Hello everyone!

So I started meshing about a few weeks ago. I have been following the three begginer tutorials, a few clothing and body tutorials, and hair tutorials.

Now I am able to extract the base game mesh, edit it very nicely in milkshape (Meaning I am very satisfied with it). Everything works as it should be, but once I finish and go on body shop for a look, My hair mesh DOES show in the custom section with the same tooltip I wrote for it, yet when I click on it, the only thing that changes is the texture. It's the exact same texture only slightly more blurred... Like this:




However, when I go on ''saved projects'' and lick on it, the teture goes back to its original non-blurry state...

This is the mesh I have been working on:




I have made it thicker, added animations so it bounces around, (LOVE the hair animation in TS2 haha! ) and added a little bang at the front.

My guess is that I've been doing something wrong when linking or fixing integrity. I DO get this ''object not (something) to a reference'' and I searched it up, found out that to fix it you had to clone the 4 files (GMDC,etc) and then delete the original ones. Even so, it hasn't worked. The same goes for my clothing meshes.

Would anybody know what I could be doing wrong?
thanks so much

Oh also, I have tried getting rid of all of my custom conent.

I have had a problem with Fix Integrity ever since switching from a Windows XP machine to a Windows 7 one. To get around the problem when I'm building a mesh, I do the following:

Build the mesh as usual with the four parts, save it, and then exit SimPE. DO NOT do Fix Integrity before exiting. Open up SimPE again, and THEN do Fix Integrity. Save your mesh package. Link the mesh to the recolour as usual, and be sure to replace your GMDC.

Give that a try and see if it makes a difference. I've had to do it this way for a few years now; if I don't, I get error messages and my changes don't show up.

Wow! I thought no one would reply! Thanks!

Okay I really want to do this! But when I get it on milkshape, is there any way that I can use the one I already made?

Meaning the mesh I already edited?

Hi

Thanks so much for your help, but it still did not work...

Could there be anything else?

I do have an Idea though...

The tutorial I am following says that you have to link the 3DIR file that is directly below the ones you need... So I am going for the one that has ''afhairgery, afhairblonde, afhairblonde'' on top of it (of the XMOL file, so I mean the XMOL file is below these three), (And on top of that is the 3DIR for teens, then children and toddlers)

BUUT, I've noticed that those numbers at the end of each XMOL file don't match the 3DIR file below them even though it says that I must link the one directly below... Should I just try and link the same ones that have the same numbers? (I cant remember the name but I'm talking about those umbers that are very long, for example, ''0000000005''. Something like that

Okay

It took what you said, and what I said, but I have finnaly managed to do it. Thank you so much

Hold on a minute. You have XMOL files? I'm not sure that's right. They're the equivalent of the Property Set files and are usually found in an accessory (which could be why your hair is blurring; sometimes weird stuff happens with accessory textures if you don't have everything set up right). I've looked at a few hairs, and none of them have XMOL files. How on earth did that happen? Which tutorial are you using?

In any case, as for linking, the numbers you need to be looking at are in Property Set and 3DIR. You need the Instance number (it's on the right and has a number in parentheses at the end). Find the age group you're working on in the Property Set list. Make a note of the Instance number. Then in the 3DIR files, you'll want to add 1 to that number. So if the adult female hair was (1) in the Property Set, it'll be (2) in the 3DIR (you can actually see the age group in the 3DIR itself if you click on it, so you'll know if you've got a match). Once you've found the right Instance number for your age group, go ahead and link the 3DIR to your mesh.

BUT... if you've got XMOL files, then you might have to rebuild your recolour package again in Body Shop. Just go into Body Shop, find the Maxis hair you're using as a base (the ponytail, in this case), and export it. Give it a name, then import it to your game (same as if you were doing a simple recolour). Then have a look at that Saved Sims file in SimPE. If there are XMOL files in it, then Maxis is just messing with us. But I don't think there should be; none of the other hairs I've done have that sort of file.

EDIT: Okay, never mind, then. I see you got it working!

LOL okay I'm so sorry I got the accessory mixed up haha! My bad!
But yeah it worked, thanks

I was wondering, how did you learn so much?

I learned mostly through practice. Just doing it over and over and over... (You can see by the number of uploads I have here on MTS that I've had WAY too much practice!) But you should've seen me in the beginning when I was learning to mesh. I was whining for help every few minutes. I'm still not that comfortable with hair. And accessories? Hah! I've only made one, and I still have no idea how I got it to work.

Aww haha! I did go through your stuff (AMAZING!)
It's so nice to see others that are still playing :D

I am trying to make an entire new mesh but I feel milkshape doesn't have the neccessary tools... Do experts also use milkshape?

If you're trying to build a mesh from scratch (rather than Frankensteining), then yeah, my guess would be there's some other 3D modelling program that would be easier to use. Just the thought of doing all that modelling and bone assigning in MilkShape... *shudder* (Well, for bodies, anyway. Hair is probably doable, since it's usually just one bone assignment and the shapes are fairly simple.)

Hmm.
I have a question for clothing, how can you make a short dress to really long and make sure the legs don't glitch? I saw tutorials, didn't really understand them :#

You'd have to build a new skirt and assign all the bones (difficult) or use a piece of existing long skirt and graft it on to your mesh (much easier).