Tutorial: Converting standard outfits to BodyShape Meshes

[gmonkai]

The first thing I did texwise..was nipple oriented as you pointed out one might wanna do...
  It was a test run that got a great result...but I can't release it as I used a DAZ resource...some of the old DAZ texes are great...in this case I used the old V3 hag nipple-as it is very photoreal...lightened it...shrunk...pasted to the Navitsea tex...a little smudging the edges and aureola under...very cool result...
  When I get to doing them from scratch-I'll use photo and other fully released merchant resources I have...real curious as to what I may get on a full skin...

[gmonkai]

Cool...and leave the polys as they are...and move vertices to sculpt,eh?

[Warlokk]

Exactly... as long as you're just moving verts, you can use Mesh Tool, and bump maps work fine.  Once you start adding or removing stuff, you have to use Unimesh, which really works great, but no bump.  That's why I use it for nudes, but not the clothes.

[gmonkai]

hmmm...so you can add a few faces,and realign some edges?...wasn't sure the game would take them that way..but I guess as long as the polys don't get excessive,and the bones stay the same-it's cool?

[Warlokk]

Actually Unimesh allows you to totally re-work the bone assignments, if you're feeling adventurous... I haven't played with that too much, but the tools are very slick, and have features to help prevent unassigned/underassigned bones etc.  Check out the thread and docs, it's very complete.  

[gmonkai]

Cool...yeah,I think thru the sites(here,MTS2,and the new adult site) the info threads seem to be really thorough on these subjects...I appreciate you letting me pick your brain a bit man!
  I might be getting psyched up here to attempt a first skin set...Get a bit of momentum,and maybe start looking towards the mesh possibilities later...Have made three experiments of skin redesigns-but as they are "integrations" of the ones available...not for share yet...but they've helped me get the overview of arrangement to where I'm ready to compose one up from scratch...

[Warlokk]

Your best bet is really Milkshape, since most of the tools are plugins for it.  There are tutorials for Max over at MTS2 in the create section though, I think, I haven't really followed it since I don't have it.

[gamonthehand]

yay for this totural. i have spent my whole week making new clothes for my sims thanks to you warlokk. thanks so much

[Warlokk]

Well, the shoes will just be part of the texture you're copying to the new outfit... the mesh doesn't really have any difference between barefoot and shoes.  So make sure the textures you're putting on the new outfits have shoes in them, if not you could try some creative copy-pasting to get the shoe textures from another outfit texture.

[Warlokk]

Sounds like it's being made transparent by the Alpha layer.  Make sure you copied that file as well, and possibly the normal map too.  If the feet area is all black in the Alpha layer, that's your problem.

[Warlokk]

You can easily put a full-body texture on a shirt, sure... I'd go into the Alpha layer though, and blank out the bottom half, or else that texture may bleed over whatever bottoms you assign.  It's just a matter of finding a texture that fits the mesh you're using well.

[Warlokk]

Ahh, I see... I know it's possible, since Roxxy and Duschenka over at MTS2 did it for my first series, by changing the outfit type to something other than everyday... it would apply the texture to another bottom somehow, but I don't really know how it worked, and it could give some odd results depending on how the texture fit over whatever the bottom was... I never really messed with it much.  The full-body outfits usually require a full-body mesh, which I still haven't finished yet.  They'll get done eventually, but I have a lot to do yet.

[mobyl007]

Truly fantastic!!!
It's fabulous, as always totally flawless work.
I'm going to download it right now.
Thank's, thank you for sharing.

[djo200]

Great tutorial. It worked very good for my male sim, but now I'm trying to do clothes for my female sim.

I'm trying to convert a skirt, but when I finish i get a result like some pants. What am I doing wrong?

[Warlokk]

The mesh you moved the textures to must have been a shorts or pants mesh... you have to start with a mesh that somewhat closely matches the mesh of the outfit you're trying to convert.  So if you're looking to put a denim skirt texture on one of my bodyshapes, you need to export the Miniskirt in the size you want to use, for example, then move the textures into that project, and re-import.