Where is my Bra? and other clothing related issues... A HOWTO guide?

Hi. Short backstory:
We are running a private server (for now) that will be for children up to the ages of twleve.
As such, stripping down to underwear is not appropriate for this age group and we are looking to adjust the default clothing to be either a) A set of pyjamas or b) the cloth clothing: ideally without the temperature penalty.

WORKFLOW?:
So far “we think” we have established that the Character models use a masking system to prevent the skin being shown where clothing should be.
We can now edit the TGA files via exporting, editing and reimporting.

HOWTO?:
If there is a “HowTo Guide” for creating default clothing we will happily go read that, haven’t found one so far.
Or perhaps a tool that we have foolishly overlooked.

Please could anyone help us to enrobe our default characters more suitably for use with tiny children.
We have access to Substance Painter - et cetera - for creating the actual edits once the workflow is clear.

Many thanks.

Okay, so we figured it out. Simply “Export” the FBX file from the Editor view. Repeat this for each of the current Bra and Pantys assets to give us a couple of boned examples.

This gives us - in total - The FBX(s) that are included in the Epic Games\ARKDevKit\Model And Animation Sources\Characters<Gender>\Model hierarcy plus the couple we exported.

The Epic Games\ARKDevKit\Model And Animation Sources\Characters\Female\Model is a skinned mesh - are we to use this information to create the skin for the new models? Via Skin wrapping perhaps?

I suspect the information we need to ensure that skins deform properly is already there and the subsequent deformations are elegantly handled by ARK’s character system or UE4 - whichever is doing the donkey work, either way it would be nice to have a point of reference from someone who has skinned clothes before.

We are part of the the Nvdia Gameworks Program and have access to create Apex clothing at some point in the future.

Please could someone confirm a clothing creation workflow for UE4/ARK with specific reference to the TPV Female and Male Pawns used in ARK.

Much obliged.

There isn’t really any masking taking place that I’m aware of.

The underwear are skeletal meshes - so they deform with movement and the customisation for the body - and as such are separate from the body.

Modifying the default textures could be a way of covering things up, but it would look a little out of place I would think.

The simplest thing and most direct thing you could do, if you want to use the cloth armour without the benefits of it, is add the skeletal meshes for those items directly to the three pawn files(there are three and all three are needed when modifying the pawns else things get screwy and the underwear goes missing… lol). Then either cook this via a Total Conversion(locking you out of using any other total conversion) or as a Core-Data mod that must be the first mod activated in the line.

I could probably provide some screenshots to better illustrate and define a few further things if you wish?

-WM

It looks like they’re attached in the PlayerPawnTest class in:

Default Attachment Infos
.1
…StaticMesh
.2
…StaticMesh

Replacing those should do the trick.

Yes, they are, but they’re skeletal meshes, the static mesh is for the implant.

Basically, it would go something like this.

Select the Game folder in the content browser and search for PlayerPawnTest, and copy the three files to a new mod folder.

From there, name them uniquely - ex. PlayerPawnTest_MyMod, PlayerPawnTest_Male_MyMod, etc. - and save them. Then in the gender childs, go to File > Reparent Blueprint > Find the new PlayerPawnTest_MyMod you just created.

After that, in the gender childs, search for the Default Attachment Infos. In those, expand Component To Attach, go to Mesh, and change them to the gender for cloth for both underwear sections for the female (Search for Burlap in the menu that appears, they’re not named cloth at the file level).

For the male it’s a little different as it only has the one, but follow the above for the underwear. So you’ll just need to add a new Attachment info with the plus button on the head of the section, after that set Use Parent Anims and Use Ignore Attachment when Equipment Of Type both to True. And change Ignore Attachment when Equipment of Type dropdown to Shirt. After you’ve done that, set component to attach to Skeletal Mesh, expand that, then in Mesh set that to the male Burlap shirt mesh.

Setting the Ignore Attachment type allows the game to essentially “ignore” the meshes for the shirt and pants when armour is equipped, so you won’t see it - it probably removes it from the mesh. You’ll only need to do that for the male with the new attachment.

Once all that is done, save and compile. From there, you have a choice to make. Either set this up as a total conversion, or as a core-data mod. I’m not entirely familiar with setting up TC’s yet so I’ll just talk about the core-data mod for now.

With that you need the three files in the GenericMod mod folder, copy them over. Name those uniquely too. From there, some basics, open the level file, and go to the world settings and change PrimalGameData Override to the PrimalGameData_YourMod. After that, open the PrimalGameData_YourMod and search for TestGameMode and assign your TestGameMode_YourMod to it. After that, search for Gender Definitions and assign your new genders there, and after that go your TestGameMode_YourMod and assign the Default Pawn Class as your PlayerPawnTest_MyMod that I mentioned earlier - this is why all three are needed.

Once all is said and done, compile and save everything. Then, go to File > Open Level > TestMap. Once that’s loaded back up, go to the world settings again and assign the PrimalGameData override to yours and this is where you can test the changes in the editor. To do that just hit the Play button on the toolbar at the top of the viewport.

That sounds like a lot of work, but it’s really simpler than it looks sounds like, and should about cover it. Just to get the basic cloth armour from the very beginning anyway. Getting to custom meshes, is a little more work and requires creating new meshes, or you could just export/import textures to replace the ones on your new pawns. If you do that however, you’ll need to copy the skeletal meshes to your mod folder and go back through and name them uniquely and assign the textures to those ones(after importing them) so as to not overwrite the default files in the DevKit.

If you have any questions, just ask, I should be able to answer them, if not someone else probably could chime in.

-WM

Thanks for this feedback - we will in the first instance attempt to put together a simple mod that merely replaces the underwear with the cloth pants and shirt items.
When we get our head around what is required for the py/pajamas that can be phase two.

Perhaps we shall entitle the mod “Modesty” :wink:
Many thanks for your timely and knowledgeable feedback.