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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 13, 2021 20:17:53 GMT -5
1). There is no need to delete everything. You can re-use what’s in the scene. 2). You need to select body parts to append them, they are just parented to the rig, this will not get them appended automatically. 3). No… why would you need to join the head if you are going to delete it anyway. The whole point of replacing the reference is to delete the head and remove the bones from that region. 4). The rig is already in the right position in the file that the op shared 5). Yes, you transfer weights and uvs after the reference’s pose is changed permanently Thank you. I think I understand what you're saying. I think part of my confusion is that I've been using the OP's latest file that was uploaded and I think you are using the first file. In the latest file, the rig is not in a position that matches the garment, but in the first file, it is.
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CK
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Post by CK on Sept 13, 2021 20:29:59 GMT -5
For the garment to move with the rig, you need to choose the rig in the drop down menu of the armature modifier. Do it before moving the rig. Also, when transferring uvs, you did not click on UVs button, it must become blue. Otherwise the uvs won’t transfer
I am very very pleased to report that fixing my UV transfer finally got this to work! You guys have been amazingly patient and I am so glad you took the time to help me.
Is there a faster way to repose the mesh to the generic rest t-pose than shifting all the bones back into position?
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 13, 2021 20:33:56 GMT -5
The uv transfer has no effect on it, it was assigning the rig that did it.
Not to my knowledge. When you change the rest position, it messes up all other frames, so you cannot key frame it or copy-paste the frame or rotation.
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CK
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Post by CK on Sept 13, 2021 20:52:01 GMT -5
Alright. Now I just have to figure out the UV_1 stuff.
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 13, 2021 21:10:51 GMT -5
Alright. Now I just have to figure out the UV_1 stuff. Do you still want me to write up the steps and post screenshots? I'm happy to do it; all of this is helping me to learn, as well, so I'm not being entirely selfless :p
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CK
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Post by CK on Sept 13, 2021 21:59:59 GMT -5
Alright. Now I just have to figure out the UV_1 stuff. Do you still want me to write up the steps and post screenshots? I'm happy to do it; all of this is helping me to learn, as well, so I'm not being entirely selfless :p
Honestly I think it would be a great idea, not only as a learning exercise but also to have a resource for converting meshes from other games
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CK
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Post by CK on Sept 13, 2021 22:11:15 GMT -5
(also: i took one look at the uv_1 and wanted to cry so i'm gonna set this project down for the evening :'D)
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 14, 2021 2:05:19 GMT -5
No problem Note that I'm not starting from the very beginning; I'm starting from the first file you uploaded. Part OneThis may be a pain in the neck, but I recommend saving after every step and give it a new name, so you don’t overwrite your previous save. This way, if you mess up you don’t have to go back very far to repeat a step. 1. Open the original file (from your first upload link) in Blender. Select your custom mesh. Where the weights are listed, under Vertex Groups, click the black arrow, and choose Delete All Groups. This will remove all of the weights that were assigned to the custom mesh. 2. Follow these steps: (1) Select “top” and go into edit mode. (2) In the UV editor enable Keep UV and Edit Mode Mesh Selection in Sync. Now the UV islands will show up without having to select anything in the “top” mesh. (3) Press B and select all of the UV islands related to the head. (4) Put your cursor in the 3D window, press X, then Faces. (5) Click the black arrow shown in the screenshot. (5) Choose Remove Unused Vertex Groups. This will remove the weights that were assigned to the head. Go back into object mode. 3. In the image above and the ones below I have the mesh in solid shading instead of texture shading. It's up to you, but I find it easier to see a mesh--to see if there are flaws, etc.--if it's in solid shading so you may want to switch out of texture shading. The button for the shading is located at the bottom of Blender next to where you can switch into edit mode. Now that that's out of the way, with “top” still selected, go into the modifiers tab, and apply the geom_skin modifier. 4. Follow these steps: (1) Hold shift and select first “top” and then the custom mesh IN THAT ORDER. (2) Enter weight paint mode. Press T to open the left panel if it’s not open. (3) Click Transfer Weights. (4) Make sure your settings match what’s in the screenshot. (5) Press Clean. (6) Make sure your settings match what’s in the screenshot. (7) Press Limit Total. (8) Make sure your settings match what’s in the screenshot. If the limit in Limit Total is set to 4 that means no more than four weights will be assigned to each vertex; if there are more than four weights per vertex Studio will randomly delete them, and that's not good. Now that the mesh is weighted, if you want, you can click on some of the weights and see where your mesh “lights up.” 5. Select your custom mesh and go into the tab with the upside-down triangle. Under UV Maps make sure there is a uv_0 and a uv_1. THIS IS CASE-SENSITIVE. **Addendum** Turns out there is an issue with the UV maps that I overlooked. The entry listed as uv_1 is holding the UV layout for your diffuse texture, which is what the uv_0 is for. It’s not named correctly. Remove the uv_0 entry by selecting it and pressing the minus key. Add another UV map by pressing the plus sign. Rename the uv_1 entry to “uv_0.” and rename UVMap to “uv_1.” Remember that this is case-sensitive. At this point, both the uv_0 and uv_1 will be identical, but we’ll fix that in the next step. 6. We need to transfer the uv_1 as it’s responsible for how your mesh responds to the CAS sliders. First, make sure “top” is not hidden. I transferred the uv_1 with “top” hidden and the result was terrible. Make sure your custom mesh has been selected and go into object mode. Add a Data Transfer modifier. Make sure your settings match what’s shown below. After you have the settings right, press the UVs button then press Apply to apply the changes you made. 7. Select the “top.” Right-click and choose Delete to remove it. 8. Select the rig and make sure it’s not hidden and is selectable (the little arrow is showing). You should automatically be in pose mode. Click Pose, then Apply, then Apply Pose as Rest Pose. 9. Select your custom mesh. Make sure you’re in object mode. In the modifier section, you’ll see an armature modifier. Under Object choose “rig.” Do NOT press the apply button yet. 10. Select the rig and make sure you’re in pose mode. At this point, you need to move the custom mesh so that it matches the position of S4Studio_Mesh_1 (the swimsuit mesh). To adjust the arms, you’ll need to select some of the…dots (not sure what they’re called) in the shoulder, elbow, and possibly in the neck and rotate them with R. To adjust the legs, you just need to select the dots in the hips. You can enter top view (Numpad 7), or right (Numpad 3) or left view (Ctrl + Numpad 3), or front view (Numpad 1). Entering one of these views will help you make precise moves. It may even help to hide the officer uniform via the outliner so you can see better how the rig lines up with the body. Once you’re satisfied, select the custom mesh, and apply its armature modifier. 11. Vertex paint is important. The uv_1 is responsible for how your mesh behaves with the CAS sliders and vertex paint refines how the uv_1 works. Fortunately, the custom mesh has already been vertex painted so we can skip this step (Edit: Turns out we'll have to redo it again later). Select S4Studio_Mesh_1 and delete it. Then select the rig and delete it. You should be left with just the officer uniform and nothing else. Save your blend. I'll continue in the next post.
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CK
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Post by CK on Sept 14, 2021 13:35:48 GMT -5
Thank you so much for posting this <3 (i'm also in love with your color scheme in blender)
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 14, 2021 17:39:36 GMT -5
Thank you so much for posting this <3 (i'm also in love with your color scheme in blender) I rewrote step #5. Sorry if it messed you up. Hopefully, you're saving often and don't have to go back very far. There was an issue with your UV maps and I had completely overlooked it. You had a uv_0 and a uv_1 as you should have but the uv_0 held the layout of the original model and your uv_1 held the information of your new layout. What you should have is a uv_0 with the UV layout for your diffuse--it's up to you to decided where you place your UV islands--and a uv_1 which is a crazy-looking stretched out UV layout. The uv_1 is what the game uses for CAS sliders. The instructions are fixed now so you can continue (you'll have to redo step #5 if you've already completed it). I'll write up more but it won't happen quickly. It takes awhile to take the screenshots.
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CK
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Post by CK on Sept 16, 2021 15:16:47 GMT -5
I still have to fix my UV_1 to not look horrible but I did pop my current version into the game and ended up with no neck and hands :"D What do I have to do to fix this? I'm also presuming once I fix my UV_1 the proportions should be fixed as well. ft. a poor man wondering where his hands went
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 16, 2021 15:30:30 GMT -5
The hands must be a part of the garment. Not a separate meshgroup, not under rig, but joined with the garment. Take a nude top, delete all parts of it that are covered by the garment, join with the garment
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 16, 2021 22:16:30 GMT -5
I still have to fix my UV_1 to not look horrible but I did pop my current version into the game and ended up with no neck and hands :"D What do I have to do to fix this? I'm also presuming once I fix my UV_1 the proportions should be fixed as well. ft. a poor man wondering where his hands went I'm getting to this part (attaching the hands). Sorry it's taking me so long. Currently, I'm trying to figure out how to lower the polycount without killing the mesh. I'm stuck on that right now. mauvemorn would you happen to know what the Maxis guidelines are for polycounts? This one is more than 15,000 polygons.
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 17, 2021 0:53:02 GMT -5
Maxis meshes do not go past 10k but you do not need to lower 15k mesh, it’s fine, it will load with no problem
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Post by Fwecka (Lolabellesims) on Sept 17, 2021 5:11:30 GMT -5
Part Two12. Clone the Noctis outfit and give it an appropriate name. This is the package file that we will use for the final package; it’s a good choice because it contains shoes just as your custom mesh does and it has just one mesh group. That will make things a little easier. Export all of the LOD files (there are four). 13. We need to delete a bunch of faces because there is geometry inside the mesh where it won’t be seen and all it's doing is increasing the polycount. It’s easier to delete these faces via the UV editor and before we do this it helps if you have enabled Keep UV and Edit Mode Mesh Selection in Sync and if you are in face select in both the 3D window and in the UV editor. Use shift + L to select entire UV islands and use B or C to select parts of others. Everything that should be selected is shown in the screenshots below. Press X and delete these faces. 14. I think it will help to remove some extra vertices as well. In the 3D window, press A to select everything then press W > Remove Doubles. Then press T to open the side panel. Press Alt + J to turn the tris to quads. This will mean fewer edges to deal with. In the side panel, put a checkmark next to Compare UVs. Turning tris to quads can mess up the UV islands. Compare UVs fixes that. 15. In the 3D window enter edge select. Holding Shift + Alt select the bottom edge of the jacket. Then E to extrude, S to scale, move your mouse to the center, W > Merge > At Center. It’ll be a pain to select these new faces so with Shift + L select the pants’ UV islands and hide them. Enter face select and select the new faces then press T and open the left side panel. Press the Unwrap button then choose Unwrap. Move the new UV island off the map somewhere. 16. Do the same for the wrist opening and the boot openings. Then press T to close the side panel and Alt + H to unhide the legs. If you want, you can select the center vertex in the center of the new geometry you created and move those faces up inside the sleeves a bit and up inside the jacket’s bottom a bit. That will help make those faces a little less visible. 17. Using Shift + L select the UV islands for the wrists and the bottom of the jacket that are not on the map and put them all on top of another. These won’t be seen much so we can make them small and place them where the jacket’s textures are. Press S to scale them and G to move them. You can use R to rotate them if you’d like. Put the boots’ UV islands somewhere on the boots texture. 18. Whew! We’re done! Just kidding. We need to reduce the polygons in order to reduce lag. There are two ways to do this. You can judiciously select some edge loops here and there with Shift + Alt then dissolve edges with X > Dissolve Edges. The other way is faster: Use the Decimate modifier. The problem with Decimate is that it can ruin your topology and if the topology is truly a horror it can affect how well your item animates. To make things easier, let’s use Decimate. Enter object mode and add a Decimate modifier. Slide the Ratio slider to about 10,000 polygons the press Apply. (Note: Mauvemorn says it's fine to not use decimate. You should do everything else I posted but if you want to skip step # 18 you can. This might be best, actually, since decimate is death to meshes). 19. Save this CAS map to your computer. If you downloaded an old one use this, instead. It shows where the fingernails are in Spa Day. In the UV editor, go to Image > Open Image, navigate to the CAS map and open it. 20. Make sure you’re in object mode and append the Noctis LOD 0 you cloned. File > Append > navigate to your file and select it > Object > S4Studio_Mesh_1 > Append from Library. Delete the bone_bone_shape that will get appended. Edit: When appending the mesh from the Noctis outfit be sure to shift-select the bottom, bottom_2, bottom_2_3, head, head_2, teeth, and top meshes and append them, as well. 21. Unfold the rig and make the top selectable then select it. With the top selected, in the 3D window, press Shift + D then Esc to duplicate the top. There will be a new top named “top.001.” Hide everything except the custom mesh and top.001. 22. Select top.001 and enter edit mode. In the UV editor, select what’s shown in the screenshot and delete the selected faces. Save your work at this point if you haven’t yet. I promised someone else I'd help with their conversion so I'll have to take a break for a day or two to work on the other project. Hang tight. I'll continue this. We're almost done, believe it or not!
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