So from what I'm seeing here, I need to start over. I need to find a toddler hair that has at least 3 groups, im thinking that ugly bobcut might have enough. Then I need to copy down somewhere the comments for each of the groups. Then i can start meshing it again, (third times the charm?) Each of these groups needs to get UV mapped at this stage, make it all look pretty somehow. Fix all the bone assignments (should I leave them what they were from the old meshes I took them from, or just make them all head and base couple also neck?) Then stick it back into my package and pray like mad it looks decent in bodyshop. That the correct process?

You can probably keep anything you've meshed thus far, assuming you haven't combined parts that you can't pull apart that need to be in separate groups - you just need to start a new mesh package/recolour with the right number of groups, and make what you have thus far fit its group names/order.

Make each piece and as you make each piece, give it a basic uv map. You don't have to give it a perfect UV map yet unless you're going to be duplicating that piece over and over and using repeating textures, in which case you should go ahead and get the map pretty much done before you duplicate, so all your pieces of that type are the same.

Then, once you have everything in place, adjust the maps for anything that isn't final on mapping.

Then, do -head- assignments. 100% head for everything. That's temporary, for Body Shop testing of everything showing up properly, transparency issues, mapping, and texturing. Once everything looks perfect and beautiful and stuff in Body Shop -then- you worry about doing something more complicated than head assignments - fix the neck gap, start adding bouncy animation if desired.

lol, like I can figure out anything more complicated that just assigning it all to the head. There don't seem to be any tutorials explaining that. I'm nowhere without my precious tutorials.

I think I'll just start the mesh over, I've got alot of repeated parts, so its easy to remake, and anything that makes uv mapping easier it is worth its weight in gold.

Well, the neck gap thing is covered in Dr Pixel's tutorial, so that's okay.

The other stuff with hair assignments... I think really comes more with study and experimentation than tutorials. Looking at stuff that kinda works like what you want, and checking out what it's assigned to. Using underlying assignments on the body to tack it down in the right places if it's going down that far. Using nice smooth transitions from one bone to another as you move away from one toward another in your assignments so things don't crunch... all helpful.

The hairstyle im working on isn't any lower than the chin, does all the smooth transitioning stuff matter for this one?

What is the importance on not having the layers poke through each other?

...heh, maybe when I'm done I'll write up a Hair Beginners FAQ for you guys. Fill that gap that caused me so much frustration, so others don't have the same troubles...

If the layers poke through each other, I'm pretty sure that in most cases, you'll be able to see this once you have the hair textures done. In some colours, poking through might be more visible than with other colours.

If the hairstyle doesn't fall below the chin, I'm pretty sure you could get away with just assigning it all to the head (aside from the bottom 5 scalp verticies, which need to be 50/50 head/neck).

What I find helpful is to save multiple copies of the project I'm working on so editing becomes much easier. What you could do is save your full mesh (when it's all assigned to the head) as a .ms3D file (I assume you use Milkshape), export it into the game, and test it out on a toddler. If you find that the hair doesn't look good when the toddler is crawling, you might want to go back in Milkshape and try and fix up the part that causes a problem. Save that in a different .ms3D file, export, test in game if necessary.

You can definitely figure out bone assignments, if you're at the point where you can make a mesh from scratch

Study some meshes you have in your game already, just pick a style that may or may not be close to what you're looking for, and click on some vertices (I generally select one vertice at a time) and use Bone Tool to see what bones they are assigned to. The parts I've seen hair being assigned to are the "head" bones, "neck", "spine1", "spine2" and the l_ and r_ clavicles. And for animation you have l_hair, r_hair, f_hair, b_hair, and c_hair. I don't often see "c_hair" used in custom meshes, I believe it's for animating hair at the centre or top of the head.

If you are studying meshes for bone assignments, I would recommend NOT looking at PeggySims or RoseSims custom meshes.

As for hair faqs/tutorials - I think any type of beginner tutorial that is hair-specific would be good for beginners. Not necessarily fresh beginners, because the clothing and beginner hair tutorial by Dr. Pixel are there for that. But something for after you've finished that tutorial, how to make a hair from scratch when you're a clueless beginner or something lol! I might be slower than most, though, but I think it would be helpful to have something like that.

I don't really think I am making this mesh 'from scratch' I'm just taking other maxis meshes and adding and subtracting and duplicating. Good idea to look at other hair meshes for bone assignments, I know which one exactly too.

As for tutorials, I think I was just going to right up a quick summary of all the questions I've been asking here. Since I'm really good at following tutorials and still couldn't figure the answers out, that generally means the information is less than readily available.

Still didn't get an answer about layers poking through, is this 'bad' or just looks bad?

If the different layers "poke" through each other it won't hurt anything (as in crash the game or cause other problems) but it may look bad.

In other words, if it looks OK don't worry about it.

Here is a link to a post I made showing hair assignments I made for a shoulder-length hair mesh. It may help. At least it has a picture, which is easier than trying to explain in words

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

Actually, that's a very good post. I have noticed that if you happen to find the right post, sifting through threads, you'll find some really good informatioon for hair that's not covered in tutorials. Unfortunately, it's not very easy to locate posts like this, which is why a comprehensive collection of hair-specific posts/tutorials/faqs might be good.

Thanks, Dr. Pixel

Ok, so I'm back to having a working package, I subbed out the toddler hair for one that had more groups, I fixed some random issue the kids hair was having and I even binned it blonde. (Im stalling on going and remaking the mesh)

I'm trying to organize myself a bit here. I've got too many files, and I don't know which ones are necessary. In the end I want as few files as possible. I have a file in my SavedSims folder, and a couple in my downloads folder. Do I need a separate file for my recolors and then one that is just the mesh, or can I combine all 4 colors, all ages, and the meshes into one file? What is the standard for new hair meshes?

Later: Stalling forever doesn't work. I'm working on the mesh again. I just noticed that I think the child curls cylinders that I'm working from aren't double sided, yet the alpha still can cut them into ringlets...I thought to make parts of the mesh disappear they had to have two identical insideout groups. Any thoughts?

Even Later: Ok, now I have a problem again. I'm DARN sure I started over with a tot mesh that had 3 groups. After editing my mesh back down to just three groups, I loaded it into bodyshop. When I went to go make a recolor of it the exported projects file only had 2 groups. After editing it (to make sure) it really only has 2 groups. My method of starting over was putting together the new tot mesh package, all 4 pieces, fix integrty, and then put my modified cres and shape into my old SavedSim package file. Was this not good enough? Starting to get a bit frustrated again, need someone to talk to.

Although it would be possible to combine everything into one .package it isn't a good idea. The problem would be that BodyShop and the game allow you to delete individual hair colors - but if everything is in one .package deleting a single color would make everything disappear. A combined .package with everything in it would also be a huge file. It's best to combine all the mesh files for all ages into one mesh .package, but leave each hair color in it's own .package.



I have noticed the same thing with that mesh. I know why they were able to get away with it on this mesh, but I don't know how to explain it very well.
The best I can do is say that you can never look through part of the curls group and see more of the same group.

If that doesn't make sense, just remember that this mesh is the exception - usually if you try doing it this way you will wind up with strange transparency glitches.

...great, my first attempt at meshing hair, and I pick one that has exceptions to the rules. Peachy keen. Now what?!?

Ok, I understand what to do about the packages now. That clears things up.

Still not sure why my tot hair is acting like it only has two groups, is that information stored in the file that Bodyshop made me originally, and so meaning, I have to redo that part all over?

Thanks for responding Dr. Pixel, I was almost about to lose it again.

Later: HOT D4MN!!! I quit working on the toddler one since it was bugging me so much and i have no idea what to do to fix it. I went on to the child version and so far, it looks pretty sweet! The repeated curls are still ringlet-ing like the original mesh, so even if I don't understand how it worked, I can atleast duplicate it if I'm careful enough. I even have a halfway decent UV map for it too! :: does a little happy mesh dance ::

Much much later: I seriously need to go to bed, but the boyfriend is still having too much fun with his brandnew Wii, I'll keep working till he gives up. So far I've got a cute little girls hair cut, and its even mildly animated. I looked at what the ringlets were on the maxis mesh and just duplicated them for all mine. Then I tried it in the game.... looked kinda silly, my curls seemed to pivot on the top of the head like a seesaw or a swing. I'm gonna go try and change some more values. It would be helpful to know what all the b_hair, c_hair and f_hair things mean, currently I'm using the c_hair, and i looked at another nice swooshey hair style and it had b and f in it, have these been deciphered somewhere?

If you used c_hair, yes it will pivot from the top of the head.

c_hair = center
b_hair = back
f_hair = front
l_hair = left
r_hair = right


The BodyShop color .package determines how many groups your mesh will be able to use and what the mesh group names will be - no you don't have to start all over. This post explains how to add more hair groups to a color .package: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...ewpost&t=213184

Or you could make up a new BodyShop color .package starting with a hairstyle that does have enough groups for all ages. There is a list of some of them here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=149677

Then link that to your mesh .packages. It will look all messed up at first since all the textures and alphas will be wrong, but that is easily fixed by exporting it in BodyShop as a new project and then replacing all the textures and alphas with your new ones.

I should poke Nouk and see if I can get her to release her 15-groups-for-all-ages package as a simple cloneable thingie like she'd given me to use. That would essentially remove the need for any guesswork when it comes to what to clone from, or having to add groups.

You can poke Nouk all you'd like, but I'm going to be stubborn and not use hers. I like to do everything myself, I learn more that way. After I've figured things out, then there is no point to doing busy work, but in the beginning I see more benefit to pulling my own hair out getting this hair to work.

As for the animations, well, I think I need to tighten up the screws on the head assignments for the top, the rest looked okay. As for groups, what happens if I get a starting package that has too many? Can I just delete them, or will that not work/still have too many layers for bodyshop?

Hehe, suit yourself. I've always cloned from whoever's meshes I can when I can - most of my early ones are cloned from melodie9's, cos adding groups is a bit of a pain.

If you have extra groups you don't need, what I always do is make a single plane out of three points, shrink it to a single point (snap together) and hide it inside the head with 100% head assignments for any missing groups.

Thanks for the tip, ... though, can't it be done properly through simpe? Like reverse of adding groups?

I'm sure it can be - remove the textures and material definitions and all the other links... but it's really not necessary to do at all. Just use the same textures for those groups in the recolour and it should share textures and stuff. I don't think the extra unused groups add any appreciable strain or anything.

Just doesn't seem as tidy, thats all.

I'm about to go test out my third animations attempt, yippie skippy? Marks attempt no. 15 since I started over the third time, I'm really hoping this is normal.

I am not a hair mesher, but other things I have done usually require dozens of edit/export/test cycles. Perseverance and perspiration are more valuable than genius (although a little talent helps).

<* Wes *>

The Good:
I have the child one working perfectly, animated and everything.
Teen version, added 3 groups to it, and seems to be working fine so far.

The Bad:
Adult version, didn't add any groups to it, though they weren't the original names. That got my bodyshop to crash, I'm going to try leaving the original names intact.

The Ugly:
Toddler version, added 1 group to it, and I have NO IDEA what is going on with it. When I spin the model around, the mesh doesn't rotate correctly, I don't really know how to describe it cuz I don't know whats going on with it.

Almost all body meshes you would import have three skin weights.
But, some hair meshes have only two, and maybe some have but one.
There is a group comment something like "NumSkinWeights: 3".
If it isn't three, make it so. On all groups.

Your symptoms also sound like maybe some vertices are assigned to nothing or to the wrong bone. That is the primary reason that something does not move along with the rest of the body. Your assignments to the "hair" bones should probably not exceed 10 or 20 percent, at least in most meshes.

<* Wes *>

I figured out what caused bodyshop to crash, I had accidently replaced the GMND instead of the GMDC,... oops. So I fixed that and now it is behaving a bit like the toddler hair, all the curls on the bottom are acting like they should, but the curls on top (separate groups) are spinning weirdly. I'll go check the bone assignments next, thanks wes!

After a bit more looking at it in bodyshop, I've noticed that it is cutting though my other hair groups, it only hides behind the head outline. Almost like it is being rendered ontop of the other one with no concern for depth...

Later: Ok, so I looked at all the vertexes in the affected groups, and every single one of them is 100% to Head. Exactly where I want them. Then I checked comments, they are all set to 3 like you said. I'm not really sure what to try now.

Even Later: I gave up on trying to add groups, that was a bad idea and a half. I started over with a new set of hairs, the flypigtails, they, except toddler, have 5 groups each. This fixed most of my spinny problems, except for the toddler one. That kinda makes sense. Now I will have to only worry about trying to make it work once, instead of 3 times. Though, I'm really confused why the teen version worked before,... Once I figure that out, maybe I'll be a bit closer to getting the toddler one worked out.

The "depth" problem is what I was attempting to explain before - the "alpha" groups must be correctly layered (the opacity settings) or they won't render correctly.

So when you are converting your mesh to the toddler, you have to be careful when changing the group comments - the group names must match the toddler's group names but you still want the opacity settings of the different layers to stay the same as your correctly working adult version (or whatever version it was that you did get to work right)

That doesn't really make much sense. The comments are identical from the different ages, I just imported the child mesh onto the other sizes, so the ones that aren't working for the toddler are identical to the ones that are working for the other ages. Currently the only thing that is different at all is the original number of groups from the hair. That should mean that my problem formed when I added groups. I think I just troubleshooted myself again. Off to try that possibility.