:
Just ask questions. There are a lot of really good people and moderators here .

[mrbisonm]

So it is true that all groundfiles have to be redone (hmmm strange)..........lol.......well I didn't know that. I just find it not logical and stupid (believe me I am calm) to upload files that have to be resized everytime anyways, or maybe there's something I don't understand.

Sorry if I sounded frustrated, but I am not at all, I am about the calmest fellow there is, it's just that I have this problem ever since the game came out, (three years or so ago?) I never rteally used groundcover before, but now I would like to start to, but needing to learn how to extract and then resize these files don't interest me.
Are they any groundcoverfiles that are normal size (ready to use) for upload anywhere?

Thanks John for having helped me sofar, and please continue....lol....much appreciated.

Fred/ mrbisonm