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Alchemist
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Jan 2007 at 2:45 AM
Default Make Human
If anyone here is bored, has a good computer and knows a little about meshing, here's a distraction.

There is a free human body creation program called Make Human that you can find at:
http://www.makehuman.org/

This is interesting, but not ready yet for inexperienced users. It does make a complete body mesh (face and skullcap, too) that you can export in .obj format.

The first problem is the one that has been cropping up in Blender produced .obj files imported into MilkShape or SimPE recently, by using a 'o' (object) instead of a 'g' (group) for what is essentially the name of the thing. Fortunately, .obj files can be edited in WordPad or NotePad and you can fix this. The name and the filename and material (mtl)filename also need fixed.

When you get that far, you can import the mesh into MilkShape and save it. You need to rotate it (YZ are flipped) and then you will need to smooth it (the normals are bad or missing).

To use it in TS2, you would need to scale it down, reduce the polygon count from 21,000 to 2,000 to 2,500 polygons, remove the head, overlay it onto a skeleton stripped from another body mesh and make all the bone assignments and skin weightings.

And a fat morph if you want one.

Now, that's a lot of stuff. But, the models look good (as nice as Poser ones) and there are a lot of widgets in the program, which I haven't yet mastered, that look like you can tweak the heck out of it.

<* Wes *>

(Screenshot of model loaded in MilkShape).
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Blenderized to Pieces
retired moderator
#2 Old 12th Jan 2007 at 6:41 PM
Really? Sounds like lots of 'fun' When I have some time. (Free Time? what's that?) I'll try to remember to play with it.. I'll bust 'em for ya. :0) Of course, I have no idea what I'm doing but I seem to have a propensity for blowing up meshes.


This will come in handy for all those guys who want to make a sim of themselves.. uh.... I don't think it will work for me though. I think I'm too big to fit inside my monitor - especially since I went to flat screens.. Even though I have two flat screens hooked up - I'm not skinny enough. HEY! I'm serious here!
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
#3 Old 12th Jan 2007 at 6:53 PM
Looks pretty cool. I'd still rather die than assign 2500 vertices by hand, but it looks neat.

my simblr (sometimes nsfw)

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
Panquecas, panquecas e mais panquecas.
Blenderized to Pieces
retired moderator
#4 Old 12th Jan 2007 at 7:43 PM Last edited by porkypine : 16th Jan 2007 at 10:11 PM.
Hey Wes... If you can develop a tool that will allow users to tear off just the head and attach it to a standard sim body it may be easier to work with (Less vertices for HP - she may decide assigning bones is better than dying after all. then maybe she'll share more of her luscious simmies with us rather than just dazzling our eyes with their pictures.)

We could probably use the new shoes tute and substitute the head for the shoes. The only thing would be if this 'human' mesh would have the same connection neck-bolt points as a sim mesh.

Update: Comment on above mal-formed sentence construction. It looks as if I had recommended we use a sim head as a shoe. That is FUNNY image - good for the horror shop guys.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#5 Old 12th Jan 2007 at 8:00 PM
When I posted about the vertex count, I didn't remember that it would go down when the head was removed automatically.

I don't think MilkShape has it, but some 3D packages I have (trueSpace for one) can slice a mesh with a plane (adding vertices/splitting faces where needed).

Were I not involved in several other projects here, I might have tried that myself. I can't model worth a darn (less than a small badger's worth) but I can manipulate already-made things fairly well.

I just saw a mention of this elsewhere and thought someone might enjoy the challenge.

<* Wes *>
Test Subject
#6 Old 13th Jan 2007 at 10:57 AM
Do you use V 0.8b or V 0.9?
Test Subject
#7 Old 13th Jan 2007 at 11:02 AM
And: Can you post a pic, where you start removing verticles when removing the head?
Lab Assistant
#8 Old 16th Jan 2007 at 10:16 AM Last edited by ding140674 : 16th Jan 2007 at 10:21 AM. Reason: Create Get backers character
Quote:
If anyone here is bored, has a good computer and knows a little about meshing, here's a distraction.

There is a free human body creation program called Make Human that you can find at:
http://www.makehuman.org/



Hi,

Thanks for the link. :lovestruc

I'm trying to create this Get Backers Character & his career.
See my signature.

Ding140674
Jan 16 2007 6:20P.M
Admin of Randomness
retired moderator
#9 Old 17th Jan 2007 at 7:22 AM
kram1032,

If you can't figure out where you'd need to chop vertices (and then reshape the neck and make the bone assignments and normals identical to a Maxis mesh) then you're not ready to do anything with this - because there still that matter of 2500 vertices to do bone assignments to and then testing testing testing to make sure the animations are right.

"Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." - Ronald E. Osborn

Please do NOT PM me with requests, creation questions, or game help questions. Click for help:
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Lab Assistant
#10 Old 23rd Jan 2007 at 9:36 PM
this looks cool. im going to try it out soon. assigning the vertices is going to kill me. Can some please make a plugin for milkshape that will automatically assign them, lol.
Admin of Randomness
retired moderator
#11 Old 23rd Jan 2007 at 9:58 PM
Seems like it might be better to play around with and then load in as a reference and resize a sim mesh to match, rather than doing the bone assignments.

"Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." - Ronald E. Osborn

Please do NOT PM me with requests, creation questions, or game help questions. Click for help:
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Alchemist
Original Poster
#12 Old 23rd Jan 2007 at 10:00 PM
It really shouldn't take all that long to do a rough assignment job. You can assign whole blocks of bones with the bone tool at once.

For example, if you select all the vertices in the r_upperarm, you then open the bonetool, pick the r_upperarm bone, type in 100% click on apply to all and then click on commit all. Your upper arm is assigned.

Work your way through all the major body areas (for instance, on the first pass just make all the fingers part of the hand), check for any unassigned vertices, and you can put the mesh in the game. The animation will be blocky and rough, but it should work.

After you decide you want to keep the mesh, you select the joint areas one at a time and start splitting the assignments into primary/secondary. This is when you can break the hand into seperate fingers.

<* Wes *>
Forum Resident
#13 Old 23rd Jan 2007 at 10:31 PM
This is an amazing piece of software, thanks for the link, wes!

Even if I feel no tendency to convert a body generated in it to sims 2, it still may have some use for statues or the likes. Just created some really ugly specimens... ;o)

happy simming,
Xanathon


Xanathon's Laboratory :: WishList

.: Do not harass me with requests via PM, you will only get ignored :.
.: Don't post my objects or objects derived from them on paysites or the exchange! :.
Scholar
#14 Old 24th Jan 2007 at 4:34 AM
It might not be as bad as you think to do the assignments.

If you check them on a body mesh, they are for the most part done in "rings" going around the Sim's body, with all the verts of a particular "ring" assigned the same. In some areas you would need to watch for "left" and "right" assignments, of course.

The only really tricky assignments would be the hands and fingers - for which I would be inclined to chop off the new hands and use the regular Maxis hands with original assignments intact.

It still wouldn't be an easy project, but could be a fun challenge for more advanced mesh makers.
Admin of Randomness
retired moderator
#15 Old 24th Jan 2007 at 8:08 AM
The trunks that I've looked at had fairly complex 3 bone assignments all over the stomach, and not absolutely in rings there. I hate whenever I have to go in and mess with them. They never are quite the same from one mesh to the other either. Arms and legs are pretty easy, with special attention at elbows and shoulders (or you get pointy messes). I'm kinda anal about wanting excellent animations, I'll also admit. Trying to get an alpha mesh that overlaps that part of the body to behave well involved doing and redoing and redoing assignments from the waist down several times to have it not have the body bleed through. Thus my lack of love for bone assignments on that area, lol.

Dr Pixel's suggestion is good, using the game hands, you'd want them to match perfectly anyway, so that the holding objects animations would be as accurate as possible (we already know the game glitches without extra help)

"Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." - Ronald E. Osborn

Please do NOT PM me with requests, creation questions, or game help questions. Click for help:
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Lab Assistant
#16 Old 4th Feb 2007 at 2:07 AM
So wait, it is possible to take a mesh with no bone assigments and aplly the bones for a bodyshop mesh to it. WOuld it be possible to take a model from doom 3 and apply bone assigments to it?

Go here for my more gory objects:

MY GORY SIMS 2 OBJECTS

MTS2 HACKED!!! - 0wn3d
Admin of Randomness
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#17 Old 4th Feb 2007 at 2:26 AM
This depends on if you can get a doom 3 mesh in obj format, and what the detail level of the doom 3 mesh (and possibly texture) is. If there are places where SKIN shows, you have the additional challenge of making sure the uvmapping matches standard sim layout, so that the sim skin can show through as it should.

The uvmapping could be a royal pain if you need to rework the layout, but you know, maybe it's worth it.

#1 you import a sims full body mesh first

#2 you import the new model

#3 you make the neckline of the new model fit a sim neckline (and take off the head) and you make the model fit the skeleton. All the joints must be in the right place to match the maxis skeleton. You probably want to simply replace the hands with sim hands.

#4 you can then go about assigning all the bones, including an exact match at the neckline. All 1500-2500 of them. Yes, some of the assignments (like segments of the arms and legs) are simple. The trunk assignments are 2-3 bones each one and vary.

#5 oh yeah and make the groups right, copy comments, delete the original sim groups and stuff like that. (covered in tutorial #3)

If there are too many problematic factors, your other option would be to import the mesh and simply use it as a guide (once shaping it to match the sims skeleton) and then reshape an appropriate sims 2 mesh to match the new mesh.

"Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." - Ronald E. Osborn

Please do NOT PM me with requests, creation questions, or game help questions. Click for help:
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Lab Assistant
#18 Old 4th Feb 2007 at 3:09 AM
This is good to hear. I thought that reshaping the existing mesh was the only way. I am really going to have to buy milkshape

Go here for my more gory objects:

MY GORY SIMS 2 OBJECTS

MTS2 HACKED!!! - 0wn3d
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
#19 Old 5th Feb 2007 at 10:39 PM
You -can- take models from other games and convert them to The Sims 2, but those models are copyrighted by their developers, and you wouldn't be allowed to distribute them. They'd just be for personal use. Generally game companies look the other way when it comes to redistribution of parts of their content for their own game - as EA does for our frankensteining of their body meshes and use of their code and modified meshes and things in modded objects. Recreating something based on something from another game is one thing - you're taking inspiration from what someone else has created, and it's an homage to the original, but actually converting the meshes and textures from one game to TS2 and redistributing the mesh isn't allowed. Personal use, sure, go nuts, it'd be an interesting experiment (though I -still- wouldn't want to have to assign all that stuff by hand) but otherwise, yeah, don't do that.

The Make Human models appear to be all kinds of slice, dice, chop, and redistributable, as is the program itself, apparently.

my simblr (sometimes nsfw)

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
Panquecas, panquecas e mais panquecas.
Test Subject
#20 Old 13th Feb 2007 at 2:52 PM
Default coool
ts very cool but do but how do i put it in the sims
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
#21 Old 13th Feb 2007 at 3:06 PM
Err, cain, that's what we've been discussing in this thread... Didn't you read what people have said in reply to the first post? You need to have advanced Body Shop meshing knowledge before you attempt anything like that, and even if you do have that level of knowledge to convert one of these bodies, it would still not be a quick or easy project.

my simblr (sometimes nsfw)

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
Panquecas, panquecas e mais panquecas.
Test Subject
#22 Old 15th Feb 2007 at 8:06 AM
sorry i ust didn't look very confusing
Admin of Randomness
retired moderator
#23 Old 15th Feb 2007 at 1:30 PM
Yes, it's confusing if you're not a very experienced body-modder already.

Right near the beginning of Wes' first post "This is interesting, but not ready yet for inexperienced users."

"Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." - Ronald E. Osborn

Please do NOT PM me with requests, creation questions, or game help questions. Click for help:
Game Help | Create | Content List | Where Can I Find?
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