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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd Jan 2014 at 10:03 PM
Default Adjusting a mesh to work well in-game
I'm making a full body transparent dress, but because of bone limitations and the fact that it has to be left opaque I can only use half of the body. If I attach the backfaces directly to the front of the mesh without a gap and copy the normals from front to back, will I have any problems with it showing through?
Lastly, is it possible to set this up as separate top and bottom packages, but only have one of them display in CAS and when its chosen, both load automatically? If I can do that, I can get the whole body into the outfit, assign all the bones, and get a little more room on the UV map.
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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#2 Old 24th Jan 2014 at 1:47 PM
If anyone is interested, I tested a full body dress in-game using the method described above to create the backfaces. It looked very good in both TSRW and the game. Most of my meshes are layered, and the work this will save when fixing morphs is huge. If someone cares to try it, make a duplicate of the outer layer, reverse the vertex order, and align its normals. This step may not be necessary, but its only a couple of mouse clicks and I didn't try it without doing so. If you just reverse the vertex order and align the normals your mesh will look black in TSRW. The next step can take a while, depending on how complex your mesh is. Make sure the outer layer is above the backface layer in the groups tab and go through each vert copying the normals front to back. If you leave your model smooth shaded and work from the inside, you can see each vert turn dark as the normal data is copied. To make sure you don't miss any hit CTRL+H to hide the vert as soon as you're done. Its also a good idea to make sure the copy function is executing if you're working a small area and getting inside isn't an option. I run out of memory from time to time while doing this, but I have a lot of stuff running in the background. When the copy is executed successfully, a message will display in the message window saying "parsing xxx". If that stops, save the mesh as an ms3d, close and reopen MS, and load the saved project again. Do all of the verts on the entire backfaced area.
Compared to making all the edges for a backface and then sorting them all when they get borked in the morphs, it saves a lot of time and is MUCH easier to deal with.
Ms. Byte (Deceased)
#3 Old 24th Jan 2014 at 11:23 PM
No way I know of to auto load both a top and bottom, unfortunately. You'll have to use a three-part mesh, which is a pain in TSRW since I don't know offhand of any EA three-part meshes.

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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#4 Old 25th Jan 2014 at 12:07 PM
Thanks for the tip on 3 part meshes. Nysha suggested the same solution in the CAS Parts forum. This will solve all kinds of issues! I'm making a full body, tight fitting dress to put in there and then use as a template. Once its done and clipping has been reduced as much as possible, all that will need to be done to make drastically different outfits is change the multiplier.
IF anyone needs a 3 part mesh package, BloomsBase posted one in the CAS Parts forum. Here's the link:
http://modthesims.info/t/493347
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