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Space Pony
Original Poster
#1 Old 23rd Jun 2015 at 7:34 AM Last edited by ZeonZumDeikun : 5th Jul 2015 at 11:38 PM.
Locating the Correct Joint For Accessories... [SOLVED]
Hello. I've made my first ever custom accessories and I'm trying to find the best joint to attach them to but I'm having some problems and I was hoping someone here might have a better idea. I've made a set of Star Wars style Rebel pilot chest boxes for male and female sims in The Sims 2, and I'm trying to get them onto the best joint so that they wont get too funky when the characters move. I understand that some clipping will occur but so far I'm just having terrible luck with it.

The accessories have the main "chestbox" which should move with the upper torso, the chest, and they also have a hose that goes to the side, which should probably move with the middle torso or lower torso/stomach. I've been trying spine0, spine1 and spine2 as none of the other joints seem to make any sense for these but nothing has worked out very well. Some of them the chestboxes disappear into the chest when the characters move, others float strangely if the character twists their waist. I also have an object that I call a "belt box" that goes around the waist, and I have to attached to spine2, but having it attached to that joint actually makes the accessory go into the body of the Sim and it isn't visible unless the character moves around a lot.

I made a video to show what I'm talking about. The video can be found [here]. I've attached most of the accessories to spine0 except for a couple that I played around with and experimented with other joints, and as you can see those ones just don't move quite right. They don't move with the torso, they're always positioned upright even if the character leans to one side, and they're just... off. If you skip ahead to the 1:00 mark for the accessory labeled as "B-wing Pilot Chestbox S1", which I think I attached to spine0 and the hose I tried attaching to spine1 (though I might have attached the box to spine1 and the hose to spine2, I've misplaced the last project file somehow so I couldn't load it up to make certain, though I have plenty of previous project file versions), and as you can see the results are even worse with the chestbox starting out embedded into the chest, the hose moves strangely and, if you look closely at the mirror, the hose that was attached to a different joint is completely invisible in the mirror for some reason and it also appears through the body. Skip to 1:46 and "B-wing Pilot Chestbox S3", which is attached to spine1, is also strange where the black S-shaped trench on the chestbox disappears into the character's chest (as well as the rest of the accessory when the character moves).

Skip to 2:38, with the accessory called "Q-wing Pilot Rebreather" that is attached to spine0, you'll notice that the accessory sinks almost completely into the chest even when the character is just standing still. Lastly, at 2:56, you can see the "Belt Box" accessory that is attached to spine2, which also sinks completely into the body when the character is standing still and only becomes partially visible if the characters moves around a lot.

You can continue on with the rest of the video if you wish to see how they work on female Sims, and they have the same problem. In fact, in the first female clip, "Y-wing Pilot Chest Pack", there's a pocket with a radio in it to the right-hand side just under the top of the hose, and this pocket sinks fully into the breast. At 4:35 you can see what I mean about the hose appearing through the character's body.

So as you can see I'm having some problems with these accessories. Does anyone know of better joints for me to attach these to or how else I might be able to fix this problem? Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!
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Née whiterider
retired moderator
#2 Old 23rd Jun 2015 at 6:53 PM
I've moved this to Bodyshop meshing, since that's what it is.

A good option is to import the mesh for some EA clothes and have a look at how the chest is assigned there - you won't necessarily want to copy the assignments exactly, especially for the rigid parts of your meshes, but it'll give you a good idea of which bones you should be using.

It's fairly inevitable that you'll get some weirdness with the boxes being quite high, as they're in the area where shoulder and clavicle movement are quite important, so you'll either have to have the box distorting with those joints or floating a bit. Moving them down a bit would make it much less noticeable, I'd think.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Space Pony
Original Poster
#3 Old 24th Jun 2015 at 9:29 AM
Bah, I didn't see this section. Sorry about that.

How do I tell which joints are assigned to which parts on the clothes? I know you can turn on the option to see the joints in colors, but how do you know which color is which joint, or do you just have to keep trying joints until you find that particular color?

I can make them floating a bit, that's not really a problem, though I don't really want to move them down. For one, they're in a position that's roughly accurate to how they're worn in the movies, and secondly, I already made the flightsuits a few years ago and made these chestboxes fit to them... I don't really want to have to remake the flightsuit textures again. :P

I do realize some clipping or distortion will occur, which is fine, I'm just trying to get them to be as good as possible. Right now most of them just disappear into the bodies completely even if the character is standing still so that definitely isn't working, heh heh. It's like the "belt box"... On the body mesh I have it positioned just fine, but as soon as it's on a Sim in the game it, for some reason, sinks completely into the body.

I was also wondering if anyone had created some sort of "joint map" that showed what all of the joints connected to. Some of joints or obvious, like the right pinky or left ankle, but others like spine0 and spine1 aren't quite as obvious...
Space Pony
Original Poster
#4 Old 25th Jun 2015 at 4:00 AM
Ah, I got it! I just had the joints reversed. I thought that spine0 was the top of the chest and spine2 was the lower torso but it's actually the other way around with spine2 being the top of the chest. Now they're moving much better.
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