I've been through the basic tutorials on meshing and I've gotten pretty good at it. Not good enough to start uploading my creations, but I've got the basics down pat (WITH the help of people like Wes H, Dr. Pixel, bLURR. Thanks guys!).

Now I've tackled adding alpha parts to clothing meshes. The project I'm working on now is adding flared sleeves to an outfit. I've gotten to the point where the sleeves show up on the sim but I can't make them transparent and I'm stuck using whatever color came with the original mesh package I started with (in this case black).

I've made the following adjustments to the MATD files:

stdMatAlphaBlendMode: blend

stdMatAlphaTestEnabled: 0

Just about every tutorial I've seen on the subject says to make these two changes to the MATD file.

I've also played around with the stdMatDiffCoef. I've used a great many varitions of values (1's, 2's, 0.2's, 0.3's etc.) and this doesn't change anything.

Just for clarification I'm using the afbodyhalterpants_black mesh/texture.

In the SHPE file, I can only reference the afbodyhalterpants_black texture. If I enter another texture (afbodyhulaskirt_blueskirt for example), when I go back into Bodyshop, the sleeves are bright blue and stick out from the Sim like they do in Milkshape. I know this is telling me that the mesh can't find the texture file(s).

I'm not sure what I've missed. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

I am not the one to help you with this, as it is a texturing question, and I am not real good at that myself.

I am not going to lecture about posting in the wrong place and stuff, and someone here may have just the right answer for you. But the "BodyShop Skinning" thread might be a better place to ask this question, if only that some people there may be experts at texturing but not do meshing and thus not watch this thread. So it is better to fish for grouper in the deep water, and flounder in the shallow.

I know it can be confusing, because you need both a 3D shape and a texture to make an object. However, some people do not make any meshes, but can still recolor those others have made, so the topic is divided into two threads.

<* Wes *>

tsech1965

If you want to make a new alpha whatever - and you have your mesh cut into 2 groups (the base and the alpha) then just use something with an alpha that WORKS for your recolor. If this one is giving you weird fits...

This is the easy way to get what you want, instead of pulling out hair with some non-standard matd.

Make a recolor of the hula mesh.
Make a base meshfile with the hula mesh, fix integrity.
Link that mesh to your hula recolor.

Make a new project in milkshape. Import the hula mesh. Import your new project. Make the group names and _comments_ match the hula mesh. Delete the hula mesh parts, save out your new gmdc.
Replace the gmdc in your hula mesh.

Now your sim will look like a disaster - because the hula mesh layout isn't like any other. That's okay. Go do a recolor of that outfit and put your next textures in there, and hit 'import'.

If you want to change the transparency to blend, this is the time to do it on your 2nd imported one, the one with a texture that's at least mostly good. Now you can make adjustments by making a new project and making recolors of the 'good' recolor to move along

Thanks Wes H and Tiggerypum. I really do appreciate the advice.

I'm sorry if I posted this question in the wrong thread. I wasn't really sure where to ask it. I guess I've been so engrossed in the meshing part of things that I didn't stop to think that my question fell under texturing. Again, I apologize and I'll try to be more careful next time.

Thanks again for all your help.

If you add the sleeves as a extra group(as a alpha) and you sure you did everything right.
Normally you start with a outfit that already has alpha's in it, that way the settings for the material definations for the alpha are all correct and you should be able to make the sleeves transparant by making the alpha bmp file grey.
If you didn't start with a alpha outfit as basic file setup, the only thing i can think of is that the settings in the material definations are set to ''simskin'' instead of ''simskinmaterial''.
If its set to simskin it will always show solid.

Thanks bLURR. I double checked, and the material definitions were set to simstandardmaterial. The mesh I'm working with didn't have an alpha part originally and it doesn't have an alpha bmp file either so that's probably where I'm getting off. I'll keep playing with it and see what I can come up with. I really do appreciate you taking the time to answer.

Oh, but do the sleeves show?
put the file up? :D
I adore alpha's

tsech1965

To make anything with more pieces you START WITH A MESH THAT HAS THAT MANY PIECES. Replace the mesh's pieces with your own - but to make an alpha outfit you should start with an alpha outfit. (or give yourself a lot of unnecessary headache trying to make all the bits link together correctly)

So you take the hula outfit - you replace the body with whatever body you want. You replace the skirt with whatever alpha thing you want - sleeves, skirt, wings, whatever.

To replace the parts - you give the group the same name and you copy the comments from the original group to your new group. Then you can delete the original group. As long as you keep the names and the comments the same as the original - your new mesh can replace the old one.

Yes, the sleeves showed up on the Sim in Bodyshop. They didn't in the little icon where you select the outfit you want to work on, but they did on the Sim on display. I put the outfit into gameplay and everything worked and looked good except for the texture.

I would love to put the file up, but I'm not sure how to put them up in these threads. Sorry, still very new to all of this. If you could tell me how, I'll put the file up here.

The most easy solution is wat tiggery advised.
Take the hula or the nighty(afbodyslip)
Make a new mesh based on those files.
Rename your groups in either the propertyset of your recolor or in milkshape
And attache your new mesh to it, its the quikest way
There's a easy way to add a subset's to your recolor but i dont know if that's the case here.

If you click edit your post, there's additional options below, manage attachements. rar your files and upload, not that hard

Thanks Tiggerypum, I really appreciate you taking the time to answer. I did as you suggested and it was much easier than linking everything together by hand. I still had problems with the sleeves showing up but I finally figured that out. My problem now is the texture. I move the UV map around in Milkshape and I get different results but none that I'm really happy with. I must have missed a tutorial or something about assigning textures to the meshes (specifically the alpha's).

I use The Gimp when I recolor. When I open the file to recolor the outfit, the alpha parts don't show up with their own files like the texture and alpha. For example: when I open my project folder in Gimp, I see the following files:

body~stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp (this is for the main body of the outfit)
body~stdMatBaseTextureName_alpha.bmp (the black and white file)

Shouldn't there be a set of files for the alpha parts? Or are they controlled by the GMND and SHPE files?

I also wanted to take this chance to thank you for your excellent tutorials and the time you dedicate to all of us newbies. I know the demands on your time must be great and I just wanted you to know that it is truly appreciated.

oh, i only read half of your post......
You need to add a subset to the afbodyhalterpants(propertyset)....
Or even more, here's the link on how to do so, read the comments i gave there:
http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=213184
But i still think you be better of using the hula or nighty......

I you used the Hula there should be a set for the alpa's(the body_alpha)....there not related to the gmnd and shpe files....strange
There not even related to the whole mesh....
bodyshop generates the files using the settings of the propertyset.
Did you connect your mesh to the recolor the proper way?

Thanks for the link bLURR. I've read that article before but I went through it again just in case there was something I'd missed (sure enough, there was).

At this point I've realized that I got off on the wrong track somewhere, trying to make the alpha parts out of a mesh that didn't have alpha parts to start with. I'm not sure how I got off on the wrong track, but if it's possible, I'll find a way to do it.

If I can just figure out how to get the textures right on the alpha parts, I'll pretty much have this problem licked...I think.

I'm still working with Tiggerypum's last suggestion to see if that solves my texture problem.

I really do appreciate all your help and advice. Oh, and here's the file that you asked for. It's the flared sleeves that I did the hard way. It's not finished by any stretch of anyone's imagination, but this is where I'm at on it. Uggh!

If i make transparant sleeves, i just duplicate the arms of the body, rename them/change the comment in commentbox.
Then i change the shape of the arms into sleeves.
I leave the uvmap untouched, so all other textures of other maxis sleeves will fit.
Quick and very ez.
Just had a quick look at the mesh.
Remove the body and body_alpha txt files, they dont belong there
Those files are part of the recolor, not the mesh.
In milkshape the sleeves are set to inside textures
Select the sleeves(all Faces)
Reverse vertex order
alligne normals
Change the opacity to 3 in the comment box of the sleeves
should work now.

Eureka!!

Using Tiggerypum's and bLURR's suggestions, I finally got the mesh package right. There is a seperate set of .bmp files for the alpha parts and that's where I was getting stuck with the color and texture of the alpha parts. *smacks forehead* Figures! If there's a hard way to do something, I'll find it...most of the time without even trying.

I still can't get the flared sleeves to show up transparent, even after doing a 2nd recolor and linking the mesh to the 2nd recolor. I'll keep playing with it and see what I can figure out. I'm just so happy that you guys helped me figure out where I was making my mistake that I'm not overly worried about transparent sleeves at the moment. :D

I can't count the times I've been back through the tutorials and still missed a vital step. Just goes to show that you can never read through something too many times.

A giant THANK YOU to Tiggerypum and bLURR for all of your paitence and help. I apologize, again, for posting this question in the wrong section.

just asking.....you know how the transparancy works on the bmp alpha file?
Cant imagine you dont know, making the file black they dissapear, white is solid and grey transparant.
And i saw in the mesh you remapped the sleeves on the uvmap, there on that same spot on your bmp file.