i was told that i should get help here when meshing for sims 3, im using TSRWS and 3D max to make hair for sims 3. i following a tutorial however im stuck, i dont understand how she got from a non textured hair to a textured one in this picture:



i've got my primitive shapes in place but how do i get this texture?

oh and the tutorial is this one http://www.thesimsresource.com/arti...5/page/2/cnt/6/

It's just an illustration to show what the hair will look like once it's textured, read the next step.

oh thank goodness i was literally pulling my own hair out! so after i use different shapes to make the shape of the hair, do i need to export it to make lods0 to 3, how exactly do i get lods0 to 3?

Don't worry about that yet - just follow the tutorial! You have to do the UVMap before you go exporting anything.

ok xD i'll be back though.

Just to make sure, im using diferent standrad primitive shapes, reshaping it to fit the head...thats ok right?

Of course - you can make the mesh in whatever way you find easiest.

oh cool, i noticed theres a 'fur and hair' tool in 3DS Max, i can use that too?

Try it and see!

Keep an eye on the poly count though - 3DS Max is designed for making insanely high quality render meshes, so it sometimes kicks the poly counts into the tens of thousands when you're not looking.

ok thanks, you have been the greatest help to me, i hope you dont mind but i have like a million more questions about the poly count, according to the tutorial 7000 should be around the maximum right? oh and im trying to find the poly count on 3DS MAX but i cant find it :/

oh wait i think i found the poly count and it says poly: 122,119 O_O

edit: reduced it to 10,000 still to high...

edit: oh yay reduced to 5369 using poly cruncher

Yeah, 7000 is about right for a complex hair - most should be a bit less; really really complex hairs (that need to be complex) may be higher.

Ask away. I'm no expert on hairs, but I know a.. well... a reasonable amount about meshing, so I'll try to help .

thank you ok i've done my UV mapping correctly, but now it says 'start to make your LODs', how do i make lods? do i export the hair i just made as a lod? if so do you know how?

edit: do i export as an .obj ? and then that will be my lod0?

ok i exported as obj just to see and when i try to import the new mesh into TSRWS it said 'unmached number of verticies...got 1315 expected 1224' help D;

The LODs are four different versions of the mesh. The one you've made is LOD0, the high detail one. So you need to save that, and then create another version based on it which is sightly lower poly, but still high enough that it will animate smoothly - that's the LOD1. The LOD2 should be even lower poly; it should look pretty much like the same shape, but that's all - the LOD2 is used when you're zoomed out, so you can't really see the details. The LOD3 is basically just a blob; it's the one that's used when you zoom waay waay out so you can't even really see the sim. If you have a crappy graphics card, you may sometimes see the LOD3 for a moment ingame while the meshes and textures are loading - it's the ugly one :P

Save each of those as separate meshes (in whatever format you usually use), and then importing them will come later. If you have already done the bone assignments, I advise against using OBJ, as it breaks them. If you haven't, don't worry about that yet.

oh dear, i've exported all 4 Lods as .obj and done the bone assignments in milkshape. D; what do i do now?

Well, if you did the bone assignments before exporting as OBJ, just go back to the previous saved version (you should always keep a backup copy in your meshing program's default filetype, so .ms3d for Milkshape and .3ds for 3DS, as those are the most reliable). If you exported as obj from 3DS then imported the OBJ into Milkshape and did the bone assignments, just don't export as OBJ from Milkshape - use .ms3d to keep a "safe" copy, and .geom/.wso depending on which tool you're using to actually make the hair. OBJ only breaks the bone assignments when you export as obj on a mesh which already has assignments.

oh ok, i saved as obj in 3DS MAX and done bone assignments in milkshape and exported as .wso for TSRWS i have CTU and DABOOBS and stuff for making hair the other way too. should i export as a simgeom ? and use the other method of making hair? or can i continue using TSRWS?

You can use whichever method you prefer, it doesn't make much difference in most cases.

ok, can i ask, will TSRWS import simgeoms? if i save the hair lods as simgeoms instead of OBJ

No, TSRW only uses wso, DABOOBS uses simgeom.

thanks, i exported the lods as wso and then imported it successfully to TSRWS but half the hair is'nt showing and theres lots of bald patches o_O why is this? and also i loaded an animation and the hair isn't stuck to the head it doesn't animate or move with the body it stays in one spot.

If the hair's not showing, it's probably because of the alpha layer on the texture being wrong - black areas on the alpha layer will be invisible. If the animations are broken, it's probably due to the bone assignments not working properly.

yup,
You should start by importing a basegame hair in milkshape so that the correct skeleton is there.
then import your custom hairmesh as obj file
duplicate it 4 times and make the morphs out of the duplicates
Assigne your custom hair(base mesh) with boneassignements
Delete the original basegame meshes(and basegame morphs)
Then export with TSRW's WSO plugin

Also check the uvmap when in Milkshape.(might be upsidedown...)