Hi guys, I want to make a pet collar with custom mesh, but I don't know the exact way to get it to show up in the game. I guess I will download an existing collar template from the web, then "clone" both the mesh and recolor files, but the problem here is that I don't know how to link them together, someone can answer this for me pls? I have a little understanding of SimPE and Milkshape

Fairly sure making the mesh and the linking process is the same as for "human sim" clothes, accessories, or other CAS items, so probably a good idea to look up those first if you haven't done that before (there are a couple methods for linking, either autolinking via the PJSE tool, or manually via the Package button in the SHPE).

According to DeeDee, you can use this tutorial for recoloring (make one first, link to mesh, then recolor the linked mesh when you've verified it works)
https://modthesims.info/showthread....483#post1581483

For the mesh I'd assume you'd want to extract the parts you need, make them standalone and give a new internal name with "Fix Integrity", and then link to a new recolor.

DeeDee also has some pointers on how to avoid blue-flashing issues with the accessories:
https://deedee-sims.tumblr.com/post...t-collar-with-a

Thank you very much for this comment, it helped me a lot, but when I added 2 file: mesh and recolor packgage to the download folder, it didn't display completely in the game, so sad . As you can see, when cat stand, collar doesn't perfectly match the cat's body, and more importantly, when the cat does something else, like sleeping, sitting, or cleaning itself, the collar doesn't "follow" the cat but stays in place. Is there any way I can solve this problem? Or did I do something wrong during the cloning process?

With accessories and clothes and such, you need to link the mesh up to the skeleton via bone/joint assignments. Did you do this?

I'm not sure if there's a tutorial that shows this for pets, but as long as you can extract the skeleton and original accessory mesh for the pet, you should be able to see which vertices to assign to which joints. You can mark a vertex and in the "Joints" menu select "show", which shows you the assignment for that vertex. Sometimes the item uses the same assignment all the way around, other times it's different. I'd say it's easier to practice on regular sim body meshes, because I don't think pet meshes get a proper skeleton in Milkshape, just the joints, so it's a bit easier to see what's what on the sim skeletons.

If you use Milkshape, also remember to copy the "Comments" in the "Group" tab from the original mesh to yours. If the mesh has more than one joint assigned per vertex, it needs the NumOverride to be 2 or 3, depending. If this is 1 or absent, the collar loses some of the joint assignments.

Thanks to your comment, I just realized that I should extract the GMDC file from the original mesh file, instead of creating a mesh exported in 5gd format and then replacing it. After extracting the 5gd file, I realized that in the original mesh there were 4 joints showing vertex weights, but 3 of 4 joints were assigned to 1 group. I tried assign but every time I select a group and I assign its vertices to a joint, the previous assignment is deleted, I also copied the "Comments" in the "Group" tab from the original mesh. Is there any benefit to having them assigned to multiple bones? Sorry to bother you

Whether you need to assign to multiple bones depends on the mesh and placement, and how the item moves with the joints. If you just assign to one joint, the item follows only that joint. If you split the assignment between two (or more) joints, they split the movement between those joints. Most often, splitting the assignment (if done properly) will give a better animation.
(For instance, if you're making an accessory that goes onto the head, like a hat, there's no benefit to assign to other bones than the bone that controls the head. If you're making a large body accessory that covers the torso, feet, or anywhere else it needs to move with more than one joint or in an area there's multi-assignments already, assigning to multiple bones is usually going to give a better result).

It's a bit easier to practice with accessories on sims, because you can turn on animation mode in Milkshape and move the skeleton around, to see if things are moving properly (that's often what I do when there's some difficult assignments). Dog/cat skeletons don't have that advantage.

Anyway, you can copy weights from the cloned accessory mesh to the one you're making (if you import both of them - make sure to NOT import a second skeleton, you'll most likely get a prompt about that).

In the "Joints" menu,
- click "show" to show the assignments of a vertex. It shows in the dropdown boxes + colored lines (up to 4 joints).
- You can also manually select the joints and weights you want to set (takes a bit of practice + trial and failure, at least with more than 2 joints). Select other vertices and click "Assign" to assign that particular selection to vertices.
- Make sure "Adjust other weights" is ticked OR that the weights add up to 100 (or there will be issues).
- Make sure to assign all the vertices.

There's also an auto-assignment tool, but I'm not entirely sure how well it would work for the dog/cat skeletons (or collars). I think it's part of the Unimesh plugins (Vertex menu, "TS2 UniMesh AutoJoint V4.09"). I've not had the best of luck with this one.

Thank you for your reply, after a lot of tests I finally succeeded! Before that, I also tried following DeeDee's tutorial to fix the blue flashing error, but it didn't work for me. Every time I clone the mesh and recolor file, the "collar" disappeared. Even though I replaced shape of the mesh file to recolor file, "collar" still doesn't appear in the game. After many trials, I have found the cause, and this is the result, I made a hat, it's cute right? Although it is not really fit, but I'm still very satisfied. Thank you very much

Thank you so much for answering. Are you also a PhD student who needs help with your thesis? Then you are not alone; I was also in the same situation a few months ago. But then I found this https://academized.com/buy-thesis-online website called Academicized. They are a writing service provider. I liked their services because they are very professional with their work and very affordable.

It's better if you make a new topic, rather than posting in someone else's. Things tend to get confusing otherwise.