Extracting Meshes and Wings 3D

[Dragon Slave]

Hi.

I'm wanting a try at hair meshes with wings. I've already used it to create some objects, and I find it 1,000,000 times easier than milkshape or any of the other programs. Seriously. Wings was the only one that I could dive right into the process of creation without wondering what the heck I was doing, or how to do it. I feel as if I have complete control of over the formation of the mesh, as if I were using my own hands to make it. While in the others, I'm lost. Being free, I'm sure it has it's drawbacks as opposed to the priced programs...but for what I've used it for, it's a miracle. That being said, I want to know if there's a way to convert the maxis mesh to an obj. file, or some workable file type, without using the milkshape plugin. My trial period on milkshape has expired, and I don't see the point in paying 30 $ or whatever it costs if all I need it for is file conversion. It's really a waste, and I can't spare the money right now.

So any wings users out there who know of how I can convert the meshes to a format readable by the program, please help me out. :) I'd be real happy.

[tiggerypum]

Actually, you'll need more than the file conversion.... you'll need to do bone assignments.... and obj format doesn't support bone assignments.

That said, you could take the pieces (that's the other problem, hair meshes have multiple groups) out of milkshape as individual obj files and import them into wings and do your work there, then import them back in (copying both the comments and the group names) and then do all the bone assignments - hair meshes usually need bone assignments totally redone anyway.... but the most convenient tool I've seen is unimesh and milkshape, where you can have all the groups in at once and edit them and just save the whole gdmc out with proper transparency settings and everything in one shot.

[Dragon Slave]

:blink:
Ooooo....let me pause here for a second. I don't quite follow what you're explaining. I'm still really new to all this. Things might make sense to me if I had a better understanding of what they are, and what they do.

Joints, from what I understand are used for animations, so could they be left out all together?. The mesh wouldn't be animated, I know, but that's something I wasn't planning on learning just yet anyways. Or would the file not function without them, even if they aren't used?

Also, I was able to work around groups when I made my horse (the only object I've finished and have loaded up in the game). The tutorial I referenced used milkshape, and had steps involving groups, but I just used the "combine" or "seperate" option to group or ungroup the seperate peices of the mesh. I also had the mane imported as a subset so that I could use an alpha layer mask on it. I was thinking that it could handle a hairstyle the same way.

I'm probably mistaken about alot of things here. :D Could'ja clue me in on what I've got wrong? If it's not too much to explain ;)

It would be nice not to worry about all these details...but if I can't use milkshape because the trial period's ended, I'll need to work around the plugins, and these other problems that result from using a different program as well, in order to compensate for what it can't do. Or is it even possible make hair meshes without milkshape's plugins? I might not be able to make them at all, if that's the case.



Thanks for your help :)

[JustTheBast]

Joints, from what I understand are used for animations, so could they be left out all together?. The mesh wouldn't be animated, I know, but that's something I wasn't planning on learning just yet anyways. Or would the file not function without them, even if they aren't used?


If your hair mesh is not attached to any of the bones (or joints) then it won't move with the rest of the sim, i.e. the sim would move his or her head, but the hair would keep hanging in the air, as if it wasn't attached to the sim at all. That's why all points (or vertices) of a mesh must be assigned to one of the joints of the sim skeleton.

I haven't been doing any real meshing for The Sims 2 yet, but I have to agree with you regarding the relative user-friendliness of Milkshape and Wings3D. Tiggerypum's suggestion, to do the actual modelling in Wings and only add the bone assignment to the finished mesh in Milkshape, sounds like a good one.

[Dr Pixel]

Joints (bones) and their corresponding vertex assignments are indeed used for animation in the game - and are absolutely required on body parts (hair, clothing) because these parts are fully animated in the game.

Body parts with no bones or vertex assignments will not appear at all in the game.

The MeshTool provides a very limited way to edit animated meshes with 3d programs like Wings that do not allow bones and vertex assignments. By limited, I mean that you can only move the existing vertices of a mesh around a little bit. You can NOT add or remove anything, and you can't move the vertices too far or the vertex assignments get out of synch.

For any more elaborate mesh editing you will need to use a mesh editor that does support bones and vertex assignments. It doesn't have to be MilkShape, you could use any 3d editor that has import/export of .smd files.

Wings can't do it, it has no support for bones.

You could use Wings for doing a hair mesh, then MilkShape (or other 3d editor) for making the assignments on hair, although it would not be easy. It would probably easier to learn to use the other 3d editor and do the whole thing with it.

If you want to do body parts (clothing) - re-assigning the whole thing from scratch would be a nightmare.

[tiggerypum]

Btw, for an overview of what's involved in body meshes there's a wonderful article in the infocenter here: http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=155772

It doesn't go deeply into all the details, but it does mention pretty much everything, some of the further details would depend on how you're editing.

There's a ton of other stuff in the infocenter too, you might find it a good read while you try and work through what the differences are between body/hair/accessory meshes and most object meshes.

[Dragon Slave]

hmmmm.....so I must have joints for hair meshes, which means I'll need to use at least one other program to convert the file, if I plan on using wings.

Milkshape would be easiest. :( Maybe I should try to find whatever it is in the registry that it uses to identify the expiration date and delete it ;) no. I have no idea how to do that. I guess I'm not as ready to make these as I thought. I'm sure I could learn...I'm just not ready to spend 25 $ for the program if I'm not even certain how serious I"m going to be about meshing. But I may also look in to finding another program I can use to convert :)

Thanks for the links Tiggerypum, I'll be sure to check them out shortly. This place is really helpful. Thank you everyone for your help. :D