Cool..thanks for the info Jay...I have decided to give up on changing it through...I made a few changes to that mesh, and put it in my game...it's still got the black areas, but works well enough I guess...posted a pic of it with a skin I did in another thread. If you can figure it out, if you have the time and want to...I would be interested in knowing what to do. Thanks!

Oh, thank you !
You guys are so kind.
I will never give up :kami: though it is really hard to conquer XSI.
I will take some time to understand all the details of yours answer.
Maybe later I have questions.

How to separate a model into several layers?

Can these layers be made invisible separately by using the layers tool?

The Layers menu is pretty intuitive. Access it by clicking on the Layer tab in the top-right corner. Press '6' to bring up the layer control list. The first column in the list is for visibility, and a given layer can be checked on or off.

An XSI 'model' could have many different mesh objects in it and each individual object could be placed on different layers. So an XSI model is not necessarily a single mesh. However, the layer control is by 'object' only, so you can't select a subset of a mesh and put that on a separate layer, unless you split the mesh up, which is probably no good if you are editing an existing mesh and trying to maintain vertex order/UV mapping/bone assignment. So basically, layer control has no effect when editing a single mesh or object and therefore wouldn't be used if editing a Sims 2 mesh.

However, if you are making a new mesh for the game, you can model however you want with however many objects or meshes you want. Then when you export an .obj, just select all the meshes before exporting, and the .obj will be composed of all the selected meshes.

You can hide parts of a mesh by selecting polys or points and pressing 'H'.

You can display the mesh so that it hides the elements that would be hidden during rendering by switching the display mode to Hidden Line Removal.

I want to use layers to separate several models of an objects because some objects consist of several models and 1 smd can only contain 1 model. I have to import several smd files to see the whole picture for this kind of objects and export them separately to different smd files. Once several models are combined, it is hard to separate them. Do you have any other good idea to export them separately and I can see the whole object while editing?
Also, 2 more questions. If I cut off a face, how can I paste 2 separate face(adjacent to the cut face) at their edges? If I create a face, how can I paste the created face on a exisiting model ?
Thank you again.
I don't want to ask so many questions. I do have spent time on reading tutorials available on web but many tutorials do not cover what I want. Sorry, I know I am annoying. Plz forgive me.

Well, let's get some definitions or terms, because I'm confused. When you say 'objects', do you mean .obj files?

I know that .obj files can have multiple, separate meshes, so I think that is what you are talking about.

In XSI, you have 'objects,' which could be a poly mesh, a nurb mesh, a light, camera, null, etc. You can have a scene with lots of different objects. These objects can be put on different layers.

So, if I have an .obj file that I import, and it has two or more different meshes in it, I can put them on different layers, just like you want. Then I can pick one mesh and export it.

BTW, in XSI, there is also a 'model,' which is a kind of container. You can put different objects, such as meshes and lights in the model, and then move or animate the model as a whole. This is all done in the Explorer tree, by dragging meshes into the model.

If I understand the problem correctly, you want to import several .smd files, put each mesh on a different layer, and then export them back out to different .smd files. Is this correct? I've done this. Is there something else that you are needing to do?

I don't know exactly what you asking on the faces, but you can create polys in a number of ways, including drawing them out from an existing face. It kind of sounds like you just want to add edges across an existing poly. Try to explain it to me better.

Thank you for your reply.
I apologize for my poor english.
I think maybe I could explain what I said better with a diagram. Hope you understand.

1: when you have cut out face b press "M" on your keyboard, the press "alt" and keep it pressed! move your cursor over a vert and left click, now you can move that vert around, if you move it over another vert they will weld together
2: position the two objects the way you want them, then pick both. now go to the create -> poly.Mesh menu and pick boolean ->union. this will create a new mesh out of the old ones. freeze the new mesh and delete the old ones. thats it!


DivaDice

Thank you !:D
Now I am going to practice.

After practicing & reading yours threads, I have learned something.
But I can't manage it very well so far.

I know some objects already have textures. They are black in color when viewed in shaded mode & can be made invisible selectively by editing the alpha. How to add textures to added faces while modeling? How to remove them on an existing face? Is it related to mapping( I haven't learned it yet but I will read tutorial later)?

Mabelline could you please post some screenshots to illustrate because I am a little bit uncertain about what is you want
DivaDice29

Sorry, forget about it. I made a mistake. I tried to import the same object to both XSI and milkshape. It looked different in different program. What I said only happens in milkshape but not XSI.

I tried to bevel a point. Nothing changed. I showed what I have done in the screenshot(the sequence is from left to right) http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y3.../bevelpoint.jpg .
An editor poped up after I chose 'bevel components'. I can't change 'nb subdivs' (does it stand for no. of subdivision?)in the editor. Can you change it in XSI foundation version? I also tried other tools such as knife, split edge ...... but the result is undesirable.
Now I tried my best to minimize the no. of questions I ask here. Plz help.

try selecting the vertex and then go into the modify-> polymesh menu again then select "disconnect components", you will not be able to see much of an result but if you hit "M" on the keyboard and drag the vertex around you will see what have happened, it has actually been split up into 3 verts. The only thing you have to do now is to weld two of them together again.

the "nb subdivs" stands for number of subdivisons as you said but it only works when you are working with edges or polygons.

don't be afraid of asking questions, after all you are never gonna learn if you don't ask we are here to help each other

DivaDice29

Thank you, divadice29!:D
I really appreciate your attitude.
You are right. Asking questions is a way of learning ( of coz sometimes I have to solve problems myself) & we are helping each other.Maybe someone can learn something by reading our threads.Though I don't have enough skill to help anyone here, I might be able to teach others in the future. To be honest, XSI is so complicated that I cannot learn to use it effectively by just playing with it. So here are my questions.

1.I tried to import several smd files to different layers( 1 layer for 1 smd file & each smd file has bones)and hide all the bones. After editing them, I export them separately to several smd files. When I export a single mesh(from one of the smd files imported), I select the layer it belongs , unhide bones , select all visible bones (it seems that all these bones are from all the layers) and the mesh in that layer and then export it to a smd. All three export options are unchecked. Eventually the smd file contains all the meshes in all the layers. What I want is 1 mesh in a layer with its bone being exported to 1 smd file. Did I do something wrong? What smd export option do you check?

2.As I have said, an object can have several meshes. This kind of object have to be separated into several smd. I found some meshes of the same objects are more or less the same. Can I import them to a scene, edit them simultaneously and then export them to separate smd ?( of coz their bones should also be separated) How?

3.How to assign added vertices to the nearest bone? Is there any tool can assign them to the best place automatically? I can't find any.

Regarding Question 1 of the above post:

I've tested this and no matter what I do, if I have two meshes, (imported one .smd twice), then the exported. smd will have both meshes.

A workaround is to save your base file, then temporarily delete all but the mesh you want to export. Then after exporting, just re-open the base file again to get all meshes back.

2: Why does it need to be separated into multiple .smd files? Is this an issue with the Mesh Tool? I'm just trying to understand. It's also possible to join separate meshes into one.

3: I don't know... will have to be tested.

Mabelline I'd love to help you out with this but I'm still having trouble with getting the import/export tools to work, I have registred and everything but I still never get the added options :weep: If anybody has any help on this I would be very greatful.

DivaDice29

I`m not sure exactlly what part of the importing isn`t working for you.

If it`s your not getting the options to import/export smd files, I take it you have downloaded the game pack and entered the registration number into the program and also the import/export smd options are in the Valve menu (third from the right I believe) not the file menu.

If however it`s a problem with smd files the mesh tool is creating can you post the files what are causing the problems.

From what I know of the smd format it doesn`t support multiple seperate meshes being in the same file, if you add two meshes and then save them as a smd file, there will really become one mesh (as there will be no way to tell what is part of one mesh and what is part of the other when reading the file), maybe I am wrong here and there is actually a way to keep them seperate in the same file, but it doesn`t mention it in the documents for the format.

So the mesh tool will only support one mesh being in a smd file.

I've realized that to be the case from my testing. I am wondering if you could just save all the meshes into an .smd file, knowing that it creates one mesh. I guess this would be bad if the meshes had bones, and saving it to one .smd mesh changed the vertex to bone relationships. Is this the case or is there another reason. This is basically what I am asking.

Thank you , Miche.

BTW, Mabelline

The answer to 2 is basically 'yes', if you use the technique I outlined in Answer 1 above. You would have the separate meshes and bones, but before exporting to .smd, you would need to (temporarily) delete everything you didn't want to export to a certain .smd.

For answer 3, there is a way to assign vertexes to bones automatically (assigned to closest bone), because I have done it. In XSI, tying a mesh to a skeleton (a bone or hierachy of bones) is called 'enveloping'. Here is the 'automatic' method:

To assign an envelope:

1. First select one or more geometric objects to be deformed as part of an envelope.
2. Choose Deform > Envelope > Set Envelope from the Animate toolbar.
Note: The Envelope dialog box opens if an object is already an envelope. Set the option as desired and click OK.
4. Pick one or more deformers. You can pick any type of object, including bones. Left-click to pick a single object, and middle-click to pick a branch.
5. When you have finished, right-click to end the picking session.

6. The Automatic Envelope Assignment property editor opens.

(The above property editor lets you change how the Envelope Assignment is performed. It can be changed after the fact.)

Once you have done this, every vertex is assigned a 'weight' that determines how much a certain bone will influence it. When a bone has been enveloped, it is assigned a color, and the vertexes of the mesh are also assigned colors depending on which bone has the most influence over that vertex or point.

After doing the Automatic envelope, select the mesh and press CNTL-E to pull up the envelope weight editor. This will show a matrix of numbers where ever point has a number assigned to it for every bone that is influencing it. You can then hand edit this to assign or unassign a point to a certain bone or bones. Selecting a point in the weight editor will highlight that point in the mesh, but it can be hard when you have lots of points.

Instead of selecting the whole mesh, go into point mode ('T') and select just the point or points you want to edit, and then press CNTL-E. The weight editor will show just the points you have selected, and you can reselect and edit on the fly.

Also, if you do the envelope operation, and then do a bevel or some other operation that adds points, those points will automatically be added to the envelope with weights based on their distance from the nearest bones. Again, you can tell which bone has the most influence on them by the color of the bones and the points. For example, yellow points will be most influenced by the yellow bone. The weight editor matrix uses the bone names and colors to indicate which bone is influencing a point.

From post #27



I found an add-on for XSI that should be usable in ModTool:

http://www.mindthink.de/ohm/userNormals

Usage: This addon creates an empty polygon mesh,
which's points are linked to the tips of
user normals of another polygonmesh.
This way you can control the user normals
of a polygonmesh interactively.
Shading is updated interactively as well.

Also, check here:

http://www.softimage.com/xsinet/L04...nfo/default.htm

This is on XSI NET. It is a list of MCP & UI add-ons. Look for the one called 'Edit User Normals'.

Thank you all of you!
Jay, I know what you said but one thing making it very troublesome is bone. Once several meshes are imported to a scene, eventhough they are in different layers, it seems that their bones combine. I can't find a way to separate them. If I right-click to select bones in a layer, all bones of other layers are also selected. How can I separate bones?

divadice29, you can download the game add-on from softimage and install add-on and then the importer and exporter appear in 'Value Source'. You can get the activation key on the softimage official website to enable the smd exporter.

I've seen that in my testing. Last night I brought in a dress mesh. It had 64 bones, about 45 of which were linked to one or more points. They are named 'bone 1' to 'bone 64'. I am guessing that if you import multiple .smd files that have bones with the same name, then they will be treated as the same object, even if they are not in the same exact position. You can test this by importing the same .smd twice. Import it once, and move it over a bit. When you do the second one, the points of one mesh will shift to match the points of the other mesh, apparently due to the bones of one mesh being merged or replaced by the bones of the other mesh.

I just did a test where I had the same .smd, but after importing it once, I named the root bone (top bone or joint in hierarchy) some different name. I moved the model and skeleton off center, and imported the same file in again. This time I got a separate skeleton for each mesh, and the two meshes are not affected by each other's skeletons.

So the solution is to temporarily rename the top or root bone in a skeleton.

Last night, I opened a dress mesh in Mesh Tool 9.46 and exported an .smd file. I opened this in XSI and had the mesh with 64 bones, all color coded, and their weights were viewable and editable by using the weight editor (CNTL-E). Most of the points were linked one, two, or three bones with values of 25, 50, 75, or 100.

I didn't edit any weights or add any points, but I did modify point positions slightly. I used a symmetry map with Proportional modeling (a term for 'soft selection') to quickly edit the mesh without having to do point-by-point tweaking.

Another cool thing is that the .smd has the Sims 2 material included (material, but not the texture). In XSI, you can open the rendertree, and import the dress texture that goes with the mesh. Then you can render, or set the viewport display to 'Textured' or 'Textured Decal' to see the texture in real-time. Because the dress texture doesn't include the skin texture, I also opened the dress texture file in Photoshop and recolored the skin areas very quickly with a skin color. As soon as I save the file in Photoshop, the texture display in XSI is updated with the new colors. There is also a way to blend textures toghether and mask them in the same way that they are done within the game so that you can have the skin and dress, and bumpmap textures blended on the model in XSI exactly like they would be within the game.

I was able to export this back to .smd and use Mesh Tool 9.46 to get it into a gmdc file. The mesh displayed in the Mesh Tool viewer, and in the SimPE viewer properly. But... !

In bodyshop and in the game, the mesh moderatly messed up, and it was messed up in areas that I didn't even touch, like the toes and feet. My editing was above the waist, but virtually the entire mesh was trashed in the game. It appears to be a skeleton thing too, because if you look at it in the game where the skeleton is animated, parts of the mesh that looked OK in body shop become messed up once they are moved around by the game animation. For example, the left foot was messed-up in bodyshop, but the right foot looked good. In the game, in CAS, the model stands in a non-symmetrical pose with the right foot pushed out and forward, and it is now messed up. And as the model goes through motions, parts of the mesh that look OK, become messed up as the skeleton bends.

So close... and yet, so far!

Can you post the gmdc and smd files which you had this problem with.

Also just to check you did have the "using xsi Mod tool" box checked and the "body editing" box checked in the mesh tool when you imported the smd file.
Also when you created the smd file from XSI, you had the last option in the smd export box unchecked (the "remove unused bones" option).

I`m just checking cause these are the most likely causes of the problems you have with it being messed up in bodyshop.

Thank you so much!Genius!
Now I am going to try it.:D