From Start to Finish..... The Making of a Sim

BODY MESHING

There are a few things you will need before you can do any meshing.

Two, a 3D program that supports .obj format. Milkshape is a popular one, cuz it's cheap.

Previously, I had decided that I was going to use the b510fafit_catsuit01 body and the c026fa_bwar head. These are the .skn files I am going to edit. So in order to edit them I need to convert them to a skin project file (.spj), and that is what SKN2OBJ does. It converts them to an editable format.

*note*: The 3D program I use is Milkshape 3D. This is the one I will be using to do the explaining for the purposes of the tutorial.

I will open up SKN2OBJ and locate the first file I will be converting, the xskin-b510fafit_catsuit01.skn file. I have it in Simshow, so I will go to the "open" DD menu and use the explorer boxes to locate it in my People1 folder. I select it to open, and you may see a box come up that says "processing files".

I will just create a new folder in My Documents, and name it "Shi." Everything I do related to her will be put in this folder, including the broken down skin file I just converted. And I will save the new file as "body".

If you opened up the area where you saved it and take a look at it, you would see that it has been split up into 3 different files: and .spj file, and .obj file, and a mtl. file.

.spj file: you need this for converting back your bodies and heads. It contains all the technical info.

.mat file: This is the material file which is a must for any mesh. Your body files already have one, so we won't be changing it it. You will need to create one if you are making acessories.

In the File menu, I will select import. Then I will select Wavefront OBJ, since this is the format our skin has taken. From there it will open up an explorer menu and I will locate my "Shi" folder and open up the body. All said and done, it will look like this:

Unlike most comic chicks, she doesn't have huge boobs or so the pictures I have display, (yay for the average woman!) so I won't be concerned with that. But she does have puffy upper sleeves, skinny hips, and skinny legs, so those are my main focuses.

I can fix all of this easily with the scaling option, so I will. First, I will scale down the hips. I will select the appropriate vertices (the dots the lines connect with) and make sure the "ignore backfaces " selection is unchecked and that the vetrtices secection box is selected. Here's an example of the menu and what I mean. I highlighted the important parts. When it's ready to go, it will look just like that.

Instead of typing in numbers with the scaling option, I'm going to do it manually. And by that, I pick a view, the front one, and just drag the cursor to the left or right depending if I would like bigger or smaller. So I scale untill I am happy with it. Same with the legs.

Just the sleeves to go. And I will scale those just as I did with the hips and the legs, except I will use the front and over views to scale with, or I can do it all with the side view.

I would like to check it with the texture I made, though. So this is what I will do.

In the groups tab, there's a strange looking word: x-R_LEG<Mat.:xskin-nffit_01-PELVIS-MBODY
That's the group (the body) x-R_LEG name and the material info from the material file. Select that group and the whole body will be red, lines and all. Then go into the materials tab. We aren't going to do anything that will permanently change it, so be careful in here.

In the materials tab look for this button.We are going to change it from "none" to the texture we made earlier. Select that button and find the texture. I put copies in my Shi folder for easy access. You'll see the white circle change when the texture is loaded. Now make sure the whole body is selected in the groups tab. Select the apply button.

To see the texture on the model in the blue window, right click in the blue window and select "textured" in the menu. And there it is!

The major 3D editing is done to my satisfaction, and now I'm ready to convert back to skn. It won't be so bad. :D

I'll export the finished body back to the folder I'm working out of, exporting it as a wavefront.obj . If it shows up as a 3ds. file in your folder don't worry. It's just a bug in MS3D, and harmless one at that. Just rename it as an .obj file later when you get to it in the explorer menu. I keep a minimized folder of my current project (Shi, in this case) down in my task bar for easy renaming and copying contents.

I use the open menu and I locate my Shi project folder. Inside, the body.spj (what I saved the body as) will show up. If it doesn't amke sure you have the "skin project files" optoin selected in the file-type box. I select that. Then I select save as. This is where you need to decide your file number and name. I have a list so I can keep all the numbers straight of which ones I've used, and which I haven't. If the file numbers are the same and in the same body type category, like 2 b509fafits, then one will over-ride the other and cause problems. But according to my list, B531 is availible for use, so that will be the one I use. I type in xskin-b531fafit_shi-PELVIS-BODY . It's not necessary to type in the .skn, just make sure that option is selected in the file-type box. Then select Save.

The 3 files will be combined into one .skn file, and still leave you with the 3 editable files, in case you need to edit anything in the future. And now we have a brand-new body model.

*NOTE 1: When making a body, you don't use the "Import OBJ" function, because it won't save it right. You can do it for a head, but not the body. Just open up the SPJ and then "save as".

*NOTE 2: Make sure your 3 files, the .mat, the .obj, and the .spj all have the same name such as body.mat, body.spj, and body. obj or it won't be converted right.