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˙uʍop ǝpᴉsdn ǝɹ,noʎ 'oN
#26 Old 18th Jan 2012 at 6:14 PM
Yea, if you're looking at it in MS. In reality, each group has its own UV, and some groups have multiple UVs. In MS, the UVs are combined into one, and if a group has more than one UV, it only uses the first and the others get ignored.

"Part of being a mesher is being persistent through your own confusedness" - HystericalParoxysm
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Sockpuppet
#27 Old 19th Jan 2012 at 1:04 AM
The game also combines the uvmaps into one so that should not be a problem?
You can reposition uvmaps if you like, both the ones from MS or Blender(but the mailbox does only have a one texture/uvmap setup, so not needed)
˙uʍop ǝpᴉsdn ǝɹ,noʎ 'oN
#28 Old 19th Jan 2012 at 1:50 AM
The mailbox has two UV maps in group02. The second UV on group02 is not combined with the other UV maps and does not use the same texture(most objects set up this way use it for normal maps). In MS this second UV gets lost on import. In Blender, it is imported and editable, and is required for export.

"Part of being a mesher is being persistent through your own confusedness" - HystericalParoxysm
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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#29 Old 19th Jan 2012 at 10:02 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Inge Jones
But you could also have used S3PE + MS, and that would have avoided blender problems. Just adding this for the benefit of other readers who might think TSRW was the only other option

That is absolutely true, I just picked .wso since I'm using TSRW anyway. But that is no complaint to S3PE, which would do the job too. S3PE is a wonderful tool and you are giving professional level support for it. Thanks!



CmoMoney, thanks for explaining the UV groups to me.

Quote: Originally posted by CmoMoney
I understand you're frustrated, but these aren't random errors. Out of bound errors come about because something is missing that the code was expecting, in this case, a UV texture


I think you might have misunderstood what kind of a "fix" I'm thinking about. I really love your tool and want the functionality that it offers, but to be honest, the usability sucks. I think it is perfectly ok to throw that kind of errors to the user when there is a real problem in the tool that I can report to someone and get fixed. But if the problem is in what user did, she should not get back information that is not useful to her. So I'm not asking a fix for these as errors, I am asking for error handling.

User should never get an error with index out of bounds. To user, that tells that the lower level error was not wrapped, which means that it might not have been caught at all by the programmer and after that kind of error the system/plugin might be in an undetermined state and just continuing might be risky. What if it wrote half of my file before the error?

So in my opinion the correct "fix" for these kind of errors would be to add the proper bound checks to their place and report some meaningful (preferably helpful) error to user. Do not let the code to proceed to loop the index out.

And I do not want you to go through all the code and do that for all loops. I just wish you would do that for the most common user-induced errors. I'd love that when I work with the tool, it would give me at least some understandable information about what I did wrong. Now I'm in a situation where sometimes my baking fails and sometimes my export fails and I have no idea why! Of course I then try all the tricks that I now know, select something, merge vertices and split and UV map again, redo clone and try again. But doing that aimlessly gets old quite fast. Now the tool itself does not tell me what actually was wrong, instead I have to use my "trick box" and then come here and ask.

Of course I also understand that these tools are made as a hobby and with limited resources. It is perfectly fine if you say that you have not specified pleasant user experience as a feature for this tool and I stop bugging about this.

I think it is a great tool, but I personally just freak out when certain kind of errors are thrown to me. Even if the result would be that the tool really goes into undeterminate state and I need to import again to continue, I'd prefer the tool to say me that instead or the current message.
Sockpuppet
#30 Old 19th Jan 2012 at 10:20 AM
now i am really confused...
I can only find one set of textures(overlay/multi/mask and specular) used on the mailbox.
The box, lid and flag all have a perfect fit on that texture, there are no other textures used....

Normalmaps/multiple overlays have their uvcoordinates changed(either repositioned or scaled), that is is something diffrent in my opinion and not used in the mailbox(all textures used have the same uvcoordinates 3,03794986E-05; 0; 0)
You have more then one overlay(used with multiple uvmaps) in your cloned package?
˙uʍop ǝpᴉsdn ǝɹ,noʎ 'oN
#31 Old 19th Jan 2012 at 5:32 PM
Quote: Originally posted by misukisu
And I do not want you to go through all the code and do that for all loops. I just wish you would do that for the most common user-induced errors.


Well these are uncommon user-induced errors on a uncommon object with an uncommon format. It isn't common for someone to delete one or two vertices from a face. Its not all that common for a object's mesh group to have more than one UV map. As for usability, I've taken most of the process in Blender/TS3 creating and put them into a few buttons, I can't really make it any easier.

Quote:
now i am really confused...
I can only find one set of textures(overlay/multi/mask and specular) used on the mailbox.
The box, lid and flag all have a perfect fit on that texture, there are no other textures used....

Normalmaps/multiple overlays have their uvcoordinates changed(either repositioned or scaled), that is is something diffrent in my opinion and not used in the mailbox(all textures used have the same uvcoordinates 3,03794986E-05; 0; 0)
You have more then one overlay(used with multiple uvmaps) in your cloned package?


UV 1 used by group02:


You're right, perfect fit.

UV 2 used by group02:


Not only does the 2nd UV not fit, it's not even the right dimensions. If the tools you use don't display this information, why are you surprised you don't see it?

From s3pe(mailbox MLOD):
Screenshots

"Part of being a mesher is being persistent through your own confusedness" - HystericalParoxysm
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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#32 Old 19th Jan 2012 at 7:26 PM
I apologise for my harsh words, CmoMoney. I did not really realize that my problems are that unique. If all the others are not having similar problems, then of course it is not justiced to require changes made just for me. Thanks for making the tools!
Alchemist
#33 Old 19th Jan 2012 at 9:56 PM
Quote: Originally posted by misukisu
Now I'm in a situation where sometimes my baking fails and...I have no idea why!
Baking with Cmo's Blender tools is really child's play if you know how to do it and it takes only minutes to learn. I wrote a tutorial on the process for people having a tough time mastering it and it's in the tutorials section here:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...6&goto=lastpost

Although it's titled for Milkshape users it really is for anyone who's struggling with Blender so it should work well for you hun.
Sockpuppet
#34 Old 19th Jan 2012 at 11:23 PM
i prolly am to stupid for this but i can not find these settings in the original game Mlod of the mailbox.
Alchemist
#35 Old 20th Jan 2012 at 1:58 AM
Quote: Originally posted by BloomsBase
i prolly am to stupid for this but i can not find these settings in the original game Mlod of the mailbox.
If you clone this with S3OC and open it in S3PE you can see it on the right hand side. This shows you the pathway to where it is in the .package:



Hope that helps
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#36 Old 20th Jan 2012 at 8:16 AM
There are couple of words I ought to add to my previous post.

Cmo, I respect your work and I love the tools you have created. It was your Blender Tools that finally tempted me over the edge to start creating for The Sims. You have helped me every time when I have needed help. You have implemented features for me. I will not forget that. And the area you are working on is not an easy one. I could not have done as well myself.

My problem is that I keep forgetting that all these tools are people's personal hobby projects. Then I end up treating tool creators like commercial software producers, which is plain wrong thing to do. Even worse, as people always take their hobbies personally, I end up hurting their feelings, which is something I never meant to do. I want to have fun with you guys, not to hurt you.

My other problem is my unconfidence with my new skills. It annoys the hell out of me and it has been a long time since I have been a newbie on something. I'd like to be able to manage on my own and not need someone to hold my hand with every object I do.

Have I said it all now... I guess so.

Will you play with me again?


OM, thanks for the baking instructions. Baking with Blender Tools in theory is easy. It's just that the bake refuses to bake some of my UVs. But that is not a problem as I can just start the bake from Blender's own bake-button, which seems to work also in those cases. While learning the bake settings I have also found that I like to put the environment lighting a bit higher, to 0.77, and samples to 20. That results in a bake that has smoother overall look and gives the neutral areas a brightness that matches the wall brightness in game.

I guess there is just something about the way I model that causes problems. 2/3 are eaten just fine by the tool, it's the 1/3 that is giving me gray hairs.

This discussion has also given me something to thought about and I think I should stop whipping myself too. As this is a hobby, I don't have to do everything perfectly, my first objects don't need to be EA-quality and I don't have to have full sets of items before I publish them and so on. Thanks for making me think about those issues.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#37 Old 20th Jan 2012 at 1:58 PM
Hmm. Looks like I have found workaround for the most common error I was getting. I just need to export the mesh to .obj and import it right back. After that the export from Blender to .s3m2b works. Most interesting.
One horse disagreer of the Apocalypse
#38 Old 20th Jan 2012 at 5:18 PM
Strange... Something you had stuck in your mesh that .obj doesn't understand so dumps... which blender tries to understand and do something with, but not what any of us expected lol

"You can do refraction by raymarching through the depth buffer" (c. Reddeyfish 2017)
Sockpuppet
#39 Old 20th Jan 2012 at 5:46 PM Last edited by BloomsBase : 20th Jan 2012 at 6:51 PM.
the obj in Milkshape also displays 2 unindentified meshgroups, it only shows it mat.
Have you tried creating just one meshgroup and export it as .s3m2b?

@OM, thank you. i found it.
The mailbox has indeed the same setup as the objects who use a normalmap.(carused1/Counter island traditional/Bar traditional/ etc)
But since it isn't linked to one i wouldn't worry about it.
sorry CMO
Screenshots
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#40 Old 21st Jan 2012 at 7:57 AM
Quote: Originally posted by BloomsBase
Have you tried creating just one meshgroup and export it as .s3m2b?

Well... Yes and no. For this object I need 2 meshgroups, but I am appending and exporting them one by one. So in that aspect I am using only one meshgroup at a time.

The reason you are seeing many meshgroups in my file is that I like to mesh my stuff first in one file. I may model a whole series of objects in one file. This time the file is quite "garbage-free" only because I started with the mailbox. When I take the meshes into use, I create a completely new Blender file, where I first import the clone .s3m2b meshes and then use File-Append to "import" one meshgroup from my model file. Then I swap that one meshgroup with the clone's meshgroup and export.

I earlier did wonder if my errors are due to the append operation, but I have abandoned that theory. Most of my appended meshes swap just fine. And sometimes I get error when I do just quick edits, like change floor shadow.

But anyway, I think I now have workaround to my most common error cases. And for those that I don't have workarounds, I have now an alternative way to do. So I'm quite happy now and feel I can finally concentrate doing stuff! It was a constant worry to me earlier to fear whether the results will export or not.
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