Thanks for the tutorial. It rocks.
However I´m having the exact same problem as that guy Transylvanian had. Is anyone wiser regarding that or am on my own on that? I have tried redoing the animation 3 times now, but still get that "input string was not in the correct format" every time. What am I doing wrong?

Just try it again making sure you follow every step exactly as explained.

What changes need to be made to this tutorial to make it work with the AniMesh plugin since Miche's plugin seems to be out of date? Been going through the tutorial but there are steps that would be different, not needed, and/or changed with the new plugin.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I think I have it figured out. Would you mind if I updated the tutorial to cover the new plugin? It might make things easier for beginning modders that are just starting out with the new AniMesh plugin available. I wouldn't post the tutorial, I would be happy to send it to you to add or change any of the info before posting.

That would be ok, I would thank/credit you if I were to add the file to this thread.

May I ask a problem?at this step
I can't see this window

how to show this window,I can't find it,and can't open Pie Menu Functions/string in the plugin view

if I click the plugin view,It will make this kind of mistake

I'm guessing you don't have much experience with SimPE. This tutorial is designed for people who know there way around it. That window is the plugin view, thats where you edit it.... if you didn't know that I suggest you try something easier. But if you did know that, your question is related to a problem with SimPE, not this tutorial, try either the SimPE forums or the "Sims 2 Tools" forum on this site.

Thank you,I know what's wrong with it today.When install the SimPe,If there is a window ask if you want to connect to the Internet to have new load automatismly,choose "NO",it will be OK.The plungin window will show.

Hi, I did this tutorial (except I used new tools from Wes_H and their corresponding actions) and I made a static pose... Thank you very much for this tutorial!

However the newly cloned object won't even show up in the game. I rebuilt it twice, but it seems it doesn't even have a GMDC file in it... so I can;t test if it works.
Is anyone willing to test it out for me in another object package?

I guess from the Static Pose part that this is a Sim animation.
Animations exist for use on other things, not as new objects. So your pose can be made to work on whatever sims you have in your game.
In the Dance Animation that Marvine did is a file called wm-dance-loop-tester.package (wm is wes and marvine). That package was shamelessly copied from work that Squinge originally did (his hula tester mod).
Inside the package are some BHAVs and menus, and one animation (ANIM) file. You could replace the dance animation with your pose animation, update the name in the text file, and update the menu from "Dance" to "Pose". Put it on downloads, fire up the game, and the sims on your lot should have that action available when you click on them.
Animations must remain in group 0x1c0532fa. Be sure to 'fix tgi' after naming the anim. Try putting it in there, like I said, and if needed I will help you get it working.

<* Wes *>

Ohhh... what I was trying to do, was clicking the statue, and then the pie menu would come up for the sim to do the pose... like the paintings I see around

I will try your way as I think it's nicer than having objects everywhere! Thank you

The painting solution, as in Echo's tutorial, will work, although you end up with the sim in front of your object when the animation plays. This might be a good thing if you are making movies, and have a textured wall or some props behind the Sim for a backdrop.

I continue to use the painting as a test tool, swapping animations in and out. The hula mod, and several other similar items here (like those by decorgal), were built like that, but with lots of menus. If you want a whole bunch of poses in one, put the animations in the file, and edit the menus and text strings. Then you can do the same thing, but with more than one animation at a time.

<* Wes *>

If you take out the "go to relative position" command, then the sim will play the animation from wherever they are already standing.

The main reason you'd put something into an out-of-world object like a social rather than an in-world object like a painting is that you want to make it automatically available everywhere. This is great for interactions and socials that should be available on all lots as part of normal play, without having to purchase anything. Stuff like dancing, chatting, showing off... For things like poses which are only intended for screen shots and the like, then having the options embedded in a deco object can mean that you don't clutter up your sim's pie menu during regular play. If you don't want an option on a particular lot, you just don't buy that deco object.

For learning and experimenting though, I'd generally recommend using an in-world object, since they're a lot easier to debug. If you accidentally save the game with your object on the lot, you can still refresh its settings by selling and rebuying, which you can't do with an out-of-world. You also have the option of shift-clicking the object to get error logs if something's not working, again, something you can't do with socials. Generally if I'm playing around with some code I'll put it in a painting first, and move it into an out-of-world object after the tricky stuff is all working.

Either works though, so whichever option is easier is good! :D

Well, I can't argue with the resident expert.

I also had never thought about the selling/rebuying. But, I never had any problems, at least in the base game, with having a saved lot with a hacked version of your tutorial Meg painting, and switching the file out, restarting the game and having the changes show up. And I have myriad twisty sim screenshots to prove that!

<* Wes *>

I've often thought that it'd be worth putting up a "best modding bloopers" thread somewhere... I have a few doozies in my "modding/bwahaha" directory.

Selling/rebuying is only necessary if you modify the object's init or main functions, or if you save the game midway through a function call. In the case of the init, the code only gets run when it's first created, so if it's in game and saved then it won't get run. (I remember working with someone on a new tv channel where this was a problem - spent literally hours trying to figure out why the changes weren't showing up. In the end he changed the guid, booted the game, and the new version worked because it got spawned as a new object.)

In the case of a change to main or to a currently running function, the object can get itself into an illegal state, since it remembers which number node it was on when the game saved and continues from there. Pretty rare, but quite confusing to debug.

You know, every time I do a tutorial, and get to the custom BHAVs part, something always goes wrong.
1st Problem: I saw Pie Strings but not Pie Functions. So I guess that means I only import one, right?
2nd Problem: I do what the tutorial says and try to import Pie String Functions. But, I see two. I see two Pie Menu Strings and two Pie Menu Fucntions.
Ex:
Pie Menu Functions: 54544142-00000000-7F18E0F0-00000001
Pie Menu Functions: 54544142-00000000-7F18E0F0-00000002
Which one should I click? Or should I import both?

I know what you're talking about. Just import the first one that ends in 01. This works for me.

Oh, okay, thanks a lot. Just wanted to clarify.

I'm baaaacccckkkkk....
So, I finally got things to work. The menu showed up and everything, said Hold Mic like I asked it to. The Sim did an animation, but not my animation. They did the actual hot tub animation (Getting out of it). Where did I go wrong?

Check the name of the animation in the text list, to make sure you're using the right one. Also check the group ID of your text list and of the BHAVs you're using, make sure they're 0xFFFFFFFF. If all that checks out, you might have to post your object so someone can take a look.

I did as you ask, everything seems okay. Here's the object, I hope I attached the file right.

Hey, I don't know if you have come to this thread lately, but I'm having a problem with SimPE.

I've been able to do everythng just fine, up until I get to step 4, where you have to extract, and save the file. My computer saves the file as a .5an file. Then when I go to open it back up, SimPE says it doesn't supprt the file type... I can't get my computer to save it as a SimPE file.

Help me out please

Cryptic, you don't need to open the 5an file in SimPE. You can create a new package, then import the 5an file as a resource. You just have to set the type to the "Animation" value and it should work fine.

That said, creating new animations has changed a lot since this tutorial was written. Check out these threads:
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=239060
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=239172
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=239160
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=239168

As they are the current "best way" of making new animations.

Thanks so much for the new links

I am trying to open this tutorial, and It's not reading the format or something. I can't get it to open. What program do I use to open it? PDF? Adobe? Needless to say, it's berry discouraging...

and the same for the converter, I am having problems opening that as well. Thankyou.

kaijurajinx, this is a rar file. You need to open it with an extractor like WinRAR or 7zip.

If you're planning on making new sim animations though, you might have more luck using the newer AniMesh plugins. The stuff discussed in this tutorial (Miche's Converter) is quite old now, and pretty much unsupported.

If you read my post about three up from this one, you'll see a bunch of threads which will probably be more useful to you now.