SEP

17

Handy Dandy Blender Cheat Sheet

Handy Dandy Blender Cheat sheet!
G (grab) allows you to pick up and move selected objects.

Press x, y, or z afterwards to constrain the movement to that plane

Type a number afterwards x, y, or z and move the object by that amount

S (scale) allows you to increase or decrease all of your object’s dimensions relative to the little
yellow reference point.

Type a number to scale by a fixed amount

R (rotate) allows you to rotate your object

Press x, y, or z afterwards to constrain the rotation to be only around that axis

Type a number afterwards x, y, or z and rotate the object by that amount

B (boarder select) Select any vertices within the square

Hold shift as well and you can deselect

Right mouse button select points

Hold shift to select multiple

Tab enter and exit edit mode

Shift+middle mouse button pan the field of view

Middle mouse button rotate field of view

W brings up menu with remove doubles and subdivides in edit mode

Shift+D duplicates a selection or whole mesh for edit mode and object mode respectively.

Ctrl+E brings up menu to split edges in edit mode

Ctrl+J join meshes

Alt+C turn curve into a mesh

A select all points and deselect all points

P bring up menu to separate objects in edit mode

F make face in edit mode

L select a connect section of a mesh

E extrude selection in one direction

Ctrl+R Loop subdivide

N brings up right hand menu with show weights options

Delete/Decimal key on numpad zooms to selected vertices

 Posted 17th September 2015 by minttea

0
Add a comment

Tea 'n' Moon Sims

 Classic

 Flipcard

 Magazine

 Mosaic

 Sidebar

 Snapshot

 Timeslide
1.
JAN

What's in a Clone?: A guide to cloning meshes

What's in a Clone?
Cloning
When you select Create CAS Standalone or Create 3D Mesh in S4S you are cloning one of the
game CAS pieces. By cloning a piece of the existing game, you set up your new mesh with a certain
amount of information.
Create a CAS Standalone - This imports the swatches, specular, and shadow. It does not include
the bump, mesh or emission maps, but uses the ones from your clone. This is how recolors that do
not include the mesh work.

Create a 3D Mesh- This imports all of the information attached to what you clone: the mesh, the
bump, the emission maps, the swatches, the specular, and the shadows.

What parts of a clone can be easily changed?

In S4S, much of the data from your clone can be changed. It's easy to change swatches, speculars,
bumps, shadows, and emission maps. The mesh and the connected data, however, are slightly
more complicated to alter.

Your mesh has an incredible amount of data attached to it. Here's a list of some of the most
important aspects to a CAS mesh when making new CAS items:

LODs
LOD stands for level of detail. CAS meshes typically have 4 LODs (some accessories have fewer).
The highest level of detail LOD 0 has the most vertices and polys. It is used when the camera is
close to the sim. The lower levels of detail have progressively fewer vertices and polys. They are
used as the camera moves away from the sim. LOD meshes are used to help improve the
performance of the game. It is far less difficult for a computer to render only a few high detail
meshes (the things close to the camera) and a larger number of lower detail meshes (things farther
from the camera) than to render everything at the same detail level. When making cc, it is a good
idea to decimate you mesh for the lower levels of detail.

Cut Layers
Each LOD mesh is made up of a variable number of cut layers. These cut layers show up in Blender
in the scene menu similar to the way layers do in photoshop.

This mesh has three cut layers: s4studio_mesh_1, s4studio_mesh_2, and s4studio_mesh_3
You can also see the different cut layers in S4S. Select from the top menu bar in S4S
Tools>Modding>Embedded all externally referenced resources (CAS). Now in the Warehouse tab
you should see a number of entries for Geometry.

In the warehouse tab you can see all the cut layers for all the lods listed as geometry. This mesh has 4 LODs and 3 cut layers per LOD,
so there are 12 geometry entries.
You can use this view to quickly check that each LOD mesh has the same number and regions for
the cut layers.

For instance, if you find that your clone has 5 geometry entries you know something strange is up
with that particular clone. This is the case with yfBody_DressPanels.
 The first geometry entry shows a complete dress in the 3D preview. There are no obvious holes or gaps in the mesh.

The second geometry entry however if quite different. It shows the same dress with a massive chunk missing from the front of the
 skirt.

The third geometry entry shows the chunk missing from the dress mesh above.
This is quite a common issue with Base Game meshes. If you use one of these meshes for your
clone, more likely than not when you zoom away from the dress, it will explode.

Here's an example of what typically happens when you choose one of these inconsistently cut meshes as your clone. A similar effect
happens when you use a clone that doesn't have one of the bones you're using assigned.
If you don't want to mess with the warehouse tab, you can also determine if a mesh is suitable for
cloning by exporting each LOD mesh and checking that each LOD has the same number of cut layer
in Blender.

Each cut layer also has a list of bones assigned to it.

The list of bones can be found under the object data tab in the lower right section of your screen.
Each cut layer also has a cut number assigned to it. These are incredibly important! Most often when
your mesh will not import correctly into s4s, it is because the cut numbers of your new mesh are not
correctly lined up with the cut numbers of your clone.
Your cut layer's cut number is found under the scene tab, under S4Studio CAS Tools. The cut number is highlighted above. CAS items
use the GEOM type, Build Buy items use the NONE type.
It is important that the cut layer that contains the arms of a mesh has the same cut number as the
layer with arms from your clone. It is also important that the ankles and knees have the same cut
numbers in the new mesh and clone.
 If the arms do not have the correct cut number they can end up inside the body like in with the dress above. I have also seen them
hanging off sideways in this scenario.

If the knees and ankles do not have the correct cut numbers, putting on boots can cause pieces of your mesh to disappear, like the body
of the dress did here.
It's good practice to export at least LOD 0 of your clone to check which cut numbers go where.

Region Map
The region map controls what tucks into what. For pants to tuck into boots, the region map must be
configured correctly. For necklaces and to be hidden under certain clothing, you use the region map.

The region map can be found under the warehouse tab. To edit the region map you need to click the Edit Items button under Entries.
If you don't see region map listed, select from the top menu bar in S4S Tools>Modding>Embedded
all externally referenced resources (CAS). This should add the ability to edit the region map.
This is the typical region map set up for a pair of pants that tucks into boots.
Here's the typical set up of the region map for a pair of tall boots. You can see that the values for Calf and Knee are both higher than
corresponding values on the pants. The boots are a higher layer number than the pants, so the pants tuck into the boots.
 This is a region map for a sweatshirt that hides necklaces and bracelets. The chest value hides necklaces, the wrist values hide
bracelets, and the bicep values hide arm bands.
Pant not designed to tuck in have higher numbers for calf, knee, and ankle. Shirts not designed to
hide jewelry typically lack everything except the Base entry.
 This shows the models (geometry entries) connected to the left bicep region map.
Because region map entries are connected to the cut layers of your mesh, you have to be somewhat
careful when editing them. It's important to make sure you're keeping the meshes attached to any
new region map data you're creating.

To make a top or full body outfit no longer hide jewelry, select the chest, wrist, and bicep entries,
change their RegionType to Base and their Layer to 0.

To make a top or full body outfit hide jewelry, select the Base entry and select copy (not add). Then
with your new layer change the RegionType to chest, wrist, or bicep and enter the layer number you
want (typically 400 or higher).

If you need to hide the feet or head of a sims, you need to set the ExcludePartFlag value under CAS
Part in warehouse. Here's an article on how the values are determined. In my experience, the
easiest way to determine the value you want is to find a CAS item that behaves how you'd like your
new mesh to behave and copy its value.

Shaders
If you want to make alpha cc or any transparent cc (except glasses) you need to edit the shaders for
different parts of your mesh.
 Each geometry entry has an assigned shader. You can find it under the data tab, highlighted above.
SimGlass is the shader used for alpha hair, transparent/alpha fur, and transparent clothing. It is not
compatible with laptop mode!

The shader is set for each individual geometry entry, which lets you have most of your mesh use a
SimSkin shader on its own cut and all your transparent mesh parts on a separate cut use the
SimGlass shader.

Choosing the right clone for your project

Things you need to know before selecting your clone:

 Does your mesh use the foot, toe or skirt bones? These three bones don't show up all together in
base game meshes. You may need to look into doing a clean weight transfer if you are using all
three. Look at my weight guide here for more information.
 Does your mesh need to tuck into boots? Three cuts are helpful then, although you can get away
with 1 cut if your mesh is skin tight. Cloning a pair of pants that already tucks into boots the way you
want your new mesh too is always a good idea. Pants tend to have consistent numbers of cuts per
LOD, so most are good clone choices.
 How many cuts do you want your mesh to be? If you're adding simglass sections, more cuts is
always better. One cut is convenient for editing, but may come with limitations. For adults there is
not one cut option that allows you to use the skirt bones or the foot/toe bones.
Suggested clones have all been check for consistent numbers of cuts for each LOD.

Suggested Clones for using the Skirt Bones:

(There are no 1 cut options for adults)

yfBody_DODDressOffShoulder | 3 Cuts | Knee Length

yfBody_DressBoatNeck | 3 Cuts | Knee Length

yfBody_DressMaxi | 4 Cuts | Ankle Length

ymBody_TowelPlush | 3 Cuts | Knee Length

yfBottom_SkirtCalfStraight | 3 Cuts | Knee Length | Male variant also good

yfBottom_SkirtMaxi | 4 Cuts | Ankle Length | Male variant also good

cfBody_Sundress | 3 Cuts | Knee Length

cfBody_TowelPlush | 1 Cut | Knee Length

pfBody_DressScallop | 1 Cut | Knee Length

pfBottom_SkirtBow | 1 Cut | Knee Length

Suggested Clones for using the Foot and Toe Bones :

(only for floor length gowns that don't cover the feet)

yfBody_DressConcerto | 4 Cuts

Suggested Clone for when you need extra cuts:

yfBody_DressGranny | 8 Cuts

ymBody_Supervillian | 8 Cuts

Suggested 1 Cut Clones when you aren't using the skirt/toe/foot bones:

yfBody_Chemise

ymBody_EF01SwimsuitOnePiece

cfBody_TowelPlush (Can use skirt bone)

pfBody_DressScallop (Can use skirt bone)

Posted 7th January by minttea

0
Add a comment
2.
 JAN

A Guide to UV-1
A Guide to UV-1
What is UV-1?
UV-1 is a deformation map. It tells your game what stays attached to what when the shape of your
sim changes from editing the body shape sliders, to the weight and fitness sliders, but also how a
mesh changes from a male to female frame and vise versa.

This of it like a net made out of rubber bands. Your sim is a balloon surrounded by the net. If the top
of the balloon expands, the rubber band net around the top of the balloon will stretch too. If there are
holes in the net, unexpected things could happen including your mesh forming a hole. And if you
have a very complicated net, you need to make sure each piece of netting is in the correct location
so it stretches the way you want it to.

Around the widest part of the balloon the knots in the net are spread farther apart that at the top of the balloon

Standard UV-1 Maps for Nude Sims Meshes

Templates can be very helpful for more complicated meshed, here are the three I typically use.
Adult Female Template

Adult Male Template

 Toddler Template (I haven't found a child version, but the child and toddler maps are very similar)
UV-1 maps are unfolded version of the sim model.

UV-1 is like a rolled out sim wrapper. They had to "cut" the mesh along the sides and back and around the fingers and feet to get it to
lay flat.
 Courtesy of Andrew at S4S the red lines show the seams on the sim mesh for UV-1

In general a CAS clothing mesh ends up getting split into three sections: front, back right, and back
left.

To use these templates you need to edit your uv-1 map. Select your whole uv-1 map, scale x by half
(sx0.5).

A resized uv-1 map

Translate the map 128 in the x direction (gx128), so that the whole map is over the grey grid.
 This shows a resized and shifted uv-1 map!
Next select open (highlighted in the image above) and select the image file of your uv-1 template.

The verts and edges of the female nude mesh line up perfectly with the uv template image underneath.
Using a template helps you determine whether your uv-1 has areas that are wildly different from the
nude mesh. You would expect some variation especially when comparing skirts to the nude, but in
general pants and tops should line up very closely with the template. It is most important that the uv-
1 mapping for a new mesh stay within the boundaries of the template. Very little should be
happening in the white space!

Making sure that the neck of your mesh as well as the ankles line up exactly with the uv template is
very important. The split between the body mesh and the head and feet is commonly caused by
misalignment of uv-1. This usually shows up as holes and splits between the neck and head or the
ankles and feet that grow and shrink with different sliders.

Not properly lining up the bottom edge of tops and top edge of bottoms on the uv template can
cause issues too. This often shows up as a split/hole across the belly on sims with larger bellies or
on pregnant sims.

Once you've aligned things with the template, make sure you return your uv-1 to its original size and
location.

Connection
Making sure your points are properly connect on uv-1 is the first step. If the points are connected on
the mesh, they should be connected on uv-1, with a few minor exceptions. They don't have to be
connected along the center of the back, along the side, or on the seam of the uv 1 template that
goes around the arm and fingers (and also around the feet). Even in places where points aren't
connected the height of the "split" point need to be the same on uv -1.

I have a point selected on the sim's hip along one of the uv-1 seams. The point show up in two different locations on the uv-1 map, but
they have the same height (same y value).
Turning on uv sync can help you line up and connect points on uv-1 that are connected on your
mesh.

UV sync is toggled with the highlighted button, which you can find on the bottom bar of the uv window
Now when I select a point on the mesh, the corresponding points light up on uv-1. You can see that the top and bottom sections aren't
connected correctly on the map (there's a big gap!)

With the point selected and my mouse in the uv window, I hit W and select weld to connect the two points. You can do this for all
connected points, except along the edges of the uv.
 These points along the side seam of the mesh are all connected, but we only want to connect those points with their vertical neighbors.
In this case turn off uv sync, select the whole mesh in the 3d view, select each pair of the points you want to connect, and weld with w.

Location
It's important when adding decorations like bows to a mesh that the uv-1 map for the bow is over the
correct location.

Here's my quick and dirty method for getting bows and the like to stick.
 Here I've taken a bow from the Cats and Dogs hair and positioned it on the chest of the sim.
The first thing you need to do to the bow is do a weight transfer from the main mesh to bow (covered
in my weights guide).

Next we need to position the uv-1 map correctly. Turn on uv sync and select the bow. Grab the
selection on the uv-1 and drag it to the approximate location of the upper chest.
 The bow uv 1 in generally at the right height in Y, but the bow uv 1 is massively too wide. It's stretching from arm pit to armpit!
Now that the bow uv-1 is roughly in place we need to scale the uv-1 map in x (sx) until it's roughly
the same size on the map as it appears over the mesh.

Now the bow is much closer to the right size.

Now with the bow still selected, select a point on the main mesh directly behind the bow.
 The points on the mesh and uv_1 are circled in red. The bow is slightly above the point y on the uv-1 map and slightly above in z on
the mesh. That exactly what we want.
Now you're ready to test in game to see if the bow is still properly connected to mesh, if not the next
step is to do a uv-1 transfer.

Scale
Typically you want the scale of your uv-1 map for an add-on like a bow to be roughly the size it
appears on the mesh. This is true for most objects, especially things attached directly to clothing.
One instance where this isn't the case is for necklace pendants. Necklace pendants should be
scaled down to a single point that is correctly placed along the uv-1 for the necklace chain. This can
help keep pendants from distorting with sliders.

UV-1 Transfers
Like weight transfers, uv-1 transfer are tremendously powerful tools for making frankenmeshes or
scratch meshes.

To start you need to be using Blender 2.76+

Like in a weight transfer you need to prepare two separate meshes, the transfer mesh and the new
mesh.

Before you start, I recommend removing all doubles from you transfer mesh (W>remove doubles)
and subdividing with three cuts (W>subdivide, increase the cut option to 3).
 The subdivision menu options, increase the number of cuts to 3
These two steps make sure that your transfer mesh has as many points of data as possible to
ensure a smooth uv-1 map.

To prepare your new mesh separate the arms, legs, and any other skin tight sections of the mesh on
to a new layer (Select and hit P, choose selection). Anything that could come from the nude rig mesh
should not undergo a data transfer! You'll end up with very very scary fingers, in some cases, if you
leave the arms and hands there during the transfer.

Now select your new mesh and add a data transfer modifier.
Select the object modifiers tab in the lower right panel, click add modifier, and select data transfer.
First select your source object, this should be your transfer mesh. Then select Face Corner Data, select UVs, then choose uv_1 for both
the source and destination.
Once you have the proper options selected as shown above, hit apply (in object mode).

Flip back into edit mode and take a look at your new uv-1.
 A new uv-1 generated via a uv-1 transfer
Now join any arms/legs/chests/etc that you separated from your mesh before the transfer to the new
mesh you just created a new uv-1 for. Or if you did a uv-1 transfer for a bow or another add-on, join
the add-on layer back to the main mesh.

UV-1 transfers can leave holes especially between arms and sleeves and other connections
between clothing and body meshes. Sometimes transfer will have large random holes in it, typically
removing doubles and subdividing your transfer mesh helps prevent this, but it is import to make
sure that all points are joined in your new uv-1.

UV-1's made with the uv-1 transfer method also typically have edges connecting points across
seams. See the image below for an example.

The edge highlighted are connected points along a uv-1 seam that are connected on the mesh
These edges are annoying and can make it difficult to interpret your uv-1 map, but ultimately they do
not affect how the map functions.

Posted 4th January by minttea

0
Add a comment
3.
JAN

4
 A Guide to Weights in the Sims 4
Weights
Sims bodies are made of a few different components. First there’s the mesh. This is the
general shape of the sim made of vertices (verts) and polys. The mesh itself has lots of
different data assigned to it including vertex paint, weight paint, and the uv-1 map. The
other major component to a sim is the “skeleton” or rig. The rig is what controls
animations and the rotation of different sections of the rig is what controls the poses a
sim makes.

This shows the rig and sim base mesh (which is also sometimes referred to as the rig). The black dashed lines and dots show the
location of the rig. Each dot is a different bone
Definitions:
Bones – These are the sections of sim’s body controlled by animation. They act much
like bones do in the human body although much more simplified. For instance, short
hair is assigned nearly exclusively to b__Head__ (The head bone) which means that any
time the sim’s skull/head moves, the hair should move with it. Orangemittens of S4S
has complied a list of all the bones here.

Weights – Weights are what connects the sim mesh to the bones. They are values from
0.0-1.0 assigned to each vert for each bone. The end result is actually a matrix where
you have three aspects: the vert location in x,y,z, the bone, and the weight value.

So for instance we could have a vert located at -0.0876, -0.0455, 1.507. This vertex is
assigned to four bones on the base mesh: right shoulder twist, spine 2, right clavicle,
and spine 1. Each of bones has a weight for that particular vert.

You can see the selected vertex circled in red. Its x,y,z location are listed at the top of the right panel, under Transform. Under Vertex
Weights we can see the names of the four bones assigned to this vert. And next to each bone name is the weight assigned to that bone
at this vert. In this case we see spine 1 has a weight of 0.235 at this vert.
The other important thing to note about the weight values is that they must all add up
to 1.0 for each vert. When the values all add up to 1.0, we say that the weight values
have been normalized.
How to look at weights in Blender:
Weight paint mode is a great tool for visualizing weights.

Here the bone b_spine1_ is selected (the cyan dot). The top mesh shows a visual representation for the weight values assigned to the
top mesh.
 What weight paint is really showing you is a visualization of the weight values at each vertex. Each vertex appears as a single color.
In weight paint mode dark blue represents 0.0 and red represents 1.0.

Here's a color breakdown:

0.0 - #0000ff
0.1 - #0066ff
0.2 - #00ccff
0.3 - #00ffcc
0.4 - #00ff66
0.5 - #00ff00
0.6 - #66ff00
0.7 - #ccff00
0.8 - #ffcc00
0.9 - #ff6600
1.0 - #ff0000

How do I check for weight problems?:

First and foremost, weight paint should appear smooth. Jumps in weight paint color can cause spiky
movement, especially on skirts.

Second, the common sense check. If the weight is called r_toe it really shouldn't show up on the left
foot anywhere, let alone on the chest or hair! If you're not sure your weights are in the correct
locations, check against a similar EA mesh or against the rig mesh.

Third, matching bones. This is the major cause of exploding mesh syndrome. If the mesh you
cloned is lacking the r_toe and l_toe bones and you try to import a mesh with values assigned to
those bones, it will explode in game. When you select a clone, it needs to contain all the bones you
want to use. There are ways to add additional bones to a clone, but I will not cover that here as it
produces finicky results at best.

Weight Transfers
The weight transfer is the basic tool for making sure that frankenmeshes move correctly.

How you preform a weight transfer varies on your version of blender. Unless you work exclusively in
Blender 2.76, I recommend using Blender 2.70 for doing weight transfers.

Blender 2.70 (The easy method)

1. Have your transfer mesh (the weights you want) and your new mesh (the mesh you want) in the
same blend file on separate layers.

2. In object mode, select your transfer mesh in the scene window, then shift click your new mesh.
Your transfer mesh

If you've selected your meshes in the correct order your transfer mesh should have a dark orange highlight and your new mesh should
have white text and a light orange highlight. In the above picture s4studio_mesh_4 is my new mesh and top.001 is my transfer mesh.

3. Change from object view to weight paint view using the menu option along the bottom bar. The
weight paint view mode is highlighted in the image below.
 In weight paint mode the mesh should change to have the blue to red color scheme. Auto normalize should be checked.

4. Hit the transfer weights button on the left hand panel. The default options listed should not be
changed. The default settings transfer the weights at once. It uses the nearest face method, which
means that the weight for any given face/poly on your new mesh is taken from the nearest face on
your transfer mesh. The group setting (All) ensures that this happens for all bones, not just your
selected bone (This is what setting the group to active does).

5. Hide your transfer mesh and check the weights on your new mesh for weirdness.

6. Delete the transfer mesh if you're happy with your weights. You're done!

Blender 2.76+ (The more complicated method)

Blender 2.76+ gives you many more options for preforming weight transfers. These can be very
powerful if used correctly. Doing a weight transfer follows roughly the same steps as in 2.70, but
there are more options to change and the additional step of cleaning your weights at the end.

1. Have your transfer mesh (the weights you want) and your new mesh (the mesh you want) in the
same blend file on separate layers.

2. In object mode, select your transfer mesh in the scene window, then shift click your new mesh.
Your transfer mesh

If you've selected your meshes in the correct order your transfer mesh should have a dark orange highlight and your new
mesh should have white text and a light orange highlight. In the above picture s4studio_mesh_4 is my new mesh and
top.001 is my transfer mesh.
3. Change from object view to weight paint view using the menu option along the bottom bar. The
weight paint view mode is highlighted in the image below.

In weight paint mode the mesh should change to have the blue to red color scheme. Auto normalize should be checked.
4. Select Transfer weights, then change the Vertex Mapping to Nearest Vertex, Source Layer to
By Name. Destination to All Layers, and Mix Mode to Replace as shown in the image below.

The weight transfer settings for a typical weight transfer in Blender 2.76+
5. Click your new mesh name in the scene panel to select only your mesh.

6. Still in weight paint mode, select the Clean option. Set the Subset option to All Groups.
 Select the clean option and then the All Groups option under Subset.
Why clean weights? Cleaning your weights removed entries for bones that are 0.0
Prior to cleaning the select vert has a huge list of bones with 0.00 weight assigned to them, plus the important non zero weights. Sims 4
studio will not import unclean weights correctly

After cleaning the same vert has two bones, each with non zero weights. This mesh can now be properly imported into sims 4 studio.
Importing an uncleaned mesh into sims 4 studio will cause your weights to be imported
incorrectly. Blender 2.70 does not produce all these 0.00 weights, so no cleaning is
required.

Advanced Weighting Techniques

Improving your transfer mesh

Weight transfer use various methods (nearest vertex, nearest face, etc) to calculate how to transfer
weights from one mesh to another. There are several ways to optimize your transfer mesh.
1. Subdivide. Select your whole transfer mesh, hit W, select subdivide and in the subdivide options
increase the number of cuts to 3 (or more).

The Number of Cuts highlighted above should be increased to at least 3.

2. Edit the shape of your transfer mesh. If you're transferring to a new mesh that has a much wider
sleeve or much wider skirt, it's helpful to use proportional editing to change the shape of your
transfer mesh to closely resemble your new mesh.

3. In Blender 2.76+ retirement with different calculation methods for weight transfers. The Projected
face interpolated, Nearest face interpolated, and Nearest Face Vertex can all give better or worse
results depending on your mesh.

Clean Weight Transfers to fix Exploding Meshing Syndrome

Preforming a "Clean" weight transfer is a simple step to ensure that you don't end up with unwanted
bones used in your weighting.
 On the lower right panel, under the Object Data tab, you'll find a list of the bones used by your mesh. The bone b_L_Index2_ is
selected.
Bring up the list of bones, select an entry in the bone list (Under Vertex Groups in the above image),
and hit the minus button on the right, highlighted in the image above. This removes the bone.
Repeat this process until all the bones are removed.

Now preform a standard weight transfer, making sure that your transfer mesh only uses bones that
are part of the mesh you cloned.

Weight Gradients for Long Hair

Braids are notoriously difficult to get to stretch smoothly when your sim rotates their head. Long hair
and pigtails often have similar "chunky" stretching issues. After using a weight transfer, your spine 2
bone may still have issues with not being very smooth.
 These pigtails have only had a weight transfer from the OR braided pigtails done to them. The height of the end of the weight paint
varies strand to strand and horizontally the colors jump from yellow-orange to green in several locations. In game the stretching will
look chunky and unnatural.

Rotating the head bone shows this problem clearly. You've got clipping and spikes.

Now to fix this, we're going to first remove the existing spine 2 weights.
Set your weight on the top left panel to 0.0. Select the face editing mode on the bottom menu bar (highlighted). Hit A to select all, if all
the faces have not lit up as in the above picture. Then hit Shift+K to flood fill the face with 0.00 weight paint.
Deselect the face editing mode, and change your weight value to 0.6.
Make sure your mesh is facing straight forward by hitting Num 1 (Also hitting num 5 to set the view
to ortho helps too).
Select the weight gradient button. Position your cursor on the center line of the sim, just below the
bottom of the pigtails, click and drag up until the color reaches to roughly the bottom of the jaw of the
sim.

Click at the bottom and drag along the arrow to produce a color gradient like the one visible. For this hair I released my mouse roughly
between the sims eyes. Trial and error is helpful for determining the correct height of the colors.
After this hit normalize all on the weight tool bar.
 Level the options set to All Groups and Lock Active as shown
above.
Now you're ready to test your weights.

The stretching is now far smoother than it was after just a simple weight transfer. There is still some crunchiness, but with trial and
error you can minimize it even more.
Note- The weight gradient affects the whole hair. It is often wise to duplicate your mesh before doing
a gradient so you can perform a weight transfer from just the scalp section of the hair after your
complete your gradient. This makes sure the neck and head weights don't get messed up in the
process. You can also temporarily separate the pigtails from the rest of the mesh before doing a
weight gradient to make sure the scalp weights aren't changed.
Hand Painting

If you're trying to smooth out big jumps in weight paint color, this is usually the easiest way to do it.
Once you're in weight paint mode you can immediately start hand painting. I'll outline some of the
helpful options, but hand painting is usually an exhausting process of trial and error to be avoided
whenever possible.

The tools:

Face select mode - This enabled to select areas of your mesh like you would in edit mode and only
paint those sections or flood fill them using the hot key shift+K.

The bottom to enable face select mode is by the red arrow.

Blending modes - These include add, subtract, blur, and mix. They work pretty much like you'd think.
Add and subtract add and subtract weights based on the weight strength you have selected. Blur
reduces the difference between neighboring weights within your selection circle. Mix replaces and
mixes your selected weight with the existing ones.

The different blending modes. I find add, subtract, blur and mix to be the most helpful.

Once you finish weight painting it's a good idea to normalize all weights. Make sure you have the
weight you were working on selected before you normalize. To ensure that you don't erase your
weight painting when you normalize, only change one weight at a time, then normalize.
 Normalize All weights with the active weight locked.
If your hand painting isn't importing into s4s correctly it can sometimes help to open your blend in
Blender 2.70, duplicate your mesh and preform a weight transfer from the copy to the original, then
delete the copy and import.

Strategic bone weight removals (Ideal for deformations in objects between breasts)

If you're working with a long necklace, once you've done a weight transfer you may notice that the
pendant on your necklace is getting squashed and deformed when you change the sim's breast size
and height. One this thing which **may** help is weighting the necklace to only one breast.

Select the breast weight you want to remove in the Object Data tab and hit the minus sign.
 On the lower right panel, under the Object Data tab, you'll find a list of the bones used by your mesh. The bone b_L_Index2_ is
selected. To remove the bone hit the minus sign highlighted.

Now select the other breast weight from the list while in weight paint mode. Then select normalize all
from the weight tool menu.

The settings to use for Normalize All

Then you're ready to test in game and see if it improved your mesh. Sometimes it can cause your
mesh to move drastically towards one side or another when the breasts are edited. This typically
means your mesh needs more spine 1 weight.

Weights in Objects
CAS items aren't the only thing that use weights in the game, some build/buy objects do as well!
Objects that actually move like doors, fridges, ovens, dishwashers, shower doors, exercise
machines, microwaves, gates, tents etc all use weights to determine which parts of the mesh should
move. The weights for these type of objects are much simpler than those for CAS items.

For instance, a single door would typically have 1-2 bones: a door swing bone (_bind_doorSwing_E_
for instance) and in some cases a static bone (typically a transform bone). The entire door is
assigned to the swing bone, and the entire frame is either unassigned to any bones or assigned to a
transform bone.

The easiest was to edit weights like these is simple to select the whole section of the mesh that will
move (like the door) by hitting L with you mouse over the area.
 The list of bones can be found under the object data tab. 100% strength weights can easily be added using the Assign button
highlighted.
Then in the weights panel, simply select the swing bone and hit assign. This assigns the door mesh
100% to the swing bone.

For more complicated object weights like those in tents, I recommend follow a similar approach to a
CAS mesh. Start with a weight transfer from a similar item, and refine the weights with hand painting
from there on.

Posted 4th January by minttea

0
Add a comment
4.
APR

15

The Bump Texture

The Bump Map
What is it? The bump controls the “roughness” of your object in
game. It is sometimes referred to as a normal map. It is called the
DST image in Sims 4 Studio for both CAS and Build objects.
Wait, what’s a normal? The objects in The Sims are made of little flat triangles
(polys). Light bounces off these flat surfaces in a given direction.

This gnome statue is made up of a bunch of different size triangles. Each

triangle is a poly. One poly is outlined in red.

Light comes in and bounces off of a poly. The game knows how each poly is
tilted by the normal for each poly.
Each poly in a mesh has a normal sticking straight out of it, like the arrows
on this curve.

The direction the light bounces is described by the surface’s normal. Each mesh
carries information about each poly’s normal, which helps the game generate shadows
on it.

Each one of the blue lines pointing out of this gnome is

a normal.

Bump/normal maps also contain information about normals, but instead each normal
being linked to a particular poly, the normal is linked to a pixel.

Why is this a good thing?

High poly objects generate shadows really beautifully in game, but they are difficult for
your computer to render.

Low poly objects can look blobby or too smooth in comparison.

Bump maps are a type of texture that allows the low poly objects to look more like a
high poly version. There are more pixels covering an object than there are polys. This
means that by using a bump map light can bounce many different directions off of one
poly!

The bump map’s job is to create shadows to make things appear more detailed and
more 3D than they actually are!

Going from left to right these gnomes all have the same texture (except for
the colored one): High poly no bump, low poly no bump, low poly with
bump. Even though the low poly gnome doesn't have the same amount of
detail in the mesh as the higher poly gnome, when we add a bump to a
mesh it looks high poly!

What does this look like in CAS?

This top has no bump map or texture. It is very flat. Some shading can still
be seen, but many details of the original shirt are gone.
 The arrows point to some small amounts of shading due to details
in the mesh.

This shirt has no texture, but is does have a bump map! There is a much
more detailed amount of shading letting us distinguish the design of the
lace and buttons.
When you combine a bump map with a texture, your object looks even more 3D!
 The texture helps to accentuate the shading that the bump provides. The
effect is 3D lace with a very low poly count!

So how does the bump map work?

The bump map is made of two images.
One in the RGB channel and one in the alpha channel.

RGB
image

Alpha
image

These two images contain information about how the object should be shaded. The
difference between them is the location of the light source. Bright points on the RGB
images show up are dark parts on the Alpha image, but they are not simply perfect
inversions of each other. The difference between the inverted RGB and Alpha image
are what makes the texture look "bumpy" when the bump texture is used.
 On the left is the inverted RGB image on the right is the Alpha image. The
difference between these two means that the RGB and the alpha channel
don't cancel each other out when overlain.

Much like in drawing, different light sources can help bring out the shapes of an object
differently. Rather than just shading the object with a permanent shadow in some
places, the bump texture uses the two images to make the object look 3D from many
angles.

Bump maps contain two differently shaded views of the same object, each
with a different light source. It would be a lot like combining two of the
shaded shapes above!

So how do I make a bump map?

To make a bump map you need three things: a texture, an image editor which
support RGB and alpha channels like Photoshop, and bump map generator program.

My new favorite bump map generator is a free program called Njob. You can download
it here. This is what I'll be using in the tutorial.

Start by extracting or creating a texture.

Next open up this texture in Njob.

Open up your texture in Njob

Next you want to turn your texture into a height map. Click Filter>
Diffusemap>Heightmap.
 Apply a heightmap filter

This will open up a menu that allows you to tweak the heightmap generated. You want
it to look smooth, without being either too blurry or too grainy. Click ok when you're
happy with the image.

Adjust the settings until you're happy with the quality of the image.
Now we need to turn this heightmap into a normal map. We do this by going back to
the filter menu and selecting heightmap>normalmap.

Apply a normal map filter to your heightmap

Tweak the settings

Adjust the settings so that you have a map that has well defined shapes, like in the
image above. Save the files as a .bmp
Now open up your texture in your image editor. I'll be using Photoshop.

Open your image in photoshop

When you have your image open in photoshop you want to open the channel viewer, mine is in the
lower right. We need to change which images are in each of the channels.
First copy the image in the Red channel into the alpha channel.

Copy the red channel and paste it into the alpha channel
Next copy the image in the Green Channel and paste it into the red and blue channels.

Copy the Green channel and paste it into the Red and Blue channels
The same image should now be in all the RGB channels.

You should have the same image in the RGB channels, and a different image in the alpha channel.

Save your texture as a .DDS and you will have successfully made a bump map!

Does is work the same for CAS items?

Almost!

CAS items textures are 1024x2048, but their bump textures are typically 1024x1024 or 512x512.
You can follow the same steps as above, but before the first step you need to crop the image down
to a square.

Open your image in photoshop and go to Image>Canvas Size.

Open the canvas size menu

Next select the bottom middle box for your anchor point, and set the height to 50%. If you are
making certain accessories or hair, you'll need to choose the top middle anchor point because your
texture will be in the top half of the image.
 Choose the bottom middle anchor point, and change the height to 50%.

Click ok and you should have a texture cropped to the correct size to make a bump map from.

You should now have a perfectly square image to work from.

Follow the above steps for making a bump map using this image!
Troubleshooting Issues with your Bump Map
There are several issues you can run into using Njob to make bumps. Here I'll go over how to trouble
shoot each one.

Topography rings:

A top run through Njob with topography rings/banding

 A close up on the topography rings/bands on this bump. They appear and ridges or lines on the texture that follow the topography of
the image. If you take them in game your mesh texture may end up looking pixelated as a result.
Topography rings come from using an insufficient blur radius when generating your bump, or a very
high scale value. This is particularly common on textures that have very smooth color gradients.
Increasing your blur radius and/or slightly lowering your scale value during the heightmap>normal
step can help remove this issue.
Pixelated margins:
 This is the green channel from a normal map generated by Njob. The initial texture had a transparent background.

This is the green channel from a normal map generated by Njob. The initial texture had a white background.
Pixelated margins appear as strongly black or white pixels along the edge of the texture region on
the bump map. Getting rid of these in photoshop by filling in the too light and too dark pixel by hand
is possible, but a tedious process.
Pixelated margins typically occur when you have a complex edge to your texture (like the scalloping
on the bra lace above) and you use an image with a transparent background to generate your bump.
Adding a pure white background to your image before you import your texture into Njob produces
cleaner, clearer results without pixelated edges.
Bump edges too strong:

This issue typically appears as a black line around the edge of skin tight texture. It will appear like a
bump or possibly a divot on your sims' skin. Your bump is simply too strong along that edge. Take a
transparent brush (30-50% opacity is best) using #808080 color and brush it over the edge where
you see the problem in game. Do this for both the RGB and Alpha channels. Reload your texture in
game to see if you need to further soften the contrast of the bump along the edge.
Posted 15th April 2016 by minttea

4
View comments
5.
APR

13

The Specular Texture

The Specular Texture
What is it? The specular is what controls the shininess of your mesh in game.

You can find it in the warehouse tab. The CAS specular is the RLES texture and for
objects it is one of the two DST images.

You can export these textures either as .png's or as .dds's. DDS textures allow you to
control each channel individually. PNG textures show the RGB channels individually
like a DDS, but the strength of the specular is dependent on the opacity of the image
instead of the color of the alpha channel.

Dark colors on speculars -> Low effect

Light colors on speculars -> High effect

If you are looking at the HSB values for a color in PS, the B value tells you the
strength.

The specular made of four parts for objects and five for CAS
items:

The red channel: This control the "cube map blur." This channel adds glossiness to
your texture.
Both boxes have the specular strength set at 50%, but the box on the left has 50% red, whereas the box
on the right has 100% red. The texture on the right has a slightly more blurred out shine.

50% red specular color

100% Red specular color

The green channel: This channel controls the "Cube map" strength. This gives your
object a 3D-shine.

The specular strength is set to 50%. The left box has 50% green, the right box has 100% green. The
brightness of the shine pattern is much stronger on the right box.

50% green specular color

100% green specular color

The blue channel: This channel controls "Specular Falloff". This gives a enamel like
shine (think nailpolish).
 The specular strength is set to 50%. The left box has 50% blue and the right has 100% blue. The shine on
the left box is slightly brighter.

50% blue specular color

100% blue specular color

The alpha: This controls the strength shininess.

The red, green, and blue specular box side by side. The boxes not on the rugs are
perfectly matte boxes.

The mask (for CAS only): This tells the game where to apply the shine and acts
similarly to the alpha channel in the regular texture. This part of the specular exports
as a separate file. When you export the specular from Sims 4 Studio, two files will
show up: texture.dds and texture.mask.dds. To import a new specular are mask back
into studio, you need to follow the same naming convention, ie) texture2.dds and
texture2.mask.dds. You only need to import the texture.dds file, the mask will be
imported automatically.

A typical mask texture. White area are where the texture is read, black ares the texture is not read. This
texture corresponds to a t-shirt.

White and light areas on the map will correspond to places where the shine
defined by the RBG+Alpha specular is shown. It is important to have white on the
mask everywhere you have texture, even if you do not want shine visible on your
texture. Doing this prevents shine from textures under your texture (i.e. sparkly tights
under a dress) from bleeding through.

To mask off areas where you don’t have texture, fill in with an almost black color. I
use #030303.
 If you try to import your specular and your mask shows up looking like this, you have pure black in the
image background which turns white when you import the mask. Try using a very dark color, not pure
black.

What do these types of specular look like in CAS?

RED:
This top has a 100% red specular with a 50% strength (alpha). The specular has not mask so it shows up
on the whole body. The texture appears rubbery.

GREEN:

This top has a 100% green specular with a 50% strength, and no mask. The texture is very metallic or glassy.

BLUE:
 This top has a 100% blue specular, with a 50% strength and no mask. The texture is similar to car paint or nail polish.

What if I just want to make the shine to go away????

To remove shininess from your texture, you need to have a specular with a pure
black RGB and specular channel. Your specular mask needs to have pure white
everywhere you have texture on your diffuse (regular) texture, and a off-black
background.

Posted 13th April 2016 by minttea

9
View comments
6.
NOV

30

Bi-Color Hair Tutorial

Half Color Hair Tutorial
Before you start this tutorial you need:
Blender 2.70
Sims 4 Studio
Photoshop or a similar editor

Your Texture
1. Clone the hair you want to create with the create 3d mesh option
2. Everything will be much easier if you choose a hair with a clear part
3. Extract the texture of the hair you want to remap
4. Extract each LOD mesh
5. Open your texture in photoshop
6. Draw a selection square around the hair texture. Note that bits hanging down from
the main square of the texture should not be included in this selection

Draw a selection square around the main square of the texture, then layer via cut
it
7. Select layer via cut
8. Duplicate this layer
9. Select each of these texture layers using free transform, and scale then to 50%
height and width
10. Move the layers so they are corner to corner across the empty space (See picture)
 Scale your texture layers using free transform to 50% size
11. Recolor each layer separately into the shades you desire. Save a .psd

Align your textures like so and recolor

12. Save each of your desired color combos as a .dds
13. Now it’s time for blender!
14. Open your LOD0 mesh in blender
15. Select the object that contains the whole hair. (We will go object by object)
16. Open up a uv mapping window on the left
17. Select the whole UV map except for the little dangly bit that goes below our
imaginary rectangle of the texture. (You can open up the texture to identify this bit if
you are confused)
18. Open one of the new textures you created by clicking image, open image along the
bottom bar of the uv window
19. Click s 0.5 to scale it half size

Move your 1/2 sized UV map into the bottom texture

20. Click g x 128 then g y -128 (If that doesn’t put your map in quite the right place just
go g x or g y and drag it until it fits)
21. Your UV map should now be lined up with one of the sections of the UV map
22. Now place your cursor over a section of hair in the edit window and click L. This
should select a chunk of hair.

Use L to select chunks of hair

23. Continue using L to select chunks until you have half the hair selected. You can edit
individual points, if L selects too much.

When I used L to select regions, this extra little bit got selected. I will deselect it
24. I find it helpful to select first in solid view and then switch to wireframe to select the
underside of the hair and clean up my selection

In wireframe view you can see the underside of the hair

25. Now we flip back to the UV panel.
26. You should have a bunch of stuff selected. Make up you only have stuff within the
main hair texture box selected.
27. Next go g y 256 then g x -256. Those selected strands should now be moved to the
second texture space
 Move UV map into the top texture space
28. Save and repeat the process for each part of the hair. Mine has 3 objects which
make it up.
29. Now import the LOD0 mesh into s4s. Then import the texture.
30. You should now have a split texture for LOD0

31. If you flip to LOD1 it looks a little funky

32. You need to open up LOD1,2, and 3 in blender and repeat the process.
33. Import all of these and save!
34. You have a bicolor hair

Posted 30th November 2015 by minttea

0
Add a comment
7.
SEP
 23

OUTDATED Sims 2 => 4 door conversion

THIS TUTORIAL IS OUTDATED! PLEASE SEE THE S4S
WEBSITE FOR UP-TO-DATE TUTORIALS ON CUSTOM
DOORS!

Sims 2 => 4 door conversion

This tutorial will teach you:
· How to convert a ts2 door to ts4 (you probably can use it for sims 3 as well)
· How to assign custom meshes to bones
· How to edit wallmasks
· How to get files from blender into TSRW

This mesh will not teach you:

· How to make a custom UV map
· How to edit texture maps (specular/bump/etc.)
· How to make meshes in blender
· How to extract Maxis meshes from t2 or t3 (message me if you have difficulty with ts2)

What you need to start this tutorial:

· S4S
· TSRW
· An image editing program (I use an ancient version of Photoshop)
· Plug-ins for your image editor to save .dds files
· A sims 2/3 door mesh
· Blender 2.70
· SimPE for the ts2 mesh extraction
· PATIECIENCE AND TIME

Part 1. Extracting the Mesh and Textures

1. Open SimPE and open your ts2 mesh.

Step 2
 2. Click on the geometric data container under the resource tree. A bunch of files
ending in gmdc should pop up in the resource list
3. Click the first item. cmpedimentarybonnetfrench_doorframe_n_gmdc for me.
4. To make sure you have the right object click the preview button.

Preview the mesh and extract each piece individually

5. Now we need to extract each piece of the mesh individually. Under the models
window there should a list of mesh pieces with check boxes next to them. For me they
are wallshadow, frame, and glass.
6. Click only one of the check boxes and then click the export button. Save each piece
of the mesh with a descriptive title like n_wallshadow.
7. Now click on texture image under the resource tree. Export the frame and door
textures in the 512x512 size. My textures are cmpedimentarybonnetfrench-door_txtr
and cmpedimentarybonnetfrench-frame_txtr.

Part 2. Preparing the custom mesh

8. Open Blender. Open a new file and delete the cube by right clicking the cube in the top
right box and selecting delete.

Remove the cube!

9. Now go file>import>Wavefront .obj and import each part of the mesh you
extracted.
10. The parts of the mesh will probably show up jumbled. You’ll need to fix the position
of each piece of the mesh.
11. The most complicated door mesh you could have would have 13 parts. A north and
south side of two doors, glass panes for the doors and the frame, north and south parts
of the door frame, and anywhere from two to four wallshadows.
 12. Now you need to rearrange your mesh so all the pieces line up the way they
should.

Jumbled door parts

Do this by pressing g. You can constrain the movement of the mesh to the x,y, or z axes by
pressing x, y, or z and you can move the mesh a fixed about by typing a number after
that. So if I want my north side right door to move along the axis 0.3 along the x axis I
would type g x 0.3 after selecting that part of my mesh. (If you are having difficulty
determining which part of the mesh is wish try hiding parts of the mesh by clicking the
eye next to the mesh name)
13. Now save this your assembled mesh as a .blender file.
14. Now let’s quickly make a texture. Open PS and open a new image size 1024x1024.
Open both the frame and door textures we extracted earlier. Put the frame image in the
top left corner of the blank image and the door in the bottom right. You want to make
sure the whole image is visible. The two images corners should touch. Save the image
as a .psd (for later editing) and a .dds

Our Texture

15. Now go back to blender.

16. Now right click near the top of the blender window and click split area.
17. Near the bottom of the screen there is a little button with a cube on it. Click it and
select the UV image editor.
18. Select the first part of the mesh and click TAB to open edit mode. Make sure all of
the points are selected by clicking A. You should see an outline of the part of the mesh
in the UV window
 Right click along the top edge of the screen.

Select UV Map

When you are in edit mode you should see the UV map of your object
 Import the texture to line up the UV map

19. From the menu bar at the bottom of the UV window click image>open image and
open the texture image you just made.
20. Click in the UV window and hit A. Your whole mesh should be selected. Then click s
0.5.
21. Click g and drag the mesh until it is over the correct part of the texture.

The UV map is now properly sized and positioned

22. Now repeat this for each door part of the mesh (not the glass or the wallshadow).
Make sure you save between each step.
23. For the wallshadow, make sure you move the UV mesh onto the grid. Make sure
both wallshadows are in the same locations on the grid.
24. For the glass make sure the textures are on the grid over the same location. Save!
 25. Open S4S next. We need to extract a door that is similar to the custom one we are
converting. You need a door with the same footprint (one tile or two tile) and the same
number of windows (windows in doors, windows in frames). I’m using Simple Double
Door with Transom (the pictures show a different door just ignore that)

26. When you open S4S select object- Create 3D mesh. Select your door.
27. Click the mesh tab and then click export. Save the .blend file.
28. Open the file in blender. You should now have the ts4 clone door in blender.
29. Now we need to figure out how many parts this door has and which parts are
assigned to which objects.
30. Hide all of the parts of the mesh except s4studio_mesh_0. This should be the part of
mesh in between the front and back of the door. Sims 2 meshes don’t have this part, so
we will have to be creative. s4studio_mesh_0 has three vertex groups that let each part
of the mesh move or stay put as it should. This will make more sense when we look at
s4studio_mesh_1
31. s4studio_mesh_1 is the front of the door, including the frame and both doors. If you
expand the mesh options in the top right window. You should see three vertex groups
under the mesh. The transform bone is the stationary bone. E_swing is the moving
right hand door bone (from the front) and W_swing is the moving left hand door bone.
32. s4studio_mesh_2 is the rear frame and door. s4studio_mesh_3 and 4 are the
wallshadows. 5,7,9 are the front windows and 6 and 8 are the rear windows. Both the
right and left window panes are in part 8, otherwise the glass is split up into one part
per object.
33. Recap of mesh:

 0. In between window framing

 1. Front frame and both doors
 2. Back frame and both doors
 3. Front wall shadow
 4. Back wall shadow
 5. Left front glass
 6. Rear top glass
 7. Right front glass
 8. Both rear glass
 9. Front top window

34. We need to make our ts2 door mesh match this arrangement. Open the ts2
door .blend file.
35. First let’s deal with the glass. We have three panes. We need to duplicate the glass
meshes. Click one of the glass meshes. Click TAB to enter edit mode. Click shift+D to
duplicate, then click esc, then P. This duplicates the mesh part and makes it a separate
object in the same location as the original glass. Repeat this for all three panes of glass.
36. Now before we merge any of the door parts together we need to assign joints.
37. Our mesh is now all set to have joints and what not assigned to it. But we need to
export the mesh. Click file>export>Wavefront .obj
38. Make sure you save the .blend file!

Part 3. Joint assignments and adjustments to match TS4 door

39. Open up your export door .blend file as save it as door_import.blend or something
like that.
40. Shift+click all the parts of the door a click g+x and drag the door out of the middle
of the screen. This way the door remains visible as a reference for us as we assemble
the parts of the new door, but they won’t get in each other’s way.
41. Then click file>import.Wavefront .obj and import the door mesh we just exported.
42. Now we are going to resize our door until we like it.
43. I need to shift+click all the parts of my custom door mesh. Then click s and make
the door a little bit bigger. Check your door height in edit mode and then scale up or
down until you are happy. Always much sure you select your whole mesh when you do
this, you don’t want to make any of the pieces of the door much bigger than the others.
44. Now we need to make the mesh a little wider. If you look carefully you will see six
tear drop shaped doohickeys floating around. These are the bones. We need the
stretch the door so that these guys approximately line up with where the door’s hinges
would be.
45. Make sure the whole mesh is selected then click s x and drag the door until you like
the position of the doors relative to the bones.
46. Now if you don’t like that result you can scale the whole door just using s, or you
could make the door taller using sz. Play around with it until you’re happy.
47. My door also seems a little bit far back from the center of the grid so I’m going to
move it forward using g y. I want the back edge of the front frame as close to the 0 line
as possible.
48. Now let’s adjust the wall shadows so that they line up with the ts4 door’s wall
shadows.
49. Select the front wall shadow for the ts4 door and click TAB to enter edit mode
select all the points by clicking A. Click n to bring up a new menu. In this menu copy the
global Y value.
50. Click on the corresponding wall shadow for our custom door, enter edit mode,
select all the points and paste the Y value into the location on the side bar. This will
make your wall shadow to the right location. Make sure you do this in edit mode!
51. Repeat this for the rear wall shadow. Make sure your newly positioned wall masks
don’t cut into the door opening. You’ll have to edit them by clicking and moving the
vertices if they do.
52. SAVE!
53. Now click s4studio_mesh_0, then shift+D, esc, p and click selection. You’ve now
duplicated a piece of the door that has all of the bones connected to it!
54. Grab it with g and then move it along the x axis with x so that it is easily visible.
55. Rename it to bones, so we don’t confuse it with anything else.
56. Now we are ready to start assigning joint to our mesh. Make sure you have a save
with a different name before you start doing this. It’s easy to mesh up and I often need
to go back once or twice and try this again.
57. First click the part of the new mesh you are going to work on. Then we shift+click
on bones.
58. Click in the edit window and then click ctrl+J to join the meshes.
59. Now click tab to enter edit mode and click p and click selection. This will split your
door from bones, but give it a copy of the bones bones has. Now rename this layer
according to what it is, like front door right. Now save!
60. Now repeat this process with all of the parts of door except for the wall shadows,
they don’t need bones. Make sure to save often with multiple versions, in case you
accidentally merge the wrong meshes or delete your door (I’ve done that…..).
61. Now hide all of the parts of your mesh except for the piece you decide to start with
(it doesn’t matter where you start).
62. Click tab to see the object in edit mode.
63. On the right hand menu scroll down to Mesh Display and click Show Weights. Make
sure you are in solid view not wire frame (Click on the circle on the top menu and
choose solid)!
64. Your mesh should turn blue. Now in the far right side menu click the button that
looks like an inverted triangle. Scroll down so you can see the vertex groups. These are
your bones.
65. Now you will see three bones, the E swing, the W swing and the transformbone. The
swing ones are the ones that move with the door. If you are looking at the door from the
front, the east swing bone is on the right and the west swing bone is on the right. The
transform bone is the stationary bone.
66. Now I’m starting with the right front door. Still in edit mode, I click A to select all of
the point and in the window on the far right click the E swing bone and click assign. Your
mesh should turn red now.

When you assign your bones to an object, it should light up red. Here I'm checking to make sure my object matches the cloned door.

67. Assign the correct bones to each piece of the door. Make sure you save!
68. If at any point you aren’t sure what bone a part of the mesh should be assigned to,
look at the ts4 door and see what bone that section of that mesh is connected to (when
does it light up red?)
69. When you’re all done save your file. The next step is merging pieces of the door
together, so you’ll want a version to return to if it doesn’t work out.
70. Now we need to merge the rear top and left windows. In the right top window click
one of the windows and then shift+click the other window. Then click in the edit window
then click ctrl+J to join the meshes. *This step will be different depending on what door
you clone! Make sure you match the combination of the door you chose or the bones
will not work correctly!*
71. Now we need to join the doors with their respective frames. Shift+click the front
doors and the front frame, click in the in the edit window and click ctrl+J. Repeat this
with the back doors and frame.
72. Now we need to create a mesh to assign to the in between part of the ts4 mesh.
Make sure you are not in edit mode (click TAB to enter or exit) and on the bottom menu
bar on the edit window click add>mesh>plane.
73. Click s and scale it down. Click n, this brings up a new menu on the right. All the
way in the top under transform is location. Set x, and y to 0, then click g z and drag it
slightly below 0 so we won’t see it.
74. Merge and separate it from bones just as we did before.
75. Click tab to enter edit mode. Use A to select all and assign it to the transformbone.
On the left hand menu under the shading and UVs tab click unwrap.
76. SAVE! (under a new file name like door_joined.blend)
77. Now we need to assign cut values. You can find the cut value under the tab on the
right hand side on the screen with a sphere and a cylinder on it. Scroll all the way to the
bottom and it is under Sims 4 Studio CAS tools. Now the values here tell s4s which
pieces of the mesh are which. The cut values for doors are the same as the mesh
number for the ts4 door. Change all the cut values on your new mesh to match the cut
values of the ts4 door.
78. Now delete the ts4 mesh and bones. And Save with a different name.

Part 4. Getting your mesh in game

79. Open the package file you used to export the mesh of the door. It should show up in
S4S under My Projects.
80. Click the mesh tab and click import and select your final blender file. This is the
mesh for LOD0, we need to add the other LOD and the shadows, but these meshes need
slightly different things. Export and save the door meshes for LOD1+2. Open them in
blender and see if any parts of the mesh have been merged. You’ll need to merge your
mesh similarly for this LOD. Make sure to check the cut values too. These frequently
change in between LOD.
81. Now there are a variety of ways to deal with the different levels of detail meshes.
You can go into blender and use the decimate modifier to make your mesh lower poly.
That takes some trial and error. How best to make the different LODs will not be
covered in this tutorial. The only special consideration for doors is that LOD2 has fewer
parts than LOD 0 and 1. You need to go back into blender and combine certain parts
and delete others. In the case of my mesh, it is simply not possible to create lower poly
versions of the door without remaking the whole thing from scratch. My objects carry a
disclaimer about it when I upload them. In my case I upload the same mesh for LOD 0
and 1 and then I merge together the front frame and glass and then the back frame and
glass and delete the in between object. I then reset the cut values (found under the
scene tab in blender) to match the ts4 LOD 2 mesh. These doors can then only be used
by people with high end computers, which is less than ideal, but describes a lot of cc
users.
82. Follow the same steps with the shadows.
83. Once you have all of the meshes you’ll need, import them into S4S for the different
LODS.
84. Import your textures under the texture tab. There should be three different textures
the front of the door the back of the door and the glass. Import the texture we extracted
from ts2 that we used for uv mapping for the front and rear textures. Export the existing
glass texture and edit it until it matches your window.
85. Edit any of the textures or other settings available in s4s until you’re happy with
the door.

All levels of detail have been imported.

 I've assigned textures for the doors and windows

86. In the warehouse tab look for textures left over from the old door and either edit
then so they are blank or create new ones. This tutorial will not cover how to do this.
You can read more about these maps at kitkat’s simporium and on the S4S website.

87. Save your package once you’ve finished this.

I've replaced this texture with a blank version that I

created.

88. Now Open TSRW and click new project>new import, select your package file, select
the option for adding a diagonal reference, and click yes to “is this a sims 4 package”.
Keep clicking next until you get to the Finished screen, then click ok.
89. You should now see your door standing alone on a green plane. Click the edit
button. If your mesh doesn’t look explody, great! If it does, you probably need to
remake one of your wall shadows.

The newly imported door! No wall yet.

If you mesh is exploded click over to the mesh tab and export the mesh as a .obj,
import the .obj into blender and hide each of the layers until you find the exploding one.
In all of the cases so far, I’ve been able to replace the exploding wall shadow with one I
 made and move it to the correct location. If you are having issues use the wall shadow
from the door you clone, with whatever sizing edit you need to do. You’ll need to
reassign the cut value, which is under the tab with the sphere and cylinder. In all cases
for far I’ve had issues with s4studio_mesh_4 exploding, the cut 4 part of the mesh. Once
I’ve replaced the wall shadow, I reimport the mesh into S4S and then TSRW and
everything works out.
90. Now we need to add a wall mask. Click the Misc tab and right click on the cutouts
section and click add wallmask, then click ok.
91. TSRW has issues with the wall masks for medium height and tall doors, so you’ll see
something like this if you are cloning a taller door. The wall mask will not show up in the
proper place. For the shortest height door, we can edit the wall mask and see the
changes in TSRW, for taller doors we must make changes and then go in game to see
the result.

92. You can grab a wall mask to edit by starting a new project and clicking new
project>object and selecting a door and exporting the wall mask texture from the Misc
tab.
93. Play with you wallmask. Sometimes I need to save and exit TSRW for changes to
show up.

TSRW being stupid about the wallmask. In game this works perfectly.
94. If your wall shadow's show up correctly (mine often disappear) you need to going into
the materials tab and select group 3 and 4 and change the diffuse and dropshadow
altas textures to an appropriate shadow. Again, trial and error is your friend.
 On the right you can see the textures for the wallshadow.

94. Once your wall mask is done, save and export your door to a package by choosing
file>export>to package
95. Once you’ve exported it, pop it in game and test it! Make sure the wall mask is
correct, make sure nothing wonky happens when sims walk through it. Check for weird
textures and other glitches.
96. Hopefully everything works according to plans. Feel free to message me with issues
you run into (I'm easily contacted at my tumblr). Some versions of S4S work better than
others for doing these conversions. If you have a copy S4S Love, that version works
substantially better than some other versions.

Posted 23rd September 2015 by minttea

1
View comments
8.
SEP

17

Handy Dandy Blender Cheat Sheet

Handy Dandy Blender Cheat sheet!
G (grab) allows you to pick up and move selected objects.

Press x, y, or z afterwards to constrain the movement to that plane

Type a number afterwards x, y, or z and move the object by that amount

S (scale) allows you to increase or decrease all of your object’s dimensions relative to the little
yellow reference point.

Type a number to scale by a fixed amount

R (rotate) allows you to rotate your object

Press x, y, or z afterwards to constrain the rotation to be only around that axis

Type a number afterwards x, y, or z and rotate the object by that amount

B (boarder select) Select any vertices within the square

Hold shift as well and you can deselect

Right mouse button select points

Hold shift to select multiple

Tab enter and exit edit mode

Shift+middle mouse button pan the field of view

Middle mouse button rotate field of view

W brings up menu with remove doubles and subdivides in edit mode

Shift+D duplicates a selection or whole mesh for edit mode and object mode respectively.

Ctrl+E brings up menu to split edges in edit mode

Ctrl+J join meshes

Alt+C turn curve into a mesh

A select all points and deselect all points

P bring up menu to separate objects in edit mode

F make face in edit mode

L select a connect section of a mesh

E extrude selection in one direction

Ctrl+R Loop subdivide

N brings up right hand menu with show weights options

Delete/Decimal key on numpad zooms to selected vertices