Introduction

The CAS Texture Unitool (hereafter referred to as CTU), is a tool to basically allow you to edit the CAS Part files that control which textures appear on which meshes. Using this tool, you may add new textures that appear in CAS for a specific mesh. You may also edit the pattern cutouts for those textures, the specular, the base colours, and pretty much everything possible thats available in the file. Additionally, you can add brand new, non-replacement meshes into the game.

What this program does NOT do

It's not a program to do meshes. Use a meshing tool.

It's not a program to do textures. Use an image program.

It does not send satellite pictures to your PDA.

It does not (by default) allow default replacements.

Installation Prerequisites

You must have the following BEFORE using this program:

- A PC running Windows XP or Vista. (Sorry this has NOT been tested on OS X or on Windows 7)
- .NET Framework 2.0
- DirectX runtime (March 2009)

How to install

Extract contents someplace. KEEP FOLDER STRUCTURE INTACT.

You should see the CasTextureUnitool.exe and a bunch of other files, and then a casparts folder and an xml folder.

Do not delete/move/change or otherwise do anything to the files in casparts!! If you do and you complain I will beat you with a set of clocks since we are running out of lime.

Quick and Dirty How To Add a New Texture Thingy To A Wotsit CAS Mesh

Using the 3 dropdowns, select your poison... aka Age, Gender and Type.

Using the Mesh Name box, select your mesh (ie a T shirt, or a Bra, or whatever)

Click "Add a Design"

Disable any stencils that are enabled (it copies the default values) and Enable Stencil A

Click "Replace" and find the DDS file you want to use. NOTE: Make sure you saved in a DXT format (DXT1 for things without alpha channels, DXT3 or DXT5 for with alpha channels). Do not use 8.8.8.8 ARGB (R8G8B8A8) as it is uncompressed and you will end up with massive files. It's fine for patterns, but not good for this stuffs.

Click Commit

Click File -> Save As.

Note: You may add multiple Designs to a single file - this could be different t-shirt logos, etc, but all designs in a file affect the same mesh

Detailed Usage instructions

For more help and information about using this tool, please see the CAS Parts forum, located here: http://www.modthesims.info/forumdisplay.php?f=597

For additional tutorials, see: Sims_3:Modding#CTU_Tutorialswiki

I get a System.Core error when saving

You don't have .NET framework 2.0 installed or installed properly. Go get it and install it. If you have it already, reinstall.

What happens if I blow up CTU!?

You should get an error box. Hit Ctrl-C, and then paste the clipboard into a reply on this thread. Tell me exactly what you did to get to that point.

PS: Use the [ spoiler] [ /spoiler] (remove spaces) around your error message to help cut down the amount of scrolling.

Thanks.

Changelog

Major changes in v1.8:
- Pattern preview in 3d view
- Makeup preview
- 3d view can now always be visible
- Many many MANY bugfixes