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#126 Old 21st Mar 2007 at 10:01 AM
Yes, it is certainly OK to pass the mesh along to Mete -

BTW, the odd look your are seeing in MilkShape will be gone if you uncheck "draw backfaces" in the 3d window.

The finished truck can be also be downloaded here: http://www.modthesims2.com/member/s...ad.php?t=220530

What I did to eliminate the darkening for the final version was to export the version you have as a GMDC. I also exported it as an .obj file

I replaced the GMDC into the .package file in SimPE, them exported it again as a .ms3dascii file

This went back into MilkShape, and I replaced all the mesh groups with the ones from the .obj file and re-assigned the bones and exported as .ms3dascii again.

This worked fine since no multiple assignments are needed.

I do realize that the darkening could be avoided if I had moved the vertices a bit. I just used this as an example because it was such an extremely visible one.

Here is another one where this happened un-predictably.

The blackening of the exhaust pipes was expected, since I used the same method of duplicating and reversing the faces.

But the darkening on the lower panel was not expected at all. It seems to be only one vertex being affected - if I rotate the mesh to look from a front angle, that same area looks too bright. It is as if the normals are being rotated 180 degrees off?

These are the kind that are really the main problem - since they can't be predicted, there is no way to avoid them.

I did eliminate this also using the same double export/import method as above.
Screenshots
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Alchemist
Original Poster
#127 Old 22nd Mar 2007 at 2:55 AM
I don't have any good answers. The truck picture looks like one face is off. The fact that it is where a corner is formed makes me curious.

One of the old problems we had with body meshes was at the skirt hem, which is where a ninety degree turn is made. The Maxis meshes leave the seam at the hem unwelded, and thus there are two normals, one pointing more or less horizontally, for the vertex belonging to the dress face, and one pointing at the ground, for the face that was parts of the skirt inside.

When the hem gets welded, you end up with one normal midway between, which gives a shadowing reminiscent of the problem on the truck.

You can view the normals with the "MilkShape 3D Selection Editor" found in the Tools menu. While there is a better tool that is part of the DirectX SDK, I don't think I can redistribute that one, or that it is available for download. I took a look at the truck windshield mesh part (the same one I posted about yesterday) with this tool, and I am sharing an interesting screenshot.

What you are looking at is the top edge of the windshield, which has been rotated and zoomed to show the normals display (yellow lines). What you see is some normals pointing inward (reversed), some pointing outward (downward in the screenshot) and one pointing upward (totally wrong).

This definitely befuddles me. One, the mesh should not be welded while making the inner faces, and mixing the normals up, and particularly the one that lies on the same plane as the faces is not the way to make a good mesh.

While I will pass along the mystery (because I have no tools but a hex editor to look at .ms3d files), I don't know how fast anything will get done. If the welding and mixing is being done during preparation for export, then when MilkShape is fixed the problem should be corrected. If it is getting messed up during manufacture inside MilkShape, then I don't know if it can be fixed without being remade.

<* Wes *>
Screenshots
Alchemist
Original Poster
#128 Old 29th Mar 2007 at 1:48 AM Last edited by wes_h : 31st Mar 2007 at 7:11 PM.
I am withdrawing the analysis I had posted in this message space. Because I used an old tool (Model Information 1.7) that uses the older MilkShape interface, I drew an inaccurate conclusion about the regroup behavior.
Regroup does not appear to weld vertices.
<* Wes *>
Inventor
#129 Old 17th Apr 2007 at 12:20 PM
Thank you for the update!! Much appreciated
Xts

(Quote) ~ "If it isn't one thing, it's going to be another. It is usually one thing. Oh man, is it a mother" (The Mother of All Things) - PB
Forum Resident
#130 Old 18th Apr 2007 at 4:19 PM
awesome!thanx 4 all hard work!
Alchemist
Original Poster
#131 Old 22nd Apr 2007 at 12:16 AM
Is that a request?
Someone, call the police.

Anyone that is interested, there is a beta version of MilkShape 1.8.1 posted at the MilkShape site. It works here, and even retained my previously added shortcut definitions, and the joint size defaults, and all my other setting across the install. I used to have to reset all those every update.

The main item I saw of interest for Sims2 is that you can now use the "skin and cloth" method the game uses to texture your mesh. By this I mean you can load a Sims2 skin texture file and also load a clothing texture file and set the material to combine alphas, meaning that the transparent parts of the clothing texture show the underlying skin texture.

I posted a little more on this in the Modding Discussion forum, but though some might be interested in it and not see my post there (I have a screenshot posted there).

<* Wes *>
Test Subject
#132 Old 22nd Apr 2007 at 3:39 PM Last edited by Numbuh 826,664 : 22nd Apr 2007 at 3:51 PM.
Ain't there any versions of Milkshape that can work on Windows Vista?
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
#133 Old 22nd Apr 2007 at 3:50 PM
This is just a plugin. Whether or not Milkshape works on Vista has nothing to do with this particular plugin. Besides, I wouldn't have Vista this early anyway - or, well, at all, personally, but considering its compatability issues and the HUGE amount of resources it takes, it's really not worth it.

my simblr (sometimes nsfw)

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
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Space Pony
#134 Old 27th Apr 2007 at 8:52 AM
Hi Wes,

I'm not quite sure if this is the right place to post this or not :/ I am having the problem with the Model groups getting mixed up. I have updated MilkShape to the latest beta & have installed your latest plug-in 4.08 as well as the latest QA version of SimPe, so it's not because I'm using old files.

Using OW to clone the Salmon results in a missing Morph - well, it isn't exactly missing, somehow it's duplicating the "half" morph & replacing the "none" with a second copy of the "half". But, I think the problem is actually with OW & not UniMesh. If I look at the original GMDC (foodeatsalmon_root_rot_gmdc) in SimPE it shows the correct 0,1 & 2 morph blending groups. Looking at the GMDC in the file that OW creates I only have groups 1 & 2. Importing this into MilkShap I get cookstate, Morphmod0 & Morphmod1 - but - these Mophmods are identical except for the comments. One of them should be the "none" state morph but they are both the "half" state morph.

I'm having other problems with OW, which is why I hesitated to post here. For some reason none of the base foods export anything but the CRES with the exception of the salmon. All of the new fish dishes export all of the parts but then there's this morph blend thing :/

I think perhaps I should just go to bed!
Alchemist
Original Poster
#135 Old 27th Apr 2007 at 5:55 PM
Having a morph numbered zero that is active seems to have started with EP1 or EP2. Most of the base game meshes had an empty slot in the morph name pairs section for morph zero, and then whatever numbers were needed for the morphs.

There is one morph I remember, maybe the buffet table, that has nine name slots, but actually only six morphs. Each set of three morphs was a non-name, a half and then a full for a different food item group.

Now, the latest plugins number the morphmods according to their original positions, such that on the buffet table, there would be a ~00MORPHMOD.1 & .2, a ~01MORPHMOD.4 and .5, and a ~02MORPHMOD.7 and .8.

If left this way, the exporter will recreate the empty slots. But, the game does not seem to care about them, and would be just as happy with them if they were numbered from 0 to 5, because the names is what it uses to locate them with.

Having said all that, I used SimPE to extract the original GMDC (0x1c0532fa - 0x03d44ec1 - 0xffaa9818) from the Objects03.package file and loaded it into MilkShape via UniMesh. I have a base mesh, with two morphs:

~00MORPHMOD.1 foodeatblend foodeatflatfoodnone
~00MORPHMOD.2 foodeatblend foodeatflatfoodhalf

The first one has all the vertices collapsed to a single point, the second has about half of the fish left.

I did not try exporting this and testing in the game. You could try using 'extract' and then 'replace' in your OW generated package and see if you can make a workaround to get you back in business.

And don't go about thinking it is too much bother to me for you to report and post about something that doesn't go right. While I can't directly do anything about SimPE and OW issues, if they affect your meshing, they are affecting other people's work, too. I am only too happy to try and get the issues figured out, even when they turn out to be related to some factor other than the plugins themselves.

Having said that, I wonder why OW would CHANGE anything in the GMDC except the name and TGI values? That is not needed for cloning.

<* Wes *>
Space Pony
#136 Old 28th Apr 2007 at 6:11 AM
Hi Wes,

Bless you! That's just what I needed to hear I do worry about posting in the wrong places.

Thank you for the suggestion, this will be a good work around until they can figure out what's happening with the OW. I was too tired & frustrated last night to think about doing that. LOL. I did extract the original from Objects3 - I just didn't think about replacing the one in the cloned package with it

Hopefully I'll be able to complete my package this weekend.

Thank you!

Morague
Lab Assistant
#137 Old 4th May 2007 at 10:12 PM
I was working on a mesh with Milkshape 1.7.10 and decieded to check out the new versions. While on the site I saw there was a 1.8 and a 1.8.1 beta. I DLed the beta because it said there were some additonal Sims2 features. To make a long story shorter after several attempts of getting the bones all scambled while exporting with Unimesh I reverted back to 1.7.10 where everything seems to be okay. Has anyone else expericenced this? Does 1.8 work okay?
Alchemist
Original Poster
#138 Old 4th May 2007 at 11:39 PM
I have been using 1.8.1 since it was released. The only real problem I have noted is related to long texture filenames, and mainly affected files I was playing with from a different game.

Mete always seems to be about one version behind on the UniMesh plugins he ships with each version. I can't remember for sure what version shipped with 1.8.1, but they aren't the latest.

The latest are posted in message #1 in this thread. Download them and put them into your 1.8.1 directory and retest, please. Although I am not entirely sure that is the issue, it is the place to start. Besides myself, I know TiggeryPum has made body meshes with 1.8.1. But, since your 1.7.10 setup works, leave the plugins you have there alone until we are sure that is the issue.

You should be able to see the version of any of the UniMesh plugins right in the MilkShape menus, like "Sims2 UniMesh Import V4.08". I am careful to make every pluing in the set have the latest version number, even if there were no other changes made to it. This is so people don't have to remember to update this now and that later.

<* Wes *>
Lab Assistant
#139 Old 5th May 2007 at 3:21 AM
Thanks I'll make sure to get the latest plugins and give it another try. Since 1.7.10 was working fine it seemed like the easiest route to go at the the time.
Admin of Randomness
retired moderator
#140 Old 6th May 2007 at 2:14 AM
bsett, with some of the changes, you might need to import your SimPE file, not open the old ms3d file (if that is what you were doing).

"Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." - Ronald E. Osborn

Please do NOT PM me with requests, creation questions, or game help questions. Click for help:
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Lab Assistant
#141 Old 7th May 2007 at 5:06 PM
tiggerypum you hit the nail on the head. The problem was that I tried to do a Unimesh export from 1.8.1 on a older 1.7.10 saved ms3d. Got evening thing up to date and all is working fine now. Thanks for the respnses.
Test Subject
#142 Old 11th May 2007 at 10:45 PM
The new plugins work fine for me, with one exception. I am using the newest Milkshape, besides the beta. Whenever I select a vertex and then try to use the unimesh bone tool to check it out, Milkshape just stops working. I get the pop up of doom saying this program is no longer working, windows is checking for a solution and then it closes itself. I am on Windows Vista, unfortunately. But it allows milkshape to run fine, so I don't think that is why. Any suggestions?
Admin of Randomness
retired moderator
#143 Old 12th May 2007 at 12:21 AM
Try using extended edit (the one by demon) instead - but you might need the open gl stuff and I have no idea if that works on vista or not.

If the problem is opening popup windows, then there are several things you won't be easily accomplish, if at all. The bone tool brings up a window - can you bring up other input windows in milkshape?

"Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." - Ronald E. Osborn

Please do NOT PM me with requests, creation questions, or game help questions. Click for help:
Game Help | Create | Content List | Where Can I Find?
Alchemist
Original Poster
#144 Old 12th May 2007 at 12:38 AM
Quote: Originally posted by unicorngurl180
The new plugins work fine for me, with one exception. I am using the newest Milkshape, besides the beta. Whenever I select a vertex and then try to use the unimesh bone tool to check it out, Milkshape just stops working. I get the pop up of doom saying this program is no longer working, windows is checking for a solution and then it closes itself. I am on Windows Vista, unfortunately. But it allows milkshape to run fine, so I don't think that is why. Any suggestions?


The BoneTool seems to be my most troublesome plugin, from the standpoint of everything else works but this. It is the only plugin I made that opens an input window. But as best I can tell, the problems are just scattered in small, random lots, and I have never been able to reproduce them here.

There are two known causes for BoneTool related freeze or crash-type errors. One is, believe it or not, a video-card driver related issue (OpenGL). Read the message from this thread where I talk about getting the drivers that may help:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...752#post1555752

The other crash happens when you load a second model into the program, bones and all. MilkShape has a limit of 128 bones, and loading the skeleton twice exceeds this. But the crash doesn't happen right away, instead it seems to happem when MilkShape is packaging up all the data for passing to a plugin.

<* Wes *>
Lab Assistant
#145 Old 12th May 2007 at 7:22 PM
I'm just curious on one point regarding the option to allow a second skeleton to import. When would you wnat to do this? I know there must be cases but as I haven't had the need I just wondered what they were. Maybe animation or if you moved some joints by mistake?
Alchemist
Original Poster
#146 Old 13th May 2007 at 7:01 AM
The second set of joints would be of more use to making objects, because they do not have the standard names/locations like body/clothing meshes do.

At any rate, I made an update to V4.09 and posted it. The importer no longer even asks about a second skeleton on a body mesh, it just excludes it. There are also 4 other plugins added, the AutoJoint, the Automatic Smoothing group splitter, the Vertex Data Merge and the Normal Data Merge. The last four were more recent inventions, and were posted in three different testing threads.

<* Wes *>
Lab Assistant
#147 Old 14th May 2007 at 3:17 AM
Thanks for the update. I'm off the give it a work out.
Banned Asshat
#148 Old 14th May 2007 at 12:06 PM
Thank you for the update wes h, couldn't do it without them.
Lab Assistant
#149 Old 15th May 2007 at 10:37 PM
Can you make a hunchback with this?
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
#150 Old 16th May 2007 at 6:55 AM
Legolasgurl, you could potentially make a hump on a sim's back for a clothing mesh. However, you cannot really change the way they walk or lower the head to make them hunch over, so you'd be pretty limited. You could possibly use the zombie walk from University as that's kind of shuffling and odd but that and a bit of a hump is about the best you could do, I think.

my simblr (sometimes nsfw)

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
Panquecas, panquecas e mais panquecas.
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