Wow that was fast! Thank you for these great news, Wes! *deep breath* :D

Well I think I'll postpone most of my projects until you post these plugins - if everything goes well things will be so much easier, and it'll also allow some thorough testing.

I'm wondering, should these new plugins be able to deal with the tangent normals, and with the multi-group meshes?

This is wonderful news. As soon as it's posted I'll give the new plug-ins a go. Wes once again thankyou for your dedication and hard work.

The plugins know, and remember, each model imported that had tangent normals. The status is saved in the group comments field. By editing the comments field, you could add tangent normals to a group that didn't originally have one (or delete it from one that did).

On export, they are created from the model by computation. Essentially, it should be automatic, since the originals are really of no use when the model had been changed.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, the math and logic I am using to generate them seems to have some flaws in it (this is an education issue for me). Some come out tangent, while others point in the wrong direction. I hope to have that resolved soon.

<* Wes *>

So what are the visual symptoms of those flaws? Is that what it causing the strange shading around hemlines?

Isn't there a way in Milkshape to recompute normals or average normals so that your model can be repaired for any faulty normals within milkshape?

I have completely reworked the way normals are arranged internally. MilkShape "coalesces" duplicated vetexes. TS2 expects to see them paired.
That problem has nothing to do with "Tangent Normals".
Tangent Normals are vectors that point parallel to the surface at the vertex between faces, and are used strictly for bump mapping. If you leave them out of the export, the texturing doees not use the alpha channel to compute the shading.
Let's wait until release of MilkShape1.7.7 (which is in testing right now), and then, if the strange shadowing around the hemline still exists, I will ask you to upload or email me an example to analyze.
a Very Tired,
<* Wes *>

'a Very Tired,'
<* Wes *>


Sorry. I hope we're not wearing you down too much.

Does this mean we can officially create hair meshes with full animations like swishing, moving..ect like the Maxis hairstyles?

I hope so... I haven't had time to test one, though.
Many hair meshes were built with a 2-bone setup, and BodyChop only understood 3 bone ones.
I think I have what we need to manage all sorts of mesh models for all types of objects, although there may be some specialized ones out there that I haven't come across.
I have University installed right now, and the meshes work fine.
I'm going to install my Nightlife expansion package soon and test some of those.
<* Wes *>

hey guys im havving a bit of a problem with this plug-in. it seems a lot of my meshes coming out are doing a "pelvis thrust" as i like to call it and then some are just plain weird. is this a simple mistake or is it more complicated? iv used the same techniqe for a lot meshes that come out fine with this plug in. but some just dont. i first thought it might be the mesh but i have a firend whos made meshes with the very same mesh that im using, and its worked fine. any idea guys?

That's pretty weird.
Did you do this with just the MilkShape plugins, or are you mixing tools?
These look like exploding BodyShop models that happen when vertices get added and the face indexes point to the wrong vertices.
<* Wes *>

i used the tutorial by dr pixel. and i didn't use any other tools i do all my own uvmapping so i didn't even use that one programe that most people use to mapp everything out.


for some reason that isn't ringing a bell, what do you mean by this? it might be my problem idont know??

Some people were exporting .obj format files from SimPE, then using them with an earlier version of the MeshTool that got everything all out-of-synch and caused "exploding" meshes in BodyShop.
Please post, or attach to a PM to me, one of these broken mesh models. I have a few tools I built here that allow me to "dissect" the various sections of a GMDC and analyze what's in there.
<* Wes *>

Hi guys!
Congrats on doing such an amazing job for so many people who like to (start with) meshing! And big thanks!

I have a little question for any of you who know about this...


I have tried three seperate times to edit this same Nightlife mesh with Bodychop, but it always comes out with the spikes. I made sure to uncheck "Autosmooth" every time, but it still looks funky...

But in the SimPE preview it looks fine!


Is it because it's a nightlife mesh, or did I forget or oversee something? (Oh, don't mind the neck and the shading, they are just signs of lack of skill But for the shading, how do I fix it? )

I have added the file so maybe someone can check out what I did wrong. I'm a beginner...

Thank you in advance for any help on this!

Greetz from Nouk

Hi, I have tried using the new old version of the meshtool. But the mesh explodes in Bodyshop. I have not added any extra or delted any vertexes. Would it be the version of SimPE i'm using? I'm using v50. Maybe I should look back at v15?

also, will the new version of the bodychop plugin and the new milkshape prevent the blocky shoulders you get when editing the mesh?

I am posting my PM reply text for others to learn from, too:

I got the mesh.
The bone "pelvis" has been moved from it's original location.
I didn't try fixing it myself. Go to the "joints" tab, make sure "show skeleton" is checked, and from the list select pelvis, and it will be highlighted in red.
You will notice it is away far from the middle of the body, where it belongs.
To fix your work, find another model and use the "Model Information" tool (on the tools menu, I think) to see the coordinates for it's location.
Put the pelvis bone back there.
You do that by selecting it from the list in joints, then go back to the "model" tab and press the "move" button and use the mouse to move it.
You can then use "Model Information" again to see if it needs moved a little more.
<* Wes *>

That is one of the prime directives for this project.
And it does work. No release date yet, there are some other issues being addressed:

1. Clothing with "seams" and "folds" getting incorrect shading. The next release of MilkShape should provide me with some (duplicated) model data that it currently deletes that will allow this problem to be resolved.

[Note to NOUK: I think that is what is wrong with your model (the shading issue.]

2. Bumpmap support. I still haven't got the bumpmapping data being regenerated in a fashion that the game will be happy with. When I can finally see the bumpmapping in Semloh's Bumpmap testing package (the men's PJ's) you may hear my shouts of joy.... well at least through part of Central Texas, anyway.

<* Wes *>

Dear Nouk:
I examined the mesh file. The bone assignments have been poorly made.
For example, on the "neck" bone there are three vertices near the rear end that are assigned as the primary bone. These three are probably the spikes, since a part of the rendering process in the game (for animation purposes) uses the distance and direction between the vertex and the joint in the rendering.
Fixing the bones can be a tedious amount of work. Perhaps opening two copies on MilkShape, one loaded with a similar mesh as a guide and one with your real mesh, then go through model-by-model, bone-by-bone comparing the two will help you rescue your work.
<* Wes *>

My tip for everyone -

When editing Body meshes (also other body parts like hair) it's a good idea to first go to the Joints tab and un-checkmark "show skeleton"

This will prevent you from accidentally selecting and moving a joint while you are editing your mesh.

You should never move a joint in MilkShape unless you are an advanced modeler who understands exactly what you are doing and also understand how to re-locate the joint references back in SimPE.

About the Bump Maps -

You might want to look at this post:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...hlight=bump+map

I am pointing this out because the problem may be related to other files in the .package that SimPE creates - parts that have nothing to do with the GMDC file at all.

I thank you for giving me another example to test with.
What I have been doing is extracting the actual mesh used by the game. If you place a .package file in the downloads folder, containing nothing but a modified GMDC that has all the original type, instance_hi, group and instance values (regardless of name, in this instance the scenegraph locates the mesh by those values) it will be used instead of the mesh that is located in the game directory libraries.
But you probably knew that.
Now globally changing game objects is a HACK, and is poor practice for sharing purposes.
But for testing things out, it can't be beat.
Thus far, my replacement works, except for the noted "seams" issue, which I have a plan and help is on the way, and the dagnabbed bumpmap normals.
<* Wes *>

Addendum: If you accidentally drop a copy into HTTPCache, BodyShop will find it there, too.

in my mesh i never had them on even when i first imported the mesh into my screen. yet they were completly mest up in the end. is there a way people can be accidentally moving them wihtout knowing?

Allowing the bones to be moved is a feature... one that took a lot of work to make right (earlier versions ignored the new positions in favor of the data stored in the comments for each joint).
How it happened in this case is not an issue, as far as I know. Please don't be defensive about it.
Yours would be the first reported case of this happening "automagically" by some non-user action. Which could happen, given that Windows can sometimes screw up in ways no one even at Microsoft can explain.
But it is easy enough to do accidentally. If you have the joints tab opened, any bone you click on is selected. If you move next to the "model" tab and were to click on the screen and drag the mouse, the bone position would be altered.
I think Dr. Pixel's idea of unchecking the "Show Skeleton" is a good one, for safety sake.
But after seeing the symptoms in the screen shots you posted, I think that many people that use this forum now have an idea of where to look themselves if they happen to have a similar problem.
So that was why I made a public posting of the answer I sent to you in a PM... not to humiliate or belittle or punish you, but to benefit the whole community through education.
I wish I could model as well as you can. I am actually very poor at the artistic parts of object creation, but as a programmer I can hold my own. We all have different talents.
<* Wes *>

There are some different texturing techniques used here.
In the attached pictures of the cobalt dress, the left half is the original work, the right half uses an altered mesh (afBodyDress). Only the shading issues, to my eye, differ between them. To be sure, in the altered mesh screenshot I deleted the "Tangent Normals" section entirely from the altered mesh.

The Men's Underwear photo is from the "Bump Map Tester" that was posted long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (the old board) by Semloh. His work, using the native Maxis mesh is on the left, mine is on the right. His technique requires 3 texture maps, versus the two used in the Morague technique. Until I can get the "Tangent Normal" section right, the bumpmapping won't work right.

In both altered meshes, though, the shadow problem shows in my modified mesh (only evident in the dress on the left half of the hemline). But the shoulders and so on look fine... so we are making progress.
<* Wes *>

Wes, I don't remember if I mentioned this before -

I have also had problems trying to import University meshes with the BodyChop plugins. The ones I tried simply refused to import correctly.

Maxis may have made some change to the GMDC files to mark them as belonging to specific expansion packs - or maybe they added some new feature to them that is messing things up?

Yes, I need to revisit that report...
As I remember, the "Target Indices" began without an empty target. In the old meshes, a body with two morphs had three indexes, numbered 0, 1 & 2.
0 never has a name, and no content.
Thanks for the reminder. BodyChop was a lot less flexible in parsing the morph targets, so the cure was pretty tough.
I have nearly completely rewritten these puppies, so if it don't work now, I can "special case" it much more easily.
<* Wes *>