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WIP: SimpleGens/SimMotion Status Update (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-19 13:44:48
Imported:
2023-07
⚑ Flagged

Content

This status update is mostly about technical aspects of SimpleGens/SimMotion. I'll warn you now - this post will be long (and possibly a bit boring)! 😂

TLDR: The current penis/SimMotion setup has limitations; my fix will delay completion of the penis update. See the final TLDR at the bottom for more info.

All animation in TS4 involves a physical body - a "mesh" - and a skeleton - a "rig". Parts of the mesh are assigned to the rig (arm mesh to arm bones, etc); this process is called weight mapping. For the best results, a mesh should closely follow the shape of the rig.

SimMotion has limitations. The WW rig has bones for the hard penis and testicles, but none for a soft penis. I weight mapped the soft penis to the testicle bone, but this means the penis rotates from the wrong center point. My attempts to lift the penis or lay it across the body when running/relaxing usually look bad: mesh clipping, distortion, limited range of movement.

My solution involves:

1) A rig override. This package file will go into your /Mods folder, just like all CC. This overrides the WW rig with my edited version, which replaces the WW butt bones with soft penis bones.

Unfortunately, while testing this I discovered a weird color/shadow distortion on the underside of the penis where it joins the testicles. You can see it in the header image on the left side.

2) Penises need to be built in a "t-pose". I've always built the soft penises in a relaxed state, hanging down over the testicles.

The base sim bodies are not built this way; they're built in a "t-pose", with the arms sticking out (you can see them in my full-body comparison shot). In order to eliminate the distortion, the default penis mesh needs to be similarly t-posed, sticking out from the body rather than hanging down.

3) SimMotion will be required. If sims showed up in the game in their default t-pose state, their arms would be sticking out. They'd look weird! The only reason they don't is because a sim is always cycling between animations, whether idle or engaging in an activity.

Creating penises in a t-pose state means they'll always be sticking out from your sim like a hard-on. It'll look silly, I know. That's why I'll edit animations to move the penis back into a natural, downward position, and you'll need those edited animations or your sim will look like they're always erect.

I'm sure it sounds backwards - building the penises in an up position only to animate them down - but it's closer to how the sim bodies are built, and it's the only way I can find to fix the distortion.

(I know this is a long read - almost there now!)

I've been trying to find other solutions to this issue, but I can't. I've spent years trying to make SimMotion overrides for napping/relaxing/exercising etc, and I'm frustrated by how bad and unrealistic it looks. Without these fixes, I don't think I can carry on SimMotion because I'm not satisfied with it as it is.

I know there are probably users who don't want any of this. Maybe it sounds too complicated, maybe you don't even use SimMotion! I get it. Here's my plan: two versions of the SimplePenis package.

Version 1: Includes an animated hard penis, but no soft penis animation.
Version 2: Includes a rig override, animated soft and hard penises, and requires SimMotion to function correctly.

I'm sorry that this post contains no actual test files for you to play with right now; the fully animated versions aren't quite ready to go. I know long tech-heavy posts aren't the most exciting. I just needed to get this out there, because it will take me some extra time to alter the soft meshes, polish up the rig override, etc.

So, in summary...

Slightly longer TLDR:
SimMotion has limitations that need to be fixed. The only fix involves altering the meshes, a rig override, and will require SimMotion for full functionality. I intend to release a standalone package for users who don't want SimMotion functionality, or don't want to deal with the changes.
Making these adjustments is going to take extra time, so the penises won't be ready for launch as quickly as I hoped (no ETA right now, sorry).

Thank you for reading through all of this (or any of it, ha ha). If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop a line below or send me a message! 😀

Files

Comments

Khlas

Hey! I think making a rig override is a bad idea. It will create issues from people using your override if they use meshes using the butts vertex. If the rig installed doesn't have the butt bones to identify the vertex, the mesh will just glitch in the game with meshes needing them. I understand that you are trying to make your Sim Motion looks as best as possible, but in doing such override, not only you are making others creator's meshes incompatibles, but also could create an environment where people will complain about WickedWhims creating issues with meshes since your rig will not be compatible with the base WW meshes. I like your meshes and stuff, keep up the good work, however I will give a pass on this, because I'd like to still use others meshes from others creators. As long as it is optional, I think it's ok, but I hope users will read and understand what this will do once it's installed, I can already see being an issue for WW users since the base WW meshes use the butt bones and they are installed as defaults.

simdulgence
>>108886489

Thanks for the feedback! I'll make sure I include a warning about incompatibilities, etc and instruct/ask users not to contact other creators about any issues like that. I really wish there was a better way to do this, but I haven't found one yet. I'm optimistic that for users who have told me they prefer to use only my anatomy mods, this will be an improvement for SimMotion. For anyone who doesn't want to deal with a rig override, or wants to keep using other meshes from other creators, the non-animated version will hopefully satisfy their needs! And they'll still get the other benefits of the upgraded shapes/textures etc. :)

Anonymous

A vast majority of Sims players don't understand the concept of rigs or even default replacements. I'd love to remain hopeful that including warnings and instructions would clear up any confusion about what should or shouldn't be in their mods folder, but I've done support in Sims servers long enough to know that's not reality. I don't personally use simmotion since it conflicts with tonicmole's mod and he's done a vast majority of the animations for the game as it is, but how will this effect animations that already use the butt bones? Any nude soft penis animation that used the butt bones for whatever reason would be distorted correct? I understand your reasoning behind it and how we ended up here, but rigging conflicts can create a lot of issues in game and that seems like a huge potential cost and frustration.

simdulgence
>>109129337

Hey! Thanks for chiming in, all feedback is appreciated. No, animations using butt bones shouldn't automatically be distorted any more than animations using an animated orifice are currently distorted on SimpleGens. Similarly, animations even I've made that use penis bones don't cause distortion on a sim with a vagina. If a mesh doesn't have any vertices weighted to a specific bone, they are unaffected by the movement of that bone. Obviously, there is the possibility that some animators have done extreme things with bones and the animation may not look exactly the same. However, I'd expect butt jiggle to move less of the body than if I was removing a bone for, say, a sim's arm or leg. I expect the rig override to work well for the users who tell me they like to use only my anatomy mods in the game, as none of my designs are weighted to use the butt bones anyway. I'll give it some thought, but the only alternative is to abandon SimMotion completely. I don't want to do that quite yet, if possible.