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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 29th Nov 2017 at 11:29 AM
What to do after UV Mapping and how to get the object in game (workflow)?
So I kind of got the basic workflow of the beginning when creating own objects with the help of these tutorials -> http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...nder_2.5_Part_1 + part 2 & http://wiki.thesimsresource.com/ima...deToMeshing.pdf
So it is: cloning, meshing, UV mapping, (and then I guess) texturing and bringing it in game. (Sadly cmomoney's blender tutorial ends after the UV mapping part, so I'm trying to put the pieces together by myself and sadly I'm no expert in this field q.q)

I'm a bit confused. First of all, should I use TSRW or S3PE & S3OC or is that just up to me and to which method I prefer? (I use blender 2.70 for meshing,mapping and texturing if that means anything)
For TSRW I know that I need to import .wso files to replace the old mesh with my mesh, which I can only get when exporting in Milkshape and I'm kind of trying to avoid Milkshape because I feel like I get easily confused by it

Anyway, after reading tutorials for hours over days, I managed to get my own mesh ingame but the textures were all messed up and one side of the mesh was invisible lol ^^'. I have the feeling that when I export my mapped and textured mesh from blender into milkshape to convert it into a .wso file to import it into TSRW again, my own texture gets overwritten by the old mesh's texture...

So what I'm asking for is, if someone could help me a bit and maybe just roughly tell me what my remaining tasks are after UV mapping my mesh in blender? And how I replace the old EA mesh with my newly textured mesh and get the texture to work?

I'm sure most of this is due to not having enough knowledge and I'm willing to just read every single tutorial for every part that exists on this planet
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Instructor
#2 Old 29th Nov 2017 at 1:04 PM Last edited by Butterbot : 30th Nov 2017 at 10:48 PM. Reason: Typo
Quote: Originally posted by LisaTheCupcake
my own texture gets overwritten by the old mesh's texture...


Did you also import your own texture(s)? That's necessary whether using S3PE or TSRW.

I use mostly S3PE/S3OC and TT3, with Blender for working with objects (reserving Milkshape for CAS parts). I only use TSRW to generate sunshadow meshes, to adjust occluders, and to debug objects. You should follow your own preference. My going the S3PE route is due to a dislike of how TSRW obfuscates the underlying data structure of the object packages and the fact that it only generates compressed .sims3pack files (it's possible to get .package files from it, but only uncompressed). It's also slow and unstable on my setup, but I suspect that's not a problem for most people.

Generally, a workflow can be something like this:
1. Clone existing object.
2. Export mesh from cloned object.
3. Alter mesh or substitute with custom mesh. UV map if necessary. (Use EA atlas for dropshadow.)
4. Bake multiplier (might not be necessary if just editing an existing game mesh).
5. Generate additional textures from multiplier (again, might not be necessary if editing an existing game mesh).
6. Import mesh and textures into cloned package from step 1.
7. Inspect in-game. Proceed if object looks OK.
8. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with lower LOD mesh (this time with lower polycount).
9. Import lower LOD mesh into cloned package.
10. Export sunshadow meshes (for each LOD).
11. Generate custom sunshadow meshes from custom object mesh using TSRW.
12. Replace sunshadow meshes with custom ones and import back into cloned object.
13. Check occluders with TSRW and adjust if necessary.
14. Adjust object category (plus other details such as price, placement flags, etc), STBLs, and other parameters (such as slots, cutouts, footprints, lights, bounding boxes...) as necessary.

This, of course, varies from person to person and from project to project.

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 30th Nov 2017 at 12:04 PM
First of all thank you so much for your quick answer I don't feel so confused anymore and the workflow makes total sense to me!

There are still one to two things I don't quite understand. I hope you don't mind me asking again >.<

Quote: Originally posted by Butterbot
(Use EA altas for dropshadow)


I know which file you mean with EA altas, though I'm not quite sure how to bring it onto my shadow mesh. Should I just import it as image and put the UV map of my shadow mesh on top of the choosen shadow?

Then also I have some problems baking my texture onto my mesh. In Cycles Render everything looks fine, but as soon as I go back to Blender Render to get the bake option, my mesh lightens up and I also checked in rendered view, the mesh seems to be invisible
What am I doing wrong here? I've watched several tutorials but they don't seem to have that problem

My last question, and I hope this doesn't make me look like an total idiot :'D What are occluders?
Instructor
#4 Old 30th Nov 2017 at 10:44 PM
Quote: Originally posted by LisaTheCupcake
I know which file you mean with EA altas, though I'm not quite sure how to bring it onto my shadow mesh. Should I just import it as image and put the UV map of my shadow mesh on top of the choosen shadow?


Yes, that's exactly it. You should see the dropshadow's texture update in real time as you adjust its UV mapping if Textured mode is toggled in the 3D viewport. Note that the atlas texture doesn't need to be re-imported into the .package since it's already in the game files.

I'm not very familiar with Cycles, so cannot be of much help in this regard. For baking, I rely almost exclusively on Blender 2.7 TS3 Tools' EZ Bake, although I have on occasion adjusted made some manual adjustments (anything from changing the bake settings to putting in a temporary plane mesh for better ambient occlusion).

As for occluders, Pocci has an excellent write-up here on the different object shadow types in TS3 (dropshadow, sunshadow, occlusion shadow) and how to edit the occluders to fit your custom object. For a more technical look at sunshadows, I have a write-up here.

Hope this helps.

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