When I first started converting I only knew how to select one vertex at a time, so hopefully I can save a few people from the pain....so I will start with selecting stuff: To select a single vertex make sure you are in "edit mode" and "vertex select" should already be selected, if not, select it. If all of the vertices are selected when you enter editmode (everything will be bright orange) hit the letter "a" on your keyboard to deselect all. Now left then right click on a vertex to select it. It will light up. A single selected vertex: To select an edge start in edit mode, and chose edge select. Left then right click an edge to select it. The selected edge is white here: To select a face, start in edit mode and choose face select. left then right click on a face to select it. The selected edge is bright orange: While in edit mode and using face select, you can hover your cursor over an area and type the letter 'L" (do not capitalize it) to select the entire side: You can draw a box around a specific area that you would like top select. (I usually prefer to use "wireframe" when I do this, but you can choose the viewport shading that works best for what you are doing.) In edit mode, type the letter "b" then left click and drag the box over the area you wish to select. Let go of the button when you are happy with where your box is. You can make a more specific selection if you hold control + left mouse button to make a circle around the area you wish to select. When you let go, the area you had boxed in will be selected: You can hover your mouse over "islands" on the UV map to reposition them in the case of unwanted overlapping. You can also use the box or circling methods above to move things around on the UV map, I hope you find this useful! Happy selecting!
Sometimes when one imports a mesh into Blender, the object lands below the grid...here is a tip from SG5150's toy box tutorial showing how to easily make it land in the correct spot. (This picture was used with her permission)
If S4S will not allow you to import a mesh because it has a vertex group that is not part of the mesh you are replacing....It can be fixed in Blender. Dear0n helped me when I came across that little issue. (Which is a huge issue if you don't know how to fix it) This is Dear0n's fix, shared with her consent: Go to the panel that’s on the rights side in blender, click on the little triangle there, and check to see if you see any names or numbers where it says “transform bone” in my picture. If there is anything there, any name or number, remove it with the minus sign, and try to load your mesh to S4S again.
I learned the basics of converting from OrangeMitten's Tutorial on how yo convert an object from Sims 2 to 4. It is an excellent tutorial, however it didn't go into much detail on how to deal with the UV map. If you are new to creating, then start with Orangenitten's tutorial and go to step 25 then come here. Now I am going to join the different "cuts" (parts) of a mesh together onto one UV map. As many of the Sims 4 objects are only one cut: Sometimes the different cuts will align perfectly if you just join them without moving anything, so select each cut individually (in edit mode) to look at the UV maps for each piece. If any of the parts look as if they will join together nicely, then try joining them. If it doesn't look right then at the bottom of the screen click "mesh" and select "undo". The body of the oven above has open space on it that look as if the door pieces will fit right in! So I will switch to object mode. This can be done by selecting object mode at the bottom of the screen, or you can toggle between object mode and edit mode by hitting the tab key on your keyboard with the cursor in the 3d window: Since my oven door was already selected (if you deselected your first cut, then just left then right click on it to select it again)...I now hold down the shift key then left and right click the oven frame to select that too. It will look like this: Now hold the Ctrl button and type "j" on your keyboard to join the two pieces together. Now my oven looks like this: Now that the parts are joined onto one UV map I will make sure that they do in fact align correctly before I continue. Go back into edit mode with the newly joined oven and door selected. (remember typing the letter "a" in edit mode will select and deselect the entire cut.) And yes it looks good. I don't see anything weirdly overlapping on the UV map. When I looked at the other parts of the mesh, those didn't look like they will join together so easily. I am going to show you the fruit. If you compare the fruit's UV map to the oven's above, you can see that there are no nice little spaces for them to fit together. I am going to join them together anyway, just so you can see what a bad result looks like. OK, I deselected the fruit on the UV map before I joined it to the oven so you can tell the two apart. As you can see there are round things over square things...and it didn't fill in any unused space on the UV map, it just landed right on top of everything. These obviously don't belong on top of each other....fruit does not look like the texture of an oven! So I will switch back into object mode and undo this. Don't worry, we can still join them onto the same map, we just don't want them on top of each other. Now I have undone that last part and I am in edit mode with my oven selected. I typed "g" and "y" on the keyboard to move the oven's UV map onto the grid in the 2D window. There are still two more pieces that I want to join to my mesh, the fruit and the coals. Both of these appear below the grid when I select them to view their UV maps in edit mode. I will have to move one of them so they will not end up on top of each other as in my bad example. I will move the fruit above the grid, and leave the coal below it. First I've gone back into object mode and selected the fruit, then I hit the tab key to enter edit mode once again. Type the letters "g" and then "y" to move the map above the grid. Now I Have selected the coal and am viewing it in edit mode. It is kind of far from the grid, so I will type "g" and "y" to move it just under the grid. Here the coal's UV is moved up a bit and the three pieces are ready to be joined onto one map. Go back into object mode. While holding down the "shift' key, left then right click all of the pieces that you are ready to join onto one map. Then hold down the "Ctrl" button and type the letter "j" to join them. Now our UV map looks like this: In order for the texture to show up on our object, ALL of the UV map needs to be on the grid. At this point I go into my photo editing tool to join my three textures onto one image. I know that I've placed the fruit at the top, oven in the middle and coal at the bottom on my UV map, so I need to do the same with the textures. Here is my texture: (this texture for the oven is 256 by 512 pixels) The texture needs to be one of these widths (in pixels) by any of these numbers in height in order for it to work correctly. It should be saved as a PNG or a DDS DXT5 interpolated alpha. 1024 512 256 128 to be continued...I ran out of room for images in this post and it is getting late....
Joining multiple cuts on the UV map continued.... now I need to import my image into blender. It will take the place of the grid in the 2D window. Click "image" on the lower left and select "open image". Navigate to your file and double click it to import it. :O What happened??? The UV mech is all stretched now!!! (Don't worry we will fix it!) Make sure that EVERYTHING is selected in your 2D window (type "a" with cursor in 2D area to select and deselect all) then type "S" and "Y" to scale your UV map up and down. ( If any of it is off to the sides of the image, type "S" then "X" to scale side to side. You can just type "S" if your UV map is just plain HUGE and need to be scaled down entirely.) Now I have scaled the UV map down and I am going to show you a close up of my 2D window so you can see that most of the UV map is aligned pretty well with my texture. (If yours isn't...don't stress, we can fix it!) Look at the orange and the green onions in the upper right. The UV map isn't on top of them very well: Now with your cursor over the 2D window, type "a" to deselect everything. Now you can select the individual islands to reposition them properly. You can use any of the methods in my "selecting stuff" post to select an island. I am going to type "b" to make a box or hover my cursor over the orange peel to select only that area of the UV map. In this case there are two parts of the UV map stacked on top of each other, and since they both belong to the orange peel I want to keep them together, not separate them (typing "L" will only select one of these layers) so I will make a box around the orange peel to select both layers together. (Type "b" and drag the box around the area) You can make a more specific selection if the part you wish to select is close to other parts of the UV map. Hold control + left mouse button to make a circle around the area you wish to select. Now only the area over the orange peel is selected. It can be moved and or scaled separately from the rest of the UV map now to make it fit the orange peel on the texture. Type "s" to scale the entire thing. Type "s" then "y" to scale top to bottom. Type "s" then "x" to scale side to side. Type "g" to move it around freely. Type "g" then "y" to move it up and down. Type "g" then "x" to move it from side to side. Do this for all areas that need to be fixed. Now I have everything in place on my UV map. Now it is time to save your work and import your mesh and texture into S4S for testing. Choose "Save As" and give this attempt a unique name. (Such as "oven 1") Then if something doesn't look right you can come back and adjust UV map in the area that needs work and save with a new name ("oven 2") so you will have something to fall back on if things somehow get even worse! (Hopefully not!) Once you are happy with your UV map head back over to Orange Mitten's tutorial and start at step 41. And for those that actually intend to make a oven....head over to Dear0n's oven tutorial for help.
If you come across an issue that you can't fix on your own help is available at teanmoon's Helpdesk. Also check out her Handy Dandy Blender Cheat Sheet.
From siminimonster: you can hide selected vertices by hitting the "h" key on the keyboard. to undo: Alt + h I will try to remember to try that and add pictures later.
