I recently downloaded the sandstone sidewalk mod, and not liking how the sandstone contrasted with the still-white GLR, I downloaded a sandstone GLR mod, too. However, this did not effect the GLR stations or the GLR-subway transition pieces, so I tried to fix it by changing the base texture in the Lot Editor. This was fine for the GLR stations/transition pieces that aren't in a road/avenue network, but the base textures of the road/avenue GLR include the road/avenue textures, so I can't easily change out the default white textures for sandstone textures.
Basically, what is the easiest way to change a avenue/road base texture to have sandstone sidewalks and medians in the Lot Editor, so that I can change the base texture of GLR-in avenue/road stations to be sandstone?
Welcome to SC4D :)
Unless these textures come with the Sandstone mod, this probably can not be done just with LE. The textures you want are pretty specific.
However, the textures you want are in sandstone GLR, and you will need Ilive's Reader to get to them. All of the textures you want have a Group ID of 0x1abe787d. You would go through Reader, find the textures you want, and copy/paste them into a "blank" dat file. The textures in this new file should have their Group ID changed to 0x0986135e, at which point they aught to appear in LE as regular base/overlays. Problem is that all base/overlay textures use this Group ID, so in order to not overwrite each other, we keep an index of Instances. Although you don't need to have a range if you are not going to share, getting a range for yourself may save you the headache of going through all of the texture packs you have looking for ranges that are not used. Here is a link to the Texture Index (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2101.0). You would have to request a range, at which point Geoffhaw will step in and give you one.
How can I find the textures I want in Reader?
By looking for them ::)
I would start by emptying my plugin folder and then installing the GLR sandstone mod. I would guess that there is only one file, but I could be wrong. Anyway, if you open the file(s) with Reader and see a whole lot of FSH entries, then that is the one you want.
Keep constant backups, and an otherwise empty plugin folder. All of the FSH should have a GroupID of 0x1abe787d, but these are transit textures. To change them to base/overlays use the TGI editor to change the GroupID for all of them to 0x0986135e. They should all be viewable in an LE, however, not usable.
I would then open the file in PIMX. PIMX has a blank building in the "Other Models" section that can be used to make a building. Drag it to any building, you will not use the building in-game. Make a grow/plop, and then enter LE. When you click on the Base/Overlay sections you will see a picture of all of the textures, making finding the one you want easy. More importantly, the Instance of the texture will be written under the texture. Write down the texture ID's that you want.
Going back into Reader, fill the list and click on Instance, this will sort all of the entries. You are then looking for the Instance that you wrote down from PIMX. When you find this instance, know that a texture has 5 zooms, usually represented by 0-4 in the last digit, but not necessarily. You would select all of the five textures, and copy/paste them into a new (blank) dat. After removing all of the texture you are going to use, you can save and quit. You no longer need the original file, and it should be deleted or moved to some other file (if you think you may want more textures later).
The work isn't done. You now have potentially conflicting textures. You need to get a Texture Range and change the first 4 digits of each TGI to somewhere in this range. The fifth digit represents the wealth levels of the texture. In your case, you should avoid wealth, and use any digit other than 0-3. The 6th digit has something to do with dilapidation, so for safety, should probably be 0. Your 7th digit can be anything, and the 8th digit is set as the zooms, so you should probably leave it alone.
Good Luck.
Edit: oh yes, once you have a file that you know works... I would remove everything from plugins and make a backup of the work that had just been done. Then cut/paste all of your plugins back in, put your file somewhere nice, and start to edit the lots for real.
You could theoretically make the street textures you made have the same TGI of the street textures already on the lot. This may be preferable, because you wouldn't have to enter LE again, and you could easily switch the file out when/if you don't want to use the sandstone anymore. In this case, just make sure your textures load after the original ones, easily done by making a folder who's name starts with a "z" in your plugin folder, and putting the file in there.