#too afraid to go into your save file after all the updates lmao

[buglaur]

roxy’s outfit for edgewave

in love with her goofy smile

[levemetal]

I am back, after fighting my lapt every step of the way, with an update. Gonna put my rambling under the cut!

I followed your tutorial and it worked great! I merely struggled with Paragon, as maturin really really hates my pc and my windows' python installation was all kinds of fucked to hell and back, so I lost a bunch of time there. Until I decided to just hand search like an idiot. (Thank you for the screenshots, they minimized the amount of time I spent looking for Grima's files by undoubtedly many many hours) After I got it into Blender, I kinda gave up merging the face plates onto the model (this is a problem for future Leve).

So, for shit and giggles, I didn't do any edits, exported as .obj for plushify, and threw the file in.

This is what you get when you try and keep the UV map it comes with, aka I broke the webapp lmfao ദ്ദി ( ᵔ ᗜ ᵔ )

So, back to the beginning, this time telling plushify to ignore and discard the UV map. So now, it looks like this:

I'll be honest with you, at this point I'd be willing to make my own pattern from scratch.

Grima may look complex to pattern, but that is only if you do not break them down into the core shapes. Overall, how difficult Grima is depends on the level of detail you want and its size - you'll undoubtedly have to make compromises at some point and ignore details. At their base level, Grima is essentially a noddle with some flat wings, as shown in this very high effort artist rendition here:

those "Grima is a big mean worm on a string" memes were not kidding. In fact I'll probably modify one of my worm-on-a-strings to a Grima one day.

That aside though, this is a rather simple pattern - the wings can simply be 2d shapes, traced right off the model. The body would be the same as you would do for a snake, merely modifying the areas that get thicker or slimer.

So, there is plenty of material to go off of- and personally, the process of paper-patterning is usually much faster to me than navigating the very bumpy 3d model that is Grima in Plushify and selecting every single seam with some difficulty - that being said I'll try that anyway, because I wouldn't be a Fire Emblem gamer without some degree of masochism.

In fact, I'll probably working off of another pattern I already made - the process is probably quite the same. Here it is!

Yes this is a pattern I made in order to make a Nel, Rafal and Sombron dragon at some point and the armholes were moved downwards in the final version.

Regardless, applied to Grima, quickly scribbled down we'd probably get something like this:

I'd add scales and extra details as 2d pieces to be top-stitched or needle-sculpted on top or insewn (such as the neck plates). For general plush purposes, I'd ignore the mask thing Grima has - although it is certainly an option to give a big plush Grima a mask structure - and then model the face with probably borrowing techniques from fursuit makers.... but then we're no longer really making a cuddly plush so much as a plush figure. Also valid, but different detail level is all!

Also needless to say that pattern is not tested nor scaled properly to begin with - work off it if you want at your own risk lmfao. I may post the Grima pattern I come up with one day, if it's not too complex and if I can be arsed to clean up the pattern enough that it's not only readable by myself. I'm not terribly afraid of complex plushies. I did make an Eternatus after all... My standards have been lowered by it lmao.

And well, if you give up, you can always just- resort to this sort of fella! Potatogrima

(In fact I can offer that pattern up for free - I'd just have to scan in the pieces and clean it up a lil bit)

Anyway, long rant over. Thank you once more for your tutorial, it is bookmarked and saved for any future reference. I will have fun with this new knowledge of extracting Awakening models ৻( •̀ ᗜ •́ ৻)

@levemetal Hope you don't mind my bringing this out to its own post - I saw your tags and wanted to try to help!

So, ripping models is going to be a different process depending on how the game was made; what console it was on, what game engine its built in... There's no one-size-fits-all process, and it's going to require some baseline tech-savvy-ness.

But given that these tags were regarding Grima; I'll tell you more or less how I get models out of Fire Emblem Awakening.

A Ramble-y Overview of Fire Emblem Awakening Model Ripping:

Step 0: Gather your Tools

There's a lot of tools floating around intended to help with 3DS model ripping. Some are very pleasant to use and others are janky, so brace yourself.

For this, you will need:

Citra emulator (for extracting game files)

Paragon (for figuring out where models you want are)

FEAT (for decompressing game files)

SPICA (for exporting models + textures to usable formats)

Blender (for actually working with the models) (or whatever 3d modelling program you like; I only know blender though)

Step 1: Get a ROM of Awakening

Legally obtain one, of course. Assuming you have the game cartridge the 3DS hacking community can help you more with that. Definitely do not download any game roms from any online websites, why, that would be piracy!

Step 2: Extract the Game Files

Open up Citra, add a game directory and tell it where your rom is.

Right click the rom and select "Dump RomFS" to get Citra to start extracting all the game files. This will take a while. Wait for it to be done.

Once its done dumping the files, you're going to want to go to File > Open Citra folder. From there, navigate into "dump", then "romfs", then click the big nonsense folder name - that nonsense is Awakening's game ID, so, this folder is Awakening's game files.

All the models you could ever wish for are in here!!! We just need to actually find them now.

Step 3: Figure out which model(s) you want.

Time to go open up Paragon. This is technically a tool for creating mods of several fire emblem games, but we're not going to mod anything, we're just going to use it to figure out what models belong to which characters.

The github page has instructions on it, but basically you want to open up Paragon and start a new project for FE13. Create some random output folder for it and direct it to that, we don't care. But the "Extracted RomFS Directory" should be the citra folder I just told you how to get to.

Once you have the project open, there will be a lot of buttons and things. Don't worry about all this. The only two you care about right now are "Asset Definitions" and "Presets".

(Ignore the font; I changed paragon's font to awakening's font because i'm a nerd)

Most of the human characters are easiest to find in "Asset Definitions"; some under their english name, others (like Chrom) under their english base class' name.

Grima, though, you can find in "Presets" by searching for "boss".

This entry specifically is the one pertaining to grima's full body model. There's a lot of info here, but the highlighted panel on the right is the information you need; this is telling you the names of the files containing Grima's models and textures!

For human characters, typically the head and body fields will be filled in, and possibly the hair for characters with long hair. some have accessories, some don't.

This complexity is why we use paragon to check instead of checking every single model file manually like fools. (it's me, i'm fools)

Keep this window open for reference at the side for the next step.

Step 4: Go Get the Models

Make a folder somewhere on your computer to keep this character's models.

Then, go back to that Citra folder we opened up earlier.

Awakening's assets are split up into several folders. The folder you want is "b", which has most of the character and weapon models and textures. (This organization scheme is Not consistent between Awakening and the other 3DS fire emblems, watch out.)

In here, find the files paragon is telling you belong to this character, and copy them into your dedicated folder for this model ripping project.

Wow, look at all those files we can't use. Time to make them usable.

Step 5: Decompress the Files

Open up FEAT. Drag all those files onto the FEAT window. It will decompress them; there will be a copy of each file without the .lz file extension. You did it! They're decompressed!

Step 6: Extract the Models and Textures

Open up SPICA.

Click the little Folder button in the top left to open a file. Navigate to this folder you have your decompressed files in. Click on one of the decompressed files.

For MODELS, as in the .m files, you are going to click the Save button. Save each model as a .dae file, and give each a name that will make it clear which model this is - the body, the head, a specific accessory, whatever. (you can choose .smd instead if you want, but you will need a blender addon for importing smd files if you do.)

For TEXTURES, which are the .t files, there is an extra step. In the panel on the right, there is a small anime eye. That is the textures tab. Click on it, and the panel will change to a list of textures that are in that file. You should export all of them by using the special texture export button. DO NOT CHANGE THE NAMES the texture names are important.

Step 7: Blender Time

Tragically this is the most annoying part, and I can't even give you very detailed instructions off the top of my head because the exact steps are so tailored to each specific character.

Open up Blender. Go to File > Import > Collada (.dae) and import the character's component models one by one.

Each individual file will come with its own armature for posing! If you want to have a functional, posable model, you are going to have to join them together yourself. Normally this means taking a component armature, positioning it properly in relation to the body, parenting the component meshes to the body armature, joining the component armature to the body armature, and then taking whatever root bone the component had and setting it's parent bone to the right bone from the body armature. If you just joined a character's head on the body, take the root bone from the head armature and set its parent to the head bone from the body armature. Stuff like that.

Some of the weight painting may be broken, so when you pose joints on the armature some things will move incorrectly. I do not know how to get SPICA not to do that, and I haven't found any other 3DS model exporter that works with awakening that doesn't do that. Try exporting as an SMD instead. If neither dae format nor smd format works right, You're going to have to go in and re-do the broken weight painting manually. There is no shortcut to this. I am sorry.

You will also notice everymodel is split up into several meshes. If you need the character to be one singular manifold mesh, you're going to have to edit it to be that way yourself, in a way that does not destroy the UV maps. There is no shortcut to this. I am sorry.

Also: If it's Grima, be aware that their model is like 3000 blender units long. You will want to scale all their armatures down to 0.1 or something, because Blender does NOT play nice with stuff that big.

Anyway, textures.

In Awakening, a texture name ending in c0 is the base colours. A texture name ending in s0 is a specular map.

If the base colour file looks mostly transparent, that's because it's channel packed; the color and alpha channels contain two different textures. In Grima's case, the color channel is their actual colors, and the alpha channel appears to be an emission map.

So, go on into the shader editor, click on each mesh to open its material, and plug the textures into the right spots on basic shader node provided. Make sure to set the Alpha mode of the channel packed textures to say "Channel Packed". And you're good to go! You can see what the character looks like now!

If parts of textures should be transparent but aren't (like grima's eyes and wing feathers) you're going to have to figure out a solution for that yourself. I manually made my own alpha map for grima's eyes and wings, and it was Annoying but it was the only solution I could find.

Congratulations, you've done it!

You have successfully ripped a model from Awakening. Now go on and modify it however you need to; make better shaders for it, clean up the mesh and unwrap its UVs again for free plushie patterns, do silly posing shenanigans with it. Whatever your heart desires.

Good luck, dear reader, for you will probably need it.

[kassical]

My dude!! I’ve acquired a laptop!! Do you have any idea how to begin making mods or transferring them to a wii/wii u (my plans involve doing a skyward sword run which I call “maximum casualties” but I want to throw in some mods to make it more interesting and also doingbreath of the wild mods; I have the screenshot from the last question I asked and I’ve looked up Cemu by now but I’d like to get more into this if possible and I hardly know how to use this new laptop cuz it’s my first one like ever kdjdjsn lmao

I thought i ought to include the screenshot also for reference just in case also I’m sorry if this is weird or something I’m not sure cuz I’ve had a bit of A Day(tm) and I hope this at least makes sense lmao

holy shit, congrats on getting a laptop! don’t be afraid to explore it and have a bit of fun. if you haven’t got them already i reccomend getting speccy and ccleaner (partly bc the former will be handy later on w/ cemu). im gonna put the rest of this under the cut bc it is going to get preetttttty long, so brace yourself :^)

Wii hacking:

Okay, first thing is that I have never actually hacked a Wii so I am woefully lacking in knowledge on that, but there are some really good guides such as Wii Guide and this really good thread on GBAtemp.

in terms of mods for Skyward Sword there is a handful but it’s mostly recolours - however if you’re willing to get into another emulator, Dolphin, you can use a wiimote and there are HD texture mods which are pretty sweet

WiiU hacking:

the WiiU hacks guide has been invaluable and is a collab between a bunch of homebrew helpers and staff, and helps you through choosing a custom firmware depending on how you want to approach it.

Along with this, the “Definitive vWii Hacking Guide” has everything laid out, step by step, and is written as though the reader is completely new to it so is imo the easiest to really get stuck in with

Word of warning - hacking your console does run the risk of bricking it.

Cemu + emulating BoTW:

This is the bit i’m most familiar with :^) this is piracy though so i understand if it’s not for you

we want to start with getting the game - this can be done via dumping with hacking your WiiU as above (the legal-ish way), by finding a torrent/download (outdated, not as safe, not legal), or by using the WiiU USB helper (also not legal, less time consuming, safer than torrents)

so i’ll walk you through door number 3 in that case - the WiiU USB Helper. The guide linked there gives you the download for the installer, and also a video as a visual guide. 

This can also be used to transfer games to the WiiU but for now we’re focusing on emulation, which this comes packed with already.

Set an extraction and a download folder using the buttons on the bottom (I just have them both in a folder called WiiU games for ease)

Find the game you want to download and press “add” - with BoTW it will prompt you to download the updates and the dlc as well - and start downloading!

when it’s finished it will be under the header of “Downloaded” - highlight it and it’ll show the details off to the side, where you will find the option to play the game on pc

by hitting that it’ll start the extraction, which automatically makes the game playable on Cemu - the helper does that for you, and may just ask which version you want

after the extraction Cemu should automatically open but if it does you can find the .exe in \”where u put the extraction folder”\DATA\EMULATORS\Cemu\BIN

If for some reason you downloaded an earlier version you can go into the settings and tick the box to look for updates when its booted up

Last thing for this section: to get the best performance I highly recommend BSoD Gaming’s Cemu setup guide! He knows just about all there is to know in regards to this stuff and I use his guides myself even now. This is where the Speccy from the top of this behemoth will come in handy, since you will need to see how many cpu cores you have when he goes through his step-by-step guide. You do this by booting up Speccy and going to CPU on the list to the left, where it will tell you how many cores and threads you have.

Modding, Console and Cemu:

Console:

Thankfully Gamebanana has a decent amount of help in regards to this. It is more complicated to mod the game on console but this guide for installation instructions goes through each way to do it, with example packs too.

There is also the Zeldamods wiki but that can be a bit dense imo

Cemu:

For Cemu, first we need to get the BCML mod loader from the gamebanana page. The latest version, 3.0.0 is mostly stable now and is pretty versatile, just a bit slow.

All you need first is the latest Visual C++ redis which can be found here, as the installer at the bottom of the page has it all packaged in

the setup guide is fairly straightforward, but when you get to the bit where it asks for directories, it can seem confusing, but hover over the entries and it’ll have a brief explanation

when it comes to the update entry it will depend on whether you have an EU or US version, so if it isn’t in the suggested “101c9400", it may be in “101c9500″ (I run EU version)

when they are all ticked green go forward and you will have your empty list in BCML so time to get some mods!

Modding time!:

Back to Gamebanana, it’s where the majority of worthwhile mods are held and there is also a discord and tool if you wish to start creating them yourself, but I suggest playing around first :^)

Find a mod you like, eg the Zelda’s Ballad mod, and read through the page as there are sometimes certain requirements needed, until you get to the downloads

If there is a BCML 1-click install option, go for that. If not, manual download and you can add it to the mod loader using the little plus sign in the bottom right and browsing for the file

On the little pop up on the mod loader, hit install and it’ll start it’s magic by installing and enabling the mod(s)

Now - sometimes mods don’t play too nicely with each other, such as using multiple skins for the same item or character, and some of the overworld building mods can be buggy. Sometimes these can be fine just by restarting Cemu, sometimes you need to go through your modlist and root out the cause.

Another note is that if you look at your graphic packs when you boot up Cemu, under Mods you’ll see a box with BCML. Leave that checked for the most part, and if you want to disable mods I recommend going through the mod loader.

But wait, there’s more:

If you want to go even deeper, there is also Cheat Engine and there has been a cheat table released for BoTW on Cemu which runs alongside the game. This is how I’ve been able to do item replacements, but you can basically make Link go godmode with infinite hearts etc

The cheat table can be found here, and the video on how to add custom values can be found here - but I recommend getting to grips with the other stuff before this as it has more potential to mess up saves.

Phew, good god that’s a long one but if you’ve made it here then I sincerely hope you have a lot of fun. There’s Skyward Sword dungeon mods for Botw and you can get SS Link’s clothes by using the amiibo codes I’ve uploaded here, so go wild! Let me know if you have any issues - a lot can seem complicated but when it works it works really well! 

have a stronk boy for your hard work

[aharris00britney]

ASKS 18

Andromeda’s a big wide open galaxy; okay anyways here are some asks about Dead by Daylight, ayoshi collab, sims 5, my old recolors, and just some sweet people who sent me some nice messages <3

Anonymous said: In your collab with Ayoshi, the outfit that shows off the Ciara Top and Jess shorts, where can I find the garter belt accessory used with the shorts?

Those stockings get asked about SO much lmao. They are BY Ayoshi like.. idk why people ask about them. I desperately want him to remake them with new textures. Maybe one day lmao. All of his CC is in this post including the stocking (Miso Tights).

Anonymous said: Omg whos your dead by daylight main

Kate and Yui <3 I have been using Jane recently too. I play as Spirit for killer but I only do killer for the challenges LMAO

Anonymous said: I am very new to The Sims world, ts4 is my first time playing, and finding out I can have mods on my game change my world, and you are one of my favorite creators! So I just came to say you are really amazing. I think I have all of your hairs, and most of you others cc, it is because of you my townies look so cute nowadays!! Remember your effort is really valued and you are loved!!!

thank you so so so much ;n; I would really advise against having all of my hairs lmao there are like 150+ and a lot of the older ones have issues i want to fix... just need to find the time

Anonymous said: what do u use to get the little sparkles in your edits :o is it a brush?

I honestly don’t remember. Every since the first one I just use the same lookbook PSD that has the sparkle on it. These look similar though so try them.

Anonymous said: wcif the first two chokers used in your pic for your hairs you just put up on your patreon?

All of my patreon cc posts are public the day they go up. the download is for patrons only but the CC posts are public. Those always have the CC i use linked at the bottom. Always. They have since June of last year. Just go to my Patreon and scroll down to the hairs, and you will see them linked. No pledging or following required. 

Anonymous said: Do you have a Ko-Fi? I’m wary about trying to send a one-off via Patreon incase I forget to cancel the next month.

I have a paypal.me link > here < but please don’t feel inclined to donate. Also if you do a one-off with Patreon you can cancel it right after you pledge and you’ll still have access to the Patreon content til the end of the month. 

Anonymous said: not to rush you or anything but bella is one of the prettiest sims you've ever created and i can't wait for you to release her omg

Bella queen wbk (thank you)

Anonymous said: your models are so pretty! would you consider release the tray files of them?

that is the plan, not sure when though. I am building them a house rn which i’ve been having fun doing. They all lived in a basement before

Anonymous said: hi :) just out of curiosity, what is the EA policy u always mention concerning the third hairs in ur posts? thanks!

CC put on Patreon is supposed to be post within 21 days of going on Patreon. One of the community managers said it a while ago. I have the details on my Patreon about me page if you want to read and get links. <3

@ariapixie​ said: Happy New Years!!🎆🎉🎉🎆🎇🎆

thank you!!! i hope youve been having an amazing year so far <3

Anonymous said: Heey love :) I am obssessed with your hairstyles *_* you're the reason I switched from alpha to MM :) just wanted to ask you how come you no longer include recolors for your latest hairstyles? :)

well there were a few reasons:

1). I never used the recolors myself. I like the colors I just never used them 2). I got comments about the colors looking too metalic 3). I had started Patreon around that time and doing recolors for 3 (and sometimes more) hairs every month would have been a lot. Especially bc my DDS was broken so I had to do them a bit more complicated than just saving as DDS. 

I know that some people really liked my recolors, and I am sorry if me stopping caused any issues. There are actions for the hair colors and recoloring hair is really easy to learn and do. 

@sadnessimmer said: 💌This is the Amazing Person Award! Once you are given this award you are supposed to paste it in the ask of eight different people, who, in your opinion, deserve it. If you break the chain nothing will happen, but it is sweet to know someone thinks you’re amazing inside and out! 💌

Anonymous said: how is your content so amazing ily so much 🥺💕

Anonymous said: Thank you so much for all that you do! Your hairs and collabs are amazing

thank you so much! 

Anonymous said: Could you ever see yourself creating hairs (or custom content in general) for the Sims 5 once it comes out?   

If the style is something I enjoy and the creation method is similar yes

@ariapixie​ said: Hi I think tumblr ate my ask so I’m sorry if you’ve already gotten this. I really love your editing it’s so beautiful and I was wondering if you would ever consider doing a tutorial on how you do it

honestly most of the time i do stuff differently. I run the same topaz/sharpening actions every time and then add some shadows and play with curves. Nothing that is super intensive tbh. I wouldn’t even know how to go about doing a tutorial tbh

Anonymous said: What's your name on the gallery? I can't ever seem to find anything from you, or do you not have one?

aharris00britney; make sure you have CC enabled

@wcifblog​ said: Hi, I am in love with your CC. I'm a simmer for a long time but just lately I've been trying to learn how to make my own CC. I've seen some of your speed meshing videos and I was wondering if you'd ever consider making a tutorial for beginners on how to create a new mesh from scratch. (I'm trying to create a curly hair on blender but I'm stupid I guess). Thank you so much for all your work, love, Kel.

hey! thank you so much <3 I actually don’t mesh stuff from scratch though. So I’m afraid I am not able to help in that department :( I’m sorry

@tarrinix​ said: would it be possible for you to upload a mass file for download that has all of your hairs? (I'm asking for only the ones created by you so others don't miss out of credit links and things like that.)

I really wanted to get all my 2019 CC updated before the end of the year and have it up in a .zip. But I never got around do updating stuff from the start of the year. I need to get back into updating stuff I just am so.. unmotivated recently? Idk hopefully I can get all my stuff updated in the next few months and have some mass downloads for 2017, 2018, and 2019 stuff. 

@xayami​ said: any thoughts on 365? 😳

well.... im excited for B#RN. that is what matters, right? LMAO I’m going through a Weyes Blood/FKA Twigs phase rn so I haven’t been listening to much kpop. Especially at the time that 365 released.

Anonymous said: the sim modeling your piper hair can murder me and i will thank her over and over how make good sim

Anonymous said: it's not even just her it's every GODDANG MODEL!!!

LMAO Ivy is my 2nd blond model. She is a queen isn’t she? She is actually the sim from this lookbook and I just randomly added her to my models household and she stayed.