UV Mapping Accident.

[LadyGrey]

Okay, so this one was my bad. For the past week or so I've been working on a hair mesh in milkshape, based off of the maxis long ponytail mesh (for women). The mesh itself is about as done as its going to get, so yesterday I started playing with the UV map (because it REALLY needed it).

Anyway, of course about halfway through I had a "ooh, what does this button do?" moment and clicked the "remap" button. As you probably know, that wasn't a good button for me to click. So now my UV map looks totally different than it did when I started, and I'm wondering how can I fix it? I think it's fair to say that I won't save the file next time I go clicking buttons I'm not familiar with. :faceslap:

I can try to add screenshots if they're needed. Thanks in advance for any help.. I feel like a total idiot :rofl:

[HystearicalParoxysm]

Well, what you did was make a whole new UV map for whatever piece was selected at that point - but Milkshape's main undo function will undo anything you've done in the coordinate editor window - so you can just close it, then Edit - Undo till things are back to how they were before ya went poking at it.

If you don't still have the program up or have saved after that, well, your best bet is to probably start over, or return to a previous save. When I edit, I do incremental saves, both of my exported GMDCs and my Milkshape documents (ms3ds) so if I discover I've done something 5 versions back that totally screwed things up, I still have old versions to go back to. I suggest you begin doing the same, if you haven't already.

If you don't have incremental saves, you may need to start over, unless it's just one part you messed up. If it is just one part you messed up, you may be able to import the Maxis original again overtop and start over just with the one part.

[lagermonkey]

I am afraid I know nothing about milkshape but I do know a little about UV mapping. The reason I mention not knowing about milkshape is I don't know if it has this functionality. In 3ds Max I would import the original mesh that you started out with before editing. I would then want to look at the UV map and save it. ( thats save the UV map not save the mesh). After that I would want to open the edited mesh look at the UV map and load the one I had previously saved. this would then leave you with your new mesh with the original mapping.
If you cant do this in milkshape it's possible you may find some free UV mapping software has this functionality.
If not you can zip up the original and your edited meshes (in SMD format) and I will see if I can sort it for you.
Any way hope you have some joy because I know what it's like to spend hours on something then make a silly mistake. I think most 3d software comes with a button marked please make my mesh explode.

[HystearicalParoxysm]

I don't think Milkshape has any functionality for doing what you describe, lagermonkey... Certainly not that I know of and it's about all I use for my uv mapping... it's editor is pretty darn simple, but it's quite... intuitive, so it can be useful if you're not too keen on precision or, um, things like mirroring, etc.

The problem with doing any sort of export/import with hair, body, or accessory meshes (like to do it in an external program) is the possibility of losing bone assignments. Whether or not the hair is animated, or whether the creator has done that step would have a lot to do with whether that's doable... For hair (or anything else) with complex assignments that would be hard to put back, one would want to avoid losing them if at all possible.

Milkshape does appear to have an SMD export function, but I'm not 100% that would be a great option to use. I don't know the details of the nuts and bolts, but a trick to getting meshes to animate properly using the SMD format and SimPE (a little export/import thing that makes animated hair work properly for some... reason.... I'm not quite clear on). Don't know for sure whether it'd break it, but, well, LadyGrey may not know how to fix it if it does break with SMD, nor how to recognize if it's broken by that is all. ;)

[lagermonkey]

the other option would be to rebuild the gmdc and export to smd in sim PE that may be a better bet to make sure the bone assignments stay good.

I know from past experience that if the bone assignments are correct in the smd there will be no problem with the import into and export out of 3d studio. especialy as the mesh wouldn't be getting edited anyway.


It certaily would be easier if milkshape had some way of saving and loading uv maps internally. Maybe there is a plugin somewhere that could do the job.

[Dr Pixel]

Although MilkShape does have a .smd import/export option, the .smd format is useless in MilkShape for body/hair meshing.

Because MilkShape's .smd import/export does NOT support multiple bone assignments, only single assignments per vertex. So all your carefully done multiple vertex assignments would be lost, and your hair would animate like an ironing board in the game.

[LadyGrey]

Wow, thanks for your replies everyone. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to start over *sigh*, but I guess this is just another opportunity to learn from my (rather stupid) mistakes. It could have been worse. I'll definately have to start doing "incremental saves" as HP suggested and, like I said earlier, I think I've learned not to save over the file after clicking strange buttons ><;

edit: HP, you mentioned something about only messing one part up / loading up the original maxis one and working with that. I goofed up the main "hair" part, not any extra "alpha" parts, so I dunno if its fixable xD

[tiggerypum]

LadyGrey. Start new, load in the original Maxis Mesh.
Then load in your changed mesh (you do not want more/extra bones if it asks, I forget how it asks)
Then you can grab the 'hair' from the original and remake those changes, and use the parts from your changed version... if that helps any.

[LadyGrey]

tiggerypum, do you mean renaming/commenting the parts of my changed mesh and replacing the parts of the maxis mesh? Would that work? Or would I have to move all the vertexes again?

[WesHowe]

It certaily would be easier if milkshape had some way of saving and loading uv maps internally. Maybe there is a plugin somewhere that could do the job.

I spent a bunch of time writing a special set of MilkShape plugins to support Sims2 external UV editing. The XOBJ Split exporter saves everything important for a Sims2 mesh except the items that are in a standard .obj file.

You use those two plugins so you can edit the UV in most UV mappers (as long as they keep the vertex order the same). It keeps all the bone assignments and weightings, group comments and so on. Essentially, you use them to split your work into two files, edit your UV map, and then use the importers to reassemble the file.

<* Wes *>

[tiggerypum]

LadyGrey, I assume you remapped _one_ of the groups (but maybe not?) If so, maybe you could have saved your work on the other groups and only redo the one you remapped. (yes, by using some of your new and some of the original as is appropriate and redoing some of the edits).

Always always do your work at bit at a time and save incremental edits. I do give this advice at various points, like when teaching the body meshing, and also in my general advice. I guess sometimes one just has to make the mistake on their own. I'm sorry you lost your work, but next time the editing will probably go a bit quicker anyway, at least it does for me when I have to redo things.

[LadyGrey]

Tiggerypum, the part that I had started to edit was the main hair part. I hadn't edited the alpha's yet. I was saving regularly but I stupidly saved *after* I had messed up the UV map.. unfortunately I make that mistake often so I will definately start saving each major change I make as a *seperate* file. Anyway, thanks everyone for your replies, I don't mind starting over.. its just good practice :)