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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 16th Feb 2012 at 12:48 PM
Default Creating a window.
What I want to do is convert a window from the sims 2 to the sims 3 (Octothrop Atrium), I have already exported the mesh using SimPE. As it is a 2 story window, I will split the mesh into 2 (top and bottom), for 2 seperate windows. What tools will I need to import the meshes into the sims 3, and make them into a functional windows?
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Test Subject
Original Poster
#2 Old 18th Feb 2012 at 1:48 AM
I have figured out (thanks leesester) that I will need milkshape, I am also using TSR workshop. Unfortunatly I'm not overly familiar with milkshape, I have mostly used wings 3d for mesh modifing, I have started using milkshape though. Now the backstory is done, I have extracted the mesh from the sims 2 and imported it into milkshape, and with a window from the sims 3 for comparison. First thing I notice is thaton the sims 2 window one side is dark and the other light, where both sides are light on the sims 3 model, and I do not know how to change this?
Sesquipedalian Pisciform
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#3 Old 18th Feb 2012 at 11:33 AM Last edited by leesester : 18th Feb 2012 at 12:01 PM.
Hi, I use milkshape, but Blender would also work very well for this, if you can master the user interface. If you are interesting in creating for TS3 long term and you want to learn how to use a new 3D editor, then I recommend Blender. It is harder to learn, but once you do, it is an excellent program. However, I am not sure if Blender interfaces with TSRW.

Moving on to the window. I realise that you are trying to convert a specific window, but for testing purposes you might want to try a smaller simpler window first. The main difference is going to be the uv mapping. That will be the thing you will have to fix, and you will probably need to redo the multiplier and specular too.

In TS2 the textures tended to be a lot smaller and pieces were aligned on the uv map to best utilise the map and the wood grain or whatever was the direction as drawn on the texture. Both sides of the window would share the same UV map and texture OR one side was texture A, the other texture B. In TS3 the texture is drawn on by the game following the mask channels and all are in the same UVmap and texture.

You probably know all this, but just in case:

Mask: defines how many channels and where the channels will be applied. If the mesh part is uv mapped to an area covered by a mask colour then it will be coloured as that channel
Multiplier: Determines the shadows that will make it look 3d in game
Specular: Defines the highlights and whether or not an object has its own highlights
Overlay: Handy for things like handles etc - the non recolourable parts.

So, back to the mask. The mask does not determine the direction of the channels ON the object - eg, a vertical stripe is a vertical stripe, it does not suddenly turn horizontal. So if you want a vertical and a horizontal piece of a mesh to share the same channel on a mask and they are not already rotated on the uvmap then you are going to have to remap one piece or it will look strange. Getting the mesh into the 3d editor is the easy bit really.

Now answering question

You say you have imported the mesh into milkshape. There are two meshes in TS2 - north and south. In TS3 it is all one mesh. what you can do is this:

1) Export the GMDCs for north and south.
2) Import JUST the south mesh into MS and give each group name a suffix sth.
3) Then import the north group.
4) Then bring the two pieces together so they look like a ts3 window.
5) Then you are going to have to remap it, as right now both sides are on the same uv map
6) The easy way to prepare this is as follows:

Open up the original TS2 texture in your graphics editor (I am going to assume a texture size of 256 by 256)
1) make the canvas 512 by 256
2) duplicate the layer with the TS2 texture
3) Put the textures side by side on the canvas
4) Apply this texture to the milkshape mesh.
5) Select all the south groups and align on the right side of the texture
6) Select all the north group and align on the left side of the texture.

Report back here once you are that far.

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#4 Old 18th Feb 2012 at 11:15 PM
Sorry for the late reply, I'm from the UK, so there is probably a time difference. How do you allign the textures.
Sesquipedalian Pisciform
retired moderator
#5 Old 18th Feb 2012 at 11:27 PM
hello, no problem on time delay - that is the advantage of a forum over a chat.

When you say how to align the textures do you mean in milkshape or in your graphics editor (photoshop, GIMP)?
The wallshadow is mapped to a different area - we are far from that bit.
- Do you know how to assign a texture to a mesh in Milkshape?
- Do you know how to rotate the uv map?

If the answer to the above two questions is no, worry not, we have some excellent TS2 clothing tutorials that do cover these aspects of working in MILKSHAPE. You don't need to download sims2 or anything, you just need to read through the tutorials and practice a bit in Milkshape.

http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title..._and_UV_Mapping << start at part 7, the previous steps are bodyshop specific.

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Sesquipedalian Pisciform
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#6 Old 18th Feb 2012 at 11:56 PM
oh ok, well, you have a TS2 window.

If you want to convert it for full use in TS3 then you will want to have channels on it - inside and out. So if you do as I suggested and make the texture twice the width it was before with 2 copies of the TS2 texture on it then you can have one side recolour in one pattern and the other side in a second pattern. This means that you will have to resize the uvmaps on the textures.

If you have managed to assign the material then you will be able to open the texture coordinate editor and you will see where the pieces are uvmapped to. You do this by making sure a group with an assigned material is selected. In order to uv map you have to assign the material as a texture so you can see it. That rolly ball is not really suitable (all of this is covered in more detail with better pictures in the tutorial I linked).

You open the texture coordinate editor by clicking on window - texture coordinate editor


PS - please don't delete the posts - it makes me look like a mad woman
Screenshots

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:01 AM
Quote:
5) Select all the south groups and align on the right side of the texture


Is this what you ment:
select south groups, and apply texture/material, then open them in the texture coordinate editor, then on the dropdown menu where it says "top", and set it to "Right".
Test Subject
Original Poster
#8 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:02 AM
I think that is what you just said lol
Sesquipedalian Pisciform
retired moderator
#9 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:02 AM Last edited by leesester : 19th Feb 2012 at 12:10 AM. Reason: Merged posts: 3785534, 3785539
Do you have North and South in there? Have you resized the texture? If you could take a screenshot of the TCE window and upload it it would help

Quote: Originally posted by nintendo93mat
Is this what you ment:
select south groups, and apply texture/material, then open them in the texture coordinate editor, then on the dropdown menu where it says "top", and set it to "Right".


no no - you must not do that - you will remap the whole thing and it will be terrible. That dropdown is to map all of the selected things from a certain viewpoint.

I will wait for the picture. See how in mine the bench is mapped? Yours must also look like that. If it does not then re-read that tutorial.

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#10 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:16 AM
Test Subject
Original Poster
#11 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:17 AM
is that right for the north window trim?
Sesquipedalian Pisciform
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#12 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:36 AM
Ok, just to get back on track - I think I was going too fast. We might be able to make this a lot easier.

1) Do you want to make this window castable?
If the answer is NO then we can make this pretty easy - you won't be able to share it on MTS if you don't, but if it is for personal use, then that is up to you - just say and I will tell you the none awesome way to do it .

If the answer is YES - then we can explore the whys and hows of UV mapping.

Right now - what I see is that the north window appears to be stretched right across the image. This is because (as advised by me) you made the map twice the size. This was so that you could fit two UVmaps side by side - the north and the south. Then - by applying the mask we can make it recolourable.

However, the original mesh has data in its UV coordinates that tells it to FILL the texture - which it is doing. If you have made the double size texture then you are going to have to scale the uv's on the texture so they only take up half.

Step 1 - open milkshape, select the trim (I guess that is the frame) .
Step 2 - Open the tce and click on TRIM in the drop down - you will get the image you posted
Step 3 - With all of the mesh of ONE side of the window click on SCALE in the TCE, set the first number to 0.5 and press the S button. The uvs will all scale to half size horizontally.
Step 4 - Click on move in TCE
Step 5 - drag them all across to the left side, so that they are neatly aligned.
Step 6 - repeat steps 2 - 4 for the south side
Step 7 - drag all south side bits to the right.

Look at it in 3d view with the texture applied - how does it look?

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#13 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:37 AM
looking at your picture I'm assuming not. to clarify things I will tell you how I got to the part I am stuck at. FIrstly I rotated both meshes so that when they were both imported the light sides were on the out sides and the dark on the inside., like the sims 3 mesh. I then imported the south mesh into a new window renamed the group, then imported the north mesh, (I said no to the additional bone joints thing, I don't know if this was a mistake) after this. I then exported the texture, opened it in fireworks set the canvas to 512x256 and copied and pasted the image and lined it up so the 2 pictures were side by side. I then addes this a material then applied it to both windowtrim groups, (i'm not sure if it needed to be applied to the window group) and that is where I am stuck
Test Subject
Original Poster
#14 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:38 AM
Ok i will follow your steps from there
Test Subject
Original Poster
#15 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:40 AM
Thankyou so much for your patience, Im know Im not very good at this stuff
Sesquipedalian Pisciform
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#16 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:46 AM
You are doing fine - not wishing to scare you, but this was the easy bit. The remapping could be quite hellish.

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#17 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:58 AM
OK I have done this, as for it getting more hellish, I'm not really worried, It's usually simple things I struggle with.
Sesquipedalian Pisciform
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#18 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 1:14 AM
Ok, so you have the two side aligned on the UV map and it looks ok in the 3d view? If so, we are going to see just how much we are going to have to move.

make a copy of the texture (the 512 by 256 one) and make one side green with a vertical stripe (probably white) - a fairly thin pattern - like a pin stripe. Then use that as the material instead. What we are looking for is how many HORIZONTAL pieces have the stripes running vertically. Those are the ones you are going to need to rotate round.

You may find this resource helpful : http://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/ms3d...oordEditor.html

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#19 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 2:10 AM
OK, done that, none of the horizontal pieces have the stripes vertically, although some of the joints seem to be off.

Sesquipedalian Pisciform
retired moderator
#20 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 3:20 AM
Ok, you might be lucky here - now is a good time to make a copy of the mesh so far, so if we break it you can go back a step.

Next thing - this window is big - like a full wall high. So, you are going have to change the size of the texture again - but you know how, right? I would suggest making it so one side of the window is occupying a space of 1024 by 256 - so the whole texture will need to be 1024 by 512.Knowing Maxis/EA that mesh will be folded.

Once you have done that, we will need to edit the mesh.

Assumptions :
You have cloned a suitable window to make this from - if possible one with the footprint size you are looking for - this is the target window.
You have extracted the target window with the joints. If not, please extract mesh from TS3 again.
The TS2 window is called the swap window.
You have extracted the mesh of the target window and it has 5 groups - the shadow, the north side, the south side, the north glass, the south glass. - they will be called groups 0, 1,2, 3 and 4, and may not be in that exact order - but you get the idea I hope.
What you need to do is align all the swap window bits with the target window bits, so that we can swap them over. They need to be in the same order, otherwise when you swap them the wood may be assigned to a part of the mesh that TS3 expects to be glass - and will be invisible in game.
Then, once you have your mesh lined up you need to assign the joints in the joints tab. I will cover that tomorrow as it is very late and I must sleep.

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#21 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 12:35 PM Last edited by nintendo93mat : 19th Feb 2012 at 12:57 PM.
Just have a few questions:
As the sims 2 window I want is 2 story, do you have any idea how that mesh could split into 2, or how to crop it?
By footprint do you mean the number of squares the window takes up in the placement grid in the sims 3?
There is a gap between the north and south meshes, is this anything to be concerned about?
Sesquipedalian Pisciform
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#22 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 3:38 PM
Quote: Originally posted by nintendo93mat
As the sims 2 window I want is 2 story, do you have any idea how that mesh could split into 2, or how to crop it?


This will be the hard bit. I have no idea how this window was originally meshed, you will have to look in milkshape if there are pieces you can remove from the mesh. You will need to learn a bit about milkshape and we do have some tutorials on that.

Links
Tutorials:3D_Meshing_Indexwiki
Tutorials:Start_to_Finish_TS2_to_TS3_Object_Conversion_Tutorialwiki

Quote: Originally posted by nintendo93mat
By footprint do you mean the number of squares the window takes up in the placement grid in the sims 3?


Yes, that is correct. It is possible to make a two storey window in TS3 I think - we would just need to adjust the wall cutouts and specify how many levels, and that might be a lot easier than trying to split the mesh in half. The disadvantages of this approach are

- It might look a bit strange when playing the game on a ground floor - as the top half would probably still be visible
- It is only theory - I have not actually tried it, so it might not work.

Quote: Originally posted by nintendo93mat
There is a gap between the north and south meshes, is this anything to be concerned about?


Yes, that is a concern - you need to move them close to each other in milkshape so that they touch. Use the TS3 target window as the guide for aligning the two sides.

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#23 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 4:30 PM
Ok I have put the 2 meshes together, now they touch, I'll try the 2 story window, if that fails I will try and look for a tool capable of splitting meshes easilly (i'm sure there must be software capable of doing that). As for the window it is 4 squares across, and none of the windows I have are that wide. Would it be better to use a CC window that's that wide enough (with the creators permission) or edit the footprint of the object?
Sesquipedalian Pisciform
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#24 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 9:42 PM
There is at least one CC window that is 4 squares wide - it is by HugeLunatic I think. If you contact her I think she might say yes.

If that is what we are going to do then I will try and set up an explanation of how I think we can make this work on two stories. If lunie allows you to clone the window then this will be MUCH easier.

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#25 Old 19th Feb 2012 at 10:01 PM
Okies, I have just asked her, now to wait for a reply...
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