Milkshape: Settings and Tips
 

Milkshape Settings

1) Autosmooth OFF

Before importing any meshes, make sure that 'autosmooth' is unchecked on the groups page

2) Set the Joint Size small

If you have blue lines all over your screen, those blue lines are the joints. For some reason the default size is huge! Go to the "File" menu, pick "Preferences"..............In "Preferences" click the "Misc" tab. Where it says "Joint Size" change the value to .01

Now they should be very small blue circles.

You can go to the upper right area and click on the "Joints" tab, then uncheck "show skeleton" and the blue joints will disappear making it easier to work with the mesh. Hiding the skeleton will also protect it, and prevent you from accidently moving a part of it and breaking your mesh.

3) Adding Points and UV Mapping

If you wish to add more vertices to your mesh (so that you can, for instance, stretch a skirt down longer, and have more joints) there are commands in milkshape that are good for this, and some that are not. Some will not actually add the new vertices to your UV Map. Note you can only add new vertices in conjunction with Wes' plugins, not with a Meshtool OBJ file.

To add new points, select the face(s) you wish to add vertices to, and use the 'subdivide 4' or 'subdivide 3' commands. They will automatically be added to the UV Map, although you will still need to make bone assignments to the new vertices. Avoid 'subdivide 2', as that command does not UV Map the newly created vertices.

To learn how to adjust the uv mapping after you've reworked your mesh, see this tutorial: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1083566

Selecting Vertices
 

To select vertices in Milkshape and only get the ones you want:

You can try clicking 'ignore backfaces'. This should stop you from selecting the vertices on the other side of your mesh. Be sure to turn it back on if you do want to select the vertices all around.

Another way is to select the vertices in the 3d view window, it makes it easy to see what you are selecting.

First assign a texture to your mesh if you haven't already done that, then right-click in the 3d view window and set the pop-up menu to "textured" and also checkmark "show wireframe overlay" in the 3d view window.

Then I make the 3d view window fullscreen, and zoom in on the area I want to select the vertices. To select, I hold down the [Alt] key, and drag a box around the vertices - you can't see the box like you can in the other views, so it's a bit tricky at first but you soon will catch on. {See the first pic} To select more, hold both [Shift] and [Alt] while dragging another box. To un-select, hold [Shift] and [Alt] while draggung a box with the RIGHT mouse button.

Then I zoom the 3d window back to normal size, and check in the other views to see if I have accidentally selected vertices on the opposite (unseen) side of the mesh, which usually does happen. I un-select these by holding [Shift], and dragging a box with the RIGHT button again. {second pic}

Once you have selected the ones that you want, do whatever editing you wish to them.

*** If you CANNOT select the vertices you want to - make sure you have 'ignore backfaces' turned off. Also make sure your selection tool is set to VERTEX and not to FACE.

Editing/UV Mapping
 

Some basic Milkshape editing techniques:

Tutorial: Making Bigger Boobs

To adjust your UV Map to complete your mesh:

Adjusting the UV Map Tutorial
Unimesh Tutorial Part 2 (adjusting uvmap)

If you're creating new parts to add to your mesh, you might find this thread about how to put textures on the 'inside' of objects useful (this would also apply to hair, it's constructed in similar layers)

Milkshape, the Insides

To UV Map the new parts you've created - which you should do *before* you join them to your mesh - there are these articles/tips

UV Mapping Shoes (and other additions)

Texture Mapping Mini Tutorial

Texture Mapping Tutorials from around the web