Repo'ing Shadows using my TS4ShadowFile

This tutorial is for anyone who wishes to learn how to repo their shadows to my file, the reason we want to repo to this file is so that it saves on game resources, uses less texture memory and is a more efficient way to get shadows in the game!

Knowledge level - beginner and above,

this tutorial assumes you already know how to convert items.

What is The Sims 4 Shadow File?

The Sims 4 shadow file is just a package file for your downloads folder, you will only need one of these in your entire downloads for it to work.

It uses one texture, just like Sims 4. As all items in the Sims 4 share one texture, this stops the game having to load hundreds of shadow textures.

You will always find the "LC_Sims4ShadowFile.package" in all of my recent downloads files, and other creators also include it in theirs.

If you are a creator, please do use and upload with your files! No need to ask!

DOWNLOAD HERE

The Tutorial

This tutorial will not go into how you convert items from The Sims 4 to the Sims 2, this assumes you already have the package file already cloned and .obj imported into the GMDCs.

Step 1

This step will show you what files to delete from your package file in SimPE.

The first file you want to delete are any shadow textures (TXTRS)

You can delete by right clicking on the texture > delete, or by clicking on the texture and pressing shift + delete

You then want to delete the shadow material definition file (TXMT)

Step 2

We are now going to replace the material definition file in the SHPE, click on the Shape (SHPE) via the resource tree, once you have loaded into the shape locate your shadow subset, this will be something like "groundshadow" or "wallshadow", it depends on what your item is. Sometimes, there might be more than one!

Whatever your shadow subset is called, make sure to make a note of them, we will need it later!

See where I have highlighted the Material Definition file? This is where you will paste this line;

##0x1C050000!lcsimsfourshadowfile_shadow_ground

it should now look like this, hit commit.

Side note;

When creating objects, to save me from loading up the shadow file and getting the names of the material definition file and any other resource that I need, I have a notepad file that contains almost everything that I need when creating.

In-case you were curious, this is what it looks like;

SIDE NOTE

Apparently you do not need to adjust anything else from here onwards. So that is it, your done!

The following steps are optional, I do find that some (very rarely) shadows do not work, but by doing the next steps they have worked for every object. Not sure what makes it work or not, or if I was doing something wrong in the beginning etc. But just in case.

Step 3

The final step is within Geometric Node (GMND) locate it in your resource tree and click on it.

I will then click on the blocklist to see if there is a entry for "tsMaterialsMeshName"

This one doesn't, so we will need to add it.

If your one does, skip these next steps and click here to go to the next step.

With entry "0x0" clicked on,

1 - click on cObjectGraphNode

2 - click add

3 - click on the new line created, "0: 0x00, 0x00"

In enabled, change the last 0 to a 1,

Then on the Index value, it should be the same as howevery many entries you have, for example, this one only had 2, so I will be changing it to 3 as I am adding in a third entry.

Now in the tabs at the top, click "Edit Blocks"

Then click on the (cAmbientLight) box and it will bring up a list of items, find (cDataListExtension), click on that

Then press add.

Now click on Content in the tabs, this will bring you back to that first page, where it says "0x0...." click that, your new cDatalistExtension should be there, will the same number as you entered in above

Once again, mine is 0x3, click on that

In the name section, copy and paste this;

tsMaterialsMeshName

On the right, click array, find "String" then click add

Click on the newly generated String, make sure its highlighted in blue, then other at the name write in your shadow subset name, this will be the same names in your SHPE file,

Mine is called "southwallshadow"

Then in the string box, paste this;

##0x1c050000!lcsimsfourshadowfile

hit commit, and save. And with that save, your done!

This technique should work with any item, it is the basic premise of repo'ing textures from one item to another.

Hope it all made sense and is readable!