VERY BASIC HAIR MESH WEIGHT TRANSFER TIPS FOR TS4 HAIRS
Ok so this is very basic stuff, but I realise its helpful to have as the background for this other post of mine. I know this is basic, but if someone learns from me, then, that's better -
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I reccomend highly downloading this extension by Vyxated.
It makes things easier and it's how I personally do it.
I have prepared a blend file with the first couple of steps completed - i.e, it ought to be ready for transfer.
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[First weighting pass - I later will manually paint and refine, but this can get most of your hair fixed for you.]
Grab a sim-body. For short hairs, the head suffices, for longer, the head and the sim top- for ridiculously long hair, you need the head, top and bottom, or a full body.
This we will use for weight transfer. Usually, people weight transfer from a similar object or existing hair, but I prefer to use the sim body. To prepare for the weight transfer, we are going to remove certain vertex groups.
Here are the vertex groups that should be kept (all else must be removed) :
If your hair has strands that cross the face, you may also keep the cheek bones b__L_Cheek__ b__R_Cheek__
If your hair goes below the waist, keep the b__Pelvis__ also!
It's not reccomended to keep any limb weights (arm or leg) because it's a lot more trouble than it's worth to account for all the possible positioning of your hair when it's weighted to a limb- even though the concept of 'long hair moves with arms/ shoulders majestically' sounds tempting, it's doomed to look rather awful in game.
Here's how the weights look when you're just using the EA weights:
Usually, you'll get a good transfer with this when you have a low-mid polygon mesh!
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mesh clean up > merge by distance , then subdivide the mesh.
Depending on how many polygons your mesh has, subdivide the sim-mesh till it is similar.
Smooth the vertices. then, smooth the weights of the mesh - once or twice, then limit the total weights, and smooth and limit again.
Here's how that ends up looking :
Use this sort only when you have a high poly hair mesh.
You can use the ones I provided in the blend file, or you can make your own if you want.
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Duplicate the reference mesh, and join one to your hair- this makes sure your mesh has the correct vertice groups that match the transfer. If your hair mesh already has vertex groups, you can delete them prior to joining the mesh to your hair.
You will separate the body from your hair-mesh later.
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This now prepares the mesh to transfer. Your mesh will now only have the necessary vertice groups for a hairstyle.
Size up the transfer mesh to be slightly larger than the hair mesh.
1.12 - 1.30 scaling in all dimensions usually works to 'encase' most short- bob length hairs
Weight mesh in wireframe, sim-mesh (that is the one joined to your hair) is in solid mode - this is just for demonstration's sake. Depending on hair volume or other aspects, you might want to resize the weight mesh differently.
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Then, transfering with Vyxated's extenion :
Vyxated has included a super useful clarification for what must be selected.
In this screenshot 'AT Top' is the selected ( in a darker orange) and 'AT Top.001' is the active.
While you have the two meshes (your hair and the joined sim-mesh in place of 'selected', while your weight reference is 'active) press the middle button here with 'weights' ONCE.
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Your hair should now quite seamlessly fit with the EA weights.
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Seperate the hair from the sim body mesh. You do not need this anymore!
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Next, we test the weights. I reccomend exporting an animation with strong facial expressions using S4S and appending your hair mesh onto the rig which has the animation active.
I use the chased by death CAS trait animation in order to check jaw and forehead weights specifically, because the sim screams and raises their eyebrows dramatically. If this intense movement can be accounted for, then, most subtler in-game animations will be accounted for also, so long as the range of movement is similar to EA's, and not more exadgerrated.
Now, you'll see some crunchiness. This is when you smooth and limit your weights until there's a good balance between the mesh moving smoothly, and not being too weak/ patchy that the movement gets crunchy again. You will check every group in this manner.
(as you can see, now it does not crunch!)
If smoothing and limiting (every time you smooth, you must limit. never leave your weights unlimited!!!) does not correct an issue (more common with longer hairs), then, we manually paint the weights and ensure there is smooth movement to the best of our ability.
Because the sim rig is limited, and you always must limit your weights to 4, you'll inevitably find some areas will not co-operate with you. That's fine. It's best to pick your battles!
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That's essentially it. Very basic, but yeah.
I know other people tend to transfer weights from similar EA hairs, but tbh, I find preparing the rig in this manner to give better results and easier to work with, especially when the hair in question isn't similar enough to the EA hairs you have access to!
How do you make the face like that? Without the details, how do you use the sliders and presets? Mine always look kind of weird. I'm using your account a lot to improve my Sims.
Okay this is going to look conspiracy theory level insane so buckle up here. [long post warning] [this is all MY OPINION]
Warnings :
Eurocentric art proportion bullshit.
Generalisations about appearance.
Physiognomy and shit like that.
I want to start off by saying that I don't think anyone should be looking to me to improve their sims. I make my sims entirely on my own rules and aesthetics, and quite frankly, if there is some objective standard for a 'good' sim, I know in my heart that most would judge me to have fallen short of it. It's always best to just do things as many times as it takes for you to find something pretty on your own, rather than comparing with others. I think people have some innate connection to the beautiful and aesthetic, and when we talk about someone's sims being 'good' we just mean 'aesthetically of interest'. A lot of simmers (and people in general) think that to be aesthetically interesting, something must be beautiful, and to be beautiful, something must to aesthetically interesting, but in my opinion, this is not the case. A beautiful sim can be boring to look at, and an aesthetically interesting sim can be weird looking.
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Most of my sims just have the EA pre-sets.
^ It's just sliders. And most of the sliders are the same popular sliders everyone else uses, lmao. There's not that many sliders out there.
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So, let's talk about 'weird' in terms of faces. There's a few different reasons a face will register as 'weird', but as I haven't looked at your sims myself, this is going to be rather generic advice on making faces a 'fun weird' rather than a 'weird weird'.
Sims generally look a little uncanny because they are perfectly symmetrical.
You can usually add asymmetry with skin details, but LUUMIA has a facial asymmetry slider which I use. Obscurus also has sliders to tilt one side of the lip, or put the eye slant in odd directions.
Please note : These sliders may not be functional- I personally maintain my sliders with cmar nyc's morph-maker (rest in peace queen) but if you cannot update sliders yourself, there are several others who update sliders, you just need to search for them with the name of the original slider + 'your game version' OR 'date of last update'*
Luumia Facial Asymmetry Slider
Obscurus Eyebrow Asymmetry Slider (I really like this. Especially when in combination with the luumia slider, when the first asymmetry brings the eyebrow and eye up, I use the other to bring that eyebrow back down- it makes the eye more noticeably lopsided.)
Obscurus Eyes and Lip Asymmetry Sliders
*2022 obscurus update is the last one I downloaded. Yes, it has been like four years since I downloaded these sliders.
[Mauvi is highly asymmetrical, Dumont is also asymmetrical, while Perrault is symmetrical)
Asymmetry is typically one of the last things I add to a sim - typically it's after I'm already satisfied with the facial structure- but it really varies.
(In general I add more asymmetry when the sim has more conventional features. If my sim has already quite unique features or proportions, I tend not to add asymmetry)
I enjoy making my sims a little lopsided.
This is not something that everyone likes, or chooses to do with their sims, but since you're asking me, I'm including it.
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Divisions of the face - Observing artistic proportions can help make the face less 'weird'.
General Proportions of human heads - As you'll find in basically every generic art tutorial*:
Eyes are halfway down the head
Face can be divided into vertical facial thirds
Lips are usually wider (horizontally) than the nose
Outer corner of lips usually are in line with the pupil when someone is looking straight on.
Top of ears usually aligned with the top of eyes/low eyebrow
Bottom of ears are usually aligned with the base of the nose.
*These 'rules' make a lot of assumptions and are based on averages drawn from usually 'healthy' and 'typical' people. Depending on genetics, physical trauma to the face, or like - a ton of factors, someone's face can very easily not be covered by this - however, typically someone will have most of these features, even if they do not have all of these features.
Not all variations in anatomy must be pathologized.
The facial thirds - depending on style (stylisation really depends)
1st : Hairline to Mid of the Brow Arch
2nd : Mid of the Brow Arch - Bottom (base) of the nose.
3rd : Bottom (base) of the nose - Chin
I tend to keep the mid-face approximately the same for all my sims. A longer mid-face (distance between top of eyes and bottom of nose) can make your sim look a little 'horse-like*' so I tend to avoid it.
*There is nothing wrong with having a long mid-face, but because of the ways brains process faces- we usually dart around starting with eyes falling to mouth and etc etc... there's eye-tracking graphs out there idk whatever omg why did I decide to write all this - a longer mid-face will mean the entire faces takes (fractions of a second) longer to process- my personal theory is that characters with these faces look offputting to us because the 'whole picture' of the face doesn't come into view as quickly as we're used to- so it can trigger uncanny feelings. I'm not a scientist tho don't take this as gospel.
Making the middle third look bigger in comparison, however, works a bit better. By decreasing the upper and lower thirds, you can get a 'cuter' or more youthful appearance.
By making the middle third look smaller in comparison, or stretching all three third vertically, you can make the sim look more mature or rugged. Larger jaws (both vertically and horizontally) are more associated with masculinity* (generally associated with adult males- child males [boys] tend to be considered either androgynous or feminine**) while shorter jaws are associated with youth.
*Remember these are just general proportions and how they are TYPICALLY associated by people. This does not mean it actually IS more masculine to have a larger or longer jaw, only that you see this feature more commonly in adult men, so by human pattern-recognition, it is associated.
Making a face 'look' a certain way will always rely on biases and stereotypes, because human variation is not that simple in actuality.
*Once again, I do not want to get into all this sociology bullshit but once again gender is made up - but if you look across different historical cultures you'll see 'boy' often as a separate social category than 'man' while 'girl' and women can have more blurry categorisations (especially in modern western culture) (and yes, both of these are somewhat problematic blah blah blah pedastry is fucked up and so is the infantilisation of women) (I see many people complain about making male sims especially, as opposed to female sims- I think a lot of that is to do with the narrow range of masculine features while 'everything else' is automatically sorted into a different category, so when making a convincing 'man' it can be quite tricky.)
(Why must I bring up these stupid ass things omg please just cancel me I am so tired)
In general, while the cranium (top of the skull, dome of head) does look much bigger in children, it's not actually larger, just proportionally looks to be so- I think it's around age seven or eight where the cranium reaches the same size as an adults cranium, while the facial bones will develop with puberty and gradually make the entire head bigger by adding horizontal length with the nose and chin, and vertical length with the jaw (and nose also).
Look, I'm not an anatomist, this is very simplified.
It's hard to explain what we as humans register to be 'weird' without bringing 'typical' anatomy into it. So I need to generalise a lot.
Art is about convincing your brain into seeing something that isn't actually there, it works with your brain's schemas and stereotypes to make something visually interesting- it's all pattern recognition, all of it - that's why people can be so caught up in AI stuff- because a LLM or image generator is based on commonality between different sources - the average - the pattern - is what is being exploited.
When you want to make a sim, you want them to register to your brain as a 'person' who you can empathise with (this goes for character designs in general) so the process is like drawing any other face, you want to have them look 'person-ish' by staying within certain averages, but you also want to stay on one side of the uncanny valley so you can retain that empathy.
I think the go-to way to stylise a character is Neoteny : this is how
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Neoteny - Making a 'cute' character
Features of neotony :
Large eyes.
This is circling back to my posts about skin details - most people make their sims have large eyes. For the majority of my sims, I do not actually make the eyes large, I just use the skin details to make the illusion of more prominent eyes than actually are present in my sims :
see here, I overlayed the faces of six of my sims to show the approximate average proportions (in ibispaintx, no AI)
Because of the darker area around the eyes, the eyes appear larger than they are in reality - because this is an illusion and the eye is not actually larger, you have a layered effect - when someone glances initially, the eyes look large and the brain perceives it as taking up more of the face than in actuality - but because this is not the actual form of the eye being expanded, the 'uncanny' effect subsides after the face is focused on or a second glance is taken.
^ this is opposed to actually increasing the eye size while retaining the rest of the features - I think this picture of lady gaga is a great example of how large eyes can be used for uncanny effects.
The sims actually do have quite realistic faces in terms of stylisation.
NOTE : " Hi Thanks for the support on this project ! There is an issue on Artstation with all marmoset viewer. I can recommand the wayback
^ A 'realistic' face with the planes of the face present
vs :
Source : puella madoka magica, rebellion (MY FAV)
If you were to try to draw the underlying facial structure of an anime character, most of the planes of the face would have to be omitted.
[TS4 vs SN models : While SN is much higher poly (detailed) the face does not use those polygons for the planes of the face, opting for a more smooth 'egg-like' appearance]
When making a sim, you are constrained by the basic planes of the face - unlike an anime or cartoon character, who only has the planes of the face that are deliberately included which allows more extreme proportions without an 'uncanny' effect being evoked.
This can be one way your sim might look 'weird' to you, even if you are not sure exactly 'why?' that sim looks weird.
Because there is an inherent constraint in the sims model, when you push 'too far' you might end up with something uncanny rather than cute when you try and exaggerate features based on cuteness - however, anime or exaggerated features are still possible if you use custom pre-sets that are smoother than the ea pre-sets, and use heavy overlays which give the face a flatter, less chiselled appearance.
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Large upper third of the face.
Smaller lower third of the face / Recessed jaws.
As the diagram at the top of this section shows, generally the chin and browbone appear more rugged and less smooth when one ages (partially bone growth, partially facial fat redistribution and facial fat loss) so smaller chins tend to be more associated with younger people.
Smaller lips (varies by race on what volume is 'smaller').
Typically you'll see the highest lip volume in teens and young adults, while children and older adults have thinner lips, but if you combine this with the 'lower third' proportions I mentioned already, you can have a cheap and nasty way to make a sim look cuter/younger or more mature/older.
Large lower third + small lips = Older
Large lower third + big lips = Mildly mature
Small lower third + small lips = Younger
Small lower third + big lips = Mildly younger
Smaller lips usually allow you to make the lower facial third smaller and retain proportions- so when you decrease the lower third, the lips should also be adjusted accordingly.
I see many people who make the jaw shorter, but do not adjust the lips- this can give that 'blow-up-doll' look if you are not careful (esp. on white sims because most white people cannot have those proportions without surgical intervention) - in general people's lips are just over a third of the vertical lower third, while the volume and shape of their lips is more variable by racial characteristics (most proportion rules in art are pretty Eurocentric I'm afraid, but some can be applied depending - don't take these as 'rules' per se. ) so these aspects can be played with more readily.
Kikiw neck slider [download] (making the neck longer can make the jaw seem shorter in comparison)
^ Kikiw's Perfect doll sliders give more control over the position of nose, mouth, jaw, etc - allowing for more extreme proportions overall.
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The Gaze
Another illusion of bigger eyes I use is this :
Generally, I like the look of 'sanpaku' eyes. The increased contrast created between the on-show scalera and the rest of the face is pleasing to me. It's not for everyone, but I personally think it's useful to make your sim's gaze more piercing.
Eyes with a high-contrast between the iris and scalera are more lively and engaging in my opinion - easier to follow - while eyes with a lesser contrast come across as more 'glassy' or 'dead' (this also can be used in great effect, having a very pale iris can make your sim seem otherworldly or ethreal).
In general, placing the eyes like this (alongside the lower, neotenous brows closer to the eyes) makes an artificial sort of 'Kubrick stare' (without the sim having tilted their head at all.
In my opinion, it makes the sims look more alert and engaging than a more conventionally placed iris, though this is definitely a personal preference based on my aesthetic tastes, and is something most artists would probably not recommend for making a face look 'proportional'.
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However - I'm going to warn you : animations where the sim looks ahead or looks down look good but, with these sorts of eyes, if you have your sim pose or do an animation where the eyes are looking up or rolling back for whatever reason- it's going to look a little demonic* and you might not be able to use those poses or animations unless you take images at specific angles.
* (this warning is for ww users in particular : that 'cute' ahegao face WILL look like they're having their soul sucked out rather than their [redacted] being sucked.
So as you might have noticed, I'm trying to reblog again after the incident that led to me deleting like 90% of my posts (original and reblog) last month.
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I have a TS4CC finds blog @pp333v-cc-finds . It's not tagged yet, but I will try and put a system in place once I have enough posts over there. Generally focused on stuff I actually put in my game, old and new stuff (I try reblog things that I've been asked WCIF, too!) . It's mostly free stuff/lapsed-early-access stuff. I usually schedule the early-access stuff to pop up on the day of public release, rather than being when I initially see it- but free stuff I reblog usually when I come across it.
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As for this blog -
On here, I'm just going to be reblogging things that are similar to the themes and aesthetics I personally like to go for with my own sims (gothic horror, EGL fashion, atmospheric and 'spooky' posts - and victorianesque things), and it'll just be on a randomised queue.
The tag is :
#queueingout
(it's just a pun on 'queening out' as I am an insufferable queer)
Since it's heavily skewed towards horror stuff I will be cw/tw tagging things if I feel necessary.
Please note that these posts (on #queueing out) do not necessarily mean I am active, so if you send a WCIF or other question to me, and I'm still reblogging, it doesn't mean I'm ignoring you or anything - since these are queued regardless of if I'm active or not!!!!
I do not personally go through everyone's posts from the start of their account to check if they post disagreeable things. It's a reblog. it means I like that post in particular, and want to share it, since it's (in my opinion) similar to the stuff you like about my account (hopefully?).
Even though I don't have a very large following, it's still worth me doing my part to reblog stuff, especially if not many people originally got to see that post in the first place!
Once again, since the queue is randomised, the posts might reblog at inopportune times- I apologise if anything (especially things with darker themes) posts after any high profile IRL events that... bear a resmeblance to the post- this will never be intentional, if it does occur, but I feel because I will reblog horror stuff, it's more important for me to clarify this- because we're on the 'piss-on-the-poor' reading-comprehension website, and horror stuff does intesect with real life horrors sometimes, etc etc. I know that this is incredibly unlikely- however, I want to conver it in-case.
If I reblog something that is AI or AI enhanced, please let me know and I'll delete my reblog. I don't want to spread or support that stuff.
The timing is quite random also, so um, sometimes the posts will be ages after the original was posted, sometimes it's really old stuff that I liked- and sorry if you edited/deleted the original post while I had it queueing.
I think that covers everything my off-kilter brain worries about regarding such things, so if any of those situations happen, yeah.
Idk, might also make a spam reblog for ts4 stuff I generally like/ think is well done that isn't really 'my taste' necessarily, but I still like. I dunno.
For headwear conversions and other misc projects I don't really have long-term plans, I just do it when I really want that stuff in my game.
I know most people are here for the hair conversions, and my posting schedule is a bit.... random....So this'll show you the status of the hair conversions and stuff like that. I was going to maybe make a poll on whether I should just release stuff as I finish it- but with all the variants and stuff I make, I'd just end up reblogging posts constantly with 'added v4, added v5, added-' etc- and same if I made seperate posts each time, it'd probably get tiring.
So uh, yeah. You can see everything like the source mesh, name vs project number, if it's completed or if there's more I want to do with it, if I plan to do age conversions and stuff.
That's basically it. Idk how useful it'll be for you guys, but eh, maybe helps?
Hi Posies! I hope you're doing alright and staying safe. Do you know the pose you used here? I am incredibly 4hed and bad at finding poses. Thank you!
Hello! I do variously!
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(Embarrassingly, I just use 'searchable pose player' to find poses by keywords, so most I used there were just whatever came up for '3' , 'three' 'trio' etc, so I don't remember off the top of my head. However, let me search my mods folder the same!)
I think it is 'Three of Us Posepack' by Mel Bennett, judging by the preview images :3.
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Can I ask you what 4hed means? I have never heard the term, I'm not the best at keeping up with new words (I am unc) .
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look upon my maub:3 my princess...... she so maub:3. maub:3 maub on maubday
For the hair, I have just done hat chops, so now I have a few more things to do before it's ready! ^-^
Hey! I love how ur sims look!! Wcif the blush you use?
Oh! Sorry, thought I answered this earlier- turns out, my draft never saved, lol. :P
You can find all the blushes I use listed here (if embed fails :https://pocketposies333.tumblr.com/post/790508514422505472/like-your-painting-style-very-muchwould-you). You can also find all the overlays I regularly use, etc.
Not much has changed since the original post, though, I'm currently drawing a skin with blush for paralives, so maybe I'll make another TS4 blush if that turns out nice :0.
However, I'll give the links again for the three main blushes I use, since the one in the post is 404-ing.
@loasaceae it's just Marina Domek (funger) in my style, not an oc lol (+old pic when I was trying to get close to her canon outfit, ngl still not that close but maybe there's stuff I can convert to get closer lol)
