Problem with the Spiderbody

[Nocturnus]

I made a mesh from scrap with MilkShape 3D 1.7.7a and copied it into a 'female adult lower mesh'(some skirt), which i then deleted. Now the new mesh can't be exporter as a simmesh with Sims2 UniMesh Exporter 4.00.
Errormessage says: Normal/Morph model count mismatch detected. Check for proper MorphRefNum: values in model comments.
no idea what that means
and no idea what i did wrong, this is the first time this appeared an i've done a bit in meshing, eventhough it has neither been worthy of uploading or showing till now.
Also Milkshape always crashes when the bones should be set to 100 percent.

I attached images of the created mesh. sadly I can't attach a picture of the overwritten mesh.

I any one has got an idea how this thing could be gotten to work, I'm thankful.
hope we can figur out a way together

[OwaizooDE]

i dont know how to solve
but i would like to get a hold of this mesh and try-

[tiggerypum]

First, I am assuming you deleted the vertices, but the skeleton from the original mesh is intact? Did you then group your new object with the skeleton? Assuming yes...
---

Okay, the original mesh you used probably had/has a fat morph.

If you look at the Unimesh Manual, you have two (actually 3) ways to deal with this.
The first would be for you to say 'no' to 'display blend groups' when you import your original maxis skirt.

Now - what you've designed there - I assume you made the upper circle match up to the top of the skirt exactly? If you did not, your mesh will not be useable -- you also need the exact bone settings for your mesh to join with some sort of upper body...

Now note.... if you eliminate the fat morph - then when the sim goes fat with most standard Maxis (and well made user) tops, those top edges will no longer meet.

The best way for you to get that top joint correct is to delete all but the top row of the skirt, and then you can use those points to attach to your mesh below, but it's still going to be tricky. Note that when you 'regroup' that it currently will LOSE the bone assignments - so you need to use Dr Pixel's technique (bottom of message) or write down all the bone assignments for the vertices at the upper edge, so that you can reassign them to the exact same values.

Your other (and better game-wise) option as you designed this is to go to the fat morph, and copy your spider thing onto it also, adjust the waistline points to match exactly with the fat waistline...

Wes' manual explains all the comments that need to be on the morphs, you can either copy your new bottom to the morph, and delete the exact same stuff as you did for your first mesh, and then group it together, or you can duplicate your first mesh, make the adjustments to make it fit the fat morph's dimensions (the bone weights will not matter, the morph's bones do not matter only the location of the vertices) and make the new morph match the old in name and in the comment fields.

The part that's tricky is that the morph must have *exactly* the same number of vertices as the original body - because the morph isn't actually stored as a mesh, it stores the info about the vertices that are moved.

OR you can make this much simpler. I really recommend this solution.

Use a full body mesh of some sort. Do not import morphs. Delete the lower half of the body. Save it. Use Dr Pixel's technique to bring in your new lower body and have it merge with the upper body. Now you only have to do the bone assignments on the whole lower half of the body, the assignments for the top will be saved. And your sim will stay the same fit/fat and there will not be any extra issues regarding trying to make that waist seam match up perfectly or having to adjust it again for fat.

Dr Pixels' solution for how to join parts together without using 'regroup' (which is currently broken) is here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1000737#post1000737 It's message #69 if that link doesn't show up right.

Btw, maybe it's just the screenshots, but you should definitely make sure that the poly/vertex counts on that mesh are as low as possible, as it looks like there's quite a bit added with all those legs and the extra extension out the back. Once you get the mesh posted, you will need to post the counts along with the counts of a game mesh so that people with low-end systems will be aware of the difference. Looks like an interesting idea.

Also, you will need to uvmap that to the same area on the 1024x1024 graphic that is used for the lower half of the body (be sure you don't catch the area the hands sit) before you try to merge things together....

[OwaizooDE]

tiggerypum

i have a question-
do u think this thing will work-if i
simply make this same thing from scratch-export as .obj
now export original bottom mesh
and snap it all together and import this .obj and rrename the group and assign all-to legs or dress-or wherever suitable and export
so will it work ?

[tiggerypum]

Well, I think Nocturnus can get something working. It's not going to animate ideally, but it can work.

It would be not very nice for you to copy their idea when they asked for help. Matter of fact, it would be quite inappropriate for you to do so. If seeing their stuff gives you ideas for your OWN creations, that is good. Don't steal other people's ideas.

For example of a totally new lower body, you can see a centaur here at http://www.rosesims2.net/
on magic, page 2. It's an interesting idea, definitely something to play with in terms of animation, bone assignments, etc. It has limitations, as we can't reprogram how the sims animate. You can see how Rose animated hers, go ahead and download it and try it in your game... it's got limited animations.

[OwaizooDE]

no tiggerypum
u got me tottaly wrong
first thing-i never ever steal anyones work-
second thing-i dont think i will make such stiff
i was just asking my qustion-i used his creation as base cos its what the thread is about-i never meant to use it-

i was just asking that if i make m creation from scratch(not spider,something else)
and then i export as .obj and then import over a new bottom mesh,and snapthe bottom together and then name the new bottom same as original bottom and asiign to legs thigh or dress etc
so will it show in game or not


(this is jsut a question,i wont steal anyones work or copy idea cos i know how it feels,as someone stole my idea)

[tiggerypum]

Well yes, it should work. The key points:

Delete the parts of the original mesh you won't be using.

Keep the waistline (if you don't want it to break for fat, you need to also do the same for the fat morph - you don't need to make bone assignments, but you must keep that waistline so things will line up with the game tops)

Write down the bone assignments for all the waistline points if you are going to regroup, because regrouping will erase the extra bone assignments.

Then is the challenge of figuring out how to do the bone assignments to get some sort of reasonable behavior from the new lower body. It's obviously *not* going to behave in all situations if you greatly change the shape. Even making woman's skirts extra wide will cause some animation issues, where they will 'go through' things they shouldn't. But if you need a character for a movie or such, or you don't care what the character looks like sitting in a chair, it will work.

Or you can do a full body and skip the waistline and fat issues - and use Dr Pixel's method to join your new lower body to the top body, so you don't lose the bone assignments on the upper half of the body.

[Nocturnus]

Thanks for the help.
But after working on it till about 2 o'clock in the morning after opening this thread and from 8 o'clock till 10 and having acieved nothing more then many hunderd milkshape crashes, fifty new corrupted files and two system crashs I don't think I'll get this running by myself.
I went back on the offer of OwaizooDE and hope we'll have success, so everybody can enjoy this mesh.

[OwaizooDE]

just getting to work on it now-i m not epxert-cant guarantee it will work-but i wotn give up so soon either-and i hope it works-so i will keep working on it for lot of time-

[OwaizooDE]

ok
well i did my method as said above
reassigned all bones
and all but when it was time to export-i got the same error as nocturn got-about morph-so i deleted the morph-and exorted so i got error about unassigned bones
so i exported as gmdc-and bodyshop crashes while loading
this time i assigned all bones to pelvis-and exported as unimesh so it appeared fine-i know it will have straneg animaitons and will try to fix it-

the textures are like that-cos it is linked to sem maxis bottom

NOCTURNUS-as u said to credit u when i post-the thing is-its ur mesh-u made it and all -so u have to post it urself-and give a little credit to me if u want-but its not necessary-have fn


EDIT: ok this time i removd the morph group
and just had the spider-so i reassigned all bones-
like the very lower verticles on right to r_foot and left to l_foot and then above ones to toe and then ones above them to calf,then thight and all-the main senter part and bac tail part to pelvis-and i checked in game and to my surprise

this time when my simmy walked
all 8 legs moved-and its was really WOW-but sometimes animations look a bit strange,but it look so much as a real spider woman-

EDIT:
i tested it in game-it looks quite good-the thing is-as everyone knows-it moves as on thing-and when sim sits on sofa and all it sits with it-and goes in walls and all but i reaally like it anyway-it rox
Nocturnus-u did a greta job

EDIT
Nocturnus-the mesh can be made as formal,pjs etc but u know that spme more work-yes i can do it-but not without ur help-so we can make it formal and all too-
and it can work fine for elders too-male or frmale-
but for otherages-u have to change mesh size for other ages to make it fit for them-ok-i hope u understand
and i would like to thankyou for letting me do this mesh-it was really nice of u-i had fun and learned a lot about body-

[Nocturnus]

Did I get this right. The Spider walks now with one side animated and then the next, or the way I proposed, as real as possible like a spider?

Resizing the mesh should not be a problem for me, but then you got to do all the reboning again, sure you want to do that?

Edit:
I lokked at the pictures again, this time with a brightnessmodder, so you can really see the colors and everything. I still think it looks great, did you solve the problem with the Clothingcolors on the Spider in stupid regions.(no need to hurry it, just interested)

[OwaizooDE]

no-i dont have to do reboning if u resize this mehs-if u make a new mesh then i have to reassign bones but thats no problem-

and the legs are animated so when the sim moved-all 8 legs will move
they have each part assignes so all on right are assigned to right foot,toe calf and thigh while on left are assigned to left foot,toe,calf and thigh-so they move fine-
sometimes the foot goes a bit in the floor but never stays-so everything is really fine-
i m just waiting to see it in downloads section-and see what people say and think-

[Nocturnus]

Okay, i'll resize it during the next 24 hours, probably not today cause i got my finals this week and tomorrow is my last one

okay great that it moves, if you want to, you might want to try my proposal in the document with the DATA, with the legs, that 2 on each side move when one of the feet move

Edit: new pictures, where one can see a thing.
We got the problem, that it is transperant at certain parts and others get a wrong coloring(rather a copy of the picture you see, if you recolored the upper part in paint or other progs)

can somebody help us?

[OwaizooDE]

i tried combining with body
it requiires me to reassign bones of the top too-and m not familiar with that-

[tiggerypum]

Transparency is probably underweight bones, there's a tool in the VERTEX menu to automatically fix that.

The rest looks like a uv mapping issue - the spider body needs to be uvmapped to the lower half of the texture only. I would have to see the mesh myself in order to further check things.

Owaizoo, you should not have had to reassign the bones on the top half of the body if you followed Dr Pixels' steps for how to combine things without regrouping. The top of the body has some fussy assignments around the shoulders, elbows and stomach, which you will either need to recreate exactly or preserve.

I'm not sure if one can get a decent animation with the spider's legs alternately assigned to opposite feet, you can try and and see. It's an odd issue, because the movements will be relative to the human skeleton.

Pretty good progress! Do well on your exams, Sims will wait! :)

[OwaizooDE]

i assigneslegs this way-
all legs on right were assigned to right and all on left were assigned to left
but then nocturnus wanted me to change assigned bones after he saw animation in game-so now they r assigned like he said
the bones are assigned like this

1(right) 2(left)
3(left) 4(right)
5(right) 6(left)
7(left) 8(right)


tiggerypum
i have attached the mesh and recolor file-it would be great of u if u uvmap-its ok if u dont-i assigned-as u wanted to take a look0have fun


anyone is free to test it-and report here what u think
this mesh will in no way cos any bugs-or crashes-it works totally fine-please report here any bugs-or ur oppinion wot u think-

[Nocturnus]

Okay, leganimation looks better now, even though it looked great before already
Still got the problem with the textures.
And the Spiderfullbody does not work on my PC, I get a standard Maxis Skin instead (the same skin that always shows up in my game, when a mesh/skinfile is broke or missing)

btw, I'm finished with the exams since about 2 hours

[OwaizooDE]

ok-
so WOULD ANYONE LIKE TO FIX THE UVMAP FOR US?
cos nocturnus is not familiat with uv map and i m not expert with it

[Dr Pixel]

I can't fix it for you myself, my own uv-mapping technique is to uv map each part as I make it. It's way too difficult for me to uv_map something after the whole mesh is completed.

But maybe this mini-tutorial will help:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1134540#post1134540

Also, as tiggerypum mentioned, you must keep your whole uv_map in the bottom part of the texture, and also away from the arms and hands, otherwise it will interfere with the texture of the top. The "top" and the "bottom" will always share the same texture-mapping space, even though each has a different texture image and alpha. In the game they are combined into one texture image from the two separate images.

Use the uv_map of a Maxis bottom mesh as a reference.

[OwaizooDE]

umm-i just wanted to make it show in game-my work is over-i ahve to work for other site too-if i find time i will make it as whoel or try to-but i cant uv map it either-sorry-

thanks drpixel

[tiggerypum]

I won't have time until *maybe* on the weekend. It looks like it is uvmapped, but clearly not to the right area. I don't know if I can adjust the existing mapping easily or not, it does look like all the legs are mapped the same (which would be a good sign).

[OwaizooDE]

oh kool-we can wait for u as much time u take as much u want-:)thankyou

[Nocturnus]

Yeah, it does not matter how long it takes, as long as we see the finished working mesh someday ;-)