I know I am speaking on behalf of various meshers now, when I'm making this request/question.

We know that all those Maxis shoes, that come with Maxis' outfits aren't so adorable, at least I don't personally like them so much. My opinion is that they're too "granny-like". Anyway, back to the subject, I read that Dr. Pixel's great shoe UV-mapping tutorial and those shoes were just my style! And from that moment I have thought in my head that "I wanna make something similar, but who could I ask help?", and now I'm asking that PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, make even small tutorial, that is covering up the creating part itself and the attaching-to-a-mesh- part. I have looked everywhere, from all The Sims 2- sites, nothing. I have tried that myself, and I bet that many others have tried that too, but no luck at all. So please someone kind person there, who has the skills to do all that - help me and many others that have to suffer everyday with those Maxis' "granny-shoes" while playing.


Thank you in advance!

Sophia

First off, take a look at this site - there are some beautiful shoe meshes by Al that you can download and use to replace the shoes on Maxis meshes {see the attached pic showing a mesh I used one of Al's shoe mesh on)

http://www.simskins.net/

The one I show in the UV_mapping tutorial I made myself - it's much simpler, I just basically added a platform sole (made from parts of the Maxis foot) and a simple heel to it.

I'll try to make a small tutorial on this when I have some spare time.

Hello guys, I'm new here
Thanks a bunch for the HUGE effort in creating those useful tutorials! It really teaches me alot, starting from nothin.

Yeah! sophia, great minds think alike I wanted to change the maxis's heels too, they are too "grannish." Hey Dr. pixel, I also found those gorgeous heels from www.simskins.net but i do not know how to combine the meshes properly, all I get is monsters.

I'm also creating monsters I don't know, but the shoes doen;t fit correctly and when I try to turn them then I need to snap al the vertex together and then I get a monster I really need a good tutorial I think

Charliemaz, you are using Unimesh -- not Meshtool, correct? If you're trying to add things with Meshtool, the mesh will explode like that.

Tammeke - are you getting an exploding mesh or having some other problem?

Btw, some of Al's shoes are high poly -- some have individual toes and the shoes alone are 2000 vertices (an entire sim body is that) So if you do add those shoes, be sure to post the vertice count (and the count of the mesh beforehand)

Well..I'm using the Milkshape as your tutorial specify.

Unimesh is a plugin for milkshape, which you need to import and export the meshes with.
heres the link. http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=122399

Ohh....I get it! Thanks a bunch simhunter

Yeah!! I've finally got it right, well...I think so. The monster is gone..but i still have some problems with skinning the shoes (check out the screenshots)
I am so happy that i wanted to show everyone my First creation!

Did you place the texture (that came with the shoe mesh) on the black & white alpha? Then you save and texture it.
Edit Oh and i dont think the shoe texture comes in the white you probably need to white out the shoes and place it over. then you texture it.

Okay, first, there is a psd file that comes with most of Al's meshes that will give you a GOLD shoe and toes, that you can then recolor. You will need to add those pieces in exactly those locations to your texture (so do a recolor of your mesh in bodyshop, and you need to add the shoes colors and create the matching WHITE alphas for them) Al still expects you to do some work to have finished shoes.

Secondly, I'll remind you there's a README file with it - if you ever choose to share the mesh, you are required to give him credit and include the readme in the folder with your mesh (you can also make your own readme) and include a link with the download (so in your description here on site you'd include the simskins link in the info you give)

Eureka! I manage to colour the shoes! A Big Thanks to everyone!
Well, there's still a minor problem with my mesh, the thighs and arms are not smooth, they appears to be like plastic casting (shown in the screenshots.)

Maybe have you checked autosmooth in milkshape? mmmmm I don't know

P.S.
I've found out how to get the shoes perfectly fit, nut Vertex--> weld together does't work??? What have I done wrong?

1) never check autosmooth

2) never use the menu item 'smooth all'

If you need to smooth over the normals where you joined two parts together -- 'snap' your vertices together (DO NOT WELD) and use demon's align normals gmdc addition (in the stickies!)

Now as you did damage the mesh, make sure autosmooth is off, and now take demon's tool and select the arm (sections at a time) and use demon's tools - it will smooth MOST of your mesh w/o leaving any shadows. Then work on the leg seams and the other seams. You might need to avoid the vertices on the very edge of the skirt, but you should be able to get most of the mesh looking smooth again.

wad is demon's tool?

http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=139859

My first creation is officially successful! haha...thank u so much guys!
oh,erm...another problem why does her knees crack (shown in screenshot.)

Assuming that you did snap the vertices together (you should also look at the uvmap just to double check that those vertices are neatly on top of each other)

the problem is that the two vertices do NOT have identical bone assignments. So one pair at a time, select the vertices at that seam, and make sure their bone assignments are identical (and also that they add up to exactly 100%)

I'm not sure which part of the vertices to snap...is it these?

Yes Charlie, I'd double check all the ones around there. Make sure they match exactly and make sure that if there are 2 at the same spot that they have identical bone assignments. You should have done that when joining the two parts together - you can even still do that while they are separate groups (and thus easy to see where that seam is)

Note I am not telling you to collapse any of those points into one, but someplace there (that we can't see anymore) is your seam between the new leg mesh and the rest of the sim body. You need to find that seam and then check every bone assignment and that the vertices match exactly. Then the seam will be invisible in the game.

Yeah! after three tries, i finally got it right! Thank you so much tiggerypum I'll post some screenshots of my learning process

I don't know if this would work but it may. When making my first dress mesh, I noticed that the dress comes with shoes as part of the mesh. I was wondering if it is possible to create the dress mesh with the dress part deleted, leaving only the shoes. It seems like it will cause conflicts, but I wonder if it would.Would you automatically get a monster? The idea was to create a shoe mesh that you could apply like a regular outfit. Of course, you don't have to use the dress. I wonder if pants meshes would do it.

Rsim, you can for your own use take the shoes from ANY of the Maxis meshes and combine them with some other mesh -- but you can't make 2 'body' meshes and wear them both at the same time in the game, you will need to build a mesh that is 1 body with the parts on it that you want.

Ive been having trouble with Al's Shoe meshes,now the Shoe mesh thats has the leg included i have no trouble but the shoe mesh thats seperate from shoe mesh ive been having some trouble with,the mesh came out odd,the right leg was looking like it was trying to get away from the mesh.it looked nice on Milkshape,but in Body shop it looked weird.

That is most likely cause by incorrect vertex assignments.

Check the vertex assignments and weights on the problem leg - it's easy to get them assigned to the wrong leg if you aren't careful.