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Trying to make open bottom dresses


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On 7/28/2019 at 5:44 PM, LadySmoks said:

can get as far as when it says to move the red to alpha and green to blue and red

oh gimp, you little mess of a program...

Ok, found how. Lets say you have your normalmap:

gimp_normalmap1.jpg

 

Go to colors/components/decompose and choose ‘RGBA’ on the ‘Color Model’ menu and also check ‘Decompose to layers’.

gimp_normalmap2.jpg

 

Once you do that every channel will be separated as layers and you can move, delete, replace, rename, etc.

gimp_normalmap3.jpg

 

  1. delete the blue and alpha layers
  2. double click on red and rename it as alpha
  3. duplicate green twice
  4. rename the duplicates as red and blue
  5. put them on the correct order
  6. return to color/component and now choose ‘Compose’, select ‘RGBA’
  7. export it as .dds (don’t forget to check ‘generate midmaps')

On the world of Sims 3 modding sometimes ALWAYS things just don't go as planned. So relax and take all the time you want, forcing yourself to finish projects never works (I know A LOT about that ?)

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Thanks as always Josh, but I went back over several articles and finally understood what was being said. The channels panel was what threw me off. It doesn't matter. In Gimp, open the diffuse map. I increase the contrast about 30. Then, Filters> Map> Normalmap. I set that to what the tutorials said, except increased the scale to 2, and I get my blue normal map.

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Next is the part I didn't understand until last night... Forget the channels panel. Go to Colors> Components> Decompose... 

 

 

Uh oh! I gotta run. I'll finish this when I get home!!!!

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Okay, I'm back and want to share this... After you do Colors> Components> Decompose, you get this. Set it to RGBA and click okay. Then, the next pic will open in a new screen.

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On this screen, click Colors> Components> Compose. A new menu comes up. Set this one to RGBA also. I wasn't able to take a pic of the next part, but click on alpha box. Now there is a list of the other channels, red, green and blue. HERE is where you click the red channel and it shows in the alpha channel. Next, click the blue channel, the same channel list comes up. Just click the green channel, and green goes to blue. Do the same for the red channel to move green there, and click "OK".

 

And the next screen is the finished normal map!

 

For some reason, when I click "export", it wants to auto save in my Gimp folder. So, I have to back out of there and go to the folder I want it in and save as BC3/DXT5 with minimaps.

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I will also try using the method you took the time to find for me and see which is easier for me. As I read and reread your post, it does appear they both do the same thing thru slightly different routes. So, I have remade the Lolita Maid packages with the new normal maps and tried shading the big bow. I'm getting ready to play them to see how they look in game, but I'm feeling good about it. )))))) Hope to be able to upload soon and share. Thanks!

 

For anyone "stuck on normal(s)" with Gimp, and comes across this thread, what I wrote about was done on Gimp 2.8.

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Thank you! Have you tried them? I just started playing around with a new mesh I made and seeing how "solidify" works out. Eventually, I'll go back to the long coats.

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Thanks! I didn't realize they were in the compilation pack. I downloaded that so long ago! Have you had a chance to check out my Lolita Maid download? What do you think? Just know that any thing you or Non-Sequitur say is always taken as constructive advise!

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Yeah, the download section was different back then so when it was renewed I decided to organize what I had as compilation.

 

I haven’t had the time to test  your garments on my game so I inspected them using milkshape, my apologies if I sound harsh, english is not my first language.

 

On the bottom of the skirt, the last row of vertices from the outside and inside faces don’t match. This can cause some visible gaps and clipping, fixing them on milkshape is easy using the unimesh plugin and on blender using snapping. The teen version also has this but is less visible.

note1.jpg

 

 

There’s a “line” on both neck and leg seams:

note2_1.jpgnote2_2.jpg

 

This mean the normal values for every vertex also don’t match EA’s default values, fixing them just requires the unimesh pluging and any other full body garment from the game. On Blender you could use the Data Transfer modifier, just need to separate the vertices on neck and legs as vertex groups (although I tested this on 2.8, don’t now if works the same on prior versions).

 

Now, don’t worry and don’t be too hard on yourself, these are common issues and even many “Pros” suffer from them (or worse…), just have patience and practice and you will iron them all.

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Thank you so much! Harsh? Hahahaha! As I asked from you, and as I said, I take anything you say as constructive advise! ? I missed the mesh skirt edges on the Maid, but caught the same issue on the long coats when my vampire slept on the altar and fixed it. I'm testing those now.

 

Honestly, I may just let the maid outfits stay as they are and focus on making sure the things you wrote are checked and fixed on future work. I'm thinking I need to load a test head and shoes, as I see that's how you found the ankle and neck issues. I never thought to do that.

 

It is weird though, as I used the EA chemise wso in TSRW to get my bone assignments and morphs in Mesh Tool Kit. Is there a better way? The long coat has a lod 1 and lod 1-1 and I had been splitting the mesh as top and bottom, but my current mesh is the whole body using the chemise wso for bones/ morphs, and the coat bottom as lod 1-1 using EA's long skirt wso.

 

So far, only one instance of very very very minor clipping of the boot heel thru the bottom of the coat with that set up, which I'm not worried about. I guess I'll take another look at the neck and feet.

 

An FYI... the coats are extra long so they almost drag the ground with your boots! )

 

Also, if you get time, check my page. I posted some paintings that I may upload too. Thanks as always! You're the best!!!!!!!!

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I always use different body parts (legs, torso, feet, etc) to test garments and to make sure seams are fine, but some just elude you until you load your game…

 

Well, the best method should be painting the bones by hand, letting Meshtoolkit to do it instead is faster and convenient as long as you don’t deviate too much from EA’s clothing; that’s why real skirts, revealing clothes, custom bodies and alike are a royal pain to make them behave, specially with custom sliders.

 

For long skirts and coats you probably need to clear the bone painting from the are that clips with the boots, on Meshtoolkit there’s an option named ‘Replace only empty or invalid bones”, then you can use the boots as reference. But I think it would on work if the skirt has enough vertices on the bottom, 

which normally isn’t the case.

 

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I'm lmao!!! I got a request from someone! Little do they know how little  I know. ) No way I can do it, even if I had time. It could probably done using the Lolita mesh, but the links don't work, just like Lemonleaf's site, so I can't get the textures.

 

I started trying "snap" on one of the meshes yesterday. It was tedious, but if it works, I'll just have to do it.

 

I have absolutely no clue what "paint the bones by hand" is. I only recently found the info and started using the Mesh Tool Kit bone/ morph matching method. Seriously! When I say I'm an amateur, I mean it. 

 

To get the coat bottom extra long, I just stretched the EA wedding dress. As I think about it now (because something you said made me think) I may have stretched through the bending point of the knee!!! A really stupid thing to have done, since I was mindful of the hip/ thigh area.

 

OMG! I bet that's it! Hopefully that's it!!!

 

Thanks!

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Well, Josh, as much as I want to do the long coat, I'm thinking it may be slightly too ambitious for me at my current level of experience. As I was trying to find a working link to Lemonleaf's stuff, I came across a cute little demented outfit on Plaza Sims, "Alice". Its TS4. I've done very basic conversions of some TS4 to TS3. I still haven't gotten the TS4 package editor to work, but can extract the textures using TSRW and match them to an EA mesh that looks close to the thumbnails.

 

Here's where your advise comes in... Alice looks close enough to the Lolita Maid (slightly puffier shoulders and more of a bell to the skirt) that I should be able to make that mesh work with a little tuning. ) AND... it is a perfect project to apply the things you said to do to that mesh!!! So, long coats to the back burner for now.

 

And I saw the inner overhang when I reopened the mesh and still can't figure out how I missed that. I figure it doesn't show in game since the normals are on the inside of that part and are transparent from the outside. Its already been "snapped"!

 

Thanks as always! 

898b04e6f1b5ae168ba21e440e22411b.png

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The darn voices in my head keep pulling me in so many directions! Got bored working on the multiplier for Alice, so I started making open bottom EA skirts... again. But this time, I'm applying things I've learned since the last time I played around with them. )

 

Then I looked at my Harley Quinn avatar, and decided to update the top by adding puff sleeves. Well then, one of the voices said, "You made a collar for the long coat... add the collar to Harley's top!" That voice had a point! But they're different collars. Back into TSRW to find one I couldn't make work before, but NOW I'm slightly more heavily armed with a bit more knowledge and understanding of a couple of things that I didn't know before...

 

Like using "snap" to bring together seams of parts with UVs in completely different places! Thanks! )

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Obviously, this is 95% EA's afTopEP3RockerChocker. But I thought it to be a good starting point for what I wanted to do. For me, altering the shoulders and maintaining the seems was an accomplishment, and altering the collar from the afTopJacketUpCollar_athletic, and getting it to line up never could have happened even a few weeks ago!

 

I will put together a halfway decent multiplier and play this mesh a while, but will eventually return to make it more as I really want it to be.

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There’s a lot of stuff you have to take care of when you makes clothes for this game, so better to take it easy.

 

By painting the bones by hand I mean to select a vertex and modify the bone value, so for example if you choose the hip it will say ‘spine0=69, pelvis=22, spine1=9’; the leg seam has ‘calf_compress=74, calf=26’ and so on; so for a skirt to move along without clipping not only needs to be aligned with the vertices on that section of the body, but also have similar bone values which is what Meshtoolkit does, except when it has to guess when it doesn’t have a good reference mesh. I believe Blender has a bone copy function and the means to test how the body will interact with your garment, but I haven’t got to that part yet  :P  

 

Keep practicing and don’t force yourself.

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I found some videos, including ones for using Blender. Its going to take me a few times reading and watching before I get it. I never cared that much about details, since I only made things for myself, and small imperfections didn't bother me too much. But now, even things I make just for me, I want better.

 

Already had to do a retake on the mesh in the pic above! Looks pretty good now. A few things to fix. Working on the multiplier. Doubt I'll upload it though. This one is mostly for me.

Nighty night, Princess.jpg

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Its been "take a breath" time for me. Uploading something and having others downloaded it was a fun experience. No real complaints, so I feel good about what I made. I've learned sooooooooooooooo much, and there's sooooooooooo much more to learn! I'll be working on my Harley Quinn top. I can apply some of what I've learned to that. Then, I may play with some basic EA skirt remeshes and apply other things I've learned and try to understand the vertex weight thing better.

 

In the meantime, I'll just have Harley beat the hell out of some random "princess" with her baseball bat when I feel stuck and frustrated. Beat bloody sims may become a series!!!! )

 

Now that I have a better clue on making normal maps, I started going back to old packages I made and adding normal maps or replacing the ones I made wrong. )

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Sometimes, I just bounce around like a toddler on meth! I really do enjoy making things... or more accurately, taking what someone else created and adding my custom alterations... mostly making them open bottomed. So, as I was taking a break from meshing and actually playing sims 3, I was reminded by one of my sims wearing a dress by Lianaa that I had wanted to make it open. So I did! ) 

 

I used things I've learned, but found lighter colors show a shading difference where the mesh halves meet, with lower being very slightly different. I'm still working to understand weight painting as that may be the cause? Still, no gaps at the seem and no issues with movement.

 

I ran into one big problem... As I really try to keep my remeshed opens as close to original, including the original color mapping, I realized this is a 4 channel rgba mask. In the past, I would just pick what could be doubled up and remake a 3 color mask because I didn't understand 4 color masks despite reading tutorials. And I don't want a new mask, just to edit the original. FOUND IT!!!!! Maybe I missed it before? But, I found a thread on MTS, and a step by step using Gimp on how to separate and save the alpha channel, access and the rgb mask for editing, edit the alpha and put them back together as rgba! )))

 

When I do a dress, I try to keep skirt halves full size and use the "top" area of the part mask for the front of the skirt, since its a full outfit and there won't be a top used that may need that section. Lianaa's multiplier has a pattern, which I manged to keep in alignment. But... that shading!!! Its not as bad in game, but its there.

2.PNG

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I'm turning into my husband! I got pissed because I screwed up and must have overwritten the outfit I was working on, so I deleted the entire project folder and immediately emptied the recycle bin! And then I realized I lost the instructions for editing 4 color masks. ☠️ Fortunately, I found it again and went back to remake the outfit and fixed some of the issues. 

 

Then I got off track. I saw an outfit I had made earlier, and decided to remake that one using new things I've learned. 

 

Then when I was dressing a sim, I noticed another outfit that I wanted to make open bottomed and did THAT one too! OY!!!

 

I may have found a way around the seam problem. As always, the problem has been addressed, but its all Photoshop and Milkshape tutorials. (

 

One thing I've been trying is to NOT overlap my inner and outer skirt UV. I think that may be causing part of the issue I have with the skirt part of outfits looking different (a tiny bit darker) than the top.

 

I haven't tried it yet, but I saw something in Gimp about transferring weights from one mesh to another.

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