I'm not sure if this is a mesh or texture problem. Some of you might remember this from GOS. A poster over there suggested it might be a missing bump map, but my recolor has a bump map. She wasn't sure what it could be if that wasn't the problem, so I hoped this might get more views over here. The bone assignments on this mesh were really weird at first too. I think they're fixed, but I noticed that when I checked the box to show bone colors, the very top of the neck was colorless, but the reference mesh looked like that too, and I'm not sure if that's normal.

If it's a bump issue:
Ingame and usually also in Bodyshop, shadows from normals look "opposite" to what they're supposed to look like. Kinda like in the picture. Happens because bumps and textures must be 512x512 for the bump to work with the toddler skins (clothes with the SimSkin setting in the TXMT use the largest skin size available, and for toddlers that's 512x512).

Solution:
* Either use a 512x512 texture and bump map for toddler outfits
* Or (if you have a larger texture) delete all bump map references from the TXTRs and TXMTs.
* Or have all skin parts in a separate SimSkin group, and the clothes in a SimStandardMaterial group (more work, but often worth it for the quality).
* (Or if you reeeeeally want that 1024x1024 bump map, size up every single toddler skin to 1024x1024 - but that's a lot of work and has its own set of issues, so try the others first. I mostly use this trick for making larger infant outfit textures show properly)


If it's a mesh issue:
* Make sure the neck normals match up with the neck on the face mesh.

Easiest way to check is to extract the toddler face mesh as an OBJ (puface) and import it into your Milkshape file. If it goes together seamlessly with your mesh, it's (probably) not a mesh issue. If there is a visible seam, it's a mesh issue.

Okay. My texture is already 512 x 512 (bodyshop refused to accept any other size), so I'm guessing it's the mesh.

This one?
http://gardenofshadows.org.uk/garde...php?topic=36209
(btw, Theraven here - I'm kinda stuck with one of my older usernames on MTS)

Have you tried deleting the bump map references?

If that doesn't work, could you perhaps upload the mesh and a recolor file so I can take a look at them?

Oh, and remember to delete the cache files between each edit. They're really sticky, especially if you use the same sim to test the outfits on.

I have noticed that some meshes just can't seem to get proper bone assignments with the whole 3t2/4t2 conversion process. For the few meshes I've converted I've ended up doing the assignments manually (which I don't recommend - it's tiresome work, but at least they've animated better). I've tried the auto process with different meshes, but it's almost like the programs just do a simple average, and whether it works or not depends on the mesh. I always end up with bad results, and I have no idea if I keep skipping an important step, if I'm just really picky with the results, or if it's the same for everyone (because I have seen a few not-so-good results uploaded by other simmers which makes me wonder if there's a bug in the process).

Yes, that's the thread. Thanks for jumping in over here too. SerenityFall said only to delete the bump map references if my recolor was missing the gray texture. My recolor has that texture though, so it's not the issue.

I checked the mesh with the toddler head in a mesh editor, and everything lined up, the normals were fine. Here's the mesh and a recolor.


http://www.simfileshare.net/download/1469797/

Ah. I see the problem. The entire mesh has wrong normals. Best way to fix this would be to import a new mesh for the skin parts (use the naked PU mesh), and then fix the outfit normals for the Body2 group manually (because if you do it all at once with Align Normals you may end up causing some smoothing issues).

If you need some help with it, just ask.

I need an explanation for fixing the normals in Milkshape. I exported as an .obj and checked in blender earlier today, and the normals all looked good in that program, so I guess I need to figure out how it works in Milkshape and what the normals are supposed to look like on a clothing mesh.

The best way I can explain it for Milkshape is to mark the individual area you want to have separate smoothing by faces (not vertices), check that they're separate from the mesh (if they're not, results may vary), do "Align normals" and then mark another area.

You can do everything at once, but you risk losing creased lines like around the shoes, and often get weird ugly dark shadows everywhere.
The mesh looks like it's been smoothed wrongly at some point (possibly between Blender and Milkshape - you need to use the proper settings to avoid this for OBJ meshes), so going over and fixing all the creases is probably a good idea anyway.

EDIT:

Took another look, and did a bit of fixing here and there on the normals. Cut out a couple of seams so the jacket would smooth better around it (fewer dark shadow spots - they like to hang around in corners and seams) and added a fixed mesh for the skin parts (didn't edit at all except removing faces). Wasn't sure if you wanted to do more fixes so I added the Milkshape file (it's a 1.8.5 file, may not work with earlier versions, let me know if you can't open it)

Thanks, I'm on my phone now, but I'll download it later. I extracted it from sims4studio and exported from blender as a wavefront obj with smooth groups checked. Was that a mistake?

I always have these checked (and none other) which nearly always gives me the normals the proper way around
-Apply Modifiers
-Include Edges
-Smooth Groups **
-Write Normals **
-Include UVs
-Objects as OBJ groups

I think the ones with stars are the ones having to do with normals (I had to do a bit of trial and error to get them to export propely, and this setup was the one that worked best)

I have them saved as a preset to make things simpler:
Tick the boxes, click the + button (next to Operator Presets, below Export OBJ), and give it a new name. Every time you export OBJs, choose this preset from the dropdown list.

Those, along with "write materials" are the same settings I used (they're the same ones I always use for build/buy objects, and I have it saved as a preset too). So this is weird. Did you forget to post the link to the changes you made?

Strange - I uploaded the file and I thought I added it, but apparently not. Must have had a brain fart (it was very late - way past midnight). Here: https://simfileshare.net/download/1470138/

Those settings usually work very well for me, but Blender still throws curveballs once in a while. The mesh for the skin also had the same issue, so it could possibly have happened at any time while editing and moving files from program to program.