Requesting info: All about faces

[l33t3rth4nur1112]

Well, not all about faces, perhaps.

I've noticed that some faces are very difficult to model using CAS. All skulls have basically the same shape, and I'm not sure that limitation can be overcome on a per-Sim level even with third party editing programs. Even the stuff that is changeable has an interface that's easy to use casually but difficult to use for fine-tuning.

Anyway, I got to thinking about meshing in TS2. I've trolled around the site and found that clothing, accessory, and object meshes can be edited with external 3D modeling tools. This got me wondering, could this be done with faces?

So, basically, my questions are:
Can a face be directly edited using any existing 3d modeler? I suspect the answer is "no".
Is it theoretically possible to write a modeling program that could edit faces on a per-vertex level? Adding vertices would not be necessary; I just want to be able to tweak the things manually without messing with genetic values like "lip thickness" and junk.
Does the site have a tutorial on editing faces, either in-game or out-of-game? I've seen some damn good faces in the Downloads section, and some of them I simply cannot see being done in CAS.
I've seen statements that Body Shop is better for creating faces than CAS. How so?


If there's a possible way to do it, and it hasn't already been done, maybe I'll take a crack at writing a face editor. If not, eh, maybe I can at least learn how to make a half-decent face from a photo or drawing.

Thanks folks!

[Dr Pixel]

So, basically, my questions are:
1 Can a face be directly edited using any existing 3d modeler? I suspect the answer is "no".

Unlike other meshes, the face mesh is found only inside each Sim's "character" .package. It is possible to use SimPE to export the face GMDC from this .package, and get it into your 3d editor in the usual way - that's how I got the reference faces that are posted here: http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=135300

As far as putting it back into the Sim's .package and having it work, I don't know. I never tried that, personally I think it's easier to edit the face with BodyShop.

Keep in mind too that a Sim's face is just that - the face only, the entire top of the Sim's head is part of the hair mesh, so you can not make any alterations at all to the edges where the hair is put on or to the bottom of the neck where it meets the body mesh.

Is it theoretically possible to write a modeling program that could edit faces on a per-vertex level? Adding vertices would not be necessary; I just want to be able to tweak the things manually without messing with genetic values like "lip thickness" and junk.

Anything is possible, that would depend on your programming skills and how much effort you want to put into it.

I've seen statements that Body Shop is better for creating faces than CAS. How so?


BodyShop has a lot more face editing features than the in-game CAS screen.
More "slider" sections for altering the features, and also a section where you can morph parts of different faces together.

[tiggerypum]

If you go to the infocenter area, there's a download with obj versions of a body/head-face/scalp for people to use when designing hair or accessories for the sims. No bone assignments. But as you can see, the shapes are separate, and thus the basic shape of the head cannot be changed substantially - it has seams that must meet at the neck, and the hairline.

I am going to assume that most of our tools are not up to editing face data at this point, in terms of modifying it and getting it back in - because we're having problems successfully getting hair to animate.... and you know that there must be a lot of interesting assignments made to the faces for them to animate they way they do. Not to say it's an impossible task, but it might be a lot of work for relatively little gain, being as some people clearly can get pretty fantastic results with bodyshop. Also note, some of those sims people post include a mask or skin made especially for that face, to add to the detail/realism for that particular sim.

[l33t3rth4nur1112]

Thanks for the info, folks. I'll work a bit more with the tools we have.

[HystericalParoxysm]

I was thinking about this a little, and I realized that this has been asked before, and usually someone comes up with Dr Pixel's answer - exporty possible, importy probably not possible, but nobody's ever tried it.

Soooooo... I (kind of halfassedly) tried it.

Nervous Subject seemed an appropriate guinea pig, since I don't play Strangetown... Opened his character package, found his facial GMDCs for his age, exported, edited, reimported with Meshtool, commit, save, load...

No change. No huge pointy pinocchio nose and pointy cheek, just standard Maxis fugly.

I went back in and noticed I'd managed to lay down the face in the preview in SimPE (it's been losing settings on me and I didn't notice I was exporting wrong, I guess, or maybe my Meshtool settings were off, or... I don't know), but the mesh is definitely changed... Though the face is laying down, the nose and cheek are pointy like my changes, so... Whereever the face the sim actually wears in the game is coming from, it doesn't appear to be the editable GMDC files. Why they'd have them but not use them I don't know... Maybe they're used in generating the thumbnail and loading screen, but at least from my quick little test, it seems to suggest they're not editable, as I would expect -some- difference, even with the face laying down, if the GMDC does indeed change in SimPE, and is in fact used on a sim in the game.

[Dr Pixel]

I think you're right, those meshes must be just for the thumbnails.

The faces are animated somehow, although there are no bones to be found except for the "head" bone...

There is also another file in the .package, named "Facial Structure" - SimPE isn't able to show the insides of this file.

And in the game's Sims3d folder is a CASFace.package - this has 685 mesh files in it.

I think these things are somehow all linked together to create the animated in-game face mesh.

I haven't any idea how they are related to each other, but maybe this will be helpful to those who like to play around with this end of it.

[WesHowe]

I have loaded and played with face files myself, but never actually tried to alter one and put it in the game.
Face files, as I remember, have multiple morphs. While they generally have only 4 active ones, which is the maxis gmdc format limit (as best understood), there are many (24 or so) inactive morphs. I suspect that the data would not be present in the GMDC file if it was not needed.
However, the present plugins only load the active morph data when importing files, so the inactive morph data would never be present in a re-exported face mesh.
Since so far everyone has been content to use CAS to make faces, I never put any real effort into working on editing face meshes. While it could likely be done, there may be some special magic (like in hair meshes) that is not widely understood at present.
<* Wes *>