And Dagger (82 each hooded and hoodless cloaks on a Cynnix mesh)

[hat_plays_sims]

YOU GUYS why didn't anyone tell me that Cynnix made an articulated cloak last October? I mean, sure, I still want more, but ANY is a real good start. Basically as soon as I found it, I started planning what I was going to do with it.


We are 100% horrible people, and I'm extremely happy we are friends.
-- Ontario, Texts From Last Night (gently corrected for grammar)

That title card will never, ever, ever stop making me giggle, I swear to god. Ahem. Today's models are Farflight and Blackmist, freelance mercenaries, and Echo and Bounce, pirates. They are, let me tell you internets, terrible people oh my god. They're fun and if they consider you a friend or even a non-threat, they can be nice enough to hang out with, but most of my pics are Body Shop previews and you just don't get the hilarious range of alarmingly in-character expressions (and wants. Blackmist and Echo both rolled 'get a job in the Criminal career track!' wants, because of course they did) in Body Shop.

Okay, okay, let's look at cloaks.



Behold the hooded cloak! It comes within a hair's breadth of the floor and has a large, dramatic hood. As you can see, it blends in nicely with the Du Lac tunics if you match the cloak color to the cowl color. (Clipping will show through if you don't.) Farflight up there is wearing the cloak in Incendiary, and I want to say the rest of his outfit is Jet. And Tomato. Jet/Tomato/Incendiary sounds like one of my color combinations, basically if I can make you think of a flying tomato on fire, I've done my job. Things like Clubkitty's Hijab, the OFB ninja mask, and if you alpha-edited out the veils, Cynnix's Noble and Nun wimples work really well with the colors matched. I mean, a hood that big isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea.



The cloak is available for all ages and both genders! Not that I thought to show it on boys, but you can't have everything. Echo is wearing her usual front-laced kirtle in Tomato with a placket in Verdigris, and a cloak in Kingfisher, because she likes that Superman look.



Most Medieval meshes work okay with the cloak! The Sherahbim robe there has a bit of a clipping issue on the shoulders, but it's largely hidden by the cowl unless you're really searching for it (but if you need to take a picture from a sort of behind-and-below-the-shoulder angle for some reason, you may catch the clipping). It's okay for MOST bodyshapes. The bigger the chest and shoulders, the more you're going to run into clipping. (Runner is pretty comparable to LBB.)



It also works wonderfully with a lot of different womenswear meshes! The Epic Sleeves gowns by jadedbird may clip a little, but not too terribly, at least in Body Shop. Again, most bodyshapes are okay, although the RenGal's boobs do kind of swallow the bottom of the cowl. Athletic Girl dresses seem to work better than Athletic Girl armor.



Speaking of armor, the OFB knight's armor for men works AMAZINGLY WELL. What clipping there is only happens around the shoulder armor, and the cloak doesn't clip in Body Shop at all. The women's cloak... is not so happy to be worn with armor.



Blackmist is wearing the Du Lac tunic in Dynamite and Jet with the hooded cloak in Jet; Echo is wearing her Tomato kirtle and Verdigris placket with the draped cloak in Gold, this time (it brings out her eyes). Bounce is wearing the Athletic Girl Front-Laced Lady in Sand with what is I believe the Chocolate draped cloak, while Farflight is going for the don't-notice-me look in I want to say the Depth Charge Du Lac tunic with a probably-Safety-Fuse draped cloak. All their hairs are in my hair dumps, not that you can see Blackmist's hair.

Okay, let's move on to the details.

Cynnix made the mesh, which is included; textures are chopped from Sherahbim's Lady gown (so they blend well with pretty much everything else I've been making), and are colored with Pooklet's Project Mayhem naturals, CuriousB's Any Color You like, and Aelia's Autumn color actions. Generally I joke about paysites, but Pooklet (at least!) says no use of their color actions for pay content, so... no paysites.

Praise be unto Quaxi for SimPE, Jfade (I think? I used to know this) for the Wardrobe Wrangler, and DJ for the Compressorizer, as well as to Lyn for making sure I had a working copy of Photoshop back when.

As ever when I do accessories, you can download one of two ways; as straight-up glasses-bin accessories or as Bon Voyage jewelry. Should you grab the jewelry versions, the HOODED cloak is binned as a NOSE RING (Sims can wear it with any of my hats, but not my Ja/Daislia Altair hoods), while the DRAPED (no-hood) cloak is binned as a NECKLACE (you can't wear any other necklaces with it, but you can still wear hats AND hoods). Accessory versions are layerable with anything but themselves... but I'm not sure if they're flagged for maternity or not. (Jewelry versions are.)

The poly count on the cloak is 1952. To me that seems pretty reasonable, but I don't know your computer.

Long hairs tend to clip. They can clip a lot. Cynnix's coifs clip through the ties. All of my women's hairs that aren't either short or headcloths clip through the hoods. If you're looking for a loose hair for your Sims to wear with this cloak without the hood, you're looking for something very full, particularly through the back where the drape bulges out.

All in all, there are issues, yes, but for me they're not deal-breaking issues because look at the cloaks check out the title card again the cloaks bend when they sit and don't just swing through Sims' bodies.

Okay, here's the ACTUAL important part. The download links! (Swatches are included.)


Hooded Cloak, Pooklet's Project Mayhem Naturals
DOWNLOAD ACCESSORY:
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD BV JEWELRY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share


Draped Cloak, Pooklet's Project Mayhem Naturals
DOWNLOAD ACCESSORY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD BV JEWELRY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share


Hooded Cloak, Aelia's Autumn
DOWNLOAD ACCESSORY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD BV JEWELRY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share


Draped Cloak, Aelia's Autumn
DOWNLOAD ACCESSORY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD BV JEWELRY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share


Hooded Cloak, CuriousB's Any Color You Like
DOWNLOAD ACCESSORY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD BV JEWELRY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share


Draped Cloak, CuriousB's Any Color You Like
DOWNLOAD ACCESSORY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD BV JEWELRY
On Mediafire | On Sims File Share

Thank you, thank you, and if anyone wants to make MORE cloaks using Cynnix's bone assignmets, I beg you to start with the Kairouan cloak in this download. Please please pretty please. My Sims need more cloaks and I think I've got an idea how to fix some of the weird stacking issues Bon Voyage jewelry sometimes has.

Wanna help me feed my cats?

In case you feel like dropping me a buck or two, should you have a buck or two to spare. Donors get two things at the moment: a) a link to the Super Secret Cat Gallery, full of pictures of the cats you'll be feeding, updated sporadically when the cats do something photogenic and I'm fast enough on the trigger to catch it, and b) a link to the list of content I have done-but-not-screencapped, nearly done, partly done, or in the planning stages, and the option to suggest what ought to be in the next batch of things I focus on.

Comments

[isbrealiomcaife]

So lovely. I might have to throw the Eco-Naturals on them because of the robes I have, but so pretty... I love how a lot of the greens turned out. They look particularly rich. I've been working on the littlewhite cloak, and I already have most of Pooklet's naturals (the reds were ditched for being painful to look at) and the Eco-Naturals, so it isn't really anything for me to slap a few more colors on it. I'll add the Kairouan cloak to the pile, as it's pretty much what I was looking for in the first place.

[hat_plays_sims]

... Are you beating on the meshes? I would be super-excited if you were beating on the meshes.

Feel free to add more colors! The hooded version is basically the solid texture, and I did replace them all in SimPE for the sake of not looking like crap, so you can get raw Time Bomb (or Volatile, if that's your bag) textures just by exporting them.

I'm glad you like the cloaks!

[isbrealiomcaife]

I can't do anything to the meshes themselves...but I can make colors. Granted, it takes me a little longer because I'm using GIMP instead of Photoshop and can't just sort the texture and click buttons...I have to actually go through and eyeball each one carefully...but it works out in the end.

[hat_plays_sims]

Ahh, so like me, you are not a mesher. Drat. That littlewhite mantle is gorgeous, but it clips like a sumbitch.

I know only Pooklet's actions came with written instructions, but do those work in GIMP? Or does GIMP have a way to build its own actions once you get things figured out?

[isbrealiomcaife]

Nope...maybe someday...but I haven't had time to sit down and figure it out yet.

Someone supposedly made a mod for GIMP that would allow it to use actions, but it never worked properly. It doesn't have any built-in process that allows for recording a sequence of steps and saving it for later use, which is basically what actions are. Pooklet's instructions work in GIMP with a couple of modifications. (Specifically, that "Luminosity" in Photoshop translates to "Value" in GIMP. All of the tools and menus are pretty much the same as in Photoshop 5, 6, and 7, otherwise.) For CuriousB and Aelia colors, I took huge (300x300) samples of mid-tone colors from already colored pieces and noted the HTML notation values for them. (You can select a color using HTML notation in GIMP.) I keep large-size sample swatches nearby when using them so I don't muck up the colors. It's a bit crude, but it works well enough. I was trained in Photoshop 7, but I only ever had Photoshop 5 at home. (this is pre-CS...PS6 was the first to have actions.) I know my way around layers and blending modes well enough to get an extremely close approximation of most color actions. (Aelia's Retros can be kind of messy, but I seldom use them.) Personally, I'm dying for someone to go through CuriousB's ACYL, and Aelia's Eco Natural, Jewel, Lonesome, and Autumn to pick apart the steps and make notated lists. It would be so much easier to get accurate results manually...but until that happens, sample swatch and close approximation it is.

[hat_plays_sims]

Honestly, I'm not sure that annotations for at least ACYL would be all that helpful-- those actions are LONG strings that just kind of go on and on. I can't undo between steps like I can with Project Mayhem. (Most of Aelia's actions are pretty long, too, but I tend to stick to Autumn unless I need linen colors.)

Big thanks

[cheshirekatttt.livejournal.com]

Wheee! This is such perfect timing! One of the sims I just made needs a cloak. Now I get to decide which pretty color he gets. Maybe I'll have to customize/re-color one of the cloaks for my game.

Actually, I can think of a few of my sims that might be decked out in a cloak.

Thanks sooooooo much!

Re: Big thanks

[hat_plays_sims]

They make even the most basic outfits look nice and warm-- and also the whole thing is alpha-editable in case you want a short cloak, and while the hood is all one thing, as far as the cape part of the cloak goes, the lining can be a different color.

So, basically, have fun with them and I hope your Sims enjoy their new accessories!

I hadn't thought of that

[cheshirekatttt.livejournal.com]

I've been too chicken to mess with the alpha's when I re-color. Yeah, I admit I'm still a newbie about re-coloring after all these years. I usually do very very simple re-colors. I've done a few fiddly detailed ones and seriously thought I was going blind afterward. (Sadly, it was so long ago I don't remember now what it was because I've been spending so much time getting my new hood ready. You know, make a bunch of lots, make a bunch of sims but keep them mostly in maxis clothes until ready to put them in game because I keep adding and deleting clothes.) Probably would have been easier with Photoshop, but I've been using a very old version of PSE, believe it or not.

However, knowing I can change the length and the lining instantly gave me some ideas. And I need to learn how to re-texture, so this will be the mesh I think I'll do it with. Because, you know, the cloak isn't already so detailed to make me go blind while I'm practicing. Maybe then I'll finally be able to brave doing some hair re-textures as well.

Still need to find some defaulted alien eyes before the next time I launch the game to try these out. I want to get all my main characters into my new hood before I have surgery next week. So, if I make it out of the surgery without complications, I can play with my sims while recuperating. Only 6 days left to get my sims in order.

Thanks so much!

Re: I hadn't thought of that

[hat_plays_sims]

If you want, I can toss some texture resources for cloaks together for you-- UV map, some alpha guides, maybe the Volatile and Time Bomb base textures if you want 'em-- if that'll make things easier. Recoloring is kind of a challenge to learn, and I'll be honest, I've sort of spent the last four-or-five years learning by doing. Here and there I read a tutorial that makes me go 'ohhhh' but a lot of it is just futzing around in Photoshop or SimPE, seeing which things do what. This particular mesh isn't a huge challenge; there are four bits that can be recolored or alpha'ed out, the hood, the drape, the inside cape, and the outside cape.

What kind of alien eyes are you looking for?

Also good luck on your surgery! I hope all goes well and your Sims behave for you afterwards-- or at least only misbehave in an entertaining fashion.

[morgaine2005.wordpress.com]

Um ... WOW!! Cloaks! Cloaks in every color! I think my outerwear selections just effectively quadrupled! ;)

Thanks so much, Hat!

[hat_plays_sims]

Cloaks for everyone! You're welcome and I'm glad you like them. Medieval (and fantasy, and really probably anybody on up through about the late Victorian era) Sims need cloaks!

Also hey you, long time no see!

[jadedbird]

Ooh yes, my Game of Thrones Sims can have proper white Kingsguard cloaks. Thanks so much *_*

I find bone assignments to be not that hard to deal with, maybe I can take a look at some of those meshes soon? And you just want updated versions to overwrite the old ones, right? I haven't gotten the hang of making new accessory mesh packages but I can probably fiddle with the old ones easy enough.

[hat_plays_sims]

Yes they can! They even fit over the OFB armor, not that I know if that's a selling point for Game of Thrones. (I know surprisingly little about it, really.)

Also, I would love you forever even if all you did was tweak bone assignments on the existing meshes. (I pretty much love you forever for the Epic Sleeve Gowns, so that's not news.) I prefer Cynnix's cloak to the JIM/TNW one in the package, but the littlewhite mantle and the Kairouan cloak... I would like to recolor those a lot, if they'd stop swinging around and through my Sims.

I once got my hand held through making a hair mesh into an accessory mesh on Garden of Shadows, randomly. There were some differences in how alphas were handled and I couldn't do anything with the mesh itsef, but I think the thread is still in Igors Unlimited somewhere.

[jadedbird]

Ohh yes, I've got several GoT Sims in my 'hood walking around in various types of armor, so that's definitely a selling point.

I just spent some time fiddling with the cloaks, the littlewhite one is confusing me because it overlaps itself in the back weirdly, so I'll need to figure out the best way to deal with that. But the fan cloak went OK I think: http://www.mediafire.com/download/eobn1evy3wzt38j/Fan%20Pendant%20Cloak%20EDITED.rar
I didn't touch the whole top area of the cloak since it's kind of a terrifying blob of 865 billion vertices, but its assignment worked sensibly enough to me anyways, and the bottom part of the cloak should now move with the Sim instead of swinging right through them (which was the key problem, no?). As always let me know if it's deficient in some way and I'll try to fix it. :)

I think I've found the GoS thread you were talking about, thanks! (I've got some specialized accessory earrings I need to make for my own 'hood...)

[hat_plays_sims]

Ho dang that is GRABBED. (I honestly have no idea of the polycounts on any of those cloaks. I never thought to look.) But yes, with instead of through is the ultimate goal, and if it does that I am a very, very happy camper! I'll check it out next time I load my game; I'm in the middle of slaving, bundling, and occasionally EP-pinning the last batch of hairs I released for my own personal use, so I'm not allowed to load the game or Body Shop until I get that done. Thank you so much, you are amazing!

I hope the thread helps! I should probably transfer my recolors of that hat to the accessory version instead of the hair version, honestly, and I probably would if I liked flowerpot hennins more.

[hat_plays_sims]

All looks well in-game! Adding ages is beyond your ken, right? If so, I'll just put this sucker on my to-do list as-is. It's probably a little much for your average teenager, anyway.

[jadedbird]

I just mucked around with the Littlewhite Zhao mesh, let me know what you think :) http://www.mediafire.com/download/6iocf5yii55i31b/Zhao%20cloak%20edited.rar

[hat_plays_sims]

I shall grab it as soon as Mediafire and/or Firefox (or, possibly, my connection) stops screwing with me, and have a look the next time I load my game-- which could be tonight but might be tomorrow.

EDIT: I got it!

Cloak Test results! This one has more issues than the Fan Pendant one, and I don't know how hard they are to fix. The first thing I noticed, once the cloak was bending with instead of swinging around the Sim, is that the shoulders are narrow and REALLY sloped, and they don't play nice with Sim proportions (with their Barbie-styled shoulders and skinny necks). I don't care that the cloaks swallow long hairs, I expected that, and I know the arms drifting through wherever they want are unavoidable, but the collar is so high that it comes all the way up to the chin, and on some animations, the shoulder pokes through.

The hips/belly/pelvis tend to poke out the front of the cloak on some animations just in CAS, and I think that has something to do with the joint causing this shelf effect.

The only other weird thing I noticed might be present in the original, and that's a slight alpha issue. I want to say I can probably fix that myself, but it's been so long I'm not sure I remember how.

If the shoulders of the cloak were dropped and widened just a touch (less this: /\ and more this: __) and I don't know what's going on in the front but maybe part of the front isn't jointed the same? Anyway, those two issues and this sucker is good to go. It even covers the RenGal shape! I am excited, and I want to make it unisex and see if it looks okay on men, too.

I do have a question-- is this alpha-editable? I mean, can I cut the fur trim off without ending up with a weird 'two layers of fabric sandwiched around a void' effect?

[jadedbird]

Yep, this one's definitely being a bigger pain than the other. I've been poking at it on and off for the last couple days (busy) but hopefully I can get it too look better soon.
So basically for the shoulders you want them to be more squarish and roomy, but the fur collar part lowered for more chin room?
I'm not sure about whether the trim is alpha editable, but they are separate parts and the main cloak would look OK without them (the cloak itself is a 2-d construction basically). I can give it a quick check later to find out what blacking out the alpha for those parts does.
The collar alpha issue doesn't seem to show in-game but it's definitely there in CAS. I'm not sure how to fix it but I might see if the problem is the opacity numbers in the mesh comments or something. blergh.

[hat_plays_sims]

Wurgh, sorry to be so slow getting back to you, long day was long.

Yes and yes on the shoulders and the collar, please! I'm honestly more concerned with the shoulders, but the collar rides pretty high. And I'm relieved the body of the cloak is 2-d, despite the fact that this is honestly a pretty rich-person cloak. Otherwise I'll end up recoloring it to match my Rus Viking hats and feeling silly about it.

And blargh, I didn't think to check things out in-game, just in CAS, for some reason. I have notes for fixing non-euclidean geometries in the TXMTs of buy-mode objects, but I know that doesn't work for accessories as a straight translation.

[jadedbird]

Sorry it took so long to get back to this, school's been absorbing my time.
I've been adjusting this on and off for the past couple weeks and it really isn't looking any better to my eyes. The pelvis clipping doesn't seem to go away no matter how I tweak things, or the back edge trails weird, or the opacity goes bonkers, and I can't get the jagged edge in the middle to go away. We may have to leave the bone assignments/weird alpha opacity of this project to somebody cooler than I. :(

[hat_plays_sims]

School before Sims, always. No worries!

And also, well drat. Still, it's a lot better than it was, and I may be able to futz with the alpha-- I can at least take the fur trim off, which is sort of an Alexandrian solution to a Gordian Knot problem-- to open the mantle a little wider and "fix" the pelvis clipping by just erasing most of what clips.

Sometimes when I get a set of recolors posted and say 'this mesh sadly lacks [insert thingy here],' someone will come along and poke it until it's fixed, so we can always cross our fingers and hope history repeats, right?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Hat, love your stuff. I'm trying to rebuild a medieval-ish hood now and huge chunk of the content is your creations. Thank you so much for your generous sharing and continuing to do so for Sims 2!

Just to highlight, the last download link for Jewelry Draped Cloak (CuriousB's ACYL) links to the hooded cloak version. Thought you might like to know.

[hat_plays_sims]

Whoops, thanks for the heads-up! It should be fixed now.

And you're welcome! I've got vast plans for more goodies, so stay tuned! (I make no promises as to when I'll get everything done, but I will get it done.)

[nixed_sims]

Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! :D

I'm too busy squeeing over all the awesomeness to be more eloquent than that right now. Thank you for this!!!

[hat_plays_sims]

You're welcome and thank you! I'm glad you like them, and I hope you'll watch for more because jadedbird just articulated ANOTHER cloak mesh (it's on the high side as far as polys go, but gosh I like it), and once I check that puppy out in-game I'm gonna attack it.

[nixed_sims]

Another one?! Oh, happy day! I'll most certainly be on the lookout for that. :D The cloaks I've found until this Post of Awesome have all been stiff as boards and pretty much only look good if the Sim is standing still with their arms down. :P So to have not one, but TWO articulated cloaks... oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen!

[hat_plays_sims]

This one was buried in a Halloween event over at the Keep that I missed until someone recolored it for a Secret Santa event at said Keep. So far (and aside from jadedbird's efforts that I haven't checked out yet because last night turned into a 'what's crashing my game? Okay one of those two things. Might as well plan that 600mb CC cull while it's running' session), that's the only articulated cloak mesh I know of. I've had my fingers crossed for more for... well, since before that one happened, honestly.