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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 21st Dec 2015 at 11:32 PM
Default Car Making Help
So I'm making my first car for the Sims 3. It is a Ford GT40 from Shift 2 Unleashed, cloned from the Fitzgerald from the Fast Lane stuff pack

At the moment I am having many problems with the car. To begin with the glass from the headlights and the windscreen are invisible. If I take it for a spin the entire car disappears, leaving the sim floating above the car's shadow. The Sim also is sitting in the wrong position.

I also have a problem with TSR Workshop version 2.0.0228.0, when I try to edit the RIG Files of the car, this message comes up.


PLZ Help
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Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#2 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 2:07 PM
It looks like that the bones of the car isn't located correctly. I know that the latest version of TSRW is really buggy, so I would try TSRW 1,72 instead until the problem got fixed. http://greenplumbboblover.tumblr.co...005426/tsrw-172
The problem with the glass might be because it needs a shader on the mesh, which you can do with this program: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=372169)
The car dissapearing is probably the problem of just the bones being not located the right way.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#3 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 2:46 PM Last edited by speedo10 : 22nd Dec 2015 at 2:57 PM.
So do the bones have something to do with Milkshape? Because I used Zmodeler 1.07b to edit the car then I converted it to .obj using Zmodeler 2.2.6, then I imported it into Milkshape and exported it as .wso

I've just tried 1.72 and I still can't edit the RIG file.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#4 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 4:11 PM Last edited by Greenplumbbob : 4th May 2017 at 10:40 PM. Reason: clearer explanation
Well within TSRW, you can't edit the RIG/Bones. If you would straight edit your mesh from whatever 3D program (expect Milkshape 3D) and uses Milkshape to just convert it from a OBJ to a WSO, things will quickly go wrong, such as having no bones at all. So, my method of adding the needing bones to an object is really weird, but works. I use Meshtoolkit (which you can find here:http://modthesims.info/d/481950)

But of course you need a reference to copy the car's Rig/Bones, so what you want to do is open up TSRW and look for whatever car.

Export it as an WSO and rename it to something like 'reference' so you know that this is NOT your car.

In milkshape, your reference file is probably called 'group_0' in the Groups tab, but just for assigning the bones and tricking Meshtoolkit in believing that it isn't an actual CAS part, you have to change it into group_base.

Now I forgot if you need to do the same thing with Your mesh, but if an error will let's you know that it doesn't recognises it in Milkshape, change the name in Milkshape like you did with your own mesh.

So basically what you do in Milkshape is, changing the 'Reference mesh's WSO and YOUR mesh file from Group 0 to group_base'

Now you can open up Meshtoolkit and you'll see tons of tabs in the tab. Use the 'Auto tools for WSO' and in that tab, make sure you're in the 'Auto-assign Bones' This is really important!!

Make sure that in the WSO mesh to modify bar is YOUR MESH and in the Reference mesh is the EA MESH
Make sure 'replace all bone assignments' is clicked and the 'do interpolation (gives better results but may be slow)' is checked. Now you can click on the 'Do assignments and save'

Go back to Milkshape with your own Mesh that now should have the correct Bones/rig and change the 'group_base' into what it was before (group_0)
Now you can import it into TSRW and I guess it's ready for testing the bones. If you keep having problems with the glass effect that EA has as default, just export one of the groups that carries the glass with itself and use the shader I linked to you in my previous post. ^-^
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#5 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 8:57 PM
Damn this is stubborn

I've renamed the groups in the reference to group_base and I did the same to the car. Does it matter if each model has two groups each?
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#6 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 9:06 PM
I actually, since you can't import 2 groups at once, you kind of have to do this with only group_0 and it's reference. Then after you changed it, you make sure group_1 is now getting it's bones. Just make sure you call the file Like group_0 and group_1 but within the file they should stay group_base. But you need to separate the groups. (sorry if this is kinda hard to understand)
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#7 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 9:48 PM
Thank you very much for that, I got the bones and I imported the .wso into TSRW.

But when I open as package in S3PE I still get this error.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#8 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 9:51 PM
Looks like something in the package is corrupted. You did export it after you fixed the bones right?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#9 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 10:14 PM
Yes, I did.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#10 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 10:18 PM
And re-importing the package to TSRW, does that works or does TSRW gives you an error?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#11 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 10:28 PM
It still does not work, I still get the error. I've tried other cars and I still get the same error. Could it be a version problem with the S3PE plugin for TSRW?
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#12 Old 22nd Dec 2015 at 10:50 PM
Do you edit the car in a TSRW already made save and then export the package? If so, I would clone a new car and import all the meshes and textures in it, so you have this 'new package'.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#13 Old 23rd Dec 2015 at 12:21 AM
I tested the car in game, the bones do work but the wheels are a little offset and the fenders turn too.

Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#14 Old 23rd Dec 2015 at 1:01 AM
Hmm... Which car did you used are reference mesh? It looks like the car had bigger wheels or just a different setting of wheels. You could always assign the bones yourself in Milkshape, but it could be a hard thing to understand how to. In Milkshape, you want to go to the Joint tab and in a small windows you will see names of the bones. Select with the selection tool a part of the mesh that you want to assign the bones to and after you clicked the bone that is needed for that part, just click 'assign' and keep doing that until you think the car will act right.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#15 Old 23rd Dec 2015 at 1:12 AM
Well I used the Fitzgerald as the reference, it just felt appropriate because of the classic race car conection and it's as small as the GT40.

Is it possible to adjust the bones or something?

Edit: This is what the joints look like:
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#16 Old 23rd Dec 2015 at 4:31 PM Last edited by Greenplumbbob : 23rd Dec 2015 at 5:49 PM.
Yeah the reason why the car took the bits with it is because the yellow, blue, red colours are the wheels. These colours that are on the car, just make them lightblue like the car. I'm not sure which bone is the one that could be the car's part (the light blue one), but if you select some vertexes that should change to that colour, there will be one bone that will show the light blue colour. It's not that you'll get a different colour. ANd when you finished fixing those spots, I guess it's ready for game again.

A way to assign the bones is: Use the selection tool from the Model tab and use the 'select' to select parts of the mesh that needs to be adjusted with another bone. Go back to the Joints tab and click on the specific bone you need (which in your case are code kinda names) click assign which you will find in the same tab.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#17 Old 24th Dec 2015 at 1:37 AM
BINGO!

The wheels are still a little wobbly but I can fix that, all I need to do now is find a way of moving the sim into the right position (if that's even possible) and find a way of stopping TSRW from screwing with the UV mapping.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#18 Old 25th Dec 2015 at 12:25 PM
Hmm the only thing I could think of with the UV map problem is when you import the mesh and TSRW asks for adjusting the Vertex data. Sometimes you need to say yes to make it work better, or just say no to fix other things. It's weird, the progress of making CC in TSRW. But to be honest I have no idea how to get your sim in the right position since I have never made a car in my life before. But I guess it's all about slots, so if you change the slots, you might be able to change the sim's position. Just a guess ^-^
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#19 Old 8th Jan 2016 at 8:45 PM
Okay I'm getting no further with this, I have to reinstall TS3 again and I couldn't fix the mapping.I tried converting another car and when I imported the model into TSRW this came up:

When I clicked yes TSRW screwed with the mapping of the other car.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#20 Old 8th Jan 2016 at 11:06 PM
OH WAIT, Well there is a explanation for that. So either your UVmap is too big, but then... This is about normals. So it seems that you export it in a way where it doesn't take it's normal map with it (like the shadows around the car). Can I ask you... How did you export it? Like from your 3D program to milkshape to TSRW. It could be either your 3D program causing this or something about Milkshape that's just doing weird things. Does the 3D program you use has an option to do something with the UV map? And the Normal map? Because I can't remember an error like this TSRW would throw. (I might be wrong about that though)
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#21 Old 9th Jan 2016 at 7:09 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Greenplumbbob
OH WAIT, Well there is a explanation for that. So either your UVmap is too big, but then... This is about normals. So it seems that you export it in a way where it doesn't take it's normal map with it (like the shadows around the car). Can I ask you... How did you export it? Like from your 3D program to milkshape to TSRW. It could be either your 3D program causing this or something about Milkshape that's just doing weird things. Does the 3D program you use has an option to do something with the UV map? And the Normal map? Because I can't remember an error like this TSRW would throw. (I might be wrong about that though)


I used Zmodeler 1.07b to re-map the car, when I was done, I had to import it into Zmodeler 2.2.6 to export it as .obj. I opened Milkshape and imported the .obj car and after fixing the bones, exported it to .wso format. Could it be from the mapping being too close to the edge of the mapping square? Zmodeler 1.07b allows you to edit both the UV Map and Normals of the model.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#22 Old 10th Jan 2016 at 12:31 PM
I guess it could! I know the UVmap should be 1024x1024 by default, but the way I was able to fix a problem was using the resize option in Milkshape. Zmodeler is a awesome program so I understand why you use it. But say you would do 'align normals' (The plugin is here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=139859 ) on the car, maybe it's that the sims can't handle the normals from Zmodeler? (would be weird, but TSRW has thrown me weirder errors for something so dumb)

Anyway, to resize it in Milkshape 3D, You need to go to the Materials tab, click 'new', then you will see those two bars with <none>, add your texture on it by selecting the groups and back in the materials tab you click 'assign'. Now Milkshape should be good to see the uvmap. If you go to 'window > Texture coordinate Editor . If you only see a grey background, it's because the uv map is really huge right now. You got 2 scales option here, but you need the one that looks like "{numbers} Scale" If the numbers (which I keep having) is like 14,5, just scale it down to 1. Now you want to use the select tool and select the whole uvmap. Now you want to click the "fit selection" NOT THE REMAP BUTTON. This one will mess up the UVmap.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#23 Old 29th Jan 2016 at 8:45 PM Last edited by speedo10 : 29th Jan 2016 at 9:35 PM.
This isn't working out at all, I'm giving up now.
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