Trying to make open bottom dresses

[Nonsequitur]

So using Solidify is quicker - maybe easier to use? 

Hope so. 

 

Ah, I've seen reference to these "Normals". There is a difference when Blender info talks about Normals and when anything generally Sims 3, TSRW talk about Normals. I got my weak understanding on Normals from Observation in TSRW only. I did find it interesting that Blender was talking about Faces when referring to Normals. With what little I've read.

 

When I use to duplicate and shrink to create in inside face - I always used Milkshape's select by face and then selected Reverse Vertex Order. (I know you don't use MS). When I found out how to use Solidify - Hail Gia. Saves a lot of time for me.

[Guest]

Okay... another problem that's holding me up... AND the reason I leave the tiny gap between inner and outer edges on my lower skirt meshes... As I said, I tried solidify on a mini skirt mesh and get these shadows...

 

 

I tried edge split, which I saw in a video. It didn't work the first time I tried it, but this mesh being done with solidify, I figured I'd try it again. I also tried ripping vertices. No luck. I've played around, clicking this menu option and that one, but nothing gets rid of these shadows, and they do show in game.

 

You can also see the shadows on the corset of the vampire long coat in the pic further up. I hope the only fix isn't something only in milkshape! As always, I'm continuing to look for a fix, but figured its time to ask you guys.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Non-sequitur said:

So using Solidify is quicker - maybe easier to use? 

Hope so. 

 

Ah, I've seen reference to these "Normals". There is a difference when Blender info talks about Normals and when anything generally Sims 3, TSRW talk about Normals. I got my weak understanding on Normals from Observation in TSRW only. I did find it interesting that Blender was talking about Faces when referring to Normals. With what little I've read.

 

When I use to duplicate and shrink to create in inside face - I always used Milkshape's select by face and then selected Reverse Vertex Order. (I know you don't use MS). When I found out how to use Solidify - Hail Gia. Saves a lot of time for me.

Solidify is quicker, but for me, has its own set of issues that I partially worked out. Although new at meshing, I'm trying to develop a "style" or technique that I can apply to anything I make. I had been going through a long process of cutting parts, moving UVs, saving and putting them all back together. That was the only way I could figure out how to NOT have spider web vertices criss-crossing my UV maps. Now, I know how to simply rip vertices and move UVs.

 

But, solidify was making faces on the seams of the front/ back halves of the skirt in places a little hard to just delete. Okay, figured a way around that! Before using solidify, I highlight the seams and click remove vertices. Then I solidify and get a smooth inner, then rip the vertices before exporting. Josh said his Blender will automatically triangulate squares on export? My Blender just froze up. So, one small problem became help to fix that... I haven't been able to find the setting to thin out the edges when using solidify and must manually enlarge the inner on the x and y, to thin out the mesh. So, before doing that, I light the edges and click triangulate, then adjust the mesh edge thickness.

 

BUT... using solidify increases the seam shadows. What do you do with that?

 

In Blender, there are several menu options for flipping normals. I do it from the faces sub-menu.

 

Honestly, I've done so much practice that I can make a simple mesh with inner skirt mesh and export it in a 1/2 hr to an hour, start to finish. Load it in a package, open it in TSRW, move the multiplier, make a diffuse map and normal map, mask, etc and test it in game in less than 2 hrs. Probably much faster now.

 

Those are feel good projects I do for a quick win after getting bitch slapped by something I really want to make!!!

 

I'm testing this one now...

I use the original thumbs as a way to give credit to the creator of the original CC when they include thumbs, and just add "Open". And generally, I try to keep the original overall appearance, including color schemes... but, it IS an open bottom. )

But, even on this, you can see that shadowing along the skirt hem.

[Guest]

16 hours ago, JoshQ said:

 

The “correct way” would be to modify mesh, texture and vertices to match each other. The way you did it is faster although if you scale down your textures a little too much your garment will look blurry on the game.

 

There’s a second method and that is to “liberate” some space on the UV map, I do it by deleting the left arm and then mirroring the right one, after fixing the normals on the seam you’re left with this:

 

 

Well, I tried highlighting the entire left arm UV of a generic nude top, clicked "mirror" in the UV menu, which flipped the arm and hand UV to face the same direction as the right arm/ hand UV... moved it and zoomed all the way in to align it to the right arm....

 

 

Quick made a package on TSRW, replaced the geom with my new moved UV geom, opened that in TSRW, and....

 

 

I never doubted it would work... only whether I did everything correctly or not.

 

That's my general thinking on all of this meshing stuff and tools other people made to make things work... When it doesn't work, I figure I probably did something wrong. )))

 

I'm thinking, why not use this method on the leg UV too??? ?

[Guest]

Only did the back side... if you don't mind the mirrored texture as you mentioned, it works! But for what I'm doing, it will usually only be the nude skin that gets mirrored texture. I did swimsuit plunge for my test. You can see the tie at the neck is symmetrical, but if its just the nude skin texture, this will work to free up a lot of UV map space!

 

 

[Guest]

Well, my frustration level is reaching vodka! I've been playing around, trying out new things and finding some of my problems (the strange shadows in the meshes) may be caused by blender 2.67. So, I've been trying to reload other blender versions, but now they won't import geoms at all, even though geom tools are installed.

 

Misha, go get mommy the bottle labeled "Mother's little helper" and tell daddy that mommy has a headache....

[JoshQ]

On 8/23/2019 at 4:01 PM, Non-sequitur said:

Exactly what do you use them for (Normals)?

 

Normals are just how the light “bounce” on each face of your mesh programs like blender allows you to modify the direction which gives you different effects like I showed above, on milkshape is also “possible” but takes a lot of work.

On 8/23/2019 at 4:23 PM, LadySmoks said:

 

Is there a way in Blender to "lock" the UV to move with the vertices? If there is, I haven't figured it out yet. That's why I move UV vertices the way I do. But, if you look at the pic with the mesh, you see that I try to keep the UV matching up to the actually mesh when I move things.

 

Press "P" to pin and "Alt + P" for unpin when this tutorial show a lot of useful techniques for UV mapping.

On 8/23/2019 at 8:29 PM, LadySmoks said:

 

 

 

I use the original thumbs as a way to give credit to the creator of the original CC when they include thumbs, and just add "Open". And generally, I try to keep the original overall appearance, including color schemes... but, it IS an open bottom. )

 

But, even on this, you can see that shadowing along the skirt hem.

 

That's weird, solidfy just generates depth by cloning the faces you selected, is like making a box with only one face. Unless your initial faces have problems to begin with or your version of Blender doesn't understand what is modifying.

 

On 8/23/2019 at 10:51 PM, LadySmoks said:

 

I'm thinking, why not use this method on the leg UV too??? ?

 

As you said, because you also mirrow the skin texture and if you use custom skins you will notice inmmediatlly, on the arm works because is small enough compared to the rest of the body.

 

It seems you're only mirroring a quarter of your swimsuit's body instead of half of it:

 

[Guest]

I'll check that tutorial on locking the mesh and UV vertices. It would be much easier than moving the mesh around, then trying to manually approximate where UV vertices should be. Although, my current project for myself involves making chain necklaces, nipple rings and other items that using UV vertices align seems the only way to go.

 

Yes, my limited understanding of solidify is exactly as you say. I'm using it on the chains, but they're thin and shadows don't matter, in fact would probably give better texture appearance. It may be Blender causing it, as it seems everyone uses MS to clean up what comes out of Blender, but I tried 2.67, 2.70 and 2.73, and all the same result! I saw a tutorial video about edge split a while ago, but that didn't work. I tried sharps, vertex rip, mark seam, everything I could click on the mesh and UV sides. I even downloaded trial MS! And now I remember why I never used it after my first trial download a few years ago!!! Total confusion! 

 

While looking for MS plugins, I found an old MTS board from 2009. Wes Howe mentioned then that welding UV vertices could cause the shadows on Blender. So... I made a completely new skirt mesh, step by step and never deleted faces that would make me have to weld vertices on the UV. All was good. I hit fix seams many times and saved. When I solidified, instant shadowing.

 

I'll go back to trying to figure it out, as I understand where it can make something simply look better (if I get it to work), but to complete this skirt, I went back to add double faces, shrink 1 click and reverse normals. You really can't see anything odd.

 

Oh, a huge yes about over doing the UV mirroring. I learned that VERY quickly as I began this skirt. Its actually a topless dress for my demon sims, led by the real devil, Lucifera Morningstar. ) All my demons have unique full body tattoos that I found and cut and pasted together... and they are NOT symmetrical from one side to the other. I never tried the UV mirror for this, but realized the problem would exist the second I put the first test dress in game. Maybe something with sleeves might work better? Although the tattoos do go to the hands.

 

Sometimes, strange things work out. The first test dress put what looked like scales on the demon's skin! I traced it back to the normal from the original mesh I used for the skirt being locked to the geom. It pulled the normal map texture from a totally different CC package! Thing is, I liked the look. It looked like reptile or snake skin. So, after separating it from the skirt, I made a map overlay for the demon skin! )

 

I'm planning many more chains looping front, back and sides. Non-sequitur mentioned chains were bad on poly count, but so far it doesn't look like it will be a problem, especially since this is a 2 wso group mesh. If I can make it work, I'll attach the chains to the bottom mesh since its a lower count thatn the top, but not sure how that will work out.

 

[Nonsequitur]

Chains can be bad on polycount.

One  toroid per link and a torris can have a fair amount of vertices. Start adding links together - it starts becoming exponential if you don't keep your eye on it and plan ahead a little.

That and give you a general idea of how much room you have for added chain. That's all I was trying to convey. 

 

I've been following this thread a little - learning a lot. Thanks.

So busy with this world project don't have time to play and practice - the second half of the JoshQ Moto (Patients and Practice).

I'm okay with that part - I just have a problem with the first part.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Non-sequitur said:

Chains can be bad on polycount.

One  toroid per link and a torris can have a fair amount of vertices. Start adding links together - it starts becoming exponential if you don't keep your eye on it and plan ahead a little.

That and give you a general idea of how much room you have for added chain. That's all I was trying to convey. 

 

I've been following this thread a little - learning a lot. Thanks.

So busy with this world project don't have time to play and practice - the second half of the JoshQ Moto (Patients and Practice).

I'm okay with that part - I just have a problem with the first part.

Ah... no... when I say chains, I mean thin necklace chains that are just some faces that have a chain pattern I pulled from the net and desaturated in the multiplier...

 

I know what you mean about making real chains with individual links... I don't have that kind of patience... or skill! Right now, I'm playing with bone weight paint to see if I can make the nipple chain just hang, instead of bend and twist as the waist contorts. 

[Nonsequitur]

That's a good idea - basically make it a cylinder, oval, or flat then curve it a bit - that'll keep it low.  Then it's just a matter of an image for it.

And here I thought you were going to make individual links - lol.  Although, you may end up making it that way so the links can be independant or attached to a certain bone.  I don't really know.  The last chains I put on an outfit were individual links - I too thought it would be a simple thing to apply an image to a plain or cylinder.  I ended up creating individual links so it would look and hang better.  That is where the problem lays. I was then stuck with a UV realestate problem along with trying to keep polycount low without distorting the mesh or texture.  I'm intelligent - not smart (most of the time)... I'm sure you'll work it better than my attempt. 

 

 

[Guest]

I was talking more about jewelry chains. Heck, EA just paints them flat on the body using the multiplier. Well, the nipple piercings work okay, but the chain wants to follow the contours under the breasts. I tried playing with bone weights and assignments, but it hasn't worked out. I'll omit that part for now and go back to it later.

 

I'm thinking to make 2 different versions of this, 1 for Lucifera, and another for the demons that may actually have link chains around the neck, but not the ornate jewelry chains.

 

UV map space shouldn't be too much of an issue for a link chain. Of course, I'm still learning, and figuring things out... and I fail far more than I succeed, but I'm thinking you only need 3 small spots for links. One stands up, the other lays flat... more or less. The ones standing up can all use the same UV because the lighter side and the shadow side will be consistent along the edges. Links laying flat will need one light side and one shaded side. I often overlay part UVs to save space if I must. Sometimes, with dress or skirt bottoms, I will move the UV of the part that faces inside, move it to a small open spot on the UV map, shrink it a lot because detail isn't so important to me as shading the inside darker to simulate shadows.

 

I could have put the UVs of both nipple piercings stacked. Actually, I should have separated the UVs as front facing and back facing, stacked them that way and been able to adjust shading by making the multiplier a little darker for the parts facing the breasts and lighter facing away from. Well... I guess I'll do that!

 

I guess poly count really depends on detail levels and how many facets you think you need to make a link look good in game. The bigger the link, maybe you'll need more sides to keep it from looking square? But, I figure a small chain link might only need 6 sides? Hard to explain what I'm thinking.

 

I also bought a new toy! I suck drawing my own multipliers with a mouse (cut, copy, paste, blend), so I got a computer drawing pad. Still haven't tried it out yet.

[Guest]

I think one of my advantages is that I accept the fact that I have almost no clue what I'm trying to do half of the time!!! ?

 

I think about a video on America's Funniest Videos... They have 3 dogs. The man is throwing treats to the dogs, but one dog can't catch and the other dogs quickly eat the treats when they hit the floor. The dog tries and tries to catch a treat, but fail after fail! Then... the dog catches one!!! That dog started jumping up and down, spinning in circles and wagging its tail with joy!!!!

 

Yup... that's me when something actually goes right!!!!!!

[Guest]

Try fail, try fail, try fail... ) So, instead of trying to make something that might be a little over my head right now, I decided to fall back to some things I think I do fairly well. So I made 4 basic mini dress meshes, 2 af and 2 tf. Each set is one with a bra top, and one with a blouse top. All 4 line up on the UVs, although today I found an issue with top to bottom UV alignment that I need to correct before going much further.

 

I've been working on a nice outfit by Sakura that I made open bottom. Well, that will be just for me. I'm thinking the Lover's Lab crowd might prefer a miniskirt/ dress. So, I just finished one and am testing it now. (And that's when I found that UV alignment problem). Fixed it on the mesh I just did, and should be easy to fix on the other meshes.

 

Wish me luck... I may actually have something to upload very soon. But... no rush. I want it to be right. And Josh and Non-Sequitur, when I finally do upload again, please PLEASE look at it and critique it again!!! Its the only way I can improve.

 

 

[Guest]

This new series using a common mesh is going well and should be ready very soon. The common mesh will certainly cut down on testing time since they will all be the same, just new multipliers. )

 

[JoshQ]

 

Using the alien uniform bones as reference might help with your chain.

 

Now about polycount, creators always want to include as much detail as possible (me included) but the problem is when you start playing most go unnoticed unless you zoom all the way.

In blender you can “fake” some detail by using the ‘Weighted Normal’ modifier, for example, form afar this buckle looks “round” to some extent.

 

 

But in reality was made of rectangles and has a polycount of 92, the only way to notice this is if you zoom all the way but then again no one is expected to go that close when playing (fetishists aside).

 

 

Besides the texture editor a drawing pad can be used for sculpting on blender, here is an example.

[Guest]

Hey Josh! I'll look for an alien uniform and try it out. I backed off the more advanced meshing for a little while and have been working on a few mini dress conversions. You know, the basically way shorter than anyone but a sim might wear type of thing. Of course, I seem to have run into a snag with that, as I have a seam on the inner thigh that is visible, no matter what I do. OY! I tried a few things, and just opened my testing game to take a look.

 

I generally keep my poly count as low as possible. I have a bunch of modifiers, but didn't see any normals modifiers on my Blender. Maybe they aren't turned on? Or maybe they're somehow being applied by the seam fix when I export geoms, because that buckle shading is similar to the strange shading problem I have on what should be sharp edges. The only way I could find around that has been to not let my edges touch. 

 

On the mesh for the outfits pictured above, I shrank the inner by .0001 on x and y, and flipped normals. Even zooming way in, you really can't tell. And on the stepped in edge, I moved the vertices in .0001 and up .0001 to hide the edge.  And as you said, aside from someone with an extreme close up fetish, no one will ever notice during normal game play. But for me, those odd shadows were very obviously noticeable without looking. 

 

 

[JoshQ]

21 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

But for me, those odd shadows were very obviously noticeable without looking. 

 

I did some testing, there’s a top that is long enough to pass as a revealing skirt: afTopTunicKimonoSleeve, this one already has an internal face so I just removed it and created my own using solidify.

 

Before that I joined all the vertices on the seams and separated the section on the skirt I wanted to solidfy, after applying the modifier I separated my internal face by splitting the edges and moved it to a new layer while I re-joined the section of the skirt with the rest of the garment, exported the whole thing, assigned morphs, etc.

 

Because this was a quick and dirty edit you’ll find some defects on the arms and other small details but there’s no sign of any weird shadows around the skirt.

 

KimonoSleeveEDIT.package

[Guest]

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean when you say you "separated my internal face by splitting the edges and moved it to a new layer"? What do you mean by "moved it to a new layer"??? Because, I have tried edge split, and the shadows remained. Its a very tiny amount, but I now just make the inner skirt .001 smaller. But, in testing I noticed there is a line visible on the outside, where the inner skirt ends. I'm going to try keeping the hem at .001 and move the rest of the inner away from the outer.

 

I also don't understand what you mean by rejoined the skirt to the rest of the garment. If I join vertices on the mesh, I end up with a spider web of UV vertices connecting the top and bottom on the UV map.

 

Well, at least I found what was causing the line on the inner thigh seam. Apparently, the new skins I installed did it. I tossed them and installed a new, new set and everything looks good.

[Guest]

I decided that for right now, I'm concentrating on the mini dress I showed above, and get it ready to upload. Overall, I think it looks pretty good, and plays very well in game, with no clipping at all. You mentioned extreme close up fetishes, but we do extreme close ups too... although not necessarily because of a fetish, but to look closely at our work and fix the little things. Of course, I feel what I pictured above can pass with most CC downloaders, but because of your tutoring, I just finished a new version that I'm getting ready to test in game now. 

 

I have a question... Is there a way to simply cut down the number of vertices in a LOD 1 to make it LOD 2 and 3? Or completely new meshes are necessary???

[JoshQ]

 

Why I separated the skirt? I want to create the inside of the skirt from the garments bottom part, by separating that section from the rest of the mesh (by pressing ‘P’) I avoid creating inside faces to arms, neck, etc when using ‘solidify’.

 

Once I applied ‘solidify’ the result is a “solid mesh” meaning all the vertices on the original boundaries are now joined with those from the internal face we just created with the modifier. By selecting the edges from both top and bottom section (where I wan to “cut” the interior) and applying an ‘Edge Split’ blender creates duplicate vertices / edges on the same spot, that effectively allows the separation of both faces by just pressing ‘L’ on the inside and the ‘P’ to move it to another group or ‘layer’, meaning now is a complete different mesh.

Rejoining “isn’t necessary” but is better to avoid a line where both sections are separated and other possible problems.

NOTE: On blender 2.8 ‘Remove doubles’ was changed to ‘Merge by Distance’

12 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

Is there a way to simply cut down the number of vertices in a LOD 1 to make it LOD 2 and 3? Or completely new meshes are necessary???

You can use the 'decimate' modifier, just take care it doesn't remove vertices at the neck/hand/feet seams and you'll probably need to align the legs with a pair of LOD 2 feet because the vertices are in a slightly different position. For LOD 3 just recycle from any other garment, saves time.

 

 

There’s a second option:

LODs_Level_of_Details_(Tutorial)_-_ENGLISH.pdf

I was going to link you to the original page on TSR’s wiki but the server is down...

 

[Guest]

After I asked you here, I opened your mesh in Blender. I see you kept it as a top in the package. One problem I have is that in making outfits, I find I must completely edge split the mesh at the waist to relocate the skirt off of the legs, otherwise, the UV vertices remain connected and create a messy spider web all across the UV map. I made a few "dresses" by listing them as tops in CAS even before you told me how to flip normals for the inner skirt.

 

Even with the seam fix on export, and the seam fix in the new er version of Meshing Tool Kit, I usually have a noticeable seam line where the two mesh halves meet. This has become my biggest enemy!

 

 

You see I rotate the bottom 90 degrees, but keep it full size in relation to the torso. This seems to eliminate distortion, but makes CAS pattern alignment something I rarely bother with. Even though the top and skirt are two different meshes, with the legs being a third, I did align the vertices at the seam for top and skirt on the mesh and UV map. The seam line isn't as visible on this outfit in game, and I'll upload it soon, even with the minor defect. Ankle and neck seams are perfect and absolutely no clipping at all.

 

This is Blender geom export seam fix... It looks perfect, but the after bone assignments, seam fix in Tool Kit and add morphs, you can see a very slight line, if you look for it. I figure most people won't notice... maybe? Ah, but this dress is so short, and looks great overall, I don't think anyone will be looking at the seams... just the hem line!

 

 

I'll see if my Blender has the decimate modifier. At first, I hadn't bothered with LOD 2 or 3 at all. Right now, I've actually been importing the LOD 1 wso back as LOD 2 and still not worrying about LOD 3. But, if this is in my Blender and I can make it work, it will make life easier.

[Guest]

You see that I've learned how to use my entire UV map! A few of the things that didn't need a lot of detail, I shrank down. Some, I didn't shrink very much, like the blouse cuffs, but the ribbon really doesn't need much detail. Also, Sakura's original multiplier and UV map had all the ribbon parts laid out separately. I stacked them up to save room.

 

You see that I ALWAYS leave room in the bottom left corner for my Josh Q shoes!!! I have another "brand" that I will probably get rid of since its UV crosses too high up. It runs into base game EA tops. I actually opened it up and tried moving the UV, but it wouldn't save properly on export?

 

Bottom right is where I put my inner skirt mesh, if I have room and decide I want the inside darker (shadowed).

[Guest]

Well... its official! Either the Sim god hates me, or its Blender!!! Yes, I have decimate on my Blender. Yes, it was easy to cut my mesh for LOD 2 down to 80% of LOD 1. No, it will not export and save! Still trying... lol!

[Nonsequitur]

That is Curious. Unless you didn't commit the Decimate... but, should still export.