Multi-Use Photo Frames

BlogpostPublished: Oct 24, 2007Views: 492

For a while now I've been wanting to make a set of picture frames based on the photo booth picture from Nightlife; you know, the one that you can place on either a wall or on a counter, table, end table, or coffee table... Well, with much cursing and swearing and sweat, I've managed to bludgeon the files into submission and produce a beginning set of photo frames. I got really ambitious with it, and have been making frames that can be placed at different heights on the wall, so they can be combined to make interesting layouts. I'm also ambitious in that I went nuts with the repository technique (well, of course I did!) and set it up so all of the frames get their frame textures from the square medium-height frame (the same size and placement as the original photo booth picture I started from). All square pictures get their photo image from the medium-height square, all panoramic from the medium-height panoramic, and so forth and so on. This first set of frames is just the start of what should be a sizable collection by the time I'm finished; it will include more height placements for the portrait and landscape photos (currently only available at medium height in this set), and some additional sizes and layouts of frames. And recolours. Lots and lots of recolours! For one thing, I've been threatening my brother for ages with the idea of me taking off with a big chunk of his art photos (he's a devoted amateur photographer) and using them for something in the sims... I figure this is as good a time as any to actually do so!

MsBarrows ∙ Oct 26, 2007

In case anyone else is wondering the same thing... here's what my response to greeneyedsims1's question was:

Okay, if you're familiar with recolouring, you're likely also familiar with the way computers like their textures to be sized in powers-of-two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024...). However, portrait and landscape proportions are not evenly divisible that way; look at a sheet of paper - it's actually 3 units in width to 4 units in height (or 4:3 if you turn it sideways into landscape orientation). So when trying to map textures to the portrait and landscape sized frame, you need to start with the 3:4 or 4:3 ratio (for example, 600x800 or 800x600) and then distort (unevenly scale) it to the 1:2 or 2:1 ration (600x800 -> 256:512, 800x600 -> 512x256) that is required for the texture to be usable by the game engine. Then when the stretched texture gets applied to the mesh and displayed in-game, it gets squashed back to the correct ratio, since the mesh is of the correct ratio and using the full te

greeneyedsims1 ∙ Oct 25, 2007

I am really impressed with these frames and look forward to the next set. I also look forward to recoloring these photos to suit my Sims. However, I had a question about your installation instructions.

What do you mean when you say, you should start with a portrait or landscaped-sized image and [b]distort it to the 1:2 ratio or a 2:1 ratio[/b], so it will end up with the correct proportions once in the frame.

I'm not familiar with "distort and ratio" terms, I don't think. I'm familiar with recoloring, I do it all the time but have never done this, I don't think. *smiles shyly*

Any help would be appreciated, and again...thanks so much for the frames!

--green