Quote: Originally posted by LucieSims
You must install the game if you want to convert official content from any SP , GP, Kits and EP. If they are cc, you can do it .
I am also trying to convert eww that's not simple to use Blender.
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I began with Blender 2.67, as a FAIL at animating. I had Milkshape free trial (several times on different laptops), never really understood it, and was not going to pay for it, so Blender for me. Yes, you must have TS4 installed to get access to EA files, but CC downloads are often independent. I have seen a few, which similar to Cas Texturing Unitool, reference the in game meshes, so that CC, you would also need the game. But, TSRW created CC, has meshes.
A recent project I did was all of the issues of TS4 to TS3. I use s4pe to open the package, export geoms and textures (as .dds). Use S4CASTools to convert the geoms to .obj. I have never found a TS4 package internally named, so each mesh gets imported to Blender, to try to figure out which is for which LOD, then I export groups to folders. Generally, only LOD 1 is needed, as Blender decimate or BalancerN Pro can reduce the polycounts for LODs 2 and 3. B N P free has a limit as to how high a count it can start with, and may not do a high poly TS4 custom mesh.
Once you have LOD 1 meshes, check total poly count. Cmar has a basic guide in Meshing Tool Kit that I go by. EA counts vertices and assigns a certain amount to each body region. If your mesh goes over, it will create issues for the next region, and vice versa. This is total count for
ALL LODs. So, you may have higher detail in LOD 1, but must really decimate LODs 2 and 3, or run over!
The mesh I was working on, was way over, and decimating left it looking awful, so I had to delete the body and recreate it from the low poly EA tf meshes (as best I could), while still using other parts of the original mesh that had detail I really wanted to keep. But, The poly count was now workable, and another issue solved... TS4 and TS3 body seams do not align at neck, waist or ankles. You must use "snap" tool in Blender to align them, then adjust the rest of the neck, torso or lower legs.
Anything skin related needs to be in the original TS3 position so skin textures will work! Another bonus of just replacint body in this case. Also, you need to be aware of where all parts fall on your UV map, and be sure nothing is overlapping. * Note: A technique for map space conservation can be to mirror one arm and move it on x axis to perfectly double on the other arm. This can cause the arms to have a weird appearance in CAS, but look ok in game... and it opens up the entire area of the moved arm for placing other mesh part UV. Issue... arm tattoos!
Once you have your mesh, export as .obj. Also, export your UV map for later. Convert object to geom using Meshing Tool Kit, transfer bones and fix seams. You can import the geom back to Blender to look at the bones. Objects do not have bones in Blender. You can "paint" bones at this point. I have even taken basic EA meshes and moved vertices as necessary to match my basic mesh, to be used as the bone transfer reference. Then, MTK to convert to .wso, transfer morphs and import to TSRW.
I use GIMP (free) for texturing. You will have to resize the TS4 texture. Garments occupy the bottom half of the 2048 x 1024, so use image crop. It MUST be 1024 x 1024, as TSRW will not like even 1 digit off. You can resize to 2048 if you wish, but most TS3 is 1024. Open the UV map as layers, and as a separate layer over your texture. Next, open a blank layer. Now. start copying, pasting, and resizing the TS4 textures from the TS4 to the blank. Hide the TS4 texture so you can see and align things easier. Once all of the parts have been copied and pasted to your new texture image, and aligned, take a look in TSRW. If all is good, complete your specular, normals map and rgba mask. No sense making those is the multiplier or overlay do not look good.
Of course, I am sure there is an easier way, but I have not figured it out yet!