Meshing newbie here, need advice.

[Ctay]

Hi there, I'm new here, and to meshing, but not to the sims 3 or other sims games. I have a good knowledge of items/gameplay etc.

My issue is with the whole world of meshing, I find it like trying to learn a foreign language! I would love to be able to make my own clothing, objects and hairstyles for the game though.

I know of these programs, but I need help with the FREE ones only at the moment, as I am probably not able to purchase milkshape until after christmas due to me really needing a new coat (tis chilly out!) lol.

Milkshape (paid)
Blender (have installed on computer)
Wings 3D (have installed on computer)
Maya (very expensive, do not know much about).

So I'm mainly after help concerning Blender and wings 3D.

I've read tons of the many tutorials but I'm finding them as confusing as the programs themselves, so if someone can break the whole thing down for me so I can start to understand the concept of sims meshing and how to use the programs, I would be very greatful :)

My computer is win7 64bit OS if this is needed for the process.

[orangemittens]

Hi Ctay :) Milkshape has a free 30 day trial so if you're interested in it you could try it now without losing out on the coat. That said a lot of people get really attached to the 3D editor they first learn with and find it bothersome to have to learn a second one. If you're learning from scratch no matter what program you use, the better one, and free, would be Blender. It can do a lot more than Milkshape. All of the S3-specific stuff is pretty much the same no matter which editor you're using although if you use anything but Blender or Milkshape you're going to have to use either Blender or Milkshape as a bridge to get your meshes into the game.

If you don't know how to use a 3D editor at all my personal opinion, although others might disagree, is that meshing objects is easier in terms of the S3 aspect. Also, meshing objects has been better documented in terms of tutorials.

To get an understanding of object creation I highly recommend EllaCharm's tutorial. She goes through the whole process with a lot of detail that pretty much tells you all you need to know about the S3-specific parts of what you're doing...basically gets you started understanding the language of S3 object meshing.