Modifying meshes for pregnancy support

[tragix]

So recently I've been trying to add pregnancy support to a mesh. I've managed to get a working work-flow for blender, able to open, re-export, and load to skyrim a mesh. With no modification, though.

What I've done:

1. Add NPC Belly bone to the skeleton.

2. Add NPC Belly vertex group to the mesh in blender

3. Weight painted the belly to look similar to  UNPB BBP Pregnant Body

Loading skyrim with these meshes causes the game to crash before loading the scene. I think the export from blender is fine, since I've gotten an exported mesh running in-game. Is there something obvious I've missed? Any other ideas?

 

I've also tried the bodyslide outfit studio method mentioned in some other threads, with no change in the results.

[Toxichem]

You might be better off with Gerra6's Mesh Rigger. Its pretty accurate, and works really well. I use it when I need to TBBP-ify certain armor meshes that tend to become corrupted after leaving Outfit Studio.

[tragix]

Wow. That worked so flawlessly that I feel like a fool for spending days learning the ins and outs of blender and nifskope. I'd still like to know where I went wrong in my modifications, but I'm content with having a working mesh. Thanks a lot for the tip.

[Toxichem]

Even with Outfit Studio, I never manually add the bone in, I just copy that specific bone via copy selected weights in the shape tab. Its how I managed to get adequate belly support for the TBD Body. Once I do that, then I export and use Mesh Rigger to do the whole shebang for any armors for that body.

 

Edit- I click the Belly bone in the bones tabs, then I do the above mentions selected weights step.

[tragix]

Okay, not entirely flawless. 

Any thoughts on this? After converting the _0 and _1 meshes, either end of the weight scale works fine and as expected, aside from a neck seam at weight 0. This happens anywhere between weights.

[Toxichem]

Im no genius when it comes to modding in skyrim, so I don't really know how that happened. I do know that if im editing a single nif for my player(like say, removing a piece from the armor), since I only use 100 weight, if that item goes on a npc or follower who isn't at 100 weight, those distortions happen.

[tragix]

I found a bit of information about the exploding mesh thing, but nothing that helps to solve the problem. For some reason, the vertex list gets jumbled up when using mesh rigger, causing the _0 and _1 meshes to map in funky ways, leading to the distorted/exploding mesh above. Unfortunately, my attempts to use mesh rigger are not reproducible. I can repeat the exact same process step by step 10 times, and 8 of them will lead to the game to crash before loading, and the other two lead to the exploding mesh problem.

I've also tried doing the mesh rigger process on the _0 mesh, then repeating the process on the _1 mesh using _0 as the template, which crashes the game. 

 

I do appreciate the help, Toxic. I feel like this should be a very simple adjustment, and I can't imagine why any of these methods or modifications would cause the game to crash.

If anybody has other suggestions, I'll take 'em gladly.

[blabba]

It's a vertex order problem most likely.

 

I do not understand why Gerra6's mesh rigger would mess up the vertex order, but that's what sounds like your issue.

I'd notify gerra6 of the problem, and send him some sample before and after meshes in a nice zip package to help him debug.

 

Anyway, if you want to fix the mesh, you just need to re-order the verices so that they match each other.

There's a script called Morphix for 3dsMax, dunno about blender so can't help you out there.

 

Good Luck.

[tragix]

Alrighty. It took a dozen dozen tries with different settings and workflows, but I got mesh rigger to spit out a pair of meshes that work.

Testing with a new character gives a disturbing bug (nsfw) :

 

 

I suppose that's the new belly bone jutting out. The neck gap is new as well. It disappeared briefly after creating the new test character, but shows up again after starting any sexlab animation, and then remains permanently. I've found a few people here and there that describe a similar "Belly cone" problem, but haven't seen any solutions or ideas. Any further thoughts on this?

[Toxichem]

What meshes are you using to copy from/to? also can you send them to me so I can see if I can figure it out?

[Toxichem]

Here's a _0 and _1 of the body you are trying to add belly weights to. I've tested it in game, And I didn't find any seem issues, or weird belly issues, nor exploding meshes. That said, I didn't have a pregnant character to test it on, but I do use a HDT belly xml, so I have some jiggle without the seams showing.

 

Edit- If this works for you, all I actually did was load them into outfit studio with blabba's Citrus xml as a reference, and copied only the belly weight to both _0 and _1. Now you may or may not need to edit the mesh itself to expand the belly out just a little bit, if your pregnant character's belly looks off. This is also simple to do, just load a reference (citrus works great for this as well) and your meshes into outfit studio, go to the sliders tab and select conform all sliders. Then scroll down to the belly slider and set to where you think it should be for before pregnancy. I noticed the pregnant mesh you were trying to copy from the belly is slightly out, so anywhere from 6 to 10 will probably do it.

Edited for belly support.7z

[tragix]

I'm still get the lovely flesh teepee on my end, though the neck gap is gone. Can you try running any of the sexlab animations with the mesh on your end? I'm curious if something else in my installation might be causing the issue.

[Toxichem]

I actually already tested that, running through a bunch of animations. Is your character already pregnant? I know that with the current xml that I'm using, at least with cbbe, I get what you so eloquently named the teepee belly whenever my character is pregnant. I never bothered to figure out why that happened myself, since my characters are hardly ever pregnant. This might be the case for you as well, although I would consult someone with far greater experience than I, because I can only think of a few things that might cause that, where as someone else might be able to tell you more. The only things I can think of that may be culprits of these kind of problems are your skeleton, physics extension, or weights.

[tragix]

Nope, not already pregnant. I've also tried on a fresh character, and tried once more after disabling any physics/body mods I had.

My experience with skyrim mods is limited to this ordeal, and double clicking mods in NMM. It's a shame this doesn't seem to be a very common problem, or google might be able to turn up something. Must be because most people leave this sort of stuff for the fellows who know what they're doing.

 

I appreciate your support, and I'll post back here if I ever manage to work something out.

[Toxichem]

Honestly, I'm surprised that no one else has jumped in here to lend a hand to you. I'm having trouble duplicating your problem, but then, I don't know exactly what mods you are using either. I'm also a noob at some of this stuff.

[jacques00]

I would suggest double-checking your skeleton and running FNIS if you haven't already. It looks like your meshes have been skinned successfully, it's just your skeleton acting up. If it's a skeleton issue, it's either the skeleton itself or the animations it is using (namely an in compatibility with the skeleton's .hkx file). If you have HDT_PE, you want to check compatibilities with that too.

 

Hope this helps!

[tragix]

I replaced my skeleton with the XP32 skeleton and re-ran FNIS, and all is well. A few oddities with quiver placement, but that can be worked out easily. I had added a belly bone to my existing skeleton before, but I have no idea what I am doing, so it's likely that simply isn't how it works, or that I botched it.

Thanks for the help, folks. I really appreciate it.