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New higher-poly Vanilla underwear WIP - strange line in mesh?


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Posted

I am currently making some new Vanilla underwear resources for my SeveNBase armour mod, and I have encountered a minor problem.

 

As it currently stands, the mesh for the "bikini" top is basically done to the point of "good enough" - there is a strange little line down the middle of the mesh though that I'd like to fix if I could...

 

Here is what it looks like in 3dsMax:

 

post-27796-0-28003500-1432339293_thumb.jpg

 

 

Closer view:

 

post-27796-0-36056800-1432339318_thumb.jpg

 

 

Here is what it looks like on my desktop game with decent graphics:

 

post-27796-0-13919300-1432339359_thumb.jpg

 

 

Here is what it looks like on my laptop with average graphics:

 

post-27796-0-43385200-1432339425_thumb.jpg

 

 

See the weird line down the middle between the two "halves" of the top? It's a tiny example of the weird "crumpling" effect that can happen when Skyrim meshes are skinned as a mesh after MSmoothing as a poly to add more vertices (often vital I have found for modding low-poly meshes to fit snugly over a curvy, high-poly body & not look like a boxy fold-&-glue paper model).

 

Like I said, It's a minor problem in this instance. It won't prevent the release of the mesh. BUT I KNOW IT"S THERE DAMMIT! And I'd like to fix it I could... any ideas? :)

 

 

 

Posted

If its anything like Blender, if you remove that line your going to have to re generate the UV map for the textures.

 

From there its just fitting the texture to the new mesh UV.

 

 

Why not just make a new mesh?  I always thought you guys had an easier time with Max?

 

I shouldn't have answered, I don't want to think about stuff that I did 3 yrs ago, too much.

 

 

Good luck man.

 

 

Posted

Hard to tell with out seeing the wires and UVs, but going on what i have seen i will hazard a guess.

 

The mesh was made low poly, then its UVW unwrapped (splitting the left an right cups into separate islands) before being tessellated/Turbo smoothed?

 

If so, then to fix the texture you will need to edit the UVs along the edge where the 2 cups meet, and to remove the crease (assuming its caused by a hard edge and not normal map bleeding) in nifskope right click the bra >mesh >smooth normals then click smooth. If that doesn't work then its fixed in the UVs to (just move the verts away from the edge by a pixel or 2).

 

That is about all i got without seeing wires and UVs.

Posted

If its anything like Blender, if you remove that line your going to have to re generate the UV map for the textures.

 

From there its just fitting the texture to the new mesh UV.

 

 

Why not just make a new mesh?  I always thought you guys had an easier time with Max?

 

I shouldn't have answered, I don't want to think about stuff that I did 3 yrs ago, too much.

 

 

Good luck man.

 

Thanks Gameplayer! :)

 

 

 

Hard to tell with out seeing the wires and UVs, but going on what i have seen i will hazard a guess.

 

The mesh was made low poly, then its UVW unwrapped (splitting the left an right cups into separate islands) before being tessellated/Turbo smoothed?

 

If so, then to fix the texture you will need to edit the UVs along the edge where the 2 cups meet, and to remove the crease (assuming its caused by a hard edge and not normal map bleeding) in nifskope right click the bra >mesh >smooth normals then click smooth. If that doesn't work then its fixed in the UVs to (just move the verts away from the edge by a pixel or 2).

 

That is about all i got without seeing wires and UVs.

 

Hey Vioxis! No, I did not unwrap ay UVs prior to working on this mesh - although I'm guessing from your post I should have? Here is what I did:

 

> Import mesh, remove body, remove panties, Smooth (2), etc. - so usual drill here to get everything ready.

 

> First I deleted parts of the mesh that were leftover rubbish & only ever seemed to caused problems (Bethesda had a few pieces of oddly-shaped & disconnected trim around parts of this. They're a mess).

 

> Selected all vertices, Weld Selected until done (twice here), otherwise the mesh tears apart over the next few steps

 

> Convert to Editable Poly

 

> Selected all the vertices from the cloth area, minus those nearest the straps (otherwise those areas explode in the next couple of steps)

 

> MSmooth once or twice (twice here I think, as the mesh was so low-poly)

 

> Convert to Editable Mesh, Smooth (2)

 

> Shaped the mesh, during which I added the lip or trim area around the outside of the cloth - which was then angled inward, faces removed, vertices collapsed etc. to get the right shape. This was to try & create a sense of "volume" to the cloth, rather than a paper-thin layer, and made it easier & more forgiving to shape around the body. I could space the cloth away a little from the skin to eliminate clipping & I would not have to remove faces/polys from the body mesh.

 

> Skin Wrap to my non-BBP SeveNBase Cleavage mesh, BSDismember, etc. Do the NifSkop steps, check in-game - movement, lighting (which is how this problem showed up), etc., etc.

 

 

 

Okay - I'm a little wobly with UVs, but here is how it looks:

 

 - When UnwrapUVW modifier is applied, straight away these little green things pop-up, which correspond to problem areas (some of these areas I have not touched at all, except to move them):

post-27796-0-18103000-1432433864_thumb.jpg  post-27796-0-87815300-1432433879_thumb.jpg

 

 

 - With the wires showing (?)

post-27796-0-19124400-1432433898_thumb.jpg

 

- And on a pattern-mapping unwrap

post-27796-0-12870000-1432433983_thumb.jpg

 

 

If it's any help, here is what the most noticeable area looks like in Skin > Edit envelopes:

post-27796-0-41136400-1432433995_thumb.jpg  post-27796-0-88248400-1432434006_thumb.jpg

Posted

Sub-Ding triangles...

 

Anyway it looks as though my assumption was right, you just did the last step.

Well those green lines that appear when the unwrap modifier is added are to show where the edges of the UV islands are.

And looking at the UVs they are incredibly poorly done.. 

 

The only way i see fixing it, is by manually repairing the UVs, moving and welding each out of place vert back into its proper place.. 

Its very tedious work and can be quite time consuming, but trying to figure what goes where is its only real challenge.

Since its only the middle bit that's bothering you, you could just focus on fixing that part.

 

Though If they didn't already have textures made for them i would tell you to just completely redo the UVs..

 

 

Seriously though why are the UVs so bad? why did bethesda do it like that? I can't stop laughing at them, they look as though they have the whole map to themselves and that's how they chose to lay them out? Why? It must of been the junior scripter who got put on modeling duty and didn't say he was a scripter because he was new.. Its the only acceptable answer.

 

I don't mind lending a hand if you need it just link the mesh and textures.

Posted

... oh dear god. Is it really that much work to fix them?! :blink:

 

Would re-doing the UV's completely from scratch be easier & quicker? And would the mesh still properly display the Vanilla texture? I would be willing to treat this like a "training mesh", as I probably should learn how to do this - provided it didn't include having to make new textures (even though I like painting & drawing a LOT, I really do not have the time to do meshes AND textures both). :huh:

 

It's not really an issue that will prevent release of these meshes for use, as it's minor, but if I can fix it without too much time taken I would definitely be willing.

 

If you could take a closer inspection & check them over I would be really grateful. Here are the meshes to take a look at (bra top only - I haven't done anything further on the panties yet). Textures are standard Vanilla for the clothing, or UNP for the body mesh (it's a SeveNBase body):

 

 

*attachment removed. FD*

 

 

 

 

*A LOT of Bethesda's UVs behave like this, and a very large number of Vanilla meshes have loose vertices & polys that seemingly serve no purpose but to gum up the works. Some meshes even start to tear apart at the seams if they are moved around too much. It's often the lowest-poly female meshes that are like this, and I would not be at all surprised if the work on these were to trace back to a single worker who had their hands on them at some stage.

Posted

This was an easier fix then i was expecting it to be, It turned out to be a weird spiral of the mesh breaking the UVs and the UVs breaking the mesh.

If you only tried to fix one the other would undo your work. Once i realised that it was easy, so barely took 5 minutes to fix.

 

I haven't tested them in game, but should work, i also adjusted slightly the UVs to keep the trim more even when it meets in the middle.

 

 

The only Bethesda meshes i have really looked at were a few armours, they never looked poorly done. 

But then again they where probably done by the lead artists, and all the less important stuff like underwear, done by the peons.

Still their work made me laugh, and you can't underestimate the comedic factor when making a model.

Fixed UVs.7z

Posted

....! :blink:

 

I... thanks Vioxis! WOW! I didn't expect this - thank-you so much! I will credit you as a part of this mod! ^_^

 

**Could you please tell me how exactly you did this? I really do need to know! I have encountered so many clothing pieces where I could put this knowledge to use ("PeonWorks", as you say - mainly clothing, lower-tier stuff, but also high-use armours like Dark Brotherhood & Wolf Armours, and the Monk Robes models too).** :huh:

 

EDIT: Yes I really do need to know actually - a closer look at the panties for this mesh set reveals the same UV problem (although less noticeable, as it follows a textured "seam" line in the cloth).

Posted

Sure, i have no problem telling you what i did, you will be surprised at how simple a fix it was.

 

I'll use the steps you posted above to show you where/when to do the steps.

i will also mark the extra steps with an asterisk *.

 

 

> Import mesh, remove body, remove panties, Smooth (2), etc. - so usual drill here to get everything ready.

 

> First I deleted parts of the mesh that were leftover rubbish & only ever seemed to caused problems (Bethesda had a few pieces of oddly-shaped & disconnected trim around parts of this. They're a mess).

 

> Selected all vertices, Weld Selected until done (twice here), otherwise the mesh tears apart over the next few steps

 

> Convert to Editable Poly

 

> Selected all the vertices from the cloth area, minus those nearest the straps (otherwise those areas explode in the next couple of steps)

 

> MSmooth once or twice (twice here I think, as the mesh was so low-poly)

 

*new > Selected all vertices and weld Selected.

 

*new > Add an Unwrap UVW modifier above the Editable Poly, (if you see green lines other then along the edges keep reading if not skip this and the next step) click Open UV Editor. In the editor select all the verts (make sure its set to vert sub object) with them all selected go to the top bar, click tools > weld selected (ctrl + w), The green lines (excluding the outside edges) should now be gone.  

 

1y0rxi30u9jc97t7g.jpg

 

 

*new > collapse the Unwrap UVW modifier into the Editable Poly.

 

> Convert to Editable Mesh, Smooth (2)

 

> Shaped the mesh, during which I added the lip or trim area around the outside of the cloth - which was then angled inward, faces removed, vertices collapsed etc. to get the right shape. This was to try & create a sense of "volume" to the cloth, rather than a paper-thin layer, and made it easier & more forgiving to shape around the body. I could space the cloth away a little from the skin to eliminate clipping & I would not have to remove faces/polys from the body mesh.

 

> Skin Wrap to my non-BBP SeveNBase Cleavage mesh, BSDismember, etc. Do the NifSkop steps, check in-game - movement, lighting (which is how this problem showed up), etc., etc.

 

*optional > Sometimes meshes can be split in obvious places on its UVs which can be seen as a hard edge on the model, if you notice it in nifskope just right click the mesh and go mesh >smooth normals to fix it (60° is default and should be fine, if you do change it try not to go above 90° or it might smooth things that aren't meant to be smoothed).

 

 

 

That pretty much it, just those extra steps. You see when you first welded the mesh to stop it tearing its self apart in the next step, the UVs where in the same mess and needed to be welded too, and it was either when you converted it to an Editable Mesh or (if not then) when you exported it that the UVs broke the mesh.

 

Assuming your other meshes are broken the same way this should fix them.

Posted

Sure, i have no problem telling you what i did, you will be surprised at how simple a fix it was.

 

I'll use the steps you posted above to show you where/when to do the steps.

i will also mark the extra steps with an asterisk *.

 

 

> Import mesh, remove body, remove panties, Smooth (2), etc. - so usual drill here to get everything ready.

 

> First I deleted parts of the mesh that were leftover rubbish & only ever seemed to caused problems (Bethesda had a few pieces of oddly-shaped & disconnected trim around parts of this. They're a mess).

 

> Selected all vertices, Weld Selected until done (twice here), otherwise the mesh tears apart over the next few steps

 

> Convert to Editable Poly

 

> Selected all the vertices from the cloth area, minus those nearest the straps (otherwise those areas explode in the next couple of steps)

 

> MSmooth once or twice (twice here I think, as the mesh was so low-poly)

 

*new > Selected all vertices and weld Selected.

 

*new > Add an Unwrap UVW modifier above the Editable Poly, (if you see green lines other then along the edges keep reading if not skip this and the next step) click Open UV Editor. In the editor select all the verts (make sure its set to vert sub object) with them all selected go to the top bar, click tools > weld selected (ctrl + w), The green lines (excluding the outside edges) should now be gone.  

 

1y0rxi30u9jc97t7g.jpg

 

 

*new > collapse the Unwrap UVW modifier into the Editable Poly.

 

> Convert to Editable Mesh, Smooth (2)

 

> Shaped the mesh, during which I added the lip or trim area around the outside of the cloth - which was then angled inward, faces removed, vertices collapsed etc. to get the right shape. This was to try & create a sense of "volume" to the cloth, rather than a paper-thin layer, and made it easier & more forgiving to shape around the body. I could space the cloth away a little from the skin to eliminate clipping & I would not have to remove faces/polys from the body mesh.

 

> Skin Wrap to my non-BBP SeveNBase Cleavage mesh, BSDismember, etc. Do the NifSkop steps, check in-game - movement, lighting (which is how this problem showed up), etc., etc.

 

*optional > Sometimes meshes can be split in obvious places on its UVs which can be seen as a hard edge on the model, if you notice it in nifskope just right click the mesh and go mesh >smooth normals to fix it (60° is default and should be fine, if you do change it try not to go above 90° or it might smooth things that aren't meant to be smoothed).

 

 

 

That pretty much it, just those extra steps. You see when you first welded the mesh to stop it tearing its self apart in the next step, the UVs where in the same mess and needed to be welded too, and it was either when you converted it to an Editable Mesh or (if not then) when you exported it that the UVs broke the mesh.

 

Assuming your other meshes are broken the same way this should fix them.

 

 

Finally I have been able to sit down today & actually try this! :D

 

Many thanks Vioxis! I can now duplicate your steps on the top, and can make the green lines in that middle area vanish - BUT NOT anywhere else such as the straps, which if I check your meshes is the same result you got, yes? :)

 

I cannot however fix the UVs on the shorts either, so I'm guessing the straps & shorts were broken well & truly in some way that this process does not fix, as suspected. As the problem on the shorts is much less visible, and the shorts are unlikely to be visible in any other mesh set than this underwear, it's not such a biggie I guess...

 

 

***I have one final question here if I may - see the bad texture stretching where I extruded faces to make the trim around the outside edge of the top? I know there is a way to fix this and that it is related to UVs. I can find tutorials on UVs, but not one to fix (or even better, PREVENT) texture stretching when extruding faces like I've done on these meshes, and to have the textures display normally. Do you know how to do this? :huh:

 

It would make editing & re-purposing clothing items for mashups a lot easier, and it's a process I think I *might* be able to use to create assets similar to these boots from the UNP Minidress mod as well -

 

post-27796-0-60720800-1432974972_thumb.jpg

Posted

Many thanks Vioxis! I can now duplicate your steps on the top, and can make the green lines in that middle area vanish - BUT NOT anywhere else such as the straps, which if I check your meshes is the same result you got, yes? :)

 

I cannot however fix the UVs on the shorts either, so I'm guessing the straps & shorts were broken well & truly in some way that this process does not fix, as suspected. As the problem on the shorts is much less visible, and the shorts are unlikely to be visible in any other mesh set than this underwear, it's not such a biggie I guess...

 

That sucks.. well at least you can smooth it over in nifskope so that it doesn't break the light reflection.

 

This is what the seams look like after i fixed the top.

 

f964l1mxbz4s0e67g.jpg

 

The only places that got split was due to how it was laid out on the UVWs.

 

***I have one final question here if I may - see the bad texture stretching where I extruded faces to make the trim around the outside edge of the top? I know there is a way to fix this and that it is related to UVs. I can find tutorials on UVs, but not one to fix (or even better, PREVENT) texture stretching when extruding faces like I've done on these meshes, and to have the textures display normally. Do you know how to do this? :huh:

 

It would make editing & re-purposing clothing items for mashups a lot easier, and it's a process I think I *might* be able to use to create assets similar to these boots from the UNP Minidress mod as well -

Its pretty simple to fix really, just a little annoying when the mesh is triangulated.

All you do is after you have finished all your extruding, add a unwrap UVW modifier, then select all the verts or edges (whichever is easier) that are at the end of what ever you extruded (in this case the verts sticking into the body) Then in the editor move them so they overlap with the mesh.

 

like so

 

3nvaik45ht22co37g.jpg

 

^hard to see in this pic so

 

4n3mt924uccc38d7g.jpg

 

^i moved the other UVs out the way so you can only see the extruded polys.

Just pull them in until it stops looking stretched in the 3D view.

Its also nice that because you're essentially folding the UVs over it won't have any texture seams.

 

And that's it, then just collapse the unwrap UVWs.

 

There is no way to prevent it, as max simply creates the poly faces on the UVs in the same place it was extrude from, and simply does not know what to do with them. So just does nothing, which is probably for the best because if it did do something it would most likely end up 10x worse and need more time and effort to fix.

Posted

 

Many thanks Vioxis! I can now duplicate your steps on the top, and can make the green lines in that middle area vanish - BUT NOT anywhere else such as the straps, which if I check your meshes is the same result you got, yes? :)

 

I cannot however fix the UVs on the shorts either, so I'm guessing the straps & shorts were broken well & truly in some way that this process does not fix, as suspected. As the problem on the shorts is much less visible, and the shorts are unlikely to be visible in any other mesh set than this underwear, it's not such a biggie I guess...

 

That sucks.. well at least you can smooth it over in nifskope so that it doesn't break the light reflection.

 

This is what the seams look like after i fixed the top.

 

f964l1mxbz4s0e67g.jpg

 

The only places that got split was due to how it was laid out on the UVWs.

 

***I have one final question here if I may - see the bad texture stretching where I extruded faces to make the trim around the outside edge of the top? I know there is a way to fix this and that it is related to UVs. I can find tutorials on UVs, but not one to fix (or even better, PREVENT) texture stretching when extruding faces like I've done on these meshes, and to have the textures display normally. Do you know how to do this? :huh:

 

It would make editing & re-purposing clothing items for mashups a lot easier, and it's a process I think I *might* be able to use to create assets similar to these boots from the UNP Minidress mod as well -

Its pretty simple to fix really, just a little annoying when the mesh is triangulated.

All you do is after you have finished all your extruding, add a unwrap UVW modifier, then select all the verts or edges (whichever is easier) that are at the end of what ever you extruded (in this case the verts sticking into the body) Then in the editor move them so they overlap with the mesh.

 

like so

 

3nvaik45ht22co37g.jpg

 

^hard to see in this pic so

 

4n3mt924uccc38d7g.jpg

 

^i moved the other UVs out the way so you can only see the extruded polys.

Just pull them in until it stops looking stretched in the 3D view.

Its also nice that because you're essentially folding the UVs over it won't have any texture seams.

 

And that's it, then just collapse the unwrap UVWs.

 

There is no way to prevent it, as max simply creates the poly faces on the UVs in the same place it was extrude from, and simply does not know what to do with them. So just does nothing, which is probably for the best because if it did do something it would most likely end up 10x worse and need more time and effort to fix.

 

 

Okay - I just gave it a try on a Studded Armour top, but this happened -

 

post-27796-0-67825200-1432984532_thumb.jpg

 

> I clicked on "Quick Planar Map" under "Edit UVs" to make the UV for the extruded piece appear in the display with the UV of the top

 

> This made a texture display on it, but the UV for the extruded polys is wildly out of scale, seems to be rotated around the wrong way, and cannot be made to fit onto the UV for the existing piece (*I can move it, but I can't work out how it needs to align on the existing piece so I can get a seamless texture).

 

What did I do wrong? :blink:

 

Posted

Okay - I just gave it a try on a Studded Armour top, but this happened -

 

> I clicked on "Quick Planar Map" under "Edit UVs" to make the UV for the extruded piece appear in the display with the UV of the top

 

> This made a texture display on it, but the UV for the extruded polys is wildly out of scale, seems to be rotated around the wrong way, and cannot be made to fit onto the UV for the existing piece (*I can move it, but I can't work out how it needs to align on the existing piece so I can get a seamless texture).

 

What did I do wrong? :blink:

It went wrong when you clicked Quick Planar Map... :lol:

 

I'm really bad at explaining stuff, and making tutorials but I'll try again.

 

First you don't need to make the extruded UVs appear, they are already there.

They are just sort of hidden.

 

 

onyau5385t4acma7g.jpg

 

 

pmknk371vsuzsv47g.jpg

 

As you can see there is not just 1 edge there but 3 (2 polys squashed together) .

 

Simply select all the edges in the view port and the move them in the editor.

 

yaked8dycfgi2y47g.jpg

 

Select all the edges along a side (top, bottom, left, right) one side at a time or things get hectic, and pull them in to the UV island on the editor.

 

Hopefully this is a better explanation then the first one.

But if not just tell me, an good luck this attempt.

Posted

You should be able to save the UVs map on one mesh than add the Unwrap UVW modifier to the other mesh and load the saved UVs.

 

dpkg3b743pjin8o7g.jpg

 

Posted

Ahhh - okay, gottit. I had just now copy+pasted the UnwrapUVW modifier straight across, but saving & loading seems much cleaner! :)

 

I can slowly - slooooowwwwlllyy - move edges around on my UVs to make the extruded faces look nicer, but I can't get it to look as nice as the example pics above! Heh heh! I'll keep going, and post my results. One of the main problems seems to be getting the selected line to *MOVE* rather than deselect - I keep having to CRTL+Z. :lol:

Posted

Use freeform mode to move the edges, it puts a box around your selection and you can click and drag anywhere in the box to move them.

 

b8kr36md6q3dv5l7g.jpg

 

You can also scale and rotate with it.

Posted

Awesome - that did it!!! I have now moved all the long edges at the top, bottom, & sides, and am cleaning up the appearance of the last few stretched polys at the corners like so:

 

> Carefully click+drag in the main viewport to select the vertice point at which all the inner edges meet.

 

> In the Edit UVWs view port, carefully alt+drag to deselect the unneeded vertices (they combine into one vertice point on the main viewport, but with the UV unwrapped they disperse into several separate points which can be individually selected).

 

> Trial and error! If I deselect one by one until I have only the one/s I need. Then, move the needed vertices around on the UV until the polys in the main viewport look okay.

 

I am hoping that it's not going to matter *toooo* much if my UVs look a little messy in the Edit UVW viewport, as long as they're doing the right thing in game & the meshes aren't exploding... :huh:

 

 

UPDATE - RESULTS:

 

Top:

post-27796-0-88248400-1433051081_thumb.jpg

 

Bottom:

post-27796-0-95066000-1433051120_thumb.jpg

 

Sides:

post-27796-0-58041600-1433051144_thumb.jpg

 

Also made sure I hadn't messed up the ends of the straps where they meet the cloth:

post-27796-0-94031100-1433051194_thumb.jpg

 

Close view of the messy UV:

post-27796-0-46261600-1433051225_thumb.jpg

 

 

FURTHER UPDATE: In-game test, Plus Meshes for Vioxis' inspection:

 

Well, here's how they look - a VAST improvement!! :D

post-27796-0-05391800-1433053659_thumb.jpg

 

*file attachment removed. FD*

 

*I also fixed the skin - removed the arms bones which had somehow been left in there. No need for them in this mesh... :huh:

Posted

Looks good, i see no problems with the mesh/UVs. Now you can cut meshes into pieces and 'hem' the ends without any stretched textures. ^_^

 

Working with UVs can be a little difficult at first but after a while it will be/feel like all the other things you can already do in max.

Its just the dimensions that is the biggest hurdle (you probably noticed with the bra that the UVs where flipped so when you picked verts on the right side in the view port the left side was selected in the editor), but once you start seeing the 3D objects as its 2D UVs you will start to understand how they should be laid out.

 

Its pretty much just keeping both 2D an 3D frame of mind when doing anything with the UVs, 2D is rigid (only works in one perspective) and 3D is flexible (will work in at any perspective).

 

^none of that probably made any sense... i'll leave it just in case it helps, if not just ignore it.. :wacko:

 

 

Well i guess good luck with all your mesh editing, and i hope you never need help again... but if you do i will be happy to assist, if i can. :)

Posted

Looks good, i see no problems with the mesh/UVs. Now you can cut meshes into pieces and 'hem' the ends without any stretched textures. ^_^

 

Working with UVs can be a little difficult at first but after a while it will be/feel like all the other things you can already do in max.

Its just the dimensions that is the biggest hurdle (you probably noticed with the bra that the UVs where flipped so when you picked verts on the right side in the view port the left side was selected in the editor), but once you start seeing the 3D objects as its 2D UVs you will start to understand how they should be laid out.

 

Its pretty much just keeping both 2D an 3D frame of mind when doing anything with the UVs, 2D is rigid (only works in one perspective) and 3D is flexible (will work in at any perspective).

 

^none of that probably made any sense... i'll leave it just in case it helps, if not just ignore it.. :wacko:

 

 

Well i guess good luck with all your mesh editing, and i hope you never need help again... but if you do i will be happy to assist, if i can. :)

 

 

Yes, that makes sense! :)

 

Vioxis, THANK-YOU SO MUCH for all your help with this!! UV's are something I have *NEVER* gotten my head around until now!! I could NOT have managed this without your help, and I am extremely grateful!! I can put this new knowledge to work right away, and it will make a BIG difference to the quality of my mods!! ^_^

Posted

GAH! :blink:

I hate to keep posting in here - BUT, during the tail-end of this process I have found one last ( ! ) problem (I hope!)...

During the process of making my meshes, some of the lighting appears to be working upside down on some parts - take a look:

Here you can see the straps & inner edges of the top being lit-up even though they are in shadow:
post-27796-0-77877000-1433327499_thumb.jpg

...and darkened by shadow when fully lit:
post-27796-0-57226000-1433327553_thumb.jpg

 

post-27796-0-92512700-1433327578_thumb.jpg


I tried flipping the normals (Editable mesh > polys > select all > scroll down to "Normals" & hit "Flip") to no visible effect. Have I killed the UVs or something? Got them backwards? I don't remember how to fix this. :unsure:

Posted

Its not the UVs this is a normals issue.

 

You could try in nifskope right click the mesh then go mesh > face normals and see if that fixes it.

Another thing that might be happening is that max is not applying the smooth groups properly.

So in max try right clicking and collapsing to the the smooth group and then adding a new one in its place, it should kick max into applying them this time.

 

Is the double sided flag set  on it in nifskope? if yes and you remove it what happens in game?

And if something does change in game if you in max turn off back face cull does the same thing happen?

 

The only time i ever had this issue was along time ago and it turned out to be the exporter its self, who's exporter are you using?

 

Those are all that comes to mind at the moment, if none of the above work i will need to look at the mesh to figure it out.

Posted

Its not the UVs this is a normals issue.

 

You could try in nifskope right click the mesh then go mesh > face normals and see if that fixes it.

Another thing that might be happening is that max is not applying the smooth groups properly.

So in max try right clicking and collapsing to the the smooth group and then adding a new one in its place, it should kick max into applying them this time.

 

Is the double sided flag set  on it in nifskope? if yes and you remove it what happens in game?

And if something does change in game if you in max turn off back face cull does the same thing happen?

 

The only time i ever had this issue was along time ago and it turned out to be the exporter its self, who's exporter are you using?

 

Those are all that comes to mind at the moment, if none of the above work i will need to look at the mesh to figure it out.

 

(Now testing the above, one by one...) :huh:

 

My apologies Vioxis, I forgot to add the mesh to my post. here it is:

 

(*Attachment removed - FD)

 

 

Which exporter? Hmm... not 100% sure if I recall. *Probably* this one:

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5622/?

 

*That was the Nightasy tutorial recommendation.

Posted

That is the exporter i was using when i had problems like this. I switched to this one http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3845 and the problem stopped.

There is also this one http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40209/? i don't know if it fixed the problem but its there if you want to test it.

 

Looking at the normals they are definitely the cause

 

al2jnp0w8rwmvk97g.jpg

 

Try Theru's exporter to export the mesh and see if it still happens. (don't import the broken nif and then export)

And nifskope's, mesh > face normals should fix the issue on already exported meshes.

 

Posted

That is the exporter i was using when i had problems like this. I switched to this one http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3845 and the problem stopped.

There is also this one http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40209/? i don't know if it fixed the problem but its there if you want to test it.

 

Looking at the normals they are definitely the cause

 

al2jnp0w8rwmvk97g.jpg

 

Try Theru's exporter to export the mesh and see if it still happens. (don't import the broken nif and then export)

And nifskope's, mesh > face normals should fix the issue on already exported meshes.

 

*Theru's exporter for 2012 provided at that link contains several .txt files and a single NifPlugins.dlu. The "ReadMe" instructions talk about several other files which do not seem to be included:

 

"    Installation

    ------------

    

    Installer:

        The installer will configure the plugins for whichever releases

        you have available on your machine.  It will also optionally configure

        texture paths for various games that we know there settings for.

    

    Copy NifPlugins.dlu, to your 3dsmax\plugins directory.

    Copy MaxNifTools.ini to your 3dsmax\plugcfg directory.

    

    gmax notes:

       NifPlugins.dlu goes in gmax\plugin folder

       MaxNifTools.ini goes in gmax\plugCFG folder

       winmm.dll goes in gmax folder where gmax.exe is located.

         Do not place it in the windows system folder."

 

 

Is there a separate installer of some kind parked off somewhere else by Theru? :unsure:

       

 

 

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