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Post by ciablue on Dec 3, 2016 6:12:25 GMT -5
Hi Guys. Rather than move on to the next tutorial. I wanted to practice more FrankenMeshing. What could possibly go wrong? Ive got a whole week of experience now! This was the plan. And THIS is the reality of what happened. I slapped on some color to to help me as I looked for rips, and flaps and such. (Plus flesh pants are creepy.) 1. I'm not sure why I'm missing the square from the upper arm. I thought that by using the jumper as the base, I would avoid manipulating the arms. Having no idea what those 4 mysterious squares in the arms actually do I thought it best to avoid them. So I was surprised when one of them vanished anyway. 2. Weird Puppet string effects. I think that I may have accidentally interacted with some of the vertices in her hand and failed to undo enough to fix it. Redoing the entire thing in the morning, but thought Id mention it here in case that wasn't the cause of it. 3. I'm thinking all the weird seam action in the crotch area is from wonky texture that was left over from the bottom of the romper. But it could also be from how I cut and mended the mesh. But I'm not sure. So I'm sharing my package and blend files. FrankenRomper Blender FileFrankenRomper Package Lastly. In Blender I don't seem to have a UV_0. Also the texture for the top and bottom don't appear together (pictures of what I see below). Is this normal? CiaB
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Post by ciablue on Dec 1, 2016 13:54:27 GMT -5
Im sorry. Im super chatty and non linear of thought. Im all over the place all the time. A dreadful combination for people not used to me Im afraid. :D I will try very hard to be more concise in the future. My posts just sort of get away from me. Thank you for looking things over Off to practice what Ive learned CiaB
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Post by ciablue on Dec 1, 2016 8:24:28 GMT -5
Okay so I redid Frankendress one more time.(Lies!) Okay, I redid it it about 6 times. Because Im a goof. I lost my model somewhere in Blender not once but twice. Seriously...I know it was in there somewhere but NUM1 wouldnt take me to it. I somehow managed to shut Blender down while working on things a few times as well. As a result Ive I learned the importance of SAVING AS I GO! And at about 1:30am this happened. But Im rambling. *AGAIN* This time I made sure to take careful note where I cut. I also Used edge select after making my cuts to manipulate the edges on the model before I I joined them together as one new mesh part. This allowed me to avoid that jumbled mess of chaos Id been ending up with, and for the first time I had a neat UV. Honestly, I don't know why it didn't occur to me that I could manipulate the edges in this way before just then. I was so hyper-focused on following my directions as written that I neglected to actually try and practically apply what I was learning. (So much for my critical thinking skills) I edited the UV and checked in game. But I still had a slight micro tear going around the middle of my mesh. So I went back to the uv and zoomed in super-close. That's when I saw that some of the edges that I THOUGHT id join evenly weren't truly joined, nor were they even. I kept my view zoomed in and took my time as I tried to make sure the verts snapped into place. And this time I checked that each node had taken properly before moving on to the next. I then popped into game for another recheck. I'm much happier with it this time around. The rip that had been circling my mesh was gone. It didn't reappear on my sim when I walked or I morphed her to the more extreme body types. My color line is nice and intact. No Lumpy Sim butt! Seams where they should be. Everything was Disney! Then...I saw this.(Head Desk) >:D THIS IS CLEARLY THE WORK OF EVIL GNOMES!This weird line at her shoulder and neck is driving me mad. Ive no idea what Ive done to cause it. When I looked at my UV in the area and it seemed okay to me. So Im (RE)uploading the new package file and Blender File for review. FrankenDress Blender FileFrankendress Packagelol I guess Im not as finished as I thought I was.
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Post by ciablue on Nov 30, 2016 15:59:53 GMT -5
OoooOoooo I will redo again in hopes of getting a better handle on things Ive noticed that some tutorials tell me to delete by vertice. And others say delete by faces. Is there a time when I should prefer one over the other? Or is it a matter of personal preference?
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Post by ciablue on Nov 30, 2016 11:01:50 GMT -5
Ina you are such a lifesaver! I have a tendency to get overly excited and jump into the deep end of the pool. Only to find myself in a world of trouble. And these tutorials haven't been an exception to the rule. Thanks for keeping me afloat! I am including 4 files. The First two are the package and blend of the dress as it was when I finished the tutorial. Frankendress PackageFrankendress Blender FileThe next two are my attempts at fixing the UVmap and Mesh on my own. All I did here was join the top and bottom UV at the edges, then shortened the UV by pushing everything closer together again. Which I'm probably not supposed to do, but my inner neat freak compelled me to try and make boxes and triangles! I had not choice but to obey : TryingToFixTrying To Fix Blender FileIm just not sure how best to address that area of the UV where the meshes join and get all jumbled. CiaB CiaB
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Post by ciablue on Nov 29, 2016 23:54:11 GMT -5
Thank You Ina! Upon learning that I was using the wrong skirt. I scrapped everything and started over. All done.(And it didnt even take a week lol) Things Id like to fix: 1 There are lines where I tried to fix the gaps in the mesh. 2. Colorline isnt smooth anymore, even though seams look like they line up. (Can that be painted over to fix?) 3. I would like to make the back (butt) smoother. Its lumpy from my trying to fix mesh problems there. How best to do that? Thank you all!
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Post by ciablue on Nov 29, 2016 11:33:01 GMT -5
Hiya Ina Here's my Blend. FrankenDressI need help on 17b. But I dont know where to find the settings shown in step 18 either. Sorry my pictures and sentences jumbled a bit in my last post.
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Post by ciablue on Nov 29, 2016 10:06:46 GMT -5
So I was moving along. (Reshape to make smoother. I think I can do that.) Edit the UV maps? I think I managed this part somewhat? I was unclear of where to find the Uv_0 that was meant to be my default as mentioned in the tutorial. I made the changes in the UV editor. Not all of my vertices seemed to snap into to place properly so there are some double vertices in there, that are just really close together now. Is that acceptable? Or should I make sure that they all snap properly in the interest of reducing doubles? (Snap tool HATES me. Slowly getting a feel for it though. Sadly clicking 2 separate vertices and hitting Alt+M doesn't seem to work in the UV editor.) My fear here is that I may have moved something in a way I shouldn't have. There were no gaps to edit together. So I focused on connecting the dots and making boxes. Then I came to this. 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. After reading this a few times. I tried to move ahead in ways my limited knowledge allowed. (When in doubt...Guess! lol) Maybe what Im meant to do here has something to do with edge selecting the bottom of the skirt for capping? Then fit the UV map of the New dress cap into the cap circle (Im not exactly sure what the proper term is for the part of the map where we place the skirt cap.)belonging to the original dress as opposed to the skirt? What I ended up with... looked nothing like it should have.... Time to admit that I don't have a clue how to properly complete this step. I have no idea how to navigate to this place shown in the Tutorial. Asking for a lil help deciphering step 17B please Thanks!
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Post by ciablue on Nov 29, 2016 8:12:35 GMT -5
Updating My Progress. So New day. Fresh coffee. Ive figured out what my issue was and I have arrived at step 13 of my current tutorial. I now find myself at the place I need to join the edges again. (My original question here) Thanks to InaBadRomance I think I can do this part!
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Post by ciablue on Nov 28, 2016 22:11:51 GMT -5
Thank you! The above vid made fixing that gap a breeze However other issues quickly let me know that I was putting the cart before the horse (AGAIN). So I backed up anddecided that it was best to complete the tutorial as written before I tried to get all fancy. Okay. While working through the tutorial, something is amiss at step nine. The leg bit that Im supposed to select and move aside doesnt seem to be the same as it is in the tutorial. The tutorial image And what Im seeing. The upper part of the leg isnt merged with the selected segment as it seems to be in the tutorial. Should Ijoin the two leg parts? Or will that break things? Also Im not sure if I made the proper selection in step 8 after I selected the legs and pressed P to split the mesh. A box pops with 3 chocies appears when you hit P. 1. Split by Selction, 2. Material and 3.By Loose Parts. I picked Selection. Should I have maybe picked something else? Thanks in Advance
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Post by ciablue on Nov 28, 2016 15:07:23 GMT -5
Hiya all! Riding the waves of giddy caused by finally finishing my last endeavor. I happily moved onto the next tutorial on my list. (Yes, I really do have a list of things I'm determined to try and learn.) 4. Frankenmeshing So here we are. As you can see below Ive created a weird gap where I cut the meshes. And there's a bit of overhang as the two meshes don't fit together perfectly. I'm trying to use the Snap tool to try and make the two halves play nice. But the vertice doesn't snap so much. Mostly it seems to hop about without actually snapping to the place I want it to go. So My question is. Is there something more than proximity between the two vertices that make them join? (I'm the video tutorials Ive found on Youtube, proximity seemed to be all that was needed, but I am beginning to suspect that something unsaid was happening there.) Also wondering if this is something that has to be done one Vert at a time? On another matter MisterS said that if I click one edge and click the opposite while holding Ctrl, that blender tries to select the edges inbetween. Im kind of hoping that there is something similar for joining the edges. Thanks! CiaB
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Post by ciablue on Nov 28, 2016 0:02:04 GMT -5
Hi all. Yes. Yes I am still puttering around with this skirt. ( Every time I stumble I start over from the start. I figure the practice will do me good.) Anyway I finally managed to edit my shadow, alpha and what not. (I couldn't make sense of the tuts I found. Downloaded a trial of Photoshop so I could follow a different tutorial. Which led to me understanding what the other tutorial was on about. ) I used the blank CASbump.DDS But I still have some weirdness in the legs. I figured that the last thing I needed to do was import the blank.rles When I try I get an error. This had led me to conclude...this skirt is cursed! Okay Last Update on the skirt! Its all done! Finally! While clicking on the Import button resulted in an error. Batch import seem to work. (No error when I navigated to the file and clicked) So I popped into game for a quick look see. And what do you know!? Everything came together No skin in my skirt. No skirt in my legs. No seams down the sides of my legs. Or about my thighs. No weird vertices seem to be lurking about to make me sad. Thanks for all the help and patience with me! Pics below!
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Post by ciablue on Nov 27, 2016 12:25:38 GMT -5
Okay got rid of the leg seams using the method explained by MisterS in his Tut. Shadows are still giving me the blues. Paint.net doesnt do the layer thing like paint. I found and older tutorial for multi channel image editing with paint.net (And friends) However, Im having some trouble following the tutorial as it uses CASTools and not S4S. It calls for me to the click on the 'specular' thumbnail and export a dds file. Which I would then import into DXTBMP and edit from there. I think I exported the right thing. But...not sure Will let you guys know how it goes If anyone knows of a better/diff tutorial I could read please let me know So right now Im wndering where I find the equivilant file in S4S.
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Post by ciablue on Nov 26, 2016 16:32:28 GMT -5
Thank you! Able to follow along this time around. I moved the Vertice up in the skirt and down in the legs. And managed to edit the front and the back. Werid little lines are gone! (And there was much rejoicing!) Remaining issues are needed to edit the shadows. The legs have texture and seams of old skirt still. I'm currently trying to alter my texture file to see if I can fix it that way. I started trying to edit the shadow to fix the legs but the tutorial is written for Photoshop. I cant seem to locate Layer editing in Paint.net. Not sure if it works like that. So once again I'm stuck :( I did try exporting the shadow file, and erasing the bottom shadow. Then importing it back into SS. When I did, my sim developed that weird seam through her upper body again. And the shadow was still there, but not as dark. I think the remaining shadow is some problem in the DST map? Maybe? Ill keep trying! Random prattle below: learned a neat trick that flips my uv map when I doing my cap So I figured I mention it here. Because trying to flip that last bit about was maddening. After youve selected all of the vertices you want to flip you press the key sequence S - X - 1 - - [hyphen.
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Post by ciablue on Nov 26, 2016 9:49:44 GMT -5
Hi! First! Thank you for your help! Much appreciated! Im am very new to Blender and not overly familiar with functions and shortcuts. (Learning as I go:) ...Okay more like hounding you all while I learnlol) Im still a but unclear on how I should highlight and adjust things. Am I to use the bounding box, or click each vertice on its own? Do I stay in edit mode? Should I use Vertex Select, Edge Select, or Face select? I see that when I move the UV field about it changes what I see on the model. But I'm unclear on how to differentiate the skirt from the legs just by looking When I try to interact with the plus minus buttons it says that its unable to so in edit mode. Now I did see MisterS make mention of exporting the UV layout to you 2D editing program so that you could use it to adjust the texture to match the UV where you cut it off. This is the step I stopped at, having only gotten as far as editing the texture. (This is what you're trying to help me with now, I think.) For the extra geometry. You said that I have to cut the mesh up to he point the group 3 starts? Is this something that I fix here? Or that I look out for in the earlier steps? (Did that happen when I joined the nude mesh with the skirt? And can it be avoided by snipping things with greater care?) Sorry for all the prattle. Hope my questions make sense.
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