This is to extract the 4 mesh parts when making a new clothes mesh, without having to use the finder and extract them manually. This phase of testing is for people who use the QA version of SimPE only. If that tests well we can try to make a .58 plugin too.

*** INCLUDED IN LATEST SimPE RELEASE as of a a couple of years ago.***

I allmost did a backflip! This sounds very promising! You'll make alot of people very happy with this!
will it work for hairmeshes as well?

It seemed to begin to work for a hairmesh, but the bodyshop file had all ages in it, and Peter put in a protective feature that means it only uses the first Property Set it finds in a file. We are discussing allowing the tool to carry on and extract all the relevant matches.

Inge each hair mesh has to be built separately by age. Does this automatic thing grab the name from the bodyshop project? (didn't go look, I guess I'll go try and see if I can get into the SimPE forum.)

its awesome..been waiting for something like this
thankies.

Tiggerypum: yes it actually looks up the details from the Propertyset and uses that to find the parts. Currently, as neither of us are experienced bodypart meshers, Peter designed it to assume there was some sort of error if it found more than one Propertyset in a package so it only uses the first one it finds. However, it seems to me that a typical hair made by Bodyshop will have 5 (or 6?) one for each age. If he changes it to get all the parts for all of them, it might very well be able to do hair as well. It's quick and easy to delete the parts you don't want afterwards, compared with getting them in the first place.

What I would also like to understand is, with the clothes, is it important to collect the mesh parts in a separate file in order to fix integrity, or could it be done just as easily by importing straight into the bodyshop file you already made for those clothes? In fact this tool does allow you to be *in* a package already, and in that case it will simply import those same parts into your open file.

The standard method of creating clothing/hair/accessories is to have the mesh file with its four parts completely separate from the recolour file. A few creators very early in creating Body Shop content were including the mesh files with a recolour, similar to how an object mesh is done, but it's not necessary to do that way, and while I haven't tested it yet, I *think* combining the recolour and mesh files into one .package that way is how meshes sometimes end up uploaded with full sims to the Exchange. That, and if it's done that way and, in-game, a user goes and deletes, say, the blonde recolour, which is in the same .package as the mesh, they lose the mesh entirely. Probably better to do 'em separately.

I want so much to try it out but don't have the QA version. Oh, woe is me.

Lol don't cry! I asked Peter to make a .58 version today, and if all goes well there might be something finished by the end of our day.

He's also going to change it so it will extract for up to 10 Propertysets in a file without question, and only ask "are you sure" if it finds more than that. That should cover all uses fairly well, including hair.

Can you tell me, when a new clothes or hair mesh is completed, is it at all EP-dependent for the downloader?

YAY, shiny new thingies to play with! *dancedance*

The only EP dependency we've seemed to run into with Body Shop content is, of course, needing meshes for recolours from certain EPs, and with body meshes cloned from Nightlife or later, there's often a 4th bone assignment on the hands (and with a couple Glamour Life meshes, elsewhere) that have to be reassigned in order to display right - but that's a matter of the creator needing to go in and fix that on their mesh before distributing if they want it to be compatible with games pre-NL. That's only been for body meshes though - hair and accessories seem to be fine. Other than that, we seem to be completely EP/base game compatible by default.

Inge, if it's extracting multiple meshes, will it name the files with human readable names? SimPE saves them out with numbers - which is fine when there is one gmdc, gmnd, cres and shpe, but will be a mess with hair meshes if the name is not the filename.

The various resources pulled from the sims0x files keep exactly the same names as they had in the sims0x files. So they will be as recognisable to you as they would have been if you used Finder and imported them manually.

With multiple meshes, for example a hair package for all ages, they usually start "pu" or "am" etc so you can tell them apart like that. If you pull in multiple meshes when you didn't really want to (if you forgot to kill the unwanted age Propertysets, for example) it's quite quick and easy to delete the unwanted imports.

The tool extracts and imports into your open file (empty to start with if you just did File/New) and you don't have to get them in yourself from weird numbered extracts. Obviously then you fix integrity and save the file to a name of your own choice.

Ok the .58 version is now available at the same link. As I said over there, the first person to say "this is working for me" gets a bene :P

*dribbles* Inge, Peter, I could kiss you guys, I really could. Come over here and pucker up, willya?

I just tried it with .58 on a base game body mesh and it works perfectly! Where's my bene? :D

Lol! Thanks, I'll have to enable karma at simlogical and give you one there

YAY! Thank you so much. I'm off to see how it works out. Thanks again.

They have been updated again to be glamour pack aware - provided you have a SimPE that is glamour pack aware.

*CLUNK*

I did a back flip! I wonder why my neck is all scrunched up like that, though.
Thank you! :D

I always got the message: be aware that not all ressources were added to the current package. What to do??

Did you? What file were you choosing to make your new package from? I must ask Peter what that means, but I guess you were clicking on some huge file? Are you very experienced in clothes meshing?

Yes. I were choosing an new mesh from glamour. I exported it in bs and tried to open the package file in the saved sims folder. It doesn´t work. With Maxi Meshes it works fine!

Dupli, read Carrigon's post on this thread: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=187521

Until SimPE is updated, ya kinda gotta "fool it" into seeing the Glamour Life meshes. I've also heard that some GLS meshes have additional 4th bone assignments (more than just the hand that we've seen in the past) including ones in the torso, so make sure you go through and find any 4th bone assignments and fix 'em before you release your mesh.

Inge, hair mesh files are usually built individually. As in, one mesh file contains the 4 mesh parts for only one age hair. Some people at the end recombine them, but for sanity's sake, working on only one mesh in a file is pretty important.
This might be handled already, I'll have to look at what you've got going. Hair meshes actually use the _same_ mesh for ya, adult, and elder. But there are toddler, child, and teen meshes also. (many of which as the ages get younger are shared between different styles)

I asked Peter about the error message and he says it means his tool couldn't find some of the parts - ie it's the message you can expect if you're looking for something from Glamour (or the xmas holiday pack which he still isn't handling yet). I suggested he changed it to say he couldn't find the parts instead of what it does say.

The Glamour-aware public SimPE has just been released, so that should take care of this. Peter has yet to pick up the holiday pack.

It looks like hair mesh extraction works exactly the same, and can anyone confirm the same applies to accessories and other types of things that are made in bodyshop?

This plugin is great - so much faster!

I did run into a problem with a hairmesh, however -

I tried the "barette" hair mesh (original game) but it failed to extract all the parts.

I'm sure it is because the Property Set in the BodyShop .package has the name as "CASIE_afhairbarrette_blond" - but the actual files are named "afhairbarrette_"

I know there are several more hair and clothing files that also start with "CASIE_" in the property set, but the real parts don't have "CASIE_" in their names.

Maybe you can fix it by having it ignore any "CASIE_" references?

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Accessories (glasses) fail with a "No Property Sets Found" message - which is correct, they do not have any.

Instead, glasses use "Mesh Overlay XML" files, which seem to have all the same information in them that a Property Set does....