Tools you will need:
  • SimPE
  • Color Enabler Package 
  • Paintshop Pro 7 or some other drawing tool that has layers, gradients and noise.
Where do I get it?
BEFORE WE START:

SimPE is frequently updated. So any session of creating that you do, the first step should always be - go to the site and check for the most up-to-date version. This ensures that you will get the most stable program to work with, which includes everything that people have discovered so far.

The Version I wrote this tutorial with was  v22 - available from 28 Feb 2005. Updated with V60 on 11 January 2007.

Step 1  Make the Sims 2 - Testing version of the game, the main version of the Game.

If you've done the Tutorial, "Creating a Game Space for Sims2" then you'll know what I'm talking about in Step 1. If you haven't done that tutorial - go do it now. We'll wait for you.

Using Windows Explorer, go into My Documents\EA Games\ 

Rename your playing version of The Sims 2 to "The Sims 2 - Play"

Rename your testing version to The Sims 2.

(In the Example, I'll rename "The Sims 2 - Build" to The Sims 2)

It's a good idea to have your recolor OK meshes in a sub-folder of downloads, so that you only go looking for the one's where the creator has given permission for people to recolor.
Step 2 Use the Template to make yourself  a texture for the Tapestry

With the original Mesh object - is a template that looks like so:

(If you've lost it or over-written it - then save the picture here - it's the same template).

  • The Blue Bit is the pole
  • The Green Bit is the Tapestry cloth
  • The Yellow bit are the tags that hold the Tapestry to the pole
  • The Pink bit is the end of the pole.

Find yourself a fairly square picture, and resize it to 256x256.

It needs to be fairly square because it will look strange if you resize it more than a few percentage points with a different height and width.

Also it's better to have a bigger picture and size it down to 256x256, rather than a smaller picture - because the quality of the picture deteriorates when it is expanded. That's where you get the blurry pictures from.

OK - So here's the picture that I'm going to use. It's an image from a wrapping paper site that I liked

Resize to 256 x 256.

If you look below - you can set the resize type. I generally have mine set to "Smart size".

Also if you have "Maintain Aspect ratio of " ticked, it will keep the picture in the right ratio.

If you need to make it more square than it is - untick that box.

Copy the picture and paste it as a layer onto the template and then move it over the green bit.

Then add this psp file as a layer onto it, and adjust the transparency of the layer until the folds look right.  This gives you the shading you need to make the tapestry look foldy.

Then choose a color for the tags - I'm going to choose red. Select the tag, and fill it with the color. I've added noise, and shaded the areas to give it more interest.

For this tapestry, I'm going to put on a wood pole, and the same color tips.

To do that - select the layer with the template, mask the area that is the pole, and then fill it with a wood texture (I've just used the finished wood texture that came with PSP).

Now. Believe it or not - your Texture is complete!

Save it as a PNG file in the same folder as your mesh. (That'll make it easy to find).

Give it a name that's close to the name of tapestry that you're going to create. That makes it easy to find too.

I'm calling mine MAS2TapGrinch

(MAS - identifies it as mine. 2Tap - is for 2 Tile Tapestry, and Grinch - well that's sort of obvious

Step 3: Create a Recolor and change the Texture
OK Time to open up SimPE.

Click on Object Workshop.

Then Choose 'Open...'

It will bring up a Folder Dialog Window, choose the object you want to make a recolour for.

Ensure that the Recolor Task is chosen, and then press either the Start button on the far Right Hand Side, or alternatively, press 'Next' on the Top at the left.

Then wait.

SimPE will be loading up both the custom objects, and all the packages it needs from the game. This takes some time.

The File window will come up a second time to ask a name for the recolor.

When you're naming the package, decide on a naming convention and stick to it.

If you remember - we called the picture MAS2TapGrinch.

Well - That's going to be the same as the package name.

Then Press Save.

Once the file window clears, you'll have a window.

Choose the top selection in the Filetypes.

Then in the Packed Files area, Choose "Texture Image"

Then choose the "Plugin View"

In this tutorial - I'm using the simplest way to get a picture loaded into a recolour. Look for for a new tutorial - "Alternative Methods for Picture importing" for other ways to get clearer pictures.

Choose "Import" to get the picture file.

Because we've name the picture file the same as the package - the picture is easy to find.

Press Open to add.

And we're brought back to the Main window again.

Now the next thing to do is update all sizes.

So bring up the right-click menu by right-clicking on the picture, and select "Update all Sizes".

This will update all the pictures of the different sizes. (If we don't do this, then only the closest version will have our picture and the further away we get, the more it will have the default picture.)

After that - we press "Commit" up in the corner, and wait for the popup to appear.

Finally we go up to the File option in the menu bar, and select Save.

And we're done. That wasn't so hard, was it!

Now you can go test it in your game.

Remember - we've got the Test Space set up, so that means that the only user objects we'll have in the game are the ones we want to test.

Once you're happy it works in your Test game, swap your game back to your play version, and test it again, to make sure that it doesn't clash with any of your other objects.

OK - To do the 3 Tile Tapestry - we follow exactly the same procedure, except that we use this template to create the tapestry:

And we use the SimWardrobe_3tile_tapestry_1.package to create the Recolor from.

Now off you go and Recolor to your heart's content.
And don't forget to contact me and let me know about your recolors.
I'll add you to the links on the New Mesh page!