Is there a way to copy bone assignments from different meshes onto a new mesh?

[Umbra.exe]

Hi everyone, I've just started learning to mod The Sims 3. All I've made so far is a couple of skintones, some makeup, and recently, a simple accessory. I'm still pretty new at this.

Anyways, my most recent endeavor was to create a new outfit based on a certain character's outfit from a video game. I used about four different meshes to make it look right. Everything looks fine, but when I import the .obj into Milkshape, none of the vertices are assigned to bones! :( I guess importing and editing in Blender messed everything up...


Is there a way to copy bone assignments from the original meshes onto the new mesh? For example, using leg assignments from one, and hands from another, all on the new mesh?

I'm terrible with Milkshape, and I think it would be extremely difficult for me to assign every vertex one by one. I used Blender because I thought it would save me time learning Milkshape, but it seems to have made things harder...

I've made an acessory that I've had to make assignments for, but that was easy, because it only had two seperate pieces with no blending in between. assigning vertices for a full-body outfit however, seems like it would take forever! :(

Can anyone lend some advice?

[daluved1]

Doing bone assignments is tedious, regardless what program you use. The only way I know how to "copy" bone assignments is to literally copy down the assignment numbers then transfer them to their corresponding part. I did a small outline of this is my (unfinished) tutorial here: http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorials:CAS_Creation_From_Start-To-Finish_-_Meshing

The good thing about MS if you use the Unimesh Bone Tool you can select a chunk of vertices at once and view their assignments. For example, if you used the arms from one mesh, select the vertices on that arm piece, write the bone assignments down. Then select that same chunk from the new mesh. If you made sure to select the same number of vertices both times, then you should be able to just type in the numbers in the same order you wrote them down.

[BloomsBase]

You can copy the boneassignements from your original mesh to your custom mesh as long as the vertices of both have the same positions(x,y,z.)

*Import the original file you want to use the boneassignements from in
Milkshape
*Import your obj file(custom mesh)
*Select the vertices that are identical
*Then use weld together from the vertex menu
This will copy the assignements from the original to your custom meshpart

However,
Using the weld together option will weld diffrent meshparts into one(hands/sleeves/front and back are those seperates)
So after you used weld together you need to divide the whole mesh into seperates again:
*Choose Model cleaner from the tool menu
*click no on both popups
*ok
This will split the vertices using the uvmap as reference and auto seperate the meshparts.

Another thing with the welding tool is that vertices that lay close together sometimes also get welded together.
In order to avoid that it is wise to scale your meshes alot bigger before using the weld tool.

Here is a tutorial that explains some of the steps: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=429672
Always make sure you have your reference mesh on top in the mesh grouptab

[Umbra.exe]

BloomsBase, daluved1, thank you so much for replying! Funny thing is, I've read both your tutorials before, but for some reason I still got stuck. Thanks for explaining things for me.

I ended up trying Bloomsbase's idea. It worked, to some extent. Some vertices were moved slightly from their original positions, so they didn't merge. But the good news is, most of the vertices now have assignments!

I think I'm going to try daluved1's method for the remaining vertices. It's going to be tedious, but hey, at least I don't have to do all of them by hand! :)

For now though, I think I'm going to take a break from this project. If I work too much on this thing I think I'm going to get tired of it. ^^; I think I'll make some simpler things for now and work my way up to full outfits.

Thank you so much for your help! I was worried I might have to start over and re-do it all in Milkshape! (Although maybe it is worth learning anyway, if only to save myself some trouble...)