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Post by Cidira on Sept 14, 2020 12:36:12 GMT -5
These are mostly CC management questions and not CC creation questions for me in particular, but it's relevant to creation and I'll no doubt take the answer into account when making something someday.
First of all, what, if any, real difference is there between the male and female frames when it comes to whether CC that goes on a Sim's head or face is at least mostly useable, i.e. no sudden ability to see through necks or foreheads, nothing so embedded in the face or floating in midair that you can't fix it by adjusting the Sim (preferably with EA sliders), etc.? I haven't tested that many hairstyles for compatibility, but every one I've tried so far has fit perfectly in all the places I might have expected there to be an issue if the frames used different skull meshes (like they did in TS2), so it seems like they might use the same one. Is that true? Has it been true since day one or just since the gender patch? Are there any other issues?
Second, I have recolors of EA pants meshes (not new mesh CC) that I can set available to both frames and they work right with both frames with no see-through gaps or texture weirdness, and I have recolors of (different) EA pants meshes that, if I set them available for the other frame, they look obviously wrong, i.e. gaps and/or texture weirdness. (I can produce examples.) What are the variables here? Is some CC able to tell the game to use the other-frame version of the same mesh and some not? Are some EA meshes more compatible without making separate recolors for each frame than others? (I did find that the male and female versions of one mesh were mapped differently enough that you absolutely could not paste textures from one to the other, in either direction, with no editing.) Is it something to do with whether stuff was made before or after the gender patch? A little from each column?
(edited the title since now there's all kinds of genetics stuff in here too)
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 14, 2020 13:23:42 GMT -5
Hi. The head size and topology are identical but the facial features and neck thickness aren't. The orange areas are where the masculine frame is bigger. Where it looks like they overlap, they overlap. Basically facial hair, piercing in the nose and lip areas will not match perfectly. Everything else will be fine  The heads are in fact different meshes. Most outfits are not unless you can find two items for two frames in s4s. If there is only one item, it changes the shape through morphing, only in CAS, s4s cannot recreate this. The textures or a uv_0 map play no role in mophing. uv_1 does but they are identical for any frame. In the past the color system for vertex paint was different. If you are using an old cc, there is a chance it is vertex painted by the wrong color. Do not know if the game still recognizes those colors, but if the color is wrong, the mesh won't morph. If you see yellow or blue on the clothing, those are old colors. New colors are different shades of green. |
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Post by Cidira on Sept 14, 2020 19:46:36 GMT -5
Ok, that's about what I figured for the heads. I knew the neck thickness was different, and of course even among Sims that use the same frame not every piece of CC will physically work with every face configuration, but otherwise it seems most things that I want for both frames will probably work with both frames with no more tweaking than checking a few checkboxes, which is delightful.
As for the body stuff, that explains it perfectly. I just loaded up the Parenthood pants and I see that the ones I was thinking of are listed separately for each frame, along with some others from that pack, while there's at least one other pair that just show up the once.
As far as being able to tell if a mesh will morph by looking at the colors -- that's in Blender? Is that the only way to tell for sure whether a mesh will morph besides actually trying it in CAS? (I know looking at the checkboxes is not 100% reliable, and there's not always info from the creator available, especially long after downloading.)
Also I suppose I should ask about hands and feet. A quick check of rings, bracelets, and gloves suggests that either there is very little difference in the hands or wrists, or there is rarely a reason for EA not to make a morphing mesh, but not which one it is. Shoe meshes that show up twice seem to be mostly those that had versions for both frames prior to the gender patch, or those that have open toes, suggesting that the attachment of the shoe to the leg might not be an issue... or it might just be covered by morphing meshes.
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 15, 2020 1:37:12 GMT -5
Mm, i'm not sure if this type of info is in the warehouse, maybe in the form of code, but it is unlikely that you can just look at one place and umderstand what variation of deformation maps it will morph according to All you need to do is export lod0 mesh, open this blend file, switch to Vertex paint, switch shading to Bounding box (1). Then you will be able to see if everything is green. If yes, then it uses new colors  Oh, shoes morph awfully. Whether it be maxis shoes or custom, they all look very bad, especially those with high heels. I always make a separate copy for a different frame If i'm not mistaken, hands and wrists are thicker, cant check rn. Hands do not morph at all so you'll need to make rings for both frames. Bracelets should morph |
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Post by Cidira on Sept 15, 2020 9:10:34 GMT -5
Awesome, thank you! As a non-mesher who really doesn't want to go down that rabbit hole, it's terribly useful to me to be able to evaluate what I can do with existing meshes.
Now if I could just find a good explanation of TS4 genetics. I can't even really find a good rundown of how they work with the EA stuff and how CC behaves by default, let alone how to change it.
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 15, 2020 11:49:29 GMT -5
We have very little information from TS4 developers on anything so...
What do you mean by genetics? Skin eyes type of things or morphing?
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Post by Cidira on Sept 15, 2020 13:34:40 GMT -5
Skintone, hair color, and eye color, mainly. In TS2 we knew how that worked very well. There were only 4 default skintones, but they had numerical values and the game accepted numbers that were different than those values as long as they fit into the same system, so not only could a baby whose parents had S1 and S4 skintones have any skintone from S1 to S4, but also any custom skintone with a value in between the S1 value and the S4 value. (I made a fully genetic blend set with 21 shades.) There were only 4 default hair colors and 5 default eye colors, but there was a formula based on parents' genetic hair color (and recessive genes for non-CAS-made parents) for what the kids would get, and a system of dominance values that could be applied to custom eye colors to make those genetic too. AND we knew that custom skintones and eye colors that had not been given genetic values were dominant over all content (Maxis and CC) that did have genetic values.
I have no idea how this works in TS4 -- I don't know how the game handles genetics for the skintones, hair colors, and eye colors that already come with the game, I don't know what the default genetic behavior of CC in relation to EA content and other CC, I certainly don't know how to change it. I've tried Googling, but all I've found so far has been surface level discussion, usually with little solid info, no actual rundown of 'this is what we know'. That tends to suggest that there's no definitive alphanumical markers we've identified yet the way there were in TS2... but I'm just really surprised by how little deliberately collected, clearly stated info I've been able to find even about observed behavior, let alone data values or the lack thereof.
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Post by sigma1202 on Sept 15, 2020 14:03:22 GMT -5
Skintone, hair color, and eye color, mainly. In TS2 we knew how that worked very well. There were only 4 default skintones, but they had numerical values and the game accepted numbers that were different than those values as long as they fit into the same system, so not only could a baby whose parents had S1 and S4 skintones have any skintone from S1 to S4, but also any custom skintone with a value in between the S1 value and the S4 value. (I made a fully genetic blend set with 21 shades.) There were only 4 default hair colors and 5 default eye colors, but there was a formula based on parents' genetic hair color (and recessive genes for non-CAS-made parents) for what the kids would get, and a system of dominance values that could be applied to custom eye colors to make those genetic too. AND we knew that custom skintones and eye colors that had not been given genetic values were dominant over all content (Maxis and CC) that did have genetic values. I have no idea how this works in TS4 -- I don't know how the game handles genetics for the skintones, hair colors, and eye colors that already come with the game, I don't know what the default genetic behavior of CC in relation to EA content and other CC, I certainly don't know how to change it. I've tried Googling, but all I've found so far has been surface level discussion, usually with little solid info, no actual rundown of 'this is what we know'. That tends to suggest that there's no definitive alphanumical markers we've identified yet the way there were in TS2... but I'm just really surprised by how little deliberately collected, clearly stated info I've been able to find even about observed behavior, let alone data values or the lack thereof. the sims wiki explains a little about how this works, you should give it a read |
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Post by Cidira on Sept 15, 2020 18:29:24 GMT -5
That's... a little bit more than I already knew, but still not very much. I suppose there may just not actually be much to know, if most of it is really just 50/50 based on the parents' traits; it'd be disappointing but possible. But don't we know whether the game can treat CC natural skintones the same as EA naturals or not, or whether it can be made to? What about whether the patch-added skintones are correctly set up for kids to inherit in-between tones, since the patch-added eyes are kind of tacked on?
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 16, 2020 4:49:28 GMT -5
To my knowledge, one can only overwrite the default skintones or eyes, not add new. All cc creators make their skin as a skin detail. I don't know if it can be passed from parents to children, but you most likely would not want it since the texture would be for an adult.
Eyes are made as make up so they are certainly not passed.
Maxis pack items should work properly though
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Post by Cidira on Sept 16, 2020 8:47:01 GMT -5
I'm familiar with skinblends that change how a Sim's whole face and body look, and of course I've also seen and downloaded "contacts" type eyes categorized as skin details or face paint, but that's not what I'm referring to. I have seen and downloaded multiple non-default eyes and skintones that appear as additional color swatches along with the Maxis ones, NOT as skin details or makeup, and can link to examples. When those skintones and eyes are used, they are the only ones the Sim has.
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 16, 2020 9:15:22 GMT -5
Hmm, that'd be my first time seeing those. Could you please share links to one skin and one eye color? Maybe they used a different software
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Post by Cidira on Sept 16, 2020 12:10:38 GMT -5
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 16, 2020 13:29:41 GMT -5
.....Every time I saw that last tutorial I thought it was make up type of eyes bc i've never had any different ones in my game. Now I wonder why do all skin and eye creators I downloaded from make skin detail skintones and make up eyes. But thank you very much for the links and new info
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