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V. Adding missing body parts / Frankenmeshing / Finishing touches

(Previous: IV. The most useful meshing tools in Blender)

I know I promised to finally talk about uv maps, but I realised I forgot to cover some tiny, but important meshing-related details. Originally I hoped I could mention them in the parts dedicated to uvs or clones, but somehow they didn't properly fit into any of those topics, so I decided it'd be better to make a separate post about them. I probably will have to re-mention some of this stuff later though, so sorry in advance for anything being redundant!

1) Adding missing body parts

I mentioned a long time ago that my dress, being made from a top, comes without legs. It's not a problem, as it's supposed to be floor-length anyway – but what if it wasn't? What if it reached e.g. only until knees? Or what if you accidentally (or not) deleted/messed up some other body parts, like hands or neck, and wanted to replace them?

To fix this, first of all we need to get the right body meshes from S4S.

It's almost the same steps as in the very beginning, when we were getting the top which we used as a base for the dress. Open S4S, choose 'Create 3D mesh' under CAS and then click the CAS button. Just as back then, you'll see a list of all EA CAS assets existing in your game.

To find meshes of different body parts, type 'nude' in the box in the top right corner. No worries, it's The Sims, everything is safe for work (a.k.a. Barbie-style).

Now you have to select whatever it is that you need. Let's stick to the idea of a knee-length dress in need of some legs. Click the female naked bottom (if you're not sure which one is which, hover over the picture; it'll tell you if it's yf – young female – or ym - young male) and then hit 'Next'.

You'll be asked to name your package, but – just like in case of the top – it completely doesn't matter. It's only the mesh we want – once it's extracted, we can delete the package file.

Now that the package is created, you can access its data. Again, just like in case of the top: go to 'Meshes' and click the 'Export mesh' button. Make sure NOT to change the LOD!

You can close S4S now – that was all we needed from it.

Before we go back to our mesh, I suggest we open the newly extracted legs' mesh, select all the vertices (a) and remove doubles (w, choose from the list). By default each mesh coming straight from S4S is cut in certain places (I guess wherever there are cuts in the uv-1?) - and in case of a naked body such cuts are most definitely not needed.

Save and close.

Now, open the mesh which needs the legs. For this tutorial, I cut off the bottom part of the dress I was making. As you can see, it's very legless.

Go to Object Mode (tab), open the 'File' menu and choose 'Append'.

Now you have to find your extracted legs' mesh. However, you'll notice that just selecting the right blend file isn't enough – when you click it, it opens like a normal folder, making you choose from more specific contents of the blend file/package. Here comes the tricky and very important part: the mesh data sits in the 'Object' folder, NOT in 'Mesh'. When you open the 'Object' folder, you'll find inside the file you're looking for: s4studio_mesh_1. Select it and click 'Append from Library'.

Kaboom!

As you're going to join the legs with your mesh anyway, you can safely delete the bone_shape.001 and rig.001. You don't need them and they'll just be making your blend file bigger. It's only the mesh that's necessary.

Now we need to edit the appended legs by deleting the parts which we don't need. Select the legs' mesh, go to edit mode, turn on the x-ray and select (b) everything which will be hidden underneath the skirt. Leave some margin though!

Delete (x) the selected vertices and go back to object mode.

As you can see, right now your dress and the legs are separate from each other – in other words, they are separate cuts. And while some (...many...) EA meshes include several cuts, they are never cut in this way. We need to join them.

Select the legs' mesh on the right and, while holding shift, the dress' mesh. Then simply press ctrl+j. That's all! The legs are where they're supposed to be.

In case you're interested, if you want to do the opposite – turn a part of your mesh into a new cut – select that part, press p and choose 'selection' from the drop-down menu.

Of course, appending isn't limited to saving your dresses from leglessness. As mentioned, the same principle can be used for adding any other body parts... Or even clothes.

2) Frankenmeshing

There's not much I can say to it right now, without going into cuts, weights and uv maps, but if you want to try it, that's your starting point. You extract a couple of meshes from S4S, open one of them and then append the other ones. Depending on what it is that you're frankenmeshing, it might take some time to clean the meshes (i.e. delete the unwanted vertices). In most cases it's also very important to connect the vertices of the separate parts once you join the cuts! If you combine top A with sleeves B, or top C with skirt D, you have to merge the vertices where those parts connect – otherwise it'll at the very least look weird, and that's only a best case scenario.

3) Closing the mesh

I kind of mentioned this one last time, but I guess it won't hurt to explain it once again, this time properly. Whether your dress is short or super long, if you look at it from the bottom, you'll see that it's... Empty. Transparent. Unfinished. The legs – or feet – are ending apruptly, as if cut by a saw. We don't want to see it. That's why we need to close it.

(I remember when I was just learning to mesh I found this part super weird. I thought I'd rather not cut the legs, but duplicate the skirt and flip direction, to make it have both sides, just like in real life. While this idea is not completely ridiculous and can even be useful in certain cases (e.g. when you're making a half-transparent skirt – if it's see-through, you do need the legs to actually be underneath), there are two big reasons why you shouldn't do it: one, it might be very hard to get rid of any clipping, and two, the polycount could potentially kill you. Just in case you're having similar thoughts right now :) )

Select the lowest row of vertices. It might be a bit tricky now that the legs are appended – you might want to separate them into a new cut for a second, just so that they wouldn't be getting in your way. Or just hide them with h. Another easy method is selecting the row on the uv map, but we haven't covered this one yet, so let's stick to separating legs for now. Turn the x-ray on and, while in front view, select the row.

As mentioned last time, this lowest row is supposed to be a sharp edge, so before you proceed, mark it as sharp (ctrl+e)!

Turn the camera a bit to see what's going on underneath. Now extrude the vertices (e) and scale them (s). Click wherever.

As you can see, the new, extruded circle is selected now. Press alt + m to merge those vertices and, from the drop-down menu, select 'at center'.

Personally I don't like it when the bottom of a dress is so completely flat, so I move that middle point a bit higher, along the z axis (g, z). That's also one of the reasons why I left that leg margin earlier. I guess you don't have to do it, but I think it makes it look a bit more natural.

If you separated the legs, you can once again adjoin them to the main mesh now.

It's very important to close any open ends your mesh might have. The bottom of your dress/skirt, cuffs, necklines, sleeves if they're short – everything must be closed, otherwise you'll notice it in the game, sooner or later. It's fine if you don't do it now – you might want to wait until you're done with uvs and weights – but eventually you have to do it. Just for a little crack, here's a screenshot I took while testing one of my dresses. It's floor-length, so it shouldn't matter if it's closed or not, right?

That’s how it ends.

***

The long-awaited uvs tutorial will follow very soon, unless I suddenly get some urgent project to work on. I know how badly it's needed, so it's scheduled now, like any normal job-related stuff. And as hard as it might be to believe, I'm actually quite good at meeting deadlines if they're set in stone – I might not enjoy it, but I get stuff done on time. Stay tuned!

(Next: VI a. UV_0)

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