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Post by Arista on Apr 9, 2021 19:04:31 GMT -5
Hi there, looking for some help again. I'm learning how to convert outfits from other games and it's tons of fun. I've learned a lot with help from tutorials and you guys at the forum, but I keep getting stuck on weights! My latest mesh is having some clipping issues, or maybe it's just not weighted right. It doesn't seem like morphs(fat/skinny sliders) are working either, but that's not important to me so I'll just skip it if it's too hard for me. Also, it's not too important, but my sims hands are sticking into the skirt. Some pants and skirts I've seen have the arms stand out more, if that makes sense. Can I fix that somehow? Would anyone mind taking a look at the files for me and tell me what I've done wrong and how I can fix this? Or if you know how to fix it in a quick and simple way, that would be fantastic too, I'd be eternally grateful! Thanks in advance! Files are here: simfileshare.net/download/2456938/EDIT: Forgot to add, shoe textures seem to stick to the mesh as well, most likely because of the way I've made the textures. Is this possible to fix as well? Not too important for me though, I can just add shoes to the mesh.  |
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Apr 9, 2021 22:03:48 GMT -5
Not sure what you mean by "shoe textures seem to stick to the mesh" but I can tell you from fixing other creator's borked Sims3 clothing that when a mesh picks up the shoe texture it's because the outfit UVs are overlapping the shoe section of the CAS map. Here is the TS4 CAS map that shows what goes where. Keep it as a creator's resource as you will use it again and again. sims4studio.com/thread/62/fix-uv-map-templateThe UV1 is what controls the morphs. It's what makes your mesh move with the sliders. There are many many posts on here about the UV1. It's a subject that's been covered a lot. Transferring weights and adjusting the weight painting is what's needed for animation. Your sim will do a lot of animations in the game and anything attached to the sim, such as clothing, will need to move along with your sim. To put it simply, assigning weights means you are assigning parts of your mesh to parts of your sim. Weights dictate where the mesh should move, bend, twist, etc when your sim moves, bends, twists. The weight painting dictates to what degree a part of your mesh should move, bend, twist, etc. For instance, the elbow of your shirt will move more when you bend your arm than the area of your sleeve that's between your elbow and wrist. Weight painting tells the game to move this part more and this part less. Make sense? Weights and weight painting is another subject that's been covered extensively on this site. It's always a good idea to search a subject here and read, read, read. 90% of the time your questions will be answered just by reading. However, the people here are always very helpful. Hopefully, this will get you started in the right direction. I'm not sure I'm the one to help with this, however. I'd have to do a lot of studying myself first so I don't give you bad advice. It's been a while since I've made an article of clothing and I've forgotten a lot, I'm afraid. Edit: I took a look at your files and yes, you have UV islands in the shoes section (which is colored red):  And maybe you are aware of this, but you've got leg meshes inside of leg meshes. Some of the faces on the legs in Blender are flickering because of this. I can also tell you that you will need to split your mesh in the exact same places as the EA dress that you cloned. I can't remember why this is necessary--something to do with the game engine and how it handles meshes, I'm guessing--but the goal is to try to do things the EA does them. |
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Apr 9, 2021 22:47:41 GMT -5
Also, don't add shoes to the mesh. Make the shoes a separate CC file. Remember, you have to do things the way they are done in Sims4 and Sims4 outfit meshes don't include shoes. I think it was done that way for TS2 but not anymore. Just realized the CAS map in the image is for children. I don't seem to have a CAS map for adult females. Dang, now I need to find one! However, and don't quote me on this, but I think the child CAS map works for adults, too. Edit: I'm so sorry. See, I told you I've forgotten a lot! I think this CAS map will help you more:  And yes, it appears you do have some of the skirt UV parts where shoes would go (the green box at the bottom:  Last Edit: I've got one more thing to make you aware of that I think will affect how you weight paint your dress. I've noticed that the ruffles have faces on the inside and the outside. There's no reason for the ruffles to be lined like that. Those inner faces won't be seen, the game will have to render those faces anyway (which can make your game struggle), and you'll have to take those faces into account when you weight paint. Take a look one of EA's dresses. The openings of the ruffles are closed, so to speak. If you look at the dress at any other angle than what I'm showing here, you won't see the way the ruffles are closed so there is no reason to have all those inner faces. Also, note that the edges of the ruffles are clean and crisp. This is achieved by splitting the edges so that the edges are not merged. If you don't split the edges you'll get a weird shadow. This subject has been discussed in the forums, as well.  |
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Apr 10, 2021 1:51:57 GMT -5
Here's another CAS map I found. One of these have got to be right...right?  |
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Post by mauvemorn on Apr 10, 2021 2:42:03 GMT -5
The last uv template is the right one, it is made by ts4 developers. The first one is made by users
also, to prevent arms from going into the skirt, you need to either clone this one rococo dress from Get famous or use S4 CAS tools to adjust the arm position manually
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Post by Arista on Apr 10, 2021 11:54:42 GMT -5
Oh wow, thank you so so much fwecka for taking the time!! :D This outfit isn't complete, so to speak. There are other parts that need to be added, a hood, shoes and gloves. My thought was to add them as accessories. But seeing how the UV map for TS4 works, I think I'm going to need to resize the texture even more, which is a shame because the quality is horrendous already. I really miss how in TS2 you'd have separate textures for parts of the body and could layer it, haha.
So I'm going to fiddle a bit with the skirt and see if I can remove the faces that aren't necessary. Thank you so much for the templates and for all the info!
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Post by Arista on Apr 10, 2021 16:57:39 GMT -5
New question! I opened the UV template you posted(the last one as mauvemorn said was the correct one) and I see that it's 2040x4096. The template I use is 1024x2048. Is it possible to use a larger texture and import it in S4S? Because that would solve my texture problem!
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Post by mauvemorn on Apr 10, 2021 17:08:46 GMT -5
Bigger textures will only work with HQ mod. Instead, you should watch this video, reposition uv islands and re-bake textures. Bigger islands = better texture quality |
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Apr 11, 2021 5:15:47 GMT -5
Thanks, Mauvemorn. I couldn't remember which CAS map I used last time I made something for TS4. So, Lithops, if you export your UV layout and paste it in a new layer on top of your texture, you'll see that there are significant areas where there is texture, but no UV faces (You've got UV parts that have no texture, as well, but that's easily fixed). You do have to have your textures overlap your UV islands but three or four pixels is sufficient. If you trim some of the excess texture away, you'll see you have more room than you realize. And there are parts of your mesh that aren't really going to be seen, such as the undersides of the armor plates on the skirt. Those UV pieces you can make small and tuck those into the areas where the body parts you deleted would normally go. Even so, still seems like there isn't enough space. I did a little test just now and sized down the entire texture image by 30% (this made the image the wrong size but I was just testing) and I didn't really notice much difference. In Photoshop, go to image>image size and in the box that pops up enter the new size, make sure "resample" is checked, and in the dropdown box next to "resample" choose bicubic sharper (reduction). The result was a little blurry but I sharpened it a little. You could also play around with dodge and burn tools, layer masking to brighten areas like this video shows: There might be a better method to preserving texture quality but I'm not aware of it if there is one. Open your UV layout in a new document and either copy/paste the resized texture or drag and drop the resized texture onto the uv layout and place each piece where it should go. This is what I came up with after five minutes of thought, lol. mauvemorn , since this outfit is a full body and not a separate top and bottom, is it okay to put skirt UVs in the tops section? Or to have UV pieces overlapping the tops and bottoms section? |
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Apr 11, 2021 5:46:43 GMT -5
Here's another good video:
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Post by mauvemorn on Apr 11, 2021 9:01:05 GMT -5
There is no need to do all of that, you just take the original uv map and the texture, create a new uv map, reposition uv islands, re-bake textures from one uv map to another, and that’s all. The software edits the texture itself
I advise to never use denoisers of any kind because our textures are very small and contains very small details (seams that are 1 px in width, for example). When you use a denoiser, it treats those details like noise.
So what you need to do to prevent the loss of quality is to re-start or go back to the version where you haven’t edited the uv map yet
It’s ok to take all the space meant for full-body, but just always keep it in mind that other people put everything in the bottom right corner. Had someone asking me to fix my shoes because someone put eyelashes in the space meant for shoes, so yeah ....
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Apr 11, 2021 21:30:24 GMT -5
Thanks, mauvemorn . I'm not sure what you mean by baking textures from UV map to another. That's new to me. I signed up for a year's subscription to CGCookie.com so I'm sure they've got a video that covers it that I can watch. Could you briefly explain it, though? Give enough detail to get me started? Then I'll learn what I can and explain it. I'm sure you're busy but I sure appreciate your expertise. I learn a lot from you. Arista , would you mind sharing your original work? Whatever you have that has the original UV map and original textures as Mauvemorn said? I've got like five projects I'm working on here and there but I'd like to take a couple of hours (Okay, who am I kidding? It'll be more like several hours, haha) and try doing myself what Mauvemorn said to do. It's something I need to learn, anyway. I found this and I want to try it with your original texture and UV mapping. blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15510/possible-to-bake-texture-to-new-uv-map |
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Post by mauvemorn on Apr 12, 2021 5:54:10 GMT -5
Bigger textures will only work with HQ mod. Instead, you should watch this video, reposition uv islands and re-bake textures. Bigger islands = better texture quality I linked the tutorial here |
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Post by Arista on Apr 12, 2021 8:49:44 GMT -5
Sorry for the late response! Thanks again for all the help, you're both incredible! I'll take a look at the tutorial soon, although I don't have photoshop, but I do have gimp. Also, I don't think my potato laptop can handle the HQ mod. I've reuploaded the files and added the original (obj converted) model as well as the original textures: simfileshare.net/download/2458551/ |
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Apr 18, 2021 3:14:23 GMT -5
Bigger textures will only work with HQ mod. Instead, you should watch this video, reposition uv islands and re-bake textures. Bigger islands = better texture quality I linked the tutorial here HOLY COW, mauvemorn, HOW IS IT I'VE NEVER SEEN THIS VIDEO BEFORE?!?! OMG, thank you so much! Lithops, the 2nd method shown in the video is perfect, perfect, perfect for you, and so easy, too. I thought baking textures involved nodes and I'm pretty shaky on the nodes system at this point. |
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