When making a new mesh for accessories there seems to be about 100 3DID Reference files. Do I have to replace the cres and shape in all of them???

How to figure out how it works is covered in the HAIR tutorial and in the HAIR articles in the infocenter. The answer is that each one is for a corresponding age and gender combination, and you need to figure out which one to match with which mesh. Note that depending on your accessory you might need to modify it going from men to women, and definitely must build new versions with the correct skeleton as the base for teens and children.

It does mean that say, for an adult female mesh, you'd definitely link the same modified shape and cres to the young adult, adult, and elder 3dirs

The definitive answer is it depends...

Some acessories need only one instance, so a couple 3IDR files will do the trick. Other accessories need items made for all the age/gender items (8 types) and LOD15 sets too. So we're up to 32 here or so now.

Did you download someone elses accessory set as an example of how-to-make-this, or use OW to clone one, or what are you really trying to do?

<* Wes *>

I wouldn't have thought to look in the hair tutorial so I will check that out after this post.

Is it possible to do this quickly by using the PJSE mesh tool?

Ok basically I am trying to make a set of horns, so I guess I would want this for all ages, though I suspect that would mean a slightly modified mesh for all ages? I exported a standard maxis accessory (sunglasses, I think). I'm just having trouble building the package file, and at the linking stage where you put in the modified cres and shape files and delete the old ones.

So how do I tell which 3idr is for which age group? What are the LOD15 sets and what do they do (if there's a tutorial on that, I've missed it, so pointing me in the right direction would be good)? I'm sure all these questions seem basic to you guys but meshing is still very new to me. Progress is slow. All your help is appreciated.

Edit: I found Dr. Pixel's explanation of the accessory files. It seems pretty helpful, so I think I can deal with it now. Though I still have a few questions in this post I wouldn't mind having answered. :p

The 'order' of difficulty and info presented is in

body meshing (3 tutorials), hair (1 tutorial + InfoCenter articles), accessories (infocenter only)

Each of these topics _builds up_ on the previous knowledge assumed, because we have limited resources/writers here - and there's too much material to cover. So the basics are covered in the 3 unimesh tutorials for doing basic body edits -- there's still more that COULD be covered for that, for instance, we don't teach making new parts in the 3d editor or uvmapping from scratch -- but much of that is covered by generic milkshape tutorials. The focus in all the tutorials is primarily to teach the sims-specific issues involved with each kind of edit.

In the body meshing tutorials, you're told to not use/touch the lod15 meshes, I believe they are for those who have their settings to extremely low, never had odd behaviors reported by the fact we never touch/use them.

There are 3 unimesh tutorials on body editing. They cover a *lot* of ground, although still not everything. Then there's a beginner hair tutorial. There's also hair and accessory articles in the infocenter.

And I answered your question about how to tell which 3dir belongs to which - dr pixel covers it in the hair tutorial and I did a mini-tutorial about that in the hair article in the infocenter.

As for the PJSE linking tool, when I tried to use it on a hair (I only did try it once) I got a broken file and I ended up making a new recolor and just doing the linking in by hand, and that worked much better for me. It is _not_ automated to the point that you can just say 'here are all the meshes, plug away'. You still have to know which mesh you're putting on which 3dir. The extractor will extract _all_ the meshes (all ages, all genders) for a hair or accessory - you will need to understand and sort out the various parts for the various ages/genders to build the corresponding separate mesh files with the 4 parts each, fix integrity properly, and then link them in.

What's good is that the pjse mesh parts extraction is fast - so much so that what I did was just set it to extract all the mesh parts, and then deleted all the duplicates and ones I didn't need, and saved out the 4 mesh parts... and then when I needed a different age I just ran it again.

As with hair, I would work on *1* mesh/age/gender at a time. Get that one in and working. Then repeat the process for the next one. Yes, there's a lot of work involved in making all ages/both gender meshes.

Thank you. I think I will use the old method for linking, rather than the extraction tool (though it's handy) simply because I can see exactly what I'm doing that way. Slow, perhaps, but at least I know it works.

I can deal with one age group and gender at a time. Mostly I wanted info on how you would approach an accessory edit as there really are no specific tutorials on it, just info articles (which I have found very helpful, actually, so no real problem there). Thank you for helping me again, tiggery.

Here is a bit more info on how I do accessories at the mesh editing end of it, maybe it will help.

I first import the basic glasses mesh into MilkShape

Then I import a body mesh and/or an example head mesh of the correct age/gender to use a a reference for placing the accessories - also, in the case of body accessories, it is quite helpful in making the vertex assignments.

I make and edit the new parts, keeping them in their own separate mesh group(s) until all editing, including the uv_mapping and vertex assigning is done.

At this point, I save it all as a .ms3d file, for any future editing.

Then I delete the example body/head mesh groups, and regroup all the new accessory parts into one group if necessary.

Finally, I re-name this group as "frame" (or whatever the name might be for your particular glasses mesh - it should duplicate the original name)

I also copy in all the comments from the original "frame" group into this re-named group.

But here, be sure that the line:

"NumSkinWgts:"

is set correctly.

It should match the number of skinweights you used when assigning your vertices.

If you don't know what I mean on this, just always set it to:

"NumSkinWgts: 3"

This is safe, it will work without problems even if you only used 1 or 2 skinweights.

Finally, I delete the original "frame" group.

I also reduce the original "Lens" group to a single triangle, and place it so it will always be hidden inside the Sim's head.

The mesh is now ready to export, and put back into the .package file.

============================================

As I said above, this is the method I use, and it does work for me.

There are definately other ways to go about this end of it, I'm just presenting it as something to try if you aren't sure exactly how to proceed.

do you have to alter the mesh for every age group or can you just do it for one age say like if i wanted to just do a female adult glasses mesh is that poss?

If you just want it to work for the one age then yes, you can just make a mesh for adult female, then remove the 3DIRs and other extraneous information for the other ages (the corresponding property sets and material definitions, for instance) and just have it work for adult female. You can get more info on removing bits from packages in the Body Shop Skinning tutorials - there's a tutorial by Simply Stella on removing extra ages from hair that works pretty much the same for accessories.

ok thank you hyster for the help also another question in case i dont get a quick reply from the other thread i was wondering why the screens of the glasses couldnt be altered with the frame of the glasses.. why do they have to hidden in the head? which i read in dr pixels tutorial

Well, if you want a transparent group somewhere in your mesh, sure, leave it in. I've seen people use the lens group to make an orb in a staff, or as the clear crystal part for a jewelry piece, etc., but it doesn't take a texture, so generally you'll just want to use the frame/rim groups for your mesh and hide the lens unless you have some specific use for it that doesn't require a texture.

ok i see now ty so it has no textures but does it have any colour to it at all ? cuz i've seen some glasses (edited) with a coloured lens

color is in the matd for it, I believe

you can change the matd of the lens to support using a texture with it also.

Yes, you can, SnowStorm. I neglected to mention that, though, as I think doing so might be easy for someone like you (or me at this point - I spent all day yesterday playing with adding groups to meshes) but for a new mesher it might be a bit too challenging, especially lacking existing clear instructions on how to do so.

i have knowloedge of adding groups and such so its not a problem just wondered how to go about that seen as i do clothes meshing and not accessoriess

where I can find a tutorial for accessroies meshing ?

Accessory meshing is one of the most advanced. You must go through the body meshing tutorials (Unimesh, not meshtool). Then you'll need some of the info from the hair stuff. Then you will have all the pieces you need to make sense of the info in the InfoCenter about it.