Nice! Can 3DS Max be used for animating?

Yes, but you must have these. Just don't try to import animations, as you will have no luck.

Okay, but it's possible to import the mesh and animate it?

Well done

Yes, that is correct. I have actually tried it personally with 3ds max and maya that I *ahem* downloaded. Note that the Maya plugin is a pain to find and use, and does not work (yes, I tried it). This is actually quite a big problem in the Maya community (see the Maya Import/Export Plugin thread at the steam website.

Hmm, when I import it to Max, the bones are all messed up. Very big and and cluttered. Is this a known problem or is it just me that's done something wrong? Anyway I tried animating the leg for a bit and exported a SMD sequence, but when I try to import it in the Animator it crashes.

Do you have any advice on which 3D program would be best for animating this?

Tauer, those shouldn't be tagged as thanks posts. They're support enquiries.

Whoops, sorry, not used to this. I just read the "Post" part and click the button. Sorry about that.

This is fabulous, I'm so waiting on custom animations... My son has been working on animations, not necessarily for the sims, but just in general. Does this come with a read me txt of some sort? I'm downloading and seeing what he can come up with since this is his hobby.

This is totally awesome too technical for me though but great work I am so glad there are fantastic people like you and others that will disect the game and give us more features

I can't wait to try this out! So cool!

For anyone who wants to know how to make an animation, read the "Getting Started" section of the overview.

It is **IMPERATIVE** that you guys read at least the bold stuff in the overview. The "Required Dlls" section is particularly important.

Nice
What program do you suggest for the animation process? Any pros\cons?
I wouldn't mind using blender.

thank you very much^^

MS3D is easy to work, but it doesn't have very sophisticated animation interpolation support. Blender has support for more advanced interpolation, as well as, if you really want, IK chains, though it is harder to use. Pick one, as blender SMDs don't work well with MS3D, though my tool is fine with either.

By the way, if you have made an animated object (not a pose; I'm sick of those) with this tool, feel free to post the link here.


OK, so I'm thinking that if TS3 Animator pans out (no more bugs), I'll add a pipeline supporting meshes and textures too, so, essentially, you'd never have to use anything but TS3 Animator. Let me explain it to you, and you tell me if it will work for you or not.

Directory Structure:

• In the Models folder, you'd need a separate SMD file for each group. You'd have to make sure that you are using only .dds files when texturing the smd in your modeling program.
  
• In the Textures folder, you'd need the same dds files that you used to texture the model, and / or, optionally, a hand-edited .textureInfo file where you'd specify if the texture is glass, the names of additional textures (such as an alpha map), etc.
  
• In the animations folder, you'd put animations you generated by pressing File->Save with an animation tab selected in TS3 Animator. Note that the rig would be generated automatically from the _lod0 models.
  
• In the state machines folder, you'd put state machines generated by pressing File->Save with a state machine tab selected in TS3 Animator.
  
• In the Scripts folder, you'd put (for now) one dll file containing a single namespace and a single class, which would be the script class for your object.
  
• thumbnail.png in the object's root directory would be the object's thumbnail. I recommend Maya or Blender for the thumbnails, by the way.
  
• BuyBuildCategories.catalog would be a file generated by TS3 Animator that describes the object's category and contains the object's description and name.

Do you like this idea? No? I was thinking of using COLLADA, but that will come later.

OK, I'm going to be gone from my home computer until late this Friday. Don't expect a prompt response to any questions or comments you pose in this section, but I'll try my best.

Nick, to complement your planned all-in-one model editor, I am in the final stages of writing a user-friendly material presets editor (these are the presets for the different color options you get in the catalog when you buy an object). As we all know, S3PE is not an ideal tool for the normal object creator

Will it export xml files? How soon will it be ready?

P.S. Why did EA call their tool "Medator"?

My tool needs to read xml files, but it doesn't need to write or export them, because it will be writing the overrides for the OBJD. What did you have in mind? Probably have a test version up within a couple of weeks.

A couple weeks is a possible timeframe for export-only functionality. You must understand, Inge, that my goal at the present is to offer a high-quality out-only pipeline that will allow users to take their entirely original content, put it in a directory structure, and export it to TS3. If they want, they should be able to add animations and scripts (there will be folders for those), but currently the plans are only to be able to export a model (one SMD file per group), optionally with user-generated lods (_lod0, _lod1 suffixes) and with an automatically-generated RIG and RSLT file, as well as everything else that makes an object. Therefore, as I am using my iPad now and can't scroll up in my longwinded post, let me thank you for your help and say that if you can send me a DLL with a GUI that can open and save pattern preset files (you can make up that spec) and that can export one of these pattern preset files (or whatever) and partial OBJD exporter that can export one of these files to the material list (and any other section) of the OBJD.

I hope this message makes more sense than I think it does, but I'm out of town, and at the moment, an iPad is all that I can use. I'll appologize for my rudeness (that passage didn't quite read right) later when I can get on a PC and see what I just said.

Goodnight,
rothn

Eh? No, my tool will be a standalone. It opens a custom package created by s3oc, and you edit your main images mask/multiplier/overlay etc and choose/tweak the pattern channel presets.

I don't see any value in trying to bundle together tools with such different purposes, it just makes it more confusing for users to learn the interface.

"complement" means that between both tools, most creation needs will be met.

Meanwhile, Peter is working on a brand new STBL editor, which will have a UI more like the one in SimPE that people tended to like.

We prefer seperate specialist tools, otherwise we'd have simply remade SimPE for TS3.

Who says SimPE isn't the way to go? I, personally, am trying to do just that -- remake SimPE -- with TS3 Animator.

No one. Just not what I'm doing

If your tool only edits existing packages, then the object will probably have to be compiled by TS3 Animator before it can be edited.