Hello. I'm making this a separate post from my previous question since I think it's become a whole can of worms. I'm making a helmet that works with simtanico's scalp sliders. I only want to preserve the vertex ID(from vertex IDmod) of the scalp. However, I merged the scalp, face, and neck parts in order to have a seamless look for my helmet. I think this was the step that ruined the vertex ID of the whole mesh. In the blender sims 3 geom tools, the "transfer GEOM data" tool lets you to combine 2 geoms together, but I got an error when I tried it.

So I exported it as an object, converted it to wso, and then assigned my bones and morphs in MTK. I imported it into TSRW and exported it as a package. Then I opened the package in S3PE to export the geoms and morph geoms. In the MTK's auto assign vertex ID section, I assigned original AM face/neck geom to my base geom first and then used the vertex ID mod scalp to "replace only zero vertex IDs." This works so far as when I load it in game, the sliders work with the helmet.

I converted the morph BGEOs to geom using the base geom with the reassigned vertex ID. Then I imported them all in blender to edit each morph. Once I was satisfied, I exported them all. With the package still open in S3PE, I replaced the lod0 of the helmet with the base geom, saved and exit. Then I used MTK's package tools to add my new morphs to the package. I saved as a new package and tested in game. The sliders still work, but the morphs don't. If I skip all of the vertex ID transferring and just renumber the whole mesh, the morphs work but it not longer works with the scalp sliders.

I attached pics of it in blender, in game, and the error I got from the blender geom tool. The highlighted part of the mesh is the section I'm trying to preserve IDs.

Is it possible to get these 2 things to work at the same time? I would manually assign each vertex ID if there's a way

The "helmet" you show in the first pic, looks to be more than just the EA scalp? If so, it won't work. That piece will have more vertices than the EA scalp, so ID numbering won't match up. As for morphs, the scalp doesn't morph. Open a bald hair in TSRW and cycle the morphs. The scalp area doesn't move.

Yes, it's the ea scalp. My hat thing is supposed to look skin-tight, but I edited it to be slightly bigger than the head. Thank you for pointing the scalp has no morph, that gave me the idea to split the mesh into 2 groups. Group 0 is the morphed face part and Group 1 is the static scalp.

First I exported as sim3pack then converted to package. I then opened the package in S3PE and exported the lod0 geoms and the bgeos. Next, I assigned the reference vertex ID to my scalp geom in MTK. With the face geom, I also tried renumbering with the reference geom but I checked "replace only 0 vertex ID." I was hoping this would assign ID to the line bridging the forehead and the scalp but I guess it didn't. Using the base geom, I converted the morphs to meshes. I edited my morphs in blender and then exported it all to a new folder. I replaced the scalp geom with the re-assigned one in s3pe. Then I used package tools to replace morphs with the edited ones. I closed everything and tested it in game.

The morphs work and the scalp is moving with the sliders. But the forehead part is unaffected by the scalp b slider, which shouldn't be happening because it's properly weighted to the face. Also, what happens if I uncheck "use reference mesh only" in MTK's auto-assign vertex ID tool?


The screenshots are to show the morphs working. The diagram is an attempt to visualize what I'm trying to do. I attached my workshop file, the package, and the vertex ID scalp geom I'm using to auto assign IDs. The alternative is to remake it using the object file simtanico included in her download, but then every male sim wearing the hat would have to use that slider .

I don't use that tool for assigning vertex ID. I use the one in Geom Tools section of MTK.



Thing is, I don't understand why you are doing it this way? Seems harder than necessary, and the seams will never match up.

I would make this using b__Hat_grip__ .

I'm doing this all in the name of cast-able buzzcuts! And in order to do that I need the hair to be a separate mesh. It has to look like a scalp and forehead texture on a regular sim head. The seams are a compromise I'm willing to make. If I apply the hatgrip bone to everything, there will be clipping issues when I make a sim with big cheekbones or when the sim is yelling, eating, etc. I'm using the game face geom as my bone/morph donor. But the bones aren't my issue. It needs to work with simtanico's sliders bc I prefer my male sims with smaller foreheads.

I have a new issue where the neck UV gets scrambled. I've tried fixing it with the "replace values" tool you mentioned, but it seems to mess up again when I import it back into s3pe. I'm also trying to make the hair using a cc with 3 groups. Idk if it'll work since it's a clothing cc.

This is what it should look like with patterns (ignore the neck).

Unless you're intent on making something that only works with that slider, because of what it does, I return to using hat grip, which is a slider set made to do what you're trying to do.

Basically, all you need to do is make a "helmet" the same way you already did, that is made from a geom with all the normal, EA bones.

In Blender, import a face and scalp. select the "helmet" faces, then Mesh (tab)> Duplicate, then Mesh> Separate.

Shrink UV of both parts to .500, and place on UV map, side by side. Join the parts and merge vertices.

Select all. Mesh> Transform> Shrink/Flatten, and slide mouse down a little. Don't worry about size yet, there's a new box.

In the new box, set to -0.0002. This is a number you will have to play with, to get exactly what you need.

What you now have is a "helmet", with all of the same bones as the Sim head, that will basically follow the same morphs and sliders as a Sim head, except that special slider that requires all the extra work.

You can use the diffuse from the buzz cut hair, scalp and face as multiplier, after resizing to .500 and placing on one texture as you set the UV.

Import the texture to Blender, and using Content Material, overlay the texture to you mesh and do a final alignment, as you can see it on the mesh.

Use Delphy's Geom Editor, and change the mesh to hair shader before converting to .wso, or, make the package and change it in s3pe. I will it the second way, then reopen the package in TSRW and resave the package.

You can stop here and try it, or the next step is adding hat grip.

In Object Data tab, you must add b__Hat_grip__ bone. Again, in Object Data, select all faces. At the bottom of bones section, you see where you can manually change values. Set all faces to .200 for hat grip, then switch to Weight Paint mode, Normalize All, and Limit Totals.

This makes the "helmet" dominant controlled by bone weights, allowing morphs, while adding some hat grip options. THIS, I have done with success on a couple of projects. You may need to increase hat grip strength, but .200 is a good starting point.

This method worked, thank you LadySmoks! And changing the mesh to hair shader is a good tip. I think this was why the transparent part of the hair turned black when I used anything other than the sweet treats hair.

Sorry, I have to "unsolve" this post bc I ran into another issue. I found a way to make the am hat seamless and move with sliders, which involves the "combine meshes" feature in mtk. I followed the same steps when making a female version, but there were about 3 vertices distorting when I made a fat sim wear it.

On the left forehead side, there's a vertex that's sticking out and looks like a spike. And on the right side, one point is pulled way down. I countered this by pulling the fat morph geom's vertices in the opposite direction. This version has no visible distortion, but now one of the chin area vertices is pulled all the way up. I think it's linked to the right side of the forehead somehow. It's so weird since the male version doesn't have this issue and neither do the female fit, thin, and base morphs.

I've been searching similar posts, but the solutions were to renumber everything or lower the mesh's polycount. Is there a way to fix that one chin vertex?

I tested using tf vertex id as my reference, but it resulted in the same spiky mesh distortion. Then I found out that the ef face vertex id worked with af! I used that instead, which fixed my issue.