by timb0
This toutorial will tell you how to create meshes for the Sims. But what are meshes? Meshes are the 3D figures the skins are plopped on during gameplay. They can be very complicated to make, but using this toutorial, we can make it simpler.
First off all open Milkshape 3D. Your screen should look something like this-
THE COLORS MAY LOOK DIFFERENT IN YOUR PROGRAM, AND THE BACKGROUND COLORS IN SOME OF THE FOLLOWING SCREENS MAY CHANGE. Anyways,
you should see, 4 blank boxes. If you have 3 boxes, skip the next step.
To make a skin, i find it easyer to use 1 big box and 2 little boxes. In each box, there is a different view of the model you are creating.
But we need to change this from 4 boxes to 3 boxes. This is extremely easy to do. In the top Menu, go to Window, Viewports, 3 Window. You can use 1 left and 2 right, but i prefer 2 left and 1 right.
After that, it should look like this-
Alright. Now we need to get our mesh we want to edit into here. Just to to File, Import, The Sims SKN...
An Open box will pop up.
Look around for where you keep your skins. All your downloaded skins should be in C:/Program Files/Maxis/The Sims/GameData/The Sims, so look there.
Once you get the skin you want, hit open and your screen will appear something like this.
It will be different depending on what .SKN you open. You see that blue mess hovering over the mesh? Thats the skeleton we don't need the skeleton, and it justs get in the way when you're editing a mesh, and its easy to get rid of.
On the right side of your screen there will be a menu that looks like this-
On the top there are 4 tabs. We want the Joints tab.
At the bottom, there will be a Checkbox with Show Skeleton next to it. You should know what to do...
Uncheck it, and your model will look like this-
Alright. Now here comes the part where you need to read everything, or else you'll get lost. First of all, lets talk about the current view we have open in the big box.
This is called the 3D view. No damage can be done here, its just to look at your model. To look at it from different angles, hold down the mouse while your cursor is in the box and move the mouse around. When your done, let go. If you dont have the 3D view open, look to the next step.
We want to start editing now, so lets go to the front view and see how much we can screw up this model. This is pretty easy. Right click inside the big box, and a menu will pop up. Go to Projection, and hit Front. If you already had the front view open, leave it as is. If you have another view open, just do what you would do if you have the 3D view open.
Now we have this-
Lets make this alittle easyer. The following step is optional. Right click in the big box, and click on Wireframe.
Now we have this-
Here comes the Moment of truth-
EDITING!!!!
First of all, we need to know the tools we use. Here is the key for this section-
Things highlighted in Blue means that we use it
Things highlighted in Red means we dont use it
Things highlighted in Yellow means its a Check Box
Here is the Menu. We will tell you about everything in it, and the directions for each thing. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE MODEL TAB SELECTED!
Tools
Select: When you have this selected, click and drag in the big box and create a box containing all of the vertecies (plural for vertex. vertecies are the points where the white lines, called faces, come together) that you would like to do something to.
Move: When this tool is selected, you can move vertecies around by clicking and dragging.
The 10 buttons underneath the Select and Move buttons are not used in this toutorial.
Redraw All Viewports: I'm not sure what this does, but i keep it unchecked.
Auto Tool: Keep this box CHECKED. It will save you some clicks later.
Select Options
Vertex, Face, Group, Joint: KEEP VERTEX SELECTED! These buttons control what you select with the Select option. We are only moving vertecies in this toutorial.
Ignore Backfaces: I don't know what this does. I keep in unchecked.
By Vertex: This checkbox should be disabled. See pic.
Alright. Now that we know all of the tools, we can begin to edit. Lets start out by bringing the bottoms of the pants lower and making them wider.
To make this easyer, we can zoom in on the area we are working on. Simply press the Select Button and create a box around the shoes and the bottom of the pants. Right click in the big box, and Click on Frame Selection.
now we have this-
Now, lets move the left edge of the left pant leg down and out more. To do this, make a box around the vertex we want to move (we dont need to hit select again), click on the move button, and drag the vertex down and to the left.
Now we just need to do this to the other vertecies. But after you have the vertex or vertecies selected you want to move, you dont need to click the Move button, Auto Tool does that for you. It goes into Move mode automatically. After alittle bit, we end up with this-
Now we move up to the knee area. To do this, right click in the box, click Frame All, select the knee area, and click Frame Selection.
We move the vertecies and we get this-
Lets see how we are doing. Go to the 3D view.
Pretty good, but the sides are still thin. Lets go to the left view and see what we can do.
Now we do everything we did before. Here are the frames.
And our product-
Bravo! Lets save it. Go to File, Export, The Sims .SKN...
Save it using the following code. All blue items are edited.
xskin-b000mafit_name-PELVIS-BODY.skn
The b after xskin- is changed to c if you are making a head.
000 is changed to a unique 3 digit number for your mesh.
ma (male) is changed to fa if you are making a female.
fit (normal sim) can be changed to fat for a fat sim or skn for a skinny sim.
name is changed to the name of your mesh. make it short.
PELVIS-BODY is usually changed to HEAD-HEAD if you are making a head.
A .CMX file is used to lead a .BMP skin to your .SKN mesh. Making .CMX files are easy. First open up Notepad, and paste the following into a blank .TXT file.
// Character File. Copyright 1997, Maxis Inc.
Using the key provided above for naming your mesh, make the changes in this file. Also, if you are making a head, change PELVIS under the 1 and above
xskin-b000mafit_name-PELVIS-BODY to HEAD.
Save this as a .CMX file, not a .TXT file.
Now you can make a skin for your new mesh, or let someone else make one for you!
copyright 2002 timb0
version 300
0
1
b000mafit_name
0
0
1
PELVIS
xskin-b000mafit_name-PELVIS-BODY
0
0
0