SceneGraph

This article is imported from the old MTS2 wiki. You can help Sims2Wiki by cleaning it up. It's original page with comments can be found at http://old_wiki.modthesims2.com/SceneGraph

The "SceneGraph" in TS2 is a collection of files that combine meshes, textures, animation sequences, cinematic sequences, and several other files together to make a single object or set of objects that can be used in a TS2 environment. The SceneGraph, or more commonly called RCOL (Resource Collection) by modders, is one of the more important sets of files in modding TS2.

At this point, we don't have as much knowledge about the SceneGraph as we eventually hope to. We do, however, know what several of the file formats do, how they relate to each other, and which ones are useful to us now. Several of the more common RCOL files are Geometry Data Containers (GMDC), Creation Resources (CRES), Textures (TXMT/TXTR/LIFO), and animation resources (ANIM).

Several tools currently exist to allow extraction of models (GMDC). These meshes and bones can be edited externally in a 3D modeling and animation application, then reimported back into the game as a new or overriding model. There are also tools to edit textures and create "recolor" mods, taking an existing model and changing its look and feel.

Recent and ongoing developments with RCOL files are making headway for much more advanced mods, such as completely new objects and sets of objects, new characters, etc.

More about the SceneGraph: http:www.modthesims2.com/wiki/FileLinks