I am beginner Milkshape user. I am trying to make rococo style dress for martaxl big lady. Everything has gone great so far, but now I found out I have too many joints (skeletons...?). It is because when I imported parts for the dress I always clicked "yes", when Milkshape asked if I want to include additional bone definitions.

I did found advices for fixing this problem. Instructions says that I should first import an untouched TS2 clothing mesh to Milkshape. Then I should import my own mesh as well, and when asked if I want to include additional bone definitions, I should answer "no".
And then just delete another mesh.
Sounds very simple.
Everyone, in this forum threads, who have gotten those instructions are celebrating that yeaaaah! It worked!!
But for some reason it is not working for me.......
I am unable to import my own mesh, because it says: "ERR: Too many joints defined in file".
I´m feeling very stupid, because everyone else seems to make it work so easily, but not me.
What should I do?

I also found out, that it should be possible to delete extra joints just by clicking on joint and pressing delete button on keyboard. It worked on another meshes, but not with my mesh.

I really appreciate any help possible. I have seriously worked with this mesh for WEEKS. I made UV mapping and everything really carefully. So it makes me feel very miserable to think about starting all over again.

Always click "no" to the "import additional skeleton" question. Always. SimPE can't handle double skeletons.

It's possible you've done the steps in the wrong order, so here's a step-by-step with important notes to remember.

The only way to fix it without losing all your progress is to:
1: Export the mesh you want to fix from Milkshape. Make absolutely sure that the comments are correct in the mesh you want to fix, and that the "NumSkinWght" line(s) say 3, and that everything in the main mesh (not morphs) have bone weights, otherwise the bone weights won't transfer properly to the new mesh/skeleton.
2: With the PJSE tool in SimPE, extract a new mesh of the same type (top/bottom/whole) and with the right age and gender (VERY important). **
3: Import the new mesh to Milkshape.
4: Import your mesh into the same file. Click "no" to the question of importing a second skeleton. (PS: You can NOT import your mesh and then the one with the skeleton you want to use - you need the skeleton first because that's the base of the file)
5: Make sure the bone weights transferred correctly (if you click the "draw vertices with bone colors" your mesh should look exactly the same as the one you exported - if the colors change, you have to make sure you didn't skip a step. The colors should NOT be primary red/blue/green tones or have jagged lines, but should look gradient in the chest area).
6: Remember to delete the mesh that came with the skeleton.
7: Now your mesh should be fixed in regards to the mesh. Do any changes you might want to do, save the file if need be, and export for use in SimPE.

** if you don't know which mesh to extract, the --bodynaked, --topnaked and --bottomnaked, with the proper age/gender prefixes are very easy to remember. Prefixes are bu/pu (body only), cu/tf/tm/af/am/ef/em, so adult female body would be afbodynaked.

Thank you very much simmer22 for your fast answer As I am very new with Milkshape, I dont´know what "NumSkinWght" lines mean. Where can I find those lines to check if they are correct?
My problem is, that I did exactly as you adviced. I did extract new working mesh in simPE, imported it and clicked "no" to the question about skeleton.
But then, when I try to import my messed-up mesh (the one I want to fix), Milkshape only gives me an error: ERR:Too many joints defined in file.
So I am not able to bring my own mesh in, to fix it. Do you know is there anything I can do?

When you have a GMDC mesh that's linked to a skeleton, they should always have comments. Under "Model" in Milkshape, there's a button called "Comment". Click this, and you should get a boc up with7without some information in it.

Should look something like the picture in the Unimesh tutorial, post #2 here: http://modthesims.info/t/179177 (picture, and some explanations).
Bolded text could be different from mesh to mesh, the ModelName will vary (should be the same as Group name), and the pacity and Morph numbers often vary. The setup can be a bit complicated if there's more than one mesh group. All the groups in a CAS mesh should have comments when you're working in Milkshape.
ModelName: body
Opacity: -1
HasTangentArray:
NumSkinWgts: 3

if there are morphs, there should be an additional line with the number of morphs.
MorphRefNum: 0

You may want to look closer at tutorials for the details.

1: Export the mesh you want to fix from Milkshape. Make absolutely sure that the comments are correct in the mesh you want to fix, and that the "NumSkinWght" line(s) say 3, and that everything in the main mesh (not morphs) have bone weights, otherwise the bone weights won't transfer properly to the new mesh/skeleton.
I found comments, and "NumSkinWght" line was OK. I did not know how to check bone weights thoug... I choose Export ⇥ Sims2 UniMesh Exporter V4.09⇥ I give file a name for example "Dress". It is saved as SimPE file.

2: With the PJSE tool in SimPE, extract a new mesh of the same type (top/bottom/whole) and with the right age and gender (VERY important). **
I am making female adult dress. I opened SimPE. ⇥ Create new package ⇥ PJSE tool ⇥ extracting stage ⇥ browse ⇥ I choose Maxis hulahula (adult female) package, that I have earlier choose in bodyshop. ⇥ I click GMDC file with mouse right button and choose extract.⇥ I save the 5gd file.

3: Import the new mesh to Milkshape.
I choose File ⇥ Import ⇥ Sims2 UniMesh Import V4.09.⇥ hulahula file opens up fine.

4: Import your mesh into the same file. Click "no" to the question of importing a second skeleton. (PS: You can NOT import your mesh and then the one with the skeleton you want to use - you need the skeleton first because that's the base of the file)
I choose again ⇥ Import ⇥ Sims2 UniMesh Import V4.09. ⇥ I select earlier exported file "Dress" (simpe file)⇥ ERR: Too many joints defined in file

This is how far I am able to go. Maybe it is something wrong with the file type that I am trying to open. Should I do something else in SimPE?.


5: Make sure the bone weights transferred correctly (if you click the "draw vertices with bone colors" your mesh should look exactly the same as the one you exported - if the colors change, you have to make sure you didn't skip a step. The colors should NOT be primary red/blue/green tones or have jagged lines, but should look gradient in the chest area).
6: Remember to delete the mesh that came with the skeleton.
7: Now your mesh should be fixed in regards to the mesh. Do any changes you might want to do, save the file if need be, and export for use in SimPE.

And thank you so much that you are trying to help me I am really grateful of that

Can you upload your Milkshape file of the dress you're having problems with? Could be something else wrong in the file, but it's difficult to say without looking at it.
If you've been deleting joints in the same file before exporting, it could be Milkshape is making SimPE having a bad day. Milkshape isn't always clever enough to understand something is wrong in the skeleton.

Yes sure what is the best way to send file in this forum?

Zip/rar file if you can, post via "go advanced" in the reply option and then adding it in the "manage attachments" tab (there's one called zip). If you have Simfileshare or similar, that's another option.

Here it is

There seems to be some problem with the file I just sended. When I open it, it is different that it was when I saved it?! And it says: "Unknown subversion for vertex extra 3" + othe error. I don´t know why. It also looks a bit different than it should look. Especially texturing seems to be mess even it was fine before.

I think it might be because I tried to delete joints. I clicked on joint and pressed "delete button", but nothing happened. The joint was still there, so I thought no harm done. But seems like it thinks I still did deleted joints or something.

It's a bug with the comments and morphs, it seems like. I'll see if I can manage to figure it out.

EDIT: There is something wrong with the morphs. My guess is that they've been edited in such a way that they no longer recognize the vertices they are supposed to belong to (vertices in the morph are linked to the same internal number of the corresponding vertex in the main mesh. When meshes are cut up and reshaped, these numbers get moved around somewhat randomly in the edited areas. This equals an "exploded" look to the mesh).

Morphs need to be identical to the original mesh in vertex number, except for the parts the morphs are supposed to change, so my guess is that you did some changes to the mesh after the morphs were added, and the morphs didn't recognize these changes. Moving vertices for small adjustments is fine, but if you cut off anything or add parts together, the morph will start exploding. Best way to fix this is to do over the morphs.

The comments are fixed (There was a lot of mess going on in them, so they're now the way they should be set up - make sure you always edit comments after joining groups together, as the comments get combined too). The morph names are fixed. The morphs however probably need fixing. File is named "Dressfix-morph". I have not fixed the actual morphs (duplicate the "body" group, mark the entire mesh, set the first joint dropdown to "none" and "100", and choose "assign". This removes the joint assignments for the morph.

I saw there was a slight alignment problem on the skirt, too - and have added another file with this fix (I separated the inside skirt, did "align normals", added them back together, plus fixed alignment on the front skirt so it's flatter and doesn't have the black shadows) - it's called "Dress-fixedskirt". I added in two copies of the mesh ready for morph adjustments, so all you need to do is to copy the group names (now they're called "fat1" and "preg2" so you know which has which comments). The original morphs are in the file for referene, but delete these after.

For future reference, here's a very nice guide on adding morphs (with pictures), even for multi-group meshes: https://hermit-fox.livejournal.com/1740.html

Thank you, thank you so much Simmer22!! Especially for the tips concerning morphs. It was all new information to me. I didn´t do anything to comments, so it is no wonder they have been a mess. I have learned Milkshape only by using google. And information in internet is so scattered that it has been difficult to find out what is relevant and what is not. So those links are also very useful I will check the files you send me and try those tips you gave. There is very little historical clothing for bigger sims. So I really appreciate your help when I am trying to make this mesh work. Thank you!

I'm always happy to help

Useful page for future projects: https://ts2tutorialdatabase.tumblr.com/
(Use the links to the left - "meshing", "recoloring", etc.).
They don't have all available tutorials, but there's quite a lot to get you started, and also has various sources so you can usually find a couple different tutorials on the same topic if one is a bit difficult to follow or lacks some info.

MTS also has a tutorial section, which you've partly found by posting in this section: http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_2_Modding

And GoS: https://gardenofshadows.org.uk/gard....php?board=34.0 (not much has been happening there for a while, but there are some good tutorials, and the help sections are also frequently visited - plus the site is a treasure cave for great CC, so that's an added bonus - there's even some historical gems hidden here and there )