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Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 17th Sep 2023 at 10:16 PM
Default bar chairs not moving
Anyone ever figured this out? There's a lot of custom bar chairs out there that won't move closer to the counter once you hit play, and sims will sit on the edge of it.

I got one in particular I'd love to fix... (file attached). Thing is, I know nothing about meshing. So my go-to if something doesn't work is to make a fresh clone of a working object and adjust it/import things back in.

So I figured cloning the quaint bar chair (that steffor originally cloned for the tpk one), and just importing the one group of steffor's mesh back into the fresh GMDC, would let me get away with the least possible changes to my new clone. All I did was to fix integrity when that first pops up while you clone your object, and put steffor's old GUID back in.

Still, it doesn't move. So I guess it has to be the mesh itself, somehow? The game can't possibly be deciding which bar chairs to move by GUID, can it... I mean even EA must've noticed that'd be nonsense...
I even left the old groups in that steffor didn't use, and just made them invisible via texture. I remember fixing a hot tub that was throwing errors about bones this same way, so I figured there has to be a way, but everything animation still is dark magic to me tbh.

I mean is there any way to fix this in SimPE? I'd really appreciate any help or idea. Well, ones that don't involve that I learn meshing just to fix one object, anyway. (Sadly that's just not an option, as an adult with a job...)
Attached files:
File Type: rar  steffor tpk bar chair.rar (325.3 KB, 3 downloads)
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 17th Sep 2023 at 11:12 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 21st Sep 2023 at 7:35 PM.
Looks like barstools are animated, so if you're importing as OBJ, that would explain why they aren't working as intended.
(A bit weird, because chairs don't have skeletons and they work similarly )

Fortunately, they seem to be very simple to animate (or rather, to link up to the skeleton) for a beginner. It's just one joint to deal with.

- Extract the GMDC from a working EA mesh (right-click the GMDC, extract, save a place you can easily find it - name doesn't matter, but you can rename it).
- Also extract the mesh you want to change (can be a regular OBJ, but be aware that OBJ meshes extracted in SimPE can get some issues with UVmaps)
- Import GMDC into Milkshape using the Unimesh import (same as for clothes/CAS projects)
- Import OBJ into Milkshape (if they have the same group name, edit the name of the first one slightly before adding in an OBJ mesh, or it might overlap)

- In the Groups tab, select all the groups.
- In the Joints tab, in the first dropdown box where it currently says "none", choose "joint03" ** and set it to 100. Then click "assign".
** for this particular mesh (Quaint bar chair), the entire mesh is assigned to joint03. Which joints are assigned will be different for other meshes. If you're unsure, you can find the joints by ticking "Draw selected joints" and clicking the various joints in the top panel (they'll light up in red). If they're assigned to multiple joints, you can go to the Model tab, Select by Vertex, then back to the Joints tab, select a vertex and click "show". You'll see which joints it's assigned to in the dropdown lists, and how much in the colored panels.

- When you're done, go to the Model tab and click on the "comments" box. Copy the comments over to the group(s) you're keeping. Make sure the group names are proper.

- File --> export --> Unimesh exporter --> save file (also save as Milkshape file so you don't need to do everything over again if you need to make an adjustment)
- (SimPE) --> Copy the GMDC "filename", right-click GMDC and "import", paste in the "filename", Commit, save.

There's a tutorial here with some pictures. It's a little bit old, but should still work fine.
https://modthesims.info/t/433766
Instructor
Original Poster
#3 Old 19th Sep 2023 at 9:51 PM
well thanks, I guess I'm still gonna have to dive into a new program, but the tutorial really helps
Scholar
#4 Old 28th Jan 2024 at 5:39 PM
Quote: Originally posted by sam&skye
well thanks, I guess I'm still gonna have to dive into a new program, but the tutorial really helps

Hello @sam&skye
I appreciate this is an older thread, but I don't see that you have uploaded a bar stool, so I am hoping it is an ongoing project.

You could take simmer22 advice, I tried creating a bar stool and looking at the tutorial guide and I did get it to work - only to find that bar stools don't work with counter height tables which was it's main purpose.

My personal tip for creating bar stools, is to clone a bar stool with the same legs/base unless there is nothing absolutely similar (and causes no animation movement).

If the latter, I would recommend using a dining chair as this will work with bars and with counter height dining tables e.g.Monsieur_Oshima Functional Counter-Height Dining Table.
In Milkshape 3D, align the bottom of the base with the base of the cloned chair (even though the seat will be higher).
In SimPE, go into CRES, and change the value of seating slot height ('Z') from 0.00000 to 0.20000
Add your textures and check your object in-game.

Here is my bar stool I made earlier using the Oaktowne East Side Dining Chair:-



Hope this helps?
Good luck!
Screenshots
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