There is now a new, updated version of this tutorial using new plugins and tools that teaches a little bit more.

http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?..._and_UV_Mapping

Please use the updated tutorial instead!


This tutorial is the next step in learning about editing with Unimesh – it will take you through an edit and have you adjust the uvmap to fit your new edit. It also will show you an easy way (in this case) to edit both your fit and fat meshes at the same time.

It assumes you have completed the Beginner Unimesh Tutorial. Not every step will have a screenshot, you are expected to draw from the beginner tutorial as needed.

You are also expected to know how to edit a recolor (including changing the alpha) with Body Shop - please go through Faylen's 4 Recoloring Tutorials (or similar tutorials for your graphics editor as found there or mentioned in the FAQ)

Goal – to lengthen the skirt on a teen girl mesh and fix the uvmap to match and make the new texture for it. The purpose is to learn a few more things about editing with Unimesh, small steps at a time.

You will need:

SimPE, Milkshape, Unimesh, (don't have them, go look at the beginner tutorial!)

and the downloadable patterns from this tutorial

For this tutorial I used Unimesh 4.06, Milkshape 1.7.9, SimPE .58

Part 1: Set Up Your New Mesh

We're going to modify this TEEN mesh:



This is a short summary of the steps – follow the Beginner Unimesh Tutorial for these steps:

* Make the recolor of the teen sundress pictured, import
* Go extract the 4 parts of the mesh – tfbodysundress_
* Build a new meshfile save to your DOWNLOADS folder
* Fix Integrity, save again, and save the modified shape and cres
* Put the modified shape and cres into the recolor file from your SAVED SIMS folder
* Check if the recolor shows correctly in Body Shop

Here's a screenshot of me saving my mesh:



Part 2: Start the Edit

1) Start Milkshape. Make sure autosmooth is not checked!

2) Import with the Sims2 Unimesh Importer.
When it asks, say “YES” to the Create Blend Groups Dialog. That will load both the fit and fat morph for you.



3) Now if you look on your GROUPS tab, you will see 2 groups – body and ~00MORPHMOD.0
If you look carefully, you will also be able to see the 2 meshes are both visible, the trunk will show the 2 sizes, both fit and fat.



4) First thing to do is use VERTEX/Sims2 Unimesh Fix Underweighted Bones. It will say 236 weights adjusted. (or some number like that)

5) At this point save your milkshape file to your working folder – naming it tut1.ms3d. That way if your need to start over, you've got this to go back to.

Part 3: Lengthen the Skirt

We are going to leave both of the groups visible, and select and move both of them together to do this edit.

6) Zoom in on the window with the front view to show primarily the area from the skirt hem to the knees. (Hold down the shift key and drag the mouse upward in that window)

7) Go to the Model tab and click SELECT, with the setting being VERTEX and ‘IGNORE BACKFACES’ is unchecked.



8) Now select the whole bottom row of the skirt by clicking and dragging across it. Note that you’re grabbing the top of the leg and the underskirt at the same time. This is good.



9) Click on MOVE, and click on the X button so it’s highlighted blue (and the Y and Z buttons should be gray only) and then drag the skirt downwards towards the next row of vertices.



10) Now we could stop here, but I’d like to make the skirt even a bit longer, so click on SELECT again, and drag-select the bottom edge of the skirt and the additional row of leg vertices.



11) Now MOVE (with the same settings) and drag it down just a bit further. Note that you cannot drag this down below the knee area - if you do there will be animation issues, and you'd need to add the vertices for the knee. That will come in a later tutorial.



12) Now ‘save as’ your work, naming it tut2.ms3d.

13) Export with the Sims2 Unimesh Exporter – and name the file ‘body1’ and save it to your working project folder.

14) Start up SimPE, edit the mesh file (in this case mine is named mesh-tig-tutorial2-teendress.package) and replace the gmdc with ‘body1.simpe’
Click ‘Yes’ to the popup that says it’s been changed.
Then SAVE your mesh file, and exit SimPE.



15) Now start Bodyshop.
Create Parts/Start New Project/Create Clothing
Go to TEEN, Everyday, and look for that pink dress



Now, if you see a longer dress, that’s looking good. With this pattern it’s not hugely obvious, but if you look carefully, you can see that the design is stretched on the lower part of the dress. We’re going to go fix that in a bit.

16) Quit Bodyshop.

Part 4: Flaring the Dress

17) Go back to Milkshape. Now we’re going to flare the dress a bit. Using SELECT, and the 3D window, move your mesh so that you can clearly see the outer lower edge of the skirt. Use ALT-LEFTCLICK to select the first vertice and then SHIFT-ALT-LEFTCLICK to individually select all the rest, until it looks like the picture below. Move you mesh around a bit to make sure you’ve selected all the correct vertices.



18) Now use SCALE to give the dress a bit of flare – type 1.1 into the X and Z values, and then hit the ‘scale’ button next to them TWO TIMES to flare the skirt outwards.



19) Now 'save as' the file as tut3.ms3d

20) And 'Sim2 Unimesh EXPORT' again into body2.simpe

21) Now start up SimPE, edit the mesh file (in this case mine is named mesh-tig-tutorial2-teendress.package) and replace the gmdc with ‘body2.simpe’
Click ‘Yes’ to the popup that says it’s been changed.
Then SAVE your mesh file, and exit SimPE.

22) Now start Bodyshop.
Create Parts/Start New Project/Create Clothing
Go to TEEN, Everyday, and look for that pink dress again.



This time when you click on it, the mannequin should show a nice flared skirt.

23) Quit Bodyshop.

Testing

You need to make sure the mesh is good in the game, and that the morph data was not damaged during the edits.

Fire up your game. Go to Create a Sim, and make a new sim. Examine her closely, spin her around, and make sure everything looks good. Watch her as she animates.

Double check that the fit/fat morph still works correctly (it's at the bottom of button 1). If the fat morph explodes, then you will need to start over (at Part 2 or Part 3) - or use another method I will describe in a future InfoCenter article, I'll link when it's there.

Test further in game - have the sim sit in a chair, sit on a couch (they sit different on both of them), dance, and jump up and down on a couch or bed. Pause the game and then examine your sim from various angles, and make sure things look reasonable. This particular edit as described should NOT cause any animation oddities.


(continued in next message)

Part 5: Fixing the UVMAP

Back to Milkshape, maybe just one last time. Now it’s time to fix the uvmapping.

24) First, let's hide the morphmod, because the morph uses the uvmap from the unmorphed version of the mesh. Go to Groups, select the morphmod, and click the HIDE button.



25) Now click on ‘body’ and the the SELECT button, which will select the entire part of that mesh.



26) It’s time to bring in a texture and assign it to the mesh

Click the MATERIALS tab, and click on the NEW button.
'Material01' will appear on the list



27) Click on the first button that says < none > and read in checkpattern.bmp. (don't have it, get it here )



28) The sphere will get the blue check pattern all over it.
Now click on the ASSIGN button.

29) Go to the 3D window and right click on it and select ‘TEXTURED’



30) Tilt the mesh so that you can see both the lower skirt and the upper legs. You can see the upper legs are a bit compressed, and that the skirt is stretched vertically.

31) Now go to the menu WINDOW and select the “Texture Coordinate Editor”



32) A window will pop up. Arrange the windows so that you can see the 3D area of your mesh and the Texture Coordinate Window.



33) The Texture Coordinate Window will probably be gray, showing the morphmod. Select ‘body’ and you should see the blue pattern and the uvmap.



If you don’t, close the Texture Coordinate Window, and use the menu EDIT/SELECT ALL and then bring up the Texture Coordinate Window using menu WINDOW/TEXTURE COORDINATE EDITOR.

34) Okay, now it’s time to make adjustments – but right now you can’t see enough of our mesh to easily work with it… so type in ‘.5’ and hit the ‘scale’ button. Also make sure 'Redraw' is checked, so that the changes will show up as you make them.



35) There, that’s much better. Now click on ‘SELECT’ and click on some blank spot, which will deselect everything (turning the vertices and lines white). Now click and drag around the bottom skirt edge (much like what your did when you first started this edit.) Select both the upper leg and the lower skirt edge, being careful not to get the hands. Select both the front AND back at the same time, so that they will remain aligned when moved.



36) Now click MOVE and slide them carefully down to just above the next row of leg vertices. Make sure that as you slide it downwards that you don’t move it left to right (or fix it if you do)



37) Look at your 3D window (and if you had refresh checked) you can see the pattern changing on the skirt. You can also see that the leg boxes are now stretched and need a bit more adjusting.

That’s because when we did the original edit, we also moved that row down a bit. So now click SELECT and select the lower skirt and that additional leg row. Be sure to get the front AND back.



38) Now click MOVE and slide it down a little bit more, until the leg looks a bit more even. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but the better you get this, the better your sim will look in game, and the more options (like patterned tights) the mesh will support.



39) Before we Close the Texture Coordinate Window, grab a reference screenshot of the new uvmap. Adjust the window size if necessary so that ALL of the texture is showing (you’ll see gray framing it). Then use the ‘Print Screen’ button on your keyboard to grab a screenshot. Immediate bring up a paint program and PASTE, and then save your screenshot – ‘teenflareddress-uvmap’. (bmp, jpg, or gif, it does not matter)



40) Close the Texture Coordinate Window.

41) Now 'Save As' again as tut4.ms3d.

42) Use the Sims2 Unimesh Export to save ‘body3.simpe’

43) Start up SimPE, edit the mesh file (in this case mine is named mesh-tig-tutorial2-teendress.package) and replace the gmdc with ‘body3.simpe’
Click ‘Yes’ to the popup that says it’s been changed.
Then SAVE your mesh file, and exit SimPE.

44) Now start Bodyshop.
Create Parts/Start New Project/Create Clothing
Go to TEEN, Everyday, and look for that pink dress again.

This time when you click on it, the mannequin is going to look messed up!



Well actually, this is progress. You can see that the design is no longer stretched, but the legs (and shadow) are up on the skirt hem now. That’s because you changed the uvmap and the graphic is NOT changed to match yet.

Part 6: Making a New Texture for the Mesh

I'm going to start out by saying again, if you are not skilled in BodyShop, you need to go aquire those skills with the tutorials found at BodyShop - Skinning

45) While still in BodyShop, make a new project with the new mesh - so click on the little folder to make a new project. I named mine 'teennew'

You will find the base graphics in your Projects folder in 'teennew'

Now you need to do a bit of editing and make a NEW texture and NEW alpha that will look correct for this new mesh.

We all use our own graphics editors, so I can’t take you step by step through this – but what you need to do is make the graphic match the uvmap you grabbed. I’m going to describe the procedure for this without too many screenshots.

46) First take the uvmap graphic, and trim away the junk around it so that it’s 512x512 pixels. But if you remember, we’d scaled down the display to half size to make it fit the screen. So you need to scale up your UVMAP – take your 512x512 graphic and scale it 200% so that it’s 1024x1024. Save it.

47) Edit body~stdMatBaseTextureName_alpha.bmp

Now you can fix the alpha file (btw, this mesh also has an undefined neckline on the mesh, so you can also edit the neckline on the alpha if you wish)

Load in the alpha file, and then paste the uvmap graphic over it on a new layer. You can set the uvmap layer to have very low transparency, and then recolor the alpha layer so that all of the skirt area is solid white, and the legs are solid black. Hide the uvmap layer and save your new alpha bmp.





48) Edit body~stdMatBaseTextureName.psd

Use the same procedure for the dress – you’ll need a new texture, because the new dress is longer. Right here I'm going to admit - this is a LONG tutorial and I got a bit lazy - I did NOT shade the dress (like under the breasts) the way it should have been. When you are meshing, do your best to ALSO make excellent textures to showcase your work. (This is all covered in the BodyShop-Skinning area of the site)



49) Edit body~stdMatNormalMapTextureName.bmp

Unimesh doesn't support bumpmaps - so simply make this graphic one solid gray color.

50) Save all 3 new files to Projects/teennew.
Then click on the refresh (round arrow) in BodyShop to see your new dress.



51) If your dress looks good:
Put a good descriptive name into the text box.
Click on the Import button (folder with the arrow)

52) Quit BodyShop

Part 7: Testing

Okay, you're almost done. One last time, fire up your game.

Put the dress on a sim, and have the sim dance, jump on a couch, and so on. Examine it from all angles, and make sure you're happy with the texture, the seam where the top of the leg meets the underside of the dress, and so on. If not, quit and go adjust things further with bodyshop and import another version of the dress.

Clean up: while you're in the game, go ahead and DELETE the original recolor - you know, the one with the hem that now has the legs showing on it. Also, once you're out, you can delete the folders you created from your PROJECTS folder. To share our work you will need to give people the file from your SAVED SIMS folder and your mesh file (which I suggest you put in DOWNLOADS).



Credits: Texture for the dress from The Inspiration Gallery

OOPS

Wow, this tutorial was up for over 2 months before someone pointed this out to me. See, even I can overlook things

Well, with the amount I lowered the upper leg, the leg develops a slight bulge in it (which shows more distinctly if one lowers the leg even more than I did). So... while we're done learning about uv mapping, you can and should (if it shows on your mesh) adjust the legs on the mesh so that it's a bit narrower there.

You would use the same technique to fix the leg as you did in Part 4 to widen the bottom of the skirt. Select one ring of vertices on ONE leg. Use SCALE with 'center of mass' and values of .99 for the X and Z values. Then click the scale button. Repeat if necessary. Select the ring up under the skirt and you can do the same. Then repeat for the other leg. If the values of .99 make the leg come in too much, try .995 instead.

Additional Notes

You can raise or lower a skirt (or pant leg, or sleeve end) using this exact method, and then adjusting the uvmap. Make sure when you select the parts to move, that you include the top row of the limb (to stretch longer or shorter). Your mesh should NEVER show any gaps after you have edited, if there are gaps, there will be gaps in the game, too!

When you've edited a few more meshes and are ready to dive in and learn about complex edits, there is now a Unimesh Tutorial: Level 3

Btw, there are other tutorials about uvmapping in the tutorial area, if you want to see different examples of uvmaps being adjusted or made.


Was this tutorial helpful? Scroll back up to the bottom of the first message, and clicky that 'thanks' button.

excellent tutorial !!!!
it's very helpful.
cant wait to see more of your tutorials

Wow! Thank you. After finishing the first tutorial, this is exaclty what I was looking for to advance my infant meshing skills. A quick glance shows me why I spectactularly crashed body shop when,full of false confidence ,I tried some of this type of editing after my success at taking the ornament off of the dress.

Thanks so much!

kalynn

Hello Tiggerypum, I've been with this site since Oct of 2004 and this makes my 3rd post here. Kind of a quiet type.

First I'd like to compliment you on your tutorial... I make a rather lucrative living educating companies on how to properly train employees to be fast, efficient, and effective so that their turnover rates will be much decreased. Your tutorials are perfect examples of these principles.

Now I have a question I'm hoping you can answer for me; How does one properly add an object to an already existing mesh and make it link with the bone structure for animation continuity? I've already used your tutorial to get the clothing article to where I desire it and now I have need to add some extras... a seperate train for a dress to be exact along with a veil. Do you maybe have this answer or can you point me to a further tutorial in which I'd be able to learn these processes?

Thanks for your wonderful contributions and tutorials,

Lazarus

lazarusstarr, I'm actually writing the next tutorial already, and it will have 3/4 of your answers in it. For a veil, you'll likely need to use something like the hula mesh, which has a separate alpha section, so that the veil can be semi-transparent and look veil-like. The Unimesh manual discusses doing bone assignments. There are a couple of text-only tutorials I've cobbled together, let me go look.....

In this thread I eventually outline the steps to take....
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=163559
If you want your mesh to have 2 parts (one of which can alpha to transparent instead of skin) start with the hula mesh. Then read in whatever mesh(es) you've been working on.
In the end, you need to have the exact same groups with the exact same comments. So, say you want the body to be the long dress, you copy the comments from the hula body and replace the comments on the long dress group with it. Then you delete the hula's body and move the long dress's body up to replace it (it will already be named body so you don't have to rename it). Then you replace the skirt section with your veil mesh... copying comments and renaming it to match, etc.

Thank you so much. Asking the right question is not nearly as important as asking the right person. I look forward to your next tutorial.

Lazarus

hi I love your tutorial. It has helped me a lot. ummm. do you know where there is a tutorial about adding boxs and stuff like that to your mash in milkshape 3D.? I am trying to add a balt to my dress and a boa around her arms. Think you so much

Acorar, I think that would fall under a similar heading as my own question did above. Try the link Tiggerypum supplied to me and you should find your answers there. As for adding boxes and such in Milkshape they are the buttons on the right hand side of the screen under the model tab.

Lazarus

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place to ask questions but I was trying to follow this tutorial and I get the point where I should see a longer dress in bodyshop, before the "flare" stage. I cannot see a longer dress and I am unsure if I have done this right. Also do I follow the package tutorial in the basic meshing tutorial from start to finish?

I know I'm not making sense but I hope you can understand what I'm talking about

Elise, the part that I 'summarize' in the beginning is steps 1-28 (parts I-IV) of the first tutorial. So yes, you have to make the mesh, fix integrity, save out the modified shape and cres, and do the 'package' thing to put them into your recolor so that the recolor points at the new mesh.

Also when you are looking for the new dress, don't load your saved project, make sure you do a 'new' project and go looking for it that way. And if you followed this carefully, it's a TEEN dress, so make sure to look in the teen clothing.

Thank you so much for this tutorial! When I started out, I didn't even know what a UV map was, and now I actually know what I'm doing! (Or at least I like to believe I do. ;-)) You are absolutely, incredibly awesome, you know that, right? :lovestruc

i'm looking at it but there's something weird with the mesh did i lower it too much?

Thanks so much for these tutorials, I did a lap of honour after completing beginner tutorial number one. (My family think I am nuts).

I have one small problem with beginner tutorial number two.

I am having the same problem as Play Girl.

I have followed this tutorial twice now all the way through, and I got the same problem each time.

UPDATE

I have now attempted this tutorial a third time. I have somewhat succeeded.

I noticed when I got to part 3, step 7, I didn't have 'Redraw All Viewports' checked.

Making sure I had this checked before moving the vertices, I watched the 3D model while moving the selection, and stopped when the leg started to bulge.

I have attatched another screenshot comparing my effort in Body Shop with the tutorial picture, pretty close.

I should learn to pay more attention.

Hmm, you're right. By just moving the leg downwards as I did, there is a slight bulge that happens in the leg. So to correct that, you could select the vertices on *one* of the legs, use the settings like we did for the skirt where I widened it, but instead - use ".99" or ".995" for the scaling factor (instead of 1.something). Then repeat for the other leg. I didn't even notice it! (oops!)

Also, the 'underneath center' of the dress where the leg comes out should be tucked a little bit up under the dress, it should be a little bit above the hem. So playgirl, the odd shape you saw on the mesh probably came in some way from you moving the leg downward.

Thanks for the help.

I am going to postpone carrying on with this tutorial. I am going back to number one. I would like to be able to carry out all the SimPE steps without having to consult the tutorial. I am not confident enough yet in my own abilities with that.

I am going to attempt to remove all sorts of ribbons and bows from other meshes, before moving on. So watch out for replies in that tutorial thread for my attempts.

These tutorials are fantastic, and I would recommend them to anyone wishing to explore this aspect of creating.

I really love these tutorials. It's making my quest for the perfect FF sim characters possible (or at least near perfect XD)

However I'm having a problem following the tutorial. I try to replace the gmdc file with the modified mesh, but SimPE keeps freezing. I had tried more than 5 times already and it had the same effect every time. I'm using version .58, which is the latest, so what else could be the problem? ''>.>

Ngelicdark

1) did you have errors when exporting with unimesh? If there were errors, you can't import into simpe, that file is not complete

2) are you accidentally replacing the gmnd instead of gmdc? That makes a mess of things. If it looks like you did that at any point, you'll have to remake your mesh file, fix integrity, and attach it to a recolor again.

I'm pretty sure I didn't have problems with unimesh since there were no errors with it when I exported. However, I'll try to remake the mesh, although I'm pretty sure that I did replace the gmdc.

Oh, for some reason, the problem resolved itself o_0 Strange, but yay! d ^^

You're amazing this is a very very complete tutorial. You modders and tutorials makers on MTS2 really are good to be clear, synthetic, and useful... thank youuu

Thanks for the great tutorials!

27) Click on the first button that says < none > and read in checkpattern.bmp. (don't have it, get it here )

I don't understand this part, when I click on the link I see nothing like checkpattern.bmp... I don't know where to get it!

See the 'you will need' section at the beginning of the tutorial. Follow the link there and at the end of the first message, there are patterns for uvmaps, that's what you'd click and unzip and put someplace where you can find them.

That was a really great tutorial! Thank you for the help! You are a great help.

Thank you so much for this tutorial. I make some new mesh, but I have a question.
I don't see bump map .... why?
I'm searching in the forum from a lot of time, but I haven't find a solution. Read (and write) in english is hard for me, sorry for this. I hope you can help me.
Thank you again.