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- Getting Bumped by Bump Maps
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- Getting Bumped by Bump Maps
Posts: 459
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I have tried every tutorial and mini-tutorial I can find, but can't seem to do what I am trying to achieve.
The outfit I have has three groups, (originaly 4):
body
alpha3
alpha5
There was a 'noblend' group as well, but I decided I didnt need it and removed it, it didnt cause a problem with my new mesh file.
Anyway, I have my partially completed outfit and mesh for it, but I want to add bump maps to all three groups, I just cant seem to get it to work.
Please can someone give me specific step by step instructions specific to this mesh/outfit, (attached), or just add the bump maps and send it back to me.
I would prefer to do it myself, as I can learn by doing, but if it's easier for someone to just do it than to sit there writing instructions for me to follow then I don't mind...
Please I hope someone can help me with this as all this bumping is hurting my head
NEEDSBUMPS.rar (395.6 KB, 10 downloads) - View custom content | ||||||||||||||
Size Packed Ratio Date Time Attr CRC Meth Ver ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5fc197eb_NEWMESH001.package 298301 250134 83% 14-10-07 17:06 .....A. 0082AD3E m3d 2.9 MESH-fifthace-alphatransparentmesh-001-oct2007.package 288180 154827 53% 14-10-07 15:39 .....A. B20CF03A m3d 2.9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 586481 404961 69% |
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
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Posts: 459
Thanks: 19001 in 46 Posts
Did you tried this method? I believe I put enough details there. |
No, I didnt come across that one, looks very promising though, thanks very much, I will give it a try
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
Posts: 459
Thanks: 19001 in 46 Posts
So I tried it on a maxis mesh, unaltered, simply cloned in BS, then loaded into simpe, did exactly as the tut said, same result...
Am I missing something?
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
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If it doesn't, then you will not know whether what you made works or not.
There is a bump map tester object here. If you haven't tried it before, you can read about the tester, and download it at:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=43273
<* Wes *>
If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
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Does your graphics card support bumpmapping? Not all do. If it doesn't, then you will not know whether what you made works or not. There is a bump map tester object here. If you haven't tried it before, you can read about the tester, and download it at: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=43273 <* Wes *> |
Yes it definately supports bumpmapping. I have had some fun playing around with the bump-maps on meshes/packages that already have them I just cant add them to ones that don't
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
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Did the block 'Default NormalMap' appeared in Categorized Properties of your materials?
Tried to add them myself. Clothis uses proper mesh (it wasn't really nice of you to put it in Gym Clothes :-|), and bumpmap appeared - though it's more noticeable in shaded areas, probably because white color of texture.
I'm attaching package with my changes - compare it with yours, to see what you've missed. It's quite big, since I used 'heavy' bumpmap textures as tests.
5fc197eb_NEWMESH001-BUMPED.rar (544.5 KB, 17 downloads) - View custom content | ||||||||||
Size Packed Ratio Date Time Attr CRC Meth Ver ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5fc197eb_NEWMESH001-BUMPED.package 3444880 557504 16% 15-10-07 08:27 .....A. BAF2C179 m5g 2.9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 3444880 557504 16% |
Posts: 459
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Strange, because I use it relatively often, and it worked all the time :-| Did the block 'Default NormalMap' appeared in Categorized Properties of your materials? Tried to add them myself. Clothis uses proper mesh (it wasn't really nice of you to put it in Gym Clothes :-|), and bumpmap appeared - though it's more noticeable in shaded areas, probably because white color of texture. I'm attaching package with my changes - compare it with yours, to see what you've missed. It's quite big, since I used 'heavy' bumpmap textures as tests. |
lol sorry about the gym catagory. I use that for all my 'works in progress'. And yeh, when I tried it the ''Default NormalMap' block did appear.
I will have a look at your package and compare it with mine. I have no doubt that the process works, as I have seen plenty of packages out there with bumpmaps that are clearly from maxis packages that didnt have them, so it must work.
Thanks for taking the time to look at it for me, much appreciated
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
Posts: 459
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I am guessing it isnt as simple as that lol
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
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I did not changed any instances, only renamed the package. Therefore, if you have both yours(old) and my(new) packages in Downloads, only one of them will appear in Bodyshop (which one is random, as far as I know). So, remove your old package first to see the changes in Bodyshop.
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It shows up now, interesting looking bump too, almost looks good enough as is
I did re-try your tutorial again, but refering to the modified file you posted, and it kind of worked.
After I made the changes needed, the mesh showed up in bodyshop afterwards, I think the first part of where I was going wrong, was in the filelist tab, where you add another file to reference the bump maps, it just said to select the existing file and click 'add'. Unless I read it wrong, it said to leave the one added at the top, and the name as it is, but in the file you sent me back, it has a different file name, and is in second instead of first.
However, it didnt show any bumpmaps.
This isnt a criticism, far from it, that tut got me further than I had up to that point, and it is quite possible I mis-read/mis-understood it. I must admit, why all these things work the way they do is beyond me, I can't understand it all, but I am pretty good at following instructions, if they are explicit to what I am doing, when it comes to having to modify a set of instructions to suit what I am doing, I get lost
You have my thanks again for sorting this.
Okay, scratch that about it still not showing the bumpmaps, I forgot to change the format to raw8bit when I imported replacement images
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
Posts: 612
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What you need to have there is 2 resource names - for base and normalmap textures (may be 3, if envcube map is turned on too).
For objects, these names must be the same as of textures used in TXMT; for clothes, they can be names of any Maxis textures. So, I just copied the name of bumpmap texture I mentioned in the 'short tutorial' post.
As for order - first normalmap, then base, or base, then normalmap - right now (more than year since writing that post, time sure flies fast) I'm not really sure which one is correct :-< most of the times it works with any order, sometimes textures get messed up if order is wrong. In this case, I just added 2nd texture without thinking, went to Bodyshop, saw it worked, and decided that as long as it works it better to not touch anything :D
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I have re-tried your tut, as I said, using the file you sent me for comparison. I started from just a basic clone of a maxis mesh, before I did any alterations to either the mesh or the textures.
I ended up with a file structure that was identical to the one you sent me, yet still no bump mapping in bs
Clearly I am doing something wrong, so I have started from scratch. I cloned the hula dress from BV, ( I needed it for the semi-transparentable alpha3 and alpha5), and made a new mesh file, edited the gmdc to what I wanted, replaced it yadda yadda yadda...
Confirmed it shows in BS with my new mesh, havent altered the textures yet.
I am now about to once again, try adding the bump maps to it, and see what happens this time
Again, thanks for bearing with me on this, I will get there
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
Posts: 459
Thanks: 19001 in 46 Posts
After my post above, I just tried that, worked perfectly.
(Jumps around the room dancing )
Right, with the first mesh I tried it on, the file name in 'filelist' was wrong, thats why it didnt work for me then, as for the last mesh I tried, dunno what happened there only thing I can think of is it just didnt like my mesh for adding bump maps, although I did check it with the number of, how did you put it?, 'non-zero normal groups', or something like that, and it equalled the number of subsets, still didnt work though.
Well, never mind, can't win them all I guess
At least I got it to work, even though it tool me like a to get there lol
Again, many many thanks for sticking with me on this :lovestruc
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
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Posts: 459
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Bump-mapping:
The process in which a '3-D' appearance can be given to a '2-D' texture.
Dependant on your graphics card being able to render bump-mapping.
Note: Just because a graphics card bump-maps in another game/program, doesnt necesarily mean it will in The Sims 2, it needs to be fully DX9.0c compliant with acompanying drivers...
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
Posts: 612
Thanks: 33792 in 19 Posts
then, as for the last mesh I tried, dunno what happened there only thing I can think of is it just didnt like my mesh for adding bump maps, although I did check it with the number of, how did you put it?, 'non-zero normal groups', or something like that |
- if you use smd - there's 'Create BumpMapNormals' checkbox when you import subset in SimPE - if you use Unimesh, you have to put comment to each group - 'HasTangentArray:', if I remember it correctly, better to check with Milkshape users
I cloned the hula dress from BV, ( I needed it for the semi-transparentable alpha3 and alpha5) |
For semi-transparentable alphas, you need appropriate Opacity set to subsets, and stdMatAlphaBlendMode set to blend in TXMT. It's not required that you clone some particular outfit.
And, though it's usually suggested to clone outfits with needed subset count (to avoid messing with package structure ), it's possible to add subsets to clothing. So, again, it's not necessary to clone particular outfit but it may take longer to adjust it.
I'm not certain why bumps didn't worked in one case, but worked in another, while mesh was the same Guess there's more to study about them.
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As for making a subset semi-transparent that isnt already, I think I will probably stick with cloning the maxis mesh I used this time, now I know it works for adding bump maps, I can create a base file that I can do pretty much whatever I want with.
Oh, you mentioned before something about the envcube? Hmmm, something I might look into, I have worked with them before when I built my Modenna Kitchen set, I wanted a high-sheen on the counters. I might see if I can adapt that to clothing meshes to try and achive a true velvet look to an outfit, instead of just trying to achieve the look with the texture alone. I have seen some others do that and it looks quite flat.
Although, saying that, I did try something similar earlier, and with a careful 'tweak' of the bump map image, it did almost appear to 'shine'...
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
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Yes it does. Bump-mapping: The process in which a '3-D' appearance can be given to a '2-D' texture. Dependant on your graphics card being able to render bump-mapping. Note: Just because a graphics card bump-maps in another game/program, doesnt necesarily mean it will in The Sims 2, it needs to be fully DX9.0c compliant with acompanying drivers... |
Actually normal mapping is different from bumpmapping. Bumpmapping provides height, normal maps provide normals. If your doing grey maps those are bump maps. If your doing funky red/blue/green maps, those are normal maps.
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It is 'HasTangentArray:' in Milkshape, I was wondering what that was all about, as I see it in some subsets, (groups) but not others. |
When you import a Sims 2 mesh with UniMesh, if the original group had a set of tangent normals, this comment is created. Because as you edit a mesh, these values would change, the tangent normals themselves are not imported, and anyway, MilkShape has no place to store them.
Tangent normals are a secondary set of normals that are 'tangent' to the mesh surface. A tangent is a line that would touch a circle at the outer edge at only one point. For bumpmapping the way the sims2 game engine does it, the tangent normal and the regular normal allow the direction of "up from the surface" to be calculated so that the normal can be modified in real time even when animation has moved the vertices around to make the bumps appear. Having the tangent normals precalculated helps a lot to make the game run faster, and if they are not present in the mesh the game will not use bumpmapping on that group, even if the texture material has bumps in it.
At export, the UniMesh exporter will calculate a new set of tangent normals that fit the edited mesh for any group that has the 'HasTangentArray:' comment in it. If you do not want to have something bumpmappable, leave the comment out, so that the output file will be smaller.
<* Wes *>
If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
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Actually normal mapping is different from bumpmapping. Bumpmapping provides height, normal maps provide normals. If your doing grey maps those are bump maps. If your doing funky red/blue/green maps, those are normal maps. |
I stand corrected. I wasn't aware you could do the same thing using colour maps, guess you learn something new everyday
Wes, I must admit, all that is beyond me, and it amazes me how you lot figure this stuff out...
Jasana, is it possible to adapt this technique to add bump maps to objects?
I did try, but there were too many differences between a skin and an object.
I have already added an envcube to an object, and that all works ok, but I would like to finish the effect off with a bump map......
FifthAce2007
My Sims 2 creations are no longer supported. Regardless of what the individual post says, feel free to clone, recolour, chuck on a bonfire or mix in a blender! Just credit me/this site with the upload, and upload here only, thanks
Posts: 612
Thanks: 33792 in 19 Posts
If your doing grey maps those are bump maps. If your doing funky red/blue/green maps, those are normal maps. |
It is OK to have non-grey texture as a bumpmp - for clothing, at least. In-game, it would work the same, or almost the same. The only [dis]advantage is that cloning of clothing with non-grey bumpmap will fail in Bodyshop - it is used by some creators to make "borrowing" of their textures harder.
Oh, you mentioned before something about the envcube? |
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You can add envcube, like on objects - but only to non-body subsets. And - not certain about it, because I never tried it, but seen somewhere - you might need to actually add envcube map to the package, not use an existing one - and if it's true, you'll need to give specific name to TXTR, similar to base and bump ones. And, sure thing, you'll need to add envcube texture name to FileList tab, but order is under question :-< |
But is the reverse possible? Can you add a bump map to an object?
I know this is branching slightly off-topic here, but I am deadly curious
FifthAce2007
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The Venus Statue mesh has tangent normals. I thought it had a bumpmapped texture for the worn texture (pitted look), but as I write this I am not certain that the texture is actually bumpmapped.
I think the game textures may have had most bumpmapping for objects removed, perhaps for performance reasons. Bumpmaps seem to be the first thing that disappears when people have a less powerful graphics card.
<* Wes *>
If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
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But is the reverse possible? Can you add a bump map to an object? |
The difference is in TXMT - in object, you are not restricted in TXTR name, but you must put the same names on FileList tab as are on Parameters tab.
However, Wes is right, most of Maxis objects have no bumpmaps - so you'll have to enable them by yourself. I don't remember about Venus statue, but I found that 'Vase on pedestal' has bumps
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