Mesh gaps

[JuBa_0oº]

Hey there :-)
I just started creating clothes and I find myself in a situation that I can´t solve :-/
I created a new mesh from a previous top from sims 3.
This is how it shows in CAS - image 1
As you can see there is a blank space between the neck and head and I don´t know what to do about it.
Then I tried to add a little bow to my new top, I changed the base texture and the mask (to make it recol.) And now it doesn´t even show up in CAS! - image 2
Can you help me please?

[Whiterudder]

I've split this off into its own thread in CAS parts, since it's not about making stencils - perhaps you posted in the wrong tutorial thread by accident; either way, here will do :p .

The neck problem is caused by the original mesh having two groups, and your custom mesh having only one. Basically, the EA mesh has group 0: most of the shirt; and group 1: neck. There's no reason for this, EA just do it to confuse creators. So when you were reimporting your custom mesh, you imported group 0 but not group 1, meaning the neck got left out.

It's possible that the same thing happened to the first shirt. There's a little floating bit by the sim's leg which could be one of her fingers: several of the EA meshes have one finger in a separate mesh group from the rest of the outfit. That said, the floating bit could also be an accessory, in which case that's not what happened.

Which tool(s) are you using - CTU, S3OC/S3PE or TSRW? Have you fiddled with the bone assignments, or converted the mesh into OBJ format at any point?

[JuBa_0oº]

...It's possible that the same thing happened to the first shirt. There's a little floating bit by the sim's leg which could be one of her fingers: several of the EA meshes have one finger in a separate mesh group from the rest of the outfit. That said, the floating bit could also be an accessory, in which case that's not what happened.

Which tool(s) are you using - CTU, S3OC/S3PE or TSRW? Have you fiddled with the bone assignments, or converted the mesh into OBJ format at any point?

Sorry about posting in the wrong thread! That one looked like "the one", I guess not :-P
So in the first case I just have to select both groups (inside milkshape?) and export them at the same time right?
With the second case I just opened the previous package (with the neck problem) through CTU and changed the part category top > body and the texture (base texture and mask). It looked fine on CTU :-/

Note: In the tab section of milkshape, this top have only one group: GEOM-00 <No Material> o_o

[Whiterudder]

The groups are exported as separate .simgeoms from CTU - if you don't want to alter one of them, you can just plug the unmodified file into CTU's mesh browse boxes. Do remember to keep them in the right order (lod1_0, lod1_1, lod1_2 and so on). :)

Hmm, well just changing the top to a body won't work - your sim won't have any legs, for starters. I don't know why it would cause the neck to go missing, though, so I still suspect that CTU exported a second .simgeom and you didn't notice it.

[BloomsBase]

Invisibel meshes:
-No boneassignements.(if OBJ format is used you lose the boneassignements)
-No meshcomments(altho this most likly crash your game aswell)
-you loaded the meshes into the wrong boxes in CTU.
-High detail in box LOD1
-Medium in LOD2
-low in LOD3
LOD0 is only for accesoires or hair, if you load in that there will be no mesh either ingame.

[Elexis]

Just a little warning here :)

You have changed the shape of the top quite heavily, the bottom part will need new boneassignments so it won't clip while Sim is moving (sitting for example). Also, make sure it doesn't go clip in neutral position, so It can be worn with any type of bottoms.

The UV map is skewed now too, you should probably fix it if you don't want any pattern mislpacements on your top.

[JuBa_0oº]

Oh ok :-S *taking notes*, it was indeed lod 2 and 3 that were missing (I was following the tutorial so...) Thank you all for your help, but now I have another problem :-(
I was able to bring the clothes to the game and they were working fine. But then I tried to add thumbnails and now they look like this:

[Whiterudder]

What exactly did you do, to add the thumbnails? There are a few possible methods. :)

[Elexis]

Oh wow, what doesn't look good :/

I've heard that if you are using CTU you can get some bugs when adding a thumbnail in it. There's another safer way to add a thumb to your clothing:

1. Delete the current thumbnail in S3PE.
2. Load the package in game without any thumbnails.
3. Close the game and open your package with S3PE.
4. Copy the instance (long row of numbers) on yous CASP file.
5. Go to My Documents/ Electronic Arts/ The Sims 3/ Thumbnails folder and open CASThumbnails package with S3PE.
6. Paste the instance you copied in step 4 into the proper filter box and set the filter active.
7. Now you should see the thumbs which belong to your package only (each preset will have it's own thumb). Extract the thumbnail somewhere on your computer, but DO NOT change the filename!
8. Edit the extracted thumb to your liking in Pthotoshop or GIMP and save under the same name.
9. Import the edited thumbnail to your package using S3PE.
10. Delete the CASThumbnails package (it will regenerate) and load the game. If you did everything right, your thumb should be visible without causing any issues.

[Whiterudder]

I suspect that's a random CTU bug, not related to thumbnails; the easiest solution is to go back to the last version of the file, and add the thumbnail following El's instructions.

Thumbnails added via CTU are weird... they often don't work, but I did some pretty thorough testing a while back and couldn't find a reliable pattern. So, S3PE is the more reliable method, and exceedingly quick and easy. :)

[JuBa_0oº]

Alright, thank you so much! :-) I´ll try it that way then

[JuBa_0oº]

It worked just fine with Elexis way! Thank you guys!! xD