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Scholar
Original Poster
#26 Old 11th May 2018 at 10:18 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
Not annoyed, just a tiny bit frustrated. It's important to read tutorials first, and then ask questions if you can't understand something in them. If you start out asking questions when you know very little and not having at least read the tutorials doesn't really help the helpers who're trying to help you. Most of what you've asked is information you can find in the tutorials or with a google search. It's always a good idea to try to find the answer yourself before asking (often you'll learn a lot in the process, too). Just a tip, that's all.

Yeah I sometimes wonder why you put up with all my questions but I really appreciate all the help that you had given me on this. I really didn't mean to make to you frustrated,I just like to ask a lot of questions if there's something that I don't understand it's all right I though I got all the meshes extracted and imported to Blender and i'm now working on the hair.
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Mad Poster
#27 Old 11th May 2018 at 11:22 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 11th May 2018 at 11:57 PM.
It's not a bad thing to ask questions, but if you put in a little groundwork with tutorials and such, it's going to be a whole lot easier to find answers for you, and for you to understand the answers you get. You also don't have to wait for answers to easily obtainable information, and the helpers don't have to repeat half a tutorial to you. It's also easier to answer more spesific questions like "I can't find X in SimPE, so how do I do bulletpoint #3 of this tutorial?" or "the clothes shows up see-through, how to fix it?" than starting out with "how do I make a new hair?". Also, if the helpers link to tutorials, they'll expect you to at the very least look through them.

Sure, it's not easy to know where or how to start when you want to create something - but if you stick to tutorials as your first option, and ask when you're really stuck (or the "shoot first, ask later" option" ) you may find yourself going faster in the creating process. Start in the tutorial section here on MTS, or do a quick google search with some key words if you can't find anything here.

A lot of things I've learned over the years have been by trial and failure, scrutinizing tutorials for that tiny bit I missed, google-searching, testing ingame 10+ times, my game crashing countless times, redoing textures or meshes, and so forth. I prefer to ask in forums when I'm completely out of ideas, when a problem I can't figure out on my own crops up, or if I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for - like a hard to find tutorial, or some expert advice on a difficult matter. (One of my first meshing projects was making multi-age accessories with toddlers included - which, as I found out, was pretty hard since none of the tutorials back then showed how to include toddlers or make multi-age meshes, and I ended up having to study other creators' work to figure out how. I too struggled to figure out what to do in the 3DIR at first, because none of the tutorials I found explained this in an understandable way. It's why I decided to make that accessory tutorial in the first place...).
Scholar
Original Poster
#28 Old 11th May 2018 at 11:53 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
It's not a bad thing to ask questions, but if you put in a little groundwork with tutorials and such, it's going to be a whole lot easier to find answers for you, and for you to understand the answers you get. You also don't have to wait for answers to easily obtainable information, and the helpers don't have to repeat half a tutorial to you. It's also easier to answer more spesific questions like "I can't find X in SimPE, how do I do bulletpoint #3 of this tutorial?" or "the clothes shows up see-through, how to fix it?" than starting out with "how do I make a new hair?"

A lot of things I've learned over the years have been by trial and failure, scrutinizing tutorials for that tiny bit I missed, testing ingame 10 times, redoing textures or meshes, google-searching, and so forth. I prefer to ask in forums when I'm completely out of ideas, or if I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for - like a hard to find tutorial, or some expert advice on a difficult matter. One of my first meshing projects was making multi-age accessories (which, as I found out, was pretty hard since none of the tutorials back then showed how to do so, and so I had to study other creators' work to figure out how).

All right have a great weekend. Don't let silly questions such as mine stress you out or frustrate you. I tend to jump from one project to the next. I'm still working on getting the fountain fixed up but it's just one idea to next and I never get finish with either of them.
Mad Poster
#29 Old 12th May 2018 at 12:03 AM Last edited by simmer22 : 12th May 2018 at 12:20 AM.
If you saw how full and messy my project folder(s) are, you'd probably faint :P

I've got more than 70 GB(!) worth of files in the readily available project folders I've got (package files, textures, meshes, downloaded files meant for conversion, etc.), and the projects are anything from 1 to 100% finished. A lot of them are on the 99% stage, just needing that litle bit of finishing up, before *oooh, shiny new project!* happens again. And again. And again. And that's mostly counting projects from 2014-ish (The rest from 2012-13 are spread all over my laptop). My stationary computer has plenty more, and the laptop that died probably had a few I didn't get to backup as well, because I've been making stuff since 2007-ish... I have finished up a few abandoned projects the past couple of weeks, though. That's something that only rarely happens (but I wanted those accessories in my game soooo bad!)

---

Anyway - I suggest you first read through the Unimesh tutorials to see if you've missed anything or if this can get you a bit further. Possibly also make a new recolor file where you link properly to only the right 3DIR and don't delete or rename any resources, because this may cause fewer bugs in the ingame testing stage. Sometimes you have to start things over again to get them right.

I'm not enirely sure how the Blender plugins will factor into your hair project, but until they're finished (looks like they're still on the beta-testing stage with a few bugs to sort out) you may want to do the meshing in Blender and the finishing touches in Milkshape. Most of the tutorials are for Milkshape, and it's easier to figure out the differences between Blender and Milkshape if you know the rest of the process first.
Scholar
Original Poster
#30 Old 12th May 2018 at 12:32 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
If you saw how full and messy my project folder(s) are, you'd probably faint :P

I've got more than 70 GB(!) worth of files in the readily available project folders I've got (package files, textures, meshes, downloaded files meant for conversion, etc.), and the projects are anything from 1 to 100% finished. A lot of them are on the 99% stage, just needing that litle bit of finishing up, before *oooh, shiny new project!* happens again. And again. And again. And that's mostly counting projects from 2014-ish (The rest from 2012-13 are spread all over my laptop). My stationary computer has plenty more, and the laptop that died probably had a few I didn't get to backup as well, because I've been making stuff since 2007-ish... I have finished up a few abandoned projects the past couple of weeks, though. That's something that only rarely happens (but I wanted those accessories in my game soooo bad!)

---

Anyway - I suggest you first read through the Unimesh tutorials to see if you've missed anything or if this can get you a bit further. Possibly also make a new recolor file where you link properly to only the right 3DIR and don't delete or rename any resources, because this may cause fewer bugs in the ingame testing stage. Sometimes you have to start things over again to get them right.

I'm not enirely sure how the Blender plugins will factor into your hair project, but until they're finished (looks like they're still on the beta-testing stage with a few bugs to sort out) you may want to do the meshing in Blender and the finishing touches in Milkshape. Most of the tutorials are for Milkshape, and it's easier to figure out the differences between Blender and Milkshape if you know the rest of the process first.

From my experience it's a lot easier to mesh in Blender. I was able to create that fountain in one day with the help of Blender Guru's Youtube tutorials and there are still lots of videos about 3d modeling from him that I still haven't watch and learned from yet. I barely see any Milkshape tutorials except for a few old ones and i'm not sure if the developers are updating it anymore but I haven't been on the site in ages so I don't know what kind of activity is going on there but I know for sure that Blender has a huge community. Anyways I'll work on the hair some more.
Mad Poster
#31 Old 12th May 2018 at 1:17 AM
I don't use Milkshape for meshing (only small edits and the occasional UVmap adjustment - that program is awful to mesh in, and cudos to those who manage it) but it can be handy for the transition between whatever meshing programs I do use and SimPE/Bodyshop, since it plays better with SimPE and features in most tutorials. I'm thinking of things like adding comments such - you need to know which preparations you have to do to make the mesh ready for exporting to SimPE, and there are precious few Blender tutorials that show this. I've seen maybe one or two for TS2 (one already went down with SimOasis), and that's it.

Milkshape also handles smoothing differently than most other programs, in that it manages to smooth different groups so they look like they're one mesh. Blender tends to make lines between different mesh parts even if the're the same group wherever the vertices are split. I really hope the new plugins will work more like Milkshape does on this particular area. It's one of Blender's more annoying issues, particularly with OBJ meshes (I always end up having to redo the smoothing).
Scholar
Original Poster
#32 Old 12th May 2018 at 2:55 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
I don't use Milkshape for meshing (only small edits and the occasional UVmap adjustment - that program is awful to mesh in, and cudos to those who manage it) but it can be handy for the transition between whatever meshing programs I do use and SimPE/Bodyshop, since it plays better with SimPE and features in most tutorials. I'm thinking of things like adding comments such - you need to know which preparations you have to do to make the mesh ready for exporting to SimPE, and there are precious few Blender tutorials that show this. I've seen maybe one or two for TS2 (one already went down with SimOasis), and that's it.

Milkshape also handles smoothing differently than most other programs, in that it manages to smooth different groups so they look like they're one mesh. Blender tends to make lines between different mesh parts even if the're the same group wherever the vertices are split. I really hope the new plugins will work more like Milkshape does on this particular area. It's one of Blender's more annoying issues, particularly with OBJ meshes (I always end up having to redo the smoothing).

Yeah Blender isn't 100 percent reliable with Sims 2 meshes but it sure beats trying to mesh with Milkshape. There's a visible gap between the hair and the scalp and other areas of the mesh that i'm trying to fix. It's a bit hard to see in Blender but it's more noticeable when you see the mesh in Bodyshop. Other then that and the front side still invisible from the front that I haven't fixed yet the mesh is starting to look good.
Screenshots
Mad Poster
#33 Old 12th May 2018 at 2:24 PM
One thing you can do is to "frankenmesh" a longer hair together with yours, meaning you use parts of a long hair and connect it to the shorter one. This too would require remapping and retexturing, but it may give a better result. There's only so much you can do with a short hair, and I'm guessing the texture for the short hair isn't too easy to work with since there are no long strands on it.

A lot of the original hairs have very weird mapping, so it may be best to pick one with straight instead of curvy bits.
Scholar
Original Poster
#34 Old 12th May 2018 at 7:06 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
One thing you can do is to "frankenmesh" a longer hair together with yours, meaning you use parts of a long hair and connect it to the shorter one. This too would require remapping and retexturing, but it may give a better result. There's only so much you can do with a short hair, and I'm guessing the texture for the short hair isn't too easy to work with since there are no long strands on it.

A lot of the original hairs have very weird mapping, so it may be best to pick one with straight instead of curvy bits.


Thanks for the suggestion but I'll try working with what I had made. I would never be able to learn properly if I rely on other people's meshes. I think all I had to do is merge the areas with the gaps between them to the scalp and edit the texture and readject and probably redo the UV map for the hair to make the texture fit the mesh better. Which program do you think is the best for UV map editing in your experience Blender or Milkshape? Blender's is kinda confusing.
Mad Poster
#35 Old 12th May 2018 at 11:44 PM
I meant one of the EAxis hairs, since they would fit the style of the one you started with. Thre are a few shoulder-length hairs you could use from ingame.

(Oh, and tip for posting if you don't want to quote the entire post before yours - you can use the "quick reply" box at the bottom, or just delete the quote in the reply box. Gets a bit tedious to scroll through posts if everything is quoted).
Scholar
Original Poster
#36 Old 13th May 2018 at 12:39 AM
Are there even any tutorials that I could read that teaches you how it works and how to do it? It sounds way too complicated for my skill set.
Mad Poster
#37 Old 13th May 2018 at 1:10 AM
Here's one (for clothes, but you can use roughly the same technique for combining hair parts) - http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=179177

You import two meshes, reshape them, combine them (mark them with Shift, then click "join" in Blender - and you can use the "merge --> remove doubles" instead of the vertex merging tool shown in the tutorial), edit the UVmap, edit the texture. I don't think you need to do a lot of adjustments to bone/joint assignments, because hairs are relatively easy, and if you get one from ingame there will already be bone assignments for shoulder parts, etc.).

You could also grab ingame textures (either search for LIFO files in SimPE, they're much bigger than the TXTR ones, or make a recolor in Bodyshop), combine them, and remap the hair you already have.

Plenty of ways to do it, you just have to find what works for you
Scholar
Original Poster
#38 Old 13th May 2018 at 2:31 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
Here's one (for clothes, but you can use roughly the same technique for combining hair parts) - http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=179177

You import two meshes, reshape them, combine them (mark them with Shift, then click "join" in Blender - and you can use the "merge --> remove doubles" instead of the vertex merging tool shown in the tutorial), edit the UVmap, edit the texture. I don't think you need to do a lot of adjustments to bone/joint assignments, because hairs are relatively easy, and if you get one from ingame there will already be bone assignments for shoulder parts, etc.).

You could also grab ingame textures (either search for LIFO files in SimPE, they're much bigger than the TXTR ones, or make a recolor in Bodyshop), combine them, and remap the hair you already have.

Plenty of ways to do it, you just have to find what works for you

Thank you, you've been a great helper to me have a great weekend. I'm actually taking a break from 3d modeling,texturing,UV mapping and Sims 2 for a little while to relax and play Sims 3 and maybe some of the first one. Sims 4 is just blah to me.
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