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Post by awfularchdemon on Apr 8, 2016 3:37:55 GMT -5
In my clip, the sims are right next to each other. In the game, they are further. That's why I didn't know what was wrong. If positioning is something Blender translates to the game, it wasn't indicating it visually in the game, only in Blender. I'd have them right next to each other, then save. I'd load, and delete sim 2 from the anim, and save as the first package, then I'd load the original again, and delete sim 1, and save as the second one. To me, this seems like it should have been enough. My positioning was accurate in Blender. It was not in the game. Hence the whole line of questioning I've had as of late, and also why I was unsure that changing a sim's location actually affected it as intended.
As I said, adjusting an arm would look right in Blender, but it would be the wrong arm in the game. Not just a mirror, but like...a way out of place adjustment. I'd alter the hand that was closest to the sim's feet, but in the game it would be the arm closest to the sim's head, leaving me wondering why this type of thing was not also happening to the other sim as well. Placing the left hand on the left shoulder would result in the right hand reaching out away from the other sim, placing their hand on thin air.
Then there's the example of the couch anim. The first frames were default EA, so by all means, they should have been in the right position, but they warped a few inches further from each other when the animation played. Another reason I didn't know what I could possibly be doing wrong.
I'll use the massage table as another example:
If I were to load it, and both hands were doing their thing, I could adjust the hand closest to the other sim's feet, but in the game, it would adjust the hand closest to the other sim's head. With the second sim appended to the clip, you would see everything perfectly, but in the game, you would see only the masseuse mirrored, and not the client. So, one hand would be way out of place, and not even making contact. The client would be in the same exact position as the clip had shown. I even flipped the client 180* one time to see what happens, but the game anim stayed the same. No change, unless I altered the masseuse. Arms or legs etc would show animation adjustments I made, but not a full position shift. This is where my doubts came from when it came to actual location changes in Blender. So, the masseuse would adjust their right arm when I adjusted their left arm, but the client would have all the right adjustments, making it seem as if only one sim was mirrored, making it practically impossible to judge how I should go about animating a 2-sim animation.
I can't tell you how confused I was about this, so I came here. If my adjustment to the client would have worked, they would have been partially off the massage table, but they were in their same position, perfectly on the table, exactly where they were before. The only thing that worked was them turning over onto their back. I couldn't figure out why turning them over worked, but rotating them didn't.
I've probably altered like 10 different 2-sim animations, and ended up throwing them all out over stuff like this. Sometimes, the things I read here, and the things I see in-person do not match. I become more and more confused by my results, and keep coming back here to try to clear things up. One thing I've never tried to do was raise or lower a sim to even them out with the other sim, mostly because in Blender, this does not appear to be necessary. They are always level with each other, so any height changes would have misaligned them. If I see both on level ground, I kinda figure that's that. Raising or lowering them would only make them uneven. Another reason I thought height adjustments were not a thing. I figured, if they were a thing, no further adjustments would have been necessary.
So, I have a question: Is there a way to mirror an already made animation? If I see the limb I altered is going in the opposite direction, but showing right in Blender, can I go back to the clip and mirror the whole animation of 1 sim so they line up?
I never did get a response to that question...
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Post by awfularchdemon on Apr 7, 2016 22:41:02 GMT -5
sweetsorrowsims You just solved ALL my problems! I figured it was just limb adjustments and rotations that affected anims in Blender, not placement. My only issue now is getting the full anim to play, uninterrupted, from beginning to end. That part has been tricky. Seems to pepper in my animations sporadically. Anim duration is hit-or-miss for replacers, at least anims that replace short idles, like the idle sigh a sim does when happy, or the quick break sims take when eating. I still gotta figure that part out. As for Gemma, I live right next to Twin Oracle Point. Door's open!
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Post by awfularchdemon on Apr 7, 2016 19:50:58 GMT -5
sweetsorrowsims 2 questions:
- 1
What do you mean when you say you worked backwards to adjust their positions? You changed where they were standing in Blender? Does Blender work that way? Kinda seems like it doesn't matter where they are in there, they'll just end up in the same place in the game. Not true?? If so, I will be going about things a bit differently from now on.
I just assumed changing where they're located in Blender didn't matter. Thought the game put them in a default place. Like, if I turned a sim around 180*, (s)he would just be in normal position when running the anim in-game. I suppose that was a bold assumption...
- 2
May I download Gemma? Did you upload her somewhere? I wanna make her Ms. Popular in my game. :D
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Post by awfularchdemon on Apr 6, 2016 21:22:44 GMT -5
That's just it though. I thought I did have it worked out. When I make an animation and it works fine, I figure...good to go. Time for the big one. But then multiple issues present themselves all of a sudden, and I'm back here, ranting and raving. :P If only we had a way to move sims like objects. Like bb.movesim or something. I suppose this would already be solved then. Example: Let's say I make an animation that takes over a portion of the Snuggle animation. I replace a2a_intimate_seatedSnuggle_look_x and y. This anim takes place after sims are already in their Snuggle position, as something of an idle during that position/location. So, the sims are already in proper position, and everything I saw in Blender should, as far as I can imagine, work just as I saw, with sims real close together.
So I play it, and when the altered idle begins, both sims sorta "glitch" into the default sitting position, and then the animation begins. This puts each sim a few inches further than the Snuggle would put them, thus misaligning all actions by that much.
That is where my frustrations come from, cuz they don't make sense to me. The game has a weird way of doing things. If it were the game telling them where to be, I would have assumed it would know to put them in the snuggle location, as that is where they would have been when I replaced the animation. I can't imagine why they would be anywhere but right next to each other, especially if I kept the beginning of the animation's default EA positions there, and then simply added more to it. I'd have thought there'd be no reason for them to be further apart than the clip suggests.
This leads me to assume that even if I exported a default EA clip, and then imported again, with no changes made, that even then the animation would be off. Afterall, in this scenario, I would have began the animation with the first, say, 10 frames untouched, and yet they kinda "warp" to their regular sitting distance from each other, making it clear where the altered animation begins, even if it's starting with it's own original frames and animations still key-locked.
(really hope I'm explaining this right) That^ ...is what confuses me. Btw, can this site introduce a Preview Post option? I've edited almost every post I've ever made here. ^,^
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Post by awfularchdemon on Apr 6, 2016 10:44:53 GMT -5
Child posing proves to be an impossibility for me, Yuna. I think maybe I give up until Pose Player has a way to position sims. One replacer anim I made worked perfectly, the next worked, but used the opposite hand that I altered, which should never have happened (was the only time that's ever happened), and the one I just made was a disaster. I don't do anything different ever. Always the same routine, always with different results. It started the anim, but sometimes it skips over it entirely, sometimes it plays only like 3 seconds of it, and when it actually works, sims are in a way different location. Seems pretty much impossible considering they only need to be sitting on the couch, yet sim 2 is still showing up a little too far, and a little too low. Sucks to see it cut off an animation like 4 seconds into a 1341-frame animation. Was supposed to be 44.7 seconds long. Strangely, sometimes it adds the duration itself, and sometimes I need to add it manually, which doesn't seem to work. Even replacers are questionable now, it seems. I am not making another one until I know it'll show up in-game the same way it shows up in Blender. I've probably wasted about 30 hours this week making botched anims and throwing them out. I don't think I can take anymore. It's the first and last thing I do every day. Need more reason to believe it'll work before I make the commitment.
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Post by awfularchdemon on Apr 5, 2016 22:40:45 GMT -5
orangemittensFair enough, but this is the first time I've had any issues with direction. Each time I've made animations, they've been working how I'd expect (more or less). Never saw an adjustment be bass-ackwards like that. And I append the second sim's body (parts), and have them both perform their anims at the same time, when altering a default EA clip for a replacer. So far, adjusting a right arm has always affected the...right arm (see what I did there?). This one kinda seemed like an anomaly. :-/ And goodness OM, you get any more rewards under your profile name, and each post will take up half a page. :D sweetsorrowsimsIf only S4S could somehow tell sims where to be in relation to each other in accordance with their "EA-issued" positions, and give that info to Blender when exporting, life would be sweet. I can't even imagine how such a thing could be accomplished, however. It's interesting to see a 2-sim animation, watch the 1st sim's performance, then append the second sim, only to see them standing in the same exact space, facing the same exact way, both doing their animations half inside each other. :P Need something like Kicker's mod from TS3 that makes sims walk to their proper positions before starting their animations. And btw you have the prettiest sim ever in your profile pic.
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Post by awfularchdemon on Apr 5, 2016 13:07:20 GMT -5
Another interesting issue. Made an anim, and one hand was way off (looked perfect in Blender), so I adjusted it, and the hand I adjusted ended up being the opposite hand from the one I altered, as if I was altering a mirrored version of the sim. What the heck? Since when does Blender have that issue? Man, things are getting difficult...
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Post by awfularchdemon on Apr 4, 2016 7:52:46 GMT -5
Will an animation play all the way through if I replace a default EA clip with an animation with more frames than the original? I feel like I must be missing a step or something, because I always see the clip play randomly. Like, start at the middle, end at the middle etc.
Is there an additional needed step to get it to complete each time from start to finish? And is it necessary to change the timecode to a higher number than the last frame and SuppressLipSyncEvent still in Warehouse? I ask because the version used on the tutorial is a much older older version than what we have now.
Also, do I need to edit the Duration? If so, what do I use as a guideline? Do I use the number of frames, or do I divide the number of frames by 30 and use that calculation as my duration?
Edit: This is going to be my MO, I swear. I answered my own question again (feel free to make fun of me now sweetsorrow). Yes, it totally works to do the timecode and lip suppression thing. The clip played through all the way through, multiple times. Never a shortage of video. The only problem is, it's hard to tell where a sim will be positioned in Blender. I saw direct contact in Blender, but in the game, my sim was like a foot further away than the .blend would suggest. This kinda makes it a matter of guesswork and trial n' error, mixed with some revisions and a dash of insanity. Mix well and serve.
You never quite know where a sim will be when you import/append them. Even if they're positioned somewhere that looks perfect, in the game they could be in a much different place. I can't imagine trying to make a secret handshake, or a hug or kiss animation (anyone want me to make out with their forehead?). Especially when you use the Height Slider mod. Even a high-five could be a total whiff. :p
Wish I knew exactly how to position sims in Blender so their in-game anims look the same. Sigh...I'm off to investigate more and mod till I puke, as per usual (every morning day and night).
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Post by awfularchdemon on Apr 3, 2016 1:27:54 GMT -5
awfularchdemon Good luck on your animations and if you discover anything please post in the forum so others can learn about it. Yea so to Tag someone you are just linking their name liek you said, on here for example if you wanted to tag anyone, hover your mouse over their name <<<<<<<< and as you can see mine is the same as you see, sometimes peoples are different, and type @ SweetSorrowSims without the space between the @ and S. Well, it seems like atm Pose Player only activates an animation for the sim you're using at at the time, but could a replacer for a 2-sim animation be used to do a 2-sim animation? If I just alter an EA clip of a 2-sim animation, will both do their animation then? I even made a 2-sim anim, copied it, deleted sim 2 from the 1st copy, deleted sim 1 from the second one, and ran both at once, and it worked, but the second sim was positioned too high in the air for some reason, and they had to be perfectly positioned. Afaik, there's no way to manually position sims (aside from teleporting them, but you never know which way they'll be facing), so this idea was basically thrown out. Edit: Guess I kinda answered my own question. Yes, it works to alter default anims and use them as replacers. You need to export both the X and Y anims and alter both, but it works in-game. Only issue now is that the game doesn't always run the whole anim before it switches to a new one. It also sometimes starts it from the middle or ends it at the middle. It just kinda runs it at random, at random times in the anim. I notice this each time I make a replacer mod.
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Post by awfularchdemon on Mar 31, 2016 1:30:14 GMT -5
Hi, just one questions... When I upload my icon pic, it never shows up in the pose player. Must it be exactly 64x64 and if so, any help on how to do that? i must be resizing it wrong. Yeah, it has be exactly 64x64, and must be .png. I found this out the hard way myself. :p I had a pic that was 61x61, and though I saw it in the studio at the time, it didn't show in game. Oh, and about resizing, I always suggest Irfanview to people who don't have it. That thing has been really helpful in my time with it. It's free. Just Open the pic with it, and hit CTRL+R, and type in 64x64 pixels. You may have to untick a box that says [Preserve aspect ratio] to get your custom size.
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Post by awfularchdemon on Mar 24, 2016 20:25:28 GMT -5
Well, if he was trying to make a 2-person anim, but took a break, I am likely to assume he wasn't successful. This is my story as well, only I went back to 1-person animations (they work fine). At least I know others are trying, and having the same issues (presumably). I figured I just missed some obvious step or something.
Now I'm trying to add an object into an animation. This has proven to be super tedious, as the object isn't recognized as a mesh (??), so I can't Join it to my sim. This means I have to move the object in almost every frame. I feel like I've found every issue there is at this point. If I did something wrong that hasn't happened before, I'd be genuinely surprised.
Well, back to the grind. Thanks for the replies, sss. Btw what does it mean to Tag someone? Just adding there profile name + link? This is perhaps the most noob question I've ever asked, I suspect. ^,^
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Post by awfularchdemon on Mar 23, 2016 22:12:50 GMT -5
Yeah, I found out by hitting Z a bunch more times and looking around the UI for any changes. Saw that little icon change, so I figured it out. Would be nice if Z scrolled through all the modes that icon has, rather than just wireframe and solid (grayscale). I came back and edited my post to say that, but it didn't stick. Edit just vanished.
As for animating, I guess the pose player only targets the sim using it, therefore it won't affect the second sim I'm trying to pair up with. This is my educated guess. As for making a replacer animation, that really should have worked on 2 sims. It bugs out in various ways, be that skipping the anim entirely, seeing a deformed version of the anim that gets quickly canceled, teleporting us both behind the couch we're sitting on and clearing the queue, or just locking us into a long, blank animation. One too many ways this can go wrong, which is why I'll just wait for someone else to finally make a 2-person animation and bug them about how they did it (those people never seem to wanna answer though). Seems there's a reason nobody has made a 2-person anim yet.
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Post by awfularchdemon on Mar 23, 2016 6:54:24 GMT -5
Made an animation for 2, but they won't do it. They are supposed to be sitting, but when I run the animation while sitting, nothing happens, or they both wave at me and laugh, basically saying "No. Haha". If I run it while 1 sim is standing still, she will do the second person's animation only.
I added an animation, appended a second person's rig and body (parts), and animated them both. From the Blender file, I'd say it should work fine, but in the game, everything goes wrong. Why?
Btw, I used a basic EA clip to start it, so they'd be sitting right. Then I added a crapload of animation frames of my own. Does the pose player not run animations when they have both EA clips and original stuff together?
Edit: Ugh...won't even play it right as a replacer (not in pose player). I give up. Guess we can only do 1-person anims.
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Post by awfularchdemon on Mar 22, 2016 23:51:10 GMT -5
How do I exit grayscale mode? I accidentally pressed Z, and now I'm stuck in grayscale. I pressed every key on the keyboard (which was a mistake), and now I can't get rid of it. I made the mistake of saving my file like that, exited Blender, loaded, and it's still like that.
Edit: Okay, now my File option in the top panel is gone. Can only Save with F2. Help! The more I try to fix this, the worse it gets.
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Post by awfularchdemon on Feb 14, 2016 18:22:19 GMT -5
silvermist321 : You need to remove the texture at the bottom. You only messed with the mesh. The texture needs to be extracted and the bottom needs to be deleted to match the end of the skirt mesh. The same goes for the bumpmap (if this skirt has one) and the shadowmap (or you'll still have a shadow from the long skirt). It's easier to do with this skirt than most because of the lines in the design. See where the second set of blue lines begins? Delete everything from just above that top line (you can tell by looking at your second pic) down. There's a more accurate way (exporting the .png of your mesh), but in this case I like my idea better. As for the cap (black circle at the bottom), you have to Select Edges, carefully select all the edges that make the bottom of the skirt, Scale it in towards the middle, aim you mouse cursor on the center (where the little hole is), and hit ALT+M, then choose At the Center to fill in the rest of the cap. Also, you wanna Unwrap the UVs for the cap (only...just hit B and highlight the cap), and move (G), scale (S) and Rotate (R) the UVs on the left pane to fit inside of the circle on the image (bottom right). To get the image, you'll need to open up the DDS image. There's a square-ish icon in the left pane you need to click on (then select the dds). Hard to be more specific without having Blender open though, sorry.
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