The doctor - If you choose the right outfit, the one shown, when you go into the recolour file, the property set will display the name "afdresslongloose_grayline" and then you search for "afdresslongloose" without the "_grayline"

Make sure you have Body Shop and any other programs that access the game files (Homecrafter, File Maid, the game itself) shut down when you search or you will not get the results you need.

*eyes cross* Bother. It didn't work for me. I think I kept mixing up which .package files I was supposed to be doing stuff to.

Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that I tried to do this at 12:00 PM.

So I shall try again after a night of sleep.


Good tutorial, though. The only way it could be made better is if you explained at least somewhat why you do each step. I think I got most of it, but I'm still at a loss in some of the SimPE file modifying.

I did dress. Mesh was apt, but I can't to save GeoSphere, why? Please, help me.

You'll need to give us more/better information moni_ka. I've never seen the word 'geosphere' in milkshape... maybe you can copy down exactly what error message you are getting, and tell us exactly what step you were on?

When I press the delete button, it leaves a little black area in the bottom right part. what should i do?

That black area is a hole - you selected too much. Undo, go back and reselect and make sure you only get the vertices shown selected. When you delete, it should only remove the dangle, no black spots or holes.

I've tryed that numerous times - This is the result of it:



When I do the shift right-click all of the red area goes - sorry if I sound Noobish, This is my first time. :P

Ohhhhh, I see. You didn't actually get all of the dangle when you selected - just one polygon - the black you're seeing is inside of the dangle, the other side.

When you're in select mode, make sure you have it on Vertex, and you want Ignore Backfaces unchecked (or it'll only get the closest set of vertices in whatever view you're selecting from - nothing behind it). Look REALLY closely at the image for that step - look at the vertices selected in all of the views. That still shows the ones on either side of the dangle, in the back itself selected, but you should be able to kinda tell from the other views that the whole dangle is selected, too. Make sure the vertices pointed at in the back are deselected, but that everything else highlighted red is selected before deleting.

Ohh! Thank You SO MUCH! Now it poofed! yay! *Victory Dance* Heh
*hugs* Thanks!

Hi Um I was wondering u made two tutorials on how to make body meshes using different tools, which tutorial is better like what programs and which one is easier?

Both tutorials use Milkshape for editing: the difference is that Meshtool will only allow you to move around vertices a little bit - essentially it'll let you make bigger boobs, smaller waist, skinnier/fatter, etc. but you cannot add or remove anything or even move anything too far (if you move a vertex past an animation bone it will no longer animate correctly). You must have all the same vertices when exporting that you did when importing using Meshtool.

Unimesh allows a lot more versatility in editing - you can add, remove, move things around, and change bone assignments. As it says in the intro, this tutorial uses Unimesh in a very limited way - this tutorial is mostly designed to introduce you to the process of meshing and some of the basic functions of Milkshape.

The difficulty of both tutorials is roughly comparable... which one you do is up to you and what you want to be doing. Do you want to just tweak Maxis meshes to the body shapes you want? Meshtool can do that. Do you want to eventually get into major changes? Unimesh will allow you to do all sorts of interesting things once you become experienced in its use.

Also, in future, please don't post the same thing to separate threads. Only need to ask once.

Woa, overload! Ok, for those who find this hard to follow, first download the programs and play with them for a while to familiarize yourself with them, then just take notes. I had a problem figuring this out until i did so. Dont know if anyone else has to learn this way, but its just an FYI. Thanx for helping out the slow ones by the way Tiggerypum!!! *MUAH*

Thx so much for answering my question, I think ill go with the unimesh, also sorry for posting twice I wasnt sure which one more ppl looked at sry. But thx for explaining it sounds confusing but from what you said it seems like u can get a lot more detailed with unimesh. Sadly I havent even been able to start because milkshape is taking superlong to download Ive had it on for about 5 hours, and I have a fast wirless internet connection, is it supossed to take that long to download milkshape? Oh and thx again! I cant wait to start making meshes!

Yes, Unimesh will let you do a lot more. Meshtool is fairly limited... but there's also less that can go wrong with Meshtool.

If you're having trouble getting Milkshape from the official site, they do have a link on their site for an alternate download from download.com

I have a question, lets say I want to make a more complicated mesh, is there a way to copy what u made on normal skin to fat or pregnet?

first of all, love this tutorial. nice work.

my project is somewhat beyond the scope of this tutorial, but the bit where i am getting hung up seems as if it must be something just basic and bone-stupid on my part so i am hoping you can help. i have checked the unimesh thread (which is mostly waaay over my head at this point) and the FAQ sections and haven't found anything there. although those threads are huge and i may have just missed it.

anyway, what i am trying to do is whack martaxls cool new bbw mesh in half to create separate top and bottom meshes so my big gals can be shower proof. i did this quite successfully with faeriegurl's fat lady mesh (and lots of help from the ever patient marvine) using the old bodychop plugins. i am now trying to use the new unimesh tools. after two days of floating heads and much careful doing and redoing my problem is this: when i export my gmdc from milkshape i get an empty package. i don't think it is anything i am doing in milkshape. when i import the extracted gmdc and export without doing anything, same result: empty package.

i am thinking i have managed to miss something blazingly obvious, but i haven't been able to find it! thanks for any help you can give me.

ummm, thought i should mention - all my mesh-whacking stays blissfully on my own computer. wouldn't dream of posting someone else's work.

Well, take a look at the 'mini tutorial' I posted towards the end of this thread:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=163559

Basically, you should start by unimesh importing a TOP or BOTTOM that's the right age and gender for your final project. Then unimesh import the gmdc from the whole body mesh. Delete the parts you don't want, copy the comments and then rename the modified mesh to match the original group. Then delete the original group. Do the same for the morphs.

Btw, if you ask their permission, you might get permission to share your finished version, depends on the creator.

thanks for your fast reply. real life intervenes tomorrow, but will give it another shot the next day. makes perfect sense so far.

Yes. It's not easy or automated, though, and sort of falls into the advanced topic category.
UniMesh handles the morph data by converting it into a seperate mesh, then reconverting it from a mesh back to morph data on export, since MilkShape does not support the actual morph data type. The group comments and the mesh name are used to differentiate between a real mesh and the pseudo-mesh.
What you have to do is to note the group name. For a single group body mesh with one (fat) morph this would be "~00MORPHMOD.0". Then note the names in the group comments (normally "MorphNames: botmorphs fatbot").
After copying this down, make a backup copy of your mesh and then on the groups tab select the ~00MORPHMOD.0 group and delete it.
Then select the main group (normally "body") amd click on the Select button.
From the Edit menu in MilkShape pick Duplicate Selection. This should give you a new group named "Duplicate01".
In the small box next to the "Rename" button type in ~00MORPHMOD.0 and then click on Rename. Check your spelling against the original name in the list of groups.
With the new group name selected in the groups list, click on the Comment button and retype the comment (I am unsure, but I thing it needs the return pressed after each line).
You now have a morph group that is exactly the same as the main group. You can export it at this stage, but in order to handle some of the expansion pack changes the importer will discard any morph groups that are identical to the base mesh.
So after making a backup save, you select vertices on the morph group and move them (at this point, no adds or deletes) to get the fat effect you want. Now you can save again, then export the mesh and test in the game.

Ideally, all this would be done after you get the main group edited to your liking. So you can delete the fat morph early in the edit process, and edit the main mesh the way you want, testing in the game. Then follow the above steps to make the final package, but if you do it in that order, there is a comment that NEEDS to be added back to the main group:
MorphRefNum: 0
The number on this comment line has to be the same as the number at the end of the MORPHMOD group name, or it won't get written out properly.

<* Wes *>

lol.....boy do i feel silly! turns out forgetting to change the ol' comments altogether is a real problem........that wasn't the only thing i was doing wrong mind you, but i'm pretty sure that was the deal breaker. thanks tiggerypum to you and dr. pixel. i am back on track now. and i've had my laugh for the day.

I tried to make a mesh, but suddenly I messed up the shape of the sim so I have to do it again:p

Looking for unimesh plugin for milkshape, help!!!!!!!!!

leighkuhn, I moved your latest question out of this thread. This thread is meant for discussion of the contents of the actual tutorial, which is indeed limited in scope, as it's a beginner tutorial.

fashion222, uhm, there is a link for how to download the plugin, then you need to install it. Can't make it much simpler.

sorry about that. will try to put things in their proper place in future.

Hi, first of all, love your tutorial, its really helpful

Second, I have a problem when importing the mesh/file from MilkShape back into SimPE, it tells me an error message when trying to replace the Geometric Data Container:

Error while trying to open blablabla(the file)blablabla

Details:

[error]Message:
Error while trying to open

Package: C:\Documents and Settings\Mickey\Dokumenter\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads\DarkValentin_amGothPantsMesh.package
File: Geometric Data Container (AC4F8687) - 3ED71B08 - 1C050000 - FFFEF727 SimPE Version:
Default (0.58.1.29278).

Exception Stack:
System.IO.EndOfStreamException: Unable to read beyond the end of the stream.
at System.IO.__Error.EndOfFile()
at System.IO.BinaryReader.ReadString()
at SimPe.Plugin.Gmdc.GmdcNamePair.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Gmdc.GmdcModel.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.GeometryDataContainer.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Rcol.ReadBlock(UInt32 id, BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Rcol.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Interfaces.Plugin.AbstractWrapper.ProcessData(IPackedFileDescriptor pfd, IPackageFile package, Boolean catchex)

Source:
mscorlib

Execution Stack:
at System.IO.__Error.EndOfFile()
at System.IO.BinaryReader.ReadString()
at SimPe.Plugin.Gmdc.GmdcNamePair.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Gmdc.GmdcModel.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.GeometryDataContainer.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Rcol.ReadBlock(UInt32 id, BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Plugin.Rcol.Unserialize(BinaryReader reader)
at SimPe.Interfaces.Plugin.AbstractWrapper.ProcessData(IPackedFileDescriptor pfd, IPackageFile package, Boolean catchex)[/error]

Any ideas?