TS4 - UV_1 & Weight Transfer

A detailed guide on how to do uv_1 and weight transfer with step by step screenshots. Good luck! ^.^

Note: I try to explain as much as I can, but this tutorial is only about uv_1 and weight transfer as well as fixing the vertex paint. I do not go on about fixing the uv_0 and or making textures.

Shoutout to these two tutorials from which I learnt how to do it. It's basically the same, but in a different candywrapper 1 uv_1 | 2 Transfer Weights.

Make sure to have an older blender version.
I'm using blender 2.70 and the latest versoin.

Start

1. Open the latest version of blender. First, work on your mesh. I'm not telling how you exactly do over here. I'm here working on a conversion of my TS3 Kell top, put on the body and all done. (It's still not joined together with a body)

2.  When you're done with your mesh, click on your mesh in object mode. Make sure it's highlighted.

3. Go to your properties tab. It's usually underneath your Outliner.

4. Go to the traingle like figure. The "data". We'll be changing the UV Maps. Right now you'll see there's only one, which is called UVMap. We are going to rename that into uv_0. After that you add a new map and call that uv_1.

5. Time to transfer data. For this you need to first import a mesh similair to yours. Here below you can see me having picked a shirt as reference. To make it easier to point out what to select what. I have named my files. I tend to do this myself too, so that I don't confuse myself about what's what.

6. Now we have the refence mesh and our mesh. Make sure both are visible. Now FIRST right-click your reference, THEN hold shift and right-click your clothingmesh.

7. Click the wrench icon. These are the so-called Modifiers. In there we will find our Data Transfer. REMINDER: Make sure this is a newer blender version and not 1.70 or older.

8. After clicking the wrench, click on Add Modifier and click on Data Transfer.

9. After that follow these steps on setting up the data transfer.

For Source Object make sure it selects the Reference mesh.
Tick Face Corner Data. Then click on UVs. Change All Layers and By Name, both to uv_1.
DONE! Now you can hit apply. The gif below shows you the steps as well.

10. Before we go further, we are going to check if the uv_1 worked out well. Open one window to take a look at the UV. Make sure the uv which is shown is the uv_1. Go the tha data, by clicking on the triangle again and click on uv_1

Your uv should have shaped outsite the square uv, because mine is a simple top it doesn't show you much. You can compare it to the original mesh if you would like to. The picture below is the uv_1 of one of EAs. Basically you can imagine that my new uv_1 of my tanktop fits perfectly above this uv_1. We don't have to resize anything in here. It's perfectly fine like this! Your morphs and sliders should work fine in game now. Of course, the more your mesh's topology is similair to the EA ones, the better. TIP: A hack to make it smoother you could subdivide the reference mesh.

Do not delete the reference just yet. We'll be using it later for weigtpainting as well. (Aka assigning bones)

11. Now continue on with fixing ur uv_0. This is the actual uv mapping for texturing. Click on uv_0 and it will switch back to the original. As you can see, mine is still set on how I made me sims 3 uv. I'm not continuing on how to do that, but def a shoutout to use this template here.

12. After you're done with fixing the uv_1. Save it and move to blender 2.70. Open your
blender file in there now.

13. For weightpainting I like to turn everything into solid view.

14. Select your mesh and change de mode into Weight Paint mode.

15. Your mesh will be turning blue now. On the left side, make sure Auto normalize is turned on.

14. Then again, FIRST right-click your reference. Then hold shift and right-click on your mesh. After you've done that click on Transfer Weights.

15. After you've clicked Transfer Weights. Something below should appear. Some people leave it at Nearest face, but I personally want my weights to transfer from the nearest vertex.

16. To quickly check if your weight transfer was a succes. I test out one of the breasts. As you can see the left breast of the simmodel is now highlighted as I clicked it. Looks like it worked!

17. Last steps! Change the mode to Vertex Paint.

You'll see that your mesh isn't the same green as the body. We have to change that.

18. Click on the white, then the eyedropper to copy the green colour of the body. Then below, click on Paint and proceed on Set Vertex Colors.

ONE MORE STEP! Save your file again and move back to the latest blender. 

19. Before you continue on importing the file into S4Studio or/and bake your textures. Check if the Type is set to GEOM and Cut to 0000. You can find it in the scene. (For now this is not important to worry about, as long as your mesh is just 1 piece)

ALL DONE! Save the file! You can import this file to S4 Studio. On top of that continue on with the rest of the steps like baking your textures ^.^

For any questions you can leave a message here or send an ask on my tumblr here.

Good luck and happy simming!