I managed to create my first non-furniture, non-build item mesh for the game, glasses for teenaged girls (using the frameless glasses as a base). The problem is the glasses seem to change shape dramatically according to the facial shape of the sim. I know all the Maxis glasses do this to some degree, to "fit" on the face, but with these it's quite dramatic. Does anyone have tips on how to avoid this from happening?

I also have another question: Since it seems that all age groups and genders need their own glasses mesh, since the placement of the glasses varies accordingly, is it possible to have them all in a single package file, or do they all require their own?

No wonder so few people are making new eyeglass meshes since they are such a pain in the butt to make, worse than windows and doors .

I would guess that the glasses have some sort of link-up to the facial features, but if you are using one of the "boned" mesh file formats (.smd or the MilkShape importer/exporters) that should be eliminated.

Yes, almost every age/sex will need a different complete mesh .package.

The only exception is the child age, where male and female can both share one mesh.

I made a set of Butterfly Wings for all-ages, and both-sexes as "eyeglasses" - this required 5 separate mesh .package files:

Adult Male
Adult Female (these two take care of Elder and Young Adult also)

Teen Male
Teen Female

Universal Child


Once all are completed, correctly linked, and tested, it is easy to combine them all into one mesh .package file:

First, I make a "work" folder for each mesh except for the Adult Male.

Into each folder, I extract all 4 parts of the mesh .package file

After all are done (except the Adult Male), I open up the Adult Male mesh .package.

To this I add all the parts I extracted into the four "work" folders.

Then I check the file lists for all the 4 components - there should now be 5 of each, each one should have different instance numbers.

In the pic, I am checking the Resource Nodes - notice also when I did the "fix integrety" for each mesh .package, I included the age and sex in the name, to make it easy to know what parts belong to what age/sex group.

That's it, just commit and save the mesh .package file, it now has all the meshes in it.

Do NOT use "fix integrety" or anything else after adding the files, just leave everything alone and save it.

Thank you very much!

I have one further question: How do you tell apart the young adult, adult and elder files when it comes to the 3D information files (I forget the exact name, but the ones where you replace the shape and resource node lines), because, as far as I can tell, all of them are named "af" or "am", and there are three of each which obviously are for those three different age groups. The material definition files seem to be correctly named (ef, em, and so on), but the 3D files confuse me. Do I need to use only one of these and it'll do it for all three ages?

You need to link each mesh .package file to the correct age/sex 3DIR file.

This post explains about the linking, and how to tell which 3DIR file goes with which age/sex

http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...911&postcount=3

I used that post as a reference when making my first glasses, but the problem is I have no idea which one is elder, which adult and which young adult, because they are all called "am" or "af". There is no "ef", "em", "yf" or "ym" in the 3D ID referencing files of the glasses I used.

It doesn't matter - Adult, Young Adult, and Elder female all use the same mesh file
Link all 3 of the ones that say af to the adult female mesh

The same goes for the Adult, Young Adult, and Elder Male - link all those that have am to the adult male mesh

The tm (teen male) gets it's own mesh

The tf (teen female) also has it's own mesh

And both male and female child link to the child mesh.

Ahh, ok, thanks

I have this problem with meshes I make and it's most obvious (it seems) when they're not at all connected to the ear/eye area and above the neck. I haven't noticed anything in handheld objects (I extracted the scythe and nightstick). The distortion is most visible on loops with more extreme facial features, though in the game it doesn't seem to make huge difference (sometimes cylinders appear to be twisted in a spiral). It doesn't show in bodyshop at all because of the default mesh that it's based on is neutral.

Though, it's nice to note that there's on advantage in these meshes that doesn't seem to have appeared yet in clothing. I use the "Even More Hip Sunglasses" (it has three mesh sections--rim, frame, lens). The lens matd can be edited to appear solid and then all three pieces can be used with different colors or patterns to create more complicated pieces. The reflectivity looks fantastic in the game, as well as the matte--it ranges from bright white to a deep black by default (with the black lens version) with a nice metal shine at around .6.

I have noticed something odd about the placement, though, I don't know if it's just me or it seems a little off when trying to place objects along the animation bones to make them appear attached. I find the best thing to do is (in milkshape) to select none, then select the assignment. The line is highlighted and can be used as a guide, roughly, for placement. This saves time since the result has to be checked in the game to appear correctly.

I don't know. Maybe that'll help someone.

Does this mean that with these methods I can build a completely new mesh for glasses and assign the vertices, and not be limited to just moving around the vertices of the original mesh?

(By the way, I did use the Mesh Tool when I got the deformed glasses.)

OK, I'm back with the same problem. I started working on a glasses mesh again, this time with wes's UniMesh plugin, but still the glasses change shape according to the facial features. I have not been adding new parts (no new vertices), I've only been moving around existing ones. Any ideas how to fix that?

The way that some of the glasses (the ones that change shape, the bigger ones usually) change shape is by using morphs - the same method is used to make your Sim fat/fit in the game.

The Unimesh plugins keep and allow you to edit these morphs.

You could edit the morph groups of your glasses to cirrect the problem.

Or if you don't want to be bothered editing the morphs at all start with a pair of Maxis glasses that have no morph.

I always use the very first pair of glasses that shows in BodyShop as my base, I forget the name but they are the ones that have thick black frames and are available for all ages. These have no morphs to bother with.

Thank you, Doctor Pixel . That's what I just started wondering today: if some glasses morph more than others. I used the frameless glasses both times so far. I will give the thick framed ones a try, thanks for the tip .

Hmm, how do I edit the morph groups? I used the thick rimmed glasses as a base instead, and imported the frameless mesh I had as an obj file, but the glasses still get deformed on certain kinds of faces just like before. I thought importing as an obj file would get rid of the morphing data or whatever it is, but it doesn't look like it.

I didn't forget about you - I wanted to wait until I tried making an accessory with the new plugins to be sure I give the right info.

I have done that now, and if you are using the glasses I mentioned they do not come into MilkShape with a morph group at all, so that wouldn't be the problem.

If yours does come in with a mprph group, delete it.
Morph groups will have names like:
~00MORPHMOD.0
Also delete the lines in the group comments sections that refer to any morph groups, like:
MorphRefNum: 0

And a few questions -

* Are you also using the Unimesh plugins to export as a GMDC file, then replacing the original GMDC in SimPE with this new one?

* Make sure you are not assigning anything to joints other than the real animation joints - in the case of glasses, all vertices should be assigned to "head", not to any other joints

If neither of these helps, I'm at a loss. Although I have edited many accessories from glasses, (purses, necklaces, ear-rings, etc) I have never actually made glasses from glasses...

Thank you for the reply.

Yes, I am replacing the original GMDC in SimPE, and using the UniMesh plugins. And both the frame and lens part are assigned to "head" only as far as I can tell. I will have to try making a completely new mesh and see if that helps. I just really wanted to use the one I already made by modifying the frameless glasses, but with that I don't seem to be able to get rid of the deforming problem.

By the way, if you put those original thick-rimmed glasses on faces of different shapes, they do change shape still. I'm not sure if it's different from the morphing that the frameless glasses do, but they do change to some degree, as well.

It is also possible that the distortion of the glasses is done by something other than a "morph" - I really don't know exactly how Maxis does the facial animation stuff in the game, I just assumed it was a morph since there don't seem to be any face "bones" in the skeleton at all, just a "head" bone - but they do somehow make the mouth and eyes move and change expressions...

Maybe anything put close to those areas of the face is automatically going to be affected.

Another thought - try changing the bin number - perhaps anything that is in the "glasses" bin will be "morphed". Again, this is just a guess - just something to try - it might work, probably won't.

Thank you both for the suggestions, I will give them a try

Oh, one more thing I just thought of -

When you do the linking of your BodyShop .package to your mesh, there are two sets of shape and resource node links in the 3DIR files.

Be sure you are using your new Shape and Resource Node numbers for both of them.

The original Maxis ones will show two different sets of numbers, but our new accessory ones should both be identical.

I have always done this, and never had a de-forming problem.

I don't really know what the second set is used for in the Maxis files, maybe it links to the morphing data or something?