Inge, they are the bones, look at the beginner tutorial that Tiggy wrote, it explains there how to resize them.

http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=142305

Second post down, HP actually wrote the second post. It explains all there.

Bones? Definitely a case of terminal osteoporosis there! Ok thanks I will check that link

*lol* yeah. Apparently Sims meshes must be at a drastically different scale than some of the other meshes milkshape users work with, thus the markers for the joints come out looking like huge circles instead of bitty ones.

Maybe a stupid question, but: Is it possible to edit hair meshes using blender?

Bubbels, not substantially (if at all). My last test with meshtool and hair failed, but it only was 1 test, because meshtool only lets you move the vertices some and you can't rework the bone assignments, so it's very limited. Blender and meshtool (with a special plugin for blender) can be used to edit body meshes and _maybe_ hair, but as I said in a very limited way. Unimesh is very powerful and easy to work with. SMD format might also work for you.

Hmmm, I think I have to save up for milkshape.

Hi Tig, I have found all of your tutes (and Dr Pixels and HP's) extremely clear and helpful and have worked through all of the body meshing tutes without incident and read as much as I can on the tutes you mentioned.

I'm having trouble with extracting the hair meshes though. I am definitely missing something, and it's probably something very obvious.

I'm working on a fix for a neck-gappy af hair, and I'm stuck on the "fix integrity" part - gathering the GMDC, etc files together to make the new mesh. HP, wonderful person that she is, put me onto the trick of using the PSJE tool to simplify extraction, but after deleting the pu, c + t files so I can work on the af, what I am finding is that when it comes time to select the af hair GMDC, etc, there are three identical files to choose from, with the same group and instance numbers for each (so, 3 identical af SHPE files, 3 identical af GMDC files, etc). (also no ya file).

I am presuming I only need one each of these, and the other 2 are for the ya and elder hair. Or not. How do I know which one to choose? Or am I supposed to take all three?

On that note, I did try to take all three, and on the "fix integrity" step got this error message:

Warning: Item has already been added. Key in dictionary (name of Gmdc file) Key being added (same name of gmdc file) Details: Two or more Resources in the package have the same name, which is not allowed!
.NET Version:
2.0.50727.42

so I'm obviously supposed to choose just one of each... right? Probably the second ones... right? (as the first ones would be the ya and the last the elder?) I don't want to just "try" it, given my level of skill (or lack thereof), I'd probably break something.

I also closed the custom hair and tried it again with a base maxis hair, which had the same thing happen (three identical af files for each group, no ya). So, it's me being a dolt.

If I can get past this bit, the rest seems very straightforward, mostly due to the clear tutes. But I am about to pull my own hair out with frustration. I will get this if it kills me, but I'd rather not die bald. :D

I believe (I used PSJE to grab a hair once so far) that it grabs duplicates (2 or 3 sets) because the adult, ya, and elder in the recolor file all happen to link to the same pieces. Keep 1 of each, and I think you'll be set.

Now once you have your mesh, you can link it into the adult and elder references in the recolor file. It _seemed_ on my system that the 'ya' slot used some funky method to link it to the adult slot, not to the mesh directly - and when I tried to just link the ya in, it didn't work, but if I left it alone it was fine. Until recently I didn't have any eps on my development machine, so the ya stuff is new for me, I'll have to investigate further. So I suggest start linking your adult and elder in, and then test it and see if ya needs to be linked also.

Edit: Dr Pixel says he links YA's in normally and that works. So maybe I hit some quirky hair or made a stupid mistake.

Okay, thanks Tig. I'll give it a go and see what happens. I appreciate the help.

Im working with the hair meshing tutorial, and I can pretty much get everything to work fine, but there is a single verticle at the vary tip of the ponytail that will not highlight, when I scale the ponytail it remains in its orginal position and will not move with the rest of the hair thats being scaled. Any suggestions on what I may be doing wrong. The only way I can seem to alter it is deleting it.

Nice tutorial ^o^, well i have a mesh for men, but, how can i convert this mesh for women?

thanks!

Male and female sims of an age share the same skeleton. Get the reference bodies (and heads) from the infocenter and import them temporarily (they are obj files). Realign the vertices to meet perfectly at the scalp seam (use extended edit as described in the unimesh tutorial #3) and adjust the rest of the hair accordingly. When you are done aligning things, delete the objs you imported. Then export your new gmdc.

When I have done the linking for hair meshes, I just linked up the YA the exact same way as the Adult and Elder, and so far it has always worked for me.

They all three share the exact same mesh, although in the BodyShop .package each one has it's own set of files.

Excellent. Thanks.

Little Problem
 

Hi Dr Pixel

I followed your tutorial and was able to fix the ponytail to what you've shown. But there is a little problem.

When i attempted to export it back into the workfile, the option to save it as GMDC file was not there.

prodiege, I expect you haven't actually hands-on done the prerequisite body meshing tutorials. This tutorial doesn't go into basic details - to export the gmdc you'd use the unimesh exporter, the exact command which is documented in the beginning unimesh (body) tutorial (step 47, although you might have a different version number the idea is the same)

I understand that editing hair might be the goal which has brought you to meshing, but this tutorial only gives a basic edit to cover the special additional steps and issues involved with hair meshing, and is brief on things you should already know. The 200 steps (broken into 3 tutorials) of the unimesh body meshing tutorials teach the basic unimesh concepts you will need. Meshing boned and animated items is complex, thus the 4 tutorials.

Making hair
 

Actually I did follow the previous tutorials before going into Dr Pixels. numerous of times, but when i get to the part where it says to export the file it doesn't work because the option to save into a Gmdc File is not there.

Is there something i'm suppose to change in the settings

I'll try it again and see what i missed

Still confused?
 

"Next, create a new mesh .package for the adult version of the mesh, and link it up to the BodyShop .package as explained here : http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=139819"

I just want to know. Do you mean to create another package in Body shop, then follow the tutorial on "Beginner Clothing Mesh Tutorial – Using Unimesh/Milkshape."

In this hair tutorial, Dr Pixel already said to make the bodyshop project and import (and showed where to do that in bodyshop)

So the next steps are to get the 4 mesh parts, fix integrity, save the modified shape and cres, and then link them in - but you will see with hair that there are many 3dirs (not just 1 like in a body) and the link he gives goes to an article that includes a section that shows how to find the correct 3dir.

I am still puzzled, if you were _doing_ the tutorials (not reading, doing) then the simpe error you wrote me about and the gmdc export problem should have been discovered long before doing _this_ tutorial. The pictures would have helped you figure your way through these parts in the basic Unimesh ones. There are simply too many details and procedures for someone to read the tutorials and then start their first project at high level. You must successfully finish the other tutorials in order to move forward. If there was an easier way to teach this, believe me, we'd use it instead of having to write out so many steps and so many screenshots.

I'm puzzled because you say you did the tutorials, yet most of your questions should have come up when you were doing the earlier tutorials, not this, the 4th; such as errors in the SimPE installation (if that was indeed the problem). There is nothing different about exporting the hair gmdc than the clothing one. After 3 completed projects, most people are able to build a mesh file without questions, and are getting a feel for the general process. In the 3rd tutorial (which says 'mastery' of the previous 2 as a prerequisite) my instructions are almost as brief as Dr Pixel is here about exporting the mesh (gmdc).

If someone says they 'did' the tutorial, that means to completion. The whole idea is that they build on each other, and basic skills are reinforced (like building a mesh file) through repetition. And maybe went on to build other meshes with their newly acquired skills, because hands on practice is the only way to really get good at something.

This tutorial is at an advanced level, it is not for beginners. It does expect mastery of some of the basic mesh building steps so that the focus is on the new potentially confusing parts. If every single step had to be fully documented in every tutorial, we'd all go crazy and never write advanced tutorials at all. As it is, it's very time consuming to construct a step by step tutorial, which is more of a 'lesson' than just a manual. To put it another way: If this was an advanced algebra class, and a student was still unsteady with multiplication - they'd be told they're probably not quite ready for the class yet, to go practice their multiplication more first, until they could do it well. Then they could focus on learning the more advanced steps.

To gather my mesh files at the start, where are the hair files located.Im using one from the basic game.After ive clicked open the sims 3D,which folder contains the hairs?

did you use the 'find' command - you should be offered those specific hairs.

You can also try using this http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=187761 follow the links and you'll find text instructions, and it'll grab all the pieces for you. But it will grab ALL the ages for you, and you'll need to sort them out.

i got the meshes ok.thanks.its just been so long since ive opened simpe but i do have the latest version.

THAAAANKS my first "HAIR" Mesh!
 

Thanks, mine looked a bit weird but thank you, really helped
I made it for adult and elder


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