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a tutorial on how to obtain creature (or even vehicle or building) models, in a more complicated way than collladaexport but one which preserves the morph handles. it looks unrigged but they do have the weight paints for each bone??

what you will be doing is obtaining the .gmdl model of the creature and importing that into blender

theres also this gmdl export mod linked here, though the guide seems to just cover how to use it. if you got the gmdl through this though you can skip to the blender section

this is how to obtain the .gmdl file in vanilla spore

first of all, view the creature you wanna rip in the sporepedia. once it has loaded it will be put in the graphics cache

for reference this is what the .dae file from colladaexport looks like. all the morph handles reset so the face looks really weird

using sporemodder fx, use either this option in the File menu or this option in the main screen

navigate to the spore location in your user's AppData and select GraphicsCache.package. it does seem to have an intimidatingly big filesize but it will almost certainly not be this big once unpacked!

so select it. you might not have to select every format to unpack but i just do it anyway

unpack it and it might take far less time than youd expect from it being as big as it is. this is because much of the package is empty data, and its size depends on the graphic cache size option you set

anyway, looking at creature_editorModelHi~ (equivalent folders for other creation types), you will find the creature you want in the .gmdl files eventually

right click on it and copy name. chop off the filetype. this is just so you have the hash thats used for textures; its 0x268CD783 in this instance

then you need blender and the sporemodder blender addon. instructions on installing it are in the link also

select File in the top left, then Import, there should be options for importing gmdl

navigate to the sporemodder fx folder, then projects, then the graphics cache project and the find the gmdl file there in creature_editorModelHi~ (or whatever else)

it will import as, most likely, several objects and be untextured

heres how to texture it if you dont know blender

you can click on it, select material properties (spherical checkerboard-looikng icon) and press New here to create a material for the mesh

from here you can click on the yellow dot at Base Color, then in the list select Image Texture

it gives you the option to open, so you can select a texture. select it from the same sporemodder fx project

(you can do this btw to view models textured unshaded)

on the creature's other mesh, make new material, but instead of doing the same process again you can assign it the same material by clicking on the little orb next to the game and selecting the mateiral you just created (Asset_Material is from the .dae file)

it does look rather transparent... i have no good solution other than editing the image to remove the alpha channel

if youre willing to also get another program and a plugin for it, the Remove Transparency tool from this plugin for paint.net works really well, but if you dont want to do that i dont know what to recommend lol. same exact problem actually happens to the colladaexport models anyways

this is the actual graphics cache texture, its not even the same texture! so youll want to keep this in mind too. you cant just reuse the texture

anyway once youve opaqued the texture you can save it as a png or whatever. it doesnt have to be a dds

now heres a comparison to the dae

from this texture importing process you can also surmise how to import the normal map texture too (where im pretty sure the specular is in the alpha channel, so you would have to separate the alpha channel and split the images)

theres probably an easier way to do this in blender without having to edit the images? but idk lol

like i said, it will be unrigged and not have a skeleton. however you can find vertex groups that correspond exactly to each bone of the creature, viewed easily with weight painting

in THEORY youd be able to import the skeleton from the dae?? ive never tried it so i dont know

anyway this entire process should still work for buildings and vehicles and (im pretty sure) cells and flora as well, which you cant get through colladaexport!

#spore #spore datamining #sorry queue ran out again #will resume next morning

Curation, or, Joy Is Resistance

A while back I made this post, in which I urged lovers of fanfiction and fan art to curate the work they have created and/or loved, and currently trust to online platforms, in case of a Republican election victory in the US. That has now come to pass, opening the door to Project 2025's threats of repressing not just "pornography" as usually defined, but any celebration of things queer or explicit, or indeed any expression that breaks the bounds of 1950s Hays code twin-bed movies.

We're all going to have to brace ourselves without knowing exactly what's coming, or how fast. It may seem a minor thing when you hear language about essentially outlawing trans identity, rolling back marriage rights, or defining any representation of LGBTQ people as "pornographic," including vital sex-education materials and everyday references to queer people's mere existence; about upending the healthcare and education systems and orchestrating mass deportations.

But if you find joy in fanworks, queer or otherwise, explicit or otherwise, I recommend you take some time to preserve your access to the works you have made or love best. AO3 - whose servers are in the US - has already posted on the subject, and we know that they and other groups committed to freedom of expression have been planning for this. But as I write, the House has passed a measure that would allow the administration to unilaterally label a nonprofit group "terrorist supporting" and cancel its tax-exempt status without due process. That could easily expand to any shock label used as an excuse for suppression and censorship. And resistance begins at home.

Get thee, I urge you, a good capacity flash drive or three, with "dual connectors" that will allow you to access the contents on a PC as well as phone or tablet. Download the fic you've loved, the fic you've been meaning to read, the fic you've posted yourself; then copy the files to those flash drives. I've made, and continue to update and back up, a folder:

For my own completed fic as it appears online

For each of my favorite authors

For a general miscellany of fic I've read and loved and bookmarked

For the 1000 (it sometimes seems) fics I'm going to read some day.

Art freely circulated on social media? Make a folder. You can convert a .webp file (which often won't open to full size onscreen) to .jpg with this free online utility. (Just be a good scout; don't repost art you've saved, and respect the rights of artists with a Patreon or similar to control exclusive content.)

One response to my original post said "They will come for everything you love." If, by some happy miracle, "they" don't, you will still have a personal archive of self-selected fanwork for times when the Net is down, or the power is out, and judging by some of the economic lunacy I see coming down the pike, that alone is worth some trouble. Even in the best times, authors take down fic you've enjoyed and want to revisit: I reblogged a post searching for a fic thus lost only this week. It costs only time spent at a keyboard, repeatedly clicking "download" and "save as" when it feels like there's nothing else you can do to make things better. Honestly? When the nerves are rattling, it's a form of meditation.

Right now, preserving fanwork may not be the first thing on your mind. But we will need all the joy we can get; when things get bad, comfort is not just a luxury, it's a lifesaver. Joy is resistance, joy is survival. Bread and roses; the work, but also dancing. Let's not forget there was a time when fanworks existed only in physical form and were shared in secret with trusted friends -- a history of which I myself have only the smallest inkling, and one which we should honor now. If a time comes when we have to dance in secret, let us still dance.

#us politics #us election #fanwork #curation #long post #please do reblog!

Tutorial on how to make Maxis NPC Cars Drivable/Ownable Sims 2:

1- We will look for a reference car from the existing, drivable Nightlife (NL) vehicles (e.g., Smord, Yomoshoto Evasion, Smoogo Minima, The Landwhale by Heaveola, etc.). Open SimPE and search for it under Object Workshop > Cars; click "Next" and then "Clone." Leave the settings as they are and save the NL car as a .package file with a recognizable name in your Documents folder (for this example, I will choose the Yomoshoto Evasion).

2- With the .package file open in the "Resource Tree" tab, locate the "Geometric Data Container" (GMDC) and click on it. Then, in the "Resource List," click on the complete mesh (e.g., `vehiclesedanwhite-[d446...`); usually, the complete mesh is the first item, while the second is just the shadow—leave that one alone. Right-click on the mesh and select "Extract," then save it with a recognizable name in your Documents folder as a .5gd or .simpe file.

3. Now, open MilkShape (you need to register to use it; tutorials are available), go to **File > Import > Sims 2 Unimesh Import v4.09**, and select the file you just saved in the "extract" step; this will load the groups and joints assigned to the NL car.

*! I recommend saving your progress as you go—in case something goes wrong, you can revert to the base version!*

4. We will close MilkShape, reopen SimPE—Object Workshop—and search under "vehicles" (we will use the Sedan Carpool as an example).

5. We will repeat steps 1 and 2, then return to MilkShape and repeat step 3; however, with the file open in MilkShape, we will go to File > Export > Wavefront OBJ and save it in our Documents folder with a recognizable name as an .obj file (e.g., Sedan.obj).

6. We will return to the Yomoshoto Evasion NL (drivable version) or the drivable base car; under "groups," we will delete all the groups belonging to the drivable car, then go to File > Import > Wavefront OBJ and import the Maxis NPC car .obj file.

7. Here comes the most tedious part of the job: we have to separate the car group by group because, being decorative, everything is connected and we need it to be drivable, right?

☆(Here's a tip: in another file, open only the .obj NPC file and separate the car into parts (the 4 doors, the windows, the 4 wheels, the two rearview mirrors, etc.)

8. To avoid working blindly on the project in MilkShape, go to "Materials" > "New" > None > >None< and locate the PNG texture image for the NPC car (e.g., Sedan Texture). You can find this for download in SimPE under `sedan.package` > Resource Tree > Texture Image (TXTR) > Resource List > main image; then, in the Plugin View, right-click the image, select "Export," and save it with a recognizable name.

9. With our project open in MilkShape and [Sedan PNG] loaded as Material 01, we need the texture to appear in the 3D view. To do this, select each part (group by group), go to **Window > Texture Coordinate Editor** on the menu bar, select the chosen group, and click **Assign** under **Materials**; repeat this process for each part.

10. Once we have each group ready—with the drivable "Yomoshoto Evasion" NL and the "Sedan" .obj positioned over the cleared-out "Evasion Yomoshoto" NL—we return to the clean, original drivable car. For each group, we go to the "Comments" section and copy the values from the "Evasion" to the "Sedan" .obj; this allows us to check if the texture aligns correctly with the car. Afterward, in the original drivable car, we go to "Joints," select each "Sel Assigned" joint, and determine which group needs to be assigned to which joint (we must maintain the driving mechanics of the original "Yomoshoto" car).

11. Once we finish with each one, we will save using File - Export - Sims 2 Unimesh Import v4.09.

12. We will go to the drivable car (from Yomoshoto Evasion) and replace the GMDC in original (in SimPE .package) and then replace the TXTR image from Yomoshoto Evasion with the one from Sedan Carpool (e.g.) and save it with a name of the converted car (e.g., Sedan) (don't forget to press "Commit" and then File - Save or Save As) then we will close SimPE and place it in the downloads folder

Sims2003

SimPE:

https://modthesims.info/d/30839/simpe-latest-version-0-75f.html

MilkShape 3D:

https://www.milkshape3d.com/

Unimesh Wes Howe:

https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Unimesh

#the sims #the sims 2 download #simpe #sims 2 #the sims 2 #the sims 2 ultimate collection #cars #sedan

Tumblr post exporter - project updates

I've gotten a little interest in the Tumblr exporter that I've been building, so I thought I'd go ahead and share a quick update on the progress I've made, as well as some details on what's left to finish. Thanks so much to everyone who's reblogged and/or shared feedback and suggestions! ❤️

So… what is it?

To its credit, Tumblr does offer a functional backup tool, and it does basically what it says on the tin. However, it's as barebones as they come--the backup process takes hours to run and produces huge, multi-gigabyte archives, with all of your posts rendered in unstyled, non-standards-compliant HTML.

This might be fine if you just want a personal backup, but it's not terribly useful if you're hoping to export your content in a format that can be deployed elsewhere. To address this shortcoming, I've been developing a tool to pair with one of my favorite static site generators, MkDocs. Just run the tool with your API credentials, and it'll grab your posts and content, convert them into Markdown, and create a fresh static site build, ready to upload to your web host of choice! yay, the future 💃

Read on for more updates!

#cari.txt #tumblr #tumblr meta #tumblr stuff #automattic #software development #coding #i am not kidding about the cat pictures btw 🐈

Just wondering if you have any advice on converting!

when I get to the simPE part I get totally lost and I never knew what I’m doing wrong. I feel like I can usually do simPE pretty well

Hi! By SimPE part, do you mean creating a "mesh file" and linking a recolor to it? I've written this so fast if I had made any mistakes forgive me :P

-Creating a mesh file is an easy process. First, head to BodyShop and select a clothing part for the appropriate age, gender and category. Let's say you want to create an adult female top. Start new project, select a random top. Then export it. It is now in the "SavedSims" folder.

*A tip here, I said random but we usually don't want any bump maps, aka Normal Textures around. So, if you also want to use this "top" as also the new conversion, I suggest selecting a piece without any bump maps. Though deleting them is also not very complicated, you delete some lines from the material definition of the file and the normal map texture, then export that file again. If you just want this file to sit around so you can extract it for a new mesh every time, like I do, no need to do this step now.

-Close BS, open SimPE. Create a new package, the white page icon. Then, go to "Tools>PJSE>Body Mesh Tool>Extracting stage" and choose the new file in the SavedSims folder.

It loads 4 resources; the one we'll change is called "gmdc"; but before that, click on "Tools>Object Tools>Fix Integrity" so the mesh will have its own resources, instead of overriding the extracted mesh; aka default replacements :)

After fixing integrity, your meshes resources names will change. Now, click on the "GMDC" resource, copy its "filename".

Right click on the gmdc resource, in the resource list. Click "replace" and select your own .simpe or .5gd file. This will change the filename of the gmdc resource again, so paste the filename you copied back in, then "Commit".

Click "Save as" and give your new mesh file a name like top_MESH or something else. The mesh is ready.

-It's time for the recolor file to be made, as the mesh needs one to show up and a recolor needs its mesh to demonstrate 3D.

Repeat the first steps of exporting a random piece. If it has bump maps, and you don't want them, there is a tutorial I linked below to delete them. If you don't have it, proceed as normal.

Click on the "Property set" and select "Numoverrides". The number in the end of x001 means it has one subset. Let's say we need 2, so make it x002. Then, click on "override0shape", and on the right side, click "add". Repeat it for "override0subset", "override0resourcekeyidx" . Change 0s in the name, like "override1subset". Also, while changing the override name, also change the subset name from mesh part i.e. "top" to whatever you named your second subset on your mesh. For me, it is "noblend" or "top2". Click commit, save the file and exit.

Open BS, export the recolor you edited, again. This time, when we open it on SimPE, it will have 2 textures, and 2 material definitions if you made it correctly.

Now, click on the 3D ID Reference; then Tools>PJSE>Body Mesh Tools>Linking Stage. Select your mesh file we created earlier, in the name of _MESH. The recolor is now linked to the mesh file. DON'T COMMIT NEITHER SAVE, just click on any other resource then the 3DIR on the left.

I suggest clicking on Texture Images, because that's the last step. You might need Nvidia DDS Utilities to replace the textures, iirc, it will be blurry otherwise.

-Click on the first TXTR, and right click the image and "Build DXT" and select the texture file you had for this resource. Its name will tell you like "noblend....TXTR". Now it is replaced, repeat for the other mesh part's TXTR.

*I should have said that you should resize and/or rescale the texture image in a program like GIMP, because sims 2 doesn't like textures bigger than 1024x1024. For clothing textures, I shared a GIMP "macro" here, to resize them all automatically.

-Remove the mesh and the recolor from the SavedSims folder and put them into Downloads folder, in a subfolder or something. They sometimes don't work in SavedSims but mine usually do so I don't move them until all recolors are exported :D

Then, if everything is showing up, Create a project, export the recolor; then go to Load Projects and keep exporting until you have enough recolors to be satisfied :) My DMs are open for any questions, please also let me know the results 🥹❤️

*To avoid bump maps, I use AF Halter top, the white one for tops; denim shorts for the bottoms, but dresses usually have bump maps so I didn't bother to search which one doesn't and just delete them.

*Also, if you have body parts that don't have any textures, download Skell's templates and replace the material definition of the empty texture with the "null" file, then delete the corresponding texture.

Skell has great tutorials on the subject, I suggest reading them all here on their livejournal.

#sims 2 help #sims 2

About Us

This is meant to be an as-complete-as-possible archive of Mechanisms and Dr. Carmilla lore, sources, and content. We hope to preserve as much material as possible and prevent further loss of information to the depths of the Internet. As a secondary purpose, we also hope to create an easy reference to as much canon as possible.

We have expanded to accepting videos of Jessica Law's current shows! If you have recordings of Jess live we would love them!

***If you or someone you know has academic access to the BBC Radio Archives, PLEASE reach out, we are trying to recover a 2012 interview with the band***

Here is the link to the archive:

Mechanisms Lore Archive

Relatedly, here is a link to a metapost about Dr. Carmilla 101 by mod louchie

If you would like to submit an an artifact, photo, video, etc, please either message @louchie (ask or dm, either works) or send an email to [email protected]. You can also send an ask here!

If you commissioned a Marius Message and would like it included in the archive, feel free to reach out!

If you can't find what you're looking for after checking the archive, feel free to send an ask!

Addendum to the above: We do not answer asks regarding out of character photos.

This project has been compiled by tumblr users @miralines and @louchie / @gunpowderdtim. Both of us are fans of the Mechs with no association to the band, who began this project in November 2022 when Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter led to concerns about the site’s future. We worked to screenshot and preserve the lore posted on the official twitter as well as what individual band members have posted. It expanded from there, and is still in progress as we preserve existing sources and occasionally discover new ones.

Brief Q/A - before you ask, check here!!

Q: Where can I get band merchandise?

A: Currently, there is no official band merchandise available. There have been plans to possibly drop more CDs. This was stated on Twitter.

Q: Can I have photos of a certain mechanism?

A: Yes, but all photos are available in the link above in the Photos folder!

Q: Wait, Doctor Carmilla is making a new band??

A: Yes! Dr. Carmilla & The Void Quartet exist. They are currently working on their music. In the meanwhile, check out Maki's bandcamp for more Dr. Carmilla content!

Q: is there a live recording of [name] HNOC song?

A: Unfortunately not. The video on YouTube is what we have. The camera died mid show :(

Q: Did you ever find that BBC radio show interview?

A: No. The BBC radio archives are not public and accessing the radio archives is pretty much impossible for hobbyists like ourselves. As stated above, if you or anyone who you know is willing to use their academic or professional access to the archives to help us, I will owe you forever. And maybe paypal you 50 dollars I'm getting closer to putting a bounty on this thing every day.

Additionally, the british library does not have a copy. That's a dead end.

#about #pinned #the mechanisms

hey hi hello! first of all i'd like to say i took your patron saint uquiz and it. Changed my life unironically it's so good. i follow you now because every line in that quiz was a gut punch and i loved it. top tier hurt honestly

my question is this - i am a fanauthor. on the side i also write my own original fiction but i specialize in fanfic. Am I allowed to use your poetry for a reference folder? I wouldn't use your poetry in a fic without explicit permission and without linking back here of course, and I'd never use it for commercial work outside of maybe taking inspiration without copying, but I wanna have a ref folder of Things That Made Me Feel Things about a character. It's not planned to be public as of yet, it's just supposed to be a bunch of screenshots in my drafts, but I'd like to maybe one day make it public once the fic was complete. (I already have your blog linked in my drafts actually, so if it goes public I'm not gonna forget.) I just want to make sure you're comfortable with me using your poetry for fanfic of all things

It's cool if not and have a great day! I still think your poetry is great and evocative and all

hi, anon! you're all good, i prommy. so glad you like the quiz + the poetry, and i would always prefer people come and ask questions if they're uncertain! no trouble at all.

my general stance is that as long as it's clearly credited, i am totally cool with my work being used in personal projects. like you said, i've got a tag for the things that people make! i love to see what people create. if it's for a noncommercial creative project then i would say there's no need to ask beforehand (unless it would make you more comfortable to ask, in which case go ahead and i'll almost certainly say yes <3). my only thing is that if you post it, please tag me in it/send it to me so that i can reblog it here for people to see!

if there are any questions about using my work that anyone has, feel free to ask. i don't think i've got anything particular going on outside of common practice! same way you'd treat, like, a richard siken poem or smth: you wanna credit it so that people can find the source material, and make sure you're not using it for profit unless you have an understanding with that author. i trust you all to be decent about it <3 kiss kiss go out and make your cool little things so that i can be delighted and amazed with them

#extremely selfish motivations i think you should all go make things with my poems cause i love to look at them #collecting them on the blog like pretty rocks to look at every so often #except instead of rocks they are like. beautiful pieces of creative work.#i just think it's so cool that you can take one set of words and then use them to create something new. isn't language and art awesome #anyway trust you all! except that one person who copied my. quiz questions. of all things. girl come onnnnnnnnnnn #would've said you could absolutely use my quiz for inspo as long as you credited me somewhere... that's all that it comes back to...#anyway. i'm bigger than someone using my really unique and awesome quiz questions on uquiz dot com. (<— affirmations)#do i need an FAQ? i feel like i'm assembling enough topics to warrant an FAQ.#something to think about...#ask #not poetry #OH MAN ALSO. FORGOT TO SAY IN THE ORIGINAL POST. fanfic is so totally cool with me. i write fanfic lmao #if you are an astute observer... and you know how to get to my main account... my ao3 link is there you can read me for filth #this is halfway a trick question cause my main account is so incredibly easy to find and if you've taken the quiz you saw it #unless you came here straight from like. uquiz. and didn't see the tumblr post. in which case WHOA.#... people know that it's just my main account posting the quizzes right. like the matching usernames make that clear??#just occurred to me that it might cause some confusion. whateverrrrrrr as i said no shame in fanfiction i love to see it haha #making no promises cause i am so bad at watching media and probably won't know what it's about anyway #but chances are pretty good that i'd read the fic if you sent it to me. non-zero for sure #(<— guy who wants to see people using his stuff for creative work so so so so so so so fucking bad)#faq

Hi! Younger artist here, I just saw your post with all those super cool monster designs and I took a quick stroll through your blog, and I was wondering if you had any specific inspirations for those designs or where you get inspo for character designs in general? Or perhaps some tidbits on how you learned how to make wild designs like that?

Sorry if this is a bit of a big ask, I just think it's really cool and I was curious!

Hello! Thank you for your question and apologies for taking so long to answer, I just got really excited and wanted to be thorough!

My biggest piece of advice is research and develop a visual library of reference material! Your visual library is like a mental database of everything you’ve ever seen in your life, and this is what you can pull from to design concepts.

There are a couple ways to start this as a practice:

Notice what you see! It can be a chair, a sunset, a shoe, the light on a tree, but if you see something you think is beautiful or interesting, mentally make a note of it!

#wyrmchatter #wyrmsfornerves #ask

Sorry if this is a bit of a big ask, I just think it's really cool and I was curious!

Hello! Thank you for your question and apologies for taking so long to answer, I just got really excited and wanted to be thorough!

There are a couple ways to start this as a practice:

Notice what you see! It can be a chair, a sunset, a shoe, the light on a tree, but if you see something you think is beautiful or interesting, mentally make a note of it!

#wyrmchatter #wyrmsfornerves #ask

#copy project to reference material folder

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