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Post by inkeros on Sept 14, 2021 14:39:56 GMT -5
I am frankenmeshing three different things into one hair CAS in blender: - a hair fringe accessory - a hair ribbon accessory - an alpha hair CAS (NOTE: these are not original meshes. They are CCs created by other artists, and this is only for my personal use. I would not be sharing these .packages with anyone) I've attached two blender files - A and B. LINK to file ALINK to file BA is the previous version that successfully imported into S4S. I still wanted to make some edits, so I went back into the blender file to make the following edits: - deleted the wonky hair fringe piece on the right, and replaced it with a fringe hair piece from another section - duplicated the hair ribbon and made them smaller, to put on the pigtails Between A and B, I didn't change or touch any settings; I only made those mesh edits. Then I saved the file, and tried to import this new mesh into the .package CAS hair file in S4S... but this time I get the following error message.  Could anyone please take a look at my files and let me know where I went wrong? Thank you for your time. (I am still fairly new to the realm of CC. I've successfully frankenmeshed many build objects, but this is one of the first hair CAS I'm modding) |
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 14, 2021 17:49:11 GMT -5
What hair did you clone for your final package? I want to see if I can replicate the error.
I took a look at both files and your UV mapping doesn't look right.
File B doesn't have a uv_1. Well, it does, but there is nothing in the uv_1 of any mesh group. The uv_0 for some of the mesh groups contain one giant triangle UV island. It's also more than 160,000 polygons which is enormously high. I had trouble with Blender lagging. The game will struggle with that hair, too.
File A has the same issues with the uv_0 and the uv_1. And it, too, is tremendously highpoly.
You've got to lower that polycount. You can use the decimate modifier but it could wreck your topology so keep that in mind. You can also go through the mesh and select edges here and there, press X, dissolve edges.
As for the UV maps. Open the EA hair you cloned and examine how both UV maps look. Your custom hair's UV maps should look similar to EA's UV maps
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Post by inkeros on Sept 14, 2021 17:57:34 GMT -5
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 14, 2021 18:31:37 GMT -5
Haha, you posted at the same time I was writing my post. I can't get the files to upload in the package you shared. File A just made Studio hang and file B gave me an error albeit a different error from what you're getting. I cannot see what hair Anto cloned. I wonder if he (she?) cloned another custom hair and went off of that. And the hair is set up weird. If you clone an EA hair and open the mesh in Blender you'll see that there are three mesh groups (at least all the ones that I've seen) and there is a proper uv_1. The Anto hair is an alpha hair but I don't think alpha hairs differ from Maxis much in their structure. I think you need just three mesh groups. And if the hair is long, and yours is, you need a uv_1 or the hair won't respond to the CAS sliders and will morph weirdly. In both files, s4studio_mesh_1 has more than 90,000 polygons. In the Anto hair, s4studio_mesh_1 has just over 29,000 polygons. Even that number is high. You'll need to reduce the polycount, as I stated earlier. You'll need to weight paint the hair correctly so that it will move with your sim, but that will come later. |
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Post by inkeros on Sept 14, 2021 19:59:43 GMT -5
Hey fwecka, thanks so much for taking the time to go through my question!
So I think I bit off way more than I can chew with this project. Your solutions sound a lot more advanced than my current knowledge of blender and CAS creation in general, so I'm gonna do some more studying before I try to tackle this again...
Also if you don't mind, can you point me towards any good tutorials/threads/etc about alpha hair creations and UV mapping that you know of?
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 14, 2021 23:15:18 GMT -5
Don't feel bad. I've never made hair before--Maxis or alpha--though I have plans for making a Maxis hair at a later time. I only know the basics. I find it intimidating too. There are a number of tutorials here that deal with hair but if you're brand new to creating and don't know much about Blender I wouldn't recommend starting off with making alpha hair. It's not impossible, but not something an absolute beginner should try. You could try your hand at Maxis hair. And here is a guide to what goes into Maxis hair. But, if you're extremely new I'd start with objects. A lot of people want to jump into CC creating with CAS items, but CAS items are more complicated than objects. There are quite a lot of tutorials here. I started with this one, actually. Getting back to the subject of hair, I have searched and searched literally for years and haven't found anything helpful. Even professionals don't seem to want to share their knowledge. I don't think they even want to bother with hair. Ever noticed how women's hair in a lot of video games is short? It's because making hair is a pain in the butt (according to Google). Forgot to mention that if you want to make CAS items, this one is good. It covers the uv_1 which you need to make sliders work with your mesh in the game. |
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Post by inkeros on Sept 15, 2021 2:34:28 GMT -5
Thank you SO much for those references! My knowledge is fairly spotty, so your point about getting better at objects and starting with Maxis hair is a great direction. It's been hard trying to learn everything on my own, so I really appreciate you digging out all those links.
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 15, 2021 3:53:36 GMT -5
Hi. So it usually works like this: alpha hair has 3 meshgroups for SimSkin shader (opaque textures) and 3 meshgroups for Simglass ( textures with transparency). This is done to prevent transparency issues between overlapping strands. Alpha hair creators create one package with 6 meshgroups once and clone it every time they need to make a new one. My guess is that Alto was able to layer the hair in a way that the transparency issue just did not happen, so the other 3 meshgroups were not needed, but still decided to clone the same package instead of cloning a 3-meshgroups maxis item because of swatches. You can do it like this: - open Alto's package, press Shift Ctrl C to open the console, type studio.exportall, press Enter. This will create a folder in the same directory that will contain all textures and meshes; - Clone 3d mesh - type "yfHair_LongWavy" in the search bar, click Next, click on Anto_S4Hair_Rita so that your package has the same name and is in the same location, overwrite it; - open the blend file you shared with us, delete s4studio_mesh_3, s4studio_mesh_5, s4studio_mesh_6 from it; - it seems that you've joined two meshgroup into one which would explain why s4studio_mesh_1 is so high-poly. You should delete and re-do this. Then you can Decimate; - Once done, Save as - find the folder s4s created with all the textures and meshes, choose the lod0 blend, overwrite it. Do the same for other lods if you edited them; - open the overwritten package, type studio.importall in the console and wait. |
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 15, 2021 19:37:47 GMT -5
Hi. So it usually works like this: alpha hair has 3 meshgroups for SimSkin shader (opaque textures) and 3 meshgroups for Simglass ( textures with transparency). This is done to prevent transparency issues between overlapping strands. Alpha hair creators create one package with 6 meshgroups once and clone it every time they need to make a new one. My guess is that Alto was able to layer the hair in a way that the transparency issue just did not happen, so the other 3 meshgroups were not needed, but still decided to clone the same package instead of cloning a 3-meshgroups maxis item because of swatches. You can do it like this: - open Alto's package, press Shift Ctrl C to open the console, type studio.exportall, press Enter. This will create a folder in the same directory that will contain all textures and meshes; - Clone 3d mesh - type "yfHair_LongWavy" in the search bar, click Next, click on Anto_S4Hair_Rita so that your package has the same name and is in the same location, overwrite it; - open the blend file you shared with us, delete s4studio_mesh_3, s4studio_mesh_5, s4studio_mesh_6 from it; - it seems that you've joined two meshgroup into one which would explain why s4studio_mesh_1 is so high-poly. You should delete and re-do this. Then you can Decimate; - Once done, Save as - find the folder s4s created with all the textures and meshes, choose the lod0 blend, overwrite it. Do the same for other lods if you edited them; - open the overwritten package, type studio.importall in the console and wait. Thank you for this, Mauvemorn! Information about hair-creation is so spotty--seems like every tutorial I run across is either pure poo or uses a software I'm not familiar with. Eventually, I'm going to get to the hair portion of the Resident Evil conversion (that I've put on hold for the moment) and I'm already anticipating trouble. |
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Post by inkeros on Sept 16, 2021 0:01:08 GMT -5
mauvemornThank you so much for taking the time to write out such a detailed solution! I will try this, and add to this thread after I do.
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