So the Sims Online had Robot Pets. And someone uploaded them over at the Free SO forums.
I mean ... obviously I'm going to try and convert them into the Sims 4, right? That's what anyone would do! Who wants good looking robot pets when they can have these babies! The dog's head is so big it goes out of the camera's screen for some of the head-on in-game profile pictures! So you know it's quality.
Anyway, what I thought would be an easy-peasy quickie conversion turned out to be a damned nightmare. Right off the bat Milkshape exports pet models into an ungodly contorted mess. And why? What good is that to anyone!? What's worse is that the latest version of the program messes up the weights, so when I import it into Blender I can't untangle them from their messed up Yoga poses! As luck would have it an older version of Milkshapes exports the weights good enough for me to try and get them into a semblance of good posture.
Only then do I notice just how messed up the UVs are! And the meshes a bit too. The dog's antennae has a broken point and the cat's nose does as well! And the UVs look really messed up. AND the heads aren't symmetrical! I'd think these models weren't ripped properly but the rest look just fine! I can only guess that all of the imperfections were hidden since the model was so small.
So I made an executive decision to fix the model as best I could. No, not to abandon the project. I don't have the sense for that.
I did my best to guess at that the artist was going for based on other animal model's UVs as well as what kinda looked right. I re-weighted everything since the weights REALLY didn't work with Sims 4. The models don't like many of the poses the new game puts them in, even after I subdivided some areas. Especially the cat's head. But I guess that's what you get for putting some ancient models in a game that's clearly not meant for them! I had to distort their rear ends to stop the tail from clipping into them too badly.
Maybe next I'll try converting something ... good. People like things that look good, right? When I have some more free time.
Anyway, these are fullbody outfits. That way the dog can morph or something. It's for Small dogs too, in case that wasn't obvious.
