Hi everyone, first I want to say I'm spanish, so, let's tryto speak!
I do meshes, I'm learning, and my meshes, aren't very good because the vertex/bones that I fixed change. I show an img, I think is better than if I write xD

I understand a little english, but searching phorums I'm a disaster xDD

Please, I hope you'll help me :D
Ah! Two more thing, I have problems with the alpha in the game... why that?
And, what I have to do for animate the meshes?
I don't know if other people asked it before, but for me is very dificult search here, don't delete my post
Thak's!

Are you maybe exporting as an .obj or something? If you're not exporting using Unimesh, you'll lose your bone assignments.

I don't know why you'd have problems with your alpha in-game with the info you've given. Can we please see some pictures of what the problem is in-game?

Animating the meshes is a matter of assigning proper bone assignments to them. There is basic animation, so the hair moves properly when the sim moves, and then sway-in-the-breeze animation, which gives hair a realistic bounce and sway to it when the sim moves. All hair needs proper basic animation - yours looks like it might have problems when the sim turns its head from those colours you're showing, and I'm not sure what's going on with the bright blue and yellow on the other side... The sway-in-the-breeze animation is sort of an "extra" thing you can do if you like and can add realism. You do that by assigning certain bits of hair to the hair animation bones (l_hair, r_hair, f_hair, b_hair). Look at some Maxis hairs with similar sorts of shapes and pieces of hair to get an idea of what proper assignments are.

Antonio:
As best I can tell, you are showing a hair mesh? Correct?
And from the colors, I assume you are viewing the model using "Draw vertices with bone colors"? Correct?
If that is right, I believe that HystericalParoxysm has guessed the root cause.
Please show us the steps you used to "export" and "import" the mesh.
Tell us which programs (SimPE, MilkShape) and what import and export options you picked (WaveFront, UniMesh, HalfLife SMD) when you did this.

<* Wes *>

I made the hairs with 3D studio Max, since a month ago, I export the mesh in obj, import into the milkshape, asign the bones, and export with unimesh. The transparency error is the next:

This is in milkshape but in the game is worst.
Thank's so much for your help :D

Transparency issues are generally due to incorrect layering. Layering is very very tricky, but usually you need to make sure that your layering goes from lowest numbered layers on bottom to highest numbered layers on top. hairalpha5 should always be below hairalpha9, or you'll get transparency issues. There are some interesting tricks using different opacities rather than a bunch of actual layers. Nouk goes over them here, but it still requires that you layer things properly or you'll get transparency issues.

Thaks x)
Ah! sometimes the milkshape tells me an error when I'm importing a mesh... Thank's for everithing, I have some meshes made, but I didn't put so much layers, because I had the alpha problems. This weekend I'll try to made all that you said me :D

This is the lastest mesh I made, I deleted some layers because they saw bad in game...
As you can see in the second sim, the bones are 100% head an 100% spine2, I can't put for example 65% head etc... because when I export, it became at 100%...

Oh!
Study the group comments.
Click on the Groups tab, then the comment button.
In the editor there should be a line:

NumSkinWgts: 3

If that has a 1 there, then only one weight will be exported, which is always 100%.

Make sure that the value is 3 for every group in your hair mesh.
If you have no comments at all, import a Maxis hair mesh, and use copy and paste to put them into MilkShape. When people start with an imported maxis hairmesh, UniMesh builds these comments automatically. Since you started in 3DS-Max, the comments weren't there.

<* Wes *>

Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanksss!!!!!!!!!
with the NumSkinWgts: 3 I export and it's correct!! Thanks so muuch!! This weekend I'll pass the hair into the game, I'll do the alpha things, etc...
I hope that the animation won't cause any errors, some times, the seccions that I put for example b_hair are deformed.. xD

The deformation is caused by the skeleton(cres) and/or the comments for the bones in the mesh.(as they are related)
If the hair deformes, pick another maxis hairmesh as base.
Pick one that already uses a similar animation at approximatly
the same height.

I am happy to see you succeeded.
Make sure the weight for every vertex totals 100%.
The hair is especially sensitive to over and under weighting.

<* Wes *>

I use "afhair_longsimple" but if you recommend me another diferent... I'll change.

i have a testmesh and outfit somewhere, ill look it up and post it here

Edit,
Here it is.(lol, not really cos i couldn't find it/ had to remake it)
Its a kinda roadsign with on every end of the cilinder diffrent boneassignements.(fhair/bhair/rhair and lhair.)
Shows on every hairmesh wat it will do so you get a idea how they work.

There is a reason why Maxis did this because when you pick a mesh that doesn't give the distortions it is most likely that the hairbonesettings that come with that mesh(skeleton) will not give you the desired animation.
so the ammount of animation also depends on wat maxis mesh you pick.
hope i explained this a bit so you guys understand.

Note that this is a outfit mesh with hairbones on it, so it works the opposite of the hairmesh

Hi people
I asigned the bones to the hair and it's horrible.... It's for the animated mesh
I put an image here:

Why thiiis!!?? Alwais I put b,l,r,f_hair... I have the same problem...

i just explained........

Sorry, jejeje
But somethings I don't understand, and when I translate it with google somethings are... extrange xD
I think I'm going to take out the l,b,f,r_hair... I don't understand somethings that you say xD sorry... I have to learn more english...

just start with another maxis hairmesh as base.(also build a new meshpackage out of those files)
Import that hairmesh(gmdc) in milkshape and delete all the groups.
Then import your mesh and export(it will give you a diffrent skeleton wich might solve the problem.)

You can use the download(outfit and mesh) i provided to see wich hairmeshes are problem meshes and wich are not!


But,
Looking at your screenshot i think the bones are not 100%
check numskinwghts in comment box also.(must be 3)

yes, I put NumSkinWgts: 3 in all coments... If you want, I can upload the mesh here...

sure

So... the problems with the alpha is okay, now, I have finish the hair, but without animations, but it looks great lot of people from Tecnosims and Coolsims(my web) love it. Thanks so much for all your help
That's what I have made:

I didn't cut the sim so good, sorry xD

Congratulations, looks very good!!!

Hi again people! Yes... one more time with problems jajajajaja
I did what you said with animating and I succedeed!!!!

This is my new mesh, the problem... the back is wrong... I don't know why... please... if you can help me... *_*
Thanks again!

That's really cute!

Looks like maybe the back is pulling into the body a little bit on the left side? What are the bone assignments like for the bottom rows of the back?

The hair it's Ok, the problem it's when you turn the sim and you see it from the back the hair dissapear! It don't go throw the body...
Allways I do something... I do bad xD
Ah! the bones is head and spine2.Spine 2 with b_hair (allways 100%) and at the bottom its spine2 spine1 and b_hair

Well, maybe just temporarily try assigning to spine_2 for the bottom row only - no b_hair as the back part should just stick to the back rather than blowing in the breeze. Hair animation bones can cause weird issues, so try that first and see how it goes.

Ah! One question... Is there any software to check an hair? My sims are soo slowly and the computer sometimes doesn't work... So... I hate open the sims for see if the hair is ok, if isn't, close, edit, open, etc...

I uploaded it for if you can see it and check
http://www.coolsims.net/savedhair.package
(the hair has got a lot of layers, so I had to separate ha5 and ha7)
http://www.coolsims.net/parts.rar
Thanks so much!