21 replies to this topic

[junkacc]

I have a question for blender gurus. Is there a diff utility like in unix to compare two similar yet different models?

I can use diff on text files, I can invert images to check for image diffs, there *must* be a way to check model differences.

I'm trying to fix the FONV Type6 model which has a head misalignment problem. I've found Type6 version2 is about 100k smaller than the final release version (v5.4) and would like to know why. I always say 'smaller is better' so if there's nothing really different, I'll use v2 as the base. I've asked the author (necroscop) who says he can't remember what he did.

Anyone know how this can be done? Dazzerfong? anyone?

[matsuda_sempai]

Do you mean the DFF file format?
http://www.gtagarage...how.php?id=9798

[dazzerfong]

Matsuda, read the post first.

If there's a head mis-alignment, you'll have to manually edit it to get it fixed. And also, a smaller file size doesn't mean something has changed radically: it could mean the author optimized it futher.

[matsuda_sempai]

Sorry, I thought he was talking about GTA mesh format.

[dazzerfong]

No harm done, Matsuda.

And Junkacc, why would you, of all the people on this forum, direct this question at me?

[matsuda_sempai]

I guess because you are a blender guru!

[junkacc]

Yup, in my short time here reading posts, I got the impression dazzerfong == blender guy. Also, you seem helpful

Anyway, this is driving me crazy.

Type6 v2.0 is 1.04Megabytes with ve:9550 fa:18928
Type6 v5.4 is 1.14Megabytes with ve:10838 fa:19896

A diff utility would be great to find where the added vertices are.

Anyway, after I made changes to Type v5.4 and exported, the filesize is 1.30Megabytes. The only change I made was move the whole object on the y-axis a few units (no added vertices or faces). Am I exporting wrong?

[dazzerfong]

Problem about a 'diff' utility in 3D is that, unlike 2D or text, where there are clear patternal similarities, 3D models are, well, 3D. Though, you can just import both of them into Blender, and see what's wrong.

Size is not important here: if it got larger, you could have exported with NiTriShapes instead of NiTriStrips. Doesn't really matter, again, size differences don't matter.

[junkacc]

I've got something working but it's really weird. I'm trying to get rid of the awful type6 neck seam by moving the body forward in blender since the author said it might work.






This is what it looks like in blender:



The head and body don't align in blender but it does in game.

Now, this is the really strange part. This is what it looks like without any modification.


UNMODIFIED TYPE6

It has even better alignment than Type3. But Type3 doesn't exhibit the alignment problem ingame.


TYPE3 ALIGNMENT

What can be causing this? This is the only difference between Type6 and Type3 that I can discern.



Resulting in:



Type3 doesn't have this intersecting neck region. Could this be why despite looking ok in blender the thing comes out misaligned in game?

.

[dazzerfong]

This could be why, and it's easily fixable using the Pivot tool. Just set the pivot to a vertex on the body using Shift-S -> Cursor to Selected, then select the matching vertex (the one that's off) and, while setting the pivot mode to Cursor (it's on the right of Edit/Object mode), press S, followed by a 'zero'.

Who's the author of Type6? If he/she said that, they don't know much about 3D modelling........

[junkacc]

dazzerfong, on 19 January 2012 - 10:07 PM, said:

This could be why, and it's easily fixable using the Pivot tool. Just set the pivot to a vertex on the body using Shift-S -> Cursor to Selected, then select the matching vertex (the one that's off) and, while setting the pivot mode to Cursor (it's on the right of Edit/Object mode), press S, followed by a 'zero'.

Who's the author of Type6? If he/she said that, they don't know much about 3D modelling........

Sorry, I must be dense today. Couldn't understand anything you said just now. It's not just one vertex but a whole bunch of them. All the ones on the top:




I don't know what I'm supposed to click on in the first place and then when I press S-zero, it scales to zero making the body dissappear.

Anyway, Type6 was authored by a guy called necroscop. He hangs out at TESadventures. I think he knows his stuff since that's where all the body modellers hang out, like dimon99, brurpo, Robert, etc.

[dazzerfong]

OK, I thought that you knew quite a bit on Blender already. I'll walk you through slow:

1. If all the vertices are highlighted, press A to deselect.
2. Select one random vertex on the neck of the Type3.
3. Press Shift-S -> Cursor to Selection.
4. On the right of Edit mode, where you see the single dot, click on it then select 3D Cursor.
5. Go to Object mode, then select the Type6 body. Go to Edit mode.
6. Select the respective vertex on the neck (the one closest to the cursor) with a right-click.
7. Press S -> 'zero'.
8. Repeat until all vertices are like that.

If he said 'move the body', it does nothing upon export: there's still a seam. Did he make it, or did he make adjustments from Dimon's original Type3?

It doesn't matter if all the body modellers hang around there: there's bound to be some people not as experienced as Dimon or the others.

[junkacc]

Thanks for the walkthrough. I'll try it out later.

I'm a complete blender noob. Installed it only a few days ago, but I've been meaning to learn it at one point or another... Like making counter-strike skins forced me to learn gimp.

Hmm... regarding Type6, here's what 'Kendo 2' has to say about it:

"There will be no support for 'Type6', since it is just backsteppo's narrowed shoulder version of dimon99's Cali body with a few superficial tweaks. It's no big deal since anyone can do it. I don't care if this works with Type3 rips or derivatives or not. It's for Type3." -- comment section, Mojave Delight Ginger Edition.

Derivative work or not, I think it's really good. Alot of attention to detail, like how the leg muscles move and such. It's great APART FROM THAT BLOODY NECK SEAM!!!




Moving the body forward like he said actually fixes the problem, but it doesn't seem right. I'm sure they'll be unforeseen problems with that method down the road. That's why I want to do it properly.

[dazzerfong]

Well, that's the only way, and if it occurs on armors, you'll have to edit each separate armor to fix it up.

[junkacc]

Wow, that was painful. Did every vertex until they were the same. Can't believe anyone would want to do this as a job...

Anyway, it didn't work, but I think I found out why this is happening.



The damn skeleton was moved in TYPE6. No wonder the body placement trick works.

1. Now it seems I can move around individual bones in blender but I'm not sure whether Fallout recognizes individual bone placement or if they must all be moved at the same time as a group?

2. And what's the best way to line up Type6 skeleton with Type3 skeleton?

Thanks, I think I got this now.

[dazzerfong]

How to line it up? Simple:

1. Import vanilla skeleton (it's in Characters/_male). If you don't have it, use BSA Commander (latest version) to open the Fallout - Meshes, and find it under that folder name. When importing, make sure you check 'Import skeleton' (something along the lines of that).
2. Import your body, and make sure when you're importing, check 'i
3. Delete the body's skeleton (right click it -> press Del).
4. Select your body, hold Shift, click on the remaining skeleton.
5. Press Ctrl-P - Armature Deform.
6. Export.

That might not be the problem: the weights on the head might be different, so different movements might affect the seam.

[junkacc]

Hello again, sorry I should have kept you up to date on the progress, in case you were interested. I've had other engagements keeping me away from this until today.

dazzerfong, on 20 January 2012 - 08:25 AM, said:

How to line it up? Simple:

1. Import vanilla skeleton (it's in Characters/_male). If you don't have it, use BSA Commander (latest version) to open the Fallout - Meshes, and find it under that folder name. When importing, make sure you check 'Import skeleton' (something along the lines of that).

When I do this, I get the full skeleton -- the hands, the armor attachments, and some other thingies I don't get when only importing femaleupperbody.nif. Should I delete them? (hands, armor attachments, etc)

dazzerfong, on 20 January 2012 - 08:25 AM, said:

2. Import your body, and make sure when you're importing, check 'i

What is "check 'i "?

dazzerfong, on 20 January 2012 - 08:25 AM, said:

5. Press Ctrl-P - Armature Deform.

When I press ctrl-P, I get this:



After I select "Parent to --> Armature" I get this:



I'm using,
Blender 2.49b
Nifscripts 2.5.8
PyFFI 2.1.11
Python 2.66

[dazzerfong]

1. Don't delete anything on that imported skeleton.
2. My bad, you're just supposed to check the other option (the one other than the bone one mentioned in the first step).
3. Choose 'don't create groups': in the end, however, there's no difference, only creating groups makes you export longer.

[junkacc]

GAH!!!



Maybe I need to do something in Nifskope?

Funny thing :

When I re-import the mangled mesh into blender, the extraneous bones (hands and others) all dissappeared and everything looked normal (so far so good). Then, when I imported the unaltered Type6 and compared the bone positions, they were the same. Very interesting!!! So how does Blender know how to position (or deform) the bones? Does it take the average of bone weights from the surrounding vertices and position the bone in the middle? An academic interest has been kindled in me

[dazzerfong]

Open up the screwed-up mesh in NifSkope: I want to see the layout of the strips. Oh, and about your last paragraph: no, bones don't work like that. It's mangled right now because the body was moved: reset the body (don't move anything except in Edit mode) and try again.

[junkacc]

Ok, I did the procedure again and this time I didn't get the mangled body, I must've done something silly before. I took a screenshot of nifskope as requested... noticed something strange.



Hmm... The mesh with the new skeleton still has the neckseam problem. The thing is, I know how to fix it, in fact it's already fixed by moving the neck and head bones backward. I guess I'm not happy unless I know why things work the way they do. For instance, how blender deforms skeletons and why it took so long for someone to make a narrow shouldered femalebody mesh (why was it so difficult).

Also, with my method, everytime a new skeleton is inserted, the head and neck bones need adjustment. A small inconvenience but still, I wanna know why. Is there a good tutorial on armature deformation I can read up on?

[dazzerfong]

OK, I'll go slow:

1. When you moved the bone and neck backwards, you didn't actually fix it up, but you actually moved it so that it's between the neck, and therefore invisible to normal uses.

Why don't they match up, the neck and body? Simple. Weight paint. In this case, the author did not bother to fix it up. Easiest way to tell is to import the head, body and skeleton, parent both to the skeleton, and move the neck bones. I'm sure they won't match up if you do that.

Now, you might be asking for a fix. The only fix is to join the head and body, delete the overlapping vertices (so the head and body seam would share vertices) then separate it.

Why did it take so long to make the shoulder narrower? I can only speculate, but here are the possible reasons:

1. No-one thought of it before.
2. Because the default pose is a cant T-pose, it's hard to narrow the shoulder.

Everything armature-related is relative. Hence, the body was right before because the author made it like that: with a slightly off-set skeleton.