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Post by kittykatnip on Feb 15, 2021 17:14:44 GMT -5
I scoured the internet as well as these forums for an answer. I found some info here and there but not much. Over the past few days I've followed tutorials to try and make my own meshes (clothing specifically) and overall it's been great except for the texture/material step. The tutorial I was following used a silk material for their top (but it wasn't explained how to achieve the look). I DID find tutorials explaining how to make silky or satiny fabric. But what about other fabrics? Are silk and satin fabrics the only 'fabrics' you can achieve by playing around with the material section in Blender? (because they're shiny?) Just to simplify, I was trying to create velvet pants. I found velvet materials (as well as other fabrics created using nodes) online that I was able to use in Blender that looked amazing, but only in Cycles. And when I baked and imported into s4s, they came out black. Baking in Blender Render was the only way to get the pants to actually have a color and shine to it... but nowhere near velvet. I'm using Blender 2.79. So here are a few questions I have: - How can I emulate other fabrics in Blender? Is it even possible?
- Depending on the answer above, I may have to resort to image textures. Can you point me in the direction of a tutorial (preferably one using sims as an example) of how to do this? I downloaded a fabric texture online and tried to apply it as an Image Texture and it looked horrible and repeated all over the garment. I'm definitely missing some steps.
- Is it possible to use a garment made of nodes for materials that was rendered and baked through cycles to import into s4s? Maybe there was a setting I hadn't checked or something like that?
I'd appreciate any other resources you can send me specifically regarding materials, textures, rendering, baking, etc. (All previous steps I've got down) I've included an image of the velvety pre made material online and the nodes that go with it. Is applying materials through this method impossible for S4S and Sims?  |
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Post by mauvemorn on Feb 15, 2021 19:07:11 GMT -5
Hi. 1). You can emulate virtually anything material-vise in Blender; 2). You can use tileable textures, sometimes they come in packs(so diffuse + roughness + normal + etc); 3). You cannot import materials in s4s because TS4 has its own materials and rendering engine. You can, however, create an environment in Blender, set up a material and bake the combined result to a texture. Then you will save this texture and import is as diffuse in s4s. Instead of watching tutorials for ts4 or specific fabric, you should watch introductions to nodes and rendering. If my memory serves me well, this course is easy to understand youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn3ukorJv4vtnU_TaZob7QD6Q8d9C9Ki7The same author has texture baking and rendering tutorials as well As I understand, you baked the material to texture but it turned out black? Please send the blend file with that result |
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Post by kittykatnip on Feb 15, 2021 19:35:38 GMT -5
Hi. 1). You can emulate virtually anything material-vise in Blender; 2). You can use tileable textures, sometimes they come in packs(so diffuse + roughness + normal + etc); 3). You cannot import materials in s4s because TS4 has its own materials and rendering engine. You can, however, create an environment in Blender, set up a material and bake the combined result to a texture. Then you will save this texture and import is as diffuse in s4s. Instead of watching tutorials for ts4 or specific fabric, you should watch introductions to nodes and rendering. If my memory serves me well, this course is easy to understand youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn3ukorJv4vtnU_TaZob7QD6Q8d9C9Ki7The same author has texture baking and rendering tutorials as well As I understand, you baked the material to texture but it turned out black? Please send the blend file with that result Hi! Thanks for replying! Much appreciated!! I'll definitely look into that course! I'm still new to blender so this is great! Here is the file that gave me that result: Mediafire link to the blend file
Initially the Image Texture you see was not part of the initial node set up, but I kept getting an error message when I was trying to bake saying that there was no active image in material slot and I looked up online how to fix it and it was suggested to add it. And I guess that's the issue when you find non sims related solutions because you're not sure if it'll work or give the effect you want. I believe this might be where I went wrong. |
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Post by Feyona on Feb 16, 2021 0:31:44 GMT -5
1. Create a new texture, ditch that "untitled" file. For some reason there is an empty texture slot under that name. That's why you can't bake it onto untitled texture. Just make another slot. 2. Once you make a new texture and change the name in the Image node and now you can bake. 3. When you bake the texture it will look almost black due to the color that you chose, the size of the uv map (it is minuscule, it should be much larger, like 5 times larger), the number of samples in render (Render tab, samples menu, at least 100 samples but 200 is optimal. You can use 50 for test bake to save time) and absence of light source in the scene. You can add some light by connecting HDRI map ( tutorial and this is where you can get free HDRI maps). I would get HDRI map from an outdoor section. 4. Also it is recommended to set the margin to 4 at least. 2 more notes. 5. For a simple mesh like that it should not exceed 5000 polys. Your mesh is 28K polys, it is just insanely high poly which will affect the performance in the game. 6. When you export high poly item from MD you should smooth the avatar. It is too angular for dense meshes, that's why you can see the lines on the sides. Here is an instruction. |
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Post by kittykatnip on Feb 16, 2021 12:28:15 GMT -5
1. Create a new texture, ditch that "untitled" file. For some reason there is an empty texture slot under that name. That's why you can't bake it onto untitled texture. Just make another slot. 2. Once you make a new texture and change the name in the Image node and now you can bake. 3. When you bake the texture it will look almost black due to the color that you chose, the size of the uv map (it is minuscule, it should be much larger, like 5 times larger), the number of samples in render (Render tab, samples menu, at least 100 samples but 200 is optimal. You can use 50 for test bake to save time) and absence of light source in the scene. You can add some light by connecting HDRI map ( tutorial and this is where you can get free HDRI maps). I would get HDRI map from an outdoor section. 4. Also it is recommended to set the margin to 4 at least. 2 more notes. 5. For a simple mesh like that it should not exceed 5000 polys. Your mesh is 28K polys, it is just insanely high poly which will affect the performance in the game. 6. When you export high poly item from MD you should smooth the avatar. It is too angular for dense meshes, that's why you can see the lines on the sides. Here is an instruction. Holy heck! That's a lot of useful information! Thank you!! I'll be trying this again tonight after work and will come back if more questions arise! |
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Post by kittykatnip on Feb 17, 2021 11:56:41 GMT -5
1. Create a new texture, ditch that "untitled" file. For some reason there is an empty texture slot under that name. That's why you can't bake it onto untitled texture. Just make another slot. 2. Once you make a new texture and change the name in the Image node and now you can bake. 3. When you bake the texture it will look almost black due to the color that you chose, the size of the uv map (it is minuscule, it should be much larger, like 5 times larger), the number of samples in render (Render tab, samples menu, at least 100 samples but 200 is optimal. You can use 50 for test bake to save time) and absence of light source in the scene. You can add some light by connecting HDRI map ( tutorial and this is where you can get free HDRI maps). I would get HDRI map from an outdoor section. 4. Also it is recommended to set the margin to 4 at least. 2 more notes. 5. For a simple mesh like that it should not exceed 5000 polys. Your mesh is 28K polys, it is just insanely high poly which will affect the performance in the game. 6. When you export high poly item from MD you should smooth the avatar. It is too angular for dense meshes, that's why you can see the lines on the sides. Here is an instruction. So with the help I got on this post I was able to apply textures and bake through cycles!! Yay! However the one issue I still have, and you pointed this out, is my polycount. I'm not sure what's causing it to be so high. I worked on another mesh yesterday and I had no choice but to decimate it by like 80% to get it to be at a maybe reasonable 11k poly. The new mesh was slightly more complex but still can't get it lower. Decimating it that much already made the mesh looks so chunky and bad. I use 20 particle distance in MD which I've been told is the average of what most people use. The only thing I raised was the fabric thickness. Would this have raised the polycount exponentially? What other aspects are known to raise the polycount in general when making meshes? Once again, thanks! I appreciate all the responses so far and has helped me tremendously. |
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Post by mauvemorn on Feb 17, 2021 13:10:54 GMT -5
The mesh is too dense to have particle distance of 20, maybe you did not have everything selected when you changed Particle distance? Did you import and export it in m, without Auto scale ticked? Also, when you do automatic remeshing, it changes the topology to this uniform grid that does not adjust to the shape of the patterns, so you have a lot of tris along the borders that increase the polycount. Also, it is best to never use Decimate because it ruins everything there is to ruin. You should try using MD's manual retopology. I made an example of how to use it and showed the logic behind the process There's more to it. Good topology ensures that: - you can easily edit the mesh. You can select edge loops ( with tris you cannot ) and delete them ( perfect for making LODs ); - the mesh is shaded smoothly, no crumpled paper look, no pinching, not jagged; - the mesh animates right, it bends sharply when it needs to; - it morphs right; - and the most important, the polycount is reasonable. Here's a video ( you probably need to download it bc otherwise the quality it bad ) |
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Post by kittykatnip on Feb 19, 2021 14:50:43 GMT -5
The mesh is too dense to have particle distance of 20, maybe you did not have everything selected when you changed Particle distance? Did you import and export it in m, without Auto scale ticked? Also, when you do automatic remeshing, it changes the topology to this uniform grid that does not adjust to the shape of the patterns, so you have a lot of tris along the borders that increase the polycount. Also, it is best to never use Decimate because it ruins everything there is to ruin. You should try using MD's manual retopology. I made an example of how to use it and showed the logic behind the process There's more to it. Good topology ensures that: - you can easily edit the mesh. You can select edge loops ( with tris you cannot ) and delete them ( perfect for making LODs ); - the mesh is shaded smoothly, no crumpled paper look, no pinching, not jagged; - the mesh animates right, it bends sharply when it needs to; - it morphs right; - and the most important, the polycount is reasonable. Here's a video ( you probably need to download it bc otherwise the quality it bad ) Thank you so much! The video helped A LOT. Got it working much better  You both are awesome! |
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