I guess depends on the textures, right? Which island is mapped to which area and all? In the multiplier, overlay, mask, etc...
I think I finally get the concept when you talk about islands.
Thanksies!

Islands are what Blender calls the individual pieces of the UV map. Marking seams would work as far as unwrapping is concerned, but you would still need those parts separated in the mesh.

This Tutorial is great. First let me say that I appreciate all the work that you have put into these training manuals. You should be commended! I have taken the tutorial supplied with Blender 2.6 to learn the basics. I have to admit that I never made it to the UV section on those tutorials, so your Part 2 is my first experience in that area.

I am running Blender v2.6 I had a few stumbling blocks.

The first was that I didn't realize I was in persp mode, until I unwrapped the font and back and the back showed up as a smaller piece below the front. Perhaps it would be best to mention you should be in Ortho for this step. After i realized my mistake I went back and restarted step 2 from my save file from Step 1. I must have chaned the mode at some point during Step 1 (Laptop Keyboard, and number pad... UGH!)

Then a weird thing happened a few times... when I unwrapped the leg in step 5, it caused this wierd spirel in the UV. I undid the steps back and re-did them, and it kept happening. I started it over from my save file and the spiral stopped, but instead of the tall legs from your picture, I got a line of blocks. After re-trying that with the same results, I gave up and just resized them to look like your picture. Don't know if something was selected or turned on that shouldn't have been.

Also, when I tried to resize the islands in UV with the average Islands scale, they went all different sizes and colors and was way off from your picture. The one thing I noticed that was different than in your picture was that I had an Island covering the .dds picture in the center. I recall it appearing when I unwrapped the entire table top with Unwrap->Reset in step 7. I ended up having to resize everything to match as closely to your picture as I could. I still have the extra island that was covering the .dds picture.

I'm sure that one or all of the above mentioned items are due to my inexperience, but I thought I should let you know. I learned a lot and am excited at the prospect of being able to import my very first mesh into my game.
I am REALLY looking forward to Part 3!
Thanks a TON!

Thank you for the great tutorial! I'm really looking forward to part 3 now. Do you know when it will be uploaded?

Hello cmomoney,

I was (again) looking for an up to date tutorial about Sims 3 object creation when I stumbled about your tutorial serial. And it is exactly what I and my partner where looking for since month. It's so hard to find a Tutorial thats not already outdated in big parts and so far it was even impossible to find a tutorial where the hardest part - the uvmapping is not just a kind of gambling game in uvmapper. We decided long ago that we need to learn objects creation with proper tools, meaning s2oc, S3PE and well well you do us such a favour... Blender - even with the new interface and new programm logic!

We are looking so very forward to the baking tutorial part... I think it's essential to get a perfect look for our objects... as far as I understood it, it'll put out an almost ready multiplier? Baking a multiplier in Blender will be the last step that is not yet covered in other tutorials... from there on we might be able to proceed to complete the object with the help of older tutorials. Which doesn't mean we are not looking forward to even a 4th part of your serial! Your tutorial really give us hope that this time we might make it to objects creation. We hope to see your baking part soon!

But for now we wish you and everyone some fine last days of this year!

Greetings
lichtje

The EZ Bake built into the Blender tools makes a great multiplier...if the object is made with Blender the bake is essentially perfect without any tweaking. I wrote a tutorial on its use which will work whether you're using Blender or MS to make your objects with. You should be able to use this tutorial by just skipping the first step and baking your MLOD. It's located here:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...t=435938&page=1

I'm having problems using S3PE to export a mesh into the .s3m2b format. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Which version of S3PE are you using and what is the problem you're having?

I'm using the newest version, and I simply can't figure out how to export the mlod 000000 to the right format so I can import the model into blender. It only wants to export it as a .lod file, but the tut doesn't say anything about that type.

Hey insanoflex,

you must use the version s3pe_11-1001-1447 ... than it works! I had the same problem!!

I'm looking forward to Part 3, too!

P.S. excuse my bad english... i'm german ;oP

The newest version will export to the correct format but you need to install the mesh ExpImp helpers. Make sure you read the instructions in the thread about how to correctly install these or read the read me text file that shows up in your S3PE folder once you've installed s3pe. If you don't have the helpers the option won't show up on the drop down list when you go to export the lods.

Happy new year to everyone,

we did it!!!! *happily dancing around* - it's not yet a ready to use ingame object though but we followed your tutorials and ended up happily with every steps of the two parts accomplished. It looks almost ;-) the same... though right now with the first try I have the same as itdan:
"The one thing I noticed that was different than in your picture was that I had an Island covering the .dds picture in the center. I recall it appearing when I unwrapped the entire table top with Unwrap->Reset in step 7"
I didn't redo and have the square (actually they are 3 squares stacked on top of each other) left.

Also I didn't end up with a diamond unwrapping the table top - might be both facts belong together - like armiel, so didn't rotate it... going to try that step again soon and going to watch out to select the correct mode doing so.

So... I am going to step the second tutorial through a second time... just to get it perfect... But already we are really happy about how it came out in the first try... because uv-mapping was always the point where we got lost in uvmapper... this tutorial is great covering this subject with uv unwrapping the object by hand.

@insanoflex: had the same problem and solved it as orangemittens explained already with installing the Helpers correctly.

@orangemittens
thank you for your advice about the baking. I found your tutorial already short after my first comment here and agreed with my partner to give this one a try... we just can't wait to see our table ingame! Thank you for reassuring us.

Wish you all a happy, healthy new year for now
lichtje

These tutorials were fabulous! I'm just waiting for part three. Is there another tutorial that picks up from where cmomoney's left off, even if it's not his?

Thanks so much! I never knew a noob like me could pull off object creation.

EDIT: I use Blender, and haven't tried anything else, though I'm up for a challenge if there's a tutorial in Milkshape or some other 3D editing program.

Did Part 3 go into a rabbithole and get lost? Nobody has tried this since January?

ooo gosh, finally a tutorial that walks one through Blender's UV mapping process. I can't wait for the rest, already your tut has shown me better ways to do things. xD

Great tutorials man! I'll be waiting for the 3'rd one

I have been waiting for it too.
Received a lot of help due to this.
I would like to know how fast Blender baking.
Make updates please as soon as.
I am not good at English.But it is hard to learn.
please...part 3 show me! :lovestruc :lovestruc :lovestruc

please.... T.T I'm really waiting for it.

Quick, please update me.

I would like to start soon Blender to texture.

Hi,

Please help me. My first problem has started, and I'm just in step 5. When I import the file in blender, it doesn't show up in the work area. I still see the box shape that was there when I first opened blender.

I checked the folder where I saved it, and the file size column for the file "grp00000000_tableEndDeckAdirondack_filebase.s3m2b" is 0KB. Is it supposed to be like that?

What could be the problem? Why doesn't it show up in blender?

HI, i have a problem, in tutorial part 1, in step 4, well I don't have the option 'Export to .s3m2b' so, what the hell I should do now? I really don't know what i need to do or if I need a external addon for this.

Where can I find part 3 of the tutorial mentioned at the end of part 2?