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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 18th Mar 2020 at 1:40 AM
Default Mesh crashing bodyshop
I've tried linking my meshes and whatnot with serenity-falls's 3t2 tutorial (i'm converting from ts4) and I'm really struggling with the SimPE steps. I've taken the tips about deleting the ages and everything but it didn't import my mesh. I checked my mesh comments in milkshape again and fixed them. My property sets in SimPE look okay-ish to me unless there's something I'm missing. My meshes are high poly but I think I've seen higher poly meshes made for ts2 so I'm not sure it's that either. I wasn't exactly sure which texture to use since there's not all the separate textures in ts4 and this isn't an alpha hair. I'm including a zip file with my milkshape files and packages. Sorry to bother but I'm thankful for all the help I always get on these forums and hope we can figure out what's going wrong so I can learn better for the future. I'm sure I'm messing something up either with my skinning or in SimPE but I'm not sure what. When I click on the custom content hair color icon in body shop it crashes.
Attached files:
File Type: zip  help.zip (2.06 MB, 8 downloads)
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 18th Mar 2020 at 3:06 AM Last edited by simmer22 : 18th Mar 2020 at 3:52 AM.
Have you made the mesh package file? There's only a recolor file (plus simpe, MS3D, PNG, OBJ and MTL) file in the folder.

Mesh file (MS3D) looks fine, shouldn't be any problems there. Do make sure the resource name and group name matches (if it says "hairalpha5" for the TXMTs, that's what the group needs to be named too - there's some mixed numbers going on in the recolor file, and a LOT of extra TXMTs and 3DIR references, so you'll want to make sure they match up with what you have in your mesh. Could be an idea to make a recolor of a 3t2 or 4t2 hair so you only get the resources for the head and one hairlayer, instead of a lot you have to remove from the file).

The SimPE file is just for export/import, it's not an actual mesh package file.

You do need to make the mesh package file before you can link the recolor to the mesh.

If you're just making the adult hair, linking isn't too difficiult:
- Open up the recolor file, click the "instance" button to sort the resources (not "instance High")
- Find the AF GZPS/PropertySet resource. Click the 3DIR with the matching Instance number (should be directly above or below).
- Hair resources can on occasion be a little moody (99% of the time sorting by instance works, but I've come across a couple or so iffy files), so to be absolutely sure you have the right one, locate the AF TXMT you're using for the hair (make sure it's AF and not YA/E, as they sometimes have the same name), and look at the Instance number. Can you find the one from the TXMT in the list (Material Definition, last 8 digits in one of the lines)? Yes? Then good - you've found the right 3DIR.
- If the mesh file has ONLY 4 resources (make sure you've extracted the mesh into a new file and then done Fix Integrity), you can do "Tools --> PJSE --> Body Mesh Tool --> Linking Stage" and select the mesh file. SimPE does the rest. Commit isn't needed, but make sure you save.
- If you're making a multi-age mesh, you can use the "old" method by importing in the CRES/SHPE files, manually replace them, commit, and then deleting the CRES/SHPE. This takes ages. Some creators prefer having all the meshes separate, but that's a lot of mesh files to keep track of. My personal method (which works with accessories as well) is to finish the mesh, then copy it, separate out the ages into single mesh files, and do the PJSE method (faster and less problematic).
- If you're making more ages than just AF, repeat the process, making sure you compare the resources for the right ages with each other and all that.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 18th Mar 2020 at 4:56 AM
Thanks for your help, would you mind explaining the TXMT/property resource stuff? I just sort of wrote was was in the tutorial but I don't really know how they work, does it depend on the hair you're cloning? I think the resource numbers and text things in the resource viewer are what's giving me trouble. I exported as sims 2 unimesh in milkshape and then followed the mesh extracting stage but I must have misinterpreted so thank you for clarifying.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 18th Mar 2020 at 3:34 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 18th Mar 2020 at 3:44 PM.
Sorting by instance is usually enough.

The TXMT thing is just a step I personally use for hairs (especially when not cloned directly from EAxis recolors) as they sometimes have resources with the same names and such (because the TXMT instace match the Material Definition line in the 3DIR for the age/gender they belong to, and so are a reassurance it's the correct 3DIR). It's also useful to know about the Instance trick with TXMTs if you have to remove references from a 3DIR, so you don't accidentally remove the wrong ones. Setting up hair recolor files to match a mesh can be somewhat complicated, at least for someone who is just starting out.

(By the way, you should NOT go by the last line in the 3DIR which displays age, category, etc. as this often seems to list the wrong info - can be tempting, but I learned the hard way this "trick" did not work).

(In case you decide to make more ages - multi-age hair and multi-age/gender accessory meshes have a lot in common, but some tutorials tend to be a bit vague on how to do the linking steps without having to make separate meshes for the PJSE tool not to throw a tantrum. I copied the below steps from an accessory tutorial I made a while ago - it's basically the same steps with a few small differences)

Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 20th Mar 2020 at 2:08 AM
So from my understanding the txmt's are named according to the different mesh groups, and this is why you have to name the groups accordingly in milkshape before exporting? I'm wondering then how i can tell which textures are assigned to the group. Basically I'm wondering which textures I need to replace with the textures made for my mesh and what each of the textures correspond to. I have a feeling the grey is the alpha and the strands are assigned to textures but it also seems that there are toddler and or bangs files that aren't actually assigned to the mesh. Also, what do you mean by resource node and shape? Sorry for all the questions I'm really appreciative of the guide you made me, you didn't have to take the time to do that but you did anyway so thank you.
Mad Poster
#6 Old 20th Mar 2020 at 2:58 AM
The TXMTs have all the texture settings, and controls how the TXTRs (the actual textures) behave. The TXTR is linked to the TXMT, which is linked to the mesh via the "Material Definition" lines in the 3DIR.

For the texture you'll want to replace the TXTR (with DXT3 or 5, not import! - remember to enable DXT texturing via the "Nvidia DDS tools", because the Import function often gives an awful result).

n Bodyshop, the black and white textures named "alpha" are the alphas. In SimPE the alpha is already applied, and is the transparent area in the texture. The colorful texture is toddler through A/YA, the grey one is for elders. SimPE (or Bodyshop?) compresses all identical textures down to just a few files (referencing them in the TXMTs), and if you're replacing it in SimPE it's enough to just replace the textures in the TXTRs available. For future recolors you can do them in Bodyshop.

If you convert a hair for several ages, it is easier to export the first finished file, then open up the file for another age (you need the proper skeleton for each age), import in the adult hair (click no to "import skeleton" or you'll have issues), and adjust the hair to the new age. That way you don't have to do so many changes, and you con't have to do all the steps. This way all of them have the same UVmap and can use the same texture, so you don't need to worry about any of that.

The Resource Node and Shape are lines in the 3DIR - they reference the CRES and SHPE (respectively) in the mesh file.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 26th Mar 2020 at 5:03 AM
Thank you so much! I followed your instructions as best I could, making an actual package for my mesh and I re-exported my mesh from milkshape to match the txmt name of a different clone i thought might be eaiser to use because it's also a 4t2 conversion. I renamed the group name and the mesh name in the comments but something still isn't working. I'm including the package I made with bodyshop to make a clone in case i deleted the wrong file. I don't think the instance numbers matched up with the actual ages of the files though so I wasn't sure how to match the binary files not knowing the hash numbers for the ages very well.
Attached files:
File Type: zip  help 2.zip (1.57 MB, 5 downloads)
Mad Poster
#8 Old 26th Mar 2020 at 8:00 PM
The instance numbers in the CRES and SHPE in the mesh are supposed to match those of the Resource Node and CRES lines in the 3DIR for the right age(s), and they do.

You'll want to make sure the grey texture is the same size and that you've used the same texture as the red hair as a base. The one present at the moment leaves big holes in the mesh.

You are going to want to layer the hair so that the "hair" group appears first in SimPE, and the "bangs_l5" appears las (the same order will show in Milkshape). Otherwise you could get some weird texture problems (technically the "opacity" setting is supposed to do this, but it doesn't hurt to give the mesh some help). It's not any worse than clicking the "hair" group and then the "up" button in Milkshape, and then exporting it again.

The PropertySet and Material Definition have some extra references to bangs_l1 and bangs_l3, but I'm not entirely sure if this causes any problems (can do if ithey're missing, though).

Other than that it looks fine. If you are experiencing any issues, can you be more spesific (preferably post pictures)?

The only thing I can think of is that for some reason highpoly meshes converted from TS4 sometimes don't show properly unless shaders are enabled (it's not known exactly why this happens). The mesh looks to be below 10.000 polys, so I don't think this is the issue.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#9 Old 27th Mar 2020 at 1:12 AM Last edited by persongirl : 27th Mar 2020 at 4:30 AM.
For some reason the hair wasn't showing up in body shop. I checked both the custom hair color section and the brown hair section but I'll try again just taking all my other hair out of my CC folder so it's easier to see if the one i'm working on is there or not. I reordered the groups in Milkshape so that hair appears first. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by using the red hair as a base. Do you just mean for the png or in SimPE? I'll see if ordering the groups properly in milkshape helps along with getting rid of my other hair cc to make it easier to search bodyshop and if that doesn't work I'll take another look at the property set and material definitions again. Thank you so much for your reply. the override subsets hair and bangs_l5 are 3 and 2 respectively. I'm noticing this for all of my property sets but i'm not sure if i should delete the subsets that don't correspond to groups in my mesh, I'm a bit nervous about messing with the property sets manually.

EDIT: Okay so I changed the property sets to match the groups of my mesh as well as the numoverrides integer, witch I set to two to reflect the number of groups. I then deleted the material definition files for groups that aren't in my mesh that i also got rid of in the property sets. This hasn't worked either but I'm uploading screenshots of what I did. There's still not even a tile in bodyshop so I'm starting to wonder if my mesh package is the problem.
Screenshots
Mad Poster
#10 Old 27th Mar 2020 at 3:49 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 27th Mar 2020 at 4:10 PM.
I think it's best to have a proper tutorial explain - this is how to add groups and which lines to change in the PropertySet, so you'd need to "reverse-engineer" it to remove the groups: https://rented-space.tumblr.com/pos...groups-in-simpe - but it shows some of the how and why of what the lines do. If you know how to add groups, you kind of know enough to remove them, too.

I think it may be safe to delete the TXMTs, but the bottom lines in the 3DIR are linked to the Binary Index resources, so deleting the lines can screw up the order and make Bodyshop not find the file if things aren't done properly.

Quote:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by using the red hair as a base. Do you just mean for the png or in SimPE?

As the base for a grey hair PNG to use for the elder hair.

Quote:
For some reason the hair wasn't showing up in body shop.

It will most likely be in the custom bin. The files you posted above don't appear to be binned.

If the recolor was fine but not the mesh, the recolor would still show (but would look weird because of a borked mesh). The mesh file does look like it's set up properly (in mine with the recolor, anyway).

Quote:
the override subsets hair and bangs_l5 are 3 and 2 respectively. I'm noticing this for all of my property sets but i'm not sure if i should delete the subsets that don't correspond to groups in my mesh, I'm a bit nervous about messing with the property sets manually.


I found this a bit weird, too. Most converted hairs tend to have the "hair" (the scalp/head base that's linked to the skin) as the "override0subset" and the "hair_alpha" (or whatever else they're called, like "bangs_l3") as the "override1subset", "override2subset", etc.

If you look at the "c4551231_PAISLEYCLONE" file you posted, it has the proper order for the toddler file. I don't know why the others have the reverse order, but probably because they're a different hair (I'm guessing a child to elder conversion). Have you tried cloning a different hair in Bodyshop to see if you can find one with fewer groups and/or groups in the proper order? The "cheaty" way would be to make a recolor of a 3t2/4t2 hair by someone who does it a lot and knows how to make proper file setups, like for instance Rented-Space.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#11 Old 1st Apr 2020 at 2:03 AM
Okay I've figured it out, I think it was a combination of not having overridesubset/group names matching and also the hair mesh was unchecked in the preview GMDC box. There's still some fine tuning to do because I'm not happy with the texture bleeding onto the scalp mesh but that's very fixable. I wanna thank you for your help, I've learned a lot from TS2 simmers and by messing up this process so many times that I think it will definitely be easier next time! Thank you so much!
Screenshots
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