Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 18th Nov 2014 at 6:44 PM Last edited by brownieswife : 20th Nov 2014 at 7:35 PM.
Default Hair conversion gone wrong - Update - still need help
I used simstemptation's hair conversion tutorial and I do all the steps but when my hair is finished and I go to recolor it in S4Studio or check it out in game, the hair is in chunks/ribbons instead of strands. What do I need to do to make the hair look like hair? Images of what I'm talking about are attached. Thank you for any help in advance.
Screenshots
Advertisement
Lab Assistant
#2 Old 18th Nov 2014 at 11:21 PM
Did you set the hair to use the SimGlass Shader? Alpha hair only works when using SimGlass Shaders. I believe you can set the GEOMS use to SimGlass Shaders by using S4PE. Could someone confirm this is correct?

The Sims Forever
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 18th Nov 2014 at 11:34 PM Last edited by brownieswife : 19th Nov 2014 at 6:33 AM. Reason: adding files and more information
Yeah, I just checked both files and the shaders are set to simglass.

I'm attaching the .package files. Maybe if someone takes a look they can tell me what is going wrong.
Attached files:
File Type: zip  brownieswife_newsea-cauliflower-and-perry-conversions.zip (22.05 MB, 13 downloads) - View custom content
Lab Assistant
#4 Old 19th Nov 2014 at 9:27 AM
Quote: Originally posted by SimsForever15
Did you set the hair to use the SimGlass Shader? Alpha hair only works when using SimGlass Shaders. I believe you can set the GEOMS use to SimGlass Shaders by using S4PE. Could someone confirm this is correct?

Yep, that's correct.
Quote: Originally posted by brownieswife
Yeah, I just checked both files and the shaders are set to simglass.

I'm attaching the .package files. Maybe if someone takes a look they can tell me what is going wrong.

For perry hair, there's no alpha channel for that texture to act like strands. It's just a square. You need to open the original texture, copy it's alpha channel, resize it to fit your texture and paste it to your textures alpha channel.

For cauliflower, there's an alpha, but the part which is the hair roots is probably not alpha'd as strands but chunks instead, this may be because of the difference in shaders. I marked some areas that may be hair roots but i'm not sure. If the original textures alpha is also like this, you may need to paint some additional strands to the hair roots in your alpha texture.
A second probability is, UV map is a bit smaller than texture and it doesn't cover transparent areas, and transparent areas are not seen because of this.
Screenshots
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 19th Nov 2014 at 7:40 PM Last edited by brownieswife : 19th Nov 2014 at 10:42 PM.
Okay so I added and resized the alpha to the perry hair. The attached pictures are what it looks like now :/

Edit: I converted another hair. Went through all the steps of the tutorial and it still came out in chunks/ribbons/blocky. Picture attached.
Screenshots
Test Subject
Original Poster
#6 Old 21st Nov 2014 at 5:54 AM
Sorry for the double post but what more can I do/send to you to help with my hair? Should I send the new package file for the perry hair?
Lab Assistant
#7 Old 21st Nov 2014 at 9:44 AM
Alpha still looks off, and textures look really pixelated, there may be a problem with uv mapping.
I guess i should take a look at the mesh, it also looks like it's not the highest lod, so please send the new package file for the perry hair.
Btw, that tutorial really needs to be updated.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#8 Old 21st Nov 2014 at 7:49 PM
I agree about the tutorial needing some updating. The file is attached.
Attached files:
File Type: zip  brownieswife_newsea_j193_perry_conversion.zip (7.34 MB, 8 downloads) - View custom content
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 22nd Nov 2014 at 10:11 AM Last edited by Notegain : 22nd Nov 2014 at 10:25 AM.
UV mapping is not scaled correctly, so even if your texture has alpha, mesh doesn't use the correct part of it.

Step 16, page 9 of that tutorial. But there's some additional info needed i guess.
Sims 3 hair meshes use a square texture map, when a rectangular one is used (like sims 4 texture maps) they stretch vertically and become a rectangle. You need to arrange them to fit in a 512x512 area but doing that blindly (without seeing the texture it uses) causes this kind of problems.
To fix this.
1.Go to Package mesh import/export tab in CASTools
2.Export your mesh in S3 format and S4 format and save both.
3.Import it to milkshape with Sims 3 GEOM importer
4.Go to materials tab (Right panel)
5.Press new.
6.Press upper <none> and select your texture (the texture you prepared with alpha)
7.Go to groups tab and double click on the GEOM-00 entry there.
8.Go to materials tab again and press assign. Now you will see your mesh with textures you prepared.
9.Press window>texture coordinate editor on the upper left menu.
Now you will see the editor in my screenshot.
You must scale and move the UV map to fit your texture and you will see the texture on the mesh changes as you do that, so you can arrange the uv mapping properly. Example:

10.When you are done, export your mesh with S3 GEOM exporter.
11.Go to geom convert/update tab in CASTools.
12. "Convert modified mesh back to TS4 format with original mesh as reference" option, select your newly exported S3 mesh for "S3 GEOM" selection
13. Select the S4 mesh you exported in the 2nd step for "Original S4 GEOM" selection.
14. Press convert to S4. Save.
15. Go to Package mesh import/export tab in CASTools and press import.
16. Select the S4 mesh you created in the 14th step.
17.Press Save Package and then press Close package.
Try in game.
You may skip step 16 in that tutorial and do all the UV mapping arrangement in milkshape.
Screenshots
Test Subject
Original Poster
#10 Old 22nd Nov 2014 at 7:23 PM Last edited by brownieswife : 22nd Nov 2014 at 8:33 PM.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have hair strands now! At first I had the uv map too low so the top of the hair was really messed up but I fixed it. Now I have some holes, can those be fixed by messing with the uv, or is it the hair? And the front of her hair has this funny little piece right at the forehead. Is that a part I didn't cover with the uv? Photos attached so you know what I'm talking about.

*Edit: I redid the cauliflower hair using the same uv mapping trick you showed me in milkshape but now there are holes in it.* Photos attached to show what I mean.

Another edit: I was able to get rid of the shiny green things. The texture had been smaller than the alpha. Fixed that and the green things disappeared.
Screenshots
Lab Assistant
#11 Old 24th Nov 2014 at 10:37 AM Last edited by Notegain : 24th Nov 2014 at 10:54 AM.
This hair is mapped to a bigger area than it should be, and it conflicts with bracelets and glasses. Your texture should be 512x512 from the to left of the 1024x2048 texture.
You need to select your texture with alpha channel and take it a bit left, then arrange the UV map in milkshape to match it again.
This is the area hair texture should be, the part on the right of the square belongs to some accessories and hats, they are conflicting with each other and you are seeing the bracelet texture on your hair mesh.


Step 11 to 17 i wrote above was to preserve bone assignments for hair since importing something with sims 4 bones into milkshape changes them, but i saw it's assigned to head only, in this case you can import the mesh you exported from milkshape, with CASTools, directly in sims 3 format since you didn't change any vertices/faces.

If you want a hair mesh to move with neck and shoulders and have a smoother animation, (you may already know this but i'm still writing as a reference):
1. Clone a hair which has a shape like yours with castools (My favorite is long rocker hair for this kind of medium length hair)
2. Export it's lod0_2 mesh in Sims 4 format in package/mesh import export tab
3. Go to auto conversion tab,
4. Select the mesh you exported from milkshape in "S3 or obj" selection
5. Select the S4 mesh you exported in step 2 in "S4 reference mesh" selection (For example long rocker hair mesh lod0_2)
6. Select "Keep original shader" at the bottom (this makes it keep the Simglass shader so it's important)
7. Press go

This will give you a S4 mesh with nice bone assignments, then you can import it back to your package in package/mesh import export tab.
Screenshots
Test Subject
Original Poster
#12 Old 25th Nov 2014 at 5:40 AM
I'll work on that. Do you know why there are holes in my cauliflower hair? Or is it the same problem as above? And thanks for helping me, I really, really, really do appreciate all the help you've given me.
Test Subject
#13 Old 1st Dec 2014 at 1:08 PM
Quote: Originally posted by brownieswife
I used simstemptation's hair conversion tutorial and I do all the steps but when my hair is finished and I go to recolor it in S4Studio or check it out in game, the hair is in chunks/ribbons instead of strands. What do I need to do to make the hair look like hair? Images of what I'm talking about are attached. Thank you for any help in advance.


The first one looks awesome
Test Subject
Original Poster
#14 Old 5th Dec 2014 at 7:05 AM
Thanks.

Okay so I converted another hair. Did what you said to do as far as uv mapping in milkshape is concerned. When I checked the hair in-game, there are these metal tabs at the ends. (pictures attached to show what I mean). I edited the uv map in milkshape at least six times to no avail.

Please help.

I've also added the .package file so you could take a look at it. Maybe you'll spot something I missed.
Screenshots
Attached files:
File Type: zip  brownieswife_yfHair_NewSea_J180_Hungry.zip (8.82 MB, 6 downloads) - View custom content
Test Subject
#15 Old 5th Dec 2014 at 7:40 AM Last edited by Simista : 5th Dec 2014 at 7:41 AM. Reason: typo
Quote: Originally posted by brownieswife
Thanks.

Okay so I converted another hair. Did what you said to do as far as uv mapping in milkshape is concerned. When I checked the hair in-game, there are these metal tabs at the ends. (pictures attached to show what I mean). I edited the uv map in milkshape at least six times to no avail.

Please help.

I've also added the .package file so you could take a look at it. Maybe you'll spot something I missed.


Do you happen to use s-club hs skin tone? I had this occur on a hair retexture I was doing when using that skin tone. Have you tried using another skintone?
Test Subject
Original Poster
#16 Old 5th Dec 2014 at 7:52 AM
I didn't have any skintones on the model aside from the default ea ones.
Test Subject
#17 Old 5th Dec 2014 at 8:00 AM
Quote: Originally posted by brownieswife
I didn't have any skintones on the model aside from the default ea ones.

Oh Okay well sorry I couldn't be of help. Good luck solving this issue.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#18 Old 5th Dec 2014 at 8:01 AM
Thanks for trying. It's much appreciated.
Lab Assistant
#19 Old 5th Dec 2014 at 9:11 AM
A few UV vertices at the top exceeds the texture map boundary, the lines you see in the front are because of those. You need to take them down a bit.

Your texture is in the 512x512 area but UV map is bigger than that, so it takes colors from another area of the map. In this case the vertices at the bottom of the map creates the problem but taking them up may create texture stretching and there is the small part on the right that is bigger than UV, so i'd recommend shrinking all the UV map a little bit and arranging the texture to fit into it.

Hair looks very nice btw.
Screenshots
Test Subject
Original Poster
#20 Old 5th Dec 2014 at 6:22 PM
And as usual, you have helped me fix my hair. Thank you!!! And thanks for the comment on the hair too :D
Back to top