I would recommend that you use the "seam finder" to locate the areas along the arms, etc., then deselect everything that should stay unwelded. Or relocate the areas and manually select and weld them (an iterative process).
To identify all of the areas you DON'T want welded, it may be necessary to export the model texture, then apply it as a material. You can select "textured" and "wireframe overlay".
On some model it is very apparent where the clothing ends, so this extra step may not be needed.



Don't confuse the vertice count on the MORPHMOD with the vertice count for the model. If you use morphs, the MORPHMOD model turns into a set of delta values, one per vertex, that specifies how much to add to the base model XYZ locations (and adjustment values for the normals, too). When the model is exported, the MORPHMODS are decomposed into these data lists.
You're not saving many vertices welding the arms and legs... the numbers of vertices that are reduced are insignificant. The smoothing effect is what you are after.



You made my day, marvine, because talented artists like you are what I made these tools for. My artistic creations resemble doodly-squat. If we were in a hunter-gatherer stone age clan in a past life, I'd be chipping flint arrow and spear heads and you'd be drawing on the cave walls. We all have different talents, and, as Harry Callahan once said "A man's gotta know his limitations".

<* Wes *>

I tried to use the new version to make an object last night, but Milkshape itself kept crashing on me. I'll give it another try tonight or tomorrow.

There are some new graphics drivers and a 1.7.7a update patch that were posted recently at the MilkShape site.

<* Wes *>

Doing it that way doesn't solve the issue if you need to re-smooth your mesh (which is almost always needed when you add new parts): if you unselect these particular vertices before welding, smoothing the mesh destroys the former smoothing on these parts and it makes the seams really obvious...
What I tried to explain allows to have both a perfect smoothing and a not messed-up uv-map; unwelding these vertices after the smoothing and before exporting keeps the uv-map like it should be, since the welding of the uv-coordinates happens only on export.

Okay, this is a vocabulary issue... What I called improperly "groups" here is the different parts mapped separately, not the morphmods. And I tend to agree, doing this doesn't significantly reduce the vertex count.

Thank you for your kind words *blush* - and for making all this possible!

Thanks for the explaination, Wes - it takes me a while to get the hang of things like this.

And great idea, Marvine - I never thought to "unweld" after welding and smoothing the seams.

Great mesh too.

I did a quick test of your idea, it looks like it does the trick.

I wish I had time to do a real edit - unfortunately I won't have time until over the weekend, but the more I experiment with these plugins the more impressed I am at the great job you have done Wes.

I've tried all of the tips and still nothing. I've attached a .rar with the files and maybe someone could point out my errors. Below is a photo of the dress.

Salvatore,

I checked your mesh, first in SimPE; the first obvious issue is that you have 2 "body" groups in your GMDC - there should be only one.

EDIT: your package must have been cloned from the afbodyslip dress, which has two body groups (one for the upper body and one for the legs)

Now, in Milkshape: the 2 body groups look like they're exactly the same so it's not a misnamed alpha group problem; you can safely delete the second.

Your body alpha 3 is the inner side of the body alpha 5, but it shows over it, that's why it appears black: you see the backsides of the faces.
EDIT: that's normal... the body alpha 3 shows over the body alpha 5 because it comes first in the groups list, and it has to stay that way.

You have 2 MORPHMOD groups for the body, and one for an alpha - there should be the same number, and both alphas should have them. EDIT: the afbodyslip mesh is built that way... If you really need a fat morph, only one MORPHMOD per group is enough - the preg morph won't be used by the game anyway. If you don't need a fat morph, delete all the MORPHMOD groups.

I assigned a texture to check the uv-mapping, there are still some welded uv-coordinates at the ankles on the body groups, and on the front and back torso on the alpha groups - I'm not sure about how you mapped the skirt part, but I think there's also an issue there.

Last but not least, this is a VERY high poly mesh; It's gorgeous, but I'm curious at how the game would handle it...

Oh thanks for the tips! I was planning to cut some of the polys down and actually, it worked smooth in the game. Thanks again! ^___^

Hi Wes,

I left this message at VS earlier today, but this thread is getting much more action so I am going to duplicate it there.

I've tested 3 different outfits. Pjs, a long dress & a short dress. All of them Comment the pregnany body as the FATBOT & the fat body as the PREGBOT.

Obviously this is backwards - but - is it just that the Comments are messed up or is it that something is wrong & the pregnant sims will appear fat & the fat sims as pregnant?

I'll try to figure this out tonight. I should have some quiet time after dinner - off to start dinner now!

Morague

I am pretty sure it isn''t in the plugins. I idscovered this in the "BodyChop" versions. The first release didn't morph, as Dr. Pixel discovered, and when I worked it out, it was because I wasn't recreating the name table. In the manual, I show an example of the backwards naming.
Over a year ago, when I started on this 'journey' I built some tools that "decompile" a gmdc into the parts-pieces. Except for a text summary, the rest of the parts are broken into little files that I can open with Hex Edit.
When you have a male or female body with only 1 morphmod, it's always just fat.
I know that, without putting the table names back into the GMDC (so I had to store them somewhere) that the morphs won't happen, regardless of the fact that all the binary data sections necessary are in place.
I think the "botmorphs" part is what the game is looking for, and that the game calls them "by number".
For example, the model I show in the initial post (the black halter top/jeans from Nightlife, I think) has only one morph in it, and it is called "fat".
Some of the University models, in particular, have an unnamed morph. All the data sections are there, but the "map" part flags NO vertices as being morphed. So there is a special warning when unusual models like that appear. If it looks the same, and doesn't have a name, then you should be able to safely delete the whole "~00MORPHMOD.0" section, and delete the comment "MorphRefNum: 0" from the main section (usually named body).
I started playing around with face meshes (inside Saved Sims packages), and there were some surprises in them. I think that the configuration software allow four morphs (I am only supporting three at this time), and this model had four morph data sections, but, if I am remembering correctly, there were 27 target sections and a 27 part name table.
I know that a lot of this is technical gobbeldy-gook, but I haven't seen the mixed up names ones, when exported, show up in body shop or in the game sims making software as anything but a fat morph, regardless of the name applied. It may say pregbot but if it's the first MORPHMOD it's a fat morph.
<* Wes *>

I have emailed Mete at MilkShape to enquire about welding parts together with different UV coordinates.
I have found NO welding that is safe with these plugins. Even when you just weld the bare arms, you end up with UV mapping issues. Sometimes only on one arm, when I wleded both.
And NEVER try welding seams on both the base model and the fat morph. Even when you get the vertice count right, the vertices get reordered somehow and you get an exploding morph, just like Dr. Pixel noted.
I think the problem is an oversight in MilkShape, but I am not so sure that I would bet money on it.
There are some very different data arrangements in the SDK now, depending on whether you ask for the data in the 'new' format. In the old format, the UV data was in the section with the vertices. In the new format, it is in a section with the triangles. I think it is looking for UV coordinates only in the old way when the "weld" function is invoked.
We have a ways to go here, yet. I am NOT satisfied that the output is as good as it could be... too many of the seam areas are more noticable in th exported model than in the original one.
I discovered another oddity, too. Some places (pretty rare, and usually in the midfingers), there are 4 bone assignments, but the Maxis software has only 3 slots (max) to put weighting data into. The example I discovered had the three weights set at 25% each (75% total), so I suspect that the rendering software figures out the fourth weight by mathematics.
I can replicate this behaviour, because it does seem to make a difference on the hands. If you rotate the model the way it exports, even when you reweight the first three assignments to 34/33/33, you can see the hands animating awkwardly.
If I do change this in an update, the bone tool will be different and there will have to be changes in the plugins to select a particular bone as second, third or fourth. Maybe just a new tool that lists the bones and has a select button or buttons on it.
I still think this is an advance over the old bodychop plugins.
But if I go back to the old way of exporting, I'll lose the extra bone weighting storage locations.
I'll keep everone apprised if I discover more anomolies, but my main advice with this release is DO NOT WELD ANYTHING.
<* Wes *>

Marvine:
I want to thank you for helping Salvatore out. I know a lot about writing software, but your modelling expertise (and Dr. Pixel's, too) amaze me.
I struggle just to make a set of boobs look bigger and stay rounded, not pointy, and you guys design georgeous dresses and muscle men and gawd knows what all.
<* Wes *>

I still think that the welding is being done wrong. But Marvine is very knowledgeable, and I will try that myself... If I don't fall asleep on top of my keyboard.
<* Wes *>

I want to report one issue, Milkshape crashes whenever I click on anything after using the bone tool, mind you that I do have the extra DLL installed from the milkshape download site.

I've gotten the entire mesh to finally show up. I assume that it was the fact I was importing my added vertices by .obj after using Lithunwrap to map them out. I guess I must now do it in Milkshape, but it's worth it! Now to get down to creating! Thank you! ^__^

Well even though I told myself I wouldn't, id read through all the information in this thread so far. And after all the reading I’ve concluded that this tool is a tool from god himself and Wes is worthy of a noble prize. But i'm still lost on one subject in this. The welding...it seems that we can weld but it will result in a messed up texture map. Or that we can just not weld thing at all. I don’t know i’m thinking that i’m just a bit lost... can someone help me understand this welding problem and how to achieve the smooth arms and legs with added objects.

Once again Wes you’re amazing!!!!

I am having the same issue as Charlie with the crash after using the bone tool and I do have the dll installed as well
danny

Drew, I think wes mentioned that it should be safe to weld as long as the place you want to weld is a flesh part, the part you don't plan to texture, just like the boxers mesh. Say you mesh a sleeveless gown but you don't plan to texture the shoulders, you can weld them.

Well I took a try at it and I didn't get vary good results... I was helped along by Adam (Salvatore) the file import and exports fine but in SimPE when I do a preview of the mesh the body file seems to be transparentish but only when its overlapped with itself. (See picture-your seeing the body through her hand) and the alpha layers are completely not visible. And then when I go to body shop nothing comes up I just have the head. I checked to make sure things were right and replaced the gmdc with the old one and checked and it all worked fine but just not with my new version. Attached are the mesh file and the texture.

OK, I had time to do more experiments -

First, about the crashing - it wasn't happening to me before, but after I installed the new patch for MilkShape, I get that crashing too. It happens after I use the Unimesh Bone Tool. The tool works fine, but as soon as I close it, MilkShape crashes.

The solution I found for now - delete the MilkShape directory, then re-install the 1.77 version (NOT the 1.77a version) and the plugins again.

BTW, for those who don't know, there is a tool on MilkShape's Tools menu called "Shortcut and Plugin Manager" - this allows you to remove from the menus all those loads of importers and exporters and de-compilers and such that you don't use. It's safe, if you ever want any of them back you can use the same tool to put them back on the menu and it gets rid of all that menu clutter.

Back to the topic:

I tried Marvine's technique, but there is a problem.

I imported the mesh, then used the "Identify Split Group" tool to select the duplicated vertices, unselected the hem of the skirt, welded the rest ofd them, then un-welded them.

Yes, it works as far as the UV map problem is concerned.

But, the "unweld" looses all the vertex assignments of those vertices - so if you then put the mesh back into the game those parts of the mesh will disappear.

I also tried welding only the bare flesh areas (arms, legs) but this still smears them across the texture image so I wind up with parts of the clothing texture on the arms and legs, and since the uv_map no longer co-incides with the "skintone" images the skin coloring doesn't look right.

So the only solutions to this that I can think of at the moment are these:

1} Just don't weld anything at all and accept the visible seams on the mesh.

Or

2} Before welding, go through the list of vertices selected and write down all the assignments for each. Then weld, smooth, and unweld. Finally go back and replace all the assignments. A lot of work, but I think this would produce the best results.

===========================================

Two more that are just thoughts - I'm not sure either would really work:

* Weld the seams as needed, but don't un-weld. Then after replacing the mesh in SimPE, export it again as an .obj file and use LithunWrap or UV_mapper to re-do the whole UV_map

Or

* Use an older MilkShape and the BodyChop plugins to weld up the seams, then import it into the new MilkShape and correct the assignments as needed.

Yes, and I am retracting that statement for the moment. There is, as Dr. Pixel points out, some problem that develops with the UV mapping, even when welding bare arms. I for a clean arm on one side, and a stripe of the texture map on the other arm (all along the "seam").
I am trying to figure out exactly what happens here, but I think it creates a misordering somehow in the UV coordinates. Since the old exporter never had access to duplicated vertices, welding didn't affect them. But when MilkShape exports the old way, you always get the shadows at the hems problem.
So I am no longer advising doing ANY welding until I get this sorted out. We're not talking about a lot of vertices saved by combining them with welding, anyway. I am concerned about the visibility of the seams, though, and I am experimenting with some automated way of adjusting the normals that may smooth the seam.
<* Wes *>

I want to thank both you AND Charlie for figuring that out. I "rolled" back to the original 1.7.7 release, because I got crashes with 1.7.7a, but not right away. And I had not been able to detect the pattern. I will test your report out here and see if it replicates. I never had crashes with the original release.
If it is related to something in the bone tool itself, I will fix it. Or else I will get Mete to help figure out why it causes the crash in 1.7.7a and not in 1.7.7.
<* Wes *>

p.s. For the time being, I would suggest you use the original 1.7.7 ms3d.exe and msModelLib.dll files that were replaced with the 1.7.7a patch.

ms3d.exe and msModelLib.dll are the only two files that changed in the 1.7.7a upgrade. I had saved the old versions (by renaming them), so I had an easy time rolling back.
Until later, I will figure out whther the problem is in the BoneTool or the update... so either Mete or I will get it fixed. I never figured out the pattern involved only the bone tool, because it doesn't crash right away, it's later, in the middle of selecting something or another, so it seemed random to me.



Yes, welding makes two identical vertices into one... but only room for one UV now.


Same results noted here, one arm was smooth, one had the UV mapping issue.


I recommend not welding until the root cause is figured out. All that writing down is a lot of work, and error prone. I am trying out some extra plugin ideas involving adjusting the normals to see if I can't improve the seams situation. What we want are less visible seams, not 30 or 40 less vertices.

Using the old BodyChop method will result in a loss of at least some of the bone assignments and all the original skin weights.

Speaking of skin weights, I uncovered an unusual arrangement in afBodyHalterTop GMDC bone assignments in the hand bones (some of the right and left midfinger assignments). I think that one was a new nightllife
mesh (it's the one in the screenshor on post 1 of this thread).
There are 4 bone assignments in the original GMDC for about 8 joints. If you select the hand, then underweighted bones, then open the bone tool, you'll have a short list to look through, and you'll see some mid0 or mid1 assignments that total 75%.
Those bones actually have 4 assignments. There is only room for 3 skin weights in the weight section, max. So, I presume the rendering software is built to make the 4th weight the difference between the sum of the 3 weights and 100%.
I had the opportunity to design the plugins to handle 4 bone assignments, #1 is already there in MilkShape, and I have 3 available slots to fill. By making the first slot the same assignment as the native MilkShape, I had the opportunity to build easy bone 2 and 3 tools. I never noticed more than 3 bone assignments before, and this may be something that is not compatible with the original game, anyway. More research is needed.

I have company visiting this weekend, and have little time available to work on this. But I want to explore if this is an issue with older meshes or not. I know it isn't defined that way in the afBodyUnderwear mesh, which is an original game mesh. I do know that if you fix it (in the afBodyHalterTop mesh), simply adjusting the weights from 25/25/25 to 34/33/33 that the hands look funny when you rotate the model around in BodyShop. We may have to put together a bone assignment for those fingers like were done in the older meshes, because I am afraid that allowing 4 bone assignments may break model if people distribute them and they are used in older games.

Dr. Pixel, thanks for the help so far. I agree the seams issue is a problem, and my work here indicates that the seams are there along the sides of the clothing on all, or many, of the models from the game, but are more pronounced in a model after being run through the plugins. I just have to find out a way to get it fixed without ruining the model in the process. Normal adjustment is one idea I am toying with. And welding, at this point, tends to ruin more than it fixes.

<* Wes *>

There are exactly 0 joint assignments in the "body" or either of the two alpha segments of your package GMDC. I'm surprised, because I thought the released version would produce an error message if there were ANY unassigned bones. I will check that, and make sure it is in place in the next release, if it isn't there. Nothing without a bone assignment will display (in a boned mesh, which includes pretty much all objects that have any animation in them.
Rebuilding all the bone assignments and skin weights from nothing is a big job, and I hate telling you that you must do that, but offhand I can't think of any easy way to do it.
I suspect you exported and reimported the mesh into another program to do the editing with, and lost all the bone assignments doing so.
Also, the MilkShape 3d Ascii files do not, at least at this time, save any of the extra bone assignment/skin weights data, but the regular .ms3d files do save the data.
Tell me how you did this mesh (which is very beautiful, I might add). But look, and you will see there are no bone assignments, and without at least one assignment for EVERY vertice, an animated model will not display.
<* Wes *>

I noticed a bug, that is rather serious IMO ... It happened to me when making my alpha groups, but I thought I had messed up somewhere; now I've taken the time to test some more.
Regrouping parts (without welding) does a weird things to the assignments; the "sel unassigned" command doesn't highlight anything, but if you use the Bone Tool you see that all the weights are set to 0 and the bones to -1; and the group doesn't show up in bodyshop.
Ckicking on the first weight arrows in the Bone Tool makes the name of the first bone appear, so the data is still somewhere, but it doesn't work on the other assignments...
I'm rather worried about this - remaking the assignments on a not too big alpha is one thing, but reassigning a whole body after adding parts is another...