IntroductionThis tutorial will show how to merge 2 or more meshes together to create a new CAS part. As you can understand there is no way to write one single tutorial that can show you every single combination and every single problem that might happen. I will show you how I personally deal with it.
This tutorial requires you to know the basics about S4S, blender and 2D editing. If you never did anything with blender or S4S I strongly suggest to check the CAS tutorials.
Blender: I learned how to use Blender with Orangemittens
Accessory tutorial A really good tutorial. She goes over the basics of blender and it is really simple to follow.
Diffuse/specular/bump and shadow map.: There are tutorials about them. Check our CAS tutorial Section to learn more about it.
Shadow map Bump map Bump map 2 Specular map Specular Map 2What you will needThe sims 4
2D editor
Sim 4 studio
Blender 2.70
I will write few tutorials about CAS meshing. I will try to explain from my point of view and my experience how I deal with UV maps, weight, sculpting and the warehouse tab of S4S.
I decided to start with this tutorial because Frankenmeshing is a popular thing and there are a lot of people interested in it.
The main problem with this technique is that each model has its own uv map set up and weight. It might look like 2 meshes match perfectly but they are not. We need to take in account that the weight and the uv maps are probably different and we also have to pay attention to the cuts of the package we are using as a base.
In this tutorial I will show you how to change the skirt of a dress
1_Clone the 2 models and extract the mesh. Export the diffuse map of the dress.
2_ Open the dress blend file and append the mesh of the skirt. The skirt has only one geometry. Check my other tutorial where I show how to append a mesh. Explain in case it is not good ( later)
Append function: The Append function is used to import meshes between Blend files. To do so in object mode press shift+F1 and select the blend file where your mesh is. Click on objects and double click on the mesh name. It will be imported without loosing information.
3_Select the mesh of the dress and enter Edit mode ( Press Tab)
4_Select the part of the mesh as shown in the picture. Press X and remove the faces. I selected it this way because I wanted to cut the mesh before its faces split. It will be easier to merge the skirt to the upper part this way.
5_Go in to Object mode (Tab) and select the skirt. Enter in edit mode.
6_Select as shown in the picture. We don't need the legs as they are and we need to cut them to match the legs in the other cuts.
7_Press X and select faces.
8_Select the legs and press P to split the mesh. Hide the new legs and the skirt.
9_Select the leg and enter in Edit mode. Select the mesh and press G. Move it on the side.
10_Un-hide the new legs and select them. Press Shift and select the part of the leg we just moved. Press Ctrl+J to merge the 2 parts.
11_Enter edit mode, select the part of the leg on the side and remove it. I made you move that part of the leg so the selection process was easier.
12_While holding Shift select the skirt and then the dress. Press Ctrl+J to merge them.
13_Save and import the blend file in to S4S. We are going to test it to see if there are any problems.
14_As you can see the are few things we need to fix.
15_Back to Blender. Select the dress and enter Edit mode. Change the settings of the Snap tool to snap to vertices. Activate it. Select one vertex and press G to move. Combine the 2 parts.
16_Select the whole mesh but leave out the bottom. This way you will avoid the generate the shadow at the bottom of the dress. Use remove doubles to merge everything. If you are following this tutorial you will have the reshape the conjuction point in the back to make it smoother. Select the vertex you want to move, press G and move it where you like.
We need to edit the uv maps.
Uv_0 will be select as default.
17_As you can see there are 2 island that don't match. We need to combine them. Activate snap tool. Change it to snap to vertices. It works the same way as it works with the mesh. Select a vertex and move it to match the other border. there is not Remove double in the Uv map editor because the vertices will merge if the 2 faces are connected in the model.
17b_Optional_To make the process faster I usually edit the bottom to match the one of the dress. Change the image file to diffuse. Select the island of the bottom and reshape it to match the dress one. Press S to scale it. If you press S and then Y you will scale only it's height.
Time to edit the UV_1
18_Select the uv_1 as shown in the picture. I will explain what the uv_1 is in another tutorial. Here I will show what problem you might have by following this tutorial.
19_In this case it might look like everything is in its place but we better check. As you can see there might be situations where you will see islands not matching only if you zoom in. To fix it you simply repeat what you did for the uv_0
20_Go back to uv_0 and export the uv map layout. Select the whole mesh, look for the uv tab in the lower toolbar of the uv map editor. Click on it and on top of the list you will see export uv map layout. Save the file.
21_Save the blend file, import it back and test it in game. For any other problem let me know in the comments section.
22_Once we are happy with the mesh open your 2D editor. Load the diffuse map and overlap the uv map layout. As you can see the only thing we need to fix is the length of the dress.
23_Select the part and delete it. Hide/delete the uv map layout and save. Import it back.
24_Edit Bump Map, Shadow map and specular and this is the result.
25_ Create LOD1/2/3 You can either decimate LOD 0 mesh or edit each LOD. It is up to you.
As you can see this is a simple project. You can personalize it by changing the base packages and create a custom Diffuse/bump/specular and shadow map.
Let me know if you have any problem.
Happy Meshing
UN