Creating Transparent Floors. Creating Transparent Floors. Contents. Introduction. Requirements. By Cyclonesue, 1 July 2006

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1 Creating Transparent Floors Contents SECTION 1: INSTALLING AND PREPARING YOUR TOOLS SECTION 2: CREATING A FLOOR TILE GRAPHIC SECTION 3: CLONE A FLOOR TILE PACKAGE IN HOMECRAFTER SECTION 4: COMPLETE YOUR TILE IN SIMPE SECTION 5: PACKAGING YOUR TILE WITH HOMECRAFTER Introduction This tutorial will take you step by step through producing floor tiles with areas of transparency; for example: rope netting, metal grid floors and glass shades. This method is totally compatible with Homecrafter, and you will be able to package your tiles and upload them too! Anyone should be able to use this tutorial. It is detailed enough so that, even if you ve never used created floor tiles before, you should still be able to complete this tutorial successfully. Requirements For this tutorial, you will need: The Sims 2 Homecrafter Plus ( SimPE (with nvidia DDS utilities installed) ( and a graphics program capable of handling PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format images. If your graphics program does not support PNG format, you can create your graphic in BMP or JPG format and then use the free and marvellous Irfanview program ( to convert it to PNG. Page - 1 -

2 Section 1: Installing and preparing your tools If you already have Homecrafter and SimPE installed, and SimPE is using the nvidia DDS utilities, then you re ready to begin Section 2! This section is for anyone who hasn t yet installed SimPE and is wondering whether they even dare to do so! Don t worry: if you re new to SimPE, then this section is for you. You will only need to do this once. Download and install The Sims 2 Homecrafter Plus If you have Homecrafter already, be aware that it has been updated for Open For Business so you might want to refresh your copy. For anyone who hasn t yet installed Homecrafter, you ll need this tool for making your floors (and walls and ground texture paints!). Get it from the Maxis Sims 2 site at: Download and install SimPE (1) Download SimPE from (2) Install SimPE (accept all the defaults) This tutorial is using version 0.58 of SimPE. SimPE versions can differ in screen layouts, but the procedures remain the same. Page - 2 -

3 Install and enable the nvidia DDS utilities For this tutorial, we will be recolouring by using the nvidia DDS utility method. By installing the DDS utilities, recolours are much sharper, better quality and don t have to be the exact sizes Maxis has set for the object. Note: you don t need to have an nvidia graphics card to use these utilities, so go ahead and install them! (1) Download the DDS utilities from nvidia at: (2) Install them (accept all the defaults) (3) Open SimPE and click on the menu: Extra \ Preferences (4) Look for the box where you enter the path to the nvidia utilities. In SimPE 0.56, it can be found in the topmost System Folders section of Preferences. If you accepted all the defaults, the path in this box will be C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVIDIA DDS Utilities, but you can also click the BROWSE button to point to the DDS install folder if you wish And that s it! SimPE is now prepared for creating new versions of fences and modular stairs. All these settings are remembered by SimPE, so you will only ever need to do this once. Page - 3 -

4 Section 2: Creating a floor tile graphic Create a graphic with transparent areas Floor tiles are a square 256 pixels wide and 256 pixels high. Create a square graphic of 256 x 256 pixels and either make it semi-transparent (for coloured glass) or create a graphic with entirely transparent areas for a grid floor. I m making a steel truss floor. The white areas are transparent Save your graphic Save your graphic as PNG format. If your graphics program offers a transparency option, then transparency must be on. If your graphics program does not support PNG, save your graphic as JPG or BMP, and then use the free Irfanview ( to convert it to PNG, ticking the keep transparency box. Page - 4 -

5 Section 3: Clone a floor tile package in Homecrafter Start Homecrafter Plus Start up Homecrafter. Make sure that you don t have any other Sims tools (or the game itself) open, because Homecrafter does not like sharing its resources with other Sims things! Homecrafter can take quite a few minutes to load if you have lots of Sims downloads, so be prepared to be patient. Once Homecrafter has loaded, click the middle option Create Flooring to continue. Page - 5 -

6 Clone an existing floor tile Pick one of the existing Maxis floor tiles to clone. Once you ve chosen a tile, click the clone button outlined in red below Page - 6 -

Edit the floor tile name and other details Floor tiles with any transparency cannot be modified in Homecrafter

Therefore, NOW is the time to edit the details of the floor tile because we won t be returning to this screen

Now change the subsort and Tile Repeat Subsort is the floor type in the game (for example: tiled, poured, wood,

7 Edit the floor tile name and other details Floor tiles with any transparency cannot be modified in Homecrafter after they ve been made. Therefore, NOW is the time to edit the details of the floor tile because we won t be returning to this screen again First, enter a name, price and description of your tile. Ignore the floor tile picture we change that later! Now change the subsort and Tile Repeat Subsort is the floor type in the game (for example: tiled, poured, wood, miscellaneous). Tile repeat governs how many grid squares in the game your graphic will fill. An example of a 5 x 5 tile is below; this helicopter landing pad will fill 5 grid squares of the game Page - 7 -

Edit the floor tile name and other details (continued) Select a sound type for your floor. The sound type governs the sound that your Sims footsteps will make when they walk over your new floor.

Of course, there are no glass or metal tile types, so I ve chosen the wood deck sound as the nearest match.

8 Edit the floor tile name and other details (continued) Select a sound type for your floor. The sound type governs the sound that your Sims footsteps will make when they walk over your new floor. Turn up your speakers and listen to each of the available sound types as you select them. Choose the sound that you think best matches the tile you re creating. Of course, there are no glass or metal tile types, so I ve chosen the wood deck sound as the nearest match. You can choose any sound type you like Finally, import your edited tile into The Sims by clicking the import into game button as outlined in red below And that s all we need to do in Homecrafter for now. You can now quit Homecrafter by clicking the door-shaped Quit button. Remember: never attempt to edit your transparent floor tile in Homecrafter again. Once we ve put the finishing touches in SimPE, editing the tile in Homecrafter will turn all your transparent areas to black and you will have to start again! Page - 8 -

$Homecrafter will have placed it in your Downloads folder (My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads) and will have given it a peculiar alpha-numeric name, making it difficult to spot!$

9 Section 4: Complete your tile in SimPE Find your floor tile created by Homecrafter We now need to edit your new floor tile in SimPE, so we need to find it. Homecrafter will have placed it in your Downloads folder (My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads) and will have given it a peculiar alpha-numeric name, making it difficult to spot! Therefore, the easiest way to locate your tile is to change your folder view to Details and sort its contents by Date Modified. In Windows XP, you can change these settings in the folder s View menu as shown below Page - 9 -

meaningful, but you can rename it now if you wish.

10 Rename your new floor tile s file name Once your folder is showing files by date modified, you should find that your new floor tile is the most recent file created As you can see, the file name is not that meaningful, but you can rename it now if you wish. To rename your file, simply click it once with your RIGHT mouse button and choose Rename from the popup menu. I ve renamed mine as cyclonesue_floor_metaltruss Page - 10

Resource Tree window, select the line Texture Image (TXTR) and

11 Open your floor tile in SimPE Double-click your new floor tile and it should open in SimPE Select the Texture Image In the Resource Tree window, select the line Texture Image (TXTR) and then, in the right window, select the texture image listed Page - 11

Import your graphic to replace the Maxis tile Switch to Plugin view (there should be a button at the bottom of the SimPE window) Right-click the floor tile image and

12 Import your graphic to replace the Maxis tile Switch to Plugin view (there should be a button at the bottom of the SimPE window) Right-click the floor tile image and choose Build DXT from the pop-up menu NOTE: if there is no option for Build DXT, you do not have the nvidia DDS Utilities correctly installed (see page - 3 -). Page - 12

Your graphic should now sit in place of the original Maxis tile and the transparent areas will show as grey-white check.

13 Import your graphic (continued) (1) In the DDS Builder window, click Open Image to browse for the graphic you made in Section 2. (2) Change the Format to DXT5Format (we use this format for transparency) (3) Click Build to import your graphic. Your graphic should now sit in place of the original Maxis tile and the transparent areas will show as grey-white check. If your graphic didn t import, this is usually because your tile was not the correct size. Remember: it must be 256 x 256 pixels in size! (4) Click the Commit button to finish Page - 13

If we do, Homecrafter will undo our transparency settings and revert your tile to black!

14 Make the floor tile transparent Floor tiles are normally non-transparent and, if we didn t use SimPE to edit them, the transparent areas of our tile would show as black. After completing this next step, we cannot edit this tile in Homecrafter again. If we do, Homecrafter will undo our transparency settings and revert your tile to black! (1) In SimPE, we now need to select the Material Definition file (2) In the Plugin window, click the cmaterialdefinition tab and change the Type from Floor to StandardMaterial (all one word). (3) Click Commit Page - 14

The lines will be empty (only a colon : will show) (2) We now need to edit these three new properties.

15 Add some transparency properties Now click the Properties tab (1) On the right, you should see a blue add link. Click this three times. This will add three new lines in the Properties window on the left. The lines will be empty (only a colon : will show) (2) We now need to edit these three new properties. They should read: Name Value stdmatfillmode solid stdmatlightingenabled 0 stdmatalphatestenabled 1 To edit a property, select one of your new lines in the left Properties window, and then, in the right-hand Name and Value boxes, enter the corresponding names and values from the list above. Page - 15

your properties in alphabetical order in the properties list (properties

16 Add some transparency properties (continued) Your three new lines should look like this Sort and commit your changes (1) Click Sort List to put your properties in alphabetical order in the properties list (properties not in alphabetical order can be ignored by the game). (2) Click Commit. Page - 16

17 Save and close Click the SAVE icon to save your finished floor tile, and then exit SimPE! Congratulations! You ve just made your first transparent floor tile! Now test it in game to admire your handiwork Page - 17

Section 5: Packaging your tile with Homecrafter We ve already mentioned the fact that you must not edit your transparent tile in Homecrafter, but you can still use Homecrafter to convert your tile

18 Section 5: Packaging your tile with Homecrafter We ve already mentioned the fact that you must not edit your transparent tile in Homecrafter, but you can still use Homecrafter to convert your tile into a Sims2Pack file so you can upload it to sites such as If you have only made the floor tile for yourself or the site at which you re uploading doesn t require floor tiles in their self-install Sims2Pack files, you can ignore this section. Start up Homecrafter Plus Open Homecrafter again and select create Flooring Page - 18

The transparency will revert to black and you ll have to start Section 4 all over again!

19 Locate your transparent floor tile Look for your newly created floor tile and select it Don t forget: NEVER edit a transparent tile in Homecrafter. The transparency will revert to black and you ll have to start Section 4 all over again! Click the Package to File button This can be found next to the Delete button at the bottom left of the Homecrafter screen Page - 19

Edit the name and description Complete the name and description fields. For transparent tiles, it is often worth warning people that they don t look very good when used on the ground!

20 Edit the name and description Complete the name and description fields. For transparent tiles, it is often worth warning people that they don t look very good when used on the ground! Click the tick box when you ve done. And that s it! You ll find a copy of your floor tile has been packaged as a Sims2Pack file on your PC s desktop and is now ready for upload to the Sims community on the web! Page - 20

Managing images with NewZapp

Managing images with NewZapp This guide is for anyone using the NewZapp Fixed editor as opposed to the Drag and Drop editor. The Image Manager is where images are uploaded and stored in your NewZapp account