Okay,

so it's 3am, and Ive been sat here twiddling with the weather satellite from Seasons, modifying the model to resemble the console from the British sci-fi series Doctor Who.

I'm happy with the basic model shape, and I've exported it as an .obj, imported it to a cloned weather satellite package in SimPE and the likes.

This is where its overly confused me. My steps so far have been;

1) Export the .obj using SimPE 2) Modify the .obj in 3DS Max
3) Use the meshtool to make sure the .obj is all fine
4) Imported the .obj into the cloned weather satellite package (called console.package)

It shows up in the preview, it just throws me off big style.

At the moment, Im not aiming to have it as a seperate object, just for testing purposes, so I threw the console.package into my sims 2 downloads folder as you do, loaded the game, yet the mesh still looks the same.

I'm doing something drastically wrong.

Any calls?

Cheers

Sounds like you have references still pointing to the original mesh. Haven't fooled around too much with remeshing objects so maybe someone else can elaborate more.

There are a fair few things which could go wrong, but it's a bit hard to diagnose without being able to see the object. Would you be willing to post it here for us to look at?

Sure,

find attached the console.package in rar format. Ive just got back from work (3.30am ) so I havent really had a chance to muck around with it today.

I didn't modify the GUID, so like someone pointed out, it may be that.

(and also attached, an image of my redone mesh, based on the .obj exported from the weather satellite package)

Wow, okay... I'm not surprised you're having problems with it, because it looks like the weather station object is crazy! What were EA thinking?

Anyway...

The first and simplest issue to fix is that you've added subsets to your object in the gmdc, but not in any of the other files. That means that a bunch of those subsets have no texture or material and are thus invisible in game. There is a really spiffy tutorial on how to correctly add subsets here:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=103379
or alternatively you could try merging all your subsets into a single group, but then they'd need to share a texture image. It's up to you.

The second and somewhat more tricky problem is that the weather station object actually has 38 (yes, really, 38!) different GMDC files, as well as the associated 38 GMND and 38 SHPE files. Most tutorials out there at the moment assume that you have only a single GMDC file, since that's all most objects have or need.

The quickest fix for this problem is not particularly elegant, but it'll do for starters. In all of the gmdc files which you don't want to have show up, import a tiny little single poly mesh over the top of the mesh already stored in that file. (Technically you could probably just delete all the subsets in that GMDC, but that is potentially more error prone). If that fixes your problem then I can try to explain how to clean up the object properly. Or you could just leave it like that, either's good.

Finally, you shouldn't really be using the mesh tool any more. While it still works fine, it's not particularly well supported by modders any more, and you can import your obj files directly into the GMDC using the "import" button instead.

Good luck, it looks really good already!

Ahh wonderful Cheers for your reply, I'll try all that tonight, and give it an update.

*bump* Update - Cheers Echo - I got it working in the end. It's now just an issue of modifying all those mesh components, which is gonna be tedious. sigh.

Cheers though, one TARDIS console in the works

Chris

WooHOO!!! Good going!!!

I am a little partial to the new Dr. Who series myself (although the old will always hold a special place with me). A tad miffed that Christopher Eccleston left after the first season though. Shouldn't have been suprised though... changing The Dr. has been a long standing tradition. LOL

Cheers Well what with the news out about the series taking a break in 2009 (apart from screening 3 specials) and series 5 returning in 2010, it's quite a day.

I hadn't heard about that. *sigh*