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Post by blackgryffin on Jan 14, 2024 4:53:14 GMT -5
Hello, As I work on an update of the k-707 ( trees and plants ) I need to modify some animated trees. But of course, I do not know how to reduce the trees animation effect. Can I hope some help to understand how it works ? Thanks in advance  |
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Post by blackgryffin on Mar 21, 2024 11:37:30 GMT -5
Even it seems difficult to find some help about the animation of trees in the sims 4, I still need some help about trees, such as color and light ... Anyone ?  |
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Post by metatron3 on Mar 24, 2024 11:22:28 GMT -5
Oh I would love an answer too about that ! I did found some info about vertex painting and animations but I can't make sense of it. Anyone can help please ? freeasabird you seemed to have some knowledge on the trees and their animations. |
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Post by andrew on Mar 25, 2024 20:17:44 GMT -5
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Post by blackgryffin on Mar 25, 2024 21:11:06 GMT -5
At first : thanks a lot to answer Yes, the only information found is the one from EA forum you mention. I tried again and again to look for more information, such as ... How to modify the Rustle X datas but in vain until now. I thought too that some information was lost between S4S and blender. I posted too on Blender.artist and blender blender.stackexchange for any clue to modify the Rustles data but no answer until now. So Thanks a lot for this S4S update I just installed the last version of Sims4studio and re-export/import a tree debug file. |
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Post by metatron3 on Mar 26, 2024 0:53:22 GMT -5
andrew : thank you for the update From what I tested : I don't know what I'm doing in Blender and the vertex painting lol ! Doing new layer or not, I get no modification. But it might also be linked to the AnimationTree in the package seen in S4S. Because if I remove those, no more trees ! At this point, I'm mostly messing around without rules or method to try and get a different behavior. I'm taking any suggestions and ideas !
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Post by blackgryffin on Mar 28, 2024 23:11:56 GMT -5
metatron3 whatever the rustle vertex I paint, I don't get any result ... In theory if I well understand, lighter is the red, faster is the rustle : an information I found somewhere but I found no more related stuff :/
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Mar 29, 2024 3:42:44 GMT -5
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Post by blackgryffin on Mar 29, 2024 16:19:13 GMT -5
Fwecka (Lolabellesims) here are the only information we get, they come from EA forum : FOR INFO : Swaying tree animation actually uses the model's vertex color data to do leaf rustle. It does not use skinning in the sense of setting up bones and weights the way typical objects do. So the short answer is that when cloning a tree, you cannot lose the any of the vert color data. I suspect whatever tool(s) you are using to do the cloning is losing this data, since this setup is somewhat unique to trees. Technical details: The vertex color layout for trees is as follows. Green and Blue are ignored for channels 1..4: Color 0 RGB Surface color tint Color 1 R Rustle direction X Color 2 R Rustle direction Y Color 3 R Rustle direction Z Color 4 R Rustle phase (game generates two wind scales that change over time, this term interpolates between the two) The pipeline keeps the rustle information in a vertex color format for what the game engine will load, which means it’s in the range 0 and 1. The shader remaps this into a 0.5 to -0.5 range before scaling it and applying the offset to the leaves. Note that these directions are clamped but not normalized (they’re allowed to be different lengths). The WindMagnitude material parameter acts as a scaling factor. It is a good thing to have such information but beyond : nothing The purpose is to slow as much as possible or delete the rustle since when you import another tree into a debug tree mesh, it accelerates and gives crazy movements such as the bark going down the ground and so on. But I found the phonograph movement problem VERY interesting ! Thanks
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Apr 5, 2024 0:05:19 GMT -5
Fwecka (Lolabellesims) here are the only information we get, they come from EA forum : FOR INFO : Swaying tree animation actually uses the model's vertex color data to do leaf rustle. It does not use skinning in the sense of setting up bones and weights the way typical objects do. So the short answer is that when cloning a tree, you cannot lose the any of the vert color data. I suspect whatever tool(s) you are using to do the cloning is losing this data, since this setup is somewhat unique to trees. Technical details: The vertex color layout for trees is as follows. Green and Blue are ignored for channels 1..4: Color 0 RGB Surface color tint Color 1 R Rustle direction X Color 2 R Rustle direction Y Color 3 R Rustle direction Z Color 4 R Rustle phase (game generates two wind scales that change over time, this term interpolates between the two) The pipeline keeps the rustle information in a vertex color format for what the game engine will load, which means it’s in the range 0 and 1. The shader remaps this into a 0.5 to -0.5 range before scaling it and applying the offset to the leaves. Note that these directions are clamped but not normalized (they’re allowed to be different lengths). The WindMagnitude material parameter acts as a scaling factor. It is a good thing to have such information but beyond : nothing The purpose is to slow as much as possible or delete the rustle since when you import another tree into a debug tree mesh, it accelerates and gives crazy movements such as the bark going down the ground and so on. But I found the phonograph movement problem VERY interesting ! Thanks  Dang. I'm no help. All of that is new to me. If you're losing data from cloning maybe try using TSR Workshop? Here's a thought: The whole point of cloning is to get access to meshes and textures (as well as tuning information, and so on) and to generate a new instance number so the game recognizes your item as a new item. Of course, if you're cloning an override the instance number would be the same number as what's already in the game. Your package would not alter that number. Anyway, I'm wondering if you can extract the meshes you need from the game file cruiser, clone a tree to so that the instance numbers are new and so all of the other information that your package requires is there, and edit and import the mesh you pulled from the game's files. Does that make sense? You'll be getting the mesh straight from the game. Not from a cloned package. Maybe that way you can preserve whatever vertex color data there is. Just a thought. |
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Apr 5, 2024 17:54:06 GMT -5
metatron3 whatever the rustle vertex I paint, I don't get any result ... In theory if I well understand, lighter is the red, faster is the rustle : an information I found somewhere but I found no more related stuff :/ I'm seeing discussion on Unity forums about tree swaying controlled by vertex painting. You might be able to read through those forums and get an idea of the concept behind the vertex paint. I saw some discussion about the software Treeit having trees that are vertex painted. Here is what I found that discusses the concept. Evidently, tree swaying movement governed by vertex paint is not a concept limited to Sims 4 though there may be refinements to the system that's native to sims 4, if that makes sense. And I'm seeing discussions about shaders which makes me think Blender nodes would be involved. I'm a noob when it comes to nodes. Just starting to learn about them and even then my interest is in texturing and not much else. Anyway, take a look at this, this, this, and this. There are other discussions online that are similar. There are a lot of results that came up with this Google search. Most seem to be Unity involved, but I think that's because Unity is game engine used in a lot of games. Or at least it's a game engine that's used. Unreal is another game engine that's used. |
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Post by blackgryffin on Apr 9, 2024 10:50:17 GMT -5
Thanks a lot Fwecka (Lolabellesims) for all those clues and links : going to have a lot of readings . Everything Unity related is quite irrelevant in our case but sometimes, an idea come by reading other lectures My apologizes : not sure I understood everything. Coming back later on this. Thanks again |
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