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Theorist
Original Poster
#1 Old 27th Mar 2016 at 7:02 PM Last edited by DJ. : 19th Jul 2017 at 5:03 PM. Reason: fix pic links
Default (Solved) Directly replacing TXTRs of clothing via SimPE, but along with TXTRs, the package contains LIFO files?
Hi.



Okay, here's what I got. I downloaded these swimming trunks. They show up in the game with the BV icon, not the CC star. I'd like to keep it that way. In fact, after I edit these trunks, I want to modify the existing package to incorporate the changes, instead of building an entirely new package.

1 and 2 are the original texture and alpha of the swimming trunks. They have two things that I'd like to change: remove the tribal tattoos, and remove the part that is circled in purple. This means that I have to edit both the alpha (for the tattoos) and the texture (for the crotch part).

My idea was to extract the texture and alpha, edit it in PS, and use SimPE to modify the texture and alpha in the original package.

I have the final texture and alpha sorted out already; 3 and 4 on the pic above.

I encountered a problem, however. In SimPE, the textures and alphas are already combined and show the final texture, and SimPE doesn't offer me to edit the alpha seperately from the texture. Furthermore, SimPE offers me two LIFO files, and a texture image of the trunks.



(This package is a bundle, containing more swimwear - both genders, adults and elders. The swimwear has the same mesh, just different textures (which show up as different patters on the loincloth in game).)

Is this what I'm trying to do possible, or do I have to import this project in-game, and then bin the clothes again? If so, is there a way for me to rescue current outfits of Sims I have - copy GUIDs or something, so that I don't have to re-select swimwear for all of them again?
Screenshots
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 28th Mar 2016 at 10:08 PM
You can remake the clothes and get rid of the CC star (Phaenoh has a tutorial showing you how to do that here). But you can also just alter the existing package.

I'm not sure why there are all those LIFO files in there. If you look at most recolour packages, they usually just have TXTR files for the textures. However, if you want to alter the texture, those LIFO files will be helpful. More on that in a moment.

Yes, SimPE does combine the texture and the alpha. It's actually easier (in my opinion) to work with just one file instead of two. If you want to work with the combined file and you want to remove the tribal tattoos (for example), then you'd just remove the tattoos themselves, leaving that area transparent.

For your project, here's how I would do it. I'd export the LIFO files into a graphics editing program (make sure it can handle PNG file format with transparency, because this is what you'll be working with). Export the LIFO file ending with 0, not 1 (because 0 is the big 1024x1024 texture image, which is what the game works with). Make your edits to the texture, and then save it as a PNG, remembering to keep your transparency. Then you can put the file back into the recolour package, replacing the TXTR image (do this by selecting the TXTR image in question, then right-clicking on the texture itself; choose Build DXT... from the menu, then find your new PNG image with "open Image..."; make sure Sharpen is set to None, then click Build; commit and save).

I'm not 100% sure if that will work, because I don't know if the LIFO files will override the TXTRs (like I said, I've never really worked with a recolour package that has LIFO files in it). Give it a try, though.
Theorist
Original Poster
#3 Old 30th Mar 2016 at 5:26 PM Last edited by DJ. : 1st Apr 2016 at 2:01 PM.
Ok, I did some experimenting, and this is what I got.

Look at the last picture in my first post. Notice the list on the lower left; a typical clothing package, as you said, would have this:
  • Image 1x1
  • Image 2x2
  • Image 4x4
  • ...
  • Image 128x128
  • Image 256x256
  • Image 512x512
  • Image 1024x1024

However, this package contains the following:
  • Image 1x1
  • ...
  • Image 128x128
  • Image 256x256
  • xxxxxxxx1_lifo
  • xxxxxxxx0_lifo

When I checked the sizes of those LIFOs, 1_lifo is 512x512 in size, while 0_lifo is 1024x1024.

I noticed that when I built DXT for the TXTR images, the 1_lifo and 0_lifo references disappear, i.e. the list only goes up to the size of the imported image; that is, if I built DXT from a 512x512 image, the list would go:
  • Image 1x1
  • ...
  • Image 256x256
  • Image 512x512

Opening this in BodyShop, it resulted in a blurry body texture. However, since I hadn't replaced LIFOs, it's now clear that the LIFO files became redundant in this package, since the TXTRs are apparently not referencing them anymore.

I tried right-clicking on the (now replaced) TXTR, and there was an option "Import local LIFO", but it was greyed out. I had no other ideas how to fix the lost references, so instead, I built DXT of the TXTRs using 1024x1024 images, and I ended up deleting the LIFOs for that outfit color/pattern. Everything now works normally, and the package is within reasonable file size.

(Perhaps the reason to this package having LIFOs combined with TXTRs is because this swimwear is a direct conversion from Castaway Stories. That game might've packed outfits differently.)

Thanks for the tips!

Edit: a quick google on LIFOs returned this ancient thread (caution: very ancient), where Wes was also unable to reference LIFOs. So it seems that there shouldn't be any issues with what I'm doing right now.
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