How I made the Deco Gryphons from 'Gryphon Rider' Pose Pack
The reason I'm writing this is so you can make your own deco gryphons, and this might possibly work for some other video game conversion creatures you might come across as well which is another reason why I'm writing this.
UPDATE: 25/07/25: I have had at least 3 hits from ChatGPT on this blog. If this is a result from one of you running this through ChatGPT to summarise it - DO NOT RUN ANY OF THIS BLOG THROUGH AI. I explain things at length to ensure CLARITY OF INSTRUCTION. If you screw up your project because you let your misinformation robot friend summarise the thing I spent HOURS writing, don't come crying to me asking for further help. And don't ask your misinformation robot friend for help either - READ THE DAMN TUTORIAL.
- These gryphons are about 18k polys altogether so only make and use these if your computer can handle it.
- SAVE FREQUENTLY and save backups as you go in case you make a mistake!
- Blender (I use 2.79)
- This model
- Art processing program (Optional)
- Sims 4 Studio
Once you do this, move the adult rig's b_ROOT_bind bone so it's out of the way of the centre.
Go to the box with all the meshes and scenery assets in in the top right-hand corner of the screen. You'll notice 'griffin.ao' with the little orange person. Click that, and then click S to scale it down to the size you want it to be. Giant gryphon? Baby gryphon? Your choice!
Now, expand griffon.ao by clicking the +, and highlight the Pose part with the little white person on it. Then, expand some of the different bones (or all of them if that's easier for you) to see them.
First off, once you've done this, press the A key. If the armature glows bright blue, then you're on the right track, and press A again to deselect the entire armature.
Select one bone, any bone except for ROOT_exp, and then click R and move your mouse / trackpad etc. to check that it's rotating properly. Thankfully, the rig bones for this model are all labelled clearly. Then click to Undo so it's back in its starting position.
IMPORTANT! Save this .blend file and call it something like 'Gryphon Posing Base'. That way you have one file you can quickly use to pose your decos from without having to re-import the .dae file.
Now you can get to posing the gryphon! I recommend downloading PureRef, a free program, so you can have a reference photo (if you choose) always on the top of your screen, which I find really useful for posing.
NOTES:
- The ROOT_exp bone is the same function as a Sim rig's b_ROOT_bind, and moves the entire model's position.
- Because of backface culling (hides the back faces of a mesh when viewed at certain angles), you won't always see all of the feathers at once from every angle. This is to improve graphical performance, but if you want to turn it off whilst you work in Blender: Open up the 'Shading' drop-down in the menu to the left of the assets box. You'll see it just under GLSL. Just be aware that this only affects the Blender workspace and not the in-game model's appearance, and that it might lower performance. (The only possible workaround in Sims 4 Studio I tried to do, and it didn't work.)
I suggest leaving Backface Culling on, so you can get an idea of how the model will look in-game from different angles.
NOTE: If you want the feathers to not have backface culling in-game , then I will explain how to do this later.
Basics of pose-making
- When you select a bone, Press the R key once, and you can rotate it in one direction depending on your viewpoint. Press the R key twice and you can rotate the bone more freely.
- My advice is ALWAYS make poses in Ortho mode by pressing the 5 key on the NumPad on the right-hand side of most keyboards. If your keyboard doesn't have a NumPad, you can probably bring one up on your device's On-Screen Keyboard if that's an option on your computer/laptop. I recommend doing the movements of the legs whilst viewing it from the sides to prevent too much wonkiness.
- As you are progressing your way through your pose, make sure you save it often:
- Press A whilst the 'Pose' part is highlighted, with the little white person on it.
- If done correctly, the whole armature will glow blue.
- Then, whilst your cursor is inside the 3d workspace screen, click the I key and then select LocRot.
- Once you've done this, Save the .blend file. This will ensure your pose is saved so you can a) come back to it later, or b) keep the pose saved so you can make slight edits to it for more decos later on.
Once your gryphon is posed in a way you like (all I did was move the head for this tutorial), highlight the pose in light blue by clicking A, click the I key whilst your cursor is in the 3d workspace, then click LocRot. (If you want, you can also click CTRL + C to Copy the pose in case you make an error and need to 'paste' it back in).
Save the .blend file as something different, like 'Gryphon 1' or something like that. Then, exit Blender or select File > New, then re-open your 'Gryphon 1' .blend file just to be absolutely sure that the pose is saved.
Next, once you're happy with the size of the gryphon, select the b_ROOT_bind on your Sim's rig.
Our next step is going to keep the gryphon in its pose, but most of the time, it's going to return to its original size as a result- so we need some way to make a quick sort of measuring 'marker' so we can scale the gryphon to the size we had it at when we were posing. This also helps for making further deco gryphons, as you can keep them all roughly the same size for consistency's sake.
You
can do this whatever way works for you, whether it's:
- Make a scribble just above the head, back etc. with Grease Pencil
- Using the background's grid as a rough guide
- Clicking the S key with the gryphon selected and noting down the X,Y and Z numbers in the bottom left hand corner so you can resize to the exact same size later. (To do this, click S, then click the X,Y or Z key, then input the number on your keyboard and click Enter. Do this for all 3 axis).
I'm lazy, so I actually move the b_ROOT_bind of the Sim's rig and put the feet just above the head, because I'm normal like that.
Now follow these steps:
- In the assets box in the top right-hand corner, you can see the upside-down triangle called 'griffin.mo' underneath the little white 'Pose' person. Look down further and you'll see a Wrench icon. Click that wrench icon, and you'll see the 'Armature' modifier. Click 'Apply'. This will fix the mesh into the pose of the armature.
- Once you do that, delete the 'griffin.ao' orange little person. You'll then see your gryphon return to its original size, but keep its pose. If it keeps its size, then don't worry about the next step.
- With the 'griffon.mo' mesh selected, click the S key and then scale it down, using your 'marker' as a guide when to stop.
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Now you have your deco gryphon half-done. Now, we go into Sims 4 Studio.
When you open up Sims 4 Studio, go to Object > Create 3D Mesh. When it comes to searching through game objects, in the Search bar, type 'T1-Fighter' and it will bring up a table. The reason we're using a table of all things for a deco creature, is because it's got 2 studio meshes, one of which has a glass shader (transparency) which is useful for the gryphon's feathers.
Now, select that one and save the .package as 'Gryphon 1' or something.Go to the Meshes tab, make sure the LOD is set to 0, and then select Export Mesh.
Now, back into Blender! Open your file with the glass table. Then, go to File > Append, locate the 'Gryphon 1' .blend file. Open the Objects folder, then select Griffon.mo and import it into this .blend file.
If you've done it correctly, your posed gryphon is now imported into the mesh. On the box on the right, you'll see 4 studio meshes. 3 and 4 are just the floor shadows, so use S to make them as small as possible. studio_mesh_0 is the opaque one, and mesh_1 is the transparent one.
There might be an easier way to do what I'm about to do, but I didn't know of one which is why I'm doing it this way. We need to separate the feathers from our gryphon.
- With Griffon.mo highlighted, press Tab to go into Edit Mode. Make sure the whole gryphon's wireframe is glowing blue.
- Now, look down in the bottom-right corner for the little sphere icon closer to the right-hand side of the bar. Click it, and two materials will come up.
- Select the 'material_1', and click the 'Select' button underneath the box. If you've done this correctly, all the feathers will glow orange, like below:
This selects the mesh depending on texture, which is really useful. Now, with your cursor within the 3d workspace, click the P key, then a Separate menu will pop up. Click 'By Selection'. If you've done this, you'll notice your gryphon's texture is now messed up- this is normal. You'll also now have two meshes: Griffin.mo, and Griffin.mo.001.
Save the .blend file. Now we're going to merge these two meshes with the s4studio meshes to get it to work.
NOTE: Make sure you merge Griffon.mo with s4studio_mesh_0, and Griffon.mo.001 with s4studio_mesh_1 or you'll get undesired results.
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OPTIONAL: HOW TO MAKE THE FEATHERS NOT HAVE BACKFACE CULLING
NOTE: THIS WILL GREATLY INCREASE POLYS!
I learned how to make the feathers show all sides in-game a while after I made this tutorial. If you want this, then:
- Select the feathers mesh, then press Tab to go into Edit Mode
- Press A so all the feathers glow orange and are therefore all selected
- Press Shift + D to Duplicate the mesh. DO NOT MOVE THE MESH AT ALL, immediately press ESC afterwards.
- On the little menu that's usually near the bottom of the Blender screen, go to the Mesh menu > Normals > Flip Normals.
- Press Alt + S, then type in 0.001 to slightly offset the reversed feathers.
- You'll now see the feathers from every angle.
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For starters, we will merge the OPAQUE pieces together - so the Gryphon's body. From here on, this process is very similar to making a deco sim:
- Select the 'griffon.mo' mesh (the gryphon's body) then click Tab to go into Edit Mode.
- Press the A key until it glows entirely blue, then click Tab to come out of Edit Mode. If it's already highlighted blue, then just leave it as it and Tab out of Edit Mode.
- Select the 's4studio_mesh_0' mesh. Then, press Tab to go into Edit Mode and press A until the table mesh glows entirely orange. Then click Tab to come out of Edit mode again.
- Left-click the Griffon.mo mesh. Then while holding down Shift, left-click the s4studio_mesh_0. It will select both at the same time. Then, with your cursor within the 3d workspace, press CTRL + J to merge them. If it worked correctly, the Griffon.mo mesh will be gone from the assets box on the right.
- Now, select the s4studio_mesh_0 and press Tab to go into Edit Mode. If you followed all these steps correctly, it'll appear like this, with the gryphon in blue and the table in orange.
- With your cursor within the 3d workspace, click Delete and then Faces to get rid of the table.
Now we're going to repeat that exact same process with Griffon.mo.001 and the s4studio_mesh_1:
- Select Griffon.mo.001 mesh, Tab into Edit Mode, make sure it's highlighted blue. Tab out of Edit Mode.
- Select s4studio_mesh_1, Tab into Edit Mode, make sure it's highlighted orange, Tab out of Edit mode.
- Left-click the Griffon.mo_001 mesh, then Shift+Left-Click the s4studio_mesh_1. With your cursor within the 3d workspace, press CTRL + J. If you've done it correctly, you'll now only be left with the s4studio meshes.
- Select the s4studio_mesh_1, then tab into Edit Mode. The gryphon feathers should be blue, and the tabletop should be orange. With your cursor in the 3d workspace, click the Delete key, then select Faces from the dropdown.
- Tab out of Edit Mode, and now you should have a screen that looks more or less like this:
Now we have to sort out the textures, and getting rid of all of the unecessary rig bones that are left over.
Select the s4studio_mesh_0. On the box underneath the right-hand assets box, next to the Wrench icon we selected earlier there's an upside-down triangle shape, Click it.
If you look at the scroll-down box at the top below the bar of icons, that's got all of our bones in. The ONLY one we need is the transformBone, the others are leftovers from the gryphon's rig. Use the minus symbol on the right to delete every bone except transformBone. Just hold down Enter on it for a bit.
If you accidentally delete the transformBone, put your cursor in the 3d workspace then click CTRL + Z.
Now, underneath you have the UV maps. The ONLY one we need is the md-mesh-map-0, since that's the one with the texture on it. Delete the others. Once you only have Griffin_md-mesh-map0, rename it to uv_0. You'll now see your Gryphon's texture come back.
If you scroll down a littler further, you'll see a Vertex Colour named PSKVTXCOL. I don't necessarily know if you need to delete this, but delete that too.
Now we're going to repeat all of the above fort s4studio_mesh_1.
- Select the upside-down triangle icon next to the wrench
- delete all bones except transformBone
- Delete all UV maps except for md-mesh-map-0. Then rename it to uv_0.
- Delete the 'PSKVTXCOL' Vertex Colour underneath the UV box.
There we go! We made our first LOD.
Name this file with 'LOD 0' on it somewhere, so 'Gryphon 1 LOD 0'.
We're now going to make the lower-level LODs and the Shadow LODs - this is pretty easy.
Select the s4studio_mesh_0. Click the Wrench icon, then click 'Add Modifier' and then 'Decimate'.
Dragging the Ratio bar down lowers the poly count of the model, and we're doing this for the sake of not frying computers and keeping graphical performance steady. First, we'll make the LOD 1.
As a guide to making lower level LODs:
- For LOD 1, I usually reduce it by about 40% of its original poly count. So to about 8000-7000k roughly.
- For LOD 2, you can get away with pretty low polys since it's mainly used for very far off distance. I played it safe between polys and performance and made the LOD 2 about 5000-6000 polys. You might be able to get away with lower than this, mind you, depending on graphics settings.
Once you make your LOD 1 mesh (you don't need to click Apply after you decimate), save it as 'Gryphon 1 LOD 1', and then do the same steps for LOD 2. I recommend not decimating the feathers mesh, since it won't look nice because they're all flat planes.
My LOD 1 mesh is about 7410 polys, and the LOD 2 mesh is about 5063 polys.
Now you have 3 .blend files: Gryphon LOD 0, Gryphon LOD 1 and Gryphon LOD 2. Now we're going to make the shadow LODS, and this is really easy. Start with the LOD 0 file.
For the shadow LODS:
- Delete the s4studio_mesh_3 and s4studio_mesh_4 meshes.
- Left-click the s4studio_mesh_1, then Shift + Left Click the s4studio_mesh_0.
- With your cursor in the 3d workspace, click CTRL + J. So you now only have the s4studio_mesh_0.
- Save this as 'Gryphon S LOD 0'.
- Repeat these steps for each LOD. You should now have 6 .blend files:
- Gryphon LOD 0
- Gryphon LOD 1
- Gryphon LOD 2
- Gryphon S LOD 0
- Gryphon S LOD 1
- Gryphon S LOD 2
Now we're going to import them into Sims 4 studio, so let's go back to Sims 4 studio and open up the table .package file we made earlier. First there's some quick things we need to change:
- The name of the object in-game and its description
- Go to the 'Tuning' tab, and delete the table tuning. If you want to at least have some tuning for whatever reason, you can click [None] and then search 'object_sculpture' and add sculpture tuning.
- In the Rig/Slots tab, delete every slot except for the b_ROOT, transformBone and _FX_Position ones. I don't know if this necessarily needs to be done if the tuning is changed so it's no longer functioning as a table, but I just did it to be on the safe side.
- In the Tags tab:
- under Colours, change the colour tab to 'Light Brown' (optional, but helpful for some)
- under Surfaces, un-tick 'Desk'
- under Function, tick 'Never Receives Snow'. This means your animal won't get snowed on outside and ruin story immersion.
- under Decorative, tick Sculpture.
Now we will import our LODs, so go to the Meshes tab. We're going to import all of the LODs accordingly, so make sure your LOD 0 file is imported into LOD 0 (High), and so on and so forth. And then do the same with your Shadow LODs. (Because of the complexity of these meshes, this may take some time to import.) When they import, they won't use the right textures- we'll fix that after you import all your LODs.
If you have errors importing your gryphons, the likelihood is that:
- you accidentally deleted the transformBone by mistake
- you didn't merge both parts of the gryphon properly for the Shadow LODs, or that the shadow LOD's CUT number is 1 instead of 0 for some reason.
On the merged mesh you're using for your shadow LOD, the CUT number needs to be 0. Click the 3d shapes icon, and then look at the CUT number at the bottom and make sure it's 0 for the Shadow LODs.
Now for the textures part. In the 'griffin' folder you extracted from the .zip, the textures are in there. The textures we need are griffin_colorize_d.png, and griffin_feather_atlas_D.png. Those are the ones we need. But we also need a blank one, totally transparent, to use for the Normal and Specular layers to a) not affect the feathers and b) not cause weird lines or shadows.
Go into your art program (anything that can handle transparency, like Gimp, Photoshop etc.). Open up the texture, make sure the entirety of it is COMPLETELY transparent, then save it as transparent.png or something.
Now go to the Textures tab.
Diffuse 1: Import the gryphon body texture.
Diffuse 2: Import the gryphon feather texture.
In all the Normal and Specular tabs, import the transparent texture.
If your gryphon's textures look like the above, then we're good! Now your gryphon is ready to test in-game! So let's do it.
And it works! And you can do this over and over to make whatever posed deco gryphons you want for your stories! Admittedly not every rigged creature model you'll find online will be so easy to use or import, but it's a start.
