Converting Clothes for Teens

[nbny]

Hey guys, I'm kinda a lurker here, but I've encountered an issue with my game that I could use some help with.  

Using SimPe I converted some Adult skins for use by teens and they look great (for the most part), but I've noticed that there is some slight discoloration in the neck.  

Is there any way to correct this?  Maybe through stretching the default mesh or something?  I think there are some talented people over here, and I would value your input.

Thanks.

[kathy]

I have never tried it but tonight after the kids go to bed I'll take a look and see what happens and if there is a fix for it.

[nbny]

Thanks for taking a look at it Kathy.

[nbny]

Any luck last night?

[kathy]

None I wasn't able to replicate it. Can you post a picture of an example?

[jase439]

The problem arises from the fact that adult meshes are 6% larger than the teen meshes.  The length of the neck in the adult is also longer than the teen, so the neck from an adult mesh will protrude into the mesh that makes up the teen head.  I am dealing with this very problem as we speak with InTeen since some of the outfits are derived from adult meshes.  What you need to do is download Milkeshape, export the GMDC from SimPE, use Wes_H body chop plugin to import the GMDC mesh into body chop, scale the entire mesh by 94%, then adjust the neck verticies (the latter will take some trial and error).  You'll then re-export the GMDC using Body Chop, finally importing the new mesh back into the package file using SimPE.  It's important that you use the REPLACE (right click and then Replace) functionality and not the GMDC Import/Export - as it does not deal with bones or body morphs (fat/pregnant) correctly. The idea is to get the lower neck vertices of the head to line up with the upper neck vertices of the body.  When you do this, the surface normals for those polys will align correctly and the light will fall evenly across that seam.

In short:

1. Extract the adult GMDC mesh as .5gd file using SimPE
2. Open Milkshape and choose Import > Body Chop and open the .5gd file you created in Step #1
3. Use the scaling utility (in Milkshape) under Tools to scale the mesh to 94% of its original size
4. Lower the ten neck verticies (and move them back slightly).  
5. Use Export > Body Chop which will create a new .simpe file
6. Go back to SimPE, right click on the original GMDC mesh, and select Replace and open the file you exported in Step #5
7. Save
8. Inspect your changes; lather; rinse; repeat as necessary

[nbny]

Wow, that looks great!  

Now for the whole enchilada:  Is it theoretically possible to do that as a default mesh instead of doing every single piece of clothing?  ie... using kathy's default meshes?

[jase439]

Well, if you're asking me if you can share a mesh and use it for multiple pieces of clothing - yes, you can.  But you should understand that there are different clothing styles that have completely different geometry.  A sundress and a pant suit have very little geometric commonality whatsoever, so you would need to make edits to both separately.  However, once you did this, you could re-use that sundress mesh to make a dozen different sun-dress styles by altering the textures, alpha, and normal maps.  You can create some very different looks just through texture alone.  With normal maps you can "fake" geometry.  For instance, if you look at the sweat pants, you'll notice that the bow string is textured - not modelled...there's no geometry there - it's just a trick of light and shadow.  The wrinkles and pleats in the above dress are also "fakery".

Sadly, there is no one mesh you can change that will work for everything.  When you change a sims clothing, while the textures are overlaid on top of one another, you are replacing the entire geometry of the body.  Just gotta buckle down, and get your hands grubby

J

[nbny]

Thanks jase.  It definitely sounds doable.  Hardwork (given the number of skins I have), but doable.  

So now my question is, where can I get Milkshape and Wes_H's plugin?

Also, maybe you could make those instructions sticky for future reference.


Kathy, would you be willing to do the defaults for this? You have more experience than I do (since I have none)with these programs, and it'd be great if someone got the ball rolling.  

Unless jase would be gracious enough to take up the task.....

[jase439]

Unless jase would be gracious enough to take up the task.....

Sorry, my cup already overfloweth as it is

[nbny]

Sorry, my cup already overfloweth as it is

I kinda figured your plate was full, but thought I'd throw it out there just in case...

So I know these tools are floating around somewhere, but where can I get them?

[jase439]

Spend some time here:

http://forums.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=114

The Body Chop plug-in is here:

http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=50219

Milkshape can be found here:

http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft

[kathy]

Yes I can work on doing all the individual defaults. Which one of the sizes were you interested in? It will probably take a few days because I have a number of back projects I am trying to finish.

[nbny]

Sizes?  Hmm.. If you're referring to the default meshes, I think I like the 2nd one the best.

Jase, I got all the way to step 4 and I'm stumped.  I'm including an attachment because I'm not sure exactly how to lower the vertices and move the neck back.

[jase439]

First things first...get rid of those ridiculous blue lines so you can see what you're doing  File | Preferences | Misc and set Joint Size to something MUCH smaller - like 0.005 (you can tailor to personal preference).  Then on the tool palette, select the Groups tab.  Hide all groups except "body".  Then go to the Joints tab.  And select the neck joint.  This will auto-select all the neck vertices assigned to that bone.  Then go to the Model tab, enable "Move" mode, then gently click and drag in either of the top 2 projection views to lower the verts.  You can also use the arrow keys to "nudge" them into position.

J