Hi. I just found Marvelous Designer 5 and I have been playing around with it to create clothing for my sims, but once I am done creating the clothes, they show up weird in Milkshape. I know a lot of people take them to blender first for bone assignments, texturing, etc. but Milkshape does that too. Also, I don't have enough space on my computer for both softwares. (I use a Microsoft Elitebook with Windows 10) Blender is also SUPER hard for me. I have not found any tutorials on this in terms of Sims 2, but there is a lot for Sims 4 and a couple for Sims 3. In the pictures below, I'm showing what is happening when I try to export my clothing. I am exporting the MD clothing as an OBJ file as I noticed that's what most people do, but when I open it in Milkshape, it shows up very large and I can't zoom in and out as well as I usually can. Also no skeleton appears when I turn it on. It works fine when I just have a body template in Milkshape, but even when I bring one in as an OBJ with the outfit, the outfit overrides it just like in the picture, and even when I hide the outfit, the body OBJ is not showing (I know there is a body with the outfit showing up in Milkshape, but what I mean is a regular AF body that I use when I create clothing. I accidentally saved the body in the MD software with the outfit, which is why that is appearing, but my main issue is getting the skeleton to show up and having Milkshape work normally with the outfit.) I hope you all can help, and I also hope there is a way of bypassing Blender. It has always been my downfall. Thanks in advance!

UPDATE: I solved the body and skeleton issue. (Yay!) But now I can’t get any textures to appear in the texture coordinate editor in Milkshape after I assign the clothing to the skeleton. Is there still a way I can bypass Blender? I hope so..

Hard to tell. Can you upload the mesh?

Have you UVmapped the mesh properly?

Did you add a material + texture to the item in Milkshape (and you also need to right-click and set to "show textured" if it isn't ticked already). Textures won't show in the coordinates without a material+texture added.

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I'm not familiar with how MD works, but I'd assume it has some form of UVmapping? If not, you're likely better off doing the mapping in Blender. It's really difficult in Milkshape - personally I only do minor adjustments, and I think some people tend to use a program called UVmapper (or UVmapper Pro, but that one is likely pay).

Steps like UVmapping don't really require spesific "Sims 2" tutorials for how to use the tools. I learned mostly via Youtube and by searching for the names of the tools. UVmapping is the same for any mesh. You do need to put things in the correct places if mapping body parts (anything using skin, or that needs to not overlap other parts), but if you've learned how to do it in Blender, you can look at a tutorial that uses Milkshape, and use it as a guideline for what to do/not to do. That's generally how I work between the programs. Blender is much better for UVmapping and meshing from scratch than Milkshape, but I'm more used to the workflow in Milkshape, so I use the programs side by side.

Youtube tutorials isn't for everyone, but there are some decent ones around, and also short tutorials that show just one tool/method in jjust a few minutes without useless intros. Some of the tutorials are more general and will work for Blender 2-->4, but 3+4 did changes to the UI, so you may want to find beginner tutorials based on the version you're using.
https://www.youtube.com/@RyanKingArt (several beginner tutorials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyP...HyM_86DIFrHocF1 (playlist with various tools explained)
https://www.youtube.com/@blenderguru (beginner tutorials, split up in parts)
And searching "blender tutorial uv mapping" will get you a ton of other options.

I don't know if there are any spesific tutorials for MD+TS2, but sometimes with tutorials you need to get a bit creative and use bits and pieces from several tutorials to get what you want, and occasionally deal with a bit of trial and failure. If one for TS3 or TS4 shows how to export a working OBJ from MD, use the same method. It's still a working OBJ file.

I ended up figuring out not too long before you two replied! There is now a strange issue happening that is unrelated to MD so I will post that as a different thread.