#1
12th Jan 2023 at 11:00 PM
Help Needed-Hair Meshing obstacles between Milkshape/Maya/Blender
This is my first time replacing hair mesh. Last week i realized i would need front bangs on
Anto-Youth hair mesh, and decided to get them from
Anto-Ines mesh, since they share same textures (for private use only, of course).
I followed this hair making tutorial
https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=622787 with prior knowledge of linking and extracting steps from my accessory projects. After i collected mesh files and extracted them from
Milkshape as .obj, i started working on them in Maya. First difference i noticed is that extracted Anto-Youth mesh had 3 differently named groups:
alpha5, alpha6 and alpha7, instead bangs_l1, bangs_l3 and bangs_l5, despite project being based of Anto-Youth (and using same sims base mesh). I decided to keep them as is.
When i was satisfied with new mesh and new UVs/textures, i exported it as .obj and imported back in Milkshape. I replaced old groups with new ones, and first thing i noticed is
difference in hair position and size relative to Milkshape skeleton. For some reason after being exported to Maya, mesh got bigger and
changed position along Y-axis. Between .obj export from Milkshape and .obj import to Maya, something changed. I decided to keep testing regardless.
I assigned all fixed weighted vertex to head joint and proceeded to export to
Blender for painting weights, as 5gd. Blender 2.9
can't import armature from Milkshape.
So, i switch to this relatively newer weights tutorial
https://youtu.be/wL2v7MjaM3M Sims Base Models with Armature provided in tutorial are still from older Blender, and Armature just doesn't get assigned to hair groups no matter what, thus preventing me from selecting bones to paint weights to.
Furthermore, 5gd exported from Milkshape gets imported in Blender
as rotated 180 by Z-axis, and much lower then
Blender armature.
I go back to Milkshape and export original Anto-Youth Mesh groups for MeshToolkit via TSRW, and try to copy weights that way. Clearly there is still height and size difference in models that shouldn't be there, as they don't match perfectly despite only front bangs difference.
Not a single step between Milkshape/Maya and Blender makes any sense, and is honestly driving me insane. Maya step specifically, because i work in game industry as modeler and i have no idea how exporting .obj from Milkshape to Maya and then back to Milkshape changed it's size and absolute/relative? position.
Any help is much appreciated!