If you have never attempted to create a mesh in Blender then
you must read “HOW TO MAKE A CC BED FOR SIMS 4” before attempting this tutorial.This
tutorial will only cover the blender cloth simulation and required modifiers to
create pillows and sofa.
- Blender v2.75a (Free):
- Sims 4 Studio Version Joy (Free):
Open Blender and clean up the scene by deleting default
objects on the scene or open your existing Blender object file to which you
want to add pillows.For the sake of my ongoing project work and this tutorial I’ve opened my object
file containing a Sofa frame to which I’m going to add seat and pillows.
The frame is created in Autodesk 3d Max and then imported to
Blender.It’s not that this frame can’t be created in Blender.But it would
take an hour or two to perfectly create the elliptical shaped side parts and
the front design of the sofa frame where it took 5 minutes for me to create
them in Autodesk 3d Max.If you followed the steps on making bed frames in “HOW TO MAKE A CC BED FOR SIMS 4” and could make your own bed frame,I assume that you're able to create your own sofa frame in blender.
Creating a square shaped Mattress
This part is going to teach you how to create a square
shaped mattress which you'll place on your sofa frame.
1.Add a Cube mesh to scene from the “Create” tab on the
Left side bar of the Blender.Then select
the Cube and resize it per your requirement.For example,I’ve resized the cube to match my sofa frame.Please read
the Step-6 of “HOW TO MAKE A CC BED FOR SIMS 4” to learn
how to resize an object in blender.
2.Press “Num 7” on
your keyboard to go Top View.
Select the mesh by right clicking on it.Press “Tab” on your keyboard to go “Edit Mode”.Then press “A” if it’s not already selected,your mesh will turn orange if it’s selected.Press “W” and click on “Subdivide” from the options.A “Subdivide” menu will appear on the left sidebar.
Assign ‘6’ as ‘The Number of Cuts’ under ‘Subdivide’ menu.
3.After assigning the cut numbers press ‘Tab’ to go Object
Mode.Select the mesh by right clicking on it if it’s not already been
selected.Click on “Subdivision Surface” under “Add Modifier” from the
“Modifiers” tab on the right sidebar of blender.
4.The edges of the mesh will become round shaped.Assign ‘2’
on the ‘View’ options under ‘Subdivision Surface’ Modifier.Then click on the
“Apply” button to apply the modifier.
Now place the seat on your sofa or chair.For example,here is
my sofa.
5.Save your work.
6.I’m now going to resize my sofa to the size of an EA loveseat. Open the Sims 4 Studio and after selecting “Create 3D mesh” click on “Object”.
7.Select any EA sofa and click next.A
option to save the package file will appear.Save it with your desired name.I
have selected the following Ottoman.After your sofa has been loaded in
the studio,click on “Export Mesh” under “Meshes” tab.Save your exported mesh.
8.Now open the blender file containing your pillow.Click on
“Append” under “File”.
Then click on your exported mesh file.
Click on “Object” folder.
Then select S4studio meshes for example “s4studio_mesh_0” as shown in the picture.Click on “Append from Library”.
9.The EA object will be
added to the scene.Delete the shadow meshes (plane shaped) and rig.Keep only
the EA sofa.
10.Move your sofa and place it beside the EA sofa.Press “Z” to
go “Wireframe” mode.Now press “Num 1” to go “Front View”.Resize the length of
your sofa to match the EA sofa.When resizing the height you must remember that
the height of your seat surface must be aligned to the EA sofa seat surface.Now
press “Num 3” to go “Right View” and resize the width of your sofa to match the
EA sofa.After you’ve finished resizing your sofa,delete the EA sofa.
11.Mesh of Sofa is done,so save your work.
Creating a square Pillow:
This part is going to teach you how to create a square
shaped pillow which you can use on bed and sofa.
1.Add a Plane to the scene from the “Create” tab.Then
subdivide the ‘Plane’ by the same method as explained in Step 2 of Creating a
square shaped Mattress.
2.On ‘Object Mode’,click on “Cloth” under “Physics” tab of
the left side bar.Then under “Cloth” menu select “Cotton” as cloth preset.You
can also select other presets than Cotton if you wish.
3.Under “Cloth Collision” put a check mark on “Self
Collision”.
4.Go to “Modifiers” tab and click on “Solidify” under “Add
Modifier”.Then click on the “Apply” button under “Solidify”.
5.Press “A” to de-select the mesh.Then press “Alt+A” on your
keyboard.You’ll see an animation of the plane falling downward.Press the pause
button on the animation player at the bottom of Blender 3D view port to stop
the animation as shown in the picture.
6.Now click and hold on the green bar of the animation timeline
and move it to the left or to the right until you see the pillow shape of the 2nd
picture.
7.Now click on ”Apply” button under the Cloth modifier.
8.Click on the “Smooth” button under “Tools” tab at the left
sidebar.
9.Apply “Subdivision Surface” Modifiers by the same method
as explained in Step 3 of Creating a square shaped Mattress.
10.Now
place your pillow on the sofa.Select the pillow and press ‘R’ to rotate it.Pressing ‘X’ key after pressing ‘R’ will rotate it along X axis.Similarly pressing ‘Y’ or ‘Z’ after pressing ‘R’ will rotate it along ‘Y’ or ‘Z’ axis respectively.Rotate the pillow according to how you want the pillow to be placed on the sofa.Change the height and resize the pillow to match
your sofa.In
game,the pillow will appear at the same size,height and angle which you
selected on blender.For example,here I changed the size,height and angle of my
pillow to match my sofa.
10.Save your work.
11.Without moving the pillow on the sofa,delete the sofa and
save the file to a different name.This file will only contain the pillow.
12.You have to also create a separate file containing the sofa
only.It’s because your pillow and sofa should appear individual objects in the
game.
Creating a round Pillow:
1.Start a new blender project or if you’re going to add a
round pillow to the same sofa or bed you used earlier to add a square
pillow,open that Blender file containing your sofa or bed.
2.Add a “Cylinder” mesh to the scene.
3.Resize and rotate the mesh to match your sofa.
4.Go to “Edit Mode” and subdivide the mesh by the same
method as explained in Step 2 of Creating a square shaped Mattress part of this tutorial.
5.Come back on “Object Mode” from “Edit Mode” and apply
“Subdivision Surface” Modifiers by the same method as explained in Step 3 of
Creating a square shaped Mattress part of this tutorial.You’ll see your mesh has become round.
6.Click on “Smooth” button under “Tools” tab at the left
sidebar to smooth your mesh.
7. Without moving the round pillow on the sofa,delete the
sofa and square pillow.Save the file to a different name.This file will only
contain the round pillow.
Below is a demonstration on how my sofa decorated with pillows will look in Sims 4 game.
UV Mapping and Map Baking for Sofa and pillows:
Open the file containing only your pillow and follow the
steps of this tutorial "UV MAP,MAP BAKING AND IMPORTING MESH TO SIMS 4 STUDIO" (The tutorial has been written for bed but the process
is same,just you have to use your pillow in the place of bed).The same procedure
goes for round pillow and sofa.
Texturing Sofa and Pillows:
Follow this tutorial to texture your UV maps.This tutorial
has been also written for bed but the process is same,just you have to use your
map in the place of mine.
Importing pillow to Sims 4 Studio:
1.Open the Sims 4 Studio and after selecting
“Create 3D mesh” click on “Object”.
2. Type “plant” in the search bar and select the plant I selected.Click next and save your package file.
3. Export the plant mesh from the studio and open
the exported blender file.
4.Press “Num 1” and “Num 5” to go “Front
View”.Append your pillow file which you have UV mapped and baked in UV Mapping and Map Baking for Sofa and pillows part of this tutorial.Append by the same method as explained in Step 8 of Creating a square shaped Mattress part of this tutorial.
5.You must move the pillow only to X and Y axis
for placing it on the place of the plant.Do not move it to Z axis or it will
change the height.
6.Select the EA plant mesh.Note down the Cut Value
number under the scene tab.Now select your mesh and assign the same Cut Value
number to your mesh.For example,my EA plant mesh’s Cut Value is 1 and
so I assigned 1 as the Cut Value of my pillow mesh.
7.Delete the EA plant mesh.
8.Decimate your pillow mesh.On the Ratio option
under Decimate modifier,select a value less than 1.
9.Save
the file.This file will be your Lod 0 (High) mesh file.This is the high quality
object which will show up in the game at high graphics setting.
10.Decimate
your mesh a little bit and save it to a different file. This file will be your
Lod 1 (Medium) mesh file.Do the same to create your Lod 2 (Low) mesh.
11.Open your EA Plant package file that you saved
in Sims 4 studio.Select “Lod 0 (High)”
and click on “Import” button under meshes tab.Import your Lod 0 (High) mesh
file that you saved in blender.Do the same for Lod 1 (Medium) mesh and Lod 2
(Low) mesh.
12.Your mesh will have EA testures by default.Click on “Import” under “Texture” tab to import the textured UV map you created in Gimp or Photoshop on Texturing part of this tutorial.
13.Click
on “Add Swatch” if you want to add more texture variant to your pillows.
14. Go to “Warehouse” and import your object’s
normal map on the place of EA normal map.
15. Import your objects’s specular map on the place
of EA specular map.
16.You can also change the name,description and
price of your object under the catalog
tab.
17.When you’re placing pillows or any deco objects
on an interactive objects like bed or sofa,you must make the deco object to be
non-interrupting to game animation so
that your Sims won’t refuse to use the bed or sofa when commanded.To do this,select
a EA Gnome in Sims 4 Studio after selecting ”Create 3D Mesh” and clicking on
“Object “.
Go to Warehouse tab,click on Object Definition.Click Edit Items on
the Footprints option.
Copy the Instance number.Now go to Warehouse tab of your
pillow and click on Footprints.
Paste the Instance number of EA Gnome on the
place of “Instance” under “Linked Footprint” of your pillow.
18.Save your file.You
can also save your package file under different name.Now copy the package file
to your Sims 4 “Mod” folder to test your square pillow in the game.
19.For importing Round pillow follow steps
1-17.Then save your mod file and copy your mod file to Sims 4 Mod folder to test your square pillow in the game.Note that you can’t skip steps 1 and steps 2 this time.Every time you import a different
object though of same EA category and
will replace the same EA mesh,you must
create a new package file of that EA mesh.
Importing pillow to Sims 4 Studio:
For importing Sofa,follow steps 1-16 of importing pillows but choose
EA loveseat or EA sofa instead of EA Plants.Do not apply steps 17 for your
sofa.After importing your sofa,save it to a mod file.Then copy your mod file to Mod folder.
While placing pillows on sofa use bb.moveobjects on cheat.Below is a picture of my sofa with pillows in Sims 4 game.This sofa and pillows used for this tutorial are also part of my Modern Kids Room Furniture Set released recently.
Feel free to comment below if you need any help regarding this tutorial.Besides the regular blog comment box,you can comment through the Facebook comment box below.You can also contact me via Email by using the contact form under "Contact Me" in the left sidebar of this page.
Posts
Thank you for the tutorial. I have been looking over blender videos and something is always off. Your tut has helped me out a great deal!
ReplyDelete