Removing waist lines

[migamoo]

I got past the hardest part for this mesh, smoothing everything. You don't want to know how long it took me to figure out I needed a plug-in. :lol: But, now, I have this line. It's the top of the mesh. I'm trying to go for an untucked look, but it's getting in the way. I was wondering if there was a simple way of getting rid of it?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/ffgraphics/line02.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/ffgraphics/line01.jpg

It's really not noticeable on darker colors, but it still annoys me. I want a smooth transition between the two meshes, but cannot seem to get it.

[WesHowe]

I think these are separate top/bottom meshes?

What you need to do is to make the row of vertices at the top and bottom edges (where they match up) identical, not only their location (XYZ), but also the normals, which are important to rendering.

This sort of lines can be helped by using the AlignNormals MilkShape plugin:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1110878#post1110878

Alternatively, you could also use the ExtendedManualEditor in the same thread (above) and manually make the normals on both halves the same.

If you're not using MilkShape, then this solution will not work.

But, if these are two seperate meshes (I think this is what you meant), you will need to load them into the same package, fix them and then take them back apart into seperate files.

I also can offer my "Frankensteining" (name courtesy of H-P) MilkShape plugins, located here:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1628775#post1628775

These require some skill at operating, but you can use the normals data merge plugin and select the top and bottom (one vertex pair at a time) and run the plugin. It will take the normals from the first selected vertex in the first listed group (whichever you put on the top of the list) and put them in the vertex in the next group (actually, all the remaining selected vertices).

<* Wes *>

[HystericalParoxysm]

I would definitely recommend using the second option that Wes mentions there. That's what I did in making my untucked top for the laydeez - grabbed a bottom mesh and just matched up the normals to my top so it would untuck perfectly, and it was totally, well, stupid-easy. The Fist of Frankensteining rules!

One thing to keep in mind when you do so, though - morphs appear to take their uv mapping from the original mesh, but the normals for any fat/pregnant morphs are going to need to be correct... They use their own normals, so make sure to fix up your morphs the same way or they'll get a seam when they go fat.

[tiggerypum]

Actually, the fat meshes do not _have_ to have their own normals - there's an option in the comments that controls that - found that out after you were working on those meshes HP

make sure

NoMorphNorms:

is on a line of the comments! You can add it if it didn't exist. Most of the newer Maxis meshes were already done that way, but it seems base game ones were not.

NoMorphNorms: is created by the importer when the original mesh has morph for the vertices, but not for the normals. The presence of normal morph deltas is optional, and is not always needed when the morph is not greatly different from the base mesh. Deleting this comment will result in the normal morph deltas being generated on export (this will make the mesh output file larger).

[migamoo]

*Nevermind!

Thanks so much for the help! I think it worked. :)