meshtoolkit

[BloomsBase]

Now the tangent fixer is here i wanted to do some CAS stuff again.
But i ran in a small error.

I need the lod 2 afbodydresstighhalter meshes as one mesh before i can frenkenstein them so i thought i could combine them into one using meshtoolkit.

But after selecting them i got this error.
I do have to mention that the base GEOM is exported with CTU while the morphs are from a WSO file.(but in theory this shouldn't be a problem right?)
They import fine as GEOMS in Milkshape

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/5261/meshtoolkit.jpg

[Whiterider]

Perhaps it's looking for the GEOM format mesh comments?

[CmarNYC]

That message is certainly wrong - Thats supposed to be a base, not a morph! Also a couple of days ago I saw what may be a bone problem in meshes joined this way and then converted to WSO. I have to examine the code and test some more, and I'll get back to you.

Could you upload the base.simgeom? You can also use the Examine GEOM function to see if it's a base or a morph. (Morphs have only position, normals, and vertex ID.)

Whiterider, it looks at the mesh format data - the same info Wes's importer puts in the comments.

[BloomsBase]

it is the base mesh exported with CTU, has correct comments
Here is the file(s)

The morphs are from a WSO file but i killed vertex ID and boneweights first, just to avoid errors
then autorenumbered in MS, wich also worked fine.

[Whiterider]

Precisely - .wso doesn't use mesh comments, so that info may be missing. As you pointed out, though - less relevant when it's the base mesh causing a problem!

[BloomsBase]

no, if you export a morph with Wes his tool it autoassignes meshcomments for morphs
and that is wat i did first

[CmarNYC]

Bloom, your three morphs are not morph meshes - they're also base meshes. You probably forgot to change their comments to:

FVFItems: 3
TableType: 0
References: 1
TGIRef00: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

to tell the exporter to make them morphs.

The Toolkit is showing the wrong filename in the error message. :( Please let me know if the bone assignments are coming out wrong - I still have to check that.

[BloomsBase]

Oh, prolly because i didn't gave them the correct groupnames before exporting?
Normally(in the past) you didn't have to add comments for the morphs(must be the GEOM name)
Thnx!

[CmarNYC]

According to Wes the comments are what determines whether it's a base or morph, but in many cases they'll already be set to the right thing.

Anyway, I examined the merged bones and tested in Milkshape and everything seems fine. When I tested and had problems I had merged a LOD1 with a LOD1-1, and later merged two high-poly meshes, and after conversion to WSO and import into TSRW they exploded horrendously. This time I started with the same meshes but chopped out enough to get a normal-poly mesh, combined three of them, and the result converted to WSO and imported into TSRW without a hitch. Maybe there's an upper limit on the number of vertices and/or faces in a clothing mesh and that's why EA separates them into lod1, lod1-1, etc.?? If I can figure out what that limit is I'll put a warning into the Toolkit.

Edit:

I tried the high-poly merged mesh (lod1 and lod1-1 smushed together) again and it looks fine in CTU but explodes in CAS. Chop off any substantial part of it and it's fine. Really does look like a limit on mesh size.

[BloomsBase]

well, i managed to combine the 2 meshes into one.
But it gave me borked morphs in tsrw.
I also tried the Match morphs in tsrw tools but that didn't make a diffrence.
Is there another tool i need to use?

[omegastarr82]

Have you tried doing this with the actual morphs? Or even only using WSO files? Why is there the need to mix and match them?

[BloomsBase]

toolkit doesn't have the option to do it with WSO files does it?

I am making a frenkenstein and i needed the lower skirt part of the afbodyskintightskirt.(the lod2)
but since its split up arround the waist i need to make it a working fullbodymesh first.
then i can cut the top off and frenkenstein it with another top.
I gave up on it tho, i better use a skirt as bottom to make the outfit, just have to remap it then.

I have a file you might like:
ITs a bottom with groups added(now as fullbody)
the 2nd group supports alpha edits without the color change like the simhairsimple has.
And TSRW supports its shader(its one from a ep6 necklace)
No need to use the transparancymap(or to enable it)

[CmarNYC]

Bloom, I recreated your steps - converted the fat, fit, thin to morph meshes, combined with Toolkit, and converted to WSO. Got an explosion but it's not a morph explosion, it's a distortion of the base mesh itself. (Seems to me I've seen that kind of distortion before, but can't place it.) Then I tried the combined GEOM mesh using CTU and got an explosion in CAS that looks like just one finger. What puzzles me is that these meshes look perfectly fine in Milkshape and in CTU but go all splody in TSRW and CAS, plus that sometimes the combo and conversion work and sometimes they don't. I have to do a lot more testing and fiddling. One thing that strikes me is that maybe there's something special about those lodx-x meshes - the meshes split up into parts. I think all the failures have involved them, but have to confirm.

[BloomsBase]

yes, Wes warned me 2 years ago that base and morphs are diffrent and that problems will happen if you frenkenstein them.
On most of them the vertex id goes bizar aswell, no idea if it has anything to do with it.
I should never have taken the base mesh of ctu and the morphs of tsrw in the first place......altho i doubt if it would make a diffrence.
i learned to avoid them and i will again this time. :)
Still its the best way to use multiple meshgroups and use the hand(and duplicates of it for the morphs) to regroup with your custom meshparts, that always works
thnx for taking the time Cmar, much apreciated!

[CmarNYC]

It's not the morphs... The distortion happens with body sliders at neutral and doesn't change with the morphs.

This is really stumping me so far. I'm concentrating on the GEOM distortion for now, my feeling is that's where the real problem is. Coming back to thinking it's a bone thing since the left ring finger bones are in the second mesh and not the first, and that's where the explosion is in CAS. (The Spine0 is also in the second mesh and not the first - maybe a clue to why the TSRW mesh has that big distortion in that area.) But all the bones are properly assigned so I don't have a clue what's going wrong.

Tried regrouping in Milkshape, got the same results. Tried using a different skeleton, same results. MS puts the bones in a different order, so it's not a limit on number of bones.

Am going to start over with all-EA meshes, see what happens. Maybe I'll post over on Meshing, too.

[BloomsBase]

missing bonehashes?

[CmarNYC]

No, the bones are in the hash list. Since the same thing happens with regrouping in Milkshape, this is something weird, maybe. I've gotten your problem with the bone autoassign fixed, will post over in that thread.

[CmarNYC]

Sorry for the double post but want to report progress. I'm 99% sure now that it's a limit of 60 bones per mesh. I must have been looking at the wrong thing when I tested the Milkshape-regrouped mesh before, because sure enough even though the bones were in a different order it was still the last bones in the list (the ones past 60) that went off to never-never land. Going to try dropping unused bones from the combined mesh and see if that fixes it, plus building in a warning if the bones still go over the limit.

[BloomsBase]

oh, i might have imported a extra skeleton?

[CmarNYC]

No - happens with EA meshes too. I think that's why so many full body meshes are split into two parts - there are too many bones for one mesh. My program takes the bone lists from each mesh and combines them and when that adds up to more than 60 bones it causes distortion. That also explains why combining the second mesh part (lod1_1) with a second mesh always works - the lod1_1 has very few bones, mostly the ones that don't fit in the main mesh.

[BloomsBase]

oh, didn't know
Milkshape can not handle more then 60 bones.....

[CmarNYC]

I think it's the game more than Milkshape. Will update my software and test tomorrow. Going to also clean up the zillion or so copies of different versions of Toolkit. :D

[BloomsBase]

no serious, i know for sure it can not handle more

[CmarNYC]

Bloom, I've updated the Toolkit:

Warns for more than 60 bones
Frankensteining can use either morph meshes or BGEOs
Figured out how to do the mesh tangent recalculation without using Direct 3D, so I put that in. I may drop the seam-matching function since the recalculation is really better.

Please download from this thread: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=472326

Needs moar testing - I'm pooped for now!

[BloomsBase]

Some exploding meshes i manage to fix by exporting the file as obj, it kills some data.
Thnx fot the tool!