i have spent alot of time looking on the web before posting however if i missed a tutorial i would like to apologise in advance.

My sister and I are familiar with and use autocad 3dsmax. some work can be seen here if you are interested =http:www.emmafirbank.com/ however please do not send messages to the site email. sorry you will need to copy and past for some reason i cant get the url to work.

i have two questions. firstly if i create my own meshes such as a shower, sink and so on how do i get the sims to use it do i have to clone or can i take the annimations? (is this when you use simpe?) and second how do i import the 3dsmax object into the sims.

if there are any tutorials that would be great

You will need to clone an object the same as if you were using any other program. The basic object creation tutorials go over that - you can follow the rest of it regarding cloning, GUIDs, etc., and the only part that will differ is the import.

Something VERY important to bear in mind if you've been doing modelling with 3DS already - it is not a low-poly modelling program. It CAN make things low-poly, but the default settings and things like smoothing by nature make high poly models. You have to work really hard to keep your poly count as low as possible (800-2000 per tile is generally the limit, depending on the complexity of the item) and bear in mind that Sims 2 works in triangles, not quads so double whatever the count is in 3DS Max.

I believe there's an SMD format exporter for 3DS that you can download - normally you use the OBJ format but I recall there being some issues with that. I haven't used 3DS to make something directly for TS2 (I usually use it to make bits and pieces and then finish them up in Milkshape, but I don't do a lot of object meshing) so someone else might have a more thorough answer for you. Also try searching as I know others have asked about this before.

The SMD importer / exporter for Max only works up to the Max 7 (The only stable one, anyway). I believe there is an SMD exporter for Max 8 and 9 but not an SMD importer.

Use Skankyboy's .3ds to .obj converter.

Just export your file as a .3ds. Then open skankyboy's plugin, it will convert it to a .obj. Then import the converted file.

That's what I have to do. I have 3ds Max 2009.

Converter: http://linna.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=89719

Keep scrolling until you see the attached files.

Follow this tutorial: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=104795

I used the milkshape one. Just skip all the parts about using Milkshape and follow the SimPE stuff.