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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 24, 2024 16:21:42 GMT -5
Hello. I'm attempting my first boots (another conversion, not my mesh) with cut numbers. I've been using my last thread and the help I received as well as the cut numbers post on s4s and another thread by someone else. I don't fully understand but I'm trying to follow it. I've done my data transfer (which I think and hope is correct if i followed the same steps as indicated in my last thread) after joining the mesh groups of the maxis boots then deleted that and re appended the separated mesh again. I'm now trying to do the cuts, but it's awkward, when I try to select in front view exactly where the boot cuts, it selects some areas which I'm not sure whether to include or exclude from one of the bulky strap shapes. The cut doesn't coincide in the right place. My question is best way on how to ensure a clean cut on this mesh, should i cut with knife or remove the vertices that correspond to the strap part and leave that for the next cut? or another better way? Sorry if it says it somewhere, I find lots of info on cut numbers but most examples the edge coincides perfectly or I can't find how a new cut should be done. I also thought about simply scaling the boots up a bit so that they match better but then it might just happen on the next cut or be too long, plus I don't know if my scale will make it coincide completely or not. Just want to make sure i do it correctly. Attaching the blend and pictures. |
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 24, 2024 16:50:13 GMT -5
Hi. Youre doing this too early. - align boots with legs properly; - create a new reference by duplicating and joining feet with legs, otherwise uvs will be torn up; - change the reference and apply the data transfer modifier. Always check if data transferred; - create a new map and re-arrange uvs; - rebake textures; - re-order uv maps; - delete all unnecessary shape keys and color attributes; - give your boots cut 0, hide maxis boots; - save, import into shoes made of one meshgroup, test in-game; - only once everything works as intended, you split the mesh. Select your boots, in Edit mode select everything and Face - Tris to quads, enable Compare UVs; - enable X-ray, click and drag to select faces you need to bisect, disable X-ray; - click and hold on Knife tool to choose Bisect, click and cut, Edge - Mark sharp; - do the same at the bottom, then roughly select faces you need to separate, Ctrl L, choose Sharp, then Mesh - Separate - Selection;  - select the original meshgroup, check its cut, delete it, assign yours the same cut; - select your boots again, click and drag to select the right area, separate, give the right cut, delete the original; - give the remaining one the right cut and delete the original; - import into a new blend |
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 24, 2024 17:30:02 GMT -5
Thank you this is great, I think I understand most of the later steps and that it's better to do it after.
I don't really understand the "create new reference by duplicating and joining feet with legs. I understand to duplicate the mesh groups of the maxis boots (joined) and then to try to get the leg part not to poke out? Then the change the reference part too I don't really know what is meant by this.
After that I think I understand all the steps.
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 25, 2024 2:41:54 GMT -5
- Expand the rig, make bottom and feet selectable by toggling Cursor icon under Filter (top right corner)  - select both, in 3d view press Shift D, then Esc to duplicate; - With duplicated meshes selected, press Ctrl J to join both into one; - Rename to reference; - Transfer data from it and delete it afterward. |
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 25, 2024 19:54:49 GMT -5
Hi, thank you so much for this I really appreciate it. I know this is long and I’m not in rush and understand if it’s too much. I have done up to the step of importing my mesh into a maxis shoes with only one cut, it works in game and moves and morphs, texture bake worked etc. But the leg part that is poking through which I deleted off of the body mesh in blender thinking it would go away like that still shows in game even though my blend doesn't have it. I don't know how to get rid of this extra leg that I don't want showing, do i need to move and mould my boot mesh to fit the sims leg? or is there a way to hide it like I did with the body parts under my kimono garment from the previous thread? Files of the blend of the one cut shoes with my mesh imported and the bottom of the leg that would poke through cut off. I've also included the package i tested in game. I’d like to know when to duplicate/join reference body part mesh to garments. Should the boots be joined to any sim body part mesh, like I did with my previous garment (the kimono yukata top) Or is it meant to be separated? I don't know how this works, or which garments need to be joined to the sims body mesh. Depending on each outfit I'm seeing that the previous one I worked on we chose top, now we have chosen bottom and feet. Must we always join the body with any mesh no matter what with this duplicating process or is that just clothes? And I guess if we must join we always choose the body mesh first then our item so that the last one selected receives the data. I've studied the maxis boots and see that its boots and then separately the feet and bottom body parts, and that the feet were hidden and they aren't joined so thats also why I'm unsure. The difference between mine and the maxis ones is that they perfectly align with the leg and mine don’t (simply shifting them doesn’t align the top properly and scaling makes them too large) Why does the uv get “torn up” as you mention if we don’t do this step of adding another reference? For example in the previous garment (kimono) we did more data transferring because the sleeves were receiving data from the torso but I don't really know how to know that myself, or why on this post you said the uvs on these boots would be torn up if I didn’t do this, I don’t really understand, I'll try to explain my confusion. So beforehand I had tried to transfer data directly from the boots to the other boots thinking this was the way. I also thought this because in the Kimono one we chose the maxis mesh as reference and then did data transferring, then the sleeve transferring, then deleted the reference and then duplicated the sims "top" body mesh group, hide the part of body under garment etc. I know not one size fits all and all cc pieces will require different things but I am trying to find patterns and understanding to what I'm doing. Sorry I struggle to put into words my doubts and that it is long, I have gaps in my understanding. I really appreciate all the help I’ve received so far. |
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 26, 2024 5:06:53 GMT -5
The body parts under the rig are not a part of your item and are not imported in s4s ( although sometimes when you do something to them, it leads to glitches, so i suggest to not edit them at all, work on copies instead ). The conflict between bottoms and shoes is meant to be resolved by splitting both in the same exact places, so that some pants tuck into boots while others hide them instead of clipping into each other. However, not all bottoms are split there, so you must align your shoes with legs properly. - clone boots again, export the blend, open, hide all meshgroups; - append your boots from a shared blend; - in edit mode enable X-ray. Change the pivot to 3d cursor and Shift-RMB-click to put a cursor in the same place you see on the screenshot;  - click and drag to select one boot, then press R and rotate so that the leg inside is somewhere in the middle of the shoe; - copy the exact angle, repeat the same process with the other shoes, making sure to flip the cursor by removing - symbol in X;  To know how something should be done, you simply look at a similar maxis mesh. There are 4 sections of the body: feet, bottom, top, head. If shoes do not reach the bottom, the empty space must be filled with feet. If they do, then no, like in the reference you're using. Body part from under the rig are parented to it, so if you're using them, you must selected them first, otherwise the garment will be parented to the rig. This can lead to it importing rotated in s4s. If the body is not parented to the rig, then the order does not matter To move and morph like an area of the body it covers, your garment must receive data from an area of the body it covers. Due to dramatic differences in shape, there are differences in how skirts and legs behave, so if the area between legs on your garment is covered in a skirt-like manner, you must transfer data from a dress, never from nude legs. There are some differences in the breast area on loose and tight clothing, as well as in the groin on pants and underwear, but they are minor enough to be disregarded. What does make a difference are sculpted details. Unlike the nude body, clothing has hems, folds, bows, etc, along which the mesh may be split. When you transfer uvs from such items, the result is torn along these gaps. If you were to merge the reference by distance, it would eliminate the gaps that you need as well. So the solution is simple: choose a reference that covers the same area as your garment, behaves in the same way and has as little details as possible. The boots you're using as a reference have a lot of straps and are split along them. To make sure your boots dont have uvs that are too torn and, as a result, tear during morphing in-game, you use feet+legs combo. If you want to eliminate all unwanted tears, you could merge by distance an area where the feet connect with bottoms. |
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 27, 2024 11:07:18 GMT -5
Hi mauvemorn, sorry for my late reply. Thank you so much for the first tip about the position angle axis and orientation, I didn't know about this tool and it helped me rotate scale move and proportionally edit my boots to fit the original maxis boot / sim leg perfectly, and make the boot look better on the body. I also appreciate the bisect explanation and I also didn't know what make sharp meant as I've seen in so many tutorials now I understand at least in this application. The rest was no issue and I think my cut numbers are working correctly. The boot clips with some pants simply due to the shape of the heel which I may or may not modify, but otherwise, pants (at least maxis ones) tuck in or cover the boot accordingly  So essentially the boots are useable and function and now I just need to do textures. I have had an issue with strange black shapes on my ambient occlusion for this mesh that I baked which on the yukata only had like two spots that i could Photoshop out but this is too much. Do you have any suggestions to clean up the bake/ what causes these black patches on AO map? Including a photo (you might not see it much but there are some weird shapes artifacts that shouldn't be there especially can see when using it in my texure maps) I also baked a gloss map which looks quite interesting and I wondered if it is common/a good idea to use this type of map to add interesting details in a specular and/or normal and/or diffuse maps? or is a gloss map just the same kind of thing as a specular? PHOTO of AO map and my completed boot mesh Regarding your other explanations thank you. I do still struggle to fully apply these things but it is helpful to have this explanation. So to clarify: - "choose a reference that covers the same area as your garment, behaves in the same way and has as little details as possible." In this example, were the maxis boots that I selected appropriate then? I thought they were, simply due to their shape, the leg covering, having cuts and being long enough like mine. - When you say parented to rig, for example which items would not be parented to rig? - How can I know if the uv is torn? and does this happen after the data transfer if it happens? - I have also seen a tutorial that edit Uv1 and fit it to a template, I haven't done this and don't understand if/when/why I would have to do this step. I still find it slightly confusing. Is it only if the uv1 is as you said "torn up" or not working? Or should I always do this step? If so, why does the garment function in game without me modifying the ones I have? The yukata one did look really broken and strange and I thought it was very wrong but it works in game. I don't know if this is only because we did the limit total step at the end to fix it. |
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Post by mauvemorn on Aug 27, 2024 12:12:25 GMT -5
Under the rig, there are feet. Even though they are hidden, they still cast shadows on the mesh. The black spots appear where they clip into boots.To fix this, you need to disable rendering for these feet ( the camera icon next to eye and cursor icons ) ts4 specular maps arent interactive, they "reflect" a cube map instead of the environment and don't work the same way as anything in the material node. You wont get anything that is worse putting effort out of them
they have scalped details, straps. They are split in many places (yellow), which gives very torn uvs, this they arent the best reference
if you click on the arrow next to rig, you'll see whats parented to it
in the example below you can see what are they meant to be like (second) as opposed to the torn ones ( first )
 It is harder to see on these shoes since their topology is denser, but in orange are all the places uvs are torn in after transferring data from boots  Upon import, s4s splits the mesh along the borders of uv islands, so your item becomes chopped up. If two vertices have the same 3d coordinates but exist in different places on the uv map, morphs affect them differently and this is what happens 
before blender had data transfer modifier, people used to make this map by hand, using that template as a reference. In that tutorial i showed it mostly for people to have an easier time wrapping their head around the layout, with the skin texture behind it. By default uvs dont fit the uv space, so the point of shrinking them was to align with the template and edit it manually, after which they'd be stretch back. However, this is something you will never have to do if you model your mesh right and choose a suitable reference.
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Post by moonbiscuitsims on Aug 27, 2024 13:09:33 GMT -5
Thank you so much!
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So essentially the boots are useable and function and now I just need to do textures.