Textures:

When you are up to your final build of your track it is time to change the base colors of the polygons. This is the color that the polygons have when you turn textures off and the colors that you see in the distance where no textures are drawn yet. If that color is dark green and your track is light grey it will look very ugly and that is why you need to change them.

[You need 3doEd]

Luckily there is a cool utility called 3doEd, made by Dave Noonan. You can edit all sorts of .3do properties with it. So how exactly do we use this tool to change the polygon colors ?

1. Open up your <track>.3do  in 3doEd and for a better view of only this <track>.3do, turn all objects off  [ Display  >  Object Filter > All Off ]

2. In the track view, zoom in until you see a section of track up close, select the surface type you want to edit by double-clicking on it with the square box cursor [for example asphalt] and click Edit Polygon;

3. There is a number in the color box, write it down;

3doEd [and the sims of course] define colors by referring to the color index number in the track palette. There are 256 colors in that palette so possible color numbers range from 0 to 255.

4. Choose Display > Color Filter and type in that number [should already be filled in] in that box and select Display Only This Color. Now only polygons of that surface type/color should be visible;

5. Go into your paint program, open the texture you are editing the polygons for and decide the best color in it to use for the polygons. Then write down its number in the palette index.

6. Zoom out so that they ALL fit in your square and double-click;

7A. If there are less than 1024 selected you can select Edit Polygon, fill in the new number for the texture or select it and select Update All Other then Update.

7B. If there are more than 1024 polygons in your square then nothing will happen, then you will have to zoom in a little and do the proces of 7A in smaller [less then 1024 poly's at a time] chunks;

8. Go about the track for all surfaces, walls lines or fences and when you are done, do not forget to click Update .3do.

It sounds time consuming but it really isn't once you get the hang of it.