Showing and hiding CAS items for gender and frame combos


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isaax
New Member

I'm just a baby CC maker who doesn't know what he's doing!

Posts: 3

Showing and hiding CAS items for gender and frame combos Aug 24, 2022 20:41:12 GMT -5

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Post by isaax on Aug 24, 2022 20:41:12 GMT -5

Thank you so much for your time and apologies in advance if I do not explain or understand well; I just started trying to make CC this week.

I'm trying to add a swatch to EP01SkortPatterned.

The behavior of this EA item in-game is to use one model for female Sims with feminine frames, and a different model for male Sims with masculine frames, female Sims with masculine frames, AND male Sims with feminine frames.

I tried adding a CAS Part Swatch to yfBottom_EP01SkortPatterned. When this .package is created in Sims 4 Studio, flags set to TRUE are "Female" and "Restrict Opposite Frame", while "Restrict Opposite Gender" is FALSE.

The swatch shows up on the EA item in the catalog as expected on female Sims with feminine frames, but male Sims with feminine frames also receive this swatch, and when this swatch is selected they display the skort using the female-feminine model, with small errors appearing at the navel and hips.

yf option showing on Male Sim with Feminine Frame

So I tried restricting that swatch to female-feminine Sims only by setting "Female", "Restrict Opposite Gender", and "Restrict Opposite Frame" all to TRUE. Now it does not show up for male Sims with feminine frames.

Then I added a swatch to ymBottom_EP01SkortPatterned on which "Male" is TRUE and "Restrict Opposite Gender" and "Restrict Opposie Frame" are FALSE. This swatch shows up as expected on the EA catalog item for male-masculine Sims and female-masculine Sims (i.e. all masculine framed Sims). It does not show up under the EA catalog item for female-feminine Sims and male-feminine Sims (i.e. all feminine framed Sims). Instead it shows up as a separate catalog item with no swatches. It displays correctly on male-feminine Sims, but on female-feminine Sims there is a mesh error, a gap.

ym version showing up on Female Sim with Feminine Frame

And for the life of me, I can't figure out how to solve this issue by either of the following methods:
1. Disable the ymBottom_EP01SkortPatterned swatch for female-feminine Sims ONLY. (If I set "Restrict Opposite Gender" to TRUE then it disappears for female Sims with masculine frames.)
2. Make a new package with a swatch based on ymBottom_EP01SkortPatterned that is enabled for female-masculine Sims ONLY.

As far as I have been able to figure out, items can be restricted to only the following:
- Both Genders, Both Frames
- Both Genders, Feminine Frame Only
- Both Genders, Masculine Frame Only
- Female Gender, Feminine Frame Only
- Male Gender, Masculine Frame Only
- Female Gender, Both Frames
- Male Gender, Both Frames

I just can't figure out if there's a combination of flags, or if there are some settings in the Warehouse, that would allow me to restrict to "Female Gender, Masculine Frame Only". (Or to "Male Gender, Feminine Frame Only".)

I'm not desperate to get this particular skort working or anything, but I would really like to better understand gender and frame categorization of CAS items. I would love to be able to make CAS items that display for a specific gender and frame combinations.

For example, I made skin detail beards that I would love to restrict to female Sims only. But because female Sims with masculine frames need to use the masculine frame model, female-feminine Sims and female-masculine Sims have to use separate items, and I don't know how to hide an item for male-masculine Sims but still have it show up for female-masculine Sims.

Thank you so much for reading and any help you're able to give this poor fool!

mauvemorn
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Showing and hiding CAS items for gender and frame combos Aug 28, 2022 5:06:48 GMT -5

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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 28, 2022 5:06:48 GMT -5

Hi. The change between frames is done through morphing. The morphing does not always work good + some items may need to differ in textures, so some of them come as two separate items. So yfBottom_EP01SkortPatterned and ymBottom_EP01SkortPatterned are two separate items with different textures and meshes. If you want to add a swatch, you need to add it to both of them separately.

As for the rest:

Example:

You have a dress made for a feminine frame but want it to work on a masculine frame as well.

Frame(the shape of the mesh): feminine

Gender: ONLY female;

Fashion choice: feminine

Disable Restrict opposite gender and Restrict opposite frame.

Now the morphs will be applied correctly.

The gender should always match the frame or the morphs will not be applied correctly.

Last Edit: Aug 28, 2022 5:13:23 GMT -5 by mauvemorn

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isaax
New Member

I'm just a baby CC maker who doesn't know what he's doing!

Posts: 3

Showing and hiding CAS items for gender and frame combos Aug 29, 2022 11:23:10 GMT -5

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Post by isaax on Aug 29, 2022 11:23:10 GMT -5

Thank you for your answer! I was also able to find a tutorial on Tumblr that gave advice on which options to enable for optimal morphing.

What confuses me is there seems like there's no way to set it up like EA has done with the skort, which uses a first model for three of the possible gender/frame combinations and a second model for only one of the three possible gender combinations. I can get the correct skort models to show up for all the models by having the feminine swatch have both Restrict Opposite Gender AND Restrict Opposite Frame enabled, while the masculine swatch has both options disabled. But then an unwanted masculine swatch shows up for female-feminine Sims, the only gender/frame combo on which the masculine mesh does not display correctly. I can't figure out if there's any way to hide that swatch for female-feminine Sims without hiding it for the other gender/frame combos.

Also, the swatch that has been added to the ym skort doesn't show up in the catalog under the original skort for feminine framed Sims.

Male/masculine Sim on the left, male/feminine Sim on the right.

For catalog items that involve one item for feminine framed Sims and one item for masculine framed Sims, I would expect this behavior. My swatch added to the ym item, while enabled for all frames, is not native to this frame, so the game displays it separately. Except... you can see the original skort there in the catalog, which uses the masculine mesh and textures. If EA has male-feminine Sims using the masculine mesh, why doesn't my swatch go under there?

Also, when I create a new project based on the skort (both Create CAS Standalone and Add CAS Part Swatch), the default options are Restrict Opposite Gender FALSE and Restrict Opposite Frame TRUE. If these are the truly the settings on the EA CAS parts, why do male-feminine Sims wear the masculine mesh/textures?

[ETA: If I set the options for both ya and ym swatches to Restrict Opposite Gender FALSE and Restrict Opposite Frame TRUE, the swatches show up correctly underneath the EA items in the catalog, but male-feminine Sims use the wrong mesh and texture - the mesh and texture from the feminine frame. Every other EA swatch on the item for male-feminine Sims use the masculine mesh and texture and display correctly, and then when you click over to my swatch the wrong model and texture show.

This makes me feel like the male-feminine Sims are truly given the yf CAS part, because that's where the swatch shows up - but somehow the yf CAS part contains instructions to use the ym CAS part's mesh and texture in the case of male-feminine Sims. But I combed through the Warehouse and didn't find any setting that would give this ability. I don't know anything about meshing but looking at the LOD0 in blender, it doesn't look like there's a secret second mesh hidden in the yf mesh or anything.]

This all just seems very strange, like EA has some enable/disable options that we don't have access to, or there's some secret inaccessible CAS Part for male-feminine Sims only.

This is not an essential mystery to resolve - like I said, I'm not super attached to this skort in particular, and I can still get a working, non-distorted swatch to show up for everyone (just with the weird catalog behavior and the unwanted, extra, distorted swatch showing up for female-feminine Sims), I just wish I understood how EA got this to work. Is it just an unanswered mystery? I truly truly thank you for your time regardless.

Last Edit: Aug 29, 2022 11:38:53 GMT -5 by isaax

fallingsim
Studio Member

Posts: 81

Showing and hiding CAS items for gender and frame combos Aug 29, 2022 15:06:01 GMT -5 lavsm and isaax like this

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Post by fallingsim on Aug 29, 2022 15:06:01 GMT -5

"... somehow the yf CAS part contains instructions to use the ym CAS part's mesh and texture in the case of male-feminine Sims."

You're aware of the "Opposite Gender Part" in the CASP in the warehouse view, right? It has the instance ID, if any, of a CASP that should be used for the opposite gender if necessary. Possibly that's what's causing the behavior you're seeing? There's also the "Fallback Part" with the instance, if any, of a CASP to use if nothing else fits the gender/frame, just to complicate things.

isaax
New Member

I'm just a baby CC maker who doesn't know what he's doing!

Posts: 3

Showing and hiding CAS items for gender and frame combos Aug 30, 2022 12:48:22 GMT -5 fallingsim likes this

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Post by isaax on Aug 30, 2022 12:48:22 GMT -5

AHH! fallingsim, it worked!

I had looked in Game File Cruiser and seen that the swatches of the EA item both had the opposite gender's Key/Instance listed under "OppositeGenderPart". But because both the yf and the ym parts pointed to each other, I assumed that wouldn't fix my issue, and maybe just had something to do with the Sims wearing the analogous item when switching between the main "male" and "female" options in CAS.

But I assumed wrong! When I set my custom swatches to Restrict Opposite Gender FALSE, Restrict Opposite Frame TRUE, and to reference each other in OppositeGenderPart, it worked!!! It behaves exactly like the EA item now!

So my guess about what's going on under the hood is: the game assigns the feminine frame to female-feminine Sims and the masculine frame to male-masculine Sims as you'd expect. The game also assigns the masculine frame to female-masculine Sims. The game also knows that the best visual results for female-masculine sims will result from morphing the masculine frame mesh, not the feminine frame mesh. So if the yf CAS Part has a reference to a masculine frame mesh in OppositeGenderPart, the game automatically chooses that for male-feminine Sims. If there is no reference in OppositeGenderPart, then the game tries its best to morph the feminine mesh, but there are issues.

Thank you SO much for your help!! Skort swatches are working exactly as expected now.

I don't think this will help me with my beards as skin details project (what I want there is essentially the ability to hide parts for cis Sims only, which I don't think is an option), but if that's not possible, that's okay.


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Showing and hiding CAS items for gender and frame combos

Post by isaax on Aug 24, 2022 20:41:12 GMT -5

Post by mauvemorn on Aug 28, 2022 5:06:48 GMT -5

Post by isaax on Aug 29, 2022 11:23:10 GMT -5

Post by fallingsim on Aug 29, 2022 15:06:01 GMT -5

Post by isaax on Aug 30, 2022 12:48:22 GMT -5

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