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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 17th Oct 2016 at 3:28 PM
Default Porting vehicles from other games into Sims 3?
I've been struggling with this on-and-off over the past month or so, and I'm wondering if I could get some help.

I am trying to port cars from other games into the Sims 3 as usable vehicles, but I have very, very limited experience with modding/modelling/etc... I've been following this thread as it's the only tutorial I could find still up anywhere. I got some way through it but, to be honest, I'm now completely lost. I don't find it coherent enough (for me) to achieve what I'm trying to do.

I taught myself some basics of Blender and have some models from Assetto Corsa to work with. (See here, here and here.) As far as I can tell, I've managed to port the textures and maps into Blender okay but I really don't know what to do next.

The last thing I tried to do was get the models into Milkshape 3D in order to export them to a format that TSRW will work with (I think that's what I need to be doing), but the models are too poly-heavy for MS3D and I can't find a way to trim them down enough.

Could I please get some help with this, if it's not too much trouble?
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Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#2 Old 17th Oct 2016 at 7:33 PM
I can see why the tutorial is a bit confusing if you just stared modding. Since all subjects are a bit confusing for beginners and to be fair the progress isn't that well shown.

Anyway, it's not that hard! If you've made an object before, it's pretty much the same, just a little bit more advanced. That's, because cars got more 'bones' in it's RIG and can be either manually added or by using tricks. Bones are basically, well... you could easily compare it with human bones but just in a virtuality world. In order to move our feet, we need our bones to move. Same in 3D.

But let's get back to that later. Let's just hop back to the Milkshape part.

So the issue you're having with the amount of polycounts is very common when you're converting something from a game to ts3. You can reduce it's polycount by using he tool 'Directx tools' which can be found in Milkshape's tools tab. Another window will show up and just slide the bar to it's left to reduce the polycount and when you think it looks allright, click the save button with the minus. You'll notice the mesh getting more 'edgy' when you look at the window under the slide button.

IF YOUR MESH/WIREFRAME OF YOUR MESH DOESN'T SHOW UP DOWN IN THE MINI 3D WINDOW: it could mean that you didn't select the group at first when using the tool. Else, it's... well since it's till a Beta version, most of the time it works for me to close Milkshape entirely and reopen it, reimport your mesh and try it again.

Now you can easily export it as a WSO file.

As long as you don't rotate the 3D viewer camera, Milkshape can still handle the polycount, else it will crash (because rendering complications, and the fact that in order to get it run smoother you'll need a pretty powerful computer, which I don't even have, so I know how to prevent Millkshape from crashing with high poly meshes )

Anyway, now we're pretty much stuck with the fact that the bones aren't correct. In fact, I don't think TSRW will automatically add them to cars like it does with objects. It's worth a try though!
If you want to check if it does has bones (actually, if it has a RIG, which is the skeleton of your mesh.) Just go to the Mesh tab, go to group0 and you'll see a small rule saying 'extra'. If you can expand that, please check if you got at least 2 to 5 bones. if you can't expand it or it isn't there, it will mean that your car doesn't have a RIG and it won't look good at all in game.

If you hate manually adding bones, here is a small trick I've explained before: http://modthesims.info/showthread.p...664#post4933664
(It's worth looking at the entire thread, but this is the most useful post in this case).

if that's all settled, and you're sure your car does got a great set of bones in it, it's time for testing! (In-game of course). As showed in the link I gave you, it sometimes doesn't work out at all. A fix on that is also explained in the same thread.

Let me know if you need any help ^-^
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 19th Oct 2016 at 2:23 PM Last edited by akaikitsune : 19th Oct 2016 at 2:50 PM.
Thank you so much for the guidance.

However, I managed to import the model into Milkshape as an FBX file, but it didn't seem to retain the textures (like so). I'm not sure if the transparencies/alphas carried over either. To be honest, I'm not sure what filetype I'm supposed to be using between Blender and Milkshape before converting to WSO.

Also, what's a decent polycount to aim for on vehicles? The model I'm currently testing has 65,507.

Additionally, another model that I'm using (the second one in my first post) has a lot of parts missing when imported into Milkshape, despite following the same methods as the other two.

Sorry if I'm missing super simple things; as I said, I'm really new to this.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#4 Old 19th Oct 2016 at 3:46 PM
I usually use OBj but I know plenty of people who uses FBX as well ^-^

In Blender's export settings (Like, when you get into the window where you got to select the folder where you want to export it) on your left side of the window, you'll see several things. Not just the recent folders you've been using, but right under that are the export settings. Make sure you have 'write materials' selected. Materials are your textures.

Though to be fair with you, you don't necessarily need the textures when you're converting the file to a WSO. The WSO won't keep the textures, since TSRW has it's own texture 'editors'. Or well... A possibility to import your textures, as you might have seen. (I'm talking about the texture tab).

The right amount of polycounts are always pretty hard to decide whether it is too high or waay to low. I usually check the polycount of an existing in-game car and usually make sure it's somewhere close to the amount of polycount as the in-game car I checked. Though most cars are around 5,000 and the 10,000 polys. So I would try to reduce it to at least 20,000 or 15,000. if you can, the 10,000 I was talking about.

About the car with the missing objects. Is your mesh separated from the part that was successfully imported? In blender I mean. If it isn't, and in the export settings, you've got it set as 'Export only as object' instead of 'export only as group' things can go wrong. Sometimes it will merge them together, but sometimes it could be the case that it doesn't at all.

Also, it seems that some parts of the car got 'flipped normals'. The sims 3 doens't support backface culling. Say you've got a plane. The front will be visible, the back will show the plane to be invisible.
To fix the flipped normals, just select (and in this case it seems to be the hood of the car), select the hood part of the car in Blender so it's all highlighted in yellow. use the spacebar to make the search bar appear and write down 'Flip normals' and click enter when it's highlighted in Blue. Now it should have the same grey shade as the other parts of the car that is visible.

And it's okay! Cars are quite a challenge to turn into a good-looking CC piece. ^-^
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 19th Oct 2016 at 8:38 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Greenplumbbob
I usually use OBj but I know plenty of people who uses FBX as well ^-^

In Blender's export settings (Like, when you get into the window where you got to select the folder where you want to export it) on your left side of the window, you'll see several things. Not just the recent folders you've been using, but right under that are the export settings. Make sure you have 'write materials' selected. Materials are your textures.
These are the only options I have when exporting with FBX, but I don't see anything about materials.

Quote: Originally posted by Greenplumbbob
Though to be fair with you, you don't necessarily need the textures when you're converting the file to a WSO. The WSO won't keep the textures, since TSRW has it's own texture 'editors'. Or well... A possibility to import your textures, as you might have seen. (I'm talking about the texture tab).
Ah, that's a relief.

Quote: Originally posted by Greenplumbbob
The right amount of polycounts are always pretty hard to decide whether it is too high or waay to low. I usually check the polycount of an existing in-game car and usually make sure it's somewhere close to the amount of polycount as the in-game car I checked. Though most cars are around 5,000 and the 10,000 polys. So I would try to reduce it to at least 20,000 or 15,000. if you can, the 10,000 I was talking about.
This is the result of reducing to just over 15K. It looks fairly mangled to me, but I guess it would look better textured.

Quote: Originally posted by Greenplumbbob
About the car with the missing objects. Is your mesh separated from the part that was successfully imported? In blender I mean. If it isn't, and in the export settings, you've got it set as 'Export only as object' instead of 'export only as group' things can go wrong. Sometimes it will merge them together, but sometimes it could be the case that it doesn't at all.
I didn't see anything about grouping in the FBX export options. I tried exporting it from Blender as OBJ, but Milkshape doesn't import the produced file. The OBJ settings I have are here. From what I've read, it's because Milkshape won't import OBJ files over 65K polys. As far as I'm aware, I don't have any automated poly reduction in this version of Blender, so I'm not sure what to do about that.

I also just noticed that the first model I had in Milkshape is missing the rims: What they should look like vs how they are in MS. I'm guessing that this is a similar issue?

Quote: Originally posted by Greenplumbbob
Also, it seems that some parts of the car got 'flipped normals'. The sims 3 doens't support backface culling. Say you've got a plane. The front will be visible, the back will show the plane to be invisible.
For the sake of learning, where are you seeing this and how can you tell?

I'm also a little concerned that Milkshape doesn't seem to have retained the object transparency of the windows and lights.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#6 Old 19th Oct 2016 at 10:15 PM
Quote:
These are the only options I have when exporting with FBX, but I don't see anything about materials.


I looked around and I really thought FBX could export textures, but I guess in this case I know the OBJ file only does this. I forgot that the MTL file that comes with the OBJ has all the material data in it. My bad >-<

Quote:
This is the result of reducing to just over 15K. It looks fairly mangled to me, but I guess it would look better textured.


This issue is very common to me as well as I have converted a lot of high poly clothing in the past. I usually lower the poly in Milkshape, reimport it into Blender and tweak it a bit till it looks the way I like. So I guess, if this is meant for private use, you could keep it high poly but it will cause the game to lag a bit. I won't go for 60k polys when you're planning on releasing it.

Quote:
I didn't see anything about grouping in the FBX export options. I tried exporting it from Blender as OBJ, but Milkshape doesn't import the produced file. The OBJ settings I have are here. From what I've read, it's because Milkshape won't import OBJ files over 65K polys. As far as I'm aware, I don't have any automated poly reduction in this version of Blender, so I'm not sure what to do about that.

I also just noticed that the first model I had in Milkshape is missing the rims: What they should look like vs how they are in MS. I'm guessing that this is a similar issue?


There is a way to lower the polycount in Blender, although I barely use that option because sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I guess I should play around it more to see why it sometimes doesn't work for me. Anyway, in the modifier tab

()

There should be one listed as 'Decimate'. This function also comes with your version of Blender. If Blender 2.65 has it, 2.68 will have it as well. I'm not sure if you've worked with modifiers before? But in this case, you can play around. Just change the Ratio and after you're done make sure you're in object mode and click 'apply'.

As for the missing rims, It's not common for any export file to forget certain vertices. (Unless you've got something turned on in the export settings, but looking at it now, that doesn't seem to be the case). Maybe you could try using the Decimate modifier first, and see what happens after exporting it? Else you could switch the FBX from 'FBX 7.4 binary' to FBX 6.1 ASCII if nothing else works and you still want to use the FBX. Not that the bones you imported (which explains why the cars got all those colors when you import it, in case you were wondering) matters much to the sims 3 as it has it's own bones that you need to assign. Else the game won't recognise them and... well your car will either look like a complete disaster or it doesn't look animated at all.

Quote:
For the sake of learning, where are you seeing this and how can you tell?

I'm also a little concerned that Milkshape doesn't seem to have retained the object transparency of the windows and lights.


Sure! In the 3D view, on your right, there is a small menu that got all the 'transform, median,etc' data that you can change (varies if you switch from object mode to edit mode). If you scroll all the way down, you'll see a tab that says 'shading' (both visible in edit mode and object mode) Expand it and you'll see backface culling. Tick the box and now you got an idea of what it will look like in-game. The mesh at least...

In theory, Milkshape should be capable of it. Though I'd always check it. You can (if exporting really doesn't work out), select one group Or the entire car and go to the materials tab. Click on 'New' and then on the top 'none' bar. You'll get the possibility to select your texture. Select the texture of the car. Make sure your car is still red highlighted and click 'assign'. And that's how you assign a texture in Milkshape if anything else fails ^-^
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