Help with facial hair

Test Subject

Original Poster

#1

10th Sep 2010 at 10:44 PM

Help with facial hair

I am a total newbie when it comes to doing anything with meshing, and I'm so confused with all of the tutorials out there that I don't even know where to start

I want to make Clark Gable's mustache. I've tried following the "basic" hair meshing tutorials (which all assume you know what you're doing

), I've tried finding milkshape tutorials, and I've looked into face overlay tutorials, all to no avail.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to get started? I've been searching on my own for hours and I'm really starting to feel inept.

Please help

tjstreak

Banned

#2

11th Sep 2010 at 2:01 PM Last edited by tjstreak : 11th Sep 2010 at 2:52 PM.

From what I can tell, most facial hair is not even a meshing project; it is a texturing project. So, what you are doing is making things 100 times more difficult than you need to make them.

Go to your clothing program (TSRW or CTU) and extract the textures for one of the in-game mustaches. Modify those textures to your liking and reimport them into the game. FYI, it is easier to cut away than it is to add -- so find a piece which is larger than the one you want to make.

In making CAS items, a few simple rules seem to control. Among them:

1. KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. Don't turn a texturing project into a meshing project. If you can accomplish a reasonable result using an existing mesh, just do a paint job. People who are good at texturing (and I am not one of them) are artists who are good at painting three dimensional effects. Think of your project as painting a mustache rather than sculpting one.

2. Picasso is reported to have said, "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." Build on the work of others. Don't reinvent the wheel. Download a bunch of similar items, and see how other creators have made them. There is nothing particularly original in The Sims -- all of the custom content builds on the work done by others, and in particular, the work of EA. (This is why I object to all of the copyright claims and reupload policies of many creators -- they come at a high price by stifling the creativity of others.)

3. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. The documentation which comes with most of the modelling programs suck big time. If you are lucky, you can find a tutorial to explain how do do things. If you cannot find a tutorial, you are SOL. All you can do is experiment. Try different things until you find something that works. The way to learning how to make stuff in the Sims is trial and error. Yes, your first few efforts may not be so great. Figure out what went wrong and fix it in future creations.

4. There are a lot of whiners in the Sims community. These are people who do not create anything, but complain about everything. They don't like EA because it is EA. They don't like pay content because they think they should get everything for free. But they don't like free content because free content is not as good as pay content (which is baloney). Bottom line, you will never make these people happy, so don't even try.

Ajores

Test Subject

#3

30th Sep 2010 at 9:28 PM

Quote: Originally posted by tjstreak

From what I can tell, most facial hair is not even a meshing project; it is a texturing project. So, what you are doing is making things 100 times more difficult than you need to make them.

Go to your clothing program (TSRW or CTU) and extract the textures for one of the in-game mustaches. Modify those textures to your liking and reimport them into the game. FYI, it is easier to cut away than it is to add -- so find a piece which is larger than the one you want to make.

In making CAS items, a few simple rules seem to control. Among them:

1. KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. Don't turn a texturing project into a meshing project. If you can accomplish a reasonable result using an existing mesh, just do a paint job. People who are good at texturing (and I am not one of them) are artists who are good at painting three dimensional effects. Think of your project as painting a mustache rather than sculpting one.

2. Picasso is reported to have said, "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." Build on the work of others. Don't reinvent the wheel. Download a bunch of similar items, and see how other creators have made them. There is nothing particularly original in The Sims -- all of the custom content builds on the work done by others, and in particular, the work of EA. (This is why I object to all of the copyright claims and reupload policies of many creators -- they come at a high price by stifling the creativity of others.)

3. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. The documentation which comes with most of the modelling programs suck big time. If you are lucky, you can find a tutorial to explain how do do things. If you cannot find a tutorial, you are SOL. All you can do is experiment. Try different things until you find something that works. The way to learning how to make stuff in the Sims is trial and error. Yes, your first few efforts may not be so great. Figure out what went wrong and fix it in future creations.

4. There are a lot of whiners in the Sims community. These are people who do not create anything, but complain about everything. They don't like EA because it is EA. They don't like pay content because they think they should get everything for free. But they don't like free content because free content is not as good as pay content (which is baloney). Bottom line, you will never make these people happy, so don't even try.

Great post, I especially like the last part. So true to the gaming community in general, imo :P

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