Seam Mender Beta 0.89.f (10-26-2014)

[gerra6]

Thanks

 

I'll take a look as soon as I finish the next update to the Clothing Converter

[Pezonator]

Hi. I've been eyeing this mod for a while and hoping it can fix my issue. Long story short, I'm using 7b Bombshell, Mature Skin, different body and head normals, wet skin, FemFeet and Phinix ENB. I have tried everything and replaced everything but problem persists even with complete packages like SG skin. Mature Skin actually gives a perfect no seam look, the normals don't make a difference. It happens with armor or naked.

 

My issue is a tiny neck gap, no matter what I try. It's only noticeable when there's a light on the other side of my character, like pinholes, so I can see the light bleeding through the neck. Will this program help fix this? It sounds like it can, like it will take the 2 nifs and join them properly together? I'm at work, so I can't load a pic or check folders yet but I don't recall a head.nif file being in the folder? 7b and most other bodies only come with body.nif, hands.nif and feet.nif, so how do I align the head with the body?

 

Sorry for writing so much!

[Kaputzki]

This seems like an amazing tool for both a modder and a mod-user.

 

Is it compatible with Mod Organizer by any chance?

[gerra6]

It depends a bit on what you mean by 'compatible with mod organizer'.

 

The tool itself doesn't try to guess where it should find nifs, instead it expects you to tell it where to find them.

 

So, if your nifs are all hiding in the mod folder in your Mod Organizer install folder, then when you load the tool you just need to tell it where to look and which nifs or folders of nifs you want it to work on.

 

A word of warning, development of this tool has lagged a bit behind Clothing Converter and Mesh Rigger. I'm working on an update to this tool that should resolve several current issues and make the whole thing work quite a bit better.

 

With a fair amount of luck, I'll have a new version out sometime in the next few days.

[Kaputzki]

Thanks for the heads up!

 

I'm looking for a good solution to the SevenBase barbarian + veins seam on neck, hands and feet and due to Mod Organizer's "virtual filing" some amazing tools like NifSkope are unavailable to me (as I can't really point out where is the .nif the program needs).

 

Guess I'll have to try. ^^ Will post success or failure in the upcoming days.

[gerra6]

Well, Seam Mender will help with physical seams, but it won't fix texture seams (at least, not for awhile).

 

For Nifskope, you can still go to the appropriate mod folder in mod organizer and open the nif directly. However, you may need to also point it to the appropriate folder to find the textures that should be loaded with the nifs.

[fejeena]

Don't know if it is possible.

It is a "moving" mesh, pregnant bodies with animated belly.

I have tried to make the bodies HGEC compatible. The bodies use total different Hands, that's not a seam it's a "Canyon".

Seam Mender not even reduced the "Canyon"

original HGEC Hand and pregnant body

 

The foot mesh has only a small seam ( such seams I could fix at other meshes ) but Seam Mender only fix one leg/foot.

HGEC foot and pregnant Body, one foot fixed.

 

Perhaps it is inpossible with the animated mesh ( but I can not use Blender so I hope someone can make the Body compatible with the Hand and foot mesh )

 

In the Folders

"Target ori" the 3 stages preg bodies (upper and lower in one nif)

"Target splitted" the 3 preg bodies splitted in upper and lower bodies

"Template hand and foot" the HGEC Hand and foot meshes I use (foot mesh fits to the LAPF lower bodies)

moving Preg Body.7z

 

 

[myuhinny]

It might be because it's a animated body. I have tried converting them to the TGND body and while looking at the converted body straight on in nifskope the chest has the look of TGND but turning it sideways and looking at the body it still has the original looking chest.

[Sugimi]

Hey, i'm back again though it's been a long while!
Hopefully you're still working on this project.

I started to tackle the on-going neck seam problem.

However, I don't exactly know how to use your program from your directions given.

Can't say which buttons I need to press, and when I try in my opinion - I can't seem to get Make Seam Template work.

I went into my skyrim folder to get the nif files but alas when i put them anywhere the program can't find the nif files?
I managed to somehow dont remember unfortunately to make a .pkg but after seam mender can't find the .pkg file.

 

 

You got a video tutorial or more specific instructions?

Maybe a good idea might be doing a tutorial with screenshots if you'd rather not make a video?

 

Sorry if this makes you angry, but I am not computer savvy

 

 

 

Also, it seems i may have found my problem. It was looking for PKG files when i clicked file->select template.

However.......I installed UNP BBP however...I can't seem to even find a head mesh...wtf?
I re-installed skyrim completely so i'm trying to get all that's needed to make unp bbp to work.

sooo...Any help there?

If you have a Skype maybe we could set up a time to chat?
That is of course if you're willing and still working on this project

[Guest]

I've been battling a persistent and very noticeable seam issue since I moved over to MO. I've tried every solution out there,I've pretty much gutted everything connected with body meshes, textures, skeletons, even anim files. I know it's a mesh seam issue because even if I get a near perfect match texture wise the gap's there. It's driving me crazy.

 

I tried to use your tool which seems very cool, but when I followed your instructions above by using the head mesh as a template then targeting the body mesh it went through it's script but I see no difference in game at all. Not sure if it's actually done anything to the meshes or not tbh, but seems not. 

 

[samhain6]

@fejeena

 

Tweaked the moving pregnant bodies.

 

edit:  I seem to have introduced a glitch causing the body textures to flash white at times (almost like vertex colors being turned on, though I verified they were off).  Working to see if I can narrow it down.

 

edit 2:  The white flashing textures seems to be a problem inherent in the original meshes.  I wasn't able to fix that, but it could just be something with my particular install.

 

The original bodies look skewed on the Z-axis in nifskope, but the rigging seems okay as the HGEC hands fit when viewed in game and the wrist normals match.  I cleared the shape key modifiers from the lower bodies as those didn't seem to be used and I was able to further fix the waist and and ankle seams.

 

I've re-upped the newer version.

moving preg body fixed v2.7z

[fejeena]

Full HGEC compatible   Hand and foot meshes fit perfectly.

Only NifSkope test until now.

 

Thanks , a thousand thanks.

 

[zonzai]

Question.  I am  working on a very high detail skin texture (I'm talking pores and body hairs here).  I've been battling two constant problems creating it.  One is blurred region around the neck seam area.  It seems to almost always cause details to become distorted, no matter how detailed they are.  My only choice is to blur those areas.  Unfortunately, any blurred spot would look so out of place as to be instantly noticeable on this texture.  The second thing is tiny gaps in the nif I am using to paint in mudbox.  I assume your fix will address the second problem.  But my question is, will I then need to change the actual body mesh to make the texture seamless or can I create the texture normally, not adjusting any meshes and keep the seamless texture?  You mention that one part updates the head tri file.  I really need to avoid making any actual changes to the game's meshes however.  Please tell my I'm just confused and it will work if I edit only the body mesh I am using to paint with.

 

Also, thank you for doing this.

[Jarka Ruus]

I've been working on converting a male body mesh from oblivion to skyrim so, being at a point where I needed to address the differences in the neck area I used the Seam Mender. The issue I'm having is that while the mesh looks perfectly fine in nifskope with the neck seam considerably reduced, in game the body mesh (and only the body mesh, the head shows just fine) turns out to be completely invisible.

 

To get any results I had to use search distance 10.0 (as the gap was quite wide), so I wonder if that could be the cause.

 

Edit: all right it seems that I somehow found a workaround by re-exporting the mesh in blender as a fallout 3 nif. My suspicion is that using the seam mender one of the partitions in the bsdismeberskininstance got deleted; as a matter of fact the original file had 2 partitions, while the new one had only one. Now I'm worried though because the new nif has 3 body partitions and I've got no idea why. I am wondering if this could actually cause other issues in the long run.

[zinoviev]

About neck seam gap.

coronerra's Weighting Better Bouncing Boobs tutorial(www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/28372/), pdf p. 8, states that the gap between the neck and head meshes varies between F-Inev and Ozmo's textures, with Ozmo's being "designed for bigger gaps." If I understand this, then some people may be running into issues with the neck seam not because of their upper body and head meshes, but because of UV mapping on the .dds files. Can anyone confirm this? I use a mix of both textures, and have been meaning to experiment to check results. (I have so many plans....)

[xarathos]

I've been trying to use this to fix a persistent neck seam issue with the 7B(O) body type. For some reason the high weight works perfectly afterward but the issues with the low weight end up getting... magnified, with the resulting gap being significantly larger. Not sure what's going on, if there's some setting I could be changing ... I used the recommended settings above

 

 

 

1. Click 'Load Defaults'

2. Disable 'Mend Doubles'
3. Disable 'Mend Tri Files'
4. File -> Select Template. Select your head nif.
5. File -> Target Mesh Options -> Process Selected Meshes. Select the body nif
6. Set Search Distance to 2.0
7. Click OK

 

I can attach my meshes if that'd be useful. Meantime I'm gonna see what happens if I use the original low weight with the newly generated high weight.

 

ALSO worth noting the process seemed to mess up either my bslightingshader or the skin partitions, not sure which - I copied the original shader over and rebuilt the skin partitions and the body became visible in game again. Unfortunately since I did them both at once I can't be certain which of them was the solution.

 

I'm really looking forward to seeing this update again... it's so useful. I got pretty good results using it to fix my wrist and ankle issues but the neck just isn't cooperating.

 

EDIT: nvm, that gave me body horror I wouldn't like to experience again... o_o I'm out of ideas.

 

So far, this is my best case scenario. I've run it through every tool I could think of at this point...

 

[xarathos]

Had a breakthrough today for neckseam issues with Skyrim - not a perfect solution yet, but a better source of viable templates - Racemenu.

 

Exported a head from there at min and max weight, then used them as source templates for the body meshes. Ended up with a slight gap but nowhere near as badly as I got by using the actual head mesh.

 

Rebuilding skin partitions after that got the new meshes working in game - confirmed that through experiment. Might be able to clean up the rest by moving a few vertexes around in max...:?

 

Scratch that - no gap at all. Like a moron, I had a bikini on my test subject instead of actually seeing the nude mesh. This method eliminated seams entirely for the first time. I'm super thrilled right now. XD

 

Since this point I've also mended my hand and foot seams, basically for skyrim the tool works fine but doesn't handle the weightslider all that well, so you're best off doing 0 and 1 completely separately, starting with head meshes exported from racemenu, using those to fix your body meshes, then the bodies to fix hand/foot. Rebuild all skin partitions in Nifskope afterward and you're set.

 

In case they help anyone here are the exported heads I used to mend my seams - I copied the trishapedata into an actual head mesh to make them easier/safer to work from and saved them as _0 and _1 for clarity and utility.

seamgenhead_0.nif

seamgenhead_1.nif

Edited October 3, 2014 by xarathos

[Jarka Ruus]

Had a breakthrough today for neckseam issues with Skyrim - not a perfect solution yet, but a better source of viable templates - Racemenu.

 

Exported a head from there at min and max weight, then used them as source templates for the body meshes. Ended up with a slight gap but nowhere near as badly as I got by using the actual head mesh.

 

Rebuilding skin partitions after that got the new meshes working in game - confirmed that through experiment. Might be able to clean up the rest by moving a few vertexes around in max...:?

 

Scratch that - no gap at all. Like a moron, I had a bikini on my test subject instead of actually seeing the nude mesh. This method eliminated seams entirely for the first time. I'm super thrilled right now. XD

Screenshot1824.jpg

 

Since this point I've also mended my hand and foot seams, basically for skyrim the tool works fine but doesn't handle the weightslider all that well, so you're best off doing 0 and 1 completely separately, starting with head meshes exported from racemenu, using those to fix your body meshes, then the bodies to fix hand/foot. Rebuild all skin partitions in Nifskope afterward and you're set.

 

In case they help anyone here are the exported heads I used to mend my seams - I copied the trishapedata into an actual head mesh to make them easier/safer to work from and saved them as _0 and _1 for clarity and utility.

That's a great idea, I'm definitely going to try, thank you!

 

It worked perfectly, thank you again.

[Mailamea]

I get some weird issues with this, when I use a Head Mesh as the template and when mending the seam I use the target file a body mesh, it works, even opens in nifskope and looks great, but once in game i have an invisible body.

 

This is for skyrim.

[gerra6]

That's weird.

 

Would you be willing to send me the file. I'll see if I can figure that out.

 

I should note, I'm currently working on a fairly significant update to Seam Mender that should, hopefully, get released in the next few days.

[AnnaFly]

I get some weird issues with this, when I use a Head Mesh as the template and when mending the seam I use the target file a body mesh, it works, even opens in nifskope and looks great, but once in game i have an invisible body.

 

This is for skyrim.

Hi there .

 

Yes as for Gerra's wish, it would be better to post your final  ".nif" ... but take a look with NitfSkope at the " detail bolc if the node are there and if tey are correctly named ... if not , the mesh 'll be invisible in game ...

 

If they are missing , just copy ( and not copy branch this time !!!)  the correct name from a functional mesh . 

 

 

 

an exemple ( it's from one Oblivion mesh but that's no matter .... i saw the same problem for Skyrim ) :

 

Post 500 :

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/27557-new-clothing-body-style-converter-release-candidate-v089f-10-26-2014/page-25?do=findComment&comment=798600

 

And of course your mesh need to use the right assigned bipped slot ... but i'm sure you already take a look at this point .

 

Cheers.

[Jarka Ruus]

I get some weird issues with this, when I use a Head Mesh as the template and when mending the seam I use the target file a body mesh, it works, even opens in nifskope and looks great, but once in game i have an invisible body.

 

This is for skyrim.

Have you tried already to recreate skin partitions in nifskope?

[Supierce]

I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for the seam mender. I had a bunch of clothes that were mismatched at the seams (both size and normal-wise) with the hand model I wanted to use. I used the hands as a template, dumped the clothes into the target folder and presto - they now match perfectly. I wouldn't have thought it was possible. So really... thank you!

[gerra6]

Awesome.

 

It's always great to hear when things work.

 

BTW, I'll have a fairly significant update to Seam Mender sometime relatively soon.

 

A few of the currently planned features (mostly working in my dev version)

 

1. Improved ability to mend seams with *significant* differences in size

2. Improved handling of unusual skin deformations (mostly an issue with neck seams)

3. Improved ability to update tri and egm files

4. Ability to add/remove vertices in a seam to match the vertex count in the template seam

5. Ability to automatically reposition an entire mesh to better fit the seams in the template. (Mostly useful for Skyrim nifs or others where the target nif is not properly positioned)

 

The main feature that's still under development is the add/remove vertices feature.

It's close, the add function is working as planned, but I haven't finished writing the remove vertex function..there are still a few kinks in the code that rebuilds the faces after the vertex is removed.

[Supierce]

Well... I see that with certain animations I sometimes get a visible crack between the hand and the arm. Also I used the same technique with the foot mesh and the results weren't quite as good. There's still a visible seam, although it's less than with the target mesh. It looks like the normals don't quite match.

 

Still, it's an amazing tool!

 

(All of this is with the ZKEC body and ZKEC conversions of HGEC clothes, using your clothing conversion tool, if that helps.)