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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 13, 2024 11:07:23 GMT -5
![]() Hi to anyone who may be able to help me. I don't have much experience with meshes or blender, only a few small projects in the past, some basic blender tutorials unrelated to sims and soon ill be learning in a course but no idea what theyll teach me. Anyway my project is to convert a kimono mesh i extracted from Cyberpunk2077 to sims 4. I have been following many tutorials and running into many little things that i don't know if im doing right. In general I think ive managed to get it ok but now ive reached a point where im just not really sure what im meant to do anymore as my project is different from the tutorials im following and i want to know the right way to deal with this to avoid wasting time. Right now my mesh seems to fit the sim body well, ive deleted the part of the sim body hidden by the mesh, and the mesh has it's original materials which i've edited to make less shiny. My issue right now is that i have no texture image, so i wanted to bake my textures, but the UV map for this mesh is so much larger and higher quality that i don't know how to size it down into the sims texture template as the material is changing and the texture now looks wrong, furthermore i don't know which baking method im meant to use. I also don't know if im meant to unwrap my uv map again or if it is already unwrapped fine. Also it is very high poly and I was trying to reduce the poly count using Jr quad remesher plugin for blender which was giving me problems making some parts of the mesh disappear. Ultimately im stuck and don't know what to do to continue this project correctly and would like some suggestions as to what to do next and which methods to use or if there's anything that will make this useless as it might already be wrong or i might be making some mistake. Here are my blender file (named kimono) and a picture and the original mesh i extracted (named cyberpunk kimono) : google driveI have copies of files of most steps too if needed a previous step but for now im just including the last file im working with Here are the tutorials ive been following This is the main one to convert a mesh, however their mesh is a bit different and i do not have a texture file image like them: (reached minute 37 and stopped because I don't have texture files and don't know if i should be moving things first this is a texture baking tutorial by Syboulette this one i watched but because it's an object im finding it hard to apply it to my project and she says you need to unwrap things, but the unwrappin video i found even more confusing and not sure if im meant to do that or if it is already done) tried this one but my uv map is far too large so the textures aren't baking right, i only tried the first method before realising ive wasted 2 days now and i would rather ask what to do. This is the tumblr post that i found the remesh tool to reduce the poly but don't understand much www.tumblr.com/applewatersugar/756841805414301696/github-jayanamjremesh-tools-blender-addon-for I also followed this tutorial but the images i made just looked really strange and not right... I realise this might be very ambitious for someone with not many skills but it was something i simply decided to try and i feel like ive worked on it a lot and wanna try and get as far as I can  My goal is to convert more assets from this game if i figure out how to do it. I have already gotten much further than i thought I would but maybe ive done everything wrong and i hope thats not the case |
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 13, 2024 13:29:52 GMT -5
Hi. You do not need to retopologize this mesh, the polycount is okay. You do not need to re-unwrap it, it already has uvs. You need to adapt it first, then bake materials. - download and install blender 4.2 in the recommended location or on the d drive. Since Im going to explain how to do the whole process, may as well do it in the latest version; - in s4s settings change blender path to blender.exe in blender 4.2 installation folder; - with Create CAS standalone selected, click on CAS and paste yfTop_TubeSweetheart into the search bar, select one swatch, click Next, name it; - export the blend, it has to be new, do not re-use old ones;- open, rename the mesh to Reference; - switch the shading to solid and import or append your garment in the scene;  - select the garment, delete everything in the data tab beside the first uv map, rename it to uv_0;  - in uv editor enable sync, select all uvs that are outside of the uv space, then press C and, while holding shift, deselect some at the bottom of sleeves. Mesh - Delete - Faces; - select the rest of uvs with A and move them outside of the uv space; - in 3d view Mesh - Merge - By distance, then in Uv editor Uvs - Merge - By distance, change Merge distance to 0.0001;  - add Data transfer, transfer weights, uv_1 and vertex paint as explained below: How to make an item move and morph by transferring weights, uv_1 and vertex paint
Transfer weights, uv_1 and vertex paint with Data transfer. The result may not always be perfect, but it is best to solve problems as they come:
- Unhide the reference. It must be visible* ( eye icon ) and selectable* ( cursor icon );
- Select your hair;
- In Modifiers tab add Data transfer modifier;
- Choose Reference as Source object;
- Enable Vertex data and expand it;
- Enable Vertex groups*;
- In Mapping choose Nearest face interpolated;
- Enable and expand Face corner data;
- Enable Colors*;
- Shift*-click to enable UVs as well;
- In Mapping choose Nearest face interpolated;
- Expand UVs, choose uv_1 in Layer selection ( don't forget, otherwise uv_0 will be overwritten as well);
- Click on Generate data layers*;
- Apply the modifier;
- In Data tab expand UV maps. Double-click on UVmap, rename it to uv_0;
- If uv_1 appeared, it most likely transferred successfully;
- Expand Color attributes. If you see color0, it transferred;
- Expand Vertex groups. If you see names of vertex groups, they most likely transferred successfully. However, there is one ( or two ) more thing(s) you need to do;
- If you're using Blender 2.76 - 2.79, 3.6.1, switch to Edit mode, select everything with A, Mesh - Weights - Clean with Subset set to All groups to fix the result of a bug that exists in these versions;
- Regardless of your version of Blender, in Edit mode, with everything still selected, do Mesh - Weights - Limit total.
* Data will not transfer if you will forget to do these steps!!! | 
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- this garment is shaped in a way ts4 meshes should not be ( loose sleeves in the armpit area ). Because of that, sleeves receive data from the torso. To fix it, retransfer data from arms to sleeves only. Select the reference, in uv editor select everything but arms, in 3d view delete. After that, select the garment, in edit mode enable X-ray, select sleeves somewhat, press Ctrl L, choose UVs to select them fully. Create a new vertex group with +, assign these sleeves to it. Transfer all data again, but this time choose Group in Vertex group. After applying and limiting total, delete Group with -;
- delete the reference, expand the rig, make top visible and selectable. Select it, Object - Duplicate, click Esc; - hide the original top, select top.001, select everything with A, Mesh - Merge - By distance; - enable X-ray, select everything covered by the garment, delete;  - in this order: select top.001, then your garment, then Object - Join; - switch to Edit mode, in Uv editor select everything and assign this template, deselect uvs of the body, press S Y 0.5 to shrink the garment's uvs to their original size; - with all garment's uvs selected, shrink and move them so that the biggest uv island fits somewhere, then deselect it by hovering over it and pressing Shift L. Repeat the process without shrinking anything, just moving, until it looks something like this:  - with all uvs selected, UVs - Export uv layout - change the opacity and dimensions. This will be your temporary diffuse; - you can close and unwrap holes in the sleeves properly or you can just alt-click on edges on the inside of the sleeves and Mesh - Merge - Collapse them; - give the mesh cut 0, save, import this blend and uv layout in s4s, remove other maps, save, test in-game; - now you bake materials. In my case, theres hot pink color instead if textures, which means blender cannot locate images. But basically you do this the usual way, by baking Combined in Cycles. Before you do this, create the floor and set the Alpha in the skin material to 0.
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 14, 2024 7:15:48 GMT -5
Thank you ever so much for this details reply! I will try all of this out myself when I can and if i have any issues will return to this thread. It seems I chose a mesh that maybe was more complex than i thought and skimming over there are a lot of things I am not familiar with, but Ill give this a go thank you so much!
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 15, 2024 9:34:02 GMT -5
Google driveHi, I've been doing this today, overall great easy instructions, so thank you for that. Now the part after the data transfer is confusing for me and im having issues cause I'm not sure I understand what is meant to be happening here or exactly what is meant by "select sleeves somewhat, press Ctrl L, choose UVs to select them fully" Edit: I added an extra screenshot named 13b where I show what happens when I try to follow it and why I thought I should return to file 8 and try all this again. I have included a folder called "new files" with all my process in steps, I named each blend and each image in order that I did them and what I did, sorry if it is confusing this way its how i documented it for me. I recommend sorting by name to get the correct order. Essentially: file 5 and 6 I think i fixed it by returning to 4 and trying again, so you can ignore them unless the problem may be there file 9 is where things start to go wrong until 13 and then I decided to go back to blend 8 and try it all again and different things are happening so I think I'm too confused about what the UV's are supposed to look like, whether i'm meant to have only the sleeves selected like I've shown in screeshot 15 but the problem is that then some parts of the sleeve islands are deselected. I must be doing something wrong or misunderstanding. Sorry if my way of depicting the problem is confusing I tried to make it clear. Thank you for everything so far
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 15, 2024 12:52:48 GMT -5
Instead of Vertex, witch to Face select to prevent this issue |
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 17, 2024 8:41:53 GMT -5
Thank you, this did the trick and I think UV map was successful. I've had a few more developments and some problems. Including files (named files 3) and pictures as before, sort by name to get the right order I have also included the original extracted mesh and json GOOGLE DRIVEI've gone to close holes (I've done this in the past so i think it's good), the sleeves seem good though for some reason there are two hole uv islands generated from one edge loop that I extruded (maybe there were two on top of each other i couldn't see or this is normal), scaled in, and Merge collapsed and I don't know why or if i should remove the "inside one" which isn't visible if it is unnecessary. Can I remove the inside invisible circle/island? The neck I have noticed a problem which I seem to have missed previously, This is my fault I checked it all but missed it, maybe I was in xray mode and couldn't see properly or was more focused on the uv part... I have removed too much of the sim neck and there are two holes showing at the back, I should have seen it. Furthermore the part in front of the chest i don't like the way the close looks and tried to move it down to hide it but then it doesn't go through the sims body which i also seem to have removed too much of (for my liking at least), this I simply didn't imagine would look this way and thought there was enough of the body inside the kimono on the chest part. This is useable but I just don't like the place it cuts in cause it's visible. How can I fix the neck holes and get some of the sims body back 😥 If not or if it's a hassle I can just go back and do it all again no problem, but wondered if it is easily fixable to avoid it or if it ever happens similar in the future. Last thing though maybe this is best answered later is that the original json file that (I think) gives texture to the kimono looks different on the original mesh from what it now does on mine, I don't know if this is normal and fixed later or if I need to address it now. |
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 17, 2024 10:37:21 GMT -5
You seem to be extruding them the wrong way. To close holes, you Alt-click on the edge loop and just press F. If you want to extrude, press E, then S, then Mesh - Merge - Collapse. Right now you can just select these unwanted geometries and delete them. Once you select all areas of the body covered by the garment, disable X-ray and look around to make sure no selected face pokes out. Right now you can just select these two edges and press F to create a new one  Yeah, would have been best to remove less of the chest. It would be best to close complex gaps in the cleavage area the maxis way, by bridging the border edges of the garment with the border edges of the body. Remove more of the body by cutting it with the knife tool, delete the hidden parts of the collar, Alt-click on the border edge loop on the body, then on the one on the collar, deselect unwanted, Edge - Bridge edge loops  Materials have no textures in my case, so i cant check. Lights play a big role in how the material looks, so you can recreate them |
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 18, 2024 7:41:40 GMT -5
Done these things (to the best of my ability) I think this looks better, thank you for the bridge idea. I really struggled with the knife tool (it kept switching the points between the kimono and the body and I couldn't control it well or see properly with the camera so in the end just selected the edges of the sim body and bridged it to the neck after deleting the inside part like you said. Maybe could have looked better but for now im content. Also when it came to extruding the holes i realise now that my blender shortcuts are all wrong. So found how to extrude then scale correctly buuuut some of the faces were just missing, tried merge distance to get rid of duplicate vertices as every tutorial suggested but still did the same so in the end i just collapsed and deleted the inside circles of the sleeves. I know it is not necessary to extrude but I just wanted to try it out that way. I closed the hole at the bottom too and think its all ok now. The neck bridge unwrapped looked awfully big and hard to fit so i fit it under the hands. Im assuming the islands for the closed holes don't matter too much for textures. Last night i found this video and then this one saying basically same thing (it took me a while to find even what the problem was called...) and I think this is what I need to do to get my old (now moved) textures back. Sorry I'm so new to everything if this is obvious... I guess the lack of materials/textures for you must be a path issue or how i imported it into my blender with the cyberpunk addon, but nevermind for now, I'm going to try these method to get my texture baked from the old mesh file onto the new uv layout, unless there is a better suggestion. If I have any issues I'll post here but for now I think my mesh is ok to proceed to this, attaching it. In these videos they do it on two uv maps for the same mesh, I'm assuming the same procedure work for two uv maps in separate blend files? What I mean is that I need to bake the textures from my original blend file so that it can fit on the new uv_0 layout, I was going to try to import uv_0 into the old mesh, and bake from the old uv layout to the new one. also my uv_1 looks strange and idk if its ok, I haven't been touching it so i don't know why its like that or if it matters. adding photos and files. I hope its ok... FILES 4 (google drive)
(added a separate folder for the uv transfer problems im having, I've taken photos since you can't see the textures) Edit: I've hit a bit of a brick wall, I can't do a UV transfer from the old blend to the new one... I have tried many things...I don't know how to approach transfering the materials from the old uv to the new one correctly with two separate objects. adding a couple of extra photos showing. Also can't find the Cut number, s4s tools aren't showing up in my data tab for some reason or i can't find it I have tried some transfer uv features and copy paste uv options, both selecting both meshes or just one, and nothing works for me to do what im trying to do so that i can continue with one of those uv transfer tutorials. |
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 18, 2024 12:02:54 GMT -5
( about cutting with the Knife tool)This step is meant to be done before you join the body with the garment, so you could have selected the body and separated it so that the garment is visible but does not get in your way.
You made uvs smaller, so plugged in patterns look bigger now. So what you need is to shrink them in the material's node tree, then edit the light source if you want different reflections, then bake this material to texture in cycles.
Your first data transfer was unsuccessful, so the garment received no weights, uv_1 and vertex paint. The second one was successful, so only the sleeves have proper data. Separate the torso area of the garment and transfer weights. Then join both again and remove doubles.
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 19, 2024 7:13:41 GMT -5
Thank you! I'll try these things
Yes the knife thing makes sense, I find that even though I am aware of the separate tools and functions I learned It is sometimes hard to think to apply them in these ways outside the typical tutorial demonstrations where I learned them, cause I don't have the experience, but makes more sense.
So I'll need to shrink the materials but it doesn't matter that I rearranged them in other positions aside from just shrinking?
I'll try to fix the weights transfer first, if I fail I'll go back and do things over.
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 19, 2024 7:36:18 GMT -5
Let’s say you have a checkerboard pattern, 5x5 squares: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Checkerboard_pattern.svgYour uv island is occupying the whole uv space and is displaying all 25 of them. If you were to shrink this uv island by 1/3, it would display only 9 squares. The same thing happens with your material. In the material settings textures are tiled enough times to look right on original uvs. The current ones are smaller, so you need to adjust these settings. Normally « mapping » node is responsible for this |
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 19, 2024 11:59:01 GMT -5
Yes, I think I understand having to size it down thing, but the problem is more that I can't seem to get it in the right position. I have actually been playing around with scale etc on the mapping node today, manage to move the textures after a while. But I can't seem to get the textures to move and fit properly. Then also because I rotated some of the Uv Islands (I think one of the sleeves and the inside part of the sleeves, will attach a photo of how the texture is different on each sleeve because of that, it isn't meant to look like lines but I'm using the lines to see if it has rotated). I have duplicated the material and assigned the new one to the sleeve to try rotation on mapping but it isn't rotating. It sometimes moves a bit if i use the z axis but not in the right way. Regardless of my abilities or whether I achieve this or not (I'm thinking it is very difficult for me and maybe I just can't do this, but i really don't want to give up) I'm learning things trying despite all the failed experiments and things I wont even mention cause they're too long and I didn't document them; and I really really appreciate all the help and patience and thank you for all your help. I also apologise as I did not realise the tutorial I was following originally would not work as easily for my mesh and required more knowledge. Edit: I think the problem is that the textures still are basically an image of the old uv layout, adding a photo to show this, I thought i was moving the lighting and texture but I'm basically just stretching and moving the image that was already fixed and looks like the old texture layout. Google drive photos of textures |
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 19, 2024 12:41:02 GMT -5
Ah, so they are game-ready instead of tiled. Then would need to rebake them, yes, but for that the mesh must have an original uv map. Instead you can just bake ambient occlusion and forget about all of that.
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 19, 2024 13:53:02 GMT -5
I extracted these images and test baked some of the textures before when I originally found the mesh, Is any of it useable? I thought about simply photoshopping but I know it will end up looking blurry I'm not familiar with ambient occlusion baking, is that the same as shadow/specular map? Or do you mean make entirely new textures and discard possibility of using the prior ones. |
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 19, 2024 14:13:55 GMT -5
Yes, you just assign a new material and bake ambient occlusion as shown here from 5:46 to 7:14. You can also create a light source, play with the material and bake Combined instead of Ambient occlusion for a more complex texture. Remaking the whole process, rebaking all these textures, replacing them, then baking the final one is not worse it, it will not look as good in ts4 as is does in cyberpunk no matter what you'll do. |
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My goal is to convert more assets from this game if i figure out how to do it. I have already gotten much further than i thought I would but maybe ive done everything wrong and i hope thats not the case
