Tutorial: Adding a pregnant morph (and more)

[CmarNYC]

** Please note I've posted a more complete and improved tutorial on this subject in the "Clothing Meshing for Dummies" thread, including a solution for the problem of CC maternity wear not being used in the game: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=397260

What this tutorial will do:

Show you how to add a pregnant morph to clothing using Milkshape and BodyMorphMaker.

Show you how to use the same technique to modify the other morphs for new clothing meshes as long as their vertices are numbered properly and exactly the same for the base mesh and the morph mesh.

What this will not do:

Teach you how to use Milkshape or any other meshing tool.

Teach you how to add morphs in more complex circumstances such as Frankensteined meshes or entirely new meshes without the proper vertex numbering. I'll make a future tutorial on those situations once I've had a chance to figure out how to do it!

What you'll need:

Milkshape with Wes's plugins or another meshing tool that can export morphs: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=357403 (make sure you have the latest version)

BodyMorphMaker, available here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=376753 (again, get the latest version)

CAS Texture Unitool (CTU), available here: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=364926

Postal, s3pe, Sims3PackageExplorer, or any tool to search, extract from, and import into package files.

Background:

The basics of morphs are fairly straightforward. The CAS part file contains flags defining the age group and gender for the clothing, the category or categories such as Everyday, Sleep, etc., and a set of links pointing to the meshes that define the shape. It also has links to bodyblend files for the four game morphs: fat, fit, thin, and special (pregnant). The bodyblend files have a few more flags and a link to a BGEO file which contains the morph data - coordinates describing how to move the mesh vertices for each morph. The BGEO data is a compressed form of the information in the morph meshes for each morphed shape. Every clothing mesh in the game for teens to elder have a bodyblend and a BGEO for the special morph, including the ones for males, but for clothing that has no pregnant morph the BGEO files have no data.

I'll demonstrate adding a pregnant morph, a task that's not at all difficult even for my beginner's meshing skills. Except for the actual meshing and the modification of the CAS part category, the same steps apply for any of the morphs.


Step 1. First, find and extract the mesh for the clothing you want to add the pregnant morph to. In this case I'm going to use CTU to extract the tfBodyShirtLong mesh. As long as you're here, also click on the Parts Category tab and tick off "Valid for Maternity" in the Extended Category box. (Note that in order to work, maternity clothing also has to have "Valid for Random" checked.) Click the Apply button and save the package with an appropriate name. Using your favorite package explorer, open the package you just created and extract the CAS part file. (In s3pe, Resource/Export/To file)

(See screenshot 1 below)

Step 2. To make the morph, import the clothing mesh into Milkshape, then go to the Group tab and hide it. Import it again over itself as a second group, open the comments for that second group, and change them to:

FVFItems: 3
TableType: 0
References: 1
TGIRef00: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

This tells Wes's export plugin to export that group as a morph mesh. You need the first group because the exporter needs to calculate the difference between the original and changed positions of the vertices.

Modify lod1 of your mesh by pulling the vertices of the stomach into a pregnant shape. (If you're only doing this as an exercise, don't get too involved in making it perfect.) Keep in mind that what you want is the fully pregnant belly - the game will phase the morph in as the pregnancy advances. Be sure NOT to change the original mesh you imported first - that's why I told you to hide it. When you're done, do the export. Skip the first group (Geom 00) and save the second group (Geom 01) - that's your morph. It's a good idea to save it as a separate file and keep the original mesh - if you want to make changes later you'll need to import the original mesh (and hide it) and then the morph on top of it.

If you want to do a complete job, do the same morph for lod2 and lod3 as well. They are less detailed and are used in the game when the view is zoomed out. For any clothing mod that's going to be uploaded, all the lods should be done since anyone playing using low Sim detail will definitely see them. You don't have to be very careful with lod3, which will only be seen from a distance, and in fact it has so few vertices that it's going to look lumpy no matter what you do.

(See screenshot 2 below)


Step 3. Now, start BodyMorphMaker.

Give a descriptive name for your morph, this case I'll use "tfTShirtLong_special". For LOD1, LOD2, and LOD3, use the 'Select File' buttons to browse for your three morphed meshes. Note that the extra spaces in each lod are for clothing that has more than one mesh per lod. You should enter them in order: lod1, lod1_1, lod1_2, etc.

(See screenshot 3 below)

The Instance ID is a little more complicated and involves two possibilities.

Case 1 - If you're adding a pregnant morph to game clothing, as we are, it's easiest to use the Instance ID that is already in the game. Remember that clothing that doesn't have a pregnant morph has a bodyblend and an empty BGEO; replace the BGEO file with your new one and you have your pregnant morph. There are a couple of ways to get the instance ID. In this case probably the easiest is to click the 'Edit CAS part file' button in BodyMorphMaker and open the CAS part file you extracted from the package CTU made. Copy the instance number (the number after 'I:') for the Special morph and paste it into the project instance ID. (The same instance ID is used for the bodyblend and the BGEO.) Do NOT click the 'Link to project bodyblend' button.

(See screenshot 4 below)

Another way is to look at the clothing in CTU - in the Part Details tab you'll see 'TGI Index Blend Info Fat', repeated for each morph, with a number. If you look for that number in the TGI list, you'll find the link to the bodyblend (bblend) file, and the instance is the last hexadecimal number in the key.

Case 2 - If you're making new, non-replacement clothing and want to add a pregnant morph that doesn't affect the original game clothing, you'll have to generate a new bodyblend and a new BGEO, and modify the CAS part file to link to them. Use the 'FNV hash' function in the BodyMorphMaker menu bar and enter a unique descriptive name for your morph - this can be the same morph name you used before as long as it's not the same as the original game clothing name. It will generate a new instance ID for you to use, which you can easily copy to the project instance ID by clicking the Copy button. Then click the 'Edit CAS part file' button and click on the 'Link to project bodyblend' button for the 'Special' morph, and save. This will give you a CAS part file linked to your new bodyblend and BGEO.

Speaking of which, now click the "Create BGEO" button at the bottom. The BGEO file it produces contains the morph mesh information for all three lods. If you need a new bodyblend file for new clothing, click on "Create Blend". This will make a bodyblend file which links the CAS part to the BGEO file.

It's a good idea to save your project to save having to enter all this again if you need to tweak your morphs. The save option is under 'File' in the menu bar.

Close BodyMorphMaker and on to the last step.


Step 4. In this case, since we're doing an added pregnant morph for game clothing, all we need is the BGEO file you made in the previous step and the CAS part file that classifies it as valid for maternity. Use a package explorer to import them both into a new package. (You could try using the package made by CTU but I've had problems with the instance IDs being changed when I import into them, and they won't work for me.) Put the package into your game and the pregnant morph should work.

(See screenshot 5 below - not the best meshing in the world, but that's not the point of this tutorial. :))


So, to sum up:

If you're adding a pregnant morph to existing game clothing, you need a new BGEO file which will override the game BGEO file and a modified CAS part file to enable it for maternity.

If you're adding a pregnant (or any other) morph to new non-replacement clothing, you need a new BGEO file, a new bodyblend file, and a new CAS part file that enables it for maternity (if necessary) and links to your bodyblend.


A note about VPXY files and the Group ID:

VPXY files are collections of pointers to other files; in the case of clothing they point to meshes. The game files include VPXYs and morph meshes for all the morphs in the game, but they appear not to be used. As far as I know, including them in your package is entirely optional. If you do want to create a VPXY, BodyMorphMaker will do it. You'll need the group ID of the clothing and will have to assign appropriate instance IDs as well as the group ID to your morph meshes. The usual practice is to use an FNV64 hash of your clothing name with the morph name and the lod, for example: cmar_tf_BodyShirtLong_special-lod1, etc. for each lod. If the meshes are named in TGI format, BodyMorphMaker will find the TGIs automatically.


And a few notes about changing or replacing the other morphs:

First, be sure you even need to make a new morph. If you've made new clothing by taking a game mesh and modifying it, as long as you haven't added or removed vertices or changed the vertex numbering or made really drastic changes in the shape, you probably can use the existing game morphs. The morphs consist of how the vertices should be moved to make the body fat, fit, thin, or pregnant - since they will move in the same direction relative to their position as for the original mesh, in most cases it will still work for your changed mesh. This is how CTU makes new non-replacement clothing with working morphs - it links it to the bodyblends and BGEOs for the original mesh.

If you do decide you need to modify the morph meshes and make a new BGEO, the procedure is basically the same as above. You would generate a new instance ID from a descriptive name, create your new bodyblend and BGEO, and link them from the new clothing CAS part file CTU created for you.

For the slightly more advanced mesher, Base1980 has written a tutorial on how to make a pregnant mesh by copying vertex information from a game morph: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=398865

Good luck and happy morphing!

[BloomsBase]

excellent!!

[Kiara24]

Thanks for this tutorial!
I have a question, the comments have to be the ones to all or varies according to what we are doing?

[WesHowe]

The comments are used instead of requiring the user to check a bunch of options on a screen for export, and some are to allow data to flow from the import to the export, where it doesn't fit into the model MikShape uses.

Leave the comments alone for the "base" group.
Make the comments exactly like Cmar shows for the "morph" group.

No other modifications to comments need to be made, except as advanced modding work (changing material type or bumpmap) by expert meshers.

[Kiara24]

Thanks!

[Kiara24]

When I click in the 'Edit CAS part file' button what I have to open?

[CmarNYC]

A CAS part file should be in the package for new clothing produced by CTU. (You could export the CAS part file from the game files and use other tools to modify it, but using CTU is usually much easier.) The type ID is 034AEECB and s3pe exports it with a .caspart extension. It describes the clothing - all the flags for category, gender, age; links to the textures, the vpxy files that link to meshes, and the blends that link to the morph/BGEO files.

[Kiara24]

Thanks! :)
I think I did, what do you think?

[CmarNYC]

Looks great! :) You need to test in-game too, of course, and make sure the morph is working in lod2 and lod3. So far so good!

[Kiara24]

I try to do this again and now don't work always give me an error when I click "Create BGEO"
Please help :help:

[CmarNYC]

Please give details when there's a problem - what's the error message? Can you post a screenshot?

[Kiara24]

This Error :(

[CmarNYC]

It's not finding the "GEOM" tag that should be in the geom or simgeom file. Are you sure you're selecting the correct file to open? Could you post the file?

[Kiara24]

What file you need?

[CmarNYC]

The morph mesh file you're trying to open/add to BodyMorphMaker when you get the error.

[Kiara24]

I hope is this..

[CmarNYC]

Okay - looks like two problems here. First, the vertex numbers for your three lods overlap. They must go in order starting with lod1, then lod2, then lod3, with no overlap. You can try using Wes's autonumber tool to fix this.

Second, my software didn't take into account higher vertex numbers like shoes and so on. I've already been working on fixing that. A new version is attached - try that after you fix the numbering problem. This is kind of a beta so let me know how it works.

I'll check back but hurt my wrist falling off a ladder and typing is painful - may not be on a lot today.

[Kiara24]

Thanks!:)

[Kiara24]

Sorry to bother you again, but I think I'm doing something wrong...and I need your help.
I need the VPXY file?
What I do with the BGEO and the Blend?

[CmarNYC]

No problem. :)

The VPXY file is optional - you shouldn't need one.

The BGEO and the Blend go in the package for your clothing. If you're having a problem you can post your complete package and I'll take a look.

[Kiara24]

Thanks! :) How I package BGEO and the Blend?

[CmarNYC]

You have to add them to the package for your clothing using s3pe, Postal, or Package Explorer. If you created the package with CTU, you can try importing the BGEO and Blend into it. If that doesn't work in your game, try using s3pe or whatever to export all the files in your package, create a new package, and import everything into it.

[Kiara24]

Thanks!
I think I did all of that...
Can you please see the package?

[CmarNYC]

Okay - first, your CAS part file needs to link to your new BBlend file, not to the original one for the clothing you based this on. You should use BodyMorphMaker to edit the CAS file and change the instance ID for the fat morph to your new instance of 0D5CE96555AA5ACC. Then the CAS file will link to your new Blend file which links to your new BGEO file.

There's still something wrong with the BGEO file, though. If you look at the headers:

TYPE: BGEO
VERSION: 768
Section 1 count: 1
Section 1 Subentry count: 4
Section 2 count: 44475
Section 3 count: 1205
Section 1 pre-subentry size: 8
Section 1 Subentry entry size: 12
Section 1 offset: 44
Section 2 offset: 100
Section 3 offset: 89050
Section 1:
Age/gender flags: 0001307F
Facial/Body region: 1024
First vertex (lod0): 0
Number of vertices: 0
Number of coordinates: 0
First vertex (lod1): 15139
Number of vertices: 15099
Number of coordinates: 594
First vertex (lod2): 15589
Number of vertices: 14768
Number of coordinates: 388
First vertex (lod3): 15812
Number of vertices: 14608
Number of coordinates: 223

There's no way each lod should have over 14000 vertices, plus the vertex numbers overlap.

Did you use the latest version of Wes's Milkshape plugins? An older version had a bug that wrote extra vertex data in the morphs. If that's not it, I'll have to take a look at at least one of your morph meshes.

[CmarNYC]

Also - what kind of clothing is this? CTU shows it as shoes, but the vertex range starts with 15000, which is the starting point for bottoms. Shoes should start with 30000.

[Kiara24]

Because for making this boots I join the skirt mesh...you think that is not possible?
I download the latest version of Wes's Milkshape plugins, but steel have the same problem, but in Milkshape the vertice are LOD1 594, LOD2 388, LOD3 223.

[CmarNYC]

Maybe the vertex numbering problem is because you've joined a bottom mesh (starting with 15000) and a shoes mesh (starting with 30000)? The vertices really have to be renumbered and you have to use the correct starting point - if these are shoes, start with 30000 or it'll conflict with the bottom mesh.

[Kiara24]

How I fix That?

[CmarNYC]

Try Wes's Autonumber plugin.

[CmarNYC]

Okay, I've taken a closer look at your mesh and the problem is definitely that you combined part of a bottom mesh with a shoes mesh and didn't renumber - the vertices start with the 15000 range and then jump to the 30000 range.

Here's how to renumber:

Import lod1 of the base mesh and lod1 of your morph
Under Vertex in the menu bar, click on Sims3 VertexID Autonum V0.16 - by Wesley Howe
It'll ask for a starting number. Since this is shoes and shoes should start with 30000, type 30000
The Autonum will renumber the base mesh and the morph, and pop up a notice telling you how many vertices it renumbered and what the next start value should be. Write that start number down.
Export both your base mesh and the morph. It would be a good idea to save them as new files - add a "_renum" or something to the names.
Now start a new model and import your lod2 base mesh and morph. Repeat the whole process, but this time put the starting value Autonum gave you when you renumbered lod1.
Repeat again for lod3, using the starting value you got after lod2.

Now you should have a set of renumbered base meshes and morphs, with the vertex IDs starting at 30000 for lod1, and continuing without a break and without overlap through lod2 and lod3.

Then you can create a new BGEO with the renumbered morph meshes, and you should replace the base meshes in your clothing package with the renumbered base meshes. Hopefully this will work. Let me know!

BTW from Wes's instructions if you need to renumber with more than one morph, you just import all of them over the base and Autonum will renumber them all at once.

[Kiara24]

Thanks! :) I'm going to try that!

[Kiara24]

Don't work:( This is strange because I made it 2 time and now don't work...
Can you please see what I'm doing wrong?

[CmarNYC]

The BGEO looks fine - do you mean that the top part of the boot isn't getting fat with the fat morph?

One thing I see is that you're using the same bblend which links to an original game BGEO - the one for the pleated skirt fat morph. You've given your new BGEO the same instance so it's overriding the game one, which isn't a good thing for the skirt morph.

And in fixing that I find my CAS part edit isn't working right - when I save the CAS file the game won't even read it. *sigh* I'll have to look further tomorrow.

[WesHowe]

I looked at a shoe mesh for someone that did not fit right. There was a gap between the shoe and the leg, although the vertex positions and weights were on the shoe matched those on the leg perfectly.

The problem turned out to be that the VertexIDs on the top row of the shoe need to be the same as the IDs on the matching vertices on the bottom row of the leg.

Perhaps the current problem is related.

[Kiara24]

Thanks for helping me! :)
What I have to do now? :(

[CmarNYC]

Wes: that's interesting - strange since the vertex number range is quite different for bottoms/body and shoes, but now I'm curious to take a closer look at the in-game shoes.

Kiara: I really need to see your lod1 morph mesh to try and figure out what's wrong. If you want I can PM you my email address if you'd rather send it that way.

[Kiara24]

Thank you, I hope that you find out what I did wrong.
After you download, just let me know and I delete.

[CmarNYC]

Got them! You can delete.

[CmarNYC]

I don't see anything wrong with your morph except I suspect it's not big enough to match up with the game fat morph. As you make the Sim fatter, her legs come outside the boots mesh and the tops of the boots disappear. I don't know why the rest of the legs keep the boots texture while the part at the tops of the boots keep the skin texture - that's the part you added from the skirt mesh so probably it has something to do with the texture mapping. I don't know enough about texturing to help with that. You can also see some distortion at the ankles where I think the legs are bigger than the boots morph.

As a test, I scaled the tops of the boots way bigger and farther apart, and here's a pic of that with the Sim close to the top of the fat slider. You can see where the outside of the boot tops are outside the leg and showing fine, while the insides are inside the leg. I think you just need to made your morph bigger.

I've fixed the CAS edit in BMM, and am working on directly modifying CTU package files to make the process simpler.

[Kiara24]

Thanks!:)

[Rez Delnava]

I tried making pregnant morphs for males (as part of that project I told you about), but it appears that the casp file generated by CTU are not functioning for the special morph--I always end up with missing meshes when testing in-game. Taking a casp file from the male pregnancy morphs you made fixes the problem, but I'd like to enable the part for more clothing categories.

Are there any suggestions you could give me, or is this an issue I should report to Delphy on?

[wiz1]

Great tutoriel! I would do many probably, if only I had milkshape.

[BloomsBase]

Hey
I could be wrong but i heard you speak about a cas xml editor once?
Need to delete a line out of the CAS part......

[CmarNYC]

I tried making pregnant morphs for males (as part of that project I told you about), but it appears that the casp file generated by CTU are not functioning for the special morph--I always end up with missing meshes when testing in-game. Taking a casp file from the male pregnancy morphs you made fixes the problem, but I'd like to enable the part for more clothing categories.

Are there any suggestions you could give me, or is this an issue I should report to Delphy on?

I used CTU to make the CAS files for my male pregnancy morphs - CTU to tick off the 'maternity' checkbox and to change categories if I wanted, exported the package, extracted the CAS file and imported it into a new package with my new BGEO file. That was for game meshes, though. For a custom mesh you'd have to make the package with CTU as normal, create new bblend and BGEO files for the pregnant morph with BMM, extract the CAS file and modify it with BMM to point to your new bblend for the 'special' morph, and make a package with the modified CAS file, the bblend, the BGEO, and all the other files from the CTU package.

Make sure you've downloaded the latest version of BMM - there was a bug that made it trash any CTU-created CAS files it edited. Also I haven't actually tried that process with a custom mesh yet, though, so it's possible it won't work. Next version of BMM will make the process easier, but I can't work on anything until next week.

[CmarNYC]

Hey
I could be wrong but i heard you speak about a cas xml editor once?
Need to delete a line out of the CAS part......

All I've been editing in the CAS file is the morph links - maybe eventually I'll put in the ability to edit the XML, but not soon. Sorry!

[lkh]

I can't import the caspart with milkshape! help!

[BloomsBase]

I can't import the caspart with milkshape! help!

True, not possible
You can only import the GEOM files(the mesh) in Milkshape.

[Vattenlilja]

Oh lord, what have I gotten myself into?

Okay... I've never ever tried making any CC before, and I'm not planning to either, BUT... I wanted some more maternity clothing in my game, so when I found this tutorial I figured "what the heck, I'll give it a try". But as it turns out, these tools aren't very easy when you've never used them before...

I've downloaded the tools needed. MilkShape is only a 30-day-trial, but that shouldn't matter, right? I've gotten the clothing I want (a top that came with the game) through CTU and into a package file. I used s3ep to extract the caspart. All good so far. But this is where I'm stuck... I open MilkShape and I assume I'm supposed to go to File>Import? But then what? What file am I actually supposed to import? And do I do this with the "Q-MESH Sims 3 GEOM Importer V0.16 - by Wesley Howe", or..? Sorry for all the stupid questions... I admit it - I'm a total noob!

EDIT: Duh, just read the post above this one. At least now I know what type of file I'm looking for. Where do I find it, though? :P Did I miss something?

[CmarNYC]

Hah! No one said it was easy! :D

You need to export the meshes in CTU by using the 'Extract Meshes' button. You'll get three (possibly more) files with the extension of .simgeom. Those are the three lod files - lod1 is used for detailed closeup views of the Sim in the game, lod2 for midrange, and lod3 for distance. Some clothes have more than one mesh per lod, numbered "lod1_1" etc. The simgeoms are what you import into Milkshape using the Q-MESH Sims 3 GEOM Importer V0.16 - by Wesley Howe as you said.

Here's a link to a good starter tutorial for Milkshape, written by Wes Howe: http://www.customsims3.com/forum1/YaBB.pl?num=1244300190 (You can skip the parts about finding and extracting geom files since CTU does it for you.) Good luck!

[Vattenlilja]

Wow, I didn't see that button at all! But I guess that's what happens when you don't really know what you're looking for. :P Thank you, I'll give it another try!

[Fernweather]

Hi,
Hopefully someone can help me figure out what I'm doing wrong here.

The situation is this: I'm creating a set of pregnant morphs for teen female clothing. So far I've created two sets, one for tfBodySwimsuitOnePiece and one for tfBodyDressEmpire_lace. The swimsuit set works fine, if the pregnant sim changes in to swimwear she'll wear the suit as expected. The empire dress, however, results in floaty head syndrome.

For both sets, I did the following:
1) Extracted base meshes using CTU and imported to Milkshape.
2) Made pregnant morphs in Milkshape and exported to files.
3) Created a BEOG using BMM.
4) Altered the CASP to enable item for maternity (random was already set). In the case of tfBodyDressEmpire_lace, I also set the item as valid for formalwear.
5) Imported the altered CASP, the BEOG created with BMM, and the GEOMs exported from Milkshape into a new package. The swimsuit had 3 GEOMs, the empire dress had 4 (lod1, lod1_1, lod2, and lod3).
6) For added measure, used BMM to create a VPXY for each set.
7) Ensured that the instance IDs for the CASP, BEOG, and VPXY override those in fullbuild0, and that the GEOMs are using the proper group IDs for the set they belong to.

As I said, the swimsuit works fine, the empire dress not so much. Even though the dress is enable for formalwear, it does not show up in CAS for teens as a formalwear option. It is almost as if the game isn't reading the package at all (and, yes, it is in the proper Packages folder :p).

Attached is the package for the empire dress in case it might help anyone to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

[BloomsBase]

i had a quick look and i think its because you forgot to add the designs when editing the caspart in CTU.

edit,
4 attempts later.....im as confused as you now lol....
The clone will show up fine but the moment you give its caspart its original ID the formal will dissapear, very strange

[Fernweather]

I added the designs, and the dress is showing up under formalwear now. But I'm still getting nothing but floaty head when a new pregnant sim changes into maternity wear.

The empire dress is the only non-swimwear teen clothing I have maternity enabled at the moment. Is it possible the sim is trying to change into something else?

ETA:
The fail continues :( . While the swimsuit is showing up, the sim never develops a baby bump before the baby arrives (file for the swimsuit is attached).

[Fernweather]

I finally got it to work by generating new instance IDs for the CASP files in each package. For some reason the game isn't seeing the CASP file when I attempt to override the instance ID in fullbuild0.

I am still not sure why the sim is able to wear the non-maternity enabled swimsuit while pregnant though. Odd.

[BloomsBase]

I wrote a small tutorial on how to use Wes his merge tools and making a pregnant morph with it.
You might want to add the link?
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=398865

[deliopen]

Hello! This would be my first attempt at making a mod (or morph, whichever you refer to it as), and I'm having issues with the last steps. If I change the "comment" of the morph, then the plugin won't accept it for export. If I don't change it, then the BGEO-making program will crash with an error when I hit "Create BGEO." Thanks,
deliopen

Edit:I fixed that part, I believe it was actually bad modeling regarding the plugin. Trying to get the morph to show up in game.

Edit of an edit: I can't get it to show up in game, even after trying more than 10 times. I even tried putting other CAS files in there that had changed availability (i.e. available in other categories) and they wouldn't show up. All I have in the package are the CAS part files and the BGEO. Do I need something else?

Editagain: I tried adding GEOM files to the package, but it still doesn't show up on the sims. :help:

[CmarNYC]

Is this a morph for an adult/YA female, adding a pregnant morph to clothing that doesn't originally have it? If so, I've never had much luck getting added morphs to show in the game, and whatever is causing this may be your problem. The item I made showed up when pregnant only once out of at least a dozen tries, even when the Sim had that clothing in her wardrobe. Possibly the game has some kind of built-in preference for the pregnancy outfits that came with it.

After some RL business and illness and catching up on other projects, this weekend I'm getting back to Sims 3 stuff and will be taking another look at this for my 'Meshing for Dummies' tutorial. Anything I find out I'll post here.

[deliopen]

It was, and I followed your advice in the PM and it showed up on one of my sims (finally!). It glitched pretty bad though, appearance wise. I'll upload a pic.
Edit: Oh, the foot in the ground is because of uneven ground, my mod didn't touch that.
Edit2: I almost think it isn't reading the BGEO data, based on the way it's showing up. It's like the default bottom has the data, but the top doesn't, which is rather odd (considering I did put that into the package). I'll upload the package, let me know if you see any particular problems.
Editagain: I did the entire process again with a different shirt, and the same issue occurred. I must be doing something wrong in the process, or not naming the type in Postal, etc.

[CmarNYC]

I can see what the problem is. The CASP links to the bblend which links to the BGEO using the instance numbers. With the clothes that came with the game, the bblend and BGEO files for one piece of clothing have the same instance ID. Your new BGEO has instance ID 0x8B2FB87AB7228AE1. In your CASP file, the link points to Instance ACB669E5F131AE8D. (Open your package in CTU and look in the Part Details tab. Look for "TGI Index Blend Info Special" - it's index 4. then look farther down for TGI # 4, and it shows the Type, Group, and Instance of the Special bblend.) Since there is no bblend in your package, this link is presumably pointing to a bblend file in Fullbuild0, which is pointing to the game BGEO, which is empty. In other words, while you've created a new BGEO you haven't linked it to the clothing.

For what you're doing, the simplest solution is to use the game BGEO instance ID for your replacement BGEO. As explained above, find the Special bblend Instance ID in your CASP using CTU, and change the instance of the BGEO in your package to match it. (In s3pe, double-click the BGEO, change the Instance ID, save.) In the future either make your new BGEO with the Instance ID from the CASP (your package will then contain the CASP and the BGEO), or make a new BGEO and bblend and use the MorphMaker tool to edit the CASP file and set up the proper links (your package will contain the CASP, a bblend, and a BGEO).

If you're making new clothes using CTU, btw, it's actually easier. Newer versions of MorphMaker have a tool to add a new morph to a CTU custom clothing package. Maybe for a minor update I should have a similar option to add a pregnant (or other) morph to a default replacement package. Also when I do a new pregnant morph tutorial in the Meshing for Dummies I'll go through the process in more detail.

BTW, I see your CASP file has an instance ID of 0x0000000000000000. This probably shouldn't happen - I know CTU generates new numbers for them.

** Edit: after a look at MorphMaker I see it will handle this situation. Just use CTU to change the CASP category to make the clothing valid for maternity, save that as a new package which should contain only the CASP file, then run MorphMaker, make your BGEO if you haven't done so, and click the 'Add Morph to Package' button in the clothing screen. Open your package, click the button for the pregnant morph, import your BGEO file, save as a new package, and you're done.

[deliopen]

Thanks for the advice! I tried the way you added with the edit, but it no longer shows up in game. I remember you mentioned that CTU might change the instance numbers, and while I think I changed the CASP's instance number after trying it as it came (without success), it still doesn't show up in game after at least 6 tries (and in all of the categories checked off).

[CmarNYC]

Thanks for the advice! I tried the way you added with the edit, but it no longer shows up in game. I remember you mentioned that CTU might change the instance numbers, and while I think I changed the CASP's instance number after trying it as it came (without success), it still doesn't show up in game after at least 6 tries (and in all of the categories checked off).

I still need to experiment with this more - but as I said in PM I've never had much luck getting the game to pick clothing with an added pregnant morph - it took trying over and over and over again. The fact that it worked for you after you changed the CASP instance ID is interesting, though. Did it work more than once?

[deliopen]

I still need to experiment with this more - but as I said in PM I've never had much luck getting the game to pick clothing with an added pregnant morph - it took trying over and over and over again. The fact that it worked for you after you changed the CASP instance ID is interesting, though. Did it work more than once?
Sorry, I meant that it didn't show up even after changing the instance ID. However, when it was glitching before (and did show up), the same 2 sims would have the CC every time in their Sleepwear category. Now that I used the other way, however, it doesn't show up on any of the categories for any of the 6 sims I'm using for a "test family." It almost seems like the game determines which of the clothing styles the sims are going to use for maternity before they actually change into those clothes, based on how some sims would always get the CC. The only reason that doesn't make sense is if I take one of the packages out and put the other in, the game chose whichever package was there, even if it was another piece of clothing. I suppose it could have just been luck, but I recreated it at least 3 times in a row, which suggests something else. What doesn't make sense is that it doesn't show up when it's done the correct way. I guess the only way to see for sure would be to check the core files, but I'm not advanced enough to do that :lol: . Did it show up for you when you used the method above?

[CmarNYC]

Hmm. The shirt I added a pregnant morph to showed up once in maybe a dozen or more tries, the one time I did a preg morph for adult females. This indicates there's a random element, but also that the game picks some clothes over others. In the package you posted the CASP instance ID is 0x0000000000000000, which I assumed is not the number CTU gave it. I fixed the link to the blend and BGEO and tried that package in my game, and the top got picked and the pregnant morph showed. Then I tried making a new package in CTU by changing the categories for that top to enable maternity and random, ran MorphMaker and added your BGEO to the package, AND then opened the package in s3pe and changed the CASP instance so that the first 8 characters are all zero. That package also was picked and the pregnant morph showed.

I think you've found something important - the game seems to pick maternity wear based at least in part on the sort order of the CASP. This could be a big help to anyone making CC maternity wear.

BTW, there's still a big mismatch between your top and the game bottom - you need to match your baby bump to the game standard size and shape using Base's method in the quick tutorial he linked a few posts up. I'll go through that procedure in more detail and with pictures if I ever get my Meshing for Dummies pregnant section done.

[deliopen]

Hmm. The shirt I added a pregnant morph to showed up once in maybe a dozen or more tries, the one time I did a preg morph for adult females. This indicates there's a random element, but also that the game picks some clothes over others. In the package you posted the CASP instance ID is 0x0000000000000000, which I assumed is not the number CTU gave it. I fixed the link to the blend and BGEO and tried that package in my game, and the top got picked and the pregnant morph showed. Then I tried making a new package in CTU by changing the categories for that top to enable maternity and random, ran MorphMaker and added your BGEO to the package, AND then opened the package in s3pe and changed the CASP instance so that the first 8 characters are all zero. That package also was picked and the pregnant morph showed.

I think you've found something important - the game seems to pick maternity wear based at least in part on the sort order of the CASP. This could be a big help to anyone making CC maternity wear.

BTW, there's still a big mismatch between your top and the game bottom - you need to match your baby bump to the game standard size and shape using Base's method in the quick tutorial he linked a few posts up. I'll go through that procedure in more detail and with pictures if I ever get my Meshing for Dummies pregnant section done.
Thank you so much for your help! I'm glad that we found out something in all this, as well. Next time, I'll make sure I fix the top to the game's normal size or do a body morph. Thank you again for all your help!

[CmarNYC]

You're very welcome! Glad I could help!

[robkjedi]

CmarNYC:

I have a question. Does this only work with clothing meshes or will it work for the nude meshes? If so, would the new morphs translate to the clothing the sim wears? I'm asking because I would like to create a more developed bodybuilder morph slider as the delivered muscular slider does not produce the proportions (particularly to the male chest) that I would like to see in the game.

Thanks!

[CmarNYC]

CmarNYC:
I have a question. Does this only work with clothing meshes or will it work for the nude meshes? If so, would the new morphs translate to the clothing the sim wears? I'm asking because I would like to create a more developed bodybuilder morph slider as the delivered muscular slider does not produce the proportions (particularly to the male chest) that I would like to see in the game.
Thanks!

Interesting question. First of all, the nude meshes ARE clothing - while it's tempting to think there's a nude body with clothing meshes over it, that's not the case. There's no difference between the nude meshes and any other except for the shape.

That said, there's two kinds of sliders that could be used for what you're talking about, each with its own problems. A bone-based slider, using manipulation of the skeleton associated with all the body meshes, would affect all the meshes in the same ways. Unfortunately a bodybuilder bone slider is tricky. I've done some work on one myself and ran into the problem of the hands and feet trembling as soon as I made the lower arms and lower legs bigger. This is almost certainly solvable but it'll involve a lot of work. I may get back to it if I can find the time.

The other alternative is to modify the fit morph meshes so that the standard game fit morph is more muscular. Unfortunately this would have to be done separately for each and every mesh that you want to have a bodybuilder version of since each mesh needs its own fit morph.

[wondersueak]

Can you make a guide for complete morrons? I don't even know how to extract it, let alone I can't find where to find s3pe!, and i don't know how to import it into blender! I don't know how to do any of this.

[wondersueak]

I keep on getting an error saying that there's a missing bone "unable to locate bone file. Default skeleton will be used". For everything I try to do. and when something does show up it's covered in blue spiral lines
http://i309.photobucket.com/albums/kk365/Angela_scottishchick/milkshapeerror2.jpg
how do you fix these problems?

[orangemittens]

You can start by going through the forum looking for the basic ideas WS...people have asked a lot of the same questions you're asking before. The issue with the blue lines is listed in here:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=398869

There's a lot of information in the forum. Look for the threads that have titles related to the problem that you're having and just browse.

And it would be really sweet if someone could sticky the Tips thread or a link to the Wiki (which doesn't have this answer as far as I know) so people don't have to keep flailing around through months of stuff to find a simple answer. :)

[CmarNYC]

Ignore the error message. The Milkshape importer will use a default skeleton, just as the message says. To get rid of the blue lines go to File\Preferences, click the Misc tab, and change the joint size to something between .01 and .015.

[CmarNYC]

Hate to double post, but I've posted a new and improved maternity clothing tutorial in the "Clothing Meshing for Dummies" thread elsewhere in this forum.

[misspinkmey]

HI! I'm super new to this whole meshing thing and I barely figured out how to do a pregnancy morph, so thank you so much for that tutorial for dummies! If I add a pregnancy morph to a base mesh will custom content(not made by me) with that same mesh have that pregnancy morph or do I have to do each one individually?

[CmarNYC]

HI! I'm super new to this whole meshing thing and I barely figured out how to do a pregnancy morph, so thank you so much for that tutorial for dummies! If I add a pregnancy morph to a base mesh will custom content(not made by me) with that same mesh have that pregnancy morph or do I have to do each one individually?

Any custom clothing using the same mesh will have the pregnancy morph available - but 'maternity' has to be enabled for the clothing for the morph to actually get used. If you want to enable a clothing you can open the package in CTU, go to the Part Category tab, and check Maternity and Random.

[misspinkmey]

oh my goodness thank you!!! that opens up sooo much in my sims wardrobe!

[lkh]

mpreg, can you make a tutorial on how to make a morph for pregnant MEN for the towel version (thier clothes hidden after skinny dipping?)

[CmarNYC]

mpreg, can you make a tutorial on how to make a morph for pregnant MEN for the towel version (thier clothes hidden after skinny dipping?)

It works exactly the same for males as for females. Extract the base mesh and make a new clothing package in CTU with Maternity enabled, make a pregnant mesh, use MorphMaker to make a BGEO and add it to your clothing package. And, you might be better off using the tutorial in lesson two of "Clothing meshing for dummies": http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=397260 - It's updated and more complete.

[kateneogirl]

Hi Thanxx! I think I did it but how do I verify that it works? like how do I make my sim wear it for certain when she is pregnant, or at least see it on a pregnant sim... Is there a way to see pregnant clothes on CAS?

[CmarNYC]

CAS won't show the pregnant state. The only way I know of is to have the sim Plan Outfits and select the maternity clothing of your choice, then make her (or him) pregnant (you can use MasterController's Inseminate function). You can just exit without saving if you don't want that sim to actually have a baby.

Please use the newer and improved tutorial in Post 2 here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=397260 for details of how to make fully plannable maternity clothing.

[BloomsBase]

you can switch the fit and pregnant morph, then you will be able to use the slider and see how it looks.
With tsrw very easy since it also has a preview, a bit more work when recreating the Bgeo files but doable :)

[Xalder]

I've tried out this tutorial, but for some reason, as much as I am trying to understand what I'm supposed to do, I can't seem to get the file appearing in game. I've read over some of the comments but I haven't really found a solution to the morph appearing in the CAS (Probably not reading the file properly cause I haven't done it right :P ).

I've just recently tried making a pregnancy morph for males, but as well as it did editing the morph on milkshape, getting it to go into game is a lot more frustrating and have spent many an hours on getting the files to work properly.

It'd be great if you could point out anything I'm supposed to do; things such as bodyblend, I have no idea about (couldn't understand what it supposed to mean to me while making the morph) and since I couldn't seem to get the second case working, I tried the first way and wasn't sure about it to much either. I tried to follow carefully, and even got the .BGEO file and CASPart file together with it (Did this several times and no matter what I did, it still didn't appear in game). Another thing I'm also not to sure about is when you stated that the comment layout for the second layer over the original morph when in milkshape:

FVFItems: 3
TableType: 0
References: 1
TGIRef00: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

... I get a whole lot of other stuff after TGIRef00 (such as TGIRef01). Does it mean that I erase the other part of the comment after TGIRef00 or leave it, and does it affect the morph if I do erase or leave it (of course, after I've replaced the figures with the one's you've given).

Really in short, I'm generally having a lotta trouble with getting the morph to appear in the in-game CAS. Unfortunately, as you can see by the mound of writing I've typed out, it's not going so well :P

Anything to point out? Please help! :P

[CmarNYC]

Well, first of all, if you're looking to see the pregnant morph in CAS you're not going to. There's no pregnant slider. You have to get a sim pregnant to see the morph in action. I'm not sure if that's your problem when you say you're not seeing it but you only mentioned looking for it in CAS. For testing, you may find my pregnancy controller useful to get sims pregnant and to the point that the morph shows: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=485285

Yes, the four lines I gave for the morph mesh comments should replace everything. Erase any other lines.

You might find my "Clothing Meshing for Dummies" tutorial, part 2, more helpful for this. It's more recent and more geared for beginners. http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=397260

[Xalder]

Oh, when I mentioned I was looking for it on the CAS, it was because I used NRaas' Master Controller mod to edit the wardrobe of a sim. Lol.

But thanks for the suggestion, I did eventually somehow get it to work, I think I may have missed a crucial part in your tutorial. Thanks for it, it really helped! :up:

[Xalder]

Sorry, but I just have another thing I'd like to ask you. Do you think you could post a download of your simgeom file of your nude male top with a pregnant morph so I can use to match bottom morphs? I've been endeavoring to match the morphs correctly and accurately with yours but have had no success. They always seem to have gaps I can't accurately fix without having an actual reference to use :P It'd be nice of you to release a simgeom file of your nude male top with a pregnant morph here. Thanks in advance! :)

(Ps. I've only been working with images trying to accurately match them to work with your morphs, but haven't been working accurately lately and always have gaps occurring :P )

[CmarNYC]

Sure - actually my pregnant morph packages have the morph geoms included although they're not needed. I'm attaching the nude male pregnant package.

Is this what you wanted?

[Xalder]

Oh sorry, I get things mixed up, but what I meant was if you happen to have your project file version of it so I can open it up on Milkshape? D:

And on occasion, I get these random errors on body morph maker but have no idea how to bypass. Do you know what this error means?

Error Received from BMM:
MAKEMORPH - in file morphmaker.f95 at line 971 [+04b3]
main - in file morphmaker.f95 at line 121 [+0f96]


Thanks again :)

[CmarNYC]

I don't have project files - all you have to do is import the base GEOM and then import the morph GEOM over it. If you're talking about TSRW, I didn't use TSRW and your best bet is to collect the GEOMs for the base, the EA fat, fit, and thin morphs, and my pregnant morph; and use Mesh Toolkit to convert them to WSO. You could also try exporting the WSO mesh in TSRW and replace the special meshgroup with my morph (after importing the base and pregnant GEOMs) but I'm not sure if that might mess up the bones. It should work but you never know.

Looks like you're using an old version of MorphMaker. Please use the latest version and if you get the error paste the whole error message. Mesh Toolkit already can make a BGEO and I'm working on a function to add morphs to packages and will probably make a separate tool to make sliders, so I'm going to end support for MorphMaker soon anyway.

[Xalder]

Thanks a lot for the tips
Really appreciate your help.