Hi, sorry if this turns out to be a really stupid question.

I'm trying to learn how to make Sims 2 animations in Blender, following this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvrX5g55k-4) plus jutsmiha97's PDF instructions about using their template. (I'm using Blender 4.1 so some things are slightly different, but I believe I managed to find everything.) I can export the SMD file just fine, but I seem to be unable to import it into Milkshape. When I try, I get the dialogue box with the Triangles/Skeleton/Rename Bones checkboxes, I do NOT get the one that's supposed to be asking whether I want to append the animation at the end of the current one, and then... just nothing happens. No animation is imported and if I try to follow the rest of the steps in the video (exporting it using Animesh etc., I have no problems with the SimPE part), it does not play any animation if I test it in game.

I managed to make a simple crappy animation in Milkshape, skipping Blender entirely, and that one worked in game. I think my problem is either that I'm botching the SMD before it leaves Blender or importing it incorrectly into Milkshape, and that it must be something really stupid, but I've been googling forever and tried everything I could think of, and I can't figure it out for the life of me. Thanks, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Have you tried with an older version of Blender? Could be the plugins aren't fully compatible with the newest version. The tutorial says 2.8+, which doesn't necessarily mean it works for 3+ or 4+.

That was it! I just tried Blender 2.8 and it worked like a charm. I was misled by the fact that all the plugins and options seemed to be working fine in 4.1, but apparently they weren't. Also I had to skip the step about Animation Retargeting the PDF tells you to do (which isn't in the video either). Thank you so much for your help!