So I'm trying to learn how to modify clothes in milkshape following various tutorials. For learning's sake I'm just trying to make a shirt shorter. I just moved up some of the bottom and snapped some verticies together, and then "align normals". However no matter how many different ways I try to modify the mesh, It comes out where the bottom piece looks very odd in TSWR and in game, even if it looks fine in milkshape. I know I must be missing something or definitely not doing something correctly.

Mesh in milkshape smoothed:


Mesh in TSRW:


Mesh in game:


Whats the ideal way to shorten the shirt while keeping the shirt tails? Thank you so much for any help!

The obvious problem is that the texture of the bottoms is layered on the top. See this tutorial for how to modify the layering. In this case you probably need to change the top's Overlaypriority to 7: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=488263

Was this shirt originally a whole body mesh? If so, you may need to modify the UV map to move all of the shirt into the EA Top area. I can find and upload the template of where to locate tops, bottoms, and shoes if you need it. This is another way to fix the layering problem, btw.

As for the normals- did you snap all the vertices at the bottom of the mesh together into a point and then smooth? If so, that's why you're getting that weird shadowing. You should leave the bottom open and just taper it a little if you want to minimize the gap where the shirt overlaps the pants.

Thank you for the response! I checked the layering and its already on 7. It is actually a top originally, and I swear in TSRW the original shirt does something similar with the bottom texture but looks fine in the game. I can re-mesh the shirt, whats the best way to make it shorter (eliminate the lower middle). Thank you so much for the help!

Could you upload your package so I can take a look? I imagine the UV mapping is off but I thought the layering setting would adjust for that.

You want to raise the bottom of the shirt up by cutting out part of the middle? The best way for a beginner is probably to snap together the row of vertices above and below the section you want to discard, then raise the bottom so the rows are again evenly spaced. (You'll probably have to scale the part you raise a little smaller in the X and Z dimensions to have a smooth form.) Then go to the UV map and make the same adjustment: move the rows you snapped together so they're on top of each other and move the bottom part up to match. You shouldn't have to smooth the normals.

The 'proper' way to do it would be to weld instead of snap the vertices together, but then you'd have to rebuild the morphs.

Alternately, if you're only shortening it a little, you can select the shirt from below the breasts down, scale it a little smaller in the Y dimension, and move it up. If the original top was UV-mapped properly you shouldn't have to mess with that part.

I'm attaching the EA UV-mapping template.