I'm trying to get into making my own clothes, rather than relying on other people and have got the hang of making things longer, and wider, etc. But, when I try to make things shorter, I just end up removing part of the sims body. I presume that when you make clothes longer, you are also making the body longer but it doesnt show up as it's covered by the clothes? I've tried to find out through the tutorials but i'm still confused. Could someone point me in the right direction- i'm starting out with a really basic project, just shortening a pair of jeans (I know there are hundreds out there but i've got to start somewhere). What should I be hiding in milkshape for example, should I be hiding the vertices from the bottom projection or is that totally the wrong thing to do................... I'm really stuck as to how to start this. Any help, or links to the right tutorials would be gratefully received. Thank you

I'm actually having the same issue. I tried extracting the mesh from the nude top and then importing my crop top over it, but then the chest was really odd looking. Then, I tried importing only the lower half of the torso from the nude top mesh (the part the crop top was missing when I shortened the original top.) I thought it worked until I looked closely at it. I'll attach pictures to show you what I mean. And I did try editing the base texture too, but that didn't really help (not that I really thought it would). Anyways, I'm subscribing to this thread because I'd love an answer too. Yeah.

http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/...pg?t=1306007661

http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/...pg?t=1306007720

http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/...pg?t=1306007720

I'm having the exact same problem too. In fact, the third recolor panel is overriding the other two color panels as well.
It's strange, but I am able to make accessories that used to be clothing, but I am having problems making clothes in general. I am thinking it has to do with where I placed the LODs.

Although I can't seem to get mine to work, you could try watching these videos (if you haven't already) and see if they help.
Quick Meshing Part 1
Quick Meshing Part 2
Quick Meshing: Advanced Steps
Texturing Your Quick Mesh


Other Videos

Meshing in Blender

Omg.......
I just had a look at the first 3 video's and altho it does teach you how to understand some commands in Milkshape its not how to edit sims 3 meshes.
The first video
If you follow the first tutorial you will so mess up the animations of the skirt meshparts.
The part she is scaling is assigned to the waist joints(spine1/spine0/thighs and the pelvis)
If your going to scale and move those parts they are still going to act(animate) like the sims waist ingame, it will look terrible.
Same story for the morphstates(fit/fat/thin and pregnant)
And last you will end up wich a huge ammount of stretched textures wich you can not correct as there is not the space on the uvmap(the legs are still there) to correct this.
The second video
She teaches you how to temperary regroup a meshpart
This will kill the relation with the morphs(read morphdata) in 99% of the attempts
This is only possible if that part has been seperated before in the original mesh created by EA

You best use some written tutorials here on MTS2 and TSR to understand how to start creating.


@alfie
A mesh is like a statue exept that it is hollow
Its not like in real life that the shape of the clothes are covering the shape of the body, it is all one shape.
On some area's(bottom of trousers or skirts/shirts) parts are overlapping eachother just a little bit(wich gives you the option to extend those parts)
Deleting parts will always leave gaps

@imaginary
Same story, im am actually creating a similar top and altho im fiddling with meshes for 7 years now it still is a huge ammount of work to pull this off....
Maybe i should write a tutorial on how to combine diffrent meshparts as it is a complicated procedure for sims 3 meshes.

Well, your mesh might look ok in Milkshape but it is leaving gaps as your mesh is probably no longer compatible with the games sliders.
Set the fat/thin slider in the middle and im guessing the parts then will fit.
if so the next step is to recreate the morphs(fat/fit/thin and pregnant) and create slider files(Bgeo's) for them
This is a huge ammount of work wich i always try to avoid, you basicly duplicate the base mesh 4 times and change each one to fat/fit/thin and pregnant morph
With those morphs you can create new slider files wich you manually add to your package.

Im saying to avoid as i prefer to combine diffrent mesh parts(with a max of 2) but also combine the morphs the same way so i dont have to completly rebuild the morphs.
Unfortunate combining meshparts(especially the morphs) is nearly impossible when regrouping those as one meshgroup.
You get strange distortions ingame
So im always using a outfit that has 2 meshgroups and load one part in one and one part in the 2nd meshgroup.
Im writing this down for the 15th time i guess so i really should make a tutorial on how to do so.....

Altho this is a accesoire tutorial it will explain all necesarry steps on how to create a working package: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=430831

Thank you very much. Really. That's extraordinarily helpful, and although it means I have a lot more work ahead of me, at least now I know what I have to do instead of just staring at this shirt, being frustrated. Let me know if you end up making the tutorial. I'd definitely use it.

If you are a beginner i strongly recommend using TSRW, it will for instance include the base mesh and all the morphs in one meshfile
It will also generate the slider files automaticly and import them in your package

Wow, I had no idea. I'm sorry about sending the wrong videos and thank you for explaining BloomsBase. I was getting so frustrated with CTU because my meshes just didn't turn out right in the game.

Im writing this down for the 15th time i guess so i really should make a tutorial on how to do so.....

Altho this is a accesoire tutorial it will explain all necesarry steps on how to create a working package: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=430831[/QUOTE]


thank you for all your advice, though to be honest most of the technical stuff is about six feet above my head! I'm going to start with the accessory tutorial and take if from there. It would be brilliant if you wrote a tutorial; i'll keep checking back in case you do. thanks again :p

@ImaginaryGel: I did almost exactly what it looks like you're trying to do (joining parts of two meshes) here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...215#post3529215

But I used CTU for package-making. If there's interest I can write a brief tutorial once my tool is a little farther along. I don't know whether it will work correctly on TSRW meshes; hopefully someone will try it.

Also, if you want to shorten as in cut off specific parts, you can just make the texture transparent (may not work with loose clothing, so this version is limited by no custom meshes).