Seeking Mesh Editors

[hat_plays_sims]

Okay so, for some reason I'm in the mood to give myself the gift of Fantasy Demi-Humans, which means eventually everybody can have more fantasy demi-humans. I've already made a bazillion (okay, 40 per age/gender combo) recolors of Midethetree's Deer People set, but with fur and hoof textures that more strongly resemble deer than the originals. I like how they turned out to the point where I'm plotting horse pants and considering goat pants, too. (... Anyone know where to find a decent goat tail accessory? Horns are easy to find, but the butts on this mesh don't look finished without tails.)

That said:



The deer pants have that 'weird shadow on the mesh' issue that happens sometimes that I know is easy to fix if you've got any Milkshape skills.

I do not have any Milkshape skills.

And it's on ALL of them, toddler through elder, and I legit do not blame Midge or Danie for not spotting it in their conversions, because the original texture was dark and mottled and hid it. I've seen it a lot on hairs that only got an initial release in black and maybe brown, because it'd be visible on a red recolor. Well, there's enough noise and highlights in my fur textures that it's visible on my darkest blacks.



Likewise I think Katu's antlers also have that issue? This might not be an issue under in-game lighting, it's not in Katu's title card, but I did not shade this color with black.



Last of the deer stuff, promise: Crab of Doom made an actually-really-nice accessory based off of Eva's deco hares for GoS's 2010 Advent, and hey! Turns out hare tails are the right shape to make deer butts look finished. (I did consider doing lighter fur on the underbelly/inner thighs of the deer pants, but I wasn't sure I could manage it without looking... indecent.) Anyway. Great mesh, great idea, all ages both genders, but Crab just cut up the mesh and moved it around, and didn't change the UV map at all. IE, the tail and hare ears could be on a 512x512 texture, tops, but they're not-- they're on a 1024x1024 texture that contains the original deco-hare body texture, just hangin' out and bloating the file size.

Which means I can't increase the texture size myself for better resolution, and that these versions take up four times as much disk space as they need to.

So!

Anybody want to barter early access to deer stuff in exchange for fixing shadows on eight deer pants meshes, one antler mesh, and just re-sizing the UV map of an accessory? These are all, like, 80% done (no swatches, no preview pics, no texture-referencing on the pants, the accessories need jewelry-binned versions, and of course I'd have to crop and replace the tail textures, and I really ought to do custom icons for the tails), but they're in playable condition, which is good enough for a sneak preview, right?

And although I haven't done horse pants, I want to do horse pants. I just have to find textures (or techniques) for that nice velvety-short sheen...

But also.



Similarly to the hare accessory, Crab made a unicorn accessory, and all ages and both genders and has a polycount under 400, and I fixed the TXMT so I could alpha edit it, so I have very little reason to complain about it, but...



Very little is not 'no reason.'

Once again Crab kept the whole 1024x1024 UV map on something that could be mapped to 512, I think even 512x256. And because the original mesh was from a TSM statue and it's not The Sims Medieval if there aren't giant chunks taken out of every damn thing, there's a weird seam in the tail that it's really hard to wrap hair textures around, as shown above. (And the relevant area on the map is VERY SMALL so this is literally the best resolution I can get.) And I'd be satisfied with re-mapping for hair and smaller file size (or greater resolution), but what I REALLY want is for this to be TWO accessories:

The tail and the horn. (And the ears, sure, but I don't plan on using the ears myself.)

Yes I could just alpha out one or the other, but because you can't put two instances of the same accessory mesh on a Sim, that just means you can choose between horn, tail, or horn-and-tail in the color combination I choose. And that's boring, even I don't want to be stuck with the color combinations I choose.

I can't immediately trade retextures of this accessory, because yeah I got a PSD made with what I planned to use, but... if this can be hacked apart into two (or three, I won't fault people who want horse ears for wanting them separate from tails) accessories with much smaller UV maps, I'd want to re-make my textures anyway and. I would like to do that.

I can offer immediate deer access or first dibs for horse/unicorn people once I get them done?

Or other content trades? Link to the secret cat gallery?

I dunno, hit me up, I'm open for negotiation on the unicorn/horse stuff.

EDIT: The inimitable Simborg has fixed up the satyr pants meshes and Katu's antlers; if you're out there and you want early-access deer pants, I still need a tail accessory remapped and a horse/unicorn accessory edited.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi!
I have fixed the satyr bottoms for you. There was some seams on the legs on all ages so I fixed them as well. The fat morphs om af, am, and tm were weird, so I re-did them. Lastly I added preg morphs to tm and tf. I haven't tested them in game, only looked quickly in bodyshop, so if there are any issues, please do tell me.
http://www.simfileshare.net/download/2973335/

Do you have a download for Katu's antlers? I seem to not be able to download them from that link.

// simborg.tumblr.com

[hat_plays_sims]

Ah, dangit, I had a feeling the Wayback Machine link was gonna go funny. Katu's antlers are right here.

... Fat morphs, I didn't even think to look at fat morphs, you're right, the originals clip through Silvain's top-only tig tunics, I'll throw yours in, restart Body Shop, and see how they look. Also thank you for the teen pregmorphs! I was willing to deal with it or use morphed tops to balance it out, I think.

Thank you so much and do you have somewhere I can send you a private link for your reward, which is Deer Previews? (I guess I could just send you the numbers in an ask on tumblr, but I gotta see if SFS will let me upload absolutely everything first.) SFS cooperated so please find a long terrible string of nonsense in your tumblr askbox, because you can has early deer season!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi again!

Thank you for the deer previews (and everything else you do!)
I have poked at the antlers and I think they look a little better now, https://imgur.com/26oGjDV
http://www.simfileshare.net/download/2973818/

I unfortunately can't help with the other things.

//simborg

[hat_plays_sims]

They do look much better, thank you! And they are grabbed. No worries about not being able to help with remapping or cutting things apart.

(Also your fat morphs look great, and I have come to the unfortunate realization that I just have some tops that don't work with fat morphed bottoms, so that's sure a thing.)

Question

[(Anonymous)]

I can't find the cloven hooves for the deer in Bodyshop or Create a Sim. Where can I find that and how do I make it show up?

Re: Question

[hat_plays_sims]

If you only downloaded Simborg's file, you only got the meshes. My retextures are as-yet-unreleased because time keeps doing this thing where I'll be focused on Sims stuff and then I'll, like, vacuum or go to the recycling center and it's three months later and I've forgotten what I was doing entirely. Grab Midgethetree's textures, they are in Separate Bottoms for all categories-- toddlers get full-body because they're toddlers, though.

Re: Question

[(Anonymous)]

I looked in the separate Bottoms part, but I only see the non-cloven hooves and I do have Midge the Trees textures. What am I doing wrong?

Re: Question

[hat_plays_sims]

... Oh! Oh okay, the cloven hooves aren't a mesh edit, they're part of my textures, not Midge's/SalixTree's. The hoof mesh is smooth, I just painted deer feets in Photoshop.

Re: Question

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks and I was wondering about that.

[magical_girl_sandbox]

Hi Hat, I can easily split apart/modify that unicorn accessory and resize the deer tail uv. Could I get your help on a hair retexture in exchange? (I am starting to retexture all the base game hairs by myself, but I'm running into issues with punkflip. There's a weird cutout thing for the bangs I can't seem to get right).

[hat_plays_sims]

Linear time is kicking my ass this year, apologies for the late late comment.

I would be thrilled to have accessories you have whacked apart and remapped! Thrilled! Do you still need punkflip done? I do seem to recall the bangs being frustrating. I was gonna do an alpha edit of it as a reverse-mullet thing for Viking hairs, and gave up half because the bangs were weird and half because Jimmy the Welsh Viking said 'no those hairdos were probably not a thing, we can't tell if the images are of weird hats or weirder hairstyles.'

Also I'm trying to get the last of my pics switched over to imgur before my Photobucket account resets in June, so even if you do still need Punkflip, I may be slow at it.

[magical_girl_sandbox]

Hey Hat! I recently switched jobs so I totally feel you on the time thing... commuting has taken a huge chunk out of my free time :'(

I went ahead and split and remapped the unicorn kit and the deer tail. I had done the unicorn stuff last month since I realized I wanted it for my own game (I'm making a lot of animal themed sims, speaking of which, do you happen to know of a nice feathered skin out there? I've been searching for one for a while but haven't found anything). Here's the link to the files: https://simfileshare.net/download/3211109/

I went ahead and threw the Maxis texture for punk flip in there along with the Remi texture I'd like on it. No rush! I'm just going to be poking at the rest of the textures over here for a bit. As always, let me know if you'd like any other meshes done!

[hat_plays_sims]

I have nabbed those-- and fair enough on the unicorn horns. Gimme a couple minutes and I'll shoot you a PM with a link to the goat stuff so far? Least I can do since I'm still in the middle of getting all the hair dumps unphotobucketed before my payment comes around again in June. (Two posts to go!) But I will see if I can't prod Punkflip harder, I really wanted it as a low-poly reverse mullet, and having to beat on it for someone else may just do the trick.

I legit haven't looked for feathered skins? Though generally as an aesthetic you'd probably want the texture pretty smooth over most of the body anyway-- my example here is the Tiki Room birds at Disneyland, they have feathers-- but mostly on their wings and tails, crests for the cockatoos and such. Most of the birds are covered by fine-knit cashmere, which moves the way breast feathers do and has the right texture for the audience sitting about four feet away, but is sure a lot easier to get on and off the animatronics for maintenance.

... I don't suppose you know where to find a lion tail? I can find lots of cat tails, but I can't find any with tufts at the end, and that's traditional for unicorns.