well ive been meshing with unimesh .. its really great and pretty easy i think, and most importantly it works great and is simple , but well im kinda anoyed thatmeshes i create with unimesh lose the bump map ... im wandering if theres a way to restore it so that the bump mapping will show on the outfit, or another way to mesh that will allow bump mapping (besides using mesh tool)

sorry if this has been asked a bunch of times.. ive searched a little bit and really could find anything

thanks for the help you guys!!

use the smd export function in unimesh to export and then reimport the mesh and it should support bump maps. SAVE your original unimesh files, because you will need to go back to editing them and repeat the process, unimesh doesn't currently open the gmdcs after they've gone through skankyboy's smd export/import. They're working on fixing that ,but it's not released yet.

uhhm sorry .. im kinda new to all this so im goign to need ask a few mroe questions ..

whats the smd esport function ... and when you say save my unimesh files what exactly to you mean to save them as.. like what format ... (sorry if im cunfusing you)

okayso .. maybe if i desicribe the way ive been making meshes it will help

I extraxt all the parts .. then make a new mesh .. and everything then i edit the saved sims file with the new cers and shape then i export the gmdc and edit that in milkshape .. i import the gmdc with sims 2 unimesh importer V4.05 and export it with the same thing and everything works great except no bump mapping i hope this can help you better understand .. maybe ...

Right. So. You know how I always emphasize keep your old stuff, if you save another time, use version numbers. You will need to NOT write over the SimPE file that unimesh makes - you need to keep that in case you need to make further changes in unimesh.

So now..... ah, you need to look at the meshtool tutorial. There's a place in the meshtool beginner tutorial where they export the mesh to obj format....

See Part V - steps 29-31 http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=141997

So you see how they export an OBJ file.... You will export an SMD file, 3 bones, make the bumpmap... whatever the settings are (sorry don't have that handy)

Then you'll use that same tool to IMPORT your SMD file that you just saved. And then your mesh (remember to commit) should have bumpmaps enabled. There was another thread here where Dr Pixel just tried to explain those steps...

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=181906

The catch is, right now.... that changed gmdc is not readable by unimesh anymore. SO if you need to make changes, you'll need that SimPE file from before (or you ms3d file you saved, if you've been using my tutorials) to go make changes. Then you'll need to repeat the bumpmap thing again. Basically get your mesh working perfectly and be sure to not save over your old work when you're doing the bumpmap part, so you can always go back.

is this possible with meshes they have a alpha-group too?

Yes but it is tricky. The only way I've gotten it to work properly is to:
1) Use the qa version of SimPE & smd importer/exporter.
2) Replace GMDC with the one from milkshape.
3) Export each alpha separately as an smd file, with morphs.
4) Replace GMDC with a plain maxis GMDC (afbodynaked, afbottomnaked, aftopnaked).
5) Import & Replace the base mesh (body, bottom, top) (check for morph & bumps)
6) Import & Add each alpha mesh (check for morph & bumps)
7) Goto Debug(?) tab, and reset the alpha value.
8) Commit.

This is the only way I've been able to maintain fat morphs & have bumps on the body and all alpha parts of the mesh. For some reason if you try to reimport the smd's into the gmdc that already has the alpha's in it, it looses all but one of the morphs.

So I followed the whole Unimesh Beginner's tutorial (thanks) and everything is great but I want the bumps to work. It seems like you are saying that all I need do is export the new GMDC as an .smd file and then re-import it the same way. ? (I have the milkshape project all saved so I can always go back to that if I need to.)
When I export the .smd it seems like my only options are Order-xyz or xzy and a box to check for correct joint definition. I'm guessing xyz is right but what about the correct joint definition check box?
Then when I try to re-import I get Choose Bones Weight Type dialogue box with 5 round and three square check boxes but the whole dialogue box is otherwise black so I can't see anything to tell me what the checkboxes are.
Thanks so much for your help.

That's a bug in the current smd import, and you need to change your windows system style and it won't show up black anymore. (as in system settings where you pick the style). I really need to get a basic smd tutorial together. Sigh.

Thanks I should have figured that out.
Anyway now I seem to have a bump texture to my dress, but it is totally unrelated to the normal map in the texture package...???

Me again. When I couldn't get the normal right using this method I did the whole thing over using the mesh tool method, which has always worked perfectly for me in the past. I made my new mesh again from scratch but I got the exact same result with my test normal. So now I'm wondering if it's because I reassigned some joints the sam way I used to for Sims1 meshes. But then I read the unimesh tutorial #3 and I went back to my .ms3d file and used the Uninmesh bone tool to make all the vertices I moved to be around the waist match the ones that were there originally. It looked good until I exported and imported as .smd. And now it looks like this picture still. The other two textures look the way I want them to. And the mesh seems to move correctly in the game.

(Thank you again and again for your excellent tutorials and generous help.)

Someone who has actually reimplemented bump maps will have to help you with this. Did the mesh you started with _have_ bump maps to start with? If not, can you try putting your mesh onto one that does?

Yes, I used the same dress as in the tutorial. Weird huh? Since yesterday I started all over again with the mesh tool method, which I haven't had any problems with in the past. I modified that same “afbodydresslongloose” dress and this time in a different way without needing to re-assign any bones. And it still ended up with a similarly wrong bump effect. So I'm thinking I must have something set wrong in MS3d or something...
Anyway thanks for the advice. I'll see if I can figure out who might recognize this situation.

my mesh is invisible after importing the smd file in bodyshop.and i dont know why

where can i find the qa version of SimPE ?

Meanwhile on my 25th (or so) runthrough my problem suddenly cured itself, even though I seemed to be doing the exact same thing as all the other times - unimesh and .smd. Then while I was playing with the textures it suddenly happened again when I apparently made the normal too light. Darkening it up fixed it. But the normals I was using before were the same color as the ones that came with the texture packages, I think, so I'm still a bit confused but happy to have finally got a new mesh I like with bump maps that work correctly.

Well, my mesh is also invisible after importing the file! Can somebody help??

Dupli, what steps did you take? Is after doing the smd thing, or is this a unimesh tutorial question. The InfoCenter has tips on 'my mesh doesn't show up'

It is after doing the smd thing. I just can see the head. I did all the steps from your post. Making a new mesh, replacing the gmdc, exporting the smd, importing the smd...and so on...but nothing is showing in the bodyshop...

Well, do I have to use another version of simpe? I am using 58.b.

Did your mesh work before the smd export/import? I am assuming so, but did you check?

Yes, he does...everything was fine. I don´t know what i did wrong...

Can somebodyy help me? my mesh is invisible after importing .smd.