Greetings everyone. It took me forever to figure all of this out, but thanks to Miche, I've finally gotten it all square and working. I'm posting this little tutorial because I heard lots of folks mentioning that they'd like to use Poser and/or DAZ Studio (which is a free program that is compatible with Poser stuff) to modify files. Bear in mind that it is NOT a good idea (nor do I even know if it's possible) to use Poser figures in the Sims 2!!! The models in Poser are far too complex and if you do successfully manage to use them, even the highest end machines will go down to a crawl when you have more than a person or two on a lot. So, please for the love of all that is good - don't try releasing modified Poser models for Sims 2 games!

Whew. Okay - now that that is said and out of the way - let's look at what this WILL actually do for us. First, this tutorial will address some specific issues I encountered when using WDS BriAnna's Most Excellent Mesh Tool Clothing Tutorial. There wasn't anything wrong with her tutorial, but there were definitely a few unique issues that arose simply because of the way Poser handles files. We'll also take a brief look at using Poser's Magnets to modify the shape of a mesh (and then save those magnets so you can quickly and easily apply those magnet presets to other models).

I do not have DAZ Studio installed because I own Poser. This stuff SHOULD all work in DAZ Studio and the process should be very similar. DAZ Studio is a free program (available here). If anyone tries this out, please let me know if it definitely works in that program, as well...

Okay, here we go.

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1. Begin by following the steps outlined in BriAnna's Tutorial. When you get to Part V - Editing your mesh (finally!) (Step 26) Come back here for a minute, I need to tell you something before you proceed.

2. Now you should be ready to edit your mesh. In step 27 of the tutorial, though - you can't just export it as it says there. Poser gets confused with mesh names and the default name that SimPE gives your OBJ file is going to make it crap out. When you do the export of the OBJ file, it is very important that you name the file "body.obj" (do not capitalize it, don't name it anything else - Poser is going to use that name as the object name - and it's nearly impossible to change that name from within the program itself, even though it looks like you can do it - trust me - just name the OBJ file this way and all of your problems will be gone!)

3. So, now you should have a file called body.obj that we're ready to import into Poser (or DAZ Studio).

4. Make sure you have an empty scene and then click "File -> Import -> Wavefront OBJ". Select the "body.obj" file you just made. A dialog will appear and almost all of the checkboxes are exactly wrong. So, just uncheck them all, and then check off only the following two: "Weld Identical Vertices" and "Make Polygon Normals Consistent".

5. Your model will appear and it will be very large and laying on its back. This is normal. Don't worry about it - the only thing to keep in mind is that you cannot move the model at all! You can freely move the camera(s) around, though to get a better look at it.

6. Here I'll assume you already have a magnet preset to make the process more fluid. If you don't have one already, see below for tips on this part of it. For now, just apply your Magnet Preset and give it a quick look to make sure nothing wonky is going on.

7. Now, you're all done and you just need to export the file. Click "File -> Export -> Wavefront OBJ". Click OK on the "Frames to Export Dialog" (it should default to "Single Frame"). In the next window, make sure that the GROUND is UNCHECKED (or else your figure will have a giant square stuck to it's butt when you load it into The Sims). Pick a file name (this name can be anything). And finally, you'll get another window with some checkboxes. Two should already be checked: "Include Figure Names" and "Weld..." You also need to check the top two boxes: "Use Body Part Names..." and "Use Exact Internal Names...". This makes for a total of 4 boxes checked. Click OK.

8. You're done! Go back to BriAnna's tutorial and go right to Part VI - Putting the new mesh into your mesh package file. Finish up and you're good to go!

NOTE: I'm not sure how well the magnets are going to work on split outfits (i.e. Casual, Tops and Casual, Bottoms) since the seams likely won't match up if you are magnetising anywhere near the abdomen where the two models mesh up. I'll play with this some over the coming days to see how the game handles it.

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Tips on Working With Magnets

Over the next couple of days, I will be attaching my own magnet presets to this post. The beauty of these little babies is that it makes it really easy to create a specific body type and then quickly apply that shape over a wide range of clothes. And, you only need one preset for each age group and gender. So, your "Adult Female" magnet preset should work on every adult female outfit mesh in the game. So, if you use my "Super Heroine MagSet" on a business suit and you want your Sim who wears that suit to have the same body type when she changes to her swimsuit, you can load the swimsuit OBJ file, click the preset and two seconds later, your model is ready for export.

The downside is that if everyone using magsets is making their own, then everyone will end up needing to make all their own clothes if they want their body shapes to be consistent. It is because of this that I'm hoping that people interested in using body shape modifications will use each others magsets wherever possible. This way, if Joe does a swimsuit mesh with my Heroine MagSet, I won't need to do it and then everyone else with bodyshop and come up with some good skins.

Some Extra Tips:

1. It's much easier to move around in the 3D space if you bring up your parameter dials and rotate you body.obj file -90.0000 degrees on the X axis. Just remember that before you export you need to type it back into 0.0000 (don't use the dial - click the number and enter a 0 in the field) before you export the object.

2. When you are fine tuning, it's okay to make the MAG prop itself invisble as you can still select it from the selector under your main window. This will help you keep an eye on everything.

3. If you aren't familiar with how to work with magnets - be patient. Within a day or two, I'll be posting some of my presets. These will already be set up to affect various body parts and such. If you download those, life will be a lot easier for you.

4. I'll post more as I think of them.

UPDATE (2/15/2005)

First Magset Added: See this post. Superheroine BodyStyle.

Male/Female Muscular Bodytype Magsets Added Here.

If you try the above tutorial in DAZ Studio, please let me know if everything is pretty much the same in that program or if there are any glaring differences.

And, of course, please give me a yell if you have problems or questions with this tutorial.

Thanks again to everyone who has made this possible!

X.

Xenos!!

Oh my God, THANK YOU , THANK YOU!!!!!!

I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to do this with Poser.

You are fantastic!!!!!

Quick question: Is it possible to use Poser for Hair too?

Debby

Hi Xenos,
Very interesting. It would be very nice to have the same altered bodyshape for a wide range of clothings.
Greetings Christian

Debby - I haven't gotten to hair, yet. It looks, based upon the discussion in BriAnna's tutorial that hair is similar - you just look down lower on the list when you are extracting the stuff to make your new MESH_.package file. I'm not sure though.

Once you get to the dealing with the OBJ file, (i.e. the steps I listed above) I would imagine that it's exactly the same except you'll have to figure out what the "hair" is called and extract the OBJ from SimPE with that name. (Maybe it's just "hair.obj" ? Dunno).

Remember though, Poser isn't really much of a modeling tool. It's strengths, for us, are in the realm of being able to duplicate things quickly over multiple similarly composed objects. For hair, while it might be okay for making hair slightly longer or more full than it is in the original mesh, it won't be very good for much else. There's no real reason you'd need to save a "preset" for hair to reuse on another hair model.

But, anyway - yeah, it should work.

X.

I've got two poser's living in the same house LOL --the sim guy's reeeeealy like them they are ----ample LOL and have had house parties it does slow alittle if more than 5 sims come over-- 1.4 gig proc

I agree with you in that too many magsets in the Sims Community will lead to problems, but I don't think that you'll ever get people to agree with using a single magset across the community.

I know I had issues with the Sims 1 in that a lot of Sims who would have one body shape on one skin would lose that body shape when changing into their swimsuit or another skin. I guess all that can be done is to inform skinners and hope that common sense prevails and that differeing magsets are minimised... or hope that they can be easily grouped using collections.

Great Work

Just a reminder to everyone, Daz3D has a lo-res model for both Vicki and Mike, which would help save some cpu power.

Great work.....can you translat your tutorial in comprehensive french langage.......will be great.....Because I have poser 5 and will be very interessant to test it on sims2.....Thanks in advance.

Cestmoi - I only speak English, unfortunately. (And not very well, at that). There's nothing very difficult in this tutorial - the only trick is to know what to check when importing and exporting the mesh (and what to name your object file). Hopefully a bi-lingual will come along and offer to translate. Sorry I can't be more help in this area.

UberSims - yeah. I realize that. The best that we can hope for would be that if people are looking for a specific body-type, they would check to see if a magset existed for that bodytype and if so, use it. If not, they would make their own and then share the magset as well as the new mesh.

Scout - yes, those low-res meshes might have some potential - they are still vastly more complex than the Sims meshes, but if you chop the heads off, they could work. We'll have to wait until the Animation stuff comes out so we can see how the bones work.

And to all, thanks for the nice comments. I'm glad I'm finally able to give something back to the community. Skinning bores me to tears and I'm not particularly good at understanding binary code to do my own mods. At last, there's something that I can do to help out.

X.

As promised, here is the Poser/Daz Magset for the Heroine Bodytype. This bodytype makes larger breasts, smaller waist, wider hips, and adds some musculature to the shoulders, biceps, hips and thighs. It's very comic bookish in nature and not particularly realistic, but neither are comic book heroines, are they?

You can download my first mesh and skins using this magset to try them out in your game over in the Beta Section.

To use the magset in Poser or DAZ Studio, download the following archive and unzip it into your "/runtime/libraries/props/" folder. It should automatically create a new folder in there and that should appear at or very near the top of your "Props" section.

To use, import your "body.obj" file (see the tutorial that is the first post of this thread) and then load the prop. It SHOULD automatically deform the object.

NOTE: This will likely only produce the desired results if you are using a clothing mesh designed for an adult female. I'll create some teens, kids, and male magsets over the coming weeks and months (unless someone else beats me to it!)

Hi, I don't mean to mess up your thread, it's just that I'm feeling slightly vindicated by your inclusion of Daz Studio. I started a thread back in October about the possibility of using Daz and got poo pooed by some of the know-it -alls here. You Rock.

I remember the thread, Jackson. I was thinking the same thing as you, at the time. Everyone else was thinking along the lines of actually making custom meshes. They were right in that Poser/Daz blows at this, but it is cool at making new bodytypes. I didn't say anything back then (or maybe I mentioned something, but didn't say much) because I knew it'd be easier to show people than to explain it.

X.

Xenos,

Again, Thanks so much for the tut. It's Awsome. Still working on my first new creation. I've got "Shader LE" coming UPS today and I'm hoping that with that I can tweek the meshes alittle more. It's supposed to be more of a modding tool that works w/Poser. Have you tried it?

Debby

No, I haven't heard of it, but just looked it up. Looks like a pretty standard 3D app except that it directly imports and exports native poser files. For the sims stuff, you can probably bypass the Poser application completely and be able to do both bodyshaping and mesh editing (i.e. adding high heels or a skirt or whatever) all in one fell swoop rather than having to do your modeling in one program and then mesh warping in another.

Good luck and lemme know how it works out for you!

X.

P.S. If you download the magset I attached above, you can pretty easily tweak them to make your own bodyshape - much easier that starting from scratch because each one is already affecting a specific area of the body. So you just scale and move the magnets and adjust the size of the zones to your liking and you'll have your own bodyshape to play with.

X.

Maybe a register should be set up now as I think this is going to be a very very popular method of mesh editing.

I must say I got very excited when I saw this. I have been using Poser 5 for a year and wanted to use it with the sims 2. I had already with Sims 1 and texturing and just love this tut.


Thank you so much.

Male and Female Muscle Mags

Unlike the first magset - this one doesn't have folder information stored in it. UNRar these directly into the same folder that you put the first ones in (or if you didn't get the first one, make a new folder in your props directory) and unzip them there.

Lemme know how they work!
X.

I am having trouble. I have DAZ Studio, and I can't import anything. THere is no Wavefront OBJ thing on the import menu, and I can't find the Mesh File when I search. What should I do?

Hi Charmed - I'll download DAZ Studio tomorrow and have a looksee and see what I can work out - stay tuned and I'll get back to you within the next 36 hours or so.

X.

cool, thanks a lot... I really hope you can get it to work. btw, I love the meshes you have made

I'm having a bit of a problem loading the magsets in DAZ Studio as I don't have a "/runtime/libraries/props/" folder. Where should this go? And once I've got it in the right place, how do I apply the magset to the mesh?

As soon as I finish getting my caffeine to blood ratios at a respectible level and get through all my e-mail, I'm going to download and install DAZ Studio (I didn't do it before since I didn't know if anyone was going to bother giving this a try). Now that you guys are playing with it, it's definitely worth my time to check it out.

Gimme a few hours and I'll be back with some help for you UberSums (and Charmed3dude).

X.

Ugh. Well, this blows chunks.

DAZ Studio doesn't yet support magnets and, looking at what it does do, it's not going to be particularly useful at this stage.

If you have already signed up for Daz Studio, you can read the thread about the subject here:
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=9737

It looks like mags are on their short list of things to add (and one of the DAZ Developers made a post in there about a feature that Poser doesn't have - one that will be very useful to us - the ability to mirror deformations so that one magnet can handle both legs or arms or breasts - or other similar things that are mirrors of each other). The bad news is that there's no release date for this support. I would expect that a well thought out reply to the above thread (without sounding whiny or needy) might have some minor affect on the project manager's plans.

I feel horrible that I wasted your time, here. That content download is HUGE. So sorry - I truly do feel like a heel. Let's keep an eye on it, though - one day, it'll be possible.

X.

That's cool, it's not your fault.

I downloaded the demo version of Poser, but that doesn't let you import OBJ files, so I guess we poor folk will just have to wait until Daz Studio impliments magnets.

Thank you for explaining this for Poser. I used Poser 5 and made
this red dress for Nina. Also thanks for
SBriAnna's Mesh Tool Clothing Tutorial.
So, I can make her one for all her other outfits. The only
one I don't understand is how you would make a nude
dress. Is there a tutorial for that?
But everything worked great. Thanks for the help.
Bill