How to Make Working Fence for Sims 3
Suggested Skill Level: Pretty basic honestly. But this is written with the assumption you know these programs and how to use them. This is also focused on the mesh and getting it into game, in a working state, not textures.
Programs needed for the mesh
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TSRW
Sims4Studio
Blender
Milkshape 3D
s3ce (Converting sims3pack to package files)
Sims 3 Package editor
Art program with dds stuff. (I use Photoshop, GIMP scares me, sorry)
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STEP ONE: Pick 'n choose wisely, smash 'n grab
Pick your fence and your fence base from sims 3. This is the most important bit or else everything will go tits up.
Alpha map or no Alpha map.
And whether you are going to choose a fence with glass for this lil thingy, and the fact it has two mesh groups, not just one.
Levels of difficulty, most to least difficult
Glass
Alpha Map
Sans Alpha Map
So we are going to do both glass and an alpha map one. :)
Now youre gonna grab these three mesh bits from sims 4 studio and export to blender.
LOD 0 - Straight fence
LOD 1 - Diagonal fence
LOD 2 - Post
(In this case for both the Vampire and Spa Day one. On other fences you may have to go further down to even LOD 6 to find the post, so scroll down carefully!)
Dont forget the diffuse texture and the specular, keep the specular dds or else TSRW will spit on your face and steal your kidneys.
In blender, do your exporting. Remember to tick that selection only box.
Behold. Your Bounty.
STEP TWO: Prepping to slam it into TSRW
Make your TSRW Base file, remebering to rename the project and title cuz this program is finicky as fuck. Im using the Into the Future Fence because it comes up when you search glass in the search bar.
Its mesh groups
Group 0: Non glass bit
Group 1: Glass
In milkshape 3D, import your obj file, select the one mesh group to highlight it. If its the glass, move that boi down. If you grabbed the fence but, shift it up. And then. Just export it as a tsrw object
there are no bones/joints praise fucking be!!
Repeat for the Vampire fence. Just import, export.
What you want is just the, I hope, neatly named Spa fence parts, vampire fence parts, and the diffuse and specular. That is all we need for this.
Now, go back to your TSRW file and head to that mesh panel. You will see this.
Dont fret, just replace it with my handy dandy naming system in your head! Cuz its all it is.
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High level of detail: Straight fence
Modular 1: Diagonal fence
Modular 2: The post
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Import on the straight fence bit and you should see this. This is how you know you did the grouping right.
Finish that importing. Do the whole renumbering shpiel not saving when prompted yadah yadah. Repeat the process with the vampire one. Im using the wrought iron fence because the tall one doesnt show a texture section, for some reason.
Once you set up both files, exit TSRW fully to reset the program and give yourself more time before it runs out of memory but only tells you when you to go fucking save.
You did a good chunk already!! Yay!! Take a moment, breathe. Get yourself a cuppa. Because now its time for
STEP THREE: Those Gosh Darn Texture Maps
GLASS FENCE
You will see that there is no texture for the glass bit, and that is because that mesh bit works entirely on its own internal shaders, unlike Sims 4 that relies on the diffuse map.
If you keep the glass texture on the diffuse map, you will run into issues.
Open up your diffuse texture and delete the glass texture bit. Repeat with the specular map. (Remember, this is not including how to make a recolourable fence, so we wont be colour editing. Just make a fully red mask as big as the diffuse, and slap it on. If you want, you can also make an overlay file like I did. For funsies. )
You want this!
Go through to make sure you dont have duplicate texture files. Save the file to solidify your changes and export to Sims3pack. Congrats! You just made a glass fence! High five!
ALPHA MAP FENCE
For this fence you can easily import the diffuse and specular with no edits.
But when you make the mask map, clip that layer or else you loose the bit that makes it alpha and its just a hot mess.
YOU WANT THIS FOR ANY FUTURE MASKS YOU MAKE. DONT FORGET. You should see this in the mesh texture bit. Youre good if you do!
Behold your finished alpha mask fence!
Save, export, all that jazz.
STEP FOUR: We have A Post Issue
Convert the sims3packs to package files. Im sorry, but this is non negotiable due to one teeny tiiiny issue.
The fences will look like this if you just click and drag. But fear not! We can easily fix this! Open the package files.
Click CFEN
Grid, go to Tile Spacing
Turn that 1 to a 0, hit commit.
Save the file and tadah!
Problem solved. Now you dont need to deal with posts every single time.
STEP FIVE: Practice practice
You made functional fences. Draggable, will block routing unless you edit it in the CFEN data grid, and will allow for the placement of gates.
Now you just need to practice these steps until they become muscle memory and easy to execute. Go forth, make those fences. And the day I work out double gates' verts, I will release a tutorial on those buggers too.