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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 24th Sep 2017 at 12:34 AM
Default I wanted to make two female hairs but need help.
Hi I've been wanting to re-create two hairs for awhile and I've already started but I'm in need of A TON of help. I've never done hair before and I want to get this right.

The first hair is this one:





So far I completed the overall shape of the mesh but there are a few other things I need to do.

I need to:
Rig & Animate, make child & teen versions and find some way to put them all in one mesh file, and lastly I'd need to find someone to do the texture of the bangs. (I already made the black and white cutout for them) and that is just for this hair

The other is Irma's beehive:



This one needs:
rigging & animation, the main beehive needs to be remapped and I have no clue how to do that so I'll also need to find someone who can... (the alpha parts are perfectly fine), this also needs a texture for the beehive and the fringe/front part. (the little tail in the back I have a texture for.)

I've been told for rigging I need to use the unimesh bonetool but I have no clue how it works as I couldn't find any tutorials on how to use that hold up to this day.
I absolutely can't make hair textures that don't simply go straight up and down as I don't have the necessary programs or skills to do so.
I also wanted to avoid any obvious seams where the scalp attaches to the face. Example:


I know I'm asking for a lot and I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to ask for this much but any sort of help would be appreciated.

Thanks
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Née whiterider
retired moderator
#2 Old 24th Sep 2017 at 11:43 AM
UV mapping is easy - just apply a material in Milkshape, select the part(s) of the mesh that you want to remap and go Window -> Texture Co-ordinate Editor. You can select and move vertices there just like you would in the main Milkshape window. You may find it easier to apply a stripey or chequed texture instead of an actual hair texture initially, to make it easier to work out which bit of map corresponds to which bit of mesh.

To combine mesh files, just export all the resources from one file in SimPE and import them into the other file. Make sure everything's finished and working first, though, because it's harder to troubleshoot combined files.

For joints, you can use either the UniMesh bone tool or the Joints tab in milkshape - they both have the same capabilities. I suggest you look at an EA hair mesh to see how the assignments work in the Joints tab; for meshes like these two, you'll probably want to just assign the whole mesh 100% to the head joint, which is how most of EA's short hairs are done.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#3 Old 24th Sep 2017 at 10:52 PM Last edited by carrit : 24th Sep 2017 at 11:45 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
UV mapping is easy - just apply a material in Milkshape, select the part(s) of the mesh that you want to remap and go Window -> Texture Co-ordinate Editor. You can select and move vertices there just like you would in the main Milkshape window. You may find it easier to apply a stripey or chequed texture instead of an actual hair texture initially, to make it easier to work out which bit of map corresponds to which bit of mesh.

To combine mesh files, just export all the resources from one file in SimPE and import them into the other file. Make sure everything's finished and working first, though, because it's harder to troubleshoot combined files.

For joints, you can use either the UniMesh bone tool or the Joints tab in milkshape - they both have the same capabilities. I suggest you look at an EA hair mesh to see how the assignments work in the Joints tab; for meshes like these two, you'll probably want to just assign the whole mesh 100% to the head joint, which is how most of EA's short hairs are done.


Thanks for the info, I'll see what I can do with the UV map... though I've tried it before I'll see if I can get it this time.

as for the joint assignments I know that most of the mesh will be rigged to the head but the bottom five points are rigged in a different way. it's kinda rigged to the neck and head at the same time I think and I still have no clue how to use the unimesh bonetool.
---
The joints tab in MS doesn't allow me to rig the same point to more that one joint. I Also am still unsure how to properly animate the hair, I've tried it before but that rigged it only to the animation bone thus distorting the mesh.

That also still doesn't answer my question about the obvious seam where the head connects to the face part. I know the image isn't the best but I can take a better one if needed.

Thanks again
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#4 Old 24th Sep 2017 at 11:01 PM
It should do - just input two joints at 50% each (don't actually use auskel, that's a terrible idea, it just happens to be first in the list) and hit Assign.
Screenshots

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#5 Old 25th Sep 2017 at 12:36 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
It should do - just input two joints at 50% each (don't actually use auskel, that's a terrible idea, it just happens to be first in the list) and hit Assign.


It still assigns to only one bone.
Screenshots
Mad Poster
#6 Old 25th Sep 2017 at 1:05 AM
Click the "comments" button (Groups tab, I think) and see if the "NumSkinWgts" is set to 3. If it's set to 1, the joints will only accept one bone for each joint (this problem usually happens when exporting, not assigning - but it's safest to check)

The color of the vertices show roughly where they're assigned, and if assigned to more than one bone the color will often be a blend of the colors. Pink is usually for the head joint, while yellow may be the neck (?). Usually, 50/50 between the head and neck will be a light orange-ish color. Keep in mind that it's easy to accidentally deselect the mesh, so make sure the proper vertices are marked when you click "assign". You can check the assigning of a vertex by marking it and clicking "show".
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#7 Old 25th Sep 2017 at 2:34 AM Last edited by carrit : 25th Sep 2017 at 5:10 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
Click the "comments" button (Groups tab, I think) and see if the "NumSkinWgts" is set to 3. If it's set to 1, the joints will only accept one bone for each joint (this problem usually happens when exporting, not assigning - but it's safest to check)

The color of the vertices show roughly where they're assigned, and if assigned to more than one bone the color will often be a blend of the colors. Pink is usually for the head joint, while yellow may be the neck (?). Usually, 50/50 between the head and neck will be a light orange-ish color. Keep in mind that it's easy to accidentally deselect the mesh, so make sure the proper vertices are marked when you click "assign". You can check the assigning of a vertex by marking it and clicking "show".


That still didn't make a difference so I still have no clue what the issue is...
but thanks.

After looking at Nysha's picture and comparing it to mine we seem to have different set ups/layouts...
Mad Poster
#8 Old 25th Sep 2017 at 5:26 PM
From what I can see there's no difference between your setup, apart from a couple of tick boxes. "Show skeleton" shows the skeleton, and "Draw vertices with bone color" makes the bone colors show up, or the pink and yellow parts in your case (otherwise the mesh would be plain grey, and marked vertices show in red). These three tick boxes don't make any difference to the mesh, and ticking/unticking them has no effect on the outcome. Sometimes it's handy to be able to turn on/off the visible skeleton. The colors show roughly what's assigned where, and if there are any unassigned vertices (they show white). I still don't know what the middle button does, but it probably also has a purpose of some sort.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#9 Old 25th Sep 2017 at 5:40 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
From what I can see there's no difference between your setup, apart from a couple of tick boxes. "Show skeleton" shows the skeleton, and "Draw vertices with bone color" makes the bone colors show up, or the pink and yellow parts in your case (otherwise the mesh would be plain grey, and marked vertices show in red). These three tick boxes don't make any difference to the mesh, and ticking/unticking them has no effect on the outcome. Sometimes it's handy to be able to turn on/off the visible skeleton. The colors show roughly what's assigned where, and if there are any unassigned vertices (they show white). I still don't know what the middle button does, but it probably also has a purpose of some sort.


I don't know too much about the middle one either. I'm aware of what the other two do and I was using them as I was assigning the bones to see if it would work. (which unfortunately it didn't...)

So here's what I know, The part that is currently yellow needs to be a peachy color but for some reason the program refuses to allow it... not sure what I'm doing wrong but could it be because I have another bone selected in the box above? I'm referring to the auskel as it's currently highlighted in the pic. So I either need to install a different version of the program or it just refuses to work for me.

The unimesh bonetool still does absolutely nothing for me as in I just cannot get it to work.
Mad Poster
#10 Old 25th Sep 2017 at 7:13 PM
You shouldn't assign anything to the auskel bone. Hairs mainly need to be assigned to the head and neck bones, occasionally the spine bones if it's long enough and you don't want it sticking up in weird angles. have Milkshape 1.8.4 or 1.8.5? I've had some issues with the 1.8.5 version, so I've gone back to 1.8.4 for TS2 projects.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#11 Old 25th Sep 2017 at 10:00 PM Last edited by carrit : 26th Sep 2017 at 12:41 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
You shouldn't assign anything to the auskel bone. Hairs mainly need to be assigned to the head and neck bones, occasionally the spine bones if it's long enough and you don't want it sticking up in weird angles. have Milkshape 1.8.4 or 1.8.5? I've had some issues with the 1.8.5 version, so I've gone back to 1.8.4 for TS2 projects.


I switched over to 1.8.4 but still no affect, I don't know what I'm doing wrong but it's starting to tick me off now. :cylon:

When I press assign nothing happens when I try to use the Unimesh bonetool it only shows the head as being selected because it's selected in the box above. IT completely ignores the thing below.

Maybe this image could help?
Screenshots
Mad Poster
#12 Old 26th Sep 2017 at 12:12 PM
I've never bothered much with that tool. Mark vertices and then use the colored slides and the assign button instead (turn off the colored vertices so you see what you're marking).
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#13 Old 26th Sep 2017 at 5:45 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
I've never bothered much with that tool. Mark vertices and then use the colored slides and the assign button instead (turn off the colored vertices so you see what you're marking).


When I import the 5gd models they always come up with these bones do not equal %100 do you want these corrected?
When I click yes it seems that the bones are not blended but when I press no they show up blended like they should be.

Is it possible I don't have something enabled?
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#14 Old 26th Sep 2017 at 8:37 PM
Quote: Originally posted by carrit
When I import the 5gd models they always come up with these bones do not equal %100 do you want these corrected?
When I click yes it seems that the bones are not blended but when I press no they show up blended like they should be.

Is it possible I don't have something enabled?


I was able to finally figure it out by using the unimesh bonetool.

Now all I need to do for the first hair is make the child and teen versions and get a texture for the bangs.

Thanks for all the help!

I'll keep this post updated in case I need more help... Also which age is which in the 3D ID ref things? I'm pretty sure 0x00000006 is for elders
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#15 Old 26th Sep 2017 at 9:17 PM Last edited by carrit : 27th Sep 2017 at 3:18 AM.
Well this happened...

I assigned it 50 to head and 50 to animation which was clearly wrong. lol
how do I do it properly?

Also I want to get rid of this seam. I know you can't see it under the hair but I still want it to be seamless.
Screenshots
Mad Poster
#16 Old 28th Sep 2017 at 3:37 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 29th Sep 2017 at 1:24 AM.
The seam probably comes from bad normals. One way to fix it is to import the scalp (hairbald) for the age/gender you're working with, and use the extended manual edit (this plugin, I think: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=139859) to make sure the vertices have the same normals as the original scalp. There are probaly also other (maybe even easier) ways to do it. A lot of tutorials on combining meshes show this tool in the works.

50 to "animation" - I'm not sure that's a joint... Most of the mesh should be assigned to 100% head, and the lower seam between the neck and head should be 50% head, 50% neck. If you're working on a short hair, this usually does the trick. If you import a scalp as a GMDC file (not OBJ, and remember to click "no" to importing another skeleton), you can copy the joints information from this. While in the Joints tab to the right: Mark the vertex you want to copy joints info from, choose "show", mark the area on the hair you want to assign, and click "assign".

If the neck line is completely hidden and won't show at all, it can sometimes be enough to assign the hair to just the hair bone. This depends on the length and shape of the hair.

If you extract with the PJSD tool, the scalps are named "hairbald" with af/am/tf/tm/cu/pu/bu in front, maybe also em/ef (but these are often bunched together with the adult versions) - so if you want to extract the adult scalp, that would be afhairbald.

As for the 3DIR files, these can be tricky for hairs, and don't always make sense. The age shown in the last string (named "Category", for the PropertySet) doesn't always match. I usually check the instance number for the TXMT/Material Definition and find the 3DIR matching the one belonging to the hair I'm linking. If you look at the strings with 4 sets of 8 numbers, the last 8 digit number should match the instance number for the TXMT/MatDef resource for the correct age (see pics). Just be aware that YA and elder sometimes are named AF or AM in the material definition, depending on what was used as a base for the hair recolor. Most of the time YA/elder share the mesh with adults, so usually it's not a problem.
Screenshots
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#17 Old 29th Sep 2017 at 9:06 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
The seam probably comes from bad normals. One way to fix it is to import the scalp (hairbald) for the age/gender you're working with, and use the extended manual edit (this plugin, I think: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=139859) to make sure the vertices have the same normals as the original scalp. There are probaly also other (maybe even easier) ways to do it. A lot of tutorials on combining meshes show this tool in the works.

50 to "animation" - I'm not sure that's a joint... Most of the mesh should be assigned to 100% head, and the lower seam between the neck and head should be 50% head, 50% neck. If you're working on a short hair, this usually does the trick. If you import a scalp as a GMDC file (not OBJ, and remember to click "no" to importing another skeleton), you can copy the joints information from this. While in the Joints tab to the right: Mark the vertex you want to copy joints info from, choose "show", mark the area on the hair you want to assign, and click "assign".

If the neck line is completely hidden and won't show at all, it can sometimes be enough to assign the hair to just the hair bone. This depends on the length and shape of the hair.

If you extract with the PJSD tool, the scalps are named "hairbald" with af/am/tf/tm/cu/pu/bu in front, maybe also em/ef (but these are often bunched together with the adult versions) - so if you want to extract the adult scalp, that would be afhairbald.

As for the 3DIR files, these can be tricky for hairs, and don't always make sense. The age shown in the last string (named "Category", for the PropertySet) doesn't always match. I usually check the instance number for the TXMT/Material Definition and find the 3DIR matching the one belonging to the hair I'm linking. If you look at the strings with 4 sets of 8 numbers, the last 8 digit number should match the instance number for the TXMT/MatDef resource for the correct age (see pics). Just be aware that YA and elder sometimes are named AF or AM in the material definition, depending on what was used as a base for the hair recolor. Most of the time YA/elder share the mesh with adults, so usually it's not a problem.


I'll try out those plugins, thanks.

but that still doesn't answer my question on what I need to do to keep the hair from deforming. I know the reason is because it is partially assigned to the other hair joints the b_hair, r_hair, l_hair, & f_hair.
Mad Poster
#18 Old 30th Sep 2017 at 7:23 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 8th Oct 2017 at 1:41 PM.
You may have to choose the closest joint to the hair parts. Anything directly in contact with the head should be assigned to the "head" joint (and the neck gap should be 50/50 between the head and neck, of course).

You may want to have a look at a similar hair that's animated (similar length and shape - there are several ingame), to see how to do it. I have to admit, I've never made animated hairs before. The hair you've made looks short and clumpy enough to maybe not need animation for anything else than the fringes.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#19 Old 3rd Oct 2017 at 1:42 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
I think only loose parts of the hair (ponytails/pigtails, fringes) should be assigned to the hair joints. You may have to choose the closest joint to the hair parts. Anything directly in contact with the head should be assigned to the "head" joint (and the neck gap should be 50/50 between the head and neck, of course).

You may want to have a look at a similar hair that's animated (similar length and shape - there are several ingame), to see how to do it. I have to admit, I've never made animated hairs before. The hair you've made looks short and clumpy enough to maybe not need animation for anything else than the fringes.


Thanks for your help, I'll have to try that when I get the time. I still haven't tried out extended manual edit but I'll keep this page updated for when I do.

Thanks again.
Mad Poster
#20 Old 3rd Oct 2017 at 9:41 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 3rd Oct 2017 at 10:05 PM.
If you can use the "headbald" meshes as an underlying base, you could just import the original meshes (for the right gender/age), since they've got the proper normals. Just make sure the "autosmooth" option in Milkshape is unticked (it's a tick box in the "groups" tab to the right)

If you assign the hair to too many bones, and assign them too heavily to those bones, or don't transition the weights properly, you can get weirdness. This includes if you assign parts of the fringe to both the fringe and left/right bones, because the hair probably will go in all of the directions at once. You absolutely should take a look at similar hairs in Milkshape to see how they're assigned.

By the way, have you seen the basic hair tutorial and the one that (sort of) covers animation?
http://modthesims.info/t/158048
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=252950 (step #5)

Both of your hairs are short enough to not need much animation, if any at all. Most CC hairs I've seen aren't animated with the hair bones, but most of the longer hairs are assigned to the spine joints, maybe also shoulders and/or other body joints, so they don't cut into the body in weird places.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#21 Old 4th Oct 2017 at 4:42 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
If you can use the "headbald" meshes as an underlying base, you could just import the original meshes (for the right gender/age), since they've got the proper normals. Just make sure the "autosmooth" option in Milkshape is unticked (it's a tick box in the "groups" tab to the right)

If you assign the hair to too many bones, and assign them too heavily to those bones, or don't transition the weights properly, you can get weirdness. This includes if you assign parts of the fringe to both the fringe and left/right bones, because the hair probably will go in all of the directions at once. You absolutely should take a look at similar hairs in Milkshape to see how they're assigned.

By the way, have you seen the basic hair tutorial and the one that (sort of) covers animation?
http://modthesims.info/t/158048
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=252950 (step #5)

Both of your hairs are short enough to not need much animation, if any at all. Most CC hairs I've seen aren't animated with the hair bones, but most of the longer hairs are assigned to the spine joints, maybe also shoulders and/or other body joints, so they don't cut into the body in weird places.


I've seen some of those tutorials that deal with longer hair and they did help a little with some stuff and will be useful in the future.

I tried fixing the normal but it didn't work out most likely due to me forgetting to untick the autosmooth box so I'll have to try again tomorrow. It actually gave it a dark ring:


I did take a look at the original EAxis hair and assigned all the joints to where they needed to be but it didn't really help at all, might even be worse than before...
I really don't know what I should do or assign them to and it's driving me crazy.
Screenshots
Mad Poster
#22 Old 4th Oct 2017 at 6:29 PM
Whenever you make changes to a CAS mesh and/or texture, you have to delete the cache files. They can cause issues because they carry over information from the old texture/mesh, even if the files are gone.

Would you mind uploading the files? I usually find it much easier to figure out the problem if I can look at the files, because looking at pictures with joint assignment issues is mostly guesswork.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#23 Old 5th Oct 2017 at 10:39 PM Last edited by carrit : 18th Oct 2017 at 11:17 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
Whenever you make changes to a CAS mesh and/or texture, you have to delete the cache files. They can cause issues because they carry over information from the old texture/mesh, even if the files are gone.

Would you mind uploading the files? I usually find it much easier to figure out the problem if I can look at the files, because looking at pictures with joint assignment issues is mostly guesswork.


Sure, I've packed two versions from Oct. 3 and one from Oct. 2.
Mad Poster
#24 Old 6th Oct 2017 at 3:12 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 6th Oct 2017 at 3:28 PM.
I'll have a look later today.

Come to think of it, one of the hairs does look rather like a variation of three already existing hairs (hairmediumcenterpart, hairacorntuck and hairfeather), but with fringes added. You can use the EAxis hairs as a preview for how to animate the back of the hair. There are a bunch of hairs with fringes you can use as a base for the animation of the fringes, too (previews here). You may even be able to do a bit of frankensteining on some of the textures.

Another tip is to extract the "AFface" (as obj), "AFhairbald" (as GMDC) and perhaps also the "AFbodynaked" (as GMDC) with the PJSD tool, and use these as a guideline for the hair. This way you may be able to find issues faster.

You can also use the animate tools (make sure to save the file BEFORE doing this, and don't save after), click the "anim" button plus the "joints" under the selection tab, and then you can rotate the joints to figure out roughly how they animate. I haven't tried this on hair, but it's a great method for checking joint assignments for clothes and accessories.


Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
UV mapping is easy [...]


Yeah, it's not - in Milkshape, anyway. The Milkshape tools are horrible to work with (the zoom is ridicolously bad, thee aren't any decent tools for snapping parts together so you have to manually move them, and if vertices are combined into one, good luck separating pieces because Milkshape will select parts of the UVmap you didn't ask for - and those are just a few of the most annoying issues). If the base mesh have decent UVmapping and you only have to do some moving around and resizing, I guess it's workable - but when remapping or mapping something from scratch, there are other tools out there that gives you a much better result without giving you a bad headache.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#25 Old 7th Oct 2017 at 2:14 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
I'll have a look later today.

Come to think of it, one of the hairs does look rather like a variation of three already existing hairs (hairmediumcenterpart, hairacorntuck and hairfeather), but with fringes added. You can use the EAxis hairs as a preview for how to animate the back of the hair. There are a bunch of hairs with fringes you can use as a base for the animation of the fringes, too (previews here). You may even be able to do a bit of frankensteining on some of the textures.

Another tip is to extract the "AFface" (as obj), "AFhairbald" (as GMDC) and perhaps also the "AFbodynaked" (as GMDC) with the PJSD tool, and use these as a guideline
for the hair. This way you may be able to find issues faster.

You can also use the animate tools (make sure to save the file BEFORE doing this, and don't save after), click the "anim" button plus the "joints" under the selection tab, and then you can rotate the joints to figure out roughly how they animate. I haven't tried this on hair, but it's a great method for checking joint assignments for clothes and accessories.



Yeah, it's not - in Milkshape, anyway. The Milkshape tools are horrible to work with (the zoom is ridicolously bad, thee aren't any decent tools for snapping parts together so you have to manually move them, and if vertices are combined into one, good luck separating pieces because Milkshape will select parts of the UVmap you didn't ask for - and those are just a few of the most annoying issues). If the base mesh have decent UVmapping and you only have to do some moving around and resizing, I guess it's workable - but when remapping or mapping something from scratch, there are other tools out there that gives you a much better result without giving you a bad headache.


This hair used the acorn tuck as the back/base and the meg bangs. (both quite edited though.) and the beehive used the bun hair with chop sticks as a base and built up from there (remapping will be a nightmare since I'm not sure where to start to achieve such a map that can be properly textured.) and used one of its alphas while the bangs were from the updated braids and were edited but do not need remapping.

I did try using the original acorn tuck's assignment info but it lead to worse problems.

I've already had the face extracted from the beginning. I've never bothered with the body as I still don't think it's needed for this kind of hair nor doI know how it would help me figure anything out. (I'm not saying I absolutely won't do this I just don't see why it is needed.)

Not sure if this will help with anything but I originally exported the original acorntuck and meg hair as obj files to do the reshaping. It had to be done this way as the program I used does not support any sims 2 related files so it ended up deleting the bone/joint assignment already made. Plus there are parts of the hair I don't want to move that on the original did.
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