The Beginners Guide To Meshing

Transcription

OBJECT CREATION PART 1 – BY RICCINUMBERS
1. Introduction
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2. What you will need
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3. Extracting from TSR Workshop
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3.1. Cloning Object
3.2. Exporting Meshes
4. Building our Mesh in Milkshape 3D
4.1. Setting Up Milkshape 3D
4.2. Importing Mesh
4.3. Deleting Shadow Mesh
4.4. Selecting Box Tool
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14. Low Level Detail Mesh
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7. Meshing Hints
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8. UV Mapping
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9.1. Introduction
9.2. Assigning Material
9.3. Selecting Faces
9.4. Opening Texture CoorDinate Editor
9.5. Selecting UV Faces
9.6. Rotating UV Faces
9.7. Scaling UV Faces
9.8. Checking Legs
9.9. Saving File
13.1. Introduction
13.2. Extracting Shadow Texture
13.3. Assigning Shadow Texture
13.4. Adjusting
13.5. Saving High Level Mesh
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6. Making the Legs
9. Wood Grains
13. Ground Shadow
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8.1. Introduction
8.2. Loading Mesh
8.3. Mapping Groups
8.4. Proportionating
8.5. Arranging
8.6. Saving Mesh
12.1. Introduction
12.2. Checking Current Assignments
12.3. Ordering and Renaming
12.4. Assigning Joint
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5. Drawing the Table Top
6.1. Creating Leg
6.2. Scaling Leg
6.3. Hiding Reference Mesh
6.4. Moving Leg
6.5. Duplicating Leg
6.6. Deleting Reference Mesh
6.7. Renaming Groups
6.8. Exporting to OBJ
12. High Level Detail Mesh
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10. Fixing UV Map
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11. Regrouping
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14.1. Importing Meshes
14.2. Assigning Joint
14.3. Exporting Mesh
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15. Importing Meshes
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16. Sun Shadow Meshes
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17. Object Creation Part 2
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18. Extra Credit – Wood Grains
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19. Credits
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1. INTRODUCTION
2. WHAT YOU WILL NEED
Object Creation Part 1
TSR Workshop
http://www.thesimsresource.com/workshop/programs/details/
title/TSR%20Workshop%20Public%20Beta/category/sims3/
id/112/
The Beginners Guide
to meshing
By RicciNumbers for The Sims Resource
Apple’s TSR Workshop Tutorial
http://www.thesimsresource.com/tutorials/view/id/14210/category/sims3/preview/0/
Creating a Simple Mesh using TSR Workshop, Milkshape 3D, and
UV Mapper Classic
Milkshape 3D 1.8.5
http://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/ms3d/index.html
This is a beginner tutorial. This tutorial will not teach you the textures for TSR Workshop. This will only cover Milkshape 3D and
some instances of UV Mapper Classic.
UV Mapper Classic
http://uvmapper.com/downloads.html
Graphics Program
You will also need a program that can handle DDS (Direct Draw
Surface) and it must also be able to handle Alpha Channels. I use
Photoshop CS2 (or newer) as my personal preference.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/
family/?promoid=BPDEK
DDS Plugins
http://wiki.thesimsresource.com/index.php?title=DDS
512×512 Wood Texture
When we get to mapping.
http://www.lemog.fr/lemog_textures/index.php
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3. EXTRACTING FROM TSR WORKSHOP
For this tutorial we are going to make a new coffee table. Make
sure after downloading Workshop you follow Apple’s guidelines to
put the plugins into Milkshape. We will be using Apple’s guide as
an extra reference.
3.1. CLONING OBJECT
Open TSR Workshop. You will click on Create New Project.
A window will pop up immediately and you will click on the Object
button and then Next as shown.
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Now we will click on:
Surfaces ► Coffee Tables
Aha! There are all the listed coffee tables we can clone. We want
to clone:
Club Coffee Table 1x1
as shown in Apple’s Workshop Tutorial.
Apple refers to a wso file. Workshop only exports wso files. That
is why we need the plugins installed so that Milkshape will then
support the wso file. While we work we will work with a Wavefront obj file. Wavefront obj files do not support bone assignments
which we will have as we go. The final result will again be a wso file
for import into Workshop.
Now click Next.
The following window pops up and here is where we will give our
project a name and description.
A.) The top line is for your project name. This is what we will save
the wrk file name as. Yes yet another extension name, the wrk
file. This is the file extension for the saved project. You will see the
method to this madness in just a moment.
B.) You can name the object as it will show in game.
C.) The description the object will have in the game.
Click Next and then OK to load the object in Workshop.
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3.2. EXPORTING MESHES
Notice that in the Mesh tab of Workshop you have a file named
High Level Detail, Low Level Detail and 2 Shadow files. These files
are all parts of your item and you will edit the first two to make a
new object.
Export the files naming them High Detail Mesh and Low Detail
Mesh, using the Export button.
Do not worry about the shadow files. You only need these two.
Save your mesh files to a folder named Tutorial Table and they will
save to .WSO Files.
Then once you get those from Workshop you go to:
File ► Save
and Workshop will prompt you to save to a .WRK File so you can
re-open your project later. Save it to the Tutorial Table folder that
you exported your meshes to.
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4. BUILDING OUR MESH IN MILKSHAPE 3D
4.1. SETTING UP MILKSHAPE 3D
Next we’ll open Milkshape 3D. Before we begin we’re going to set
up our 3D view of Milkshape like shown on the left.
You will right-click the 3D window with your mouse and make sure
Textured is checked.
Next you need to go to the top of Milkshape Window and make
sure that Show Viewport Caption is clicked:
Window ► Show Viewport Caption
IMPORTANT FACT!
X = Sideways
Y = Up/Down
Z = Front/Back
4.2. IMPORTING MESH
Ok now that we have done this you will import the main High Level of Detail file into Milkshape:
File ► Import ► TSRW Object
On the left you see the object we will edit.
Notice the lines that circle the object? Those are the Bones/Joints
assigned to our Mesh.
The bottom flat part is a Shadow Mesh named group_0.
These two things we are not going to worry about right now. We
will have to deal with these later.
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We can hide these blue circles by going to the Joints tab and double-clicking the bone to select and then go to:
Edit ► Hide Selection
at the top of the Milkshape screen.
4.3. DELETING SHADOW MESH
Now go to the Groups tab at the top.
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You will see names in the groups tab as shown on the left. In the
case of our table there are 2 groups named group_0 and group_1.
We want to use the table itself so in turn click on each group and
hit select.
As you can see by the picture when I select group_1 it is the table
itself, which is what we want to keep. Delete group_0 (Shadow
Mesh) by selecting it and then hitting the Delete button.
You should now have an object that looks like the one on the left.
4.4. SELECTING BOX TOOL
Now we are ready to make our new object mesh. I am going to the
Model tab at the top and click on Box.
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5. DRAWING THE TABLE TOP
I will trace the upper part of the table as shown below using the
front view with the Box tool selected.
You’ll notice that the box will not have to be adjusted it’s OK as
is. Why? It’s OK because that would be EA’s predefined height for
placing objects. Too high, and anything on the table vanishes. Too
low, and things on the table float. A one tile table should, in top
down view, fit into one grid square of Milkshape, because a Milkshape grid square is the exact same size as a single Sim floor tile.
Notice how the Table Top is red? That means that section is currently selected. Anytime a part of your mesh is red in Milkshape
it means that that portion is selected. You can deselect everything
by going to:
Edit ► Select None
at any time and reselect by going to your Groups tab highlighting
the group/mesh part and hitting Select.
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6. MAKING THE LEGS
6.1. CREATING LEG
So we will move on to our legs. Again we will use the Box button
under the Model tab.
Draw a box about as wide as you would like to have a leg. See
how it needs to be adjusted? Doesn’t look like a leg yet. So we’ll
adjust.
6.2. SCALING LEG
See the X Y Z circled? These are the all axes of your object. X for
the side, Y for up and down, and Z for front and back.
We obviously want to take the box and reduce it from front to back
so we will put a 0.9 value in the Z field:
X = 1.0
Y = 1.0
Z = 0.9
1.0 moves nothing. 1.1 makes large adjustments to the box outward from either X, Y, or Z. 1.01 makes smaller adjustments that
direction whereas 0.9 shortens the mesh part in the direction of X,
Y, Z. 0.99 makes smaller adjustments, and so on.
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We click on the Scale button next to the X, Y, Z. Click until you have
a square as in the picture.
Now we have to move the cube to the corner where a leg should
go, right? But how are we going to see that over that old EA object
I am trying to replace you ask?
6.3. HIDING REFERENCE MESH
Well I want you to go back to the Groups tab. See that we now
have 3 groups?
group_1 (EA’s default)
Box01
Box02
We want to click on the group_1 now and then click the Hide button.
This will hide our original object so we can work with our new
one.
You should now have only Box01 and Box02 visible. Box02 is the
leg which is red and means it’s already selected.
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6.4. MOVING LEG
We will go back to the Model tab and click the Move button.
Now you can move the leg to where is should be.
6.5. DUPLICATING LEG
We want 4 legs, so let’s move on to the other legs. With your leg
selected (it is if it’s red) go to:
Edit ► Duplicate Selection
Now you have 2 legs.
Looking in the Group tab you can see our duplicate named Duplicate01.
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Can’t see them in your viewer? That’s because one leg is on top of
the other. We are going to fix that. Going to your Model tab, click
Move and move that leg as shown to the back making sure your
duplicate lines up with the original leg piece.
We are going to repeat this step (6.5. Duplicating Leg) two more
times to get 2 more legs, moving them as I showed you to get
them in the correct position for the table.
When you are done you should have something like this:
Box01
Box02
Duplicate01
Duplicate02
Duplicate03
Make sure you only have 2 boxes and 3 duplicates when you are
finished, along with your group_1 mesh.
6.6. DELETING REFERENCE MESH
We want to get rid of our original mesh at this point. So you will go
to the Groups tab and click on group_1. Then hit Delete.
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6.7. RENAMING GROUPS
We now need to rename our groups in the Groups tab so we know
what they are. This is very important for mapping our object!
Go to your Groups tab and select Box01. I want you to hit Select
and see which part of our object this is. Box01 is the table top. So
where you see the Rename button, there is a box next to it with
the title. We are going to rename this Top. Type Top in that box and
click on Rename.
We are going to do this for the rest of the pieces also, except you
will name them Leg1, Leg2, Leg3 and Leg4. No spaces between
the number and the word. Milkshape will lose anything you put a
space in between. So if you name it Leg 1, instead of Leg1 then the
1 would be lost upon re-import later.
6.8. EXPORTING TO OBJ
We are now going to export our mesh to a Wavefront .OBJ file. So
you will go to:
File ► Export ► Wavefront OBJ…
And save your object with a name like Table or whatever you like.
Now close Milkshape.
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7. MESHING HINTS
Milkshape allows you to create some basic shapes – spheres, boxes and cylinders. Have a look around, and you‘ll see that most
objects can be broken down into some combination of these.
Our table is a collection of boxes, but you could, for example, make
the legs round by creating a cylinder for each leg.
A knob on a dresser or even on our table could be made from a
sphere and so on.
Using this idea, you can build the basic shape of the object, and
then manipulate and move until you have the finished object you
wish to make.
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8. UV MAPPING
8.1. INTRODUCTION
We are going to cover one version of UV Mapper – UV Mapper
Classic, which is a free version. Later there will be a separate mapping tutorial for UV Mapper Pro which is pay. Keep in mind that I
recommend Investing in UV Mapper Pro once you decide meshing
is what you want to do.
You must UV map your object in order for it to work properly in
the game. This was the same for TS2, however in TS3 you must
map your parts separate from each other and not overlap. This is
very important.
8.2. LOADING MESH
Open UV Mapper Classic. Go to:
File ► Load Model
Find our table mesh .OBJ file in the folder you saved it to and click
on it. A screen will pop up that gives you the vertex count as well
as the facets (which is the poly count).
Click OK and your mesh should show in the window like on the
left.
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8.3. MAPPING GROUPS
Doesn’t look like much, does it? Well we’ll fix that. Go to:
Edit ► Select ► by Group…
Now a box will pop up listing the groups that we made and renamed in Milkshape.
Let’s select Leg1 by clicking on it and then OK. We want to begin
mapping our parts so we will go to:
Edit ► New UV Map ► Box
Another window will pop up asking us for dimensions. I’m going to
leave this to default and click OK.
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Do you see how that made 6 pieces to our mesh? That’s what we
want. Now we’ll resize that smaller for use later.
Slide at the dots to scale the image down. You should have something like on the left.
See where my Leg1 is now? We will repeat this process for all the
groups in the mesh:
Leg2
Leg3
Leg4
Top
We want to make sure none of the parts are overlapping so when
we scale each piece we will put on a different part of the white
area.
When you are done your screen should be like mine with all the
parts on different places on this gigantic white part.
See how I have scaled all to fit the space I’m working in? Now our
parts are separate and we can begin the first process of mapping
our mesh as it needs to be.
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8.4. PROPORTIONATING
Now think of a single tile object in game. It fits one solid floor tile,
right? One floor tile is 256×256 pixels. How high is it? About the
same. We have to think of the object’s height and width.
However, if we make a 256×256 texture, that will only be big
enough for the table top.
So we need an image that is big enough to fit the table top
(256×256), the table underside (256×256) and of course the legs
which are also 256 pixels high.
Why you ask? So our textures do not stretch. If we don’t follow
these guidelines our textures will stretch beyond belief and we will
embarrass ourselves with our object.
So, we will begin by clicking:
Edit ► Select by ► Vertex
Now I want to begin to select each side of the flattened object one
at time. Here we go.
I am going to drag my curser over the first section of flattened
mesh so that that one little piece is selected like on the left.
Can you see my selection? Now I can resize that one piece of the
side of the mesh part.
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Our goal here is to have something that will work with our finished
mesh texture in Workshop. I know this is one of the legs so I will
separate it and resize like on the left.
See how I moved it and resized it?
We need to do that for all of the leg pieces. They are obviously the
ones on the map that have the same box map. Notice how one is
different? That’s our top. So in turn you are going to take all the
long pieces of the 2 legs on top and place on your map until your
map looks like mine.
Notice the smaller squares I have circled at the top? These were
the tops and bottoms of the legs. UV Mapper auto mapped these
for the dimensions it “saw”.
We need to move and resize these too keeping in mind that these
will not be visible parts on the finished mesh so that our map does
not need to dedicate a lot of space to them.
So I have scaled them and moved them.
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Now we are going to do the same for the other 2 legs so that we
make sure our dimensions are properly done on the map. Following the above procedure and placing your legs as shown on the
left.
8.5. ARRANGING
Now we want to make these legs fit better on our map. So we will
drag our cursor first over the top set of leg sides and move them
to fit that half of our white space on the map.
We will do the same for the bottom leg sides. Drag your cursor
over the bottom sides and fit to the map in the same manner as
you did the top keeping the bottom on the bottom part of the
map.
Time to do our table top. Remember the tile rule I discussed above?
256×256? Well here we will apply to the top of the table. The top
and bottom of the table obviously must take up more space on
your map for your texture to look correct – otherwise your texture
will be blurred in game. Looking at your table top you will notice
2 large squares and 4 small rectangles. Because we have UV Mapper make a box map it automatically sized the top and bottom
part of the table larger then the sides. Big plus for us because we
now know which parts are which. Now we want to map the top so
that the Top and bottom takes up as much of the other half of our
white space as we can. Why? Well because if we don’t our textures
will blur on our object.
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Selecting the pieces to the top like we did the legs, by dragging
the cursor over the flattened mesh piece we are going to resize
the top and top sides so that they fit our map, making sure they
don’t overlap.
IMPORTANT
You may have to overlap while resizing. That’s OK as long as you
keep the part you are editing “active” that is selected. You just
need to make sure it does not overlap once you’re done. Notice
how I moved the sides of the top over? That was to make room
to work.
Now we will resize the sides the same length as the top.
8.6. SAVING MESH
We have finished with UV Mapper Classic for now. We are going to
save our UV Map. Go to:
File ► Save Model
and a screen pops up like on the left.
Leave the default boxes are checked and save your .OBJ file by
renaming it and saving to the folder your original was in. I like to
overwrite the original with the newly mapped version.
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9. WOOD GRAINS
9.1. INTRODUCTION
You’re going to feel like you’re on a see-saw by the time we’re done
with this mapping business using UV Mapper Classic, because UV
Mapper Classic has a complicated rotate option and right now
we’re going to need to talk about wood grains.
The grain on your tabletop sides will look a lot better if it is vertical
rather than horizontal. Also check whether the table edges look
right too. This probably is not the case with your mesh right now.
Most likely the top sides at the very least will have to be adjusted
and probably also the legs. It looks much better for the grains to be
facing properly. If your grain is going the wrong way, you will have
to fix this as I will show you how to do.
The Extra Credit Fix
UV Mapper unwraps boxes and cylinders at the click of a button,
whereas in Milkshape we have to do all that by hand – tediously.
However, in Milkshape we can make easy adjustments and see the
changes happen as we make them. With UV Mapper Classic it’s a
downright bear to use the rotate option to assure that your wood
grains can face the correct direction. We can do this much easier
with the Milkshape mapping tool and achieve the same results we
are looking for. So we will be switching to Milkshape to rotate our
grain in the correct direction for the purpose of this tutorial. As
you progress in your meshing journey, you will be able to choose
which option seems best for you personally.
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9.2. ASSIGNING MATERIAL
We are now going to open Milkshape 3D back up. Go to:
File ► Import ► Wavefront OBJ…
and find your table. We need to select the parts we want to assign
a texture to so we will go to the Groups tab and select each part of
the mesh by clicking on the mesh part and hitting Select until the
entire table is selected.
A.) Go to your Materials tab.
B.) Click on New. This will create a new texture file for your mesh.
C.) Then click on <none> top one. You will be able to load a texture
from there. Any one will do, I chose to use a light wood one for this
tutorial, 512×512 so we can see what I’m doing. This material does
not export with your project. It is only a tool to use while mapping.
A wood or striped texture is best so you can see the direction of
the grain.
D.) Then click Assign.
Not seeing your texture? Check that Textured view is ticked when
you right click the 3D window of Milkshape as instructed in 4.1.
Setting Up Milkshape 3D.
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As you can see by my preview the wood grain on the table sides
is not in the direction that a real grain would be. I could show you
how to fix this in UV Mapper Classic but as it was pointed out to
me, using Classic to fix the wood grain is quite complicated if you
are a beginner!
See how blurry it is?
9.3. SELECTING FACES
Now we will begin to fix the side of the table so that the wood
grain is in the right direction. Go to:
Edit ► Select None
Then go to the Model tab:
Select ► Face ► Ignore Backfaces
See how I have only selected one side? This is what we want.
If you’re having Trouble selecting the Face
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9.4. OPENING TEXTURE COORDINATE EDITOR
Now we are going to go to:
Window ► Texture Coordinate Editor
A window will pop up which is where we will fix the direction of
the grain. Now I want you to remember how we mapped our object in UV Mapper Classic. Our object is still mapped in this way.
But when we work in the Texture Coordinator, it won’t show our
entire mapped object. Why? Because we are only selecting part of
our mesh to edit. You must keep in the “back of your mind” how
the entire map looks from when you left UV Mapper classic. You
will find out why as we go.
9.5. SELECTING UV FACES
After you open the Texture Coordinate Editor you will get a window that looks like the one on the left.
There is a Dropdown List. We want to click on it and select Top.
This is what you will see. Notice how our selected part is showing.
Remember our UV Map in Mapper Classic? Yes this is one of those
mapped parts.
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9.6. ROTATING UV FACES
Now click on Rotate and rotate your piece 90 degrees by taking
your mouse and manually rotating it with the Rotate tool.
If the vertices aren’t red in the texture window, you need to select
them by clicking the Select button and drawing an imaginary box
around the rectangle. When the dots are red, that piece is selected and can be rotated.
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Now I want you to think back to your UV Map. Once we rotate it
distorts our original map.
Even though we will be taking this back to UV Mapper Classic we
want to make our life a bit easier.
9.7. SCALING UV FACES
So we are going to select the Scale tool and scale to a small
square.
We will do this with any parts of the table where the grain is going the wrong way. So close the editor and go back to the main
Milkshape screen. You will see 4 drop down lists in each of your 4
screens. These are the different angles views of the mesh.
Next using the dropdown in the top left window we will select
Back.
Repeat the above steps from 9.3. Selecting Faces to 9.7. Scaling
UV Faces until all 4 sides are remapped:
Front
Back
Left
Right
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9.8. CHECKING LEGS
Pay particular attention to the legs of your table. Is the grain traveling vertically? If not, you might want to rotate the legs on your
texture map the same way we just did the sides of the table.
However, if you must edit the legs on your table you will want to
hide the other legs while you work.
So going to the Groups tab click each leg in turn and hit Hide. You
will work on each leg separately. The Hide button hides and unhides your group part. Once you finish one leg you will hide that
and then move to Leg2, unhiding and so on.
Remember that you must change the Dropdown List in the Texture
Coordinator Editor as shown in 9.5. Selecting UV Faces for each
part of your group.
9.9. SAVING FILE
Now we are going to go to:
File ► Export ► Wavefront OBJ
Replace your mesh with the one we have redone.
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10. FIXING UV MAP
Open UV Mapper Classic. Go to:
File ► Load Model
Pick out your mesh you just exported from Milkshape 3D.
As you can see your map has 4 squares where our rectangle maps
would have been. So we’re going to fix that. When your map is
loaded you will go to:
Edit ► Color ► By Group
You should have 6 pieces in each color.
Remember how we worked with our pieces when we originally did
this mapping? Well yes we are going to fix these 4 pieces by doing
that again. So go to:
Edit ► Select By ► Vertex
And drag across one of the squares with your curser. If your parts
are overlapping please see Page 52 how to fix.
We want to redo the squares to the original mapping position so
one by one drag them back into place.
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Stretch to the correct size.
When you’re done your map should again look like on the left. Go
to:
File ► Save Model
And overwrite our table model.
We need to save a UV Map, which is basically a .BMP file, so we
can use if for our texture files later. Go to:
File ► Save Texture Map
A screen will pop up. You need to change the dimension to
512×512. Then click OK and name this table.bmp.
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11. REGROUPING
Now we are ready to begin the last part of our journey in making
our mesh in Milkshape 3D.
We want to regroup the mesh into one part. So I want you to go
to:
Edit ► Select All
This should make your entire wireframe preview red. Go to your
Groups tab and click on Regroup.
Milkshape will rename our group Regroup00 automatically.
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12. HIGH LEVEL DETAIL MESH
12.1. INTRODUCTION
We’re going to talk about the High Detail Mesh and the Low Detail
Mesh. In Sims 3 there are many parts to something you can actually use in game.
Because our wonderful programmers Micke and Johan have made
it possible to autogenerate the shadow mesh in Workshop, we no
longer have to worry about manually doing 2 of the 4 parts.
You basically have 3 types of shadows. 2 are Sun Shadows for the
High and Low Detail Mesh and one is an actual Ground Shadow.
We don’t have to worry about the sun shadows, but we do have to
adjust the Ground Shadow to fit our mesh.
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12.2. CHECKING CURRENT ASSIGNMENTS
You will now have a single file that is named Regroup00. We are
ready to import our .WSO file. So you will go to:
Select the High Detail Mesh and import. Your screen should now
look like on the left.
Now we have to mess with the Bone, also known in Milkshape
as the Joint. In Sims 3 most objects have bones that must be assigned, very few do not.
We are going to go to the Joints tab in Milkshape (to your far right
by the groups tab). Click on the String of Numbers there as shown
below and click on the button Select Assigned. It now will show
you which part of the mesh is assigned. It shows in red in your
mesh window. As you can see here the bone is assigned to the
table itself.
12.3. ORDERING AND RENAMING
So we know that this bone is assigned to the table only. Now we’re
going to go back to the Groups tab.
We want to delete the original EA table so that our mesh is the
only table here. Click on the mesh (in this case group_1) and click
Delete as I showed you earlier.
Now we should have group_0 and Regroup00. The groups for
meshes in Sims 3 MUST be in the order of the original mesh. That
is group_0 is the first mesh in the original mesh so it should be on
top in the order of the list in Milkshape. So select group_0 and tick
the Up button in the tab.
35
As you can see here it placed group_0 at the top.
We are going to rename Regroup00 to group_1 to match our old
file. So go to your Groups tab and click on the Regroup00 group
then in the space circled overwrite it naming it group_1 and click
Rename.
12.4. ASSIGNING JOINT
Now we are ready to assign the Bone respectively Joint. So we
select our table (selecting group_1, the table should be red) and
go back to the Joints tab. With the table selected you will click
Assign.
36
13. GROUND SHADOW
13.1. INTRODUCTION
We are going to talk for a minute about the ground shadow part
of our mesh. (those flat planes on the bottom). If you look you
can see 4 small squares on that flat plane. Those are our table leg
shadows.
The rest of the plane carries the texture for underneath of our
table. In Workshop there is a Shadow Texture in the materials part
of you Mesh tab. It looks like on the left.
This actually has all of the shadow files for every mesh in the game.
What EA has done is mapped the shadow to any one of these textures and resized to what a real life shadow would look like.
You can save this picture to use as a permanent file for future
meshes.
37
13.2. EXTRACTING SHADOW TEXTURE
Since we want our table to have the proper shadows I am going to
quickly show you how to do that. So we need this file.
Open TSR Workshop and open your saved .WRK file:
1.
In Workshop, click on the Mesh tab. Make sure the dropdown list displays High level of detail.
2.
There should be more than one mesh group listed.
3.
Look for group_0. This is the ground shadow of the table.
4.
Click the word material next to Default material then the dots
button which appears.
5.
You should see the picture above in that tab. Click the Edit
button.
38
6.
You can click the image, then click the red Export button at
the top.
7.
Export it as .DDS.
All EA objects use this very same Atlas, so we’ll export this then
you can keep it for all time. You want to open your graphic program and save it as a .JPG or .PNG file for use later.
13.3. ASSIGNING SHADOW TEXTURE
Go to your Groups tab, click on the group_0 mesh group (our
shadow file) and hit Select.
Now remember that shadow file I just had you grab from Workshop? We will use that as our guide to adjust the shadow file. So
as we did above to assign the texture to our table, we will do the
same to assign the shadow to our ground shadow.
39
Make sure you deselect your table mesh before starting the shadow by going to the Groups tab and hitting the Select option (this
will un-highlight your table).
Then click on your shadow file (The flat plane) which should be
group_0 and click on Select which should now select the group_0
(it will be red). In the Materials tab click:
1.
New
2.
In here you will load the Shadow Texture from above.
3.
Click Assign and you should be able to see your shadow under
your mesh in the 3D window of Milkshape.
13.4. ADJUSTING
Since our object is pretty much scaled the same as the original,
you won’t see a big difference here in the shadows.
But think about a different shape. Suppose our legs pointed inward a bit. Those 4 squares would not be in line with the legs.
Suppose we made round legs? Then we wouldn’t want square
shadows now would we?
This is where you would adjust that shadow. Just to take a look go
to:
Window ► Texture Coordinator Editor
In the drop down list as we did above click on group_0. You will see
the shadow file I just gave you in the texture window. You can see
the shadow files highlighted (The squares with red dots) and from
here you can move them to the proper shadow by using the Move
option and resize the shadow by using the Scale option.
40
See how there are soft shadows, dark shadows, and square and
round shadows? You can move that square around to fit what type
of shadow you think your mesh should use.
The One on the right, the plain square is our table legs shadow
while the one on the right is the underside of the table top.
Our mesh is pretty close to where the shadows should be already.
So we will leave as they are for now.
13.5. SAVING HIGH LEVEL MESH
We are now ready to export to our .WSO file for Workshop. Go
to:
File ► Export ► TSRW Object
And replace your High Detail Mesh file.
41
14. LOW LEVEL DETAIL MESH
14.1. IMPORTING MESHES
You will do the same for your Low Detail Mesh as the steps we
took with the High Detail Mesh. So we will go to:
Edit ► Delete All
To get rid of our current .WSO file for the High Detail Mesh. You
already have a mapped .OBJ file so you can import that and your
low detail mesh.
Go to:
Import your Low Detail Mesh. You should have it in Milkshape like
on the left when you are done.
You will notice once you import your Low Detail Mesh there is no
floor shadow (the flat plane on the bottom). This is normal. The
low detail does not have this included. Do you see how your low
detail .WSO has only one group? It’s named group_0 because it’s
the only group in your low detail .WSO file in this instance.
Now go to:
File ► Import ► Wavefront OBJ
You will import the .OBJ file we used for the High Detail Mesh.
Now you will have the situation like on the left.
Now you will select in turn each group by clicking on them and hitting Select. Once your table is selected you will hit Regroup.
We now have Regroup00 in the groups window. Delete the group
named group_0 and so what should we name our new group?
Well group_0 of course! As we named our files in the high detail
group_0 and group_1 it’s the same for the low detail, except that
the low detail only has one group.
Therefore Rename your Regroup00 to group_0.
42
14.2. ASSIGNING JOINT
Making sure your table is highlighted in red by selecting. We will
again go to the Joints tab, click on the string of numbers and click
Assign.
As mentioned above we already have the lowest poly count we
can with this object so you can import your mesh to the low detail wso, assign your bones and then export to the low poly mesh.
In this case you will use the low detail mesh to make your sun
shadow files in Workshop. This will not always be the case! More
complicated objects need you to reduce the poly count before you
continue with the low detail mesh! If you do not keep this in mind
once you are practiced and making more complicated meshes you
can have very inflated files which can really slow someone’s game
considerably.
14.3. EXPORTING MESH
Now go to:
File ► Export ► TSRW Object
Export your .WSO overwriting the Low Detail Mesh .WSO file.
43
15. IMPORTING MESHES
You are now ready to import your mesh back to Workshop. Open
Workshop. We need to open your .WRK file for the table. So click
on Open Project. Find your table file where you saved it and open
it.
We now need to go to the Mesh tab in Workshop. Remember
when you exported your files? Well we shall do the same thing
except we will now Import our .WSO files.
So import your:
High Detail Mesh .WSO
Low Detail Mesh .WSO
Using the drop down list and the Import button.
(You may refer to Apple’s tutorial at any time for more detail.)
44
16. SUN SHADOW MESHES
We are now going to talk about Workshop and Sun Shadow Meshes. TS3 has sun shadows in game. If you see an object in game you
will see it not only has the floor shadow we talked about earlier,
but also a shadow that appears to be given from the sun. These
files are part of your mesh. We can auto generate these in TSR
Workshop.
Making sure you have imported your High LOD and Low LOD first,
using the dropdown list, click on Shadow high level of detail.
See the arrowed button on your right? This will generate the shadow for us.
Click on the arrows and the dialog on the left will pop up.
You want to choose from the list the higher vertices and faces
count because this would be the actual table mesh. How do we
know this? Think back to your table. It has all the vertices and faces, the other being the ground shadow. The ground shadow will
always have the lower count.
We want to select our table so click on it and hit OK.
45
You will do this for Shadow low level of detail as well. Then click
OK.
Pat yourself on the back. Job well done!
Go to chapter 17. Object Creation Part 2 to see how to proceed
next.
Make sure to check out chapter 18. Extra Credit – Wood Grains of
this guide too!
46
17. OBJECT CREATION PART 2
You are now ready for your DDS lesson. As soon as you finish
Cyclonsue’s DDS tutorial you will have a mesh:
http://www.thesimsresource.com/tutorials/view/category/
sims3/id/16536/
47
18. EXTRA CREDIT – WOOD GRAINS
We’re going to do a little mapping in Milkshape 3D. You could do
all your mapping in Milkshape once you’re experienced. However,
the benefit of using UV Mapper is that it can very quickly map out
boxes and spheres for you. Once you’re used to mapping, you can
use what you feel comfortable using.
Now we are going to see what happens when our wood grain is all
messed up and we need to fix it so that our object can look like it
should. All wood grains going in the expected real life way which
makes your object look a tad better.
Open Milkshape 3D.
We are going to set up our Milkshape to make sure we have some
vital things working before we begin.
At the top of Milkshape make sure Show Viewport Caption is
checked:
Window ► Show Viewport Caption
Right click the 3D View and select Textured.
We’re ready to begin. I am going to start by creating a box. Go to
the Model tab In Milkshape and click on Box.
48
We’re going to create a totally square box like on the left.
We’re going to create a Wavefront .OBJ file like we did for our
table. Go to:
Name it simply square.
Now we will open UV Mapper and import our square:
File ► Load Model
And then find the square. Using the procedure above I want you
to click:
Edit ► Select ► by Group…
Notice because we did not rename our square it’s simply box01.
That’s OK we’re not really going to use this for a mesh, we’re using
it to learn those infamous wood grains. With our square selected,
again as we did above, click on:
Edit ► New UV Map ► Box
You should have something in UV Mapper as shown. This is what
we want. Now again, as above we shall export our Wavefront .OBJ
and overwrite our square:
File ► Save Model
Leave all defaults checked and overwrite square.
49
Now open up Milkshape 3D again. Go to:
File ► Import ► Wavefront OBJ
Just like we did for our table. Import the file we named square.
Select your square by going to the Groups tab and clicking on the
group box01 and then hit Select.
See how our box has now turned red? That’s what we want. It’s
now active and selected.
Next:
A.) Go to your Materials tab.
B.) Click on New. This will create a new texture file for your mesh.
C.) Then click on <none> top one. You will be able to load a texture
from there. Any one will do, I chose to use a light wood one for this
tutorial 512×512 so we can see what I’m doing. A wood or striped
texture is best so you can see the direction of your wood grain.
D.) Then click Assign.
50
Look at the grain direction on this square. We want to change that.
We want the grain to face sideways.
We’re going to use Milkshape’s Texture Editor to get the map correct.
We want to map each side of our square. Therefore click Select,
then Face and tick Ignore Backfaces. Now we will begin to select
our mesh parts.
As you can see there are 3 windows that have Front, Left and Top.
We will change those as we go to map all sides of the mesh. As you
can see from the photo on the left, I have selected one side of the
mesh – the Front.
You select by dragging your curser over the face of the object. It is
the part that looks like the square with the line through it diagonally.
See how the side I selected is in red? Now I’m ready to map that
side.
51
Go to the top and click:
You will have a window pop up.
Notice how only one side of our mesh is in this box. That’s because
we only chose one side. We will be working with the circled buttons, which are Move and Scale, The tab that now has box01 is the
dropdown list for the pieces of your mesh.
Now we want to rotate this square so that the wood grain is going
in a different direction. You can see by the picture the wood grain
is going up and down, but we want it to go sideways.
So click the Rotate button and rotate the object 90 degrees, right
or left, no matter on this object.
Then close the Texture Coordinate Editor.
Look at your mesh in the 3D window. See how we changed the
wood grain’s direction?
We want to do this for each side of our mesh. We are going to repeat this procedure for the Back, Left and Right sides of the mesh
by using the small drop down boxes I circled earlier.
52
So using the drop down you will select the Back as shown on the
left. Then you will repeat the steps by going to the top and click:
Once you have repeated the steps for each side we will go back to
UV Mapper. We will now go to:
Open UV Mapper. We are going to fix our map now to the proportions we would need to actually make our square mapped and not
have the textures stretch.
I loaded my square into UV mapper and as you can see I have overlapped a few pieces. That’s OK we’re going to fix that so we can
work with our mesh.
I am going to go to:
Edit ► Select by ► Vertex
53
By selecting the corner of each overlapping square I can move the
corners away from the overlapped parts like on the left.
I have selected the corner and moved it off the other square piece.
See that red dot in the middle of my selection? That is the vertex
I selected.
I’m going to do that for each overlap that I have one at a time until
all squares are in their own space.
We want to move our squares around now so that each square
takes up 1/6 of our map. Remember the rules for the map space
we covered earlier. In the case of our square each side is the same
so all 6 sides will need equal space on the map.
Using the same technique we will select each square and move
them to fill the map. You should have something as shown when
you are finished.
Now we will save our model and our UV map as we did above. You
now have a mapped square with all the grain going the correct
way. Hopefully you now can be well on your way to meshing with
ease!
54
19. CREDITS
Tutorial written by riccinumbers for The Sims Resource.
Thank you to Cyclonesue for her input and critique as well to the
following beta testers of this tutorial:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Fredbrenny
Moza
AudreyMay
Aloleng
Vanilla_Sim
Pinecat
Illiana
A special thank you to Murano for helping with designing the layout.
55

The Beginners Guide To Meshing

Transcription

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