Riccinumbers_TheBeginnersGuideToMeshing

OBJECT CREATION PART 1 – BY RICCINUMBERS

The Beginners Guide To Meshing

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1. Introducti on 3

2. What you will need 3

3. Extracti ng from TSR Workshop 43.1. Cloning Object 43.2. Exporti ng Meshes 6

4. Building our Mesh in Milkshape 3D 74.1. Setti ng Up Milkshape 3D 74.2. Importi ng Mesh 74.3. Deleti ng Shadow Mesh 84.4. Selecti ng Box Tool 9

5. Drawing the Table Top 10

6. Making the Legs 116.1. Creati ng Leg 116.2. Scaling Leg 116.3. Hiding Reference Mesh 126.4. Moving Leg 136.5. Duplicati ng Leg 136.6. Deleti ng Reference Mesh 146.7. Renaming Groups 156.8. Exporti ng to OBJ 15

7. Meshing Hints 16

8. UV Mapping 178.1. Introducti on 178.2. Loading Mesh 178.3. Mapping Groups 188.4. Proporti onati ng 208.5. Arranging 228.6. Saving Mesh 23

9. Wood Grains 249.1. Introducti on 249.2. Assigning Material 259.3. Selecti ng Faces 269.4. Opening Texture CoorDinate Editor 279.5. Selecti ng UV Faces 279.6. Rotati ng UV Faces 289.7. Scaling UV Faces 299.8. Checking Legs 309.9. Saving File 30

10. Fixing UV Map 31

11. Regrouping 33

12. High Level Detail Mesh 3412.1. Introducti on 3412.2. Checking Current Assignments 3512.3. Ordering and Renaming 3512.4. Assigning Joint 36

13. Ground Shadow 3713.1. Introducti on 3713.2. Extracti ng Shadow Texture 3813.3. Assigning Shadow Texture 3913.4. Adjusti ng 4013.5. Saving High Level Mesh 41

14. Low Level Detail Mesh 4214.1. Importi ng Meshes 4214.2. Assigning Joint 4314.3. Exporti ng Mesh 43

15. Importi ng Meshes 44

16. Sun Shadow Meshes 45

17. Object Creati on Part 2 47

18. Extra Credit – Wood Grains 48

19. Credits 55



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1. INTRODUCTION

Object Creati on Part 1

The Beginners Guideto meshingBy RicciNumbers for The Sims Resource

Creati ng a Simple Mesh using TSR Workshop, Milkshape 3D, and UV Mapper Classic

This is a beginner tutorial. This tutorial will not teach you the tex-tures for TSR Workshop. This will only cover Milkshape 3D and some instances of UV Mapper Classic.

2. WHAT YOU WILL NEED

TSR Workshop

htt p://www.thesimsresource.com/workshop/programs/details/ti tle/TSR%20Workshop%20Public%20Beta/category/sims3/id/112/

Apple’s TSR Workshop Tutorial

htt p://www.thesimsresource.com/tutorials/view/id/14210/cate-gory/sims3/preview/0/

Milkshape 3D 1.8.5

htt p://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/ms3d/index.html

UV Mapper Classic

htt p://uvmapper.com/downloads.html

Graphics Program

You will also need a program that can handle DDS (Direct Draw Surface) and it must also be able to handle Alpha Channels. I use Photoshop CS2 (or newer) as my personal preference.

htt p://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/?promoid=BPDEK

DDS Plugins

htt p://wiki.thesimsresource.com/index.php?ti tle=DDS

512×512 Wood Texture

When we get to mapping.

htt p://www.lemog.fr/lemog_textures/index.php



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3. EXTRACTING FROM TSR WORKSHOP

For this tutorial we are going to make a new coff ee table. Make sure aft er downloading Workshop you follow Apple’s guidelines to put the plugins into Milkshape. We will be using Apple’s guide as an extra reference.

3.1. CLONING OBJECT

Open TSR Workshop. You will click on Create New Project.

A window will pop up immediately and you will click on the Object butt on and then Next as shown.



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Now we will click on:

Surfaces ► Coff ee Tables

Aha! There are all the listed coff ee tables we can clone. We want to clone:

Club Coff ee Table 1x1

as shown in Apple’s Workshop Tutorial.

Apple refers to a wso fi le. Workshop only exports wso fi les. That is why we need the plugins installed so that Milkshape will then support the wso fi le. While we work we will work with a Wave-front obj fi le. Wavefront obj fi les do not support bone assignments which we will have as we go. The fi nal result will again be a wso fi le for import into Workshop.

Now click Next.

The following window pops up and here is where we will give our project a name and descripti on.

A.) The top line is for your project name. This is what we will save the wrk fi le name as. Yes yet another extension name, the wrk fi le. This is the fi le extension for the saved project. You will see the method to this madness in just a moment.

B.) You can name the object as it will show in game.

C.) The descripti on the object will have in the game.

Click Next and then OK to load the object in Workshop.



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3.2. EXPORTING MESHES

Noti ce that in the Mesh tab of Workshop you have a fi le named High Level Detail, Low Level Detail and 2 Shadow fi les. These fi les are all parts of your item and you will edit the fi rst two to make a new object.

Export the fi les naming them High Detail Mesh and Low Detail Mesh, using the Export butt on.

Do not worry about the shadow fi les. You only need these two. Save your mesh fi les to a folder named Tutorial Table and they will save to .WSO Files.

Then once you get those from Workshop you go to:

File ► Save

and Workshop will prompt you to save to a .WRK File so you can re-open your project later. Save it to the Tutorial Table folder that you exported your meshes to.



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4. BUILDING OUR MESH IN MILKSHAPE 3D

4.1. SETTING UP MILKSHAPE 3D

Next we’ll open Milkshape 3D. Before we begin we’re going to set up our 3D view of Milkshape like shown on the left .

You will right-click the 3D window with your mouse and make sure Textured is checked.

Next you need to go to the top of Milkshape Window and make sure that Show Viewport Capti on is clicked:

Window ► Show Viewport Capti on

IMPORTANT FACT!IMPORTANT FACT!IMPORTANT FACT!

X = Sideways Y = Up/Down Z = Front/BackX = Sideways Y = Up/Down Z = Front/BackX = Sideways Y = Up/Down Z = Front/Back

4.2. IMPORTING MESH

Ok now that we have done this you will import the main High Lev-el of Detail fi le into Milkshape:

File ► Import ► TSRW Object

On the left you see the object we will edit.

Noti ce the lines that circle the object? Those are the Bones/Joints assigned to our Mesh.

The bott om fl at part is a Shadow Mesh named group_0.

These two things we are not going to worry about right now. We will have to deal with these later.



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We can hide these blue circles by going to the Joints tab and dou-ble-clicking the bone to select and then go to:

Edit ► Hide Selecti on

at the top of the Milkshape screen.

4.3. DELETING SHADOW MESH

Now go to the Groups tab at the top.



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You will see names in the groups tab as shown on the left . In the case of our table there are 2 groups named group_0 and group_1. We want to use the table itself so in turn click on each group and hit select.

As you can see by the picture when I select group_1 it is the table itself, which is what we want to keep. Delete group_0 (Shadow Mesh) by selecti ng it and then hitti ng the Delete butt on.

You should now have an object that looks like the one on the left .

4.4. SELECTING BOX TOOL

Now we are ready to make our new object mesh. I am going to the Model tab at the top and click on Box.



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5. DRAWING THE TABLE TOP

I will trace the upper part of the table as shown below using the front view with the Box tool selected.

You’ll noti ce that the box will not have to be adjusted it’s OK as is. Why? It’s OK because that would be EA’s predefi ned height for placing objects. Too high, and anything on the table vanishes. Too low, and things on the table fl oat. A one ti le table should, in top down view, fi t into one grid square of Milkshape, because a Milk-shape grid square is the exact same size as a single Sim fl oor ti le.

Noti ce how the Table Top is red? That means that secti on is cur-rently selected. Anyti me a part of your mesh is red in Milkshape it means that that porti on is selected. You can deselect everything by going to:

Edit ► Select None

at any ti me and reselect by going to your Groups tab highlighti ng the group/mesh part and hitti ng Select.



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6. MAKING THE LEGS

6.1. CREATING LEG

So we will move on to our legs. Again we will use the Box butt on under the Model tab.

Draw a box about as wide as you would like to have a leg. See how it needs to be adjusted? Doesn’t look like a leg yet. So we’ll adjust.

6.2. SCALING LEG

See the X Y Z circled? These are the all axes of your object. X for the side, Y for up and down, and Z for front and back.

We obviously want to take the box and reduce it from front to back so we will put a 0.9 value in the Z fi eld:

X = 1.0

Y = 1.0

Z = 0.9

1.0 moves nothing. 1.1 makes large adjustments to the box out-ward from either X, Y, or Z. 1.01 makes smaller adjustments that directi on whereas 0.9 shortens the mesh part in the directi on of X, Y, Z. 0.99 makes smaller adjustments, and so on.



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We click on the Scale butt on next to the X, Y, Z. Click unti l you have a square as in the picture.

Now we have to move the cube to the corner where a leg should go, right? But how are we going to see that over that old EA object I am trying to replace you ask?

6.3. HIDING REFERENCE MESH

Well I want you to go back to the Groups tab. See that we now have 3 groups?

group_1 (EA’s default)

Box01

Box02

We want to click on the group_1 now and then click the Hide but-ton.

This will hide our original object so we can work with our new one.

You should now have only Box01 and Box02 visible. Box02 is the leg which is red and means it’s already selected.



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6.4. MOVING LEG

We will go back to the Model tab and click the Move butt on.

Now you can move the leg to where is should be.

6.5. DUPLICATING LEG

We want 4 legs, so let’s move on to the other legs. With your leg selected (it is if it’s red) go to:

Edit ► Duplicate Selecti on

Now you have 2 legs.

Looking in the Group tab you can see our duplicate named Dupli-cate01.



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Can’t see them in your viewer? That’s because one leg is on top of the other. We are going to fi x that. Going to your Model tab, click Move and move that leg as shown to the back making sure your duplicate lines up with the original leg piece.

We are going to repeat this step (6.5. Duplicati ng Leg) two more ti mes to get 2 more legs, moving them as I showed you to get them in the correct positi on for the table.

When you are done you should have something like this:

Box01

Box02

Duplicate01

Duplicate02

Duplicate03

Make sure you only have 2 boxes and 3 duplicates when you are fi nished, along with your group_1 mesh.

6.6. DELETING REFERENCE MESH

We want to get rid of our original mesh at this point. So you will go to the Groups tab and click on group_1. Then hit Delete.



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6.7. RENAMING GROUPS

We now need to rename our groups in the Groups tab so we know what they are. This is very important for mapping our object!

Go to your Groups tab and select Box01. I want you to hit Select and see which part of our object this is. Box01 is the table top. So where you see the Rename butt on, there is a box next to it with the ti tle. We are going to rename this Top. Type Top in that box and click on Rename.

We are going to do this for the rest of the pieces also, except you will name them Leg1, Leg2, Leg3 and Leg4. No spaces between the number and the word. Milkshape will lose anything you put a space in between. So if you name it Leg 1, instead of Leg1 then the 1 would be lost upon re-import later.

6.8. EXPORTING TO OBJ

We are now going to export our mesh to a Wavefront .OBJ fi le. So you will go to:

File ► Export ► Wavefront OBJ…

And save your object with a name like Table or whatever you like. Now close Milkshape.



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7. MESHING HINTS

Milkshape allows you to create some basic shapes – spheres, bo-xes and cylinders. Have a look around, and you‘ll see that most objects can be broken down into some combinati on of these.

Our table is a collecti on of boxes, but you could, for example, make the legs round by creati ng a cylinder for each leg.

A knob on a dresser or even on our table could be made from a sphere and so on.

Using this idea, you can build the basic shape of the object, and then manipulate and move unti l you have the fi nished object you wish to make.



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8. UV MAPPING

8.1. INTRODUCTION

We are going to cover one version of UV Mapper – UV Mapper Classic, which is a free version. Later there will be a separate map-ping tutorial for UV Mapper Pro which is pay. Keep in mind that I recommend Investi ng in UV Mapper Pro once you decide meshing is what you want to do.

You must UV map your object in order for it to work properly in the game. This was the same for TS2, however in TS3 you must map your parts separate from each other and not overlap. This is very important.

8.2. LOADING MESH

Open UV Mapper Classic. Go to:

File ► Load Model

Find our table mesh .OBJ fi le in the folder you saved it to and click on it. A screen will pop up that gives you the vertex count as well as the facets (which is the poly count).

Click OK and your mesh should show in the window like on the left .



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8.3. MAPPING GROUPS

Doesn’t look like much, does it? Well we’ll fi x that. Go to:

Edit ► Select ► by Group…

Now a box will pop up listi ng the groups that we made and re-named in Milkshape.

Let’s select Leg1 by clicking on it and then OK. We want to begin mapping our parts so we will go to:

Edit ► New UV Map ► Box

Another window will pop up asking us for dimensions. I’m going to leave this to default and click OK.



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Do you see how that made 6 pieces to our mesh? That’s what we want. Now we’ll resize that smaller for use later.

Slide at the dots to scale the image down. You should have some-thing like on the left .

See where my Leg1 is now? We will repeat this process for all the groups in the mesh:

Leg2

Leg3

Leg4

Top

We want to make sure none of the parts are overlapping so when we scale each piece we will put on a diff erent part of the white area.

When you are done your screen should be like mine with all the parts on diff erent places on this giganti c white part.

See how I have scaled all to fi t the space I’m working in? Now our parts are separate and we can begin the fi rst process of mapping our mesh as it needs to be.



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8.4. PROPORTIONATING

Now think of a single ti le object in game. It fi ts one solid fl oor ti le, right? One fl oor ti le is 256×256 pixels. How high is it? About the same. We have to think of the object’s height and width.

However, if we make a 256×256 texture, that will only be big enough for the table top.

So we need an image that is big enough to fi t the table top (256×256), the table underside (256×256) and of course the legs which are also 256 pixels high.

Why you ask? So our textures do not stretch. If we don’t follow these guidelines our textures will stretch beyond belief and we will embarrass ourselves with our object.

So, we will begin by clicking:

Edit ► Select by ► Vertex

Now I want to begin to select each side of the fl att ened object one at ti me. Here we go.

I am going to drag my curser over the fi rst secti on of fl att ened mesh so that that one litt le piece is selected like on the left .

Can you see my selecti on? Now I can resize that one piece of the side of the mesh part.



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Our goal here is to have something that will work with our fi nished mesh texture in Workshop. I know this is one of the legs so I will separate it and resize like on the left .

See how I moved it and resized it?

We need to do that for all of the leg pieces. They are obviously the ones on the map that have the same box map. Noti ce how one is diff erent? That’s our top. So in turn you are going to take all the long pieces of the 2 legs on top and place on your map unti l your map looks like mine.

Noti ce the smaller squares I have circled at the top? These were the tops and bott oms of the legs. UV Mapper auto mapped these for the dimensions it “saw”.

We need to move and resize these too keeping in mind that these will not be visible parts on the fi nished mesh so that our map does not need to dedicate a lot of space to them.

So I have scaled them and moved them.



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Now we are going to do the same for the other 2 legs so that we make sure our dimensions are properly done on the map. Follow-ing the above procedure and placing your legs as shown on the left .

8.5. ARRANGING

Now we want to make these legs fi t bett er on our map. So we will drag our cursor fi rst over the top set of leg sides and move them to fi t that half of our white space on the map.

We will do the same for the bott om leg sides. Drag your cursor over the bott om sides and fi t to the map in the same manner as you did the top keeping the bott om on the bott om part of the map.

Time to do our table top. Remember the ti le rule I discussed above? 256×256? Well here we will apply to the top of the table. The top and bott om of the table obviously must take up more space on your map for your texture to look correct – otherwise your texture will be blurred in game. Looking at your table top you will noti ce 2 large squares and 4 small rectangles. Because we have UV Map-per make a box map it automati cally sized the top and bott om part of the table larger then the sides. Big plus for us because we now know which parts are which. Now we want to map the top so that the Top and bott om takes up as much of the other half of our white space as we can. Why? Well because if we don’t our textures will blur on our object.



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Selecti ng the pieces to the top like we did the legs, by dragging the cursor over the fl att ened mesh piece we are going to resize the top and top sides so that they fi t our map, making sure they don’t overlap.

IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT

You may have to overlap while resizing. That’s OK as long as you keep the part you are editi ng “acti ve” that is selected. You just need to make sure it does not overlap once you’re done. Noti ce how I moved the sides of the top over? That was to make room to work.

Now we will resize the sides the same length as the top.

8.6. SAVING MESH

We have fi nished with UV Mapper Classic for now. We are going to save our UV Map. Go to:

File ► Save Model

and a screen pops up like on the left .

Leave the default boxes are checked and save your .OBJ fi le by renaming it and saving to the folder your original was in. I like to overwrite the original with the newly mapped version.



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9. WOOD GRAINS

9.1. INTRODUCTION

You’re going to feel like you’re on a see-saw by the ti me we’re done with this mapping business using UV Mapper Classic, because UV Mapper Classic has a complicated rotate opti on and right now we’re going to need to talk about wood grains.

The grain on your tabletop sides will look a lot bett er if it is verti cal rather than horizontal. Also check whether the table edges look right too. This probably is not the case with your mesh right now. Most likely the top sides at the very least will have to be adjusted and probably also the legs. It looks much bett er for the grains to be facing properly. If your grain is going the wrong way, you will have to fi x this as I will show you how to do.

The Extra Credit FixThe Extra Credit FixThe Extra Credit FixThe Extra Credit FixThe Extra Credit FixThe Extra Credit Fix

UV Mapper unwraps boxes and cylinders at the click of a butt on, whereas in Milkshape we have to do all that by hand – tediously. However, in Milkshape we can make easy adjustments and see the changes happen as we make them. With UV Mapper Classic it’s a downright bear to use the rotate opti on to assure that your wood grains can face the correct directi on. We can do this much easier with the Milkshape mapping tool and achieve the same results we are looking for. So we will be switching to Milkshape to rotate our grain in the correct directi on for the purpose of this tutorial. As you progress in your meshing journey, you will be able to choose which opti on seems best for you personally.



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9.2. ASSIGNING MATERIAL

We are now going to open Milkshape 3D back up. Go to:

File ► Import ► Wavefront OBJ…

and fi nd your table. We need to select the parts we want to assign a texture to so we will go to the Groups tab and select each part of the mesh by clicking on the mesh part and hitti ng Select unti l the enti re table is selected.

A.) Go to your Materials tab.

B.) Click on New. This will create a new texture fi le for your mesh.

C.) Then click on <none> top one. You will be able to load a texture from there. Any one will do, I chose to use a light wood one for this tutorial, 512×512 so we can see what I’m doing. This material does not export with your project. It is only a tool to use while mapping. A wood or striped texture is best so you can see the directi on of the grain.

D.) Then click Assign.

Not seeing your texture? Check that Textured view is ti cked when you right click the 3D window of Milkshape as instructed in 4.1. Setti ng Up Milkshape 3D.



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As you can see by my preview the wood grain on the table sides is not in the directi on that a real grain would be. I could show you how to fi x this in UV Mapper Classic but as it was pointed out to me, using Classic to fi x the wood grain is quite complicated if you are a beginner!

See how blurry it is?

9.3. SELECTING FACES

Now we will begin to fi x the side of the table so that the wood grain is in the right directi on. Go to:

Edit ► Select None

Then go to the Model tab:

Select ► Face ► Ignore Backfaces

See how I have only selected one side? This is what we want.

If you’re having Trouble selecting the FaceIf you’re having Trouble selecting the FaceIf you’re having Trouble selecting the FaceIf you’re having Trouble selecting the FaceIf you’re having Trouble selecting the FaceIf you’re having Trouble selecting the Face



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9.4. OPENING TEXTURE COORDINATE EDITOR

Now we are going to go to:

Window ► Texture Coordinate Editor

A window will pop up which is where we will fi x the directi on of the grain. Now I want you to remember how we mapped our ob-ject in UV Mapper Classic. Our object is sti ll mapped in this way. But when we work in the Texture Coordinator, it won’t show our enti re mapped object. Why? Because we are only selecti ng part of our mesh to edit. You must keep in the “back of your mind” how the enti re map looks from when you left UV Mapper classic. You will fi nd out why as we go.

9.5. SELECTING UV FACES

Aft er you open the Texture Coordinate Editor you will get a win-dow that looks like the one on the left .

There is a Dropdown List. We want to click on it and select Top.

This is what you will see. Noti ce how our selected part is showing. Remember our UV Map in Mapper Classic? Yes this is one of those mapped parts.



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9.6. ROTATING UV FACES

Now click on Rotate and rotate your piece 90 degrees by taking your mouse and manually rotati ng it with the Rotate tool.

If the verti ces aren’t red in the texture window, you need to select them by clicking the Select butt on and drawing an imaginary box around the rectangle. When the dots are red, that piece is select-ed and can be rotated.



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Now I want you to think back to your UV Map. Once we rotate it distorts our original map.

Even though we will be taking this back to UV Mapper Classic we want to make our life a bit easier.

9.7. SCALING UV FACES

So we are going to select the Scale tool and scale to a small square.

We will do this with any parts of the table where the grain is go-ing the wrong way. So close the editor and go back to the main Milkshape screen. You will see 4 drop down lists in each of your 4 screens. These are the diff erent angles views of the mesh.

Next using the dropdown in the top left window we will select Back.

Repeat the above steps from 9.3. Selecti ng Faces to 9.7. Scaling UV Faces unti l all 4 sides are remapped:

Front

Back

Left

Right



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9.8. CHECKING LEGS

Pay parti cular att enti on to the legs of your table. Is the grain trav-eling verti cally? If not, you might want to rotate the legs on your texture map the same way we just did the sides of the table.

However, if you must edit the legs on your table you will want to hide the other legs while you work.

So going to the Groups tab click each leg in turn and hit Hide. You will work on each leg separately. The Hide butt on hides and un-hides your group part. Once you fi nish one leg you will hide that and then move to Leg2, unhiding and so on.

Remember that you must change the Dropdown List in the Texture Coordinator Editor as shown in 9.5. Selecti ng UV Faces for each part of your group.

9.9. SAVING FILE

Now we are going to go to:

File ► Export ► Wavefront OBJ

Replace your mesh with the one we have redone.



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10. FIXING UV MAP

Open UV Mapper Classic. Go to:

File ► Load Model

Pick out your mesh you just exported from Milkshape 3D.

As you can see your map has 4 squares where our rectangle maps would have been. So we’re going to fi x that. When your map is loaded you will go to:

Edit ► Color ► By Group

You should have 6 pieces in each color.

Remember how we worked with our pieces when we originally did this mapping? Well yes we are going to fi x these 4 pieces by doing that again. So go to:

Edit ► Select By ► Vertex

And drag across one of the squares with your curser. If your parts are overlapping please see Page 52 how to fi x.

We want to redo the squares to the original mapping positi on so one by one drag them back into place.



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Stretch to the correct size.

When you’re done your map should again look like on the left . Go to:

File ► Save Model

And overwrite our table model.

We need to save a UV Map, which is basically a .BMP fi le, so we can use if for our texture fi les later. Go to:

File ► Save Texture Map

A screen will pop up. You need to change the dimension to 512×512. Then click OK and name this table.bmp.



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11. REGROUPING

Now we are ready to begin the last part of our journey in making our mesh in Milkshape 3D.

We want to regroup the mesh into one part. So I want you to go to:

Edit ► Select All

This should make your enti re wireframe preview red. Go to your Groups tab and click on Regroup.

Milkshape will rename our group Regroup00 automati cally.



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12. HIGH LEVEL DETAIL MESH

12.1. INTRODUCTION

We’re going to talk about the High Detail Mesh and the Low Detail Mesh. In Sims 3 there are many parts to something you can actu-ally use in game.

Because our wonderful programmers Micke and Johan have made it possible to autogenerate the shadow mesh in Workshop, we no longer have to worry about manually doing 2 of the 4 parts.

You basically have 3 types of shadows. 2 are Sun Shadows for the High and Low Detail Mesh and one is an actual Ground Shadow. We don’t have to worry about the sun shadows, but we do have to adjust the Ground Shadow to fi t our mesh.



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12.2. CHECKING CURRENT ASSIGNMENTS

You will now have a single fi le that is named Regroup00. We are ready to import our .WSO fi le. So you will go to:


Select the High Detail Mesh and import. Your screen should now look like on the left .

Now we have to mess with the Bone, also known in Milkshape as the Joint. In Sims 3 most objects have bones that must be as-signed, very few do not.

We are going to go to the Joints tab in Milkshape (to your far right by the groups tab). Click on the String of Numbers there as shown below and click on the butt on Select Assigned. It now will show you which part of the mesh is assigned. It shows in red in your mesh window. As you can see here the bone is assigned to the table itself.

12.3. ORDERING AND RENAMING

So we know that this bone is assigned to the table only. Now we’re going to go back to the Groups tab.

We want to delete the original EA table so that our mesh is the only table here. Click on the mesh (in this case group_1) and click Delete as I showed you earlier.

Now we should have group_0 and Regroup00. The groups for meshes in Sims 3 MUST be in the order of the original mesh. That is group_0 is the fi rst mesh in the original mesh so it should be on top in the order of the list in Milkshape. So select group_0 and ti ck the Up butt on in the tab.



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As you can see here it placed group_0 at the top.

We are going to rename Regroup00 to group_1 to match our old fi le. So go to your Groups tab and click on the Regroup00 group then in the space circled overwrite it naming it group_1 and click Rename.

12.4. ASSIGNING JOINT

Now we are ready to assign the Bone respecti vely Joint. So we select our table (selecti ng group_1, the table should be red) and go back to the Joints tab. With the table selected you will click Assign.



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13. GROUND SHADOW

13.1. INTRODUCTION

We are going to talk for a minute about the ground shadow part of our mesh. (those fl at planes on the bott om). If you look you can see 4 small squares on that fl at plane. Those are our table leg shadows.

The rest of the plane carries the texture for underneath of our table. In Workshop there is a Shadow Texture in the materials part of you Mesh tab. It looks like on the left .

This actually has all of the shadow fi les for every mesh in the game. What EA has done is mapped the shadow to any one of these tex-tures and resized to what a real life shadow would look like.

You can save this picture to use as a permanent fi le for future meshes.



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13.2. EXTRACTING SHADOW TEXTURE

Since we want our table to have the proper shadows I am going to quickly show you how to do that. So we need this fi le.

Open TSR Workshop and open your saved .WRK fi le:

1. In Workshop, click on the Mesh tab. Make sure the drop-down list displays High level of detail.

2. There should be more than one mesh group listed.

3. Look for group_0. This is the ground shadow of the table.

4. Click the word material next to Default material then the dots butt on which appears.

5. You should see the picture above in that tab. Click the Edit butt on.



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6. You can click the image, then click the red Export butt on at the top.

7. Export it as .DDS.

All EA objects use this very same Atlas, so we’ll export this then you can keep it for all ti me. You want to open your graphic pro-gram and save it as a .JPG or .PNG fi le for use later.

13.3. ASSIGNING SHADOW TEXTURE

Go to your Groups tab, click on the group_0 mesh group (our shadow fi le) and hit Select.

Now remember that shadow fi le I just had you grab from Work-shop? We will use that as our guide to adjust the shadow fi le. So as we did above to assign the texture to our table, we will do the same to assign the shadow to our ground shadow.



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Make sure you deselect your table mesh before starti ng the shad-ow by going to the Groups tab and hitti ng the Select opti on (this will un-highlight your table).

Then click on your shadow fi le (The fl at plane) which should be group_0 and click on Select which should now select the group_0 (it will be red). In the Materials tab click:

1. New

2. In here you will load the Shadow Texture from above.

3. Click Assign and you should be able to see your shadow under your mesh in the 3D window of Milkshape.

13.4. ADJUSTING

Since our object is prett y much scaled the same as the original, you won’t see a big diff erence here in the shadows.

But think about a diff erent shape. Suppose our legs pointed in-ward a bit. Those 4 squares would not be in line with the legs. Suppose we made round legs? Then we wouldn’t want square shadows now would we?

This is where you would adjust that shadow. Just to take a look go to:

Window ► Texture Coordinator Editor

In the drop down list as we did above click on group_0. You will see the shadow fi le I just gave you in the texture window. You can see the shadow fi les highlighted (The squares with red dots) and from here you can move them to the proper shadow by using the Move opti on and resize the shadow by using the Scale opti on.



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See how there are soft shadows, dark shadows, and square and round shadows? You can move that square around to fi t what type of shadow you think your mesh should use.

The One on the right, the plain square is our table legs shadow while the one on the right is the underside of the table top.

Our mesh is prett y close to where the shadows should be already. So we will leave as they are for now.

13.5. SAVING HIGH LEVEL MESH

We are now ready to export to our .WSO fi le for Workshop. Go to:

File ► Export ► TSRW Object

And replace your High Detail Mesh fi le.



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14. LOW LEVEL DETAIL MESH

14.1. IMPORTING MESHES

You will do the same for your Low Detail Mesh as the steps we took with the High Detail Mesh. So we will go to:

Edit ► Delete All

To get rid of our current .WSO fi le for the High Detail Mesh. You already have a mapped .OBJ fi le so you can import that and your low detail mesh.

Go to:


Import your Low Detail Mesh. You should have it in Milkshape like on the left when you are done.

You will noti ce once you import your Low Detail Mesh there is no fl oor shadow (the fl at plane on the bott om). This is normal. The low detail does not have this included. Do you see how your low detail .WSO has only one group? It’s named group_0 because it’s the only group in your low detail .WSO fi le in this instance.

Now go to:

File ► Import ► Wavefront OBJ

You will import the .OBJ fi le we used for the High Detail Mesh. Now you will have the situati on like on the left .

Now you will select in turn each group by clicking on them and hit-ti ng Select. Once your table is selected you will hit Regroup.

We now have Regroup00 in the groups window. Delete the group named group_0 and so what should we name our new group? Well group_0 of course! As we named our fi les in the high detail group_0 and group_1 it’s the same for the low detail, except that the low detail only has one group.

Therefore Rename your Regroup00 to group_0.



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14.2. ASSIGNING JOINT

Making sure your table is highlighted in red by selecti ng. We will again go to the Joints tab, click on the string of numbers and click Assign.

As menti oned above we already have the lowest poly count we can with this object so you can import your mesh to the low de-tail wso, assign your bones and then export to the low poly mesh. In this case you will use the low detail mesh to make your sun shadow fi les in Workshop. This will not always be the case! More complicated objects need you to reduce the poly count before you conti nue with the low detail mesh! If you do not keep this in mind once you are practi ced and making more complicated meshes you can have very infl ated fi les which can really slow someone’s game considerably.

14.3. EXPORTING MESH

Now go to:

File ► Export ► TSRW Object

Export your .WSO overwriti ng the Low Detail Mesh .WSO fi le.



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15. IMPORTING MESHES

You are now ready to import your mesh back to Workshop. Open Workshop. We need to open your .WRK fi le for the table. So click on Open Project. Find your table fi le where you saved it and open it.

We now need to go to the Mesh tab in Workshop. Remember when you exported your fi les? Well we shall do the same thing except we will now Import our .WSO fi les.

So import your:

High Detail Mesh .WSO

Low Detail Mesh .WSO

Using the drop down list and the Import butt on.

(You may refer to Apple’s tutorial at any ti me for more detail.)



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16. SUN SHADOW MESHES

We are now going to talk about Workshop and Sun Shadow Mesh-es. TS3 has sun shadows in game. If you see an object in game you will see it not only has the fl oor shadow we talked about earlier, but also a shadow that appears to be given from the sun. These fi les are part of your mesh. We can auto generate these in TSR Workshop.

Making sure you have imported your High LOD and Low LOD fi rst, using the dropdown list, click on Shadow high level of detail.

See the arrowed butt on on your right? This will generate the shad-ow for us.

Click on the arrows and the dialog on the left will pop up.

You want to choose from the list the higher verti ces and faces count because this would be the actual table mesh. How do we know this? Think back to your table. It has all the verti ces and fac-es, the other being the ground shadow. The ground shadow will always have the lower count.

We want to select our table so click on it and hit OK.



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You will do this for Shadow low level of detail as well. Then click OK.

Pat yourself on the back. Job well done!

Go to chapter 17. Object Creati on Part 2 to see how to proceed next.

Make sure to check out chapter 18. Extra Credit – Wood Grains of this guide too!



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17. OBJECT CREATION PART 2

You are now ready for your DDS lesson. As soon as you fi nish Cyclonsue’s DDS tutorial you will have a mesh:

htt p://www.thesimsresource.com/tutorials/view/category/sims3/id/16536/



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18. EXTRA CREDIT – WOOD GRAINS

We’re going to do a litt le mapping in Milkshape 3D. You could do all your mapping in Milkshape once you’re experienced. However, the benefi t of using UV Mapper is that it can very quickly map out boxes and spheres for you. Once you’re used to mapping, you can use what you feel comfortable using.

Now we are going to see what happens when our wood grain is all messed up and we need to fi x it so that our object can look like it should. All wood grains going in the expected real life way which makes your object look a tad bett er.

Open Milkshape 3D.

We are going to set up our Milkshape to make sure we have some vital things working before we begin.

At the top of Milkshape make sure Show Viewport Capti on is checked:

Window ► Show Viewport Capti on

Right click the 3D View and select Textured.

We’re ready to begin. I am going to start by creati ng a box. Go to the Model tab In Milkshape and click on Box.



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We’re going to create a totally square box like on the left .

We’re going to create a Wavefront .OBJ fi le like we did for our table. Go to:


Name it simply square.

Now we will open UV Mapper and import our square:

File ► Load Model

And then fi nd the square. Using the procedure above I want you to click:

Edit ► Select ► by Group…

Noti ce because we did not rename our square it’s simply box01. That’s OK we’re not really going to use this for a mesh, we’re using it to learn those infamous wood grains. With our square selected, again as we did above, click on:

Edit ► New UV Map ► Box

You should have something in UV Mapper as shown. This is what we want. Now again, as above we shall export our Wavefront .OBJ and overwrite our square:

File ► Save Model

Leave all defaults checked and overwrite square.



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Now open up Milkshape 3D again. Go to:

File ► Import ► Wavefront OBJ

Just like we did for our table. Import the fi le we named square.

Select your square by going to the Groups tab and clicking on the group box01 and then hit Select.

See how our box has now turned red? That’s what we want. It’s now acti ve and selected.

Next:

A.) Go to your Materials tab.

B.) Click on New. This will create a new texture fi le for your mesh.

C.) Then click on <none> top one. You will be able to load a texture from there. Any one will do, I chose to use a light wood one for this tutorial 512×512 so we can see what I’m doing. A wood or striped texture is best so you can see the directi on of your wood grain.

D.) Then click Assign.



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Look at the grain directi on on this square. We want to change that. We want the grain to face sideways.

We’re going to use Milkshape’s Texture Editor to get the map cor-rect.

We want to map each side of our square. Therefore click Select, then Face and ti ck Ignore Backfaces. Now we will begin to select our mesh parts.

As you can see there are 3 windows that have Front, Left and Top. We will change those as we go to map all sides of the mesh. As you can see from the photo on the left , I have selected one side of the mesh – the Front.

You select by dragging your curser over the face of the object. It is the part that looks like the square with the line through it diago-nally.

See how the side I selected is in red? Now I’m ready to map that side.



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Go to the top and click:


You will have a window pop up.

Noti ce how only one side of our mesh is in this box. That’s because we only chose one side. We will be working with the circled but-tons, which are Move and Scale, The tab that now has box01 is the dropdown list for the pieces of your mesh.

Now we want to rotate this square so that the wood grain is going in a diff erent directi on. You can see by the picture the wood grain is going up and down, but we want it to go sideways.

So click the Rotate butt on and rotate the object 90 degrees, right or left , no matt er on this object.

Then close the Texture Coordinate Editor.

Look at your mesh in the 3D window. See how we changed the wood grain’s directi on?

We want to do this for each side of our mesh. We are going to re-peat this procedure for the Back, Left and Right sides of the mesh by using the small drop down boxes I circled earlier.



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So using the drop down you will select the Back as shown on the left . Then you will repeat the steps by going to the top and click:


Once you have repeated the steps for each side we will go back to UV Mapper. We will now go to:


Open UV Mapper. We are going to fi x our map now to the propor-ti ons we would need to actually make our square mapped and not have the textures stretch.

I loaded my square into UV mapper and as you can see I have over-lapped a few pieces. That’s OK we’re going to fi x that so we can work with our mesh.

I am going to go to:

Edit ► Select by ► Vertex



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By selecti ng the corner of each overlapping square I can move the corners away from the overlapped parts like on the left .

I have selected the corner and moved it off the other square piece. See that red dot in the middle of my selecti on? That is the vertex I selected.

I’m going to do that for each overlap that I have one at a ti me unti l all squares are in their own space.

We want to move our squares around now so that each square takes up 1/6 of our map. Remember the rules for the map space we covered earlier. In the case of our square each side is the same so all 6 sides will need equal space on the map.

Using the same technique we will select each square and move them to fi ll the map. You should have something as shown when you are fi nished.

Now we will save our model and our UV map as we did above. You now have a mapped square with all the grain going the correct way. Hopefully you now can be well on your way to meshing with ease!



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19. CREDITS

Tutorial writt en by riccinumbers for The Sims Resource.

Thank you to Cyclonesue for her input and criti que as well to the following beta testers of this tutorial:

• Fredbrenny

• Moza

• AudreyMay

• Aloleng

• Vanilla_Sim

• Pinecat

• Illiana

A special thank you to Murano for helping with designing the lay-out.

Documents

Riccinumbers_TheBeginnersGuideToMeshing