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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th May 2015 at 2:09 AM
Fat Morph goes Missing when Imported into SimPE
When importing as smd the regular mesh looks fine, but the fat morph appears to be the same as the regular mesh. Exporting the mesh again showed that it is the same mesh. Is there a reason why this is happening?
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Née whiterider
retired moderator
#2 Old 12th May 2015 at 9:58 AM
I've never used SMD for clothing meshes, but I would be surprised if it supported TS2 morphs. Use the UniMesh exporter instead.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#3 Old 12th May 2015 at 4:45 PM
Does that mean that the SMD morph importer is broken? I could import the UniMesh in Milkshape and export it as something else to edit it, but it'll lose the skeleton comments. Is there a make comments button somewhere in Milkshape?
Mad Poster
#4 Old 12th May 2015 at 6:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Surei
Does that mean that the SMD morph importer is broken? I could import the UniMesh in Milkshape and export it as something else to edit it, but it'll lose the skeleton comments. Is there a make comments button somewhere in Milkshape?


Why do you need to export it as something else? The UniMesh importer and exporter work just fine, and you shouldn't lose your fat morphs.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#5 Old 12th May 2015 at 6:34 PM
Quote: Originally posted by fakepeeps7
Why do you need to export it as something else? The UniMesh importer and exporter work just fine, and you shouldn't lose your fat morphs.


So I can edit the mesh in another program.
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#6 Old 12th May 2015 at 6:47 PM
Ah, okay. In that case, I would suggest using SMD to transfer the file between Milkshape and your preferred meshing program; but once you've edited the mesh in your preferred program, import it back into Milkshape and then export it using UniMesh before putting it into SimPE. You shouldn't need to worry about skeleton comments; but if they are somehow getting messed up, you can always import a random body mesh into Milkshape, then import your 5GD with messed up skeleton on top of it and hit "No" in the "Do you want to include additional bone definitions" dialogue box - this will replace your busted skeleton with a properly-working one, without losing your bone assignments.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#7 Old 12th May 2015 at 8:48 PM
That's actually one the first workarounds I've tried. Exporting the new mesh in MS gives me an error (Err: no quaternion values stored) and an empty 5gd file.
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#8 Old 13th May 2015 at 10:03 AM
Well, I take it back, whatever you're doing is messing up the skeleton comments .

May I ask which other meshing programme you're using? It's seeming like the easy option may be to find a better file format to use than SMD.

There is also a fairly simple way of fixing this error, which I can explain if you like, but it'd get seriously tedious having to do it every time you want to import your mesh back into SimPE, so it'd probably be better to find a way to avoid it happening in the first place.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#9 Old 13th May 2015 at 5:41 PM
I use Blender. There is a ms3d importer/exporter add on for blender, but using it is not an option. Something about the add on distorts the mesh or skeleton (looks fine in MS not much in game).
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#10 Old 13th May 2015 at 6:24 PM
Hmm. Okay. First I would try using these made for TS2 SMD plugins for Blender, skipping Milkshape entirely. I've not used them, but they are used in this tutorial which seems pretty comprehensive.

If you shared a pic of the problems caused by the MS3D plugin, we might be able to figure out what's going on there, too.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#11 Old 13th May 2015 at 6:45 PM
I have a SMD addon installed that works for the for the current version of blender and have been using that to edit meshes.

Would it be fine if I used a Sims 1 project as an example? It would be quicker for me. It's the same problem, different game. Going from Blender to MS and vise versa is fine, just as long as the ms3d addon is not used.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#12 Old 13th May 2015 at 7:44 PM
These are the examples from The Sims.
Screenshots
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#13 Old 13th May 2015 at 11:20 PM
Try the SMD plugin I linked to above, because it's specifically designed to preserve TS2 features like morphs.

Oh yay, exploding mesh syndrome! The first thing I'd try with those meshes for TS2 is to do the import a working mesh then import your mesh over the to as 5GD trick, in Milkshape. I don't know if there's an equivalent trick for TS1.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#14 Old 14th May 2015 at 4:57 AM
The TS1 mesh had no edits made to it, just imported/exported with the ms3d addon . Because there's no quaternion values stored in the comments for skn files, they can be imported/exported as other (skeleton supported) formats just fine. No problems there.

The problem with the mentioned SMD plugins is that they require using an older version of Blender. The SMD files SimPE exports (body and morph) appeared to be formatted the same way as the Half Life SMD, so I used the one from Valve. I do have to import and export again. Milkshape can import them fine, but Blender won't unless it's been exported again.

I made another project for testing purposes, and something strange happened. The fat morph actually worked. Now I'm wondering why this mesh and not others.

Here what I did:
  • Extract a 5gd as backup
  • Export mesh as smd from SimPE and include morphs
  • Import and export the body smd using Milkshape
  • Edit mesh in Blender and export body with morphs
  • Import meshes back into SimPE
  • Extract a new 5gd and check it in Milkshape
  • Be shocked as fat actually looks fat

Had the morph been the same as the body I would have:
  • Change the morph smd into an obj using SimPE
  • Change the orientation so the mesh faces Y up, -Z forward, using Blender
  • With the new 5gd open in Milkshape, import the morph and copy name and comments from the dummy morph onto the actual morph
  • Delete dummy morph
  • Export the 5gd
  • Import back in SimPE and test the mesh

I've noticed that the author of the Oasis tutorial mentioned a problem with morphs. Maybe it's not just me. I'll be testing some more.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#15 Old 22nd May 2015 at 8:20 AM
It appears that SMD importer/exporter does not like it when morph groups start with 0. If the morphs start off ~00MORPHMOD.0, the SMD will not import the morphs properly. It seems to work well enough if the morph group start off with ~00MORPHMOD.1. The original mesh can be replaced with a 5gd with morph groups that start with 1 before importing the SMD.
Field Researcher
#16 Old 18th Jul 2016 at 6:48 PM
It's a little late to ask but, could this work for The Sims 2?
After editing the mesh in blender and exporting then importing into simPE, do you mean export from blender with morphs as a SMD, and then import each morph individually (As you can't simply replace the whole package with SMD)?

Because, that would make 3 different groups appear, the body and the morphs. When I open any other clothing package, it only shows the ''body'' group in that section, no morphs... Am I making any sense? Heh...

Edit: This is what I mean. See how there's only the ''body'' group, even though there is still the curvy morph? If I were to import them 1 by 1 as SMD, it would be a huge clipping issue wouldn't it?
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