4to3 Conversion workflow/tutorial
Hi!
So, I know I haven't done that many, start to finish 4to3 conversions yet. But I experiment and help other people a lot behind the scenes, and I soak up teachings from knowledgeable people such as @simlicious @justmiha97 @thornowl @virtual-hugs, a little bit of @elvgreen and more people like a sponge, and have learnt a lot the past months. So I thought I'd write down what I do when I was working on the Aria dress! While it's a bit chaotic, this essentially functions as a very thorough 4to3 tutorial.
4to3 conversion workflow write down Note: this isn’t a cleaned up, perfect steps tutorial - it is a write down of my own wip, and will inclu
The above document contains my workflow, from start to finish. I use blender 3.6 (unless mentioned otherwise) and no milkshape at all.
It is VERY thorough, long, and can be lowkey overwhelming. I hope my table of contents at the beginning is clear enough. All the links are clickable, so you can just go to where it interests you. If you wonder about it, it's most likely in there, can be extrapolated from the information or I can brainstorm and experiment a how-to(-fix) if needed.
Some notes of what it includes:
Adapting the TS4 normal, specular and shadow maps to ts3
A clean finishing method to get EAXIS-like finishes that allows you to optimize the UV lay-out (nicer textures!) and further minimize clipping.
A quick texture making method to adapt the TS4 texture(s) to a brand new, potentially very different TS3 UV-layout. If you're lucky (it sometimes acts up) the actual texture-changing takes 5 seconds - puzzling the new UV lay-out beforehand would be the hardest part! (But it's also fun, puzzling!)
Very Precise bone assignment
Manually editing morphs, with some tricks for e.g. the fit morph...Why do fit morphs have such ugly boobs, even vanilla stuff?
Bonedelta editing to animate well with pregnant bellies or wide skirts.
... And more. I put my heart and soul into this!
Some things I'd like to try out in the future:
Experimenting with adapting the original TS4 bones to TS3 right there in blender.
Look at more efficient methods for editing morphs and FTOM and age conversions more in-depth (I didn't include the FtoM because it is just lots and lots and lots of proportional editing)
Converting a high-poly Alpha mesh to be more optimized and maxis-match, while keeping good topology and castability. (Likely lots of dissolving edges like here, rather than purely the decimate modifier, which often messes up the topology)
Any questions or something that isn't clear in the doc, don't hesitate to ask!