Beginning Clothing/Body Meshing Tutorial - Using Unimesh/Milkshape

[tiggerypum]

There is now a new, updated version of this tutorial using new plugins and tools that teaches a little bit more.

http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorials:Unimesh_1_-_New_Mesh_Basics

Please use the updated tutorial instead!



Beginner Clothing Mesh Tutorial – Using Unimesh/Milkshape


This tutorial is inspired by the meshing tutorial first created by WDS BriAnna over a year ago. This version focuses on using the new Unimesh Plugin. The SimPE sections were created by Tiggerypum, and the Unimesh Plugin sections created by HystericalParoxysm.

:!: Meshing is DIFFICULT. There are a lot of steps. Even experienced meshers sometimes have meshes not show up right, explode, or do other fun things. This is a very complete tutorial, don't rate it poorly just because it didn't work the first time you tried. Unless you really don't want to see any more tutorials on site. :blink:

This tutorial will guide you through all the steps involved in modifying a body mesh for Sims 2. You must always start with a game mesh as your base.

The Unimesh plugin does allow for adding and deleting of vertices of the mesh, although this tutorial uses those features *in a very limited way*. Once you complete this tutorial as written, then you can go delve into the Unimesh manual (or complete the Unimesh Tutorial #2 and #3) because important features like uvmaps and bone assignments are not actually covered in this tutorial. There's still a LOT to cover, as you will see.

To follow this tutorial you will need:

(make sure you've got the latest!)

Milkshape 1.78 or higher http://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/ (this is not a free program, after 1 month it costs $25 to register it)

Unimesh Plugin 4.05 or higher http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=122399

SimPE (.58) or higher http://sims.ambertation.de/ Note that SimPE is regularly updated/improved, so please always get the newest one, unless otherwise indicated here. SimPE .58 actually had a fix for body meshes.

:!!: If this is your first time getting SimPE, make sure you download and install all the stuff they list at: "Needed Software to run SimPE". If you don't, you'll get errors or blank screens when you try to do parts of this tutorial and be unable to complete your project!

Basic knowledge of Bodyshop (tutorials for that can be found here: http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=249 and of Milkshape, although we'll try to guide you through (basic tutorials for that can be found on the web)

And you will need time and patience. There are a lot of steps to modifying a body mesh. Even experienced meshers sometimes have to redo part of their work, so take your time and relax.

Goal:

Modify the women’s long gown to no longer have the hanging decoration on the back. And learn all the steps needed to make your own mesh file and get it working in the game.

Part I – Create a Temporary Texture for Testing

:here: NOTE: You must use a MAXIS GAME MESH as your starting point for this procedure. I suggest first time through to do the tutorial as written, even though the gown is already on site. It's good practice and will make it easier to follow along.

1) Run Bodyshop and choose an outfit you’d like to modify.
(Create Parts/Start a New Project/Create Clothing/Formal) In this example, we’re going to use the formal woman’s gown, and take that odd hanging thing off the back of it. We’re going to pick a name we can find, and as this is only a temporary texture we’ll be using, let’s name it “MeshTutorialTemp”. Import it into your game, use any tooltip and category you wish, I’m going to leave it as a formal. Close Bodyshop.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300955

Part II – Finding the Parts of the Mesh

2) Run SimPE.

3) Open the texture you just exported in Step 1. It will be in your Saved Sims folder (My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Saved Sims) and will be named with a set of numbers at the beginning, and then the filename you gave it. For example: 7f61a2a4_MeshTutorialTemp.package

4) Look for the property set (it will be dim, in the second column). There you will see the name of the mesh. In this case afbodydresslongloose_grayline. The important part of this is the ‘afbodydresslongloose’, you can ignore the ‘grayline’ part.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300959

5) Go to your desktop and make a new folder for your project. For example, My Documents/TutorialDress

6) Go to SimPE and use the menu File – New

7) Use the Finder Tab (it should be on the right edge or the bottom of the screen, if you can’t see it, try the menu Window – Resource Finder) and put in the name “afbodydresslongloose” and hit the Start button. SimPE will chew on this for a while, there will be a green bar updating at the bottom of the screen. This was really slow on my system, now might be a time to get up and stretch or grab a glass of water.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300960

8) We’re going to look for our mesh parts in 4 files; The GMDC from the Sims03.package, the GMND from the Sims04.package, the SHPE from the Sims05.package, the CRES from the Sims06.package.

Scroll down until you see the Sims03.package file. Choose the GMDC by double clicking on Geometric Data Container: afbodydresslongloose _tslocator_gmdc. You do not want the LOD version. Wait for a bit (the gmdc is slowest to load) and the green bar will do it’s thing twice.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300961

9) Now you should see the Sims03.package open, with the gmdc we clicked highlighted. Right click on it and choose ‘Extract’ and save it to the folder you made (TutorialDress)

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300962

10) Click on the ‘Finder’ tab again, and look for Sims04.package, and find the Geometric Node: afbodydresslongloose _tslocator_gmnd. Double click on it.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300967

11) Now the Sims04.package will open. Right click on the highlighted gmnd, and extract it to the folder you made (TutorialDress)

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300968

12) Repeat steps 10 and 11 two more times looking for Sims05.package with Shape: afbodydresslongloose_untagged0_shpe, and Sims06.package with Resource Node: afbodydresslongloose_cres. Extract them to the same directory.

Part III – Building Your New Mesh Package

13) In SimPE make a new package using menu File – New

14) Right click on the empty window with the heading ‘Type’ and select ‘Add’. Select one of your files, then right click and add again, until all 4 files are shown.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300963

15) Save the file. Use menu - File - Save As
Leave the filetype at the first selection (DBPF Package (*.package;*.cache;*.template))
Name your mesh file something like:“MESH_yournick_agesexmeshname_date”
for example: MESH_Tig_afgown_mar2006
Save this file into your “My Documents/EA Games/Sims 2/Downloads” folder.

16) Fix Integrity – it’s in menu Tools – Object Tools – Fix Integrity

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300964

17) A box will pop up. Type in a unique name for your mesh, for example, the filename. Click on Update. Then click on OK.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300965

18) Save your mesh file. (menu File - Save)

19) Save your new Resource Node (CRES) and Shape (SHPE) files to your project folder by Right Clicking on each and choosing 'Extract'. Give them the name ‘modifiedcres’ and ‘modifiedshape’, so you can tell them from the originals.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300966

Part IV – Attaching Your New Mesh to the Temp Skin

20) Open your bodyshop package from your saved Sims folder. (see step 3, it’ll be named something like 7f61a2a4_MeshTutorialTemp.package)

21) Right click on the packed files window and use ADD, and add your modifiedcres file. Right click again and use ADD and add your modifiedshape file.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300969

22) Go to the 3D ID Referencing File (3IDR).
Click on it in the left window, click on it again in the right window.
In the plugin view tab, you will see a button that says Package. Click on the Package button. A window will pop up.

If you don't see any information at the bottom half of the screen (and thus no Package button) look for the 'plugin' tab at the very bottom or right side of the screen and click on it. If you can't find it still, go the the Menu 'Windows' and select 'plugin'.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300970

23) Drag your shape and resource node from the popup window into the list on the left. You will now have two shapes and two resource nodes. Close the pop up window.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300971

24) Click on the resource node at the top of the list and delete it by clicking delete. Click on the shape at the top list and delete it.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300972

25) Move your new shape and resource node from the bottom of the list up to the top by clicking on the name, then clicking the UP button. When you’re done, the Resource Node should be the first entry, and Shape the second.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300973

26) Click the Commit Button

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300974

27) Delete the Resource and Shape from the Packed Files list by right clicking on them and choosing delete. A line will go through them. Then SAVE.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300975

28) Now is the time to test to see if you still have a working package. Start up Bodyshop. Click on Create Parts - Create New Clothing. Look for the dress in the category you chose (most likely formal). Your recolor will have a ‘*’ in the corner. Click on it. If the dress shows up on the mannequin, then so far so good. If you see nothing, or it changes to a different outfit, you might need to try repeating Part III or Part IV over again. You should now quit bodyshop, all you needed to do was click and see the texture on your mesh. Without any changes to the mesh, it’s hard to know for sure if you’re viewing your new mesh, but so far it looks good.

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300976

In the future when you check your mesh this way, your new shape will show up on the mannequin, although the thumbnail (the small picture) will be unchanged. So you’ll be looking for this same thumbnail.

Next it's time to edit your mesh. Go to the next message for the rest of this tutorial.

[HystericalParoxysm]

(this is the second part of the body mesh editing tutorial by Tiggerypum and HystericalParoxysm)

Part V – Editing Your Mesh (finally!)

29) Opening Milkshape should give you something like this:

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial01-s.jpg

30) If you have the keyframer present along the bottom, get rid of it; we won't be using it. Window - Show Keyframer.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial02-s.jpg

31) And then make sure Auto Smooth is turned off under the Groups tab:

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial03-s.jpg

32) File - Import - Sims 2 UniMesh Importer V4.05. You'll probably have to scroll down in the very long list of filetypes.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial04-s.jpg

33) Choose the GMDC you exported from your mesh package. It will have a long funky name, like AC4F8687-1356E054-1C0532FA-FF300D1E.5gd. It will be the only 5gd file you have in your working folder.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial05-s.jpg

34) You'll get a popup that asks if you want to create blend groups. Tell it "Yes."

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial06-s.jpg

35) Oh noes! What are all these blue circles and lines doing here? Milkshape has a huge default size for the skeleton, so let's shrink those down. File - Preferences is where we'll find that setting.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial07-s.jpg

36) Change Joint Size from 1.000000 to 0.01 and click OK.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial08-s.jpg

37) Then under the Joints tab, uncheck Show Skeleton.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial09-s.jpg

38) Right-click in the bottom right window and make sure Wireframe Overlay is checked. This is helpful, as it lets you see what vertices or faces you have selected on your 3d view.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial11-s.jpg

39) Under the Groups tab, click ~00MORPHMOD.0 (fat) and then click hide. Click ~00MORPHMOD.1 (pregnant) and then click hide. This will leave just the body (normal) body visible. (depending on the version, it might be .1 and .2 - just hide them)

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial10-s.jpg

40) Under the Model tab, click the Select tool, then drag a box around the dangly-thing along the back of the model in the upper right viewport. Don't worry about an exact selection here. Right-click in the upper right viewport and choose "Frame Selection" to zoom in on that area.

(If nothing selects - make sure the 'select' button, and then the 'vertex' button is selected, and 'ignore backfaces' is NOT checked - and try again)

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial12-s.jpg

41) Repeat this for each of the viewports, so you have the dangly-thing framed in each of the viewports. If you need to re-center the view, ctrl-click and drag within the viewport. If you need to zoom in or out, click the Select tool again so you don't have any tool selected and shift-click and drag within the viewport. If you get lost, you can always right-click within the viewport, Frame All, and try again.

NOTE: Milkshape appears to have a bug that will sometimes make moving within the 3d view or viewports near impossible (it still moves, but in uselessly tiny increments). If you find this is happening, right-click within that pane and choose "Reset View" and you should be able to move normally again.

Select the dangly-thing in the top right viewport, and then right-click in the 3d view and choose "Frame Selection" so you can see what you're doing there. You may have to click and drag to rotate to see it properly. When you've got everything aligned, your screen should look something like this:

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial13-s.jpg

42) Click and drag in the top right viewport to select the dangly-thing as shown.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial14-s.jpg

43) In the process, you'll also grab some of the vertices along the back. Shift-right-click those vertices to deselect them.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial15-s.jpg

44) Press the DELETE key on your keyboard to delete the dangly-thing. It should just disappear and leave the back of the dress smooth in the 3d view. If you have a hole in your mesh after deleting, you still had some vertices selected in the back; Edit - Undo and select again.

Now go back to the Groups tab. Select body and then click Hide. Select ~00MORPHMOD.0 and then click Hide. (or .1 if you don't have a .0)

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial17-s.jpg

45) We now have the fat body mesh showing. Select and delete the dangly-thing the same way you did for the regular body mesh. Then hide ~00MORPHMOD.0, make ~00MORPHMOD.1 (pregnant) visible, remove the dangly-thing from it, too. (again, or .2 - at any rate the pregnant morph)

Once you have all the dangly-things deleted, make all of your groups visible again.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial18-s.jpg

46) We're almost there. We need to make sure all the bone weights add up to exactly 100%. (sorry no pic)

Go to the VERTEX menu and select "Sims 2 Unimesh Fix Underweighted Bones" (be sure to choose the correct command, there are 2 similar commands on that menu)

If there were underweight bones, a popup will display saying how many were fixed. Click OK.

:!: If you skip step 46, your mesh will exhibit strange display behaviors in game, going transparent in odd places!

47) If everything looks good, you can now export your finished mesh. File - Export - Sims2 UniMesh Exporter V4.05a.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial19-s.jpg

48) Give it a new name and choose Save. Give it a name like ‘newmesh1’ (this way you if you make further changes, you can use newmesh2, etc).

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial20-s.jpg

If all goes well, your mesh should save and be ready for re-importing to SimPE. If you messed up, you'll get an error message. The error shown is explaining that the pregnant body mesh doesn't have the same number of faces as the others; either something that shouldn't have been deleted was deleted, or something that should have been deleted wasn't. Go back and see if you can find out where you went wrong. You may be able to undo your changes, or it may just be easier to File - New and start over.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/tutorial03/tutorial21-s.jpg

Part VI – Putting Your New Shape Into Your Mesh Package

49) Start SimPE and open your mesh file. (for example Downloads/MESH_Tig_afgown_mar2006)

50) Right click on the Geometric Data Container and select REPLACE. Choose your new gmdc (named ‘newmesh1.simpe)

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=300992

SimPE will pop up a box saying ‘Resource Changed, should SimPE reload it’. Click Yes.

51) Now SAVE your new mesh file. Quit SimPE.

52) Now test if your new mesh works in bodyshop and in the game!

http://thumbs.modthesims2.com/getimage.php?file=29793

If your work did not show up in bodyshop, or does not look like you expected - there is a Frequently Asked Questions / Infocenter forum (http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=451) here at MtS2 that you should check, many of the basics are covered there. You might also try the tutorial again, and can ask for help (be as specific as possible) here in this forum.

Part VII - You're done! You rock!

Now you can go back to body shop and create new outfits for your modified mesh. Simply start a new project and recolor the 'temp' outfit, and it will use your new mesh. Once you've made a new recolor, you can delete the original (numbers)MeshTutorialTemp.package.

You can further refine your mesh (and it might be necessary, for other kinds of mesh edits) by adjusting the UV Map for your outfit. You can learn more about that, and find links to tutorials here (http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=135139)

You can share your new mesh by putting your mesh file (from your Downloads folder) and at least one recolor file (from your Saved Sims folder) together and zipping them. (for example, MESH_Tig_afgown_mar2006.package and 7f61a2a4_MeshTutorialTemp.package)

If you wish to share your new mesh here at MtS2, please look at the creator guidelines (http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=338) in the downloads area, take the time to make a nice recolor for your new mesh, and get some good in game screenshots of your work to show it off.


:!: If you want to REALLY learn how to mesh, YOU ARE NOT DONE. This tutorial is the 'baby steps' to get you started. You must go DO the next two unimesh tutorials and make some meshes with similiar changes of your own - THEN you can take over the universe! Look for them here (http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=445)

You also might want to invest time in learning how to make totally new parts in milkshape - to do that go look with google for milkshape tutorials - any tutorial that teaches you how to make something in milkshape will show you some things you can apply to your sims meshes. Don't bother with animation, just focus on building shapes you want.

We hope you enjoyed this, and have fun making your own creations. It does get easier each time you do it! :up: Scrolling up and hitting that 'thank you' button would be nice, btw.

[kingconker1]

Part V – Editing Your Mesh (finally!)

... quoted material edited out....

Thank you so much :beer:

[Naz]

Thanks, it's a very clear tutorial and very easy but still I must've done something wrong because my 'creation' shows up like this:

http://www.5images.com/uploads/a24ed1222c.jpg

She's invisible =)

[tiggerypum]

Hmm, try repeating part I and then Part IV - be sure to find your newest recolor (maybe give it a slightly different name) and see if that does it.

[scionxbabe]

I was haveing an issue after #28 when trying to check the dress in bodyshop the dress turned out as a different base game dress from when i started BUT after reinstaling my games it works great VERY helpful tutorial! Thanks :nod:

[.Hanna.Webster.]

Thank you so much! I have always wanted to make my own meshes and I'm very surprised but it works! :O Thank you!

[kmm0219]

I finally got the dangly thing deleted, but when I try to export the file from Milkshape, I get an error stating: "Unassigned bone(s) exist" - what does this mean?

[HystericalParoxysm]

kmm0219, try going back and redoing it from step 29. I'm not sure what you would have done to get that, as no bone assignments should change at all if you follow the steps exactly as pictured.

[chinita]

First and foremost, I wanted to say what a great job you did on this tutorial. I'd never attempted to do meshes before because of how complicated it seemed. But, I've been able to start working on a couple since I came across your tutorial. I'm just having a minor problem. I follow your instructions step by step and everything seems perfect until I tried to put the mesh on a Sim. That's when I realized that something funny was happening. My Sim's hair was disappearing in certain spots, right around her shoulders. My mesh alterations were concentrated on the lower half of the body, so I don't see why this should be happening. I was hoping you could give me some suggestions to figure out what the problem is.

[tiggerypum]

OOPS - Unimesh is new, and I believe we did miss a step!
For perfect display in the game, all the bone weights must be 100%
We did not touch any bone weights, because we were trying to keep this tutorial to a very simple minimum, but I forgot that there is a rounding errror such that they might not be exactly that. We'll need to update the tutorial.

Load you mesh into Unimesh.
Go to the Vertex Menu
Select the Automatic Re-weighting Tool
If there are any boxes that pop up, click okay
Now export your mesh

Sorry! Let me know if that fixes this minor display issue, it should.

Edit: Step now added to the Tutorial, so this shouldn't happen again - go back and check step 46 :)

[chinita]

If I want to do this with a mesh I'm just altering for the first time, at what point should I do this?

[tiggerypum]

It doesn't matter exactly when you do it, you just need to do it and save it. When the plugin translates the data from the original gdmc, it rounds that data up or down to the nearest whole number, thus some vertices end up with totals of 98, 99, and 101, although *most* are 100%. Once you've fixed it once for that mesh, you are set. Doesn't matter if it's before or after some edits. If you do it more than once, no harm will be done.

(although if you ADD parts to the mesh, you will also need to make *new* bone assignments, which is beyond the scope of this tutorial - there's stuff to explain and only so much that can be covered in one session.)

There is a level of explanation in the Unimesh Manual regarding sim bodies and the bone assignments. It's not a tutorial, but it can probably take you to the next level.

[chinita]

I'll give it a try. Thanks a lot. :D

[lazybones04]

thankyou veri much ^^,

[Nocturnus]

Tiggerypum, you refered to added parts and bone assignment, mabye you or somebody else could help me

I made a mesh, with complete new bones(all sizes) and now I have to re'weight' them, but my Milkshape allway crashes on doing this. Got an idea how I could get this mesh working for my sims
Reinstalling is no good, tried it allready

[tiggerypum]

Nocturnus, please start an entirely new thread in the main bodyshop-meshing area, because whatever you're doing is far beyond the scope of this tutorial.
Please include the tools used (unimesh), and what steps you took to build this new mesh, maybe a screenshot of it in milkshape and people will have some suggestions. I assume you did use a gmdc to start with, so that you have a skeleton in there... anyway, do explain in a new thread. Over here http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34 :)

[kipthebooty]

Ohhh... I am always so tired of the limited hairs out there, so this will be awsome making my own!

[atrgirl77]

This is so great, I've tried to make meshes with other tutorials before, but it'd never work, I just grabbed a pair of capris as a test, just to make them a bit longer and it worked! wooohoooo!

[atrgirl77]

Is there a way to make it so that the alpha isn't just stretched? like... I went and made a skirt longer, the part of the mesh that I modified (bottom part of the skirt) just stretches the alpha. So if I want to have the skirt with a pattern, it looks really awful, it just stretches the bottom part to fit the mesh.

[HystericalParoxysm]

atrgirl77, you'll probably need to adjust the uv mapping of your mesh to fix the proportion of the area mapped to the skirt... Tig's done some great instructions on how to edit UV maps in Milkshape here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=135136

[Ghanima Atreides]

This is great, it was the first time -ever- I did anything in a 3D program, but following this tutorial step by step, not rushing it (lol) worked! Dangly thing is gone, and hopefully I'll be able to figure out more complex things now too. ;)

Thank you!

One question though: what is the difference between using the "Unimesh plugin" and the other Meshtool...?

[Angelcookie51]

I followed every step of this tutorial, and everything was going fine until it got to the bit where I had to delete the vertices. I can't get just those little dots like in the Screenshot, Theres lines with dots and it wont fully delete the dangly thing. Can anyone help?

[Ghanima Atreides]

Angelcookie, I had that problem too until I tried some other options in the program :) When you have the Select button active, on the bottom there are : Vertex, Face, Group, Joint. Click on the first one to connect the dots only. I hope that helped!

[Angelcookie51]

Thanks so much Ghanima Atreides! I'll try that tomorrow, bit tired to do it now, lol. But thank you so much! I'll let you know if it works tomorrow :D

[tiggerypum]

Ghanima Atreides, Unimesh and Meshtool are two different tools that allow us to edit sim meshes. They use different approaches, and one is much more limited.

Meshtool - you can move vertices but not delete or add. It uses obj format, which means several different 3d editors can be used to edit the meshes. It has limitations but it's still useful for small changes.

Unimesh - you can add or delete parts of the mesh. Works with milkshape only. It is the more flexible of the two, but also more complex because of that - because when you start really changing the mesh you need to learn about bone assignments and more.

[Ghanima Atreides]

I see, thank you for your response:) One last question I have is:

Is there a way to mirror the changes you made to a mesh normal body size to the fat and pregnant sizes with precision? I mean, deleting a dangly thing was easy enough to do in all three but I'm thinking, when changes get more complex, one won't be able to retrace the same steps 3 times...I hope that made sense lol!

[atrgirl77]

I just try to match it as closely as I can, at least that's what I did when I tried creating meshes, hiding and unhiding worked just fine. I might try again with 3d studio max 7, because when you get around to the whole uv map thing... everything else seems like a walk in the park.

No amount of modifying the uv map managed to fix my mesh, it's still stretched no matter what I do, so I'll just wait til someone writes a working tutorial.

[tiggerypum]

Ghanima Atreides, you could leave your morphs all visible at the same time, and select the vertices for all of them at the same time. Or you could copy the morph's comments to a safe place, duplicate the main body mesh after you're done editing it, and then copy the morph's comment to the new group. then just adjust the areas to make it fat (or preg, if it has preg), and then rename that morph to the same name as the other, and delete the other. It's both complicated and simple.

atrgirl, I'm sorry you've not figured out the uvmapping yet. If you stretched the hem down, you will need to move the leg/arm whatever uvmaps first to compress them more and get them out of the way, so that you can actually move the bottom hem of your uvmap lower. Then move the next row down, and keep fiddling with things, moving a row at a time (grab the front and back at the same time, and use a grid like I do so you can see how things are matching up/even or not).

[atrgirl77]

that's what I did, I made a red grid pattern with photoshop, just made a square then reduced the selection by a couple of pixels and used that as a pattern to fill a 1024 X 1024 area, I basically made it so the -new- UV map looked like the new mesh, pulling down line by line so that the squares are as even as I could get them, even made sure the front and back squares matched, I spent almost two hours on that alone, but when I went back to bodyshop after tying the new mesh to the packages... it was still stretched, as if I had not made any changes, I looked the the 3d studio max tutorial that someone posted and it looks like it's actually easier to edit that way, I might try that this weekend if I have time, I wish I could try it right now, but I'm at work and I'm on linux. This is utterly frustrating when you watch two hours of work amount to absolutely nothing, if it least it had changed a little, Id know I'm on the right track, but there was no change at all, I tried putting a camo pattern on the skirt just to test it out and the same part as before was stretched. I even created a new alpha, with lithunwrap and i ended up having to cut it out because it was showing up on the legs of the sim below the skirt...I'm so disappointed, I finally manage to modify a mesh and have it actually show up, but all the work is unusable because of that UV map.

[Ghanima Atreides]

Thanks, tig, I'll give it a try :)

Good luck with your uvmapping atrgirl, I haven't even tried that yet. lol

[tiggerypum]

atrgirl - you need to modify that uvmap using milkshape - if you take the mesh out into some other program, all the bone information and so on will be *lost*, and you can't bring it back into milkshape to save your new gdmc.

[Saikatsu]

I seem to have a severe problem using the Unimesh plugin. ANYTHING that I bring back in to SimPE from it doesn't display properly anywhere but the mannequin Sim in Body Shop. When viewed from the front, it typically looks okay... but if the model is rotated to a side view, things go horribly wrong. The arm closest to the camera is suddenly obscured by the body in some cases. Places where sleeves are near where the exposed arm is get obscured. Hair hanging over the Sim's back gets obscured. The sim's hand appears to be partially inside the body.
I thought at first I did something wrong before exporting it back out of MilkShape, so I tried importing the unedited GMDC again, immediately exported it again without editing anything, and it's still messed up... has anyone else had this problem? I've noticed that MilkShape crashes whenever I close it, so I don't know if it's maybe a bad install or what that's causing it...

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the display problem occurs both in Body Shop and the game itself.

[tiggerypum]

Underweight bones. See step 46. Not having the bone assignments adding up to exactly 100% will cause display problems as shown.

[Saikatsu]

Ahh, I see, I missed that step. I didn't actually read the whole thing since I'm already familiar with body mesh editing, I see that's managed to foil me. I'll give that a try, thank you!

[atrgirl77]

I had a similar problem earlier, I gave editing the UV map another shot, I edited the black skirt with boots, just to make the skirt flare a little, when I went back to body shop, if I put any top with it, the texture reflexes itself on the skirt... the rest is white, it's really weird, I'll try and post a screenshot, it's under another user i use for meshing only (bodyshop loads faster that way), I thought I had figured out the UV map... but that's seriously freaky

[Saikatsu]

Okay... apparently I don't have the menu option mentioned, all I have is "Sims 2 UniMesh Bone Tool V4.00" and that's it. Nothing about fixing bone weights. It edits them, sure, but I don't think that's what I'm looking for.
EDIT: Apparently it also freaks Milkshape out really badly and makes it crash...

[tiggerypum]

You need the most recent milkshape *and* the most recent unimesh, we're beyond 4.0. Then you'll have that extra option, and it also probably won't crash, there was some crashing reported near the beginning.

[atrgirl77]

So this is a lost cause?

[Saikatsu]

Ah, okay, perhaps you should remove the part about 1.77 minimum then? I could swear I saw that you needed just 1.77 for the plugin. I don't usually make this many mistakes with reading directions, honest. :P That fixed the problem right up, thank you!

[tiggerypum]

Saikatsu the bigger problem was that your Unimesh plugin was way out of date. The first one had crashing problems.... Now the latest milkshape (which was only just released) has some fixes that let us use more commands w/o losing the bone assignments. I'll update both to reflect that people should have the newest.

atrgirl... I don't know too much about how seperates are built in the game, but it seems to me that it's likely that when using tops and bottoms, that the game *combines* the two graphics together in order to wrap them around the mesh, and if you slid your skirt's uvmap way up the graphic (not where it was at first) that indeed it might then pick up the shirt instead. Why don't you make a new thread in the main area and post the project and someone can take a quick look at it. Post a folder with your mesh and your saved sims file.

[halo1freak3]

In step #10 when you have to search for Sims04.package, it wont give me any results. could you help?

[HystericalParoxysm]

halo1freak3, make sure you didn't get any part of the name with an underscore in it, i.e. in the example the name is "afbodydresslongloose_grayline" and you only need "afbodydresslongloose" - you won't get the right results if you have the "_grayline" part in it.

Also make sure that the settings on your resource finder match exactly what's shown in the screenshots - if the settings are different, you'll get no results.

Also also, make sure your SimPE has been set up properly... all of the directories correct under System Folders in your SimPE preferences... SimPE will need to know where to search, so if that's incorrect you might not get any results.

Also also also, (and I'll bet this is the problem) make sure you don't have Body Shop, Homecrafter, File Maid, or any program that might otherwise access the game's files still running. CTRL-ALT-DELETE and make sure they're not still running but not showing, too. I've had trouble with the resource finder getting results if I forget and leave Body Shop running after making a recolour package.

[halo1freak3]

OH thx, that bodyshop was it i bet im going to test it right now=)

[halo1freak3]

well well well.... i still dident get any results but i scrolled down and found it.....will it still work?

[master101]

every thing whent as planed but untill the export
it not faces or anything

[tiggerypum]

Halofreak, as long as you find the parts (and don't take the LOD versions) you can save them out. There's a long version of how to find parts in the original tutorial here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=43092

Master101, I'm sorry but I'm not sure exactly what you're describing. You need to give more details, including what step you were on, and *exactly* what happens.

[The Dying Informant]

Thank you very much for this thorough tutorial!

Now this isn't gonna be a particularly useful post but, is anyone else new to this, looking at this tutorial and freaking out thinking 'Am I SURE I wanna learn this?' lol. I mean I really do, but.... I hoped it wouldn't have to be so darn complicated and many steps before you even get into the 3D program! I was hoping they could just have a single simple option in BodyShop or SimPE where you click 'export MESH' and then select your file type to convert it to (for the type of file type your 3D program of choice uses), and then you just open up whatever program you use press 'import', find the file, and there it is! and that it would be just as easy to load it into the game >.<

No offense, because the tut itself looks quite complete and excellent, I really appreciate it! But I'm just rather sad that it has to be this messy to do it! I just wanna get straight to the creative/artistic part of it! lol They should really think of making it more user friendly!

Well another question I have about this is, is it possible to do this in Maya too? A tutorial for Maya users? Or for Sims 2 creations am I better off just getting Milkshape?

In the meantime, thanks so much for this tut! I've bookmarked it for now. :salute:

[tiggerypum]

Well, Simpe is a multi-purpose tool - and you can be glad that you're not having to do decode everything in the Maxis datafiles by hand ;)
You're right, it's complex, but it's getting easier all the time.

Maxis did not give us any tools to 'mod' any of their files, so yes, it's a bit complex. Actually, even for them, some of this is probably a bit complex. These sorts of games have complex underpinnings.

As for Maya.... the people who develop the tools (such as unimesh, which pulls apart the gdmc for us into editable parts) chose to put their energies into free or inexpensive options, because this is a hobby. Wes doesn't own Maya (nor do I unfortunately).

There are multiple tools/paths to editing (although all share the same simpe base instructions). This one uses Milkshape based plugins, and is very flexible in what you can do with the mesh. Meshtool (obj format) has been reported to work with Maya (look at the infocenter for more info) by WDS Brianna, but the editing options are limited.

If Maya can read and write SMD files, you might look at the new smd import/export, which functions similarly to these unimesh tools, and gives you the most editing flexibility. Also covered in the infocenter.

As a start, to get the simpe aspect down, I'd say try either tutorial (you can do the meshtool one if you want to use maya instead). Once you've got the 'omg it's so many steps' part down, then you can look at learning more about the actual mesh editing issues with smd (there are morphs and bone assignments that we barely touch on here that make it so much more... interesting... fun... ok, challenging)

[The Dying Informant]

Thanks very much for that advice. Yeah I was just wondering, and that makes sense actually. Maya is expensive and not something anyone can get. I have a copy because I got a special price for it through my college, which was a good idea for me because then I could work on assignments and practice at home. But then I had some.... issues, and I had to stop college until further notice. So I still have Maya and now after not using it for so long, I'm rather rusty again. I figured I could kill 2 birds with one stone by learning how to create for Sims 2 (which I really wish to do) and get accustomed to Maya better at the same time. However, I then may not be able to follow some of these tutorials so well.

Well, what do you suggest then? Is Milkshape easy to use? Perhaps I can follow these tuts just the way they are exactly meant, because I am really not technical and I don't want to get lost and ruin any Sim files in the process, and then after I get used to doing it this way for a while, I can then try and see which steps I could follow through with Maya as well and eventually use it that way to do it from then on (if I get to that point, I would probably create a Maya tutorial to help out others).

This is pretty overwhelming a bit right now, but thank you everyone involved in these tutorials! It is so much appreciated, and this is a way that more and more people will be well on their way to a promising 3D modelling career, or even just supplying more excellent Sims 2 downloads for the community!

Oh and Happy Easter to those who celebrate! :wave:

[tiggerypum]

Milkshape only has a 30 day free trial, then it's.. I think $25 to register, so you might consider that... actually the maya instructions involve using milkshape for some reasons also... unless it does read in smd files, at which point you will skip meshtool and unimesh, and just use the export from simpe.

[Fresh-Prince]

This is a good tutorial. But I tried in milkshape 3d 8 times and it still comes up with the message "Unassigned bone(s) exist". I am not deleting something from the mesh though, I am just moving some vertices of a dress to make it longer. I dont know what I am doing wrong. In body shop the dress shows up fine but with some parts sticking out like a vertice sticking out or something. Please help, I would really appreciate it. Thank you. :)

[Kirsty4008]

How do you make your mesh bulge out in certain places? I'm editing the maxis nude mesh and I wanted to make ithave trousers so it needs to bulge out slightly at the bottom I don't know how to do that. Also I can't seem to zoom in on a frame.

[Ozlenen]

i searched sims04.package like you said in the 10th step but it doesn't work.

[atrgirl77]

kirsty to zoom in on a part, just select the area, right click and select "frame selection", that'll zoom on what you selected.

[Beliria]

Yay!! Took some time but I managed to complete this tutorial, with out leaving any holes, lol. Thank you :)
Now I know the very, very basics on this I better to find the next tutorial for milkshake/meshing. Although think will have to keep popping back here to make sure am doing the SimPE side right.

[tiggerypum]

Fresh-Prince, are you *only* moving vertices, and what commands are you using?
Are you using the 'move' button (on the tabs with the select button) or some other method? That message is likely to come up if you *add* vertices (because this tutorial did not cover how to do new bone assignments, although it the Unimesh manual has some info on that)

[Fresh-Prince]

Fresh-Prince, are you *only* moving vertices, and what commands are you using?
Are you using the 'move' button (on the tabs with the select button) or some other method? That message is likely to come up if you *add* vertices (because this tutorial did not cover how to do new bone assignments, although it the Unimesh manual has some info on that)

Yes I am only moving vertices. I select the vertices that I want to move and click move where the tab is by select and just move the vertices. I didn't add any vertices.

[tiggerypum]

Okay. I do not understand why you're getting some unassigned bones. But you can try to fix them. The bone assignments are not *that hard* to work with.

First, make sure your body group is visible and hide any morph group you might have.

I'd like you to look for the 'unassigned bone' thing that I hope is in the vertex menu. You should see the vertices select where you see spikes.

Now pick one of them to fix.

Select another vertice *near it*... if you're on the body, select one at the same height, because the bones control the animation, so figure, however the stomach/leg whatever would bend or not, pick one that's in the same area.
Use the unimesh bone tool. Write down the bone assignment or assignments. cancel

now select the one that was missing an assignment
Use the unimesh bone tool again. Do the settings, make sure they add up to 100%. Hit COMMIT.

Repeat this process, use the 'select unassigned' thing in the vertex menu to find another one.

Please let us know exactly the name of the dress you are editing, so that there can be some follow up to figure out why it's coming in that way :(

[Fresh-Prince]

Thanks, I will try this. the name of the dress is from nightlife and it is afbodyshortruffledress :) I appreciate you helping me with my problems.

[Turynn~]

Am I doing something wrong @_@?

-When I'm only on part II step 3... my package file doesnt have a bunch of numbers infront of it. It just has the name I gave it in body shop.

-There's only 6 things when I open it, not 8 like on your picture (I'm using the same dress to try and get through this tutorial).

I kept going but there kept being less and less stuff and eventually I wasn't able to do some of the stuff the instructions said while still in simpe for the first part @@;

[HystericalParoxysm]

Turynn~, you're probably looking in the My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Projects/YourProjectName folder, rather than My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/SavedSims ... the files in the subdirectories under Projects will just have the name of the project you gave them. You need to finish the project (do Import to Game from Body Shop) and then the finished .package file with a string of numbers and letters, an underscore, and your project name, will appear in your Saved Sims folder. That's the file you need to use for this. :)

[Turynn~]

Omigosh I feel retarded. Thanks a bunch! That was the problem xD;. I should've been reading more carefully!

[sesene93]

thnx!!:)

[sesene93]

but :P:P

[sesene93]

You Create A Mesh But I Dont Create A Mesh Becaouse I Dont Understand The Mesh Programme??:( :-0

[sesene93]

Help!!!:(:(;)

[ffachrial]

Thx a lot! I've done the tutorial and now i want to modified ninja face to be yashmak like moslem female wear. So which tutorial should i read next??

[Faylen]

So Tig has heard some of my complaining about not being able to get through this tutorial. Rather than random complaining, I took a log the fourth time I went through the tutorial and didn't even get as far as milkshape, in the hope that some error I made will be glaringly obvious to someone and I'll get set straight. Here goes:


Part 1, made new package, 5fe396ad_ammeshvest.package.

Part 2. Opened in SimPE. Property set is ambodyoxfordpants. Created My Documents\Mesh Vest.

Put ambodyoxfordpants in SimPE Resource finder. Opened newfile in SimPE. Extracted gmdc, gmnd, shape, and cres files from ambodyoxford pants to My Documents\Mesh Vest.

Part 3. File>New in SimPE. Added gmnd, gmdc, cres, shape from My Documents\Mesh Vest. Saved as MESH_Faylen_ammeshvest_apr2006 in EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads. This file is now what shows in SimPE. Fixed Integrity, changed model name to Faylenammeshvestapr2006, clicked update and OK. In this window, order of files is gmdc, gmnd, shpe, cres. (Shows this way in tutorial as well) Saved. Step 19 says “Save your new Resource Node and Shape files to your project folder”. Skinner that I am, I first tried my Body Shop Project folder. Since I got bad or no results from this on previous attempts, I saved them this time to My Documents\Mesh Vest. CRES that I’m extracting is 519C933-9391919E-1C0532FA-FF4547CFR.5cr. saved as modifiedcres.simpe. SHPE is 6EB1F7-622A0D5E-1C0532FA-FF829cb.5sh. Saved as modifiedshpe.simpe.

Part 4 Opened …Saved Sims\5fe396ad_ammeshvest.package. Next step says “Right Click on the packed files window” I’m assuming this is the name for the window that looks like the image below these instructions. So. . .I right clicked on these and selected Add, then double clicked on “modifiedcres” and “modifiedshape” Originally, I had clicked on these filenames and then clicked “open”. This is how it works in other places, but I didn’t see the files added into the window doing this. Double clicking made the new resource node and shape files appear in the window. We’ll see if this works.

A single click on 3D ID referencing files in the same window brought up the plugin view for the file, but since the tutorial said to click on the name in the resource tree window and then in the right window, I did that. The plugin view did not change. I don’t know if this was a shortcut that was added in the new version of SimPE or not. Clicked “package” from Plugin View window. The resource node and shape filenames in the plugin view are the ones from Part 3 above. The CREs in the popup window is E519C933-88A301C2-1C050000-FF231988, and the SHPE is FC6EB1F7-FB5131B8-1C050000-FFF9FE8A. Deleted old CRES and SHPE, used “up” to move new Resource Node and Shape to top two positions. Clicked commit, then OK in changes were committed box. Now, since the only thing in the top right window is the 3D ID Referencing files, I clicked All Resources in the Resource Tree window. The picture shows the Resource Node and Shape in italics (in my case, Faylenammeshvestapr2006) highlighted with the popup box showing “delete” highlighted. So these are the files I deleted. I click “Save” and they disappear. Closed SimPE. Opened Body Shop. Outfit is gone. At this point, the tutorial says I probably need to repeat part three or part four, but since these are the parts where I seem to need a little clarification of terms, I thought I’d run it past you to see if glaring errors stand out before I make the same mistakes, only in different ways.

[tiggerypum]

Faylen, this all looks fine at my first reading. Do you have an invisible body right now in bodyshop?

Where did you save your actual MESH file to (the one named MESH-faylen-whatever)? Your Downloads folder? If it's not in your game downloads folder, put it there. The rest of the stuff is all our working on junk pile and can be saved anywhere. (and yes, your mesh could also be in some other folders, but let's just put it in downloads for now)

Step 19 did mean the folder you're keeping all your stuff in. It shouldn't matter where you save them, as long as you can find them again, but saving it with the rest of the bits and pieces makes the most sense. We just use the 'modified' names because you already have the original shape and cres with those goopy names in that folder already, so later you can grab the right ones.

I'm going to fix that window name in part 4, I can't believe simpe removed the name from the window :P How are we supposed to ref it.

Sometimes people weren't seeing the 3did thing, so I added the click left window part. One click is enough if that plugin window shows up. It sounds like you found the correct part, clicked on package, put the bits in, commited, etc, all correctly.

And yes, if you did it as instructed, the modified shape and cres would still be in italic (as in, a change happened but it was not saved yet) and the right clicking and 'delete' puts a line through them, then they disappear when you save.

And to view your mesh, you are doing 'new project' in bodyshop to go looking for it, right?

[Faylen]

Yep. Now, I don't think that the final update, after the part that says "Save" was saved to Downloads - the box for Saved Sims is the one that automatically comes up at that point when you Save. I'll open it back up again and save it to Downloads (that folder is referenced only once, at the beginning of the tutorial) and see what happens.

Yes!! It looks like this is where the problem is. In step 27, it just says "Save", Since, in step 20, you opened the Saved Sims package, "Save" put it into. . .Saved Sims. I opened up the Saved Sims package in SimPE, clicked "Save As" and saved it as my package in Downloads (overwrote it - hope that's OK, but we shall see) and it now appears in Body Shop with no strange gaping holes.

[tiggerypum]

Faylen, I am now a bit confused. You have 2 different files you are editing, and they should automatically save to the same place they came from. One is written by bodyshop, the other one you made.

There is your recolor, which was originally in the Saved Sims folder and can stay there. That's the one with the numbers and then the project name you gave it in bodyshop. When we put the modified shape and cres into the recolor, we're telling it which mesh to use. (read on, because I think you have 2 of them)

Then there is your Mesh file (which you build at the beginning) which we usually say to put in your Downloads folder. That's the one that starts with MESH-faylen....... that you named.

It does look like somehow you got 2 copies of your saved sims package, and that it was causing you problems. Please check your downloads folder *and* saved sims folder and make sure you have only one of them. As you said it overwrote the one in downloads, and now things work, go delete the other copy in saved sims. It doesn't matter which folder it's in, but 2 copies is going to produce irratic results.

[stick_figure_girl]

hmm. I have a pair of overalls that I would like to crop slightly so the calves are showing. Can this actually be done? I've tried it but it just deletes the legs totally, and I'm pretty sure I didn't select any vertices besides the pants.

[tiggerypum]

If you noticed, the mesh includes the arms and legs of the sim, you must *change the shape* to look like shorter pants with legs showing below (and fix the uvmapping), there's no 'body' separate from the mesh you see.

[cgbmellie]

Fresh-Prince, are you *only* moving vertices, and what commands are you using?
Are you using the 'move' button (on the tabs with the select button) or some other method? That message is likely to come up if you *add* vertices (because this tutorial did not cover how to do new bone assignments, although it the Unimesh manual has some info on that)

Where is the Unimesh manual?? I did add vertices and faces and am getting this error (although I got it before when I was only moving things)

EDIT: I found it, but I think there is something else wrong. I don't even have the automatic weight thingy and I checked that I have the right version fo rmilkshape and unimesh and simpe.
Simpe will not let me replace my gmdc with the new one, it says there is an error bringing it in, I don;t know if they are related. This is driving me nuts, I can't figure out what's wrong!

[tiggerypum]

Okay, I've now read your message multiple times, and I'm at a loss. I've been referring folks to the fix underweight bones option in the menu in #46 and no one else has reported they can't find it there.

Are you getting an error when trying to export from milkshape? Because it will write a .simpe file that won't be complete if it gives you an error message. You will have to fix that and export again until it does the export w/o any messages. (yes, I have had that happen myself, when my morph did not match; after I fixed it I had to tell it to write over the old unfinished simpe file)

If this doesn't actually help you get going, please post some screenshots of your menus and copy down exact error messages and describe the steps leading up to that as thoroughly as possible - part of what had me delay this response is that my crystal ball was a bit foggy and I had to wait until I got some idea of what to suggest based on your limited descriptions of problems.

[SimoneA]

Thank you so much for the tutorial! It was pretty easy going and I understood most of it at first glance. My only problem is as follows (and knowing me I more than likely did something stupid and simple that it will be easy to fix!) In Milkshape, the dress looks perfect, the dangly thing is gone and I exported that. I replaced the correct file in simPE, saved the whole thing, closed simPE and went into body shop to check out my new creation (by this point I'd been working on the tutorial for the last 2 hours to make sure I got everything just right like in the tutorial!) - lo and behold - there's that dangly thing still there on my mesh - I don't understand what I did wrong because I followed the tutorial to the T!

Is there possibly anything I could have done wrong to the actual mesh file or in simPE?

Any help would be appreciated!!
Thanks

[modstudent]

Da.... Blah sim pe crashed on me during tut now i cant run body shop Ideas?

[HystericalParoxysm]

Um, you're going to have to be a lot more descriptive before anyone can help you with your problem, modstudent. SimPE crashed on you... during what part of the tutorial? What crash message did it give you? Now you can't run Body Shop because SimPE crashed? That doesn't make a lot of sense. What error message(s) are you getting from Body Shop now?

[HystericalParoxysm]

Um, again, what is Body Shop doing? Just not responding ever, not coming up, crashing with an error, what? And what were the errors that SimPE gave you when it crashed? "Doesn't work" is not something anyone can fix. My crystal ball is rather cloudy today, so I'm going to need a detailed description of the errors you've been getting in order to be able to give you any solutions.

[tiggerypum]

SimoneA, let's see.

1) When you are in simpe, if you click on the geometric data container, and in the plugin click on the preview button does the dress look good (you can use your mouse to spin it around)

2) assuming it does.... when you're looking in bodyshop, you're asking to make a 'new project' (not looking at the old one) and then looking for the dress there?

3) If #1 and #2 are both yes, try the part where you put the modified shape and cres into the file in your SAVED SIMS folder over again.

[yooperjim]

Hello all, new to this forum, and after completing the tutorial several times I thought I would try editing a custom mesh, in this case one of the bodybuilder meshes for clothing. after doing the bodyshop export thing, and the opening the new package in simpe, it's always the wrong mesh. Seems to always be one of the original maxis meshes or something. I've tried several times with different meshes and always the same thing. This didn't seem to be a problem until after I installed the NightLife EP. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Jim

[SimoneA]

Hi Tiggerypum,

I tried again last night and got tired and frustrated :lol: . Thanks so much for the reply, I'll try those when I get home from work tonight!!

[tiggerypum]

yooperjim, three important things:

1) You shouldn't edit anyone's modified mesh _unless_ you have their permission. I don't know what the bodybuilder mesh policies are, so I'm just stating that

2) You installed those meshes into the game. So you will have the actual mesh file in your downloads folder or saved sims or whatever subfolder you put it in

3) Once a Maxis mesh has been edited, there is no promise that it _can_ be opened up using just any tools. The different packages used to edit the Maxis files create new gdmcs that will load in the game, but are not necessarily identical to the original Maxis files. As such, you might need to know which tools were used to create the original meshes and use the same tools. The person who made the mesh can tell you that, it if was not in the readme/info file. (assuming #1 is true)

[yooperjim]

Sorry about that. I didn't know about editing someone elses mesh. How does one make clothing meshes for other peoples meshes, or are you just allowed to recolor?

Jim

[tiggerypum]

Usually people allow recoloring (especially for things posted here if the recolors are also posted here). Use bodyshop for that. If you did want to make a new mesh shape, contact the creator. Usually they don't bite :)

[missrainyday]

I'm the kind of person that considers herself lucky if she can actually find the button to turn the computer on, but i found this tutorial easy to do and i actually got what i was supposed to when i finished. Thank you very much.

[SimoneA]

SimoneA, let's see.

1) When you are in simpe, if you click on the geometric data container, and in the plugin click on the preview button does the dress look good (you can use your mouse to spin it around)

2) assuming it does.... when you're looking in bodyshop, you're asking to make a 'new project' (not looking at the old one) and then looking for the dress there?

3) If #1 and #2 are both yes, try the part where you put the modified shape and cres into the file in your SAVED SIMS folder over again.

Hi tiggerypum,

I was being such a total idiot! I think it could have been one of two problems that I "over looked" by accident of course!

1) I had body shop AND simPE running - not sure if that could have been the problem but it could have been!

2) I had about 3 of the same files in my downloads file so I think they may have been conflicting in some way or the other!

The reason I know that it HAS to be one of those two problems, I tried again today and something just said to me to go look in my downloads folder and saved sims folder and delete all but one copy of the file and it worked!! I got it all right and I had no problems at all!!

I've also created my first skirt! :D I was so proud of myself I couldn't stop bouncing around the house - I think my dogs thought I was crazy :rofl: - and it's all thanks to your VERY easy to follow tutorial.

:!: THANK YOU so much for it!!

[poundingheart]

Wooohooo. I did it, I did it. Thanks so much Tiggerypum for your great tutorial. It felt great to do something like this. I feel not so stupid now. Thanks again

[Ginn123]

I would love to try!! it looks so fantastic... but... does milkshape cost anything? Did you pay? Ö

[tiggerypum]

Yes, Milkshape is $25 to register it, last I looked. A very inexpensive deal, but not free. It's got a free trial, but being as it takes time to learn how to use it well, I don't really recommend starting unless you will be able to register it.

[watts459]

Hi, I used the tutorial to change a mesh that was done by TBWitholt and abandoned here. I then asked Marvine to see if she could get them working which she did. Unfortunately TB did them with things like belt buckles and ties etc in the mesh making them very restricted when applying a texture. I was trying to remove the belt on the jeans mesh with mixed results. Could you take a look at the file below and see if you can tell where I went wrong? How do I fix it???
Thanks much,
Sandy http://rapidshare.de/files/20460608/Mesh_TBW_watts459_teenElderJeansBoot.package.html

[watts459]

Hello,
I got an answer to the mesh problem on another site. Now I need some direction on UV mapping. On another thread here someone said the mapper in milkshape doesn't quite work like it should. I already started working on it in milkshape with mixed results. Should I continue in milkshape. I am having problems with the boots.

[tiggerypum]

The uvmapper in milkshape works just fine. I have no idea how they had mapped the boots already.... but I don't see why it should be a problem in milkshape. There's several different tutorials on site that give info on adjusting uvmaps or even uvmapping new parts (or reuvmapping parts if you need), try looking at the one I wrote and the one Dr. Pixel about the shoes and I hope that helps.

[pacotacoplayer]

Um.......I was at the last step where you replace the Geomatric Data or w/e, and when it says SHOULD SIMPE REUPLOAD IT i click YES and it says Error: File Or Assemble Name Microsoft.Direct.X. or one of its dependincies, were not found

soo close...help me finish.........

[tiggerypum]

Go back to the SimPE site and make sure you have all the necessary parts installed, there's info there about which Direct X you need.

[Khyron6]

Worked perfectly!!! YOU ROCK :beer: Thanks

[PowerSTAI]

Worked perfectly!!! YOU ROCK :beer: Thanks

:up: :D

Germany info: :lovestruc

Also die Anleitung ist Super gemacht, Selbst wenn man nicht die English Sprache Beherrschen sollte. Kann mit der Bilderanleitung, jeden fahl das Ziel Erreichen. Hochachtung an dem Beiden :up: , die diese Anleitung zusammengestellt haben. :beer:

Mit freundlichen Gruessen aus Germany ;)

Thanks for Germany --- PowerSTAI.

Tiggerypum (moderator) edits:
It says thank you and other nice things.
Please in the future post on the boards in English, it's part of the site rules

[netra567]

I thought this was very helpful. thanks to all who helped!::::) :rofl:

[The doctor]

It wont show the afbodydresslongloose_grayline type thing any where on it :

[HystericalParoxysm]

The doctor - If you choose the right outfit, the one shown, when you go into the recolour file, the property set will display the name "afdresslongloose_grayline" and then you search for "afdresslongloose" without the "_grayline"

Make sure you have Body Shop and any other programs that access the game files (Homecrafter, File Maid, the game itself) shut down when you search or you will not get the results you need.

[trezero]

*eyes cross* Bother. It didn't work for me. I think I kept mixing up which .package files I was supposed to be doing stuff to.

Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that I tried to do this at 12:00 PM. :|

So I shall try again after a night of sleep.


Good tutorial, though. The only way it could be made better is if you explained at least somewhat why you do each step. I think I got most of it, but I'm still at a loss in some of the simPE file modifying.

[Moni_ka]

I did dress. Mesh was apt, but I can't to save GeoSphere, why? Please, help me. :(

[tiggerypum]

You'll need to give us more/better information moni_ka. I've never seen the word 'geosphere' in milkshape... maybe you can copy down exactly what error message you are getting, and tell us exactly what step you were on?

[Bayam]

When I press the delete button, it leaves a little black area in the bottom right part. what should i do? :(

[HystericalParoxysm]

That black area is a hole - you selected too much. Undo, go back and reselect and make sure you only get the vertices shown selected. When you delete, it should only remove the dangle, no black spots or holes.

[Bayam]

I've tryed that numerous times - This is the result of it:

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f225/interloved/mandamit2.jpg

When I do the shift right-click all of the red area goes - sorry if I sound Noobish, This is my first time. :P

[HystericalParoxysm]

Ohhhhh, I see. You didn't actually get all of the dangle when you selected - just one polygon - the black you're seeing is inside of the dangle, the other side.

When you're in select mode, make sure you have it on Vertex, and you want Ignore Backfaces unchecked (or it'll only get the closest set of vertices in whatever view you're selecting from - nothing behind it). Look REALLY closely at the image for that step - look at the vertices selected in all of the views. That still shows the ones on either side of the dangle, in the back itself selected, but you should be able to kinda tell from the other views that the whole dangle is selected, too. Make sure the vertices pointed at in the back are deselected, but that everything else highlighted red is selected before deleting.

[Bayam]

Ohh! Thank You SO MUCH! :D Now it poofed! yay! *Victory Dance* Heh
*hugs* Thanks!

[phoenix42793]

Hi Um I was wondering u made two tutorials on how to make body meshes using different tools, which tutorial is better like what programs and which one is easier?

[HystericalParoxysm]

Both tutorials use Milkshape for editing: the difference is that Meshtool will only allow you to move around vertices a little bit - essentially it'll let you make bigger boobs, smaller waist, skinnier/fatter, etc. but you cannot add or remove anything or even move anything too far (if you move a vertex past an animation bone it will no longer animate correctly). You must have all the same vertices when exporting that you did when importing using Meshtool.

Unimesh allows a lot more versatility in editing - you can add, remove, move things around, and change bone assignments. As it says in the intro, this tutorial uses Unimesh in a very limited way - this tutorial is mostly designed to introduce you to the process of meshing and some of the basic functions of Milkshape.

The difficulty of both tutorials is roughly comparable... which one you do is up to you and what you want to be doing. Do you want to just tweak Maxis meshes to the body shapes you want? Meshtool can do that. Do you want to eventually get into major changes? Unimesh will allow you to do all sorts of interesting things once you become experienced in its use.

Also, in future, please don't post the same thing to separate threads. Only need to ask once. ;)

[felfeloo7]

Woa, overload! Ok, for those who find this hard to follow, first download the programs and play with them for a while to familiarize yourself with them, then just take notes. I had a problem figuring this out until i did so. Dont know if anyone else has to learn this way, but its just an FYI. Thanx for helping out the slow ones by the way Tiggerypum!!! *MUAH*

[phoenix42793]

Thx so much for answering my question, I think ill go with the unimesh, also sorry for posting twice I wasnt sure which one more ppl looked at sry. But thx for explaining it sounds confusing but from what you said it seems like u can get a lot more detailed with unimesh. Sadly I havent even been able to start because milkshape is taking superlong to download Ive had it on for about 5 hours, and I have a fast wirless internet connection, is it supossed to take that long to download milkshape? Oh and thx again! I cant wait to start making meshes!

[HystericalParoxysm]

Yes, Unimesh will let you do a lot more. Meshtool is fairly limited... but there's also less that can go wrong with Meshtool.

If you're having trouble getting Milkshape from the official site, they do have a link on their site for an alternate download from download.com

[phoenix42793]

I have a question, lets say I want to make a more complicated mesh, is there a way to copy what u made on normal skin to fat or pregnet?

[leighkuhn]

first of all, love this tutorial. nice work.

my project is somewhat beyond the scope of this tutorial, but the bit where i am getting hung up seems as if it must be something just basic and bone-stupid on my part so i am hoping you can help. i have checked the unimesh thread (which is mostly waaay over my head at this point) and the FAQ sections and haven't found anything there. although those threads are huge and i may have just missed it.

anyway, what i am trying to do is whack martaxls cool new bbw mesh in half to create separate top and bottom meshes so my big gals can be shower proof. i did this quite successfully with faeriegurl's fat lady mesh (and lots of help from the ever patient marvine) using the old bodychop plugins. i am now trying to use the new unimesh tools. after two days of floating heads and much careful doing and redoing my problem is this: when i export my gmdc from milkshape i get an empty package. i don't think it is anything i am doing in milkshape. when i import the extracted gmdc and export without doing anything, same result: empty package.

i am thinking i have managed to miss something blazingly obvious, but i haven't been able to find it! thanks for any help you can give me.

ummm, thought i should mention - all my mesh-whacking stays blissfully on my own computer. wouldn't dream of posting someone else's work.

[tiggerypum]

Well, take a look at the 'mini tutorial' I posted towards the end of this thread:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=163559

Basically, you should start by unimesh importing a TOP or BOTTOM that's the right age and gender for your final project. Then unimesh import the gmdc from the whole body mesh. Delete the parts you don't want, copy the comments and then rename the modified mesh to match the original group. Then delete the original group. Do the same for the morphs.

Btw, if you ask their permission, you might get permission to share your finished version, depends on the creator. :)

[leighkuhn]

thanks for your fast reply. real life intervenes tomorrow, but will give it another shot the next day. makes perfect sense so far.

[WesHowe]

is there a way to copy what u made on normal skin to fat or pregnet?

Yes. It's not easy or automated, though, and sort of falls into the advanced topic category.
UniMesh handles the morph data by converting it into a seperate mesh, then reconverting it from a mesh back to morph data on export, since MilkShape does not support the actual morph data type. The group comments and the mesh name are used to differentiate between a real mesh and the pseudo-mesh.
What you have to do is to note the group name. For a single group body mesh with one (fat) morph this would be "~00MORPHMOD.0". Then note the names in the group comments (normally "MorphNames: botmorphs fatbot").
After copying this down, make a backup copy of your mesh and then on the groups tab select the ~00MORPHMOD.0 group and delete it.
Then select the main group (normally "body") amd click on the Select button.
From the Edit menu in MilkShape pick Duplicate Selection. This should give you a new group named "Duplicate01".
In the small box next to the "Rename" button type in ~00MORPHMOD.0 and then click on Rename. Check your spelling against the original name in the list of groups.
With the new group name selected in the groups list, click on the Comment button and retype the comment (I am unsure, but I thing it needs the return pressed after each line).
You now have a morph group that is exactly the same as the main group. You can export it at this stage, but in order to handle some of the expansion pack changes the importer will discard any morph groups that are identical to the base mesh.
So after making a backup save, you select vertices on the morph group and move them (at this point, no adds or deletes) to get the fat effect you want. Now you can save again, then export the mesh and test in the game.

Ideally, all this would be done after you get the main group edited to your liking. So you can delete the fat morph early in the edit process, and edit the main mesh the way you want, testing in the game. Then follow the above steps to make the final package, but if you do it in that order, there is a comment that NEEDS to be added back to the main group:
MorphRefNum: 0
The number on this comment line has to be the same as the number at the end of the MORPHMOD group name, or it won't get written out properly.

<* Wes *>

[leighkuhn]

lol.....boy do i feel silly! turns out forgetting to change the ol' comments altogether is a real problem........that wasn't the only thing i was doing wrong mind you, but i'm pretty sure that was the deal breaker. thanks tiggerypum to you and dr. pixel. i am back on track now. and i've had my laugh for the day.

[alinetjuh]

I tried to make a mesh, but suddenly I messed up the shape of the sim so I have to do it again:p

[fashion222]

Looking for unimesh plugin for milkshape, help!!!!!!!!!

[tiggerypum]

leighkuhn, I moved your latest question out of this thread. This thread is meant for discussion of the contents of the actual tutorial, which is indeed limited in scope, as it's a beginner tutorial.

fashion222, uhm, there is a link for how to download the plugin, then you need to install it. Can't make it much simpler.

[leighkuhn]

sorry about that. will try to put things in their proper place in future.

[DarkValentin]

Hi, first of all, love your tutorial, its really helpful :)

Second, I have a problem when importing the mesh/file from MilkShape back into SimPE, it tells me an error message when trying to replace the Geometric Data Container:

Error while trying to open blablabla(the file)blablabla

Details:

Message:
Error while trying to open

Package: C:\Documents and Settings\Mickey\Dokumenter\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads\DarkValentin_amGothPantsMesh.package
File: Geometric Data Container (AC4F8687) - 3ED71B08 - 1C050000 - FFFEF727

SimPE Version:
Default (0.58.1.29278).

Exception Stack:
System.IO.EndOfStreamException: Unable to read beyond the end of the stream.
at System.IO.__Error.EndOfFile()
at System.IO.BinaryReader.ReadString()
at SimPe.Plugin.Gmdc.GmdcNamePair.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Gmdc.GmdcModel.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.GeometryDataContainer.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Rcol.ReadBlock(UInt32 id, BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Rcol.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Interfaces.Plugin.AbstractWrapper.ProcessData(IPackedFileDescriptor pfd, IPackageFile package, Boolean catchex)

Source:
mscorlib

Execution Stack:
at System.IO.__Error.EndOfFile()
at System.IO.BinaryReader.ReadString()
at SimPe.Plugin.Gmdc.GmdcNamePair.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Gmdc.GmdcModel.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.GeometryDataContainer.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Rcol.ReadBlock(UInt32 id, BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Rcol.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Interfaces.Plugin.AbstractWrapper.ProcessData(IPackedFileDescriptor pfd, IPackageFile package, Boolean catchex)

Any ideas?

[HystericalParoxysm]

Well, I'm terrible with SimPE errors, but... have ya tried going back into Milkshape and re-exporting the mesh as a GMDC again and trying to replace with that new GMDC? It seems like it's saying the file unexpectedly ends... perhaps there was a hiccup during export?

[DarkValentin]

Yes, tryed that too..

[tiggerypum]

Are you getting any errors/messages when you export the unimesh gmdc? Because if you do, it'll write an empty file.

[Wete]

Tiggerypum TY so much for your great tutorial because I 've done my first mesh with it. :up:

[DarkValentin]

No, none..only that one..

[Ben♣]

Hi,

I'm having a problem with a cloth : when I try to export the .bmp files with Bodyshop to modify them, I get an error message so I can't make the cloth !

As it's a mesh I downlaoded, I think I can make the cloth on another way : how do creators make the very 1st cloth based on a mesh they created with Wes_h's unimesh plugin ?

I hope you understand me well :)

Thanks in advance. Regards, Ben.

[HystericalParoxysm]

Ben, you cannot edit user-created meshes except for personal use without permission. This tutorial is not about what you're trying to do: please try the tutorial with the project as written before attempting anything else.

In answer to your other question, as is detailed in this tutorial, one links a Maxis recolour to your mesh. Then you can make a new project once finished and change the texturing to make the first texture for your new mesh.

[tiggerypum]

DarkValentin,

Can you start a thread about this in the main bodyshop-meshing area and post your milkshape file - then others can see if they can reproduce the problem. Is the mesh in question the one edited as outlined in this tutorial or a more advanced creation of yours? Just put details, screenshots, and copy over the error messages you posted here to that new thread.

(with 'advanced' posting you will be able to add an attachment for us to look at)

Thanks!
*Tig*

[DarkValentin]

Ok, ill do that :)

[Ben♣]

Ben, you cannot edit user-created meshes except for personal use without permission. This tutorial is not about what you're trying to do: please try the tutorial with the project as written before attempting anything else.

In answer to your other question, as is detailed in this tutorial, one links a Maxis recolour to your mesh. Then you can make a new project once finished and change the texturing to make the first texture for your new mesh.
Thanks a lot for your help ! I've managed to create the skin on the same way creators make the 1st one.

thanks for the tuto by the way.

well, as I didn't modify the mesh file itself, what I did is allowed, isn't it ? I hope so. anyway I can't find another way to do it.

[azarum]

This was a great tutorial! Thanks so much for it! :lovestruc

There was only one thing that I had a problem with. It was selecting those darn vertices. I *could not* select the entire dangly-thingy until I noticed that, in the screen shots there was another box unchecked. So, under the Model tab, at the Select Options part, make sure that the Ignore Backfaces box is *unchecked*. Then I was able to select the entire dangly-thingy and deselect the extra vertices. :D

Onward to hair meshing...! Maybe.

[karateiskool]

What does Message:
Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.

SimPE Version:
Default (0.58.1.29278).

Exception Stack:
System.OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown. mean?

[sheseksi]

This tutorial was very simple, one of the most understandble ones i've seen on here although I didn't try it but read through it I still got the idea. I want to buy milkshape but I want to have some idea of what i'm doing before I purchase it so it wont be for nothing. I think there should be like a practice release of it with some features disabled.

[tiggerypum]

Sheseksi, Milkshape has a 30ish day free trial before you must register. That is plenty of time to do this simple tutorial, but not enough to become an expert with it - and thus we always remind folks it's a very inexpensive but PAY program. Frustrating to get into a project and find it's expired when you had no intention of buying it.

karateiskool. What step were you on when this happened? If it was on replacing the gmdc, did you get *any* error/message dialog boxes in unimesh when you went to export the gmdc -- because if you did, that has to be resolved, it will write an incomplete file.

[CrystalTears]

I have a question hehe

In the game... where is the bodyshop?

I don't find it! :(

Forget it... I found the bodyshop. ^_^

The thread is excellent!!!

[Ghanima Atreides]

Hello,

I'm back lol, and with a new question...so far this tutorial has been a great help getting my meshing skills off the ground so to say. However, after the combined efforts of me and a friend together, the mesh seems to keep an odd sort of "black shading" across the hem which just won't go away.

Any ideas...?

Here's a pic:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v48/Ghanima/Sims/meshscreen2.jpg

[HystericalParoxysm]

Hey, Ghanima. For that you're going to need the msAlignNormals tool to fix the normals that are darkening the bottom of that dress - just be really careful around the side seams as you don't want to completely obliterate the original Maxis normals/smoothing around the sides, just reduce that funky darkening.

[Ghanima Atreides]

Thanks HP, I'll have to try that out.

[DrakeBellfan]

Mine doesn't work. I think I did something wrong because I followed the steps and I still didn't get it right.

[Bayam]

I have a random question, (yes it's me again) can we use this same process to remove sleeves from shirts and such?

[Bayam]

Ive got a gap in my dress that im making, but i cant get rid of it (teenage dress)
Here is the pic:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f225/interloved/HELP.jpg
how do i get rid of that black area? i've started over about 5 times and same thing happens with the fat one. ;S
and if thats too small to see, here is the url: http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f225/interloved/HELP.png

[HystericalParoxysm]

Bayam, you may have to give us a pic that wasn't taken from orbit before we can see what you're talking about. ;)

[tiggerypum]

Bayam, no, you cannot 'remove' sleeves or such with this method. The particular edit (which was originally choosen by Brianna) actually had this separate rectangle on the back of the dress. Sleeves are part of the body mesh - simply delete them and your sim will have no arms for that part of the arm.

You can do 2 things - first would be to simply move the sleeves inward to make them into the shape of an arm w/o sleeves -- there's a sample base nude body mesh in the infocenter you can use for reference... or you can do the more complex job of combining two meshes together - the steps o which are outlined in some messages in the main area...

To follow up, please find those threads or ask questions in the main bodyshop meshing area, as it will go beyond this tutorial :)

[Bayam]

im about to go to sleep this is the url (my mistake for it being so tiny but now its larger) http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f225/interloved/HELP.png

[Bayam]

thanks tig x.x i was wondering about that :P

[lipandan]

thanks ,I very want it

[HystericalParoxysm]

Bayam - It looks like from your pic one of two things is happening. It's hard to see without being able to zoom in on exactly what that is and see it in 3d, but... Either that's a vertex that needs to be snapped moved closer to, then snapped together to, the nearest vertex (that one above and to the left of it) or that's a piece of, um, the "crotch cover" that Maxis meshes have, the flat bit that goes where, on a real skirt, there'd just be a hole going up to the body, covering the underside so you can't peek up a sim's dress... If that's the case you could probably either snap it to that nearest vertex anyway, or just move it inside the body. It doesn't tend to show much.

For anything further not related to the scope of this tutorial (removing the dangly thing from the dress), follow Tiggy's advice and look outside this tutorial thread, in the main BS Meshing area.

[Ben♣]

Hi,

I'm making an accessory (a sword) but it does not show up in Bodyshop and I found the problem in the FAQs
Your mesh, or parts of it, will also not show up if you did not assign any of the vertices to bones.
I have a stupid question, but a question anyway... How to assign the sword's vertices to bones ? In fact I don't really understand what it means :rolleyes:

I think that's what causes the mesh not to show up because when I export the sword, Milkshape tells me "Unassigned bones exist. Export anyway ?"...

I know it might be offtopic but I also think that opening a new thread for this would be useless...

Any help'd be appreciated :) thanks in advance.

[HystericalParoxysm]

Ben, what you're asking about is far beyond the scope of this tutorial. I suggest you read the Unimesh manual and take a look at some other custom accessories that attach to the hand to see how they're assigned. If you're still having trouble, ask outside of this tutorial thread.

[simfan432]

i got stuck at step 8 its said : File or assembly name Microsoft.DirectX, or one of its dependencies, was not found.

[tiggerypum]

simfan
Go back to the simpe site and get the rest of 'what you need' there, there's some direct x and another package you might not have

[cleoluva]

I have downloaded the milkshape 1.78 and the unimesh plugin 4.05 but I cant find out how to download simPE .56 the only download they offer are version .58
Where do you get simPE .56?

[cleoluva]

I have downloaded the milkshape 1.78 and the unimesh plugin 4.05 but I cant find out how to download simPE .56 the only download they offer are version .58
Where do you get simPE .56? :blink:

[HystericalParoxysm]

You can use .58, cleoluva. It's just a slightly updated version. Shouldn't have changed that much - still should work fine with the tutorial instructions.

[shortanddumb00]

when i double click on the gmdc it takes a while to load but when it is done it pops up with an error message saying....... file or assembly name microsoft.DirectX or one of its dependancies were not found......... :( can you please help



sorry i just realized that someone already had this question

[shortanddumb00]

i have a wierd problem.... i cant un-checah smooth selection

[the3ofusjks116]

Thank you sooo very much for this tutorial. It worked really well

[OpenHouseJack]

I follow the tutorial but everytime I reach step #22 or #27 SimPE messes up. Is it because I'm using Window ME?

[HystericalParoxysm]

My crystal ball is dark right now, OpenHouseJack, and I know of no specific problems with SimPE and Windows ME - so you may have to explain how SimPE is messing up. ;)

[mnmnfl]

Just wanted to say thank you. On my second try I got it right:) I've registered my Milkshape and just waiting for Bodyshop to close so I can start on my first real project:) Thanks so much for the great tutorial:) Now to find one on how to upload all the recolors of clothes I did this weekend.

Toodles,,,^..^,,,Melissa :up:

[QueenScorpio]

Thanks for the tutorial but I have a small problem, everything went fine and I saved the file but when I tried to upload it in SimPE I got an error saying :Exception ofType. SystemOutofMemoryException was Thrown...does anyone have any idea what this means and how I can fix it??

[MankyUK]

Hello!

Thank you for putting up such a great tutorial! :) Very well written :D

I have a weenie problem :P Ive just finished editing this maxis mesh:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c107/MankySims/Image1.jpg

Anyho all went well with exporting back etc and new meshie shows up great! Fantastic! Well ive been retexturing this new mesh and Im on to bumpmapping....now this maxis mesh already has a bumpmap file with it so i just assumed that my new mesh will have a bumpmap file....and it does!! Only problem is that file doesnt seem to work! :P I can see bumpmaps on my computer so that is not the problem and I have worked with bumpmaps before on other skins so its not like ive not had experience working with a bumpmap file. But no matter what i do with that file, no change is happening on within bodyshop when i refresh.

Ive heard someone say somewhere that bumpmapping does not work for all meshes with the unimesh plugin...is this correct? Is what i am seeing a result of the plugin or whatever or is it me not meshing correctly?

Thanks for all your help! ^_^

[DokiePlayer]

I don't understand 41 ,when I select a viewport and select FRAME SELECTION it does zoom in ,but when I get to the next viewpoint and select FRAME SELECTION it doesn't zoom in and my red lines disappear !!! What to do ??? Does anybody know ?

[HystericalParoxysm]

DokiePlayer, you will have to reselect a group of vertices with each viewport to zoom in. For some reason Milkshape loses a selection when you move to the next viewport.

[sheiliabob]

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!

[tiggerypum]

MankyUK,
Unimesh does not currently support bumpmaps, so you will not see any bumpmaps, even if the original mesh had them.

DokiePlayer, I have found that if I have the 'select' button on, then when I try to move from one viewport to another and zoom in and out it sometimes unselects my stuff - I just unclick select first and it seems to prevent that from happening. You can also use 'undo' to reselect the things that got accidently unselected.

[MankyUK]

ahhhh I see, thanks for letting me know Tiggerypum ^_^ I was getting worried I didnt do things properly :P

Thanks once again! :)

[anouk251191]

Dear Tiggerypum, I have a problem with step 22 on simPE I guess I did something and now I can't see the bottom menu, so I can't go any further with the other steps. Do you know how I can get back that bottom menu??

[kesafloyd]

All seems to be going well until I try to view the final result in Bodyshop... the change just doesn't take. I have no idea what's going wrong. Do you have any suggestions? I've done this multiple times, following each instruction. Thanks.

[tiggerypum]

anouk - try the menu called 'window' and select 'plug' there and see if that gives you back your plugin window/tab.

kesafloyd. I assume you see your modified mesh in simpe (you can spin it around in the plugin view of the gmdc and see if the dangly thang is off the back)
And I assume you are looking at your recolor in bodyshop with with *, and when you spin the sim, you can still see that thang on the back....

If you can see it in simpe, then it must not be linked in correctly.

A common mistake is when someone links puts the modified shape and cres into the projects folder file instead of the saved sims file.

You could make a NEW recolor if you want, assuming something got broken the first time through - using bodyshop. Pick a diff color of the dress. Give it a new unique name so you can find it and not confuse it with the other one (that's part 1 of the tutorial). IMPORT it to your game. Delete the old one from saved sims if you want, just to keep things clear.

The section to redo is from 17-28. If go to look at your mesh parts in step 17, they should show a unique name that you gave them. You can add a couple more letters to the front of it, then UPDATE, fix INTEGRITY - and then write out NEW modified shape and cres files. Now add those modified shape and cres to your new recolor file.

[kesafloyd]

Thanks. I couldn't get your advice to make sense, though, so I started over. Now I'm getting that problem where the dress changes to another dress when you go to make sure you still have an intact mesh. I've repeated III and IV and I'm still getting the problem. I swear I'm following your instruction to the T.

SOLVED: See my next post below.

[sparky17]

ive tried to add spheres to a sims tshirt to make puffy sleeves, but when i try to export it it says theres an error that unassigned bones exist. how do i fix that with my sleeves? i looked at the unimesh maual, but i just got confised. please help! thanx!

[sparky17]

lol i actually got it to work and i saved it and saved it in simpe and i was so happy! but then i went to check on it in body shop, and the ehtire middle part of my sim is invisible! im sad ive been working on this for 2 days lol! please help! thanx!

[kesafloyd]

I figured it out! It wasn't liking step 19 and the fact that I was renaming the cres and shape files. Rather than call them "modifiedcres" and "modifiedshape," I renamed the old ones instead, and gave the new ones the original names. Then the transfer in step 23 worked and the original dress remained when I went to check on it in BodyShop. Then, I was able to complete the tutorial successfully.

[wazza966]

I have tryed for a month now and i cant do it and my milkshape will be gone 2morro but thx anyway but isent there an easyer way 2 mesh???

[HystericalParoxysm]

Well, yes, there is, wazza... The super-secret 5-minute meshing method. We keep it to ourselves and write and support tutorials doing it this hard way because we like to make it hard for beginners - but we'll tell you the easy way... for the low, low price of $31,337.

[sparky17]

when i load some of my meshes into body shop after ive finished tehm and i think theyre good, theyre invisible! why do they keep showing up in body shop as invisble? is there a step im missing?

[tiggerypum]

Sparky - 'some of my meshes' that sounds like you're not doing this tutorial, but have moved beyond.

If so please post a new thread in the bodyshop meshing area. If it really _is_ this tutorial, post here.

We need a lot more details - does it show up in preview in simpe? What does it look like in milkshape, what mesh did you start with, what steps did you take, stuff like that. Crystal ball is too foggy right now to guess what you did wrong.

(first guess is to try and do the part with the modified shape and cres over on a new recolor and throw away the old recolor)

[Acorar]

if you make a dress and add stuff to it how do you color it?

[HystericalParoxysm]

Acorar, this tutorial isn't about "adding stuff" to a dress, or colouring 'em. If you're wanting to recolour clothing, you need to look in the Body Shop Skinning area. If you're asking about how to add new parts to a clothing mesh, you need to ask that in the main Body Shop Meshing area, outside of this tutorial. This is about removing the dangly thing from that one dress, not adding anything new.

[poundingheart]

Thank you so much for this tutorial. I have taught myself a valuable lesson. Not to skip a thing. My family are happy that I finally sorted out my problem. I skipped the bit about importing to the game at the start. Several tries later and that dangly thing is no more.lol

thanks again. :beer: :king:

[RockOnGal7]

I know it was a brill tutoral and all and I'm saying thanx. But there is a totally easier way to delete the dangly thing....edit it in paint and make that white bit-black! Though thanx :!: ;)

[tiggerypum]

RockOnGal - but then you'd not learn a thing about editing a mesh, now would you? This tutorial (and the particular edit) was initially created by WDS_Brianna and quite a long time ago. So we continued the tradition with that particular edit. Unfortunately almost every other mesh things like hoods or the like are not separate additional pieces and can't be alpha edited off.

[tiggerypum]

JustSimmin4hours, moved your complex edit to a new thread here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1321833

[naini_7077]

Is there not an easier way to do a mesh? Must we have all the programs you need? My computer is very slow so it may be not easy for me! Help!!!
@_@ Naini_7077

[tiggerypum]

naini, please scroll up the page about 10 messages, to #181, where HystericalParoxysm gives away all our secrets.

I'm sorry, but it sounds like your computer is barely able to run The Sims 2. Probably you should stick with skinning (making new colors/designs for clothing) and not try meshing.

[naini_7077]

Ok cool! You are right my sims 2 is so slooooooooow! Thanks anyway. naini 7077 @_@

[cultjam]

Where is there a tutorial where I can convert my new mesh, which is a dress, into pants?? Or do I have to start with a pant mesh?? I think I just answered my question, didnt I??

Thanks

Cult_Jam

[HystericalParoxysm]

cultjam, that's really not what this tutorial is about, nor is there a specific tutorial on doing what you're asking. However, with all meshes, you should generally try to start with something as close in shape and design as possible to what you want to end up with... the less editing you have to do the better. For something like changing a full-body blouse and skirt to a blouse and pants, you'd probably want to put together two different Maxis meshes that are similar to the shapes you want to end up with, then edit those similar shapes into what you want your finished shapes to look like. It's not generally very easy or any sort of beginner project, but there is info on doing that here.

In future, please post questions that are not directly related to a tutorial in the main Body Shop Meshing area. ;)

[cultjam]

Sorry about posting in the wrong place. I had a frustrating moment where I lost my patience:) I have been working on a new mesh for over a month now & I am almost done.

Thank you for the info. I appreciate it.

[janina]

Oh, nice avatar you have :) Number Six and "No more Mr. Nice Gaius" *g*

Well, I think I'll try your tutorial with the unimesh. But I'm not sure. I hate exploding meshes (they always do that).

[shycloud]

*waaahhhh* i think this thread is a Godsend for computer dummies lyk me, and i know it's sending a punch to the moon if someone like me tries an ambitious endeavor such as meshing but seeing the cool creations here made me wanna do it too and tiggerypum + HP i have a really birdbrain question i hope you won't fall off your seats laughing :(

[shycloud]

here goes (i accidentaly posted my previous post above) anyway it's this:

STEP 27) Delete the Resource and Shape from the Packed Files list by right clicking on them and choosing delete. A line will go through them. Then SAVE.

the thing is all was going fairly well until i reached this step, i couldn't find the Resource and Shape file i have to delete bcoz it's not 'visible'. all i can see in my simPe
right window is the highlighted 3d referencing file as seen in step 22.

asking for tiggery and HPs huge patience thanks a lot and keep doing the good deeds *_*

[tiggerypum]

Ah, I see! In Step 22, if you look at the screenshot, do you see the 'All Resources' thing in the left window - click that, and everything will show in your right window. Then scroll to find your cres and shpe on that list in the right window and delete them.

[Piliete]

Thousands of thanks to you guys !!!! Very nice tutorial and so usefull :))) Oh, I feel so happy, that I done my first mesh without any problems :)))

Great, now I can create my own meshes and upload here ^_^

[Frangellica]

i cant even get past the goal.. -.- lol. On my Body shop, i only have 1 item of clothing in each catagory, how do i get all the maxis productions from the game into my bodyshop?? :S

[HystericalParoxysm]

Frangellica, you need to be using the version of Body Shop that comes with the game, not the downloaded prerelease Body Shop. Start the version that comes with the game with the right shortcut and it should work.

However... it says right at the beginning of this tutorial that you need to already have basic working knowledge of Body Shop. If you're never made a Body Shop recolour before (which it sounds like you haven't), you need to head over to the Body Shop Skinning area and read the tutorials there and learn to recolour first. You really should be experienced at recolouring before you jump into meshing.

[Frangellica]

I have done recolours before, with genetics and body, and tried lots of different things, but ive only noticed as i came into this tutorial that my bodyshop doesnt have all the objects.. i dont know if i am using the Bodyshop that came with my game or not, but from what youa re saying, im obviously not. How do i access the one that came with my game??

[tiggerypum]

Try going to the START MENU - ALL PROGRAMS - EA GAMES - SIMS 2 - SIMS 2 BODYSHOP

[AliciaKeys77]

I'm having a bit of a problem with the 'Deleting the other dots' Meaning, I can't delete the dots and lines when I press shift and right click. NOTHING HAPPENS! Please help me someone, as I so want to create a mesh myself rather than downloading them!

[tiggerypum]

To deselect some of the vertices you've selected, that's a shift-right click on the vertice you don't want 'red'.

To delete all selected vertices, hit the DELETE key on the keyboard.

[Frangellica]

Try going to the START MENU - ALL PROGRAMS - EA GAMES - SIMS 2 - SIMS 2 BODYSHOP

Thats where im gettin my bodyshop from, and i dont think i downloaded a version of bodyshop. I went to the start menu ect ect and so im asuming thats the one that came with my game, and there is only one object in each of the catagories.. :S so can i export them from my game into this Bodyshop i have? Also is there a tutorial that teaches how to reclour other peoples meshes?

[tiggerypum]

Frangellica, Do you have expansions? Try searching your hard drive for bodyshop, maybe there is another copy somewhere. Otherwise you might need to try a game install (backup your files first! Instructions are in the game help area).

[Frangellica]

yes i do have expansions, thats the Bodyshop i found in my hard drive - the one with one object in each catagory - I dont realli want to reinstall my game again because i have millions of custom content and it would take me an age to reinstall them all
So if i keep this Bodyshop, will i not be able to do meshes???

[tiggerypum]

Unfortunately, you're not going to be able to edit the custom mesh outfits with that bodyshop.
To reinstall your game you just MOVE your custom content (the whole folders) out of the game area to your desktop - there are instructions for that in the game help area. 'Reinstalling' is then a matter of moving various folders back into place. But go read about it in GAME HELP, so you don't miss any important info.

[shycloud]

Ah, I see! In Step 22, if you look at the screenshot, do you see the 'All Resources' thing in the left window - click that, and everything will show in your right window. Then scroll to find your cres and shpe on that list in the right window and delete them.



Ehehe :jest: I feel like a clown. lol. Thank you so much tiggerypum :up:

[Mariiiiah]

I am not able to delete vertices.... or I am, in a way... it just happens to delete all, even i do this shift-right click. And when I select the hanging thing it just makes few dots, doesn't select the whole thing.
Can't even explain, cos' I can't really understand all what I am doing :D

[tiggerypum]

Mariiiiah, I don't know what to suggest. You need to click-drag when trying to select multiple vertices, or click on one, then shift-click on more to add them. Whatever is red (selected) should be what deletes. There are a variety of Milkshape Tutorials listed at the Milkshape site, but many of them start with making new objects as the first thing, and seem to assume people will manage to select things fairly easily.

[MentalMetalPetals]

Every time I open Milkshape it tells me that its not registered and will expire in 31 days (30, 29, etc etc...) But I'm not sure how to register it! I also had the same problem as Angelcookie but I will try Ghanima Atreides's suggestion. (page 1 of the commenty thingies) Apart from that, great tutorial guys!

[tiggerypum]

MentalMetalPetals - go to the Milkshape site, it's shareware, you will need to pay to register it.

[goldeneowyn]

Thanks-- this is an awesome tutorial! However, every time I open up the GMDC file, I get a pop up saying "File of assembly name Microsoft.DirectX, or one of its dependencies, was not found." What's going on, and how can I fix it? Thanks!

[tiggerypum]

Go to the SimPE site and get _all_ the files needed to run SimPE. There are probably some that you missed.

[goldeneowyn]

Which additional files (besides the main download) would i need?

[tiggerypum]

Uhm, did you go to the SimPE site. How about the first thing on the download page that says: Needed Software to run SimPE

[MentalMetalPetals]

WWWOOOOOHHOOOOO!!!!!!!! I had a lot of problems deleting that dangly thing to start off with, but reading through all these comments and replies has helped me figure out the problems... it turned out I had a lot of boxes checked that I shouldn't have. Well.... 2 boxes, but it still made a big difference. A very nice and clear tutorial, and thanks tiggerypum for telling me where to register Milkshape! I suppose that was kind of a stupid question anyway.... But anyway dangly thing is deleted, and I can't wait to do more meshing in the future! Thank yoooooooouuuuuu!!!! :bunny:

[Mariiiiah]

Now I figured out why I wasn't able to deselect! Had the Ignore Backfaces selected in the Model Tab... Took me waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to figure that *lol*

[harvey47]

Thank you so much for the tutorial! I was able to alter a mesh easily ;)

Now, I have the thumbnail in Body Shop that looks like the original item, not like the finished product (like you mentioned). But how can I delete that?

I exported that file to do my recoloring, and I have an updated thumbnail from reloading it (that I can delete if needed). How can I delete the original file with the un-updated thumbnail?
Hope that makes sense!

[tiggerypum]

1) the 'bad' thumbnail in bodyshop doesn't matter, it's only in YOUR bodyshop. Everyone else will get a current thumbnail

2) you can simply delete your old recolor file from the saved sims folder once you've made yet another recolor and IMPORTED it into the game. Make sure to delete the oldest one. You can also delete any other old recolors you created while making a new mesh, as long as you have a _new_ recolor made first and imported!

3) Open the My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Thumbnails folder and delete the contents. That'll get you new thumbnails, if that's what you really want to do. :)

[harvey47]

Thank you! I had been all over the Downloads and Project folder, removing one file at a time and reloading BodyShop again and again ~ I completely overlooked the Saved Sims folder. Slowly getting the hang of all of this...

[Leli490]

Im not sure if this has been answered. I do not have all the time in the world to read the whole 4 pages.. but I've been getting a pop up (im at step 32) that says I cant save my stuff if I dont register? Do I have to click open for step 33? Im a bit confused =\

[tiggerypum]

Leli, I suspect you've had your milkshape for more than a month? Milkshape is not a free program, it costs $25 to register after the free trial is over.

[Moni_ka]

I created hair by Hair Meshing with MilkShape and UniMesh (Beginners),but in BodyShop shown only elder hair with changes.Why?

[tiggerypum]

Moni_ka, this is not a hair tutorial. If you followed Dr Pixels' hair tutorial, then the questions should be over here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=159824

If only the elder change is showing up, I expect your attempt to put the modified shape and cres in didn't get both spots correctly (you do need to do it twice, once for adult, once for elder). So try that step over with a new recolor, and when you're done be sure you delete the modified shape and cres from the main area. If that fails, please post in the hair tutorial thread (it's stickied, it'll be in the top section of the main forum)

[Aleesha]

Hmm..... I tried to make a mesh yesterday and I exported everything blabla but the mesh in bodyshop is still the same as it was before I even started changing it... Any suggestions??

[tiggerypum]

Haven't seen any steps called 'blabla'....

First, there's this article in the infocenter: My mesh doesn't show up in bodyshop!
http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=131405

The short form of most common problems

1) When you open your mesh file and look at the gmdc, do you see your new mesh in the plugin area if you click on preview and spin it around with the mouse? If not, you forgot to commit and save.

2) Make sure your mesh file is in your DOWNLOADS folder

3) Repeat part IV - steps 20-28

[MentalMetalPetals]

:llama: Well, now I've moved on to try and make some meshes of my own, but I can't get it past the first SimPE stage! I open the file from SavedSims in SimPe, and I look at what the property set is and note it down on paper somewhere. I go to file - new and then search in the resource finder as instructed using the name of the property set. Everything looks as if its going OK until it finishes loading. Nothing shows up in Results! Either that or it comes up with a list of files including that name, for example, I searched for "ambodyoverhangtshirt_black" and this is exactly what came up in Results:
Material Definition: ambodyoverhangtshirt_black_txmt
Material Definition: ambodyoverhangtshirt_blacklogo_txmt
Material Definition: ambodyoverhangshirt_blackplumbob_txmt
Material Definition: ambodyoverhangtshirt_blacksun_txmt

I have tried all the options in "Match", and it comes up with nothing in "Exact", a list in "Begins With", a list with "Contains", nothing in "Ends With" and a list in "Regular Expression". No gmdcs, tsolators etc etc. The first time I was trying all these options the green bar went across twice, and for some reason when I tried them all again it only went once, although I'm not sure about that bit.
Can you see anything there where I'm going wrong, and do you have any idea what the problem is? :report:



:!: (Essay finished) :!:

[HystericalParoxysm]

MentalMetalPetals, that's because you're including the "_black" part. Search for "ambodyoverhangtshirt" and it'll come up.

[Aleesha]

tiggerypum: blabla was all the steps in between and I repeated them about 10 times...
I saved the mesh about that much times in my downloads folder also, I followed every step again and again...
In Milkshape my mesh shows up like I saved it and it still won't show up xD I think I will try a new mesh but thanks :)

edit: holymoly! I don't know what I did but my mesh is THERE :D Thankzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz :gjob: :gjob: :gjob:

[Mage]

Thanks so much for this easy tutorial. I've never made fat and pregnant meshes before and I'm wondering if there is a way to see the pregnant mesh short of getting a sim pregnant and buying her the dress?

[tiggerypum]

Mage,

for the pregnant versions of any user made meshes to work, you need to be using a pregnancy hack. To tell the truth, I've never used one and I don't even know what the procedures are. But if you don't use that, it doesn't matter what is in the custom meshes, the game will only use the maxis pregnancy meshes.

[Aleesha]

Tiggerypum: I read in some posts a few pages back that bumpmapping won't be supported by Unimesh... Do you know how to get the bumpmapping back anyway? Because I hate making clothes without them lol^^
I really hope there is something to get it back.

[tiggerypum]

Currently you can use additional steps of doing a SMD export and then import using the simpe smd format. BUT (and this is important) you will no longer be able to read that gmdc in with Milkshape/Unimesh -- so make SURE to save your original work files. We do not have detailed documentation about it, I haven't gotten enough round tuits yet.

[Aleesha]

ooh that sounds complicated... thanks alot btw :)
I will definitely try it and I'm always backuing up my files a thousand times :D

[slavextoxbillie]

I can't seem to get it to select the dangly thing. Almost everywhere else can be selected.

[tiggerypum]

Hmm, can you check your settings there - look at the screenshots - is it set to vertex and is 'ignored backfaces' unchecked?

[Mage]

Thanks for answering about the pregnant mesh. Mine looks so cute but oh well. Should I delete it from the file or just leave it?
And could you tell me more about saving normals with SMD? Is that a plug in for SimPE or Milkshape? Where would I get it?

[tiggerypum]

I believe some of the cheats will use the pregnant state of the mesh, so you could leave it in and let people know it exists.

SMD export/import is now part of SimPE. See this thread: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?goto=lastpost&t=182391 I believe that for simple meshes (with only one group) you should be able to export and then import and it will just work, if your mesh originally had a bumpmap.

[Mage]

Thanks Tiggery Plum. Now I have new questions, which I posted over there.

[Inge Jones]

Oops no it wasn't answered I don't know what I am talking about. Ok what I wanted to ask is, since this tutorial was written, hasn't any version of SimPe, including the QA version, had a plugin written to find the various bits of clothing from the other files?

I have a friend who has just started clothes meshing and she says it's a bit of a pain finding and extracting the various bits of file.

[tiggerypum]

Inge, this tutorial uses the 'find' command, which will search all the sims files on your drive for bits named as specified in the 'find'. As far as I know, this is as good as it gets right now. We used to have to go by hand into the individual files, search, and then copy and paste in instance numbers to find the parts. This _is_ improved, lol.

I believe I got locked out of QA during one of the simpe forum rebuilds. And I've been sort of busy, and I would not send all our meshers to go grab a qa version unless it was really pressing.

It really isn't _that hard_ to grab the 4 pieces. There's so many other places where things can go wrong, finding the parts doesn't seem to be the place people get hung up at, it gets easy pretty quickly.

[bunniluver]

I don't have the four views. All I see if the one in the bottom left corner. Heres a pick of what I'm talking about:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c319/bunniluver/Untitled1-2.jpg

[tiggerypum]

Bunniluver, your other views (and you can choose 3 or 4 windows) are zoomed WAYYY OUT for some reason and look like top views. (see how small the boxes are). Right click on them each window chose a different view, and right click again if they still look small and choose 'frame all' to get them zoomed in some.

[Inge Jones]

Ok it's just that Peter has started to design a small plugin util to automatically import those parts. Basically I have asked him to make it that after making the new outfit in BS, you open the resulting package and click something that automatically finds and imports all the parts leaving you just at the point where you need to fix integrity. I wanted to make sure he wasn't reinventing the wheel. Is it worth him carrying on with that?

[HystericalParoxysm]

Ooh, Inge, a utility like that would be VERY cool. While the gathering mesh parts section isn't really too difficult, it does get a bit tedious (it's really the part I go "Ugh, bleh," at when I go to make a mesh), and a utility like that would eliminate the need for my "Original Maxis Meshes" folder where I keep all the previous meshes I've exported, just so I don't have to go through the searching and the opening and the exporting yet again on every project. Wow, that was a long sentence. :giggler:

Edit: It does seem like correctly linking the CRES and SHPE in the 3DIR is often a part that folks tend to get stuffed up on - I'm wondering (and I don't know how hard it'd be to do, just musing on the subject) if something that goes a step further might be even more useful... i.e. you open the recolour file you just made in Body Shop, click the "Make me a mesh!" button, it gathers the parts, makes you a new file out of them, gives you the prompt to Fix Integrity to name the mesh and all, and then links up the CRES and SHPE from the new mesh to the base recolour package. Some sort of "Default replacement" checkbox as an option would make it stop at gathering the new mesh parts and putting them together, without doing Fix Integrity, to create a default replacement.

Again, no idea how feasible that second part is, and even just a utility for the first part would be freakin' awesome, just dreaming. :)

[Inge Jones]

Ok I just gave him the green light again. :)