Ok so I've worked with delphys tool a bit but I'm still just not so clear on the process I'm supposed to take to end up with a new working mesh. Am i missing a thread somewhere?

As far as i know I'm supposed to handle a new mesh like HP handles making new hair in her tutorial. but there's flaws in that and things just don't line up right. so is this just something that no ones asking questions about or is there a wiki page i cant seem to find?

Are you trying to make a clothes/body mesh or new hair?

Really just in general.

I realized how broad my question was as soon as I asked it, and that’s why I never bumped it up or pressed the matter but now that you’ve replied I guess I explain myself more and try to really get a answer out of this thread.

I understand how to make a mesh and how to package things up I guess I just feel like I’m doing it all wrong.

How are creators like Rose, making shoes with added mesh components? I know I sound like a 3 year old but I want to do that!

From what I understand you need three Lods, for the various zoomed in points, the game can handle. That’s fine I understand that, thanks to HP’s hair tutorial. But I don’t know what applies to what. All the different assigning and such, is it simpler than I’m thinking it is? Do you just assign as needed and then export your meshes? Done deal.?

Then there’s the morphing which I still don’t understand. I asked Wes_h about this in the CAS tool thread and while I got a straight forward answer that didn’t need any counter attack from me, I’m still left confused. Is morphing just out of the question as far as new meshes? How am I going to get my skinny super models to work with any of my creations?

If Wes_H is reading this, he’d be happy to know while I did use workshop (which does allow morphing) for my Christian Dior set, I haven’t touched it since and I have no plan to return to the weirdo tool Thomas has laid upon us.

Bottom line, I would love to know the process of getting my new meshes into the game, even if it’s just accessories (I don’t know if that easier?) I would love to know.

I never wrote much about adding new vertices, in part because when I first wrote the GEOM plugins, I only knew how to make replacement meshes. Since then, Delphy has done almost all of the research on making NEW body meshes.

The plugins themselves are pretty much just a format conversion tool... they know what a mesh looks like in MilkShape memory, they know what a GEOM file looks like, and they can swap the data between the two. So if the mesh in memory has extra vertices, that is what they will spit out.

But in the last month, or better, I have been almost exclusively focused on object meshes. It has consumed all of my creative energy, and I have not kept up with Delphy's work. But all of the magic happens because of his CTU tool, all my plugins provide is the GEOM file used as a part of the package.

A far as adding vertices, it may be they are using either the Blender plugins, which duplicate VertexIDs from the closest vertex, or else they are doing that manually with the Extra Data Tool plugin, which can set any value to any vertex. But I haven't experimented with any of that myself.

As for your question on assigning, when a mesh is animated, it moves based on what bone it is assigned to. So hair is pretty simple to start with, the stuff up high goes to the HeadNew, stuff further down goes to spine2. For clothes and accessories, what to assign to is related to what part(s) of the body will move things. And the simplest way to learn that is to just import a few clothing items. In MilkShape, in the joints panel, double click on joint names (to select them) and then on the "SelAssigned" button. It will show you all of the vertices assigned to that joint. Turn on the "draw vertices with bone colors" and see the pattern of assignments. Make your new assignments mirror the way the closest existing vertices are assigned. The artists that made the original meshes for the game are all pros, with years of experience, but it doesn't take all of that experience to learn from their examples and add a little extra to something they built.

<* Wes *>

Thank you for this information, it is extremely helpful.