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LadySmoks
Scholar
#26 Old 6th May 2023 at 3:37 AM
Quote: Originally posted by elvgreen
thank you for your input!! i did not even consider that. i’ll definitely go check and see. but from what i know it should be 2.79. if i were to use 2.8x for the seam fixer option upon exporting, do you suggest using it? i’m curious if it would do a good job. and thank you for confirming that it was an issue with morphs, i was going back into milkshape to align the normals of the mesh to the waist and it didn’t change anything. i was getting so frustrated because i thought i would be successful another thing i’ve seen from tutorials is that people use the sims 3 naked body as a reference mesh. is this ok to do? this is what i’ve been doing because finding a mesh that’s the same length as mine is too tedious. it’s worked for the most part.
UPDATE: i was on 2.78 so i'll change it to 2.79 and see if it helps the process

I can say that 2.8x is a bit different from 2.79. It took me a while to get semi-familiar with it, and I am still learning things, 4 or 5 years later. But, if I can figure it out, anyone can! I primarily work on af and tf. Meshing Tool Kit (MTK) fixes af, but not tf seams. For tf, I use Smug's 2.8x geom tools on mesh export as geom. Yes, it does a good job. Problems are that sometimes, geoms get shadows in the mesh, and have to be run thru a few times. Af, I often export as object AND geom. The object mesh is generally cleaner. Then convert to geom using the mesh I exported as reference. Then MTK to fix seams. MTK also has a seam fixer for the .wsos. Also, there is a very rare instance of UV vertices not splitting properly. Smug changed that to manually splitting UV seams in 2.9x tools. I still use 2.80 and just deal with the rare no split.

When in TSRW, always cycle the thin/ fat, normal/ fit sliders. Haha! Not too long ago, I fudged doing that (being in a rush) and did not notice until I checked the garment in game. I saw a seam, and went back to TSRW, and saw I had imported my base mesh, not my morphed mesh.

Naked mesh as reference for what? Bones and/ or morphs? Generally okay to do, but the closer the reference mesh is to what you are working on, the better. It gets slightly technical, but morphs are made by pulling your mesh vertices to an approximated postion, based on the refence mesh. Not perfect in some cases. I often have to convert .wso to .obj and import to Blender to adjust each morph mesh. Fat is always the worst, as the vertices travel furthest and have more chance for errors. But, if the nude meshes are working for you, no reason to change that up!
elvgreen
Test Subject
#27 Old 6th May 2023 at 3:37 AM
Quote: Originally posted by thornowl
it looks great! the only real uv issue is that this tiny part of the shirt (in the bottom left corner of the uv map) is in the area designated for shoes, which then leads to overlapping textures with some shoes:





here's a uv space guide for ts3 children: https://i.imgur.com/ZxOZb34.jpg

you say that you couldn't figure out the part about splitting edges for better normals, but the mesh already has split edges — i assume because the original creator has already done that? or did you manually split them in milkshape?
it's very easy to tell the difference. here's the mesh as you sent me:



and here it is after i merged everything back together (no split edges):



if the original creator did that, great, you didn't need to split edges anyway. if you did that in milkshape but can't figure out how to do that in blender, here's a video example: https://youtu.be/_d4yw0Sopmk?t=258
watch from 4:20 (nice) to 5:30, you don't need the rest of the video

to fix seams in mesh toolkit, all you need to do is convert your mesh to wso, select the age, gender (for teens and older) and lod, select the mesh and press "match seams"



this must be done after assigning bones, but before generating morphs
those two are also pretty self-explanatory, you just need a reference mesh (a mesh with good bones/morphs that's as close as possible to yours)

to conclude, a workflow for converting meshes (excluding textures) would be:
1. open the mesh in blender
2. fit to the sims 3 body
3. edit uv
(you seem to know how to do these three steps)
4. extract a reference mesh as wso (in this case, any maxis or cc mesh
5. do everything i've explained in this tutorial (up until manually editing bones/morphs)
6. open auto tools for wso in mesh toolkit, do the three steps (bones, seams, morphs) in order
7. import the wso into tsrw
8. done

a few more things:

if edge split was done by the original creator and you don't have access to the original, then using decimate to create lods is likely to create holes. you have three options here:
1. just use decimate and leave it as is (if the mesh only looks a little distorted, that's completely fine)
2. merge edges (remove doubles in 2.79 or merge by distance in 2.8+), then use decimate (no holes, but really bad shading)
3. merge edges, add edge split, then use decimate (best results, but requires some manual work)

third option in more detail:
1. go to edit mode
2. switch to edge select
3. select all non-manifold (search for it or shift+ctrl+alt+m)
4. mark sharp
5. remove doubles/merge by distance
6. add edge split
7. decimate

the mesh also doesn't have morphs. i assume this is a work in progress, just don't forget to add them later

all swatches except the first one are non-recolorable. i'm pretty sure you know about this, but still, this isn't great. it would be a much better idea to cut the print out and add that as a stencil, without the rest of the texture:


also, going back into my project, the first picture was my work, and i believe it's after i edge split and aligned the normals in MS. because i just went back to my starting point and it did not look like the tsrw picture after exporting.
thornowl
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#28 Old 6th May 2023 at 6:04 PM
> When you say you don't use geom tools... not even the originals by cmo? And I think someone else did the update for 2.79???

no. again, most of my cc is made without geom tools (though i did use them for the two outfits published on mts to fix bones/morphs as i explained in this tutorial)
i'm not aware of any functional simgeom plugin for 2.79, the only related plugin i know of is only for objects

> i was edge splitting because i thought i had to align normals

kind of a nitpick but that's.. not exactly what edge splitting means (at least that's not what i'm talking about). it's disconnecting faces that are next to each other by creating overlapping edges

connected:



edge split:



separate objects/groups:



edge splitting is necessary for most clothes. separating your mesh into different objects/groups isn't

> do you mind me continuing to update you?

i don't mind. though maybe make your own thread here, since most of your questions by now aren't related to the tutorial

> if i were to use 2.8x for the seam fixer option upon exporting, do you suggest using it?

as far as i know, that option is part of the geom tools plugin and you won't be able to use it unless you're working with simgeom files. that's only relevant for a completely different workflow (explained in lyralei's reply here) that doesn't use tsrw (tsrw doesn't work well with direct simgeom import; you can do it but it's a headache)

> people use the sims 3 naked body as a reference mesh. is this ok to do?

you can use any mesh you'd like. the naked body is usually more than enough, but if you see any weird deformations with it (often in the armpits or thighs areas), you might want to use a reference that's closer to yours

> i was on 2.78 so i'll change it to 2.79 and see if it helps the process

there aren't any huge differences between those two, i don't think anything will change. but i do recommend 2.79 over 2.78 because of the principled bsdf shader. i doubt you know how to work with shaders/nodes in blender, but it might come handy later, when you have more experience

> Meshing Tool Kit (MTK) fixes af, but not tf seams.

mtk 1.3.0 fixes tf seams as far as i know, it's only broken in the latest version

> i just went back to my starting point and it did not look like the tsrw picture after exporting

what do you mean?
elvgreen
Test Subject
#29 Old 6th May 2023 at 11:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by thornowl
> When you say you don't use geom tools... not even the originals by cmo? And I think someone else did the update for 2.79???

no. again, most of my cc is made without geom tools (though i did use them for the two outfits published on mts to fix bones/morphs as i explained in this tutorial)
i'm not aware of any functional simgeom plugin for 2.79, the only related plugin i know of is only for objects

> i was edge splitting because i thought i had to align normals

kind of a nitpick but that's.. not exactly what edge splitting means (at least that's not what i'm talking about). it's disconnecting faces that are next to each other by creating overlapping edges

connected:



edge split:



separate objects/groups:



edge splitting is necessary for most clothes. separating your mesh into different objects/groups isn't

> do you mind me continuing to update you?

i don't mind. though maybe make your own thread here, since most of your questions by now aren't related to the tutorial

> if i were to use 2.8x for the seam fixer option upon exporting, do you suggest using it?

as far as i know, that option is part of the geom tools plugin and you won't be able to use it unless you're working with simgeom files. that's only relevant for a completely different workflow (explained in lyralei's reply here) that doesn't use tsrw (tsrw doesn't work well with direct simgeom import; you can do it but it's a headache)

> people use the sims 3 naked body as a reference mesh. is this ok to do?

you can use any mesh you'd like. the naked body is usually more than enough, but if you see any weird deformations with it (often in the armpits or thighs areas), you might want to use a reference that's closer to yours

> i was on 2.78 so i'll change it to 2.79 and see if it helps the process

there aren't any huge differences between those two, i don't think anything will change. but i do recommend 2.79 over 2.78 because of the principled bsdf shader. i doubt you know how to work with shaders/nodes in blender, but it might come handy later, when you have more experience

> Meshing Tool Kit (MTK) fixes af, but not tf seams.

mtk 1.3.0 fixes tf seams as far as i know, it's only broken in the latest version

> i just went back to my starting point and it did not look like the tsrw picture after exporting

what do you mean?


i see. that edge splitting makes sense especially from what others have explained. i also did switch to 2.79 and you are correct in that there isn’t too much difference. and when you say mtk 1.3 does have tf, are you using the seam fixer under wso. tools or the one under geom.? because i’ll have to check again but i’m pretty sure seam fixer was added under wso. in the later version. would you prefer me to start a new thread or message you on tumblr? and to lessen the flooding of this thread i could delete my replies if that would be more convenient.
thornowl
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#30 Old 6th May 2023 at 11:15 PM Last edited by thornowl : 12th Oct 2024 at 10:11 PM.
> when you say mtk 1.3 does have tf, are you using the seam fixer under wso. tools or the one under geom.?

for wso. both 1.3.0 and 1.4.8 have seam fixer for wso, but in 1.4.8 it doesn't work for some ages/genders (toddlers, teen girls and elders)
edit: this was wrong, those age/gender groups never worked. i updated mtk to fix that

> would you prefer me to start a new thread or message you on tumblr?

if you have discord, join creators cave (i sent the invite on the first page), i'm fairly active there and can reply quickly. otherwise start a thread
tumblr dm's are a nightmare lol

> and to lessen the flooding of this thread i could delete my replies if that would be more convenient.

don't! they might help someone else who's trying to figure out the same issue
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