Fixing Skeleton Deformations (Crushed/Torpedo Breasts etc...)

[blabba]

People keep bringing this up, and I'm appalled by how much this stuff has to get repeated.

So I'm writing (another) guide so that it doesn't need to get repeated, but instead just linked.

 

The experienced of us can now just link this thread when questions like these come up:

 

"I have torpedo breasts, plz help"

"My torso is a different size!"

"My body just exploded"

"I didn't read the description but I'm going to ask for help anyway and make it painfully obviously clear I didn't read it in my please help post"

 

Purpose:

You get inside game and find your body (or any weighted mesh) does not look as advertised. Their are crushed breasts, or torpedo breasts. Extended leg sizes, tweaked torso's etc...

Bottom line is you didn't get the 'As Advertised' pics in your game.

 

3dsMax:

Step 1. Load 3dsMax

(Optional) Step 1a. Download the attached Max scene file, and open it up in 3dsMAX (double click). It contains XPMSE 2+ scales and will ONLY fix your mesh deformations if you are using XPMSE 2+ skeleton from groovtama! Skip Steps 2 & 3 if you do this.

Step 2. Navigate and find your skeletonfemale.nif

Step 3. Load skeletonfemale.nif into 3dsMax with skeleton option ticked on (Tick off collisions and camera importing options)

Note: Regardless of what method you chose, your final screen should look something like this where the objects are identified as bones and NOT dummies!

 

 

Step 4. Load your body mesh (femalebody.nif) into 3dsMax, keep the skeleton option ticked OFF

 

 

(Optional) Step 5. Inside your 3dsmax scene, double check that when you move a bone, it deforms the mesh along with it.

Step 6. Select your body mesh, and select it's skin modifier

 

 

Step 7. Under advanced options, untick the 'always deform' option

Step 8. Re-tick the always deform option

 

 

Step 9. Re-export

Step 10. Check your mesh in Nifskope to set textures correctly!

 

Outfit Studio Way:

Requires a pre-configured 'Weight Template' Mesh (You can make them in 3dsmax/Blender)

(The mesh is already confirmed working correctly with the skeleton in-game)

 

1. Move your installed skeletonfemale.nif to your Bodyslide's /res folder. Rename it to anything you want (ex: newskeletonfemale.nif)

2. Open bodyslide config.xml, edit the Animation line that points to skeleton your new skeleton.

1. Load template mesh as reference

2. Load actual body mesh

3. Select body mesh on the right hand side

4. Select 'Copy all weights'

5. Export

 

Gerra6's Mesh Rigger:

Coming soon, doing some tests with and all that jazz.

 

Blender:

I don't use blender, but if a blender user could contribute the steps for a fix like this, it would be most appreciated.

 

 

 

Causes of this problem:

 

 

90% of armour modders, body modders and people who generally model don't know exactly how skeletons or 'rigging/skinning' works.

Or they are used to a more advanced form where their exporters can take care of the fixes/mistakes that most commonly occur.

 

Lots of people have come out and made custom skeletons that have changed the bone positions, or changed the scales of these bones.

Which in turn cause other modders to weigh it to these custom scales and positions. Which when your using the same EXACT skeleton that you used when weighting the mesh, in-game it will look fine.

 

But if your using a DIFFERENT skeleton, than what you used when weighting the skeleton, and this different skeleton has a changed scale, or moved bone, that's when you get the distortions.

 

The most infamous is the "vanilla" XPMS skeleton, TBBP bones were moved, Scales were changed all over the place and many other really bad things were done to it. Things that got popular amongst the masses (mod users). Now luckily most modders took 1 look at the skeleton and saw it was a convoluted mess and stuck with weighting/rigging/skinning with original vanilla skeletons. Or less complicated skeletons.

 

So in essence, when you rig something, it's best to try to rig it to vanilla, OR find a skeleton that keeps vanilla scales and positions (like the new BETA XPMSE Skeleton) unfortunately this causes a problem in that stuff weighted with the old XPMS skeleton become 'broken'.

 

 

 

XPMSE 2.43 3dsMax Resource.rar

[CeeTeeDee]

yes it would be nice to find a way to fix saved skeleton deformations in idles and animations, like the hands bug in the sexy idles and various breaks around the thigh/stomach area in a few sexlab animations, so maybe this is it.

 

I believe the crushed hands problem is caused by a morpher modifier not properly being collapsed before the skeleton/body is exported... the problem of the crushed  hands can be recreated by placing the body morpher modifier below the skin modifier, maybe, when the animation(s) were exported, the body/skeleton was exported, then the  skin modifier was exported but then the morpher modifier collapsed creating the crushed hands...

 

I've been able to recreate this problem in max, but I haven't tried your suggestion of flapping the 'always deform', I'll definately try that, i'm also not 100% clear on how to re-import animations and then export again without creating problems between _0 and _1 meshes and the skeleton... perhaps its best to do animation exports with just the 0 weight body.

[blabba]

yes it would be nice to find a way to fix saved skeleton deformations in idles and animations, like the hands bug in the sexy idles and various breaks around the thigh/stomach area in a few sexlab animations, so maybe this is it.

 

I believe the crushed hands problem is caused by a morpher modifier not properly being collapsed before the skeleton/body is exported... the problem of the crushed  hands can be recreated by placing the body morpher modifier below the skin modifier, maybe, when the animation(s) were exported, the body/skeleton was exported, then the  skin modifier was exported but then the morpher modifier collapsed creating the crushed hands...

 

I've been able to recreate this problem in max, but I haven't tried your suggestion of flapping the 'always deform', I'll definately try that, i'm also not 100% clear on how to re-import animations and then export again without creating problems between _0 and _1 meshes and the skeleton... perhaps its best to do animation exports with just the 0 weight body.

 

I haven't even touched animation side of things, though If I get my long awaited max 2014 plugin I probably will.

 

If you test your suggestion and it works out correctly, I'd be happy to add it in to the OP as another guide!

[TheDriedFinger]

Kind of off-topic but just to clarify: XPMS is not good. I mean, I've looked at it in 3DSMax, but I can't make heads or tails of it since I'm not a mesh/anim modder. (Looks symmetrical to me... That's all I got!) I just ask because, if it's not good, I've been stupidly telling people to use it for quite a while now.

[blabba]

Kind of off-topic but just to clarify: XPMS is not good. I mean, I've looked at it in 3DSMax, but I can't make heads or tails of it since I'm not a mesh/anim modder. (Looks symmetrical to me... That's all I got!) I just ask because, if it's not good, I've been stupidly telling people to use it for quite a while now.

 

That's sorta the problem, the skeleton itself 'works' and yes it's got a bunch of bones you could animate and stuff.

 

But really it's kind of sloppily done and many other 'hidden' issues exist with it. Like the changes scales or altered bone positions.

 

My advice is more or less try to tell people to not use it anymore, 90% of people only need a TBBP compatible skeleton and any more 'compatibility' than that is superfluous and un-needed.

[Groovtama]

The modder resource is till good only nifs are not made for 3ds, and rigging in general.

[Acornus]

Hello,

 

I tried the 3DS Max route and seems I have hit a wall, namely, the seams around the hands, feets and head?

 

When I fix the weight, the mesh (UNP standard in this case) seems to lose it's volume around those areas, and seems slightly bigger then it should be. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

 

PS: I know this sounds daft, but when I load the skeleton.nif reference file, should it be the vanilla one, or the XPSE one in reference to the mesh loaded? Just want to make sure I haven't been loading the wrong one.

 

PS2: also, what should I put in my texture field during the export? textures only, or the full path to the file (textures/actors/character/etc), since I'm using custom textures, I'm not sure.

 

Other then those issues, it seems like the mesh itself is registering the correct weights.

[blabba]

Hello,

 

I tried the 3DS Max route and seems I have hit a wall, namely, the seams around the hands, feets and head?

 

When I fix the weight, the mesh (UNP standard in this case) seems to lose it's volume around those areas, and seems slightly bigger then it should be. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

 

PS: I know this sounds daft, but when I load the skeleton.nif reference file, should it be the vanilla one, or the XPSE one in reference to the mesh loaded? Just want to make sure I haven't been loading the wrong one.

 

PS2: also, what should I put in my texture field during the export? textures only, or the full path to the file (textures/actors/character/etc), since I'm using custom textures, I'm not sure.

 

Other then those issues, it seems like the mesh itself is registering the correct weights.

 

Fix your textures after exporting in nifskope (Just copy the BSshader branch from original.nif)

 

As for the skeleton, you should be loading XPMSE2 skeletonfemale.nif beforehand.

 

And for your volume loss, it's because your not resetting the skin deformation, follow steps carefully:

Under Skin modifier, untick and retick 'always deform'

[Acornus]

Ahh, OK, yep, seems like I was loading the wrong reference skeleton and getting the volume loss around those parts

 

Thanks, will help plenty!

[Kyndig]

off topic, but do you have links to the tools you described or used in making mods  and whether or not they cost money or are free? because I think 3dsmax is like $5k or so correct?

[blabba]

off topic, but do you have links to the tools you described or used in making mods  and whether or not they cost money or are free? because I think 3dsmax is like $5k or so correct?

 

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Autodesk+3dsMax+free&l=1

[Kyndig]

@blabba thanks for the link.  I did think that for people like me,  it would be better for this tutorial to have screenshots of the problems listed so we can make sure we can id them.

[SirBoobs]

Well im having a fun problem, I have 3dsMax 2010 with the NifTools plugin, and im using XPMSE 2.05, I can follow your instructions as you said (except i cant find a femalebody.nif so I used femalebody_1.nif instead) I can alter the body mesh by moving the skeleton and I did the untick/tick steps, but doing that gave me no graphical update, the breasts just stayed crushed. Now when I go in-game there are no females and when I zoom out the camera falls down to the floor and I can't see my character.

 

I attached some images that show the settings when I import and export so any help is very appreciated.

 

Skeleton Import Settings:

 

Body Mesh Import Settings:

 

What I see after importing them: (sorry for wide image)

 

What I see after untick and tick of Always Deform: (sorry again)

 

Export Settings: (exported and overwrite skeletonfemale.nif, I did play around with different combinations of skeleton only and the flatten settings)

 

 

 

If you don't understand what I mean by camera to the floor when I zoom out I hope this helps.

 

 

EDIT: I kept messing with it and now I get this, better than a CTD.

 

[blabba]

Well im having a fun problem, I have 3dsMax 2010 with the NifTools plugin, and im using XPMSE 2.05, I can follow your instructions as you said (except i cant find a femalebody.nif so I used femalebody_1.nif instead) I can alter the body mesh by moving the skeleton and I did the untick/tick steps, but doing that gave me no graphical update, the breasts just stayed crushed. Now when I go in-game there are no females and when I zoom out the camera falls down to the floor and I can't see my character.

 

I attached some images that show the settings when I import and export so any help is very appreciated.

 

You imported the skeleton inside the nif...

 

Your first supposed to import the skeleton from XPMSE by itself first and then import mesh without the skeleton.

 

OR, if using 2012 or previous, you should be able to specify the path in the text field at the bottom to where the skeleton.nif is that the program should use to reference.

[LethalInjection]

 

3dsMax Way:

1. Load 3dsMax

2. Navigate and find your skeletonfemale.nif

3. Load skeletonfemale.nif into 3dsMax with skeleton option ticked on (Tick off collisions and camera importing options)

4. Load your body mesh (femalebody.nif) into 3dsMax, keep the skeleton option ticked OFF

5. Inside your 3dsmax scene, double check that when you move a bone, it deforms the mesh along with it.

6. Select your body mesh, and select it's skin modifier

7. Under advanced options, untick the 'always deform' option

8. Re-tick the always deform option

9. Re-export

 

 

So...I downloaded 3dsMax 2015, and it does not load up the skeletonfemale.nif (I don't have that nif, but I do have skeleton_female_xpmse.nif.  Pretty much the closest thing, I assume).

 

I tried importing.  Nothing.  I also can't find where to tick off/on skeleton options, but I figure if I can't load up the nif, even with that knowledge, it would be pretty worthless.

 

Do you have any insight?  Am I using the wrong version?

[blabba]

 

 

So...I downloaded 3dsMax 2015, and it does not load up the skeletonfemale.nif (I don't have that nif, but I do have skeleton_female_xpmse.nif.  Pretty much the closest thing, I assume).

 

I tried importing.  Nothing.  I also can't find where to tick off/on skeleton options, but I figure if I can't load up the nif, even with that knowledge, it would be pretty worthless.

 

Do you have any insight?  Am I using the wrong version?

 

You can't use 3dsMax 2015 yet to import nif files.

 

The nif importer plugin only supports up to 2012 for importing nif skeletons.

[LethalInjection]

 

 

 

So...I downloaded 3dsMax 2015, and it does not load up the skeletonfemale.nif (I don't have that nif, but I do have skeleton_female_xpmse.nif.  Pretty much the closest thing, I assume).

 

I tried importing.  Nothing.  I also can't find where to tick off/on skeleton options, but I figure if I can't load up the nif, even with that knowledge, it would be pretty worthless.

 

Do you have any insight?  Am I using the wrong version?

 

You can't use 3dsMax 2015 yet to import nif files.

 

The nif importer plugin only supports up to 2012 for importing nif skeletons.

 

 

 

Yea, just found this out after googling.  I swear I looked up solutions before.

 

Downloading 2012.

[LethalInjection]

 

5. Inside your 3dsmax scene, double check that when you move a bone, it deforms the mesh along with it.

 

 

Alright, I finally got 3ds Max 2012 working (after pulling out my hair at a few errors), and I followed the above steps.  However, when I got to this step, the mesh didn't move along with it.  I could move the bones, but it didn't affect the mesh/skin.

[blabba]

 

Alright, I finally got 3ds Max 2012 working (after pulling out my hair at a few errors), and I followed the above steps.  However, when I got to this step, the mesh didn't move along with it.  I could move the bones, but it didn't affect the mesh/skin.

 

 

Then you don't have a skin modifier or you setup your scene incorrectly.

[LethalInjection]

 

 

Alright, I finally got 3ds Max 2012 working (after pulling out my hair at a few errors), and I followed the above steps.  However, when I got to this step, the mesh didn't move along with it.  I could move the bones, but it didn't affect the mesh/skin.

 

 

Then you don't have a skin modifier or you setup your scene incorrectly.

 

 

And how do I set up a skin modifier...or set up my scene correctly?

[blabba]

 

And how do I set up a skin modifier...or set up my scene correctly?

 

 

If you follow the steps, it should work fine for setting up your scene.

 

You can double check that you did it right, after importing your body you check the skin modifier, and click edit envelopes and see that bones are in the listbox and when you click on them your mesh gets colour applied to it.

[LethalInjection]

 

 

And how do I set up a skin modifier...or set up my scene correctly?

 

 

If you follow the steps, it should work fine for setting up your scene.

 

You can double check that you did it right, after importing your body you check the skin modifier, and click edit envelopes and see that bones are in the listbox and when you click on them your mesh gets colour applied to it.

 

 

To make matters worst, when I pull up the xmse skeleton now, it's just the skin mesh.  Here's an example:

 

 Of the file I chose (I chose this last night and it was a skeleton)

 

 

 

 

 

 In the bottom of the box: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mod Organizer\mods\Calientes Beautiful Bodies Edition -CBBE-\CalienteTools\BodySlide\res\Meshes\actors\character\character assets\skeleton.nif

 

(I know, I know, Program files 86, boo.  But whatever)

 

 

 

The result

 

 

 

[blabba]

Umm yea, your scene didn't import the skeleton at all.

Open the skeleton.nif file and make sure import skeleton and the text field for it is blank.

 

And when you import the body, uncheck the import skeleton.

[LethalInjection]

So I psuedo fixed it by reloading a previous backup copy of the xpmse skeleton.  Now it loads the skeleton when I import it:

 

 

And it loads the mesh when I import it:

 

 

But when I move a bone, it still doesn't warp or move the mesh.  Upon moving the mesh, I noticed it's because the two aren't 'welded together'.  They're separate and move independently.

[blabba]

 

But when I move a bone, it still doesn't warp or move the mesh.  Upon moving the mesh, I noticed it's because the two aren't 'welded together'.  They're separate and move independently.

 

 

Weird,

 

You check the mesh for a skin modifier?