Bonita, if you have a question that's not about a specific tutorial or a related to a thread you see, then the answer is to go to the bottom of the main bodyshop meshing forum (not in tutorials or infocenter) and click 'new thread' and post your question there. Simply include as much information as possible so that people might be able to answer, which you did do. Thanks

Raincandy, that's not really related to this tutorial - it's hair, but it's not what this tutorial is about. Thank you for posting pictures, but please, if it's not something directly related to the tutorial itself, please post questions in the main Body Shop Meshing area.

There's really not enough of a pic there of your actual mesh that I can tell how you have the braids set up... Ideally, for a style like that, you would want the braids as part of the "hair" group, making for a remarkably simple mesh in terms of layering - but that is also going to make it very difficult to actually model in braids and also have the "hair" group match up properly on the seams. I'm guessing you started with the Maxis mesh that's set up like that already? You should be able to see how the braids are actually part of the hair group... you'd want to end up with something like that, but to be quite honest, I don't see any easy way to scale the braids already in there and add more... It could be done on a separate layer but that would be... non-ideal, and putting them as part of the "hair" layer would be... an extremely advanced project, duplicating the braid pieces, moving them into place, and then working to fill and properly map the areas in between. Braids as cylinders laid on top of the "hair" group would probably be the easiest... To do it better, similar to the Maxis original, as a single group... well... um... I'll just say that it's a project I wouldn't do personally, with my level of skill.

When you said: "Next, create a new mesh .package for the adult version of the mesh, and link it up to the BodyShop .package as explained here : http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=139819" this link didn't give very clear instructions. Is there a clearer set of instructions? Your tutorial was very helpful, except for that step. Without it, i can't do it at all.

tomasz, have you done the _three_ unimesh body tutorials? If not, start there. By the end of that you should understand what those words mean.

Thank you Tiggerypum, i realized that right after i posted the message here. I followed the tutorial, and this is what came of my creation once i put it back in the game. The one part is moving around and i can see through the sims head. I went back and tried to figure out what i did wrong, and i really don't know what i did wrong. the only thing i did inn milkshape in terms of changing the mesh was using scale tool with a few points to make part of the hair longer.
*edit* i fixed the see-through area... but i tried 8 different times, and that one area is still floating around, and i tried changing a different part of the mesh, and not touching the odd moving part, and that part still floats.... so...please help!

What are the bone assignments - if you are just using unimesh, making bone assignments to _animation_ bones on the head will cause bad displays like the one you show. Also underweight bones will cause the same problem. Article about that is in the infocenter: Hair: Strange Transparency or Holes http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=131417

okay, thank you. i changed all the bone assignments and it works great, just a few touch ups and Davey Havoks hair will be ready to upload, thanks a bunch

I have a quetion, I made a hair mesh before, the only problem is I would like to animate it or atleast make it work correctly. It's a long hair and when my sim looks up the hair flies through the chest, which is kind of strange. I know it has something to do with assigning bone vertices. I would be very greatfull if you could help me, or point me to a tutorial that explains the different vertices and how to use them. Thank you

Yes, you need to assign your hair vertices to appropriate bone assignments...

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...9353#post999353

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...219#post1000219

basically, the bones you're interested in are hair, neck, and spine2

Thank you, you've been such a great help, you rock lol. Seriously though thanks for everything

Should have asked this before, I have hair falling over the chest, is there away to assign that hair to a certain bone so when they move the hair doesn't fall through the chest. I wish for it to stay on top thanks. If you need pics let me know, thanks again

Phoenix please go experiment and check what the joints are that are near the upper body. The 'shoulder' joint is 'spine2', and is located in the center of your sim, and anchoring the hair in the front to it would probably mostly do the trick.

You can also load up a sim body and look at what the bone assignments are on the body around those areas.

Okay thanks, thats a good idea, I'll look at my body mesh now. Also I tried testing before it kind of ended up funny, I thought maybe the middle joint would be near the chest and then in game when I checked it out the hair flew everywhere lol. Also thanks for your tips before I was able to assign the back of the hair and now it doesnt fly through the front :D

Update:

It worked!!!! It worked thanks so much for your help with the bone assignments, I really appreciate it :D. Also thanks to everyone who wrote the body and hair meshing tutorials, you are all so talented and I aspire to one day be as talented as you guys(which is a very long way off lol). Next thing to experiment, animations(now that will be an adventure

Hey!

Firstly, thank you for the tutorial! I -almost - got it... except for the part where bodyshop crashed when I tried to open my new mesh...I'm not sure where I went wrong, but I think it has something to do with mixing up the files and maybe putting something in the wrong folder?

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Thank you!

Sishiluv, no way to tell you based on your description. Go and find all the files you made for this project and delete them... including the recolor in saved sims and start over.
Also, I noticed you posted a 'thank you' in the Meshtool tutorial. Before attempting the unimesh hair tutorial, I recommend doing the *three* UNIMESH body tutorials. Seems unlikely you managed that. A bit more practice before trying to modify the hair files might be a good idea.

Thanks, Tig. I tried again (before you replied), and I managed to modify the file without any problems, except a couple of minor glitches. I'll probably just go back and sort them out after doing the other tutorials.

Thanks.

I always get confused at this part: Export it as a BodyShop project, then import it back into the game with no changes. Close BodyShop, then go to your Saved Sims folder and copy the new .package file into the work folder. Next, create a new mesh .package for the adult version of the mesh, and link it up to the BodyShop .package as explained here : http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=139819


I click on the link but I don't understand!

vio1ette, have you done the unimesh tutorials for body changes as is stated as the prerequisite for doing this tutorial?

The two differences are

dr pixel suggests copying out the file from saved sims to your work folder, changing it, and copying it back (which I don't do for body meshes, I just leave it in the saved sims folder) But he does this to make sure he didn't leave any modified shapes or cres' in the file

the other part is that you need to find the correct 3dirs to do that modified shape and cres thing to... which he shows a picture of below, and which is also pictured in the section of that linked article about 'Attaching the Hair to the Recolor File' which is about half-way into the article.

How Do Link The Files Into The Bodyshop

SimKiller do the prerequisite tutorials. Then you would know.

Please help, everytime I try to assign this one particular mesh, with the sims 2 unimesh bone tool. I get an error message and then milkshape closes. Is there anyway else I can do assignments without this tool. Thanks




UPDATE: Problem fixed, I ended up exported the hair mesh as an object file, starting a new milkeshape and opening up the gmdc. I deleted the hair and left the obj, then I just copied and pasted the comments and saved a new fle. Still it was weird how it didnt work with the original file....

I want to thank you for making such a great tutorial. This tutorial also answers other questions I have just working on clothing meshes.

My new mesh comes up in the bodyshop very strange looking. Can you please tell what I did wrong?

Wow.
Bone assignments. I don't know what you assigned the hair to, but you need to fix the bone assignments.

My problem is, that after importing the hair mesh into Milkshape the screen fills up with these huge blue squirling lines and the actual mesh is tiny in the middle of them all. Admittedly I didn't try the exact mesh in the tutorial, I used that one with the spikes. Anyway what are the blue lines?