Help me round the learning curve - clothing

[spatulageekgirl]

The only productive thing I've done this summer so far was to start meshing. Now I'm three days in and pleasantly surprised with my efforts so far but it wouldn't be a "my first mesh" without some issues. :P

I'm working on two of the Lolita dresses that came with the street couture set, detackifying them. Removing some bows and pockets any other things with which EA exceeded their flounce allowance.

I've basically finished LOD1 for both of them on the base mesh (fat and thin morphs weren't exported for some reason but I'll get to that later), and have mostly done the UV maps but I've got a couple of things I need to fix.

First dress in Milkshape.

http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/8981/standcollardress.png

And in Workshop.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/9836/sndshadingissues.png


I don't know if it was a safe thing to do, but I deleted two of the ruffles and used the sims 2 vertex data merge to sew the skirt together again. There's some slight shading issues where it stops and starts on the skirt, but the bigger issues is the shadows on the side-seams. It's something I've seen on poorly made meshes before and obviously just won't do. How does I fixed it? Would I be right in saying it's the normals causing it? Also, will I need to correct bone alignments? How do I go about that?

Links to any good tutorials for these two issues would be greatly appreciated, but I may need to ask and confirm some things as well.

Here's the second dress in Milkshape.
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/429/roundcollardress.png

and in Workshop (obvious bone problems here)
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/2971/rndboneandshadingproble.png

Again, I deleted a bunch of vertexes to get rid of the pockets (though you can see the remnants in the shading) and here it's obviously borked the bone alignment or something, causing that weird plate armour-like effect on the skirt.


Still, for my first time I feel I'm not doing too bad.

Oh, also, don't know where the textures went on workshop, they were there originally. I'm sure I can fix it later.

Things for later:
Fat, thin, fit morphs. HOW?

And watch me test in game where there will surely be some fantastically outrageous mistakes and deformed sims than will make my inner child cry and hide under the covers

[Elexis]

Oh, there are so many things I can tell you about this :heyhey:
First of all, when you're trying to smooth some parts of the mesh, like sewing the skirt parts together, don't use Smooth all function! It will make ALL seams visible, like on the arms and legs you have there. Use Align Normals instead.
Secondly, the Store meshes don't have morphs (at least the ones you can extract and use), so the only way is to move ALL vertices to match EA's morph states. It's a one long and terrifying process even for an expert. Once I made the dress using parts of the Store mesh and it took about 2 weeks to make all morphs by hand.
How does it look in game?

[CmarNYC]

Question - can you extract the BGEO files from store clothing? If so, I'm currently working on a meshing toolkit to include a function to create morph meshes from base meshes and a BGEO. (I was wondering how useful that would be but this may answer that.) If it works out you could do: Original base mesh + BGEO -> morph meshes for original base mesh, then: Altered base mesh + original morph mesh -> new morph mesh, and: New morph mesh -> New BGEO for the morphs for your clothing. A little convoluted but a lot faster and easier than making all the morphs by hand.

[BloomsBase]

Use Demon's alligne normals to fix the seams(search on this site)


All Store outfits have their morphs included.
One of the reasons im sure EA wanted us to mod because the morphs themselves aren't used by the game, only its data is.
Its just a matter of extracting the morphGEOMs from the package and import them in milkshape.

[spatulageekgirl]

Alright, I tested them in game, and they're not too bad, all considered. Obviously they spaz-out when I try to use morphs, but with the fat-thin slider centred they look pretty good. Just a few transparent seams across the skirts.

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/6900/screenshot265jv.jpg
http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/1988/screenshot262c.jpg

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/3861/screenshot268h.jpg
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9235/screenshot272tp.jpg

Safe for me to continue? Fix the shading problem and do the morphs states? I don't mind if I have to do it manually. I'm willing to spend the time on it.

[BloomsBase]

So you are making new morphs?
If so you wont face any problems i guess, it is alot of work tho....


If you want to include the morphs you have to start over.
You extract the base mesh with TSRW as you did earlier and export the morphs from the package file(convert the sims3pack) with either Postal or s3PE as obj file
Those obj files you import in Milkshape together with the base mesh extracted from TSRW
You rename all properly, export and import them back in TSRW

[BloomsBase]

Question - can you extract the BGEO files from store clothing? If so, I'm currently working on a meshing toolkit to include a function to create morph meshes from base meshes and a BGEO. (I was wondering how useful that would be but this may answer that.) If it works out you could do: Original base mesh + BGEO -> morph meshes for original base mesh, then: Altered base mesh + original morph mesh -> new morph mesh, and: New morph mesh -> New BGEO for the morphs for your clothing. A little convoluted but a lot faster and easier than making all the morphs by hand.


I dont think there is much use for it?
You can extract and reuse the Bgeo files but i can not think of a reason why you want to do that. :)
EA includes the morphs wich are more important then the Bgeo when you want to edit the base mesh.

A tool to recreate the morphs from a Bgeo file i would love to have.
But only because my older creations are no longer compatible with the latest versions of TSRW and because i lost all morphs due a hd crash....
So i can not recreate them, like the alphaskirt i once made...

[omegastarr82]

Why have I always thought store content didn't come with the morphs, only the BGEO's? Odd. Either way, I always learn something new when lurking in a Bloom thread.

[spatulageekgirl]

Thanks for all the help so far, they're looking a lot better.

So you are making new morphs?
If so you wont face any problems i guess, it is alot of work tho....


If you want to include the morphs you have to start over.
You extract the base mesh with TSRW as you did earlier and export the morphs from the package file(convert the sims3pack) with either Postal or s3PE as obj file
Those obj files you import in Milkshape together with the base mesh extracted from TSRW
You rename all properly, export and import them back in TSRW

I already converted it to .package cause I was having trouble with it in pack format. I'm a bit confused though, Where do I find the morphs? where Do I export them from/to?

[CmarNYC]

I dont think there is much use for it?
You can extract and reuse the Bgeo files but i can not think of a reason why you want to do that. :)
EA includes the morphs wich are more important then the Bgeo when you want to edit the base mesh.

A tool to recreate the morphs from a Bgeo file i would love to have.
But only because my older creations are no longer compatible with the latest versions of TSRW and because i lost all morphs due a hd crash....
So i can not recreate them, like the alphaskirt i once made...

I agree that EA must have expected modding - why else include all those morph meshes? Unless the idea to compress the data in the BGEO's was last minute and they didn't think to pull the meshes - but the meshes are still there in the expansion packs. Anyway.

Yeah, looks like the ability to create morphs meshes from BGEO files would have limited use but still would come in handy at times, and it wouldn't be hard to do. I'm planning on including it when I finalize my tool - whenever that is! :)

Can you only export/import meshes in TSRW as obj files?? No way to work with simgeom? Don't you lose information? Maybe that's why when people have given me meshes exported from TSRW they had no vertex IDs and were useless for working with morphs.

Strange - the one store package I have has no BGEO files. It has BBLNs that s3pe can't read, and morph VPXYs that point to the morph meshes. Bloom, are all the store packages like this?? Makes me wonder if the game is able to directly use morph meshes after all.

Spatulageekgirl, you really should check out my MorphMatcher tool once you get a hold of the morph meshes - tweaking an updated version of the EA morph is a lot easier than making one from scratch. http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=442393

[BloomsBase]

Not sure if TSRW is updated on this part but meshes exported with TSRW(WSO exporter) uses a diffrent jointorder wich makes SimGEOMs incompatible with TSRW
I did once make a Ms3d file that you can use to convert a SIMGEOM to WSO format but in this case you dont need it.

In theory:
*Convert the sims3pack to package with Delphy's multiinstaller
*Run the file through S3rc
*Open the file with Postal or s3PE and export the morphs(either as obj file or as SimGEOM)
*Clone the package(or sims3pack) with TSRW and export the base mesh in the meshtab

Milkshape:
*Import the base mesh with the WSO importer
*Import the morphs with OBJ importer or WEs H his SimGEOM importer
*Rename the morphs
*Export all 5 with WSO exporter.

The WSO importer/exporter does not support vertId's because you dont need them in Milkshape.
The moment you import your meshes back into TSRW, TSRW will assigne all meshes with vertID's

Lol Cmar, i never noticed that the Bgeo's aren't there......Now im really confused wich file i once used to try to reuse the Bgeo file????
The BBLN's are the BBlend files but the link to the Bgeo in it i can not find anywere else....
And when trying to view the Bgeo file i get a error in Postal(but prolly cos Postal is looking in the basegame fullbuild...)

[CmarNYC]

Curiouser and curiouser! The store stuff seems to use a different version of the bblend format, which points to a VPXY instead of a BGEO. This must be why both s3pe and Postal error on it.The VPXY in turn points to morph meshes. If this means the game can use morph meshes directly this could simplify the process of CC clothing, although I suspect it might slow the game a little.

[spatulageekgirl]

Spatulageekgirl, you really should check out my MorphMatcher tool once you get a hold of the morph meshes - tweaking an updated version of the EA morph is a lot easier than making one from scratch. http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=442393

YES. I was just about to ask about this issue, given I was deleting vertexes with wild abandon and have no idea how I'd go about recreating what I'd done so far on the morph meshes. Thank you, this is exactly what I need.

Opening one of the packages (the peter-pan collar dress) in S3pe, there are 12 GEOM files, how do I know which, if any, are the Morph meshes? Is it just a case of exporting them all and looking?

That only leaves two more issues for now. 1 Being the weird bone alignment (I'm assuming) in the second mesh and 2 being an error message I'm getting when trying to import another edited mesh from milkshape into Workshop. Something about it was expecting 3000 vertex and found 0. Any ideas?

[CmarNYC]

Here's a rough guide on how to find the morph meshes (been figuring this out myself!). I'm assuming your store package is constructed the same way the one I have is - otherwise it's back to the drawing board.

1. Open in s3pe. Find and click the CASP file. On the left part of the screen with the details, look for "BlendInfoFatIndex:". There will be a hex number there - I'll use the example 0x0C.
2. Scroll down in that left detail display to "CountedTGIBlockList:" and the list of numbers and hex IDs at the end. Find the same hex number, to use the example "0x0C:". There will be three hex numbers next to it - the Type, Group, and Instance IDs (TGI). (You need the Instance ID, which is the last and longest one.)
3. Now find the VPXY file that has the same instance ID. (It will have a different Type ID - just ignore that. TLDR: the CASP points to the BBLN, which points to a VPXY with the same Instance ID.)
4. Click the VPXY file. In the details display, look about halfway down at the EntryList. There will be a list of EntryID and TGIIndexes. The EntryID number is the lod number of the morph mesh. The TGIIndex is the number of the entry in the TGIBlockList at the bottom where you can find the TGI of the actual morph mesh. For example, if the third entry in the EntryList is EntryID 0x01 and the TGIIndex is 0x00000002, I look in the TGIBlockList at the bottom, find number [2], and the three hex codes next to it are the TGI of my lod 1 morph mesh.
5. Now find the GEOM with the same Instance ID (again, the last and longest hex number) and there's your morph mesh.

Confusing, I know, but after a little practice it's not too bad.

[spatulageekgirl]

Yeah, took a few re-reads but I've got it. Once it has formed in my head as meanings and picture rather than strings of letters and numbers, it'll come naturally.

So, now I've got it, I import it into milkshape, over the base mesh (right?), rename it (what do I call them?), use your morphmatcher, and import back into workshop? Sounds do-able.

[CmarNYC]

Basically, yes, except MorphMatcher is separate from Milkshape. Make sure you have the modified base mesh and the original morph meshes, plug them into MorphMatcher, leave the option to renumber checked, and save a new, renumbered base mesh and new morph meshes. Then you can import the new renumbered base mesh into Milkshape and the new morph meshes on top of it. They will show up as different groups in the groups tab. Rename the morphs so you can easily tell them apart - any names will do.

This is all assuming you're working with meshes exported directly from the package - TSRW seems to export them without the vertex IDs that MorphMatcher needs although I think if you export a package with TSRW the meshes will be in the proper format with vertex IDs. I'm working on an addition to MorphMatcher to handle that situation but it'll be a little while. If you need it now I'll try to hurry it up.

Edit: I may have to take back the paragraph above - if you edit a mesh that has no vertex IDs, unless you don't change any vertex positions or normals my tool won't have any way to match them up with the original morph mesh vertices. You really have to work with a numbered mesh.

[spatulageekgirl]

I should be able to just export my new meshes as sims3packs and extract the package files from there. I'll let you know if I run into any trouble. :)

[BloomsBase]

Yeah, took a few re-reads but I've got it. Once it has formed in my head as meanings and picture rather than strings of letters and numbers, it'll come naturally.

So, now I've got it, I import it into milkshape, over the base mesh (right?), rename it (what do I call them?), use your morphmatcher, and import back into workshop? Sounds do-able.

Do a test first because in the past it wasn't possible to export a GEOM with s3PE or Postal and use that GEOM in TSRW.(after converted with Milkshape)
Wes his plugin and TSRW's plugin use a diffrent joint order.
I included a ms3d file that lets you convert both formats
You open the file first, then import a GEOM
I renamed the joints on the skeleton
You then can export the file as WSO(TSRW) file

http://www.2shared.com/file/3edP1pi9/WSO_skeleton.html?cau2=403tNull

[CmarNYC]

Bloom, I'm confused about this:

Are the game meshes and the TSRW meshes only incompatible because of the order of the joints in the skeleton? I don't really understand that - the bones are assigned to joints by joint number/name, aren't they? Why does the order of the joints make a difference?

How is a WSO mesh different from simgeom? Is it only that the vertex IDs are missing? Does WSO mean Workshop something something? :)

Sigh, I guess I'm going to have to install TSRW so I can test how my tools work with Workshop.

Edit: Never mind, I found a format specification for WSO files. They're basically the vertex and bone information for the base and the morphs rolled into one with the header and TGI stuff missing. (Another reason they're incompatible?) I'm going to look into adapting my tools to work with them.

[spatulageekgirl]

Oh dear. What did I do wrong?
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6117/thatsnotafatmorph.png

[CmarNYC]

Yikes! :) What did you do? Please describe the steps you went through that resulted in this.

[spatulageekgirl]

Well, I'd saved the original fat morph geom. I then exported my edited base mesh from workshop in pack format, used the multi-installer to turn it into package format, ran it through compressorizer, opened it in S3pe, saved the LOD1 geom from that package and ran the two of them through morph-matcher.

It's fascinating really, it's the exact deformation seen in my in-game screenshots.

[spatulageekgirl]

Ah, I wasn't paying attention properly the first time. Tried it again and there was an error when importing the renumbered basemesh into milkshape. No bone file, default skeleton used, no hashed bone something-or-other. Tried the WSO skeleton thing, tried morph-matcher again and got the same deformation, though it fixed the hashed bone error. Was I using it right?

[CmarNYC]

The 'no skeleton' error is normal, and the simgeom importer uses a default skeleton. The hashed bone error is also almost always not an issue and you can ignore it. However, maybe differences between the simgeom skeleton and the TSRW-generated skeleton is being a problem although I still don't see how bone order would cause these issues.

Did you save the original game morph mesh and use it in MorphMatcher with the TSRW-generated base mesh? Because I have the feeling TSRW renumbers the meshes (I recall Bloom said it renumbers on import), and if the numbers have been changed MorphMatcher won't match the vertices properly and IMO you'd get exactly this kind of random distortion. Can you upload the base mesh and morph mesh you're using so I can look?

This weekend I should have time to experiment some with TSRW and get a better handle on what it does with the meshes and hopefully how to get my tools to work with it. I'll update here.

[spatulageekgirl]

That might be the problem, yeah. I can upload the meshes tomorrow (in a rush today, just about to hop a train). Thank you so much for being so helpful, I really appreciate it. :)

[BloomsBase]

Just did a test with the latest version of TSRW and it seems you can use (sim)GEOM's with it.
Not sure on wich version they made the update.

I extracted the afbodydresstighthalter(lod1 and lod1_1) with CTU and imported them in Milkshape
I renamed them correctly then exported as WSO files
Imported both in a clone of the afbodydresstighthalter and when loading a animation file all seems to work correctly.
Didn't check the morphs but since they dont have boneassignements they should not give any problems.


Meshes exported with TSRW do have vertID's, srry for the wrong info.....
The moment you import custom meshes back into TSRW base mesh and morph's will get new vertID's
The WSO exporter does NOT do this

Hope this clear things up

[CmarNYC]

Thanks, Bloom, that info helps a lot. :) Sounds like the procedure may be to start with the game base and morphs, whether as simgeom or WSO, then:

CTU:
Modify base mesh in Milkshape, export, run MorphMatcher with renumbering, import new base and new morphs into Milkshape for tweaking, export all, build new package and use MorphMaker to add morphs.

TSRW:
Export as WSO, import into Milkshape, export morphs as simgeoms before making any changes, modify base and export as simgeom, run MorphMatcher with renumbering, import new base and new morphs into Milkshape for tweaking, export as WSO, import into TSRW.

This is totally off the top of my head and I'm not sure how well WSO converts to simgeom and vice versa - will try it out this weekend.

[spatulageekgirl]

I tried it again with just exporting the base mesh directly from milkshape and it still didn't work. This time, though, it seems that it didn't even renumber the morph. "Vertex tag value does not match base". Neither time that I used morphmatcher did the window with all the numbers on it pop up after asking me to save the morph. Only did it with the base mesh. I don't know if that's normal or not, though.
Here are the geom files, thanks for doing this. :)
http://www.mediafire.com/?xahr3d2o4fgy70f

[BloomsBase]

You forgot to load the correct meshcomments(if you are using CTU) in the basemesh
You should upload a ms3d file from the basemesh and morph(while loaded together)
Then we might can figure out whats wrong with the morph

[CmarNYC]

I see what the problem is - the base mesh has no vertex ID numbers, or rather it has them but they're all zero. MorphMatcher has no way to match them up with the morph vertices. How or why the base vertex IDs all got set to zero I don't know but it must have happened somewhere in the process of extracting it and/or importing and exporting with TSRW. Do you have the mesh in any other format, like a WSO?

At this point your choices may be to start over, extract your base mesh and make sure it has the vertex numbering intact (you can use MorphMaker to see what the range of vertex IDs is) and do your mesh alteration again, or make the morphs from scratch.

[BloomsBase]

it happened because he forgot the correct meshcomments, all data will be lost then.
If you use a TSRW mesh you must add the correct comments when exporting the file with the GEOM exporter
When you forget the basemesh gets the same comments as a morphfile
I think i once downloaded the meshes, ill try to create a new sims3pack with TSRW

[CmarNYC]

Bloom, that would be the original, unedited base mesh, wouldn't it? If Spatulageekgirl has the edited WSO maybe I can get the modified base mesh from that.

[spatulageekgirl]

If I have to do the morphs from scratch, I can. I'm sure it'll be good practice anyway but let's make sure I can't recover the vertex numbering first. I have the mesh in WSO and MS3D, but like I said, I tried exporting the ms3d file as a geom and got nowhere.
I exported the WSO as a geom and morphmatcher says the next available vertex ID is 2910 (is that what you mean by using it the see what the range is?), though it says the same thing about the geom exported from the ms3D file.

How do I avoid this happening in the future?

[BloomsBase]

I tried exporting the ms3d file as a geom and got nowhere.


Because you forgot to add the comments

[spatulageekgirl]

Would help to know what comments are and how I add them.

[BloomsBase]

If you work with TSRW all data is stored in the WRK file like:
The skeleton used
The MTNF settings(materials)
The shader used
The Texture links
etcetc

But if you work with (sim)GEOM's all that data is stored in the GEOM file itself
Extract a mesh with CTU/Postal or s3PE and open it in Milkshape, then have a look at the comments in the groupstab(meshgroups)
You prolly see something like this:

FVFItems: 7
TableType: 3
References: 4
TGIRef00: 00B2D882 00000000 7D0097C0 BFEB295B
TGIRef01: 00B2D882 00000000 7D0097C0 BFEB2958
TGIRef02: 00B2D882 00000000 7D0097C0 BFEB2946
TGIRef03: 00AE6C67 0040AFF2 00000000 621BE901
EmbeddedType: 548394B9
EmbeddedSize: 304
EmbeddedLong000: 464E544D
EmbeddedLong001: 00000000
EmbeddedLong002: 00000070
EmbeddedLong003: 0000000B
EmbeddedLong004: DAA9532D
EmbeddedLong005: 00000001
EmbeddedLong006: 00000001
EmbeddedLong007: 000000C0
EmbeddedLong008: 29BCDD1F
EmbeddedLong009: 00000001
EmbeddedLong010: 00000001
EmbeddedLong011: 000000C4
EmbeddedLong012: 6E56548A
EmbeddedLong013: 00000004
EmbeddedLong014: 00000004
EmbeddedLong015: 000000C8
EmbeddedLong016: 73C9923E
EmbeddedLong017: 00000001
EmbeddedLong018: 00000003
EmbeddedLong019: 000000D8
EmbeddedLong020: 6CC0FD85
EmbeddedLong021: 00000004
EmbeddedLong022: 00000004
EmbeddedLong023: 000000E4
EmbeddedLong024: F755F7FF
EmbeddedLong025: 00000001
EmbeddedLong026: 00000001
EmbeddedLong027: 000000F4
EmbeddedLong028: 05D22FD3
EmbeddedLong029: 00000001
EmbeddedLong030: 00000001
EmbeddedLong031: 000000F8
EmbeddedLong032: 3BD441A0
EmbeddedLong033: 00000001
EmbeddedLong034: 00000003
EmbeddedLong035: 000000FC
EmbeddedLong036: 04A5DAA3
EmbeddedLong037: 00000001
EmbeddedLong038: 00000003
EmbeddedLong039: 00000108
EmbeddedLong040: AD528A60
EmbeddedLong041: 00000004
EmbeddedLong042: 00000004
EmbeddedLong043: 00000114
EmbeddedLong044: 988403F9
EmbeddedLong045: 00000001
EmbeddedLong046: 00000003
EmbeddedLong047: 00000124
EmbeddedLong048: 3F800000
EmbeddedLong049: 3F000000
EmbeddedLong050: 00000000
EmbeddedLong051: 00000000
EmbeddedLong052: 00000000
EmbeddedLong053: 00000000
EmbeddedLong054: 00000000
EmbeddedLong055: 00000000
EmbeddedLong056: 00000000
EmbeddedLong057: 00000001
EmbeddedLong058: 00000000
EmbeddedLong059: 00000000
EmbeddedLong060: 00000000
EmbeddedLong061: 41A00000
EmbeddedLong062: 3F800000
EmbeddedLong063: 00000000
EmbeddedLong064: 00000000
EmbeddedLong065: 00000000
EmbeddedLong066: 00000000
EmbeddedLong067: 00000000
EmbeddedLong068: 00000000
EmbeddedLong069: 00000002
EmbeddedLong070: 00000000
EmbeddedLong071: 00000000
EmbeddedLong072: 00000000
EmbeddedLong073: 00000000
EmbeddedLong074: 00000000
EmbeddedLong075: 00000000


The FVFitems # determine wether the mesh is slider/Tagval enabled
6 is not slider or tagval enabled(accesoires)
7 is slider enabled(ouitfits)
8 is both(hair)
Forgot wat tabletype is....
References: 4 (number of TGI links present)
The first 2 or 3 TGI references are the multiplier, specular and Normalmaptexture
The last TGI reference is always the skeleton used, each outfit has 3 skeletons(one for each lod)
I think the embeddedtype is the shader used while the embeddedsize and below are the MTNF settings

So is you save a TSRW mesh as GEOM file you need to add all that data, if not the vertID's will be lost

[spatulageekgirl]

So, could I import the original store mesh with the geom plugin this time and copy the comments from there to the one I borked with tsrw?

[BloomsBase]

If you import the original store mesh with the GEOM plugin the comments are already there.
And you will only need them if you are going to use Morphmaker

[CmarNYC]

So, could I import the original store mesh with the geom plugin this time and copy the comments from there to the one I borked with tsrw?

That has a good chance of working, IMO.

Today I'm working on a WSO morphmatching function. If you could upload your WSO file I could use it as a test case.

As for renumbering - you need to start the numbers with the proper value for the kind of mesh you're working on:

Tops and bodies: 5000
Bottoms: 15000
Hair: 20000
Shoes: 30000

Edit: I was able to make what seems to be a fully functional mesh by copying the comments from the original game mesh into the comments of a WSO mesh and exporting as a geom. However, this was for someone working on a pose and it didn't animate correctly so maybe that bone incompatibility is still there, Bloom.

I've got the WSO morph updater working, just have to make sure I didn't break the geom morph updater in the process.

Edit again: I've uploaded a new version of the Morph Matcher tool with WSO support, if you want to try it.

[spatulageekgirl]

I added the comment and ran it, with the original's morph meshes through the new version and I'm still getting the deformation I got the first time. I feel so stupid. :(

Alright, how do I go about making them from scratch? Do I duplicate the base or something? I might as well make a start while we're working through this problem.

[CmarNYC]

Yeah, there seems to be some problem with exporting WSO meshes as geoms. I'm putting it on my list to try making a convert function. I think I see where the bone order is a problem, and if so it should be fixable.

Are you working with a WSO? I guess to make the morphs from scratch you would delete any morphs that are already there, then go to the groups tab and select the entire base mesh, and then hit 'Edit' and 'Duplicate Selection'. Then rename that duplicate to the same name as the base but with _fat, _fit, _thin, or _special instead of _base. Then you have to modify the morph mesh to a fat, fit, thin, or pregnant shape. The best way is probably to import a WSO for a similar mesh and use the morphs from that as a guide. You can work freehand to shape the mesh, or you can move the guide mesh above the mesh you're working on, select a vertex from the guide mesh and the corresponding vertex from your mesh, and use the Vertex/Sims 2 Unimesh Vertex Data Merge tool to copy the guide mesh location to your mesh's vertex. And be sure to hide all the meshes except the ones you're working with so you don't modify the wrong one.

BTW, didn't you say something about TSRW not exporting the morphs for this outfit? If that's true it could be because the store packages seem to do the morphs differently, with the actual meshes instead of a BGEO. TSRW may not handle that correctly.

[spatulageekgirl]

Yep, working with the WSO. That's what I thought. :) Sounds time consuming but I'll manage. I Already exported the fat and thin meshes of a swimsuit as a guide. Saw it in a tutorial a while back.

Yes, it only exported the base. Though I may have complicated matters myself slightly. I converted my store sims3packs to package because I couldn't get them to install, so I had to import them from there. Perhaps TSRW gets a bit buggy when it comes to package importing? It works fine for all the basegame stuff. ...Well, except when it exports bits of the same mesh in separate groups. That was a bit weird. Random bits of fingers floating about on their own and stuff.

Good luck with all the programming, we're lucky to have you here. :) I'll be back soon with questions about aligning bones.

[BloomsBase]

You have to do it like i explained earlier:
Clone the outfit with TSRW and export the basemesh(the morphs will not be there as Cmar explained already why. TSRW only recocnize Bgeo instead of morphfiles)
Export the morphs with s3PE as GEOM or as obj with Postal
Load the base mesh as WSO file in Milkshape, then add the morphs as obj file(i dont know if you can add the GEOM morphs, otherwise try that)
Rename all meshgroups properly and export as WSO file
Reimport the mesh back into TSRW in the EP cloned outfit or create a new one with a basegame outfit

[spatulageekgirl]

I'm trying to achieve this in a way that doesn't involve me going back and starting my base mesh from scratch. I guess I may have to in the end, we'll see.

[spatulageekgirl]

Got a new problem with morph mesh updater. Now it just creates morph meshes identical to the base.

[CmarNYC]

Are you trying the morph updater again? Could you list all the steps you went through, and whether you're using geom or WSO files? Identical morphs can happen if the numbering of the vertices has been changed so the base and morph meshes are using different ranges of numbers.

[spatulageekgirl]

I tried it with both the lolita dress and a basic pair of trousers I'm working on. I imported the base into milkshape using CTU this time. I found the morphs for the trousers in the fullbuild0 package with s3pe and exported them, and ran them through morph updater. I set the starting number to 15000. I made sure I was using all the lod1 files. Can't see what I did wrong. I saved the resulting files and upon importing them back into milkshape they were all identical BUT THEN MAGIC HAPPENED. I went to get the original morphs for the trousers, importing them over my edited base mesh (intending to edit them by hand because they're not as complicated as the dress) and they were already matched.

So, either there are pixies in my computer or morph updater saved the changes to the original file, rather than the one created by the program.

[CmarNYC]

Did you change the base mesh by adding or removing vertices? If not, the morph meshes will work fine with no matching. As for morph matcher, I need to spend more time testing it. If you could upload your modified trouser base mesh, that would help.

[spatulageekgirl]

I see. I was wondering what was going on there.

Weird, though. Cause I just got morph matcher to work on a top with removed vertexes. In won't import back into workshop, though. Any clue why? Workshop's saying it can't locate the fat blending data. Is the morph mesh in the wrong format or something?

I'll upload both for you. Do you want them in .ms3d?

[CmarNYC]

.ms3d is fine. The WSO part of MorphMatcher isn't working correctly so at this time I wouldn't advise using it on a WSO.

[spatulageekgirl]

http://www.mediafire.com/?dkvloef4f8vf5np

No problem, I'm just working on a few things that don't require removing vertexes at the moment. I look forward to seeing all this up and running smoothly, though.

[WesHowe]

TableType: 3

Forgot wat tabletype is....


I'm not sure I know what it is used for. But it appears in the GEOM and the comment is how it gets set to be the same value as was in the original GEOM.

<* Wes *>

[CmarNYC]

I see. I was wondering what was going on there.

Weird, though. Cause I just got morph matcher to work on a top with removed vertexes. In won't import back into workshop, though. Any clue why? Workshop's saying it can't locate the fat blending data. Is the morph mesh in the wrong format or something?

I'll upload both for you. Do you want them in .ms3d?

I took a look - exported both as TSRW Object and the meshes import fine into TSRW. I suspect there will be problems, though, because of the bones incompatibility, unless TSRW fixes that automatically.

So I'm not sure what the problem is - with the trousers, if you added or removed vertices the original morphs should not have imported into Milkshape over the edited base mesh. BTW, with the skirt WSO you had earlier that went all wonky with Updater, there was something strange going on with the vertex ID numbering. When I renumbered the meshes before using Updater it worked fine except for the normals issues I'm still working on.

[spatulageekgirl]

Look! I made a thing! An amazing morphing thing!
Well, really, it doesn't look like much, but I'm proud of it. I just need to work on the texture a bit more and find the bump-map to fix.
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c336/SpatulaGeekGirl/ohmygodimadeathing.png

I didn't delete any vertexes from the trouser mesh, just paying around, trying to get them to fit into the supervillain boots. Which skirt is it your talking about? Is it the dress I posted on page 1, where it looks like a freeze-frame of a sim-shaped water balloon bursting?

[CmarNYC]

Looks very nice! The skirt I was talking about was the one that looked like you had pulled a short skirt up so it was around the hips.

[spatulageekgirl]

Thanks, it's looking even better now I've improved the uv mapping and added the bump-map.

As for the skirt you're talking about, I don't think that was me. I haven't been doing anything with short skirts.

Edit: Oh, did you say you got the sleeveless top I edited to import into workshop properly? How did you do it? If we can figure that out, I think most of my problems will be solved. It all more or less stems from the store items' incompatibility with tsrw (probably intentional on EA's part).

[BloomsBase]

The easiest way would be to create the missing Bgeo files and add them to the Store outfit.
I think TSRW will be able to read them then?(maybe also update the Bblend)

[spatulageekgirl]

Alrighty, how do I do that then? Am I basically converting the morphs files that come with the store outfits into a different format?

Oh, guess what, by putting packages in a directory named gamedata/shared/packages/ I got tsrw to think it was a stuff pack and show them for cloning. Might be a handy tip if anyone gets sick of using the import function.

[CmarNYC]

Thanks, it's looking even better now I've improved the uv mapping and added the bump-map.

As for the skirt you're talking about, I don't think that was me. I haven't been doing anything with short skirts.

Edit: Oh, did you say you got the sleeveless top I edited to import into workshop properly? How did you do it? If we can figure that out, I think most of my problems will be solved. It all more or less stems from the store items' incompatibility with tsrw (probably intentional on EA's part).

Sorry, mixed you up with someone else!

For the sleeveless top, all I did was export it from Milkshape to WSO with the TSRW exporter. Are you using the latest version of TSRW and the Milkshape plugins?

[spatulageekgirl]

Sorry, mixed you up with someone else!

For the sleeveless top, all I did was export it from Milkshape to WSO with the TSRW exporter. Are you using the latest version of TSRW and the Milkshape plugins?

That's okay, no worries. :)

Pretty positive. Just downloaded the newest version of workshop a couple of days ago, and, of course, I've got the WSO plugin. I keep getting the the error that it can't find the fat blending data. I'll try a couple more times. If all else fails, I suppose you could send me the .wrk file. Are you sure the morphs are working for it?

Edit: YES! I fixed it. The problem was in the project file, not the mesh. I started a new project with one of the base game meshes and imported the WSO into that and it works! I'll finish it up and test in game to see if the skeleton is going to be an issue.

[BloomsBase]

Thats why i suspect adding the Bblend and Bgeo files will fix the issue.
You need Cmar's Body morphmaker for it

[spatulageekgirl]

LOOKIE! :D
I've finished the first texture. I'm going to do two more, then I might upload it (depending on the results, I'll see how I feel about it once they're all done).
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c336/SpatulaGeekGirl/Screenshot-177.jpg

[birdyfly]

This looks amazing! I would definitely download it if you do upload it. :)
I love the look of it overall and the last picture you posted gives it that vintage feel.

[spatulageekgirl]

Thanks, I'm glad you like it! As long as someone wants it, I'll upload it. Will try to solider through and get the next two done asap.

[spatulageekgirl]

Done.

I posted them on GOS because it's a bit more low-key.

http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=23914.0

[sciguy77]

Do a test first because in the past it wasn't possible to export a GEOM with s3PE or Postal and use that GEOM in TSRW.(after converted with Milkshape)
Wes his plugin and TSRW's plugin use a diffrent joint order.
I included a ms3d file that lets you convert both formats
You open the file first, then import a GEOM
I renamed the joints on the skeleton
You then can export the file as WSO(TSRW) file

http://www.2shared.com/file/3edP1pi9/WSO_skeleton.html?cau2=403tNull
I got linked directly to this post and can't read the original thread or any comments made to it. If these questions are redundant -- sorry!
So I should open this MS3D file and import a geom. Is there anything else I need to do to copy the new skeleton? It sounds like all I have to do from this point is rename the geom to group_base and add the morph meshgroups, then export as a wso. Does that cover it?

[BloomsBase]

yup, i renamed all the joints to the ones that the WSO exporter uses
rename the file and export