Beginner’s questions

[Voeille 107]

Hi! I’m a beginner in CS modding (I’ve only made a few random things such as maps or added trees to a road, you can take a look here if you want, but I don’t expect anyone to be impressed ), I want to slowly learn 3D modelling and I’d like to start with importing ferns I made for a different game (The Sims 2). I have experience at texturing (however for all I’ve seen so far I’ll have to do more than just the main texture and normal map) as that is the main thing I did for TS2 in the past, but I haven’t done much modelling so I’m still in the beginning stage. Is there any tutorial that would explain step by step how to import a model from Blender to the game? For texturing I found this (I haven’t read it yet, only looked briefly and it looks like the right tutorial for that), but the only thing about importing a model from Blender is this, but it just tells me that it’s unavailable (I guess I can’t view it in my country). My most preferred form would be a classic tutorial, not a video, but anything that will open for me will be fine.

Also, do I need to do anything special to make my plants move with wind like the vanilla plants, or does it just happen automatically?

If you’re curious about the ferns, here they are:

Spoiler

 

[Lost Gecko 481]

Welcome! There isn't any written tutorial on how to import an asset from Blender to CS that I know of. This this video tutorial playlist is pretty useful: 

You only have to import your plant using a tree template and the game will take care of the rest!

[Voeille 107]

At least this one doesn’t show as unavailable, so that’s good. Thanks, I’ll take a look at it!

[Voeille 107]

I decided to give the ferns a shot today and I found this guide. I managed to finally import my model to the game, it needs adjusting as it’s too bright, too small, and the axes are wrong, but I’m happy it loaded!

[Voeille 107]

Well, I fixed the rotation and brightness, but it looks like I have a problem with normal vectors. When the model is in its normal position (Y up, X forward) it’s always black. When I rotate it so it’s like X is up and -Y is forward (normals accordingly adjusted to that), it seems like lighting depends on the rotation in-game (I use the Random Tree Rotation mod). Any ideas how to fix it?

[Avanya 2,605]

You need to mess around with the vertex normals. You're working in Blender right? Then you'll want to look into the normal edit modifier.

[Voeille 107]

Thank you so much! I found that option and just the default settings fixed it. The model was made in a different 3D program as it has various useful plugins dedicated for The Sims 2. I used Blender to export FBX only and I honestly don’t have the slightest idea how that program works so to actually make a model there I would need to surround myself by tutorials  I’m not experienced in modelling in general, I’ve made like 4 models only so there’s plenty to learn. Anyway, now I need to set the scale to something more reasonable and import the other fern type, but given that now I know what to do it should go fine.

[Voeille 107]

I finished my new tree, but I have a problem with colour variations. I’ve noticed that vanilla trees and most workshop trees have varying brightness and I saw a setting for it in the asset editor, but it doesn’t work for me. I set minimum to 0.1 and left maximum at 1 to test it out (so it should go from basically black to the original colour), but it always shows the original brightness. It’s the same without changing any settings. I have a colour mask that contains only black and white (the leaf part is white and trunk is black as I don’t want it to change), however not having it doesn’t change anything. Every file is properly named. Is it possible that there’s a mod that breaks it? It doesn’t look bad now, but it’d be much better if the brightness were random. Size variation works fine.

 

I’ve also noticed that it puts more strain on performance than other trees for no obvious reason. I have two versions, one with 2586 tris and the other with 1086, both with 1024x1024 textures, and while I can understand that the high poly one is heavy for my graphic card, I don’t really get that the lower poly one lags too. I have workshop trees that have the same texture size and much more than 1000 polys and they cause less lag. Did I do something wrong somehow?

[Voeille 107]

OK I fixed it, it turns out that the colour mask needs to be reverted – white means that the area is left untouched, black means it should change colour. It’s counter-intuitive and I’m fairly sure I read somewhere it’s the opposite, but it works now! The performance question still persists.