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Is it possible of making a new body mesh for sims 3?


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7 hours ago, moemegumi said:

but I am still stuck on sims 2 mesh recoloring.

It's all in the UV Map.  Same basic rules apply. 

The UV tells the system where to apply the textures and patterns. 

All images associated with Assembly are base on the UV Map - Overlay, Color Mask, Multiplier, Spectral, Normal Map...

 

You might not know a thing about meshing - but if you understand how the UV Map works and how to manipulate it - you can do nearly any kind of recolor. 

A good tools for UV Map editing is Blender but, it has its drawbacks. 

If you bring that mesh into Blender you can save the UV Map as an image file (PNG)- this is your Map to make all the other images. 

As for Sims 2 assembly - (very) old school tools. Can't help with that. 

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7 hours ago, Non-sequitur said:

It's all in the UV Map.  Same basic rules apply. 

The UV tells the system where to apply the textures and patterns. 

All images associated with Assembly are base on the UV Map - Overlay, Color Mask, Multiplier, Spectral, Normal Map...

 

You might not know a thing about meshing - but if you understand how the UV Map works and how to manipulate it - you can do nearly any kind of recolor. 

A good tools for UV Map editing is Blender but, it has its drawbacks. 

If you bring that mesh into Blender you can save the UV Map as an image file (PNG)- this is your Map to make all the other images. 

As for Sims 2 assembly - (very) old school tools. Can't help with that. 

I have is a issue though on do I delete other games legs and replace it with EA legs? I understand that I'm supposed to start out small then go big but I wanna know so I can retry in the future right now I am learning how to recolor channel and UV.

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Generally, when creating a garment of any kind - that body part is a part of the mesh.

The "other" games body only needs to match up at the ankle, neck, and waist (unless you make a full body garment).

It also needs to conform - in a general sense - with the original EA body and appendage positions. Like the arms and where the hands end, and any joint like elbows and knees. This is to conform to the internal rigging or armatures of the EA body preset and generally hidden within the game.

 

The problem comes when you go to work on the UV Map. Sometimes there won't be a UV Map for the "other" body - or it's is little pieces scattered everywhere on the Map. When starting out - it's best to work with what EA has while learning the finer points of the various editing software and the how & why it's done in that way.

 

If your starting off with recolors there are options.

If you use a CC outfit that has a custom body - work with what you have - don't replace the body on these unless adventurous. The original garment mesh you are trying to recolor most likely will not fit the standard EA body and will require adjustment of the garments vertices on the mesh to make it fit properly. Remapping a piece of the mesh is usually not necessary but recommended as a general practice.  For you - now - Don't mess with any remapping.

 

In your case - wanting to use a body and Outfit from another game will all depend on how the body is UV Mapped. If it looks like an EA body UV Map - GREAT!  If it doesn't... you have to remap the UV to conform with a Sim Skin - Just an FYI.... I can't do that correctly either - not yet. I get lucky once in a while.

The other option is to use an EA body that is already UV Mapped. This, however, will require you to adjust the vertices of the garment to fit the EA body. 

So, fight trying to make the UV Map of the body from the "Other" game - or use an EA body and learn how to move vertices to make the garment fit... - it will involve learning how to move vertices or making UV Maps - or both. Your choice...

 

As for a simple recolor - no adjustments to the mesh AND no change to the UV Map -  is required at all.

In order for you to know exactly where to apply the color for your color mask or to change the visible appearance of the garments topography (add buttons, buckles, images, etc.) on the Multiplier - you need the UV Map. 

 

In Blender bring up the UV Map editor with your mesh, select a black 1024x1024 background image, and save UV Layout from the UV Menu. 

Provided you haven't altered the mesh or body - you don't need to save the file from Blender - you're just recoloring what is already there and need the "road map" of how to get there. Use this Image from Blender as an overlay layer in GIMP or another graphics editor able to save as DDS file with Mip Maps. 

 

Use an original copy of Multiplier and Color Mask  with the new UV overlay to guide your image adjustments and new color layouts.

Whatever grey image you have on the Multiplier will be colored by its corresponding color Mask channel - according to there respective position on the UV Map. 

 

Now to make the Specular image: Make a copy of that newly adjusted Multiplier as a seperate Layer, Select all, Adjust Brightness down about 80% and contrast up about 80%, Merge a BLACK (0,0,0) background. This is your Spectral image. Or... you can simply use a 1024x1024 (0,0,0) solid black image.

 

 Save your file and then save the Color Mask, Multiplier, and Spectral images separately as DDS (BC3/DXT5) w/Mips. Only that image and nothing else merged with it. Use those  images to replace the originals. Just remember - do not save the UV Map overlay with these images. 

 

When you get into mesh alterations and remaps - or have made some radical recolor by changing the Multiplier drastically - then you will need to understand Normal Maps - they just add a little "bump" to otherwise flat surfaces. If there seems to be some sort of Ghost image on your garment - it is most likely a Normal Map not matched to the image on the Multiplier.  In this case - go to your Mesh group, and look at materials - you will find the  Normal map there. Replace it with a blank/transparent image or make the slot "Empty".  This should get rid of any Ghost Image on the garment... Until you create your own Normal Map but, not needed now.

 

As far as the system is concerned - it doesn't care if you "paint" outside the lines of the UV Map overlay. Only the image within the UV layout (and a few pixels outside) will show in the end.

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35 minutes ago, Alumin said:

Maybe you need this?

The thing is - they want to convert a body and garment from another game so it works in The Sims 3.

Дело в том, что они хотят превратить тело и одежду из другой игры, чтобы она работала в The Sims 3.

 

It's their learning process.

So, someone else's Mesh body won't work for them either. And, it doesn't explain how to get that "Other" body to fit and function as a Sims 3 body in game. 

Adding more vertices/faces  (subdividing) to the body mesh will produce finer detail - especially in movements and contours - but also takes away from the garments resolution ability by pushing the Polycounts high to start with - before adding a garment.  Best practice is a minimalistic approach with polycount - especially on the body.  Mostly because of game limitations.  It's an old game...

 

An alternative is to subdivide only the section that needs more contour like around breasts. But, you may have trouble blending the outer face edges where the higher density and original densities interface. It tends to leave an artifact where they meet. Of course - if you have a skimpy outfit with not many faces - make the body better.  You tend to run into problems with very complicated outfits with lots of small details - if so - focus on the garment - not the body.  

 

This is above where they are currently - in the learning process. 

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40 minutes ago, Non-sequitur said:

You tend to run into problems with very complicated outfits with lots of small details

Haven't been to Russia, have you? Or at least some Russian CC sites... Размер не имеет значения! Size doesn't matter! ))) I have a top that was CC included in a world that I downloaded recently... a TOP... 14,700+ on the polycount (as big as some hair files). I'm doing a dress with maybe 4,000 total between 2 meshes.

 

The way around detail problem is the 2048 x 2048 texturing used (Anna... Shushilda has used the larger maps on some of her CC), and garment parts go almost anywhere. In fact, a skin set in the bundle uses 4096 x 4096!!!!!!

 

I will say that I was very disappointed with the top, however. MY first lesson is one the creator of the top might have needed... there is no inner mesh, and the top isn't there from certain angles. ((( Worst is that with the high poly count, it's too big for me to bother trying to fix.

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On 6/22/2020 at 10:48 PM, PantyAnarchy1 said:

I have is a issue though on do I delete other games legs and replace it with EA legs? I understand that I'm supposed to start out small then go big but I wanna know so I can retry in the future right now I am learning how to recolor channel and UV.

We still don't know what your UV map even looks like, as to whether you can use this outfit that you are so focused on in TS3. There are many ways to manipulate the position of the garment, but for ANY body mesh, it's almost impossible to ignore that EA skin textures go where they go, and to try to move the body UV will result in a total mess.

 

This is one of the dresses I'm working on now. It's a remake of an EA EP11 dress. I have somewhat decreased the amount of dress material, and it's a bit loose fitting. This exposes a great amount of the underlying body, so the entire body mesh is used, and is occupying the UV map area that EA reserves for the body. You see that the garment is squeezed into the areas usually used by EA for small add on parts to an outfit. The blank area is reserved for shoes/ feet. These are the issues you face with custom meshes and UV mapping.

Spoiler

Capture.PNG.035f1542c61462fb97202b34e09c7843.PNG

 

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1 hour ago, Non-sequitur said:

It's an old game...

But computers are newer now? Sims 3 looks nice at maximum settings. I did 4-6 things with these legs, for a test.

 

50 minutes ago, LadySmoks said:

In fact, a skin set in the bundle uses 4096 x 4096!!!!!!

I had the same idea?, but I thought it was unnecessary.

Spoiler

Подскажи, пожалуйста, что надо сделать в Блендере, чтобы сбоку бедра убрать шов с ноги. Я так и не понял, как это делается и тупо через Франкенштейн мод соединяю ноги с одеждой.
 В общем-то я из-за шва на ноге и полез разбираться с модингом шмота. Была прикольная юбка, но по ноге шёл безобразный шов.

 

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13 minutes ago, Alumin said:

Подскажи, пожалуйста, что надо сделать в Блендере

У тебя есть какой Блендер? Ты должны объединить вершины. И инструмент разделяет их и ремонтирует швы при экспорте. Я пользуюсь 2.8.

https://modthesims.info/d/627962/blender-2-8-geom-tools-updated-14-12-2019.html

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1 hour ago, LadySmoks said:

a TOP... 14,700+

I've seen some objects over 20+K.

But they are usually large scale world objects that have no rigging, usually used in making the Worlds.

Others like the Eiffel tower which are large and have scripting. 

Hair is a nightmare... as are Animals.  They are for those with Masochistic Tendencies. 

 

As for Garments - I think about 14K -16K is the largest I've seen.

The ceiling for number of faces is pretty arbitrary. 

You can force a higher resolution by going to a larger DDS format but when assembling you sometimes run into problems if all the images are large scale like 2048 or higher.  It tends to crash the editor - especially if the DPI is 600 or higher.  So 2048's for overlays and multipliers - but I recommend staying away from large scale images for any other image used. 

You can increase the pixel resolution to 1200 DPI (I usually use 600 DPI in creating) but the Sims 3 game likes things at 72 DPI. This resolution is usual for TV's. Games image/object resolution is based on Surface area - not so much the DPI of the image - roughly speaking.  So, although you may have a large format DDS - the bigger format should have a lower DPI to work uniformly when assembling and limit crashing.   You can also mix and match the sizes of images you use - as long as they comply with a DDS Standard.  Recommend loading the Multiplier first in this case, then the Overlay if you have one in large scale.  Save with every image loaded and every parameter change -  when working with large scale DDS images. 

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20 minutes ago, LadySmoks said:

У тебя есть какой Блендер? Ты должны объединить вершины. И инструмент разделяет их и ремонтирует швы при экспорте. Я пользуюсь 2.8.

No - I usually use 2.79 (2.8 once in a while just to slowly get use to it).

I've never worked with those kind of tools - usually only work with WSO and OBJ files.  Occasionally, FBX, or GES. Use to do some cartography and crowd analysis for USGS.

 

А в последнее время совсем не... Так как я получил новую машину работает и Skyrim и полная система HALO. 
Я не могу понять, как перемещаться Skyrim и это без звука. Странно. Не любое удовольствие играть на данный момент - но HALO да!

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59 minutes ago, Alumin said:

Подскажи, пожалуйста, что надо сделать в Блендере, чтобы сбоку бедра убрать шов с ноги. Я так и не понял, как это делается и тупо через Франкенштейн мод соединяю ноги с одеждой.
 В общем-то я из-за шва на ноге и полез разбираться с модингом шмота. Была прикольная юбка, но по ноге шёл безобразный шов.

Match up the inside seem as close as visually posible by matching pairs of vertices on either side. Then merge. You will still need to Align UV and fix edges.

LadySmoks and JoshQ  are infinitely superior to me on this subject. Me, I'm just lucky.

 

There is some information regarding this in the Topic  here.

 

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2 hours ago, Non-sequitur said:

if all the images are large scale

I've never seen all the images in a package at 2048. Usually just the multiplier, and maybe an overlay if the package has one at all. I personally have had some success learning a few new (to me) tools in GIMP that keep down texture loss when downsizing images to fit the UV map as the dress above, bunny suit, and most of what I make. I have thought about 2048 multipliers, and will probably experiment with them in the near future. But fact is that depending on how much detail I think I need, I will set a color mask and / or specular at DXT1 and 512. On a few "smooth" items, I've even used 512 for the normals map, but always at DXT5. Items that need no texture, I do as Josh does, and make an 8 x 8.

 

99% of my meshes are minimal poly count. Mostly because many areas are then doubled for the inner mesh. Sometimes, on boots, I may double vertices only on the top edge and perhaps the heel and toe, but that depends on how it looks in game testing as to whether I think I need to or not.

2 hours ago, Alumin said:

2.7 у меня. Спасибо, почитаю что там как?

2.7 использует разные. https://modthesims.info/t/609356. Также есть Meshing Tool Kit и s3pe.

2 hours ago, Non-sequitur said:

It's not so much the computer as it is the game itself. Designed on -  and made for - a 32 bit machine with a 3GB memory cap. 

We've discussed this on the KW thread. And YOU will learn with your new set up... Yes, TS3 has it's limits, but driving through a mud bog is easier in a giant truck than it is with a tricycle!

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5 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

'I've never seen all the images in a package at 2048.

And you most likely never will.

The first few times I used a 2048 - I made all images 2048. You can get three of them in but it gets really temperamental. You may need to reload  the file several times to get that 3rd one to stick.  Crashing a lot. 

 

Of course these images were all at 1200 DPI too. Just adds a lot of unused overhead with the image as far as TSRW is concerned.

So, 600-1200 DPI is for making the image in your graphics editor. That resolution is for scaling images pieces and keeping details - then  try to convert the image DPI to 300 or less as the final image.  Like I said - made for TV at 72 DPI - it's image surface area - not so much pixel density of the image that improves the garments resolution.  Sometimes - less ... is more. 

 

Just use the large scale DDS for the multiplier...  Use it for the Overlay if you have a lot of fine detail work.  Otherwise, the image can be any DDS standard dimension saved as a DDS with Mips.

 

For 99% of everything in The Sims 3 - 1024 is plenty good. It's just that after you're into making things for the game  - for awhile - you want to push it to get higher and higher quality. So, although a thing can be done - doesn't mean it should be done... Just saying...

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11 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

Также есть Meshing Tool Kit и s3pe.

Ими я пользуюсь и для 2.7 этот Geom скрипт использую.

Spoiler

Вот я отправил Geom  в Блендер, у неё появился шов сбоку, экспортирую её сразу же обратно, не делая никаких манипуляций над ней, шов останется. Это нормальная практика? Или я какой-то шаг или скрипт упускаю? Нужно после импорта всегда делать, то о чём написал Non-Sequitur, объединять и фиксировать края? Блин, ну и гемор же? Или это простая операция и делается парой кнопок?
 Вспомнил, когда я попробовал сгладить юбку шов начал расползаться. Так как было не понятно как аккуратно выбрать вертиксы именно по шву, я удалил вдоль шва часть полигонов и после объединил грани через F, создал новые полигоны. Но это явно не правильно.

 Как правильно работать со швом??
Exampl1.jpg.168c5169f8c7b86a31dab1b2bf75180a.jpg

 

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2 hours ago, Alumin said:

Это нормальная практика?

Да, без ремонта шов останется. Понимаешь, что я никогда не использовал 2.7. Так, я мало знаю об этом. Они все разные. В некоторых случаях ремонт шва не работал должным образом.

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8 hours ago, Non-sequitur said:

Otherwise, the image can be any DDS standard dimension saved as a DDS with Mips.

Are you telling me? Or Alumin???

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1 hour ago, LadySmoks said:

Да, без ремонта шов останется.

Спасибо. Через Alt+M -> By distance делаешь? Надо всю модель выбрать или точки которые должны соединиться?

 

P.S. Модель на скрине была выбрана, потому что на ней точно были нормальные ноги. Редактировать её я не планировал?

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26 minutes ago, Alumin said:

By distance делаешь?

Все по расстоянию. Я использую .0001m. Программа Blender разделит UV на экспорт.

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1 hour ago, Non-sequitur said:

Just say'n... Perhaps to reinforce something already said as part of the general discussion here.  Yep, just picking on you... lol.  

Seems Alumin has a good bit of knowledge... Kudos!

Well, as I mentioned, you really need to download some CC from a few Russian sites and take it apart to see how it's put together. https://sims3pack.ru/ I constantly pull things apart!

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6 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

Russian sites

I have - sometimes I get nowhere when trying to download though, sometimes I might find something doing random search.  I have been to that site - great hairs and some sharp outfits.  Same goes for  Japanese, Eastern Europe, anywhere really.  Each region seems to have its own style too.  There's great Talent there!

 

I have pulled a few apart a year or so ago. Gave me some ideas. Perhaps it's time to revisit and look again. 

Mostly I make a garment a piece at a time around a body mesh.  Rarely cannibalize another mesh unless an ornamental object like the detail  of a broach - if not pushing polycounts.

 

Most of the time I make everything fresh for each - Loading the Object file for an eyelet or button takes about the same amount of time as making a new one.

My pulling things apart usually happens if I see something unique or have grabbed something from the game & object free market to convert to Sims 3. Check out the architectural Rendering, 3D Staging, and 3D Movie markets.  Some of these take a lot of work... excessively detailed with internal parts or at ridiculous resolutions & scales.  Monster files sizes - until you strip out the internals and not wanted, scale down, and maybe reduce polycount. They may have monster DDS, PNG, TGA or other proprietary image files.  Many are sold so it's difficult to find a decent "free" file.

 

Ahhh... I like to play with 3D... 

Here's something I grabbed off TurboSquid and played with today - it was the size of a 50 story building lying on its side and had about 400K faces (relatively small). First shot in CAS - so, need tons of work before moving on to feet and head. Just playing around really.

 

1583941498_afSkell-Outfit2CAS.PNG.a7ba2ec33272f1cb6874a9ff5fa0750c.PNG2114051830_afSkell-Outfit2UVMapimage.PNG.ed306a23dc2239bc3d8d70ae1af3e329.PNG

 

Everything works, hands, fingers, all the joints... just looks sad because it's more of a concept test fresh out of the Blender. 

I had to isolate and move each finger to lay within the Sims fingers, same for all the other bones - scale and position within its EA counterpart. 

I made it as an outfit. This way the Skeleton on the "body" part of the UV map is the only body included in the garment mesh replacing what was there, and  the multiplier for lt has  only the skeleton painted. It uses standard 1024 DDS images and has one color channel - so you can color the bones.  I did not seam the Skeleton UV to unwrap to a front and back. Just the front. 

 

The point being is... yes, you can take other mesh objects, from other platforms, and convert to Sims 3.

The rough one above took about 2-3 hours work and I have no intention of keeping it... lol

 

 

 

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