Is it at all possible to create custom clothes in blender with added geometry? I'd like to be able to do this without having to buy Milkshape.

I'm struggling with the same wonderings.
I've already done that, but I was only altering a subset that I then added to the main mesh in SimPE.
However, each time I tried to alter the main mesh itself, it always ended up all messed up, or at least a little.

The reason why it's always better to have Milkshape 3D is because of bones assignment (which could be easily replaced by Meshtoolkit though) , if not, fixing certain seams that will be really visible. You could do 'remove doubles' in Blender as they do remove other kinds of seams across the arms, legs, etc. But things will get challenging since if you work with TSRW, things will... certainly work improperly most of the time. (The plugins from TSRW are just horribly done) At least they do for me. And when it comes to CTU, you need to make sure you have the right blender version to actually make it work properly. (Also for the GEOM plugins, which usually doesn't work for me either). But the only thing I've experienced with CTU is frustration and project quitting. It's not really my kind of program.

Also, Milkshape is pretty important for me, when it comes to normals. Normals in Blender are in development, at least that's what it looks like to me every time I'm checking out what's new with the latest Blender version. But as long as you apply Align normals, use model cleaner in Milkshape, you won't get all these crazy errors TSRW would give you if you're doing the entire progress through Blender.

But, yes it is possible. No, it won't be easier than using both Blender and Milkshape. Blender is usually the program for meshing, milkshape is more like the 'bug fixer' for me. I've tried what you want once though, but it ended up giving bad quality CC for me. >-<

Can't I just assign the bones in Blender? seems like that would be alot easier since blender actually has a usable viewport and UI
I guess I'll just have to use Milkshape for finalizing stuff though, as long as I can do most work in Blender it's fine by me.

Thanks for the answer, but for now I'm stubborn (I don't have milkshape yet, anyway), so I'll ask you a question (if you have time for an answer, of course !).



What do you mean by that ?
Do you have to do that before or after altering the mesh ?
And does it work for the weird line of the neck that I always get ?

I think the only way to get rid of the neck seam is to use Milkshape sadly

Well, you can even do it easier, by downloading Meshtoolkit, (if you use TSRW) Clone an outfit that looks like your clothing, make sure you export it as WSO. And use the EA exported WSO as reference. BUT you need an exported WSO version of your mesh as well. Then you can just simply assign the bones in Meshtoolkit. (If you need help using Meshtoolkit, let me know)



Well, when you import a sims 3 body into Blender, you'll see these visible lines called seams across the arms and the legs. Those are vertexs that aren't 'connected' to each other, which means the normals won't smooth them. If you select the entire mesh and use the spacebar to get to the search bar, you want to type in 'remove doubles'. Milkshape has a similair plugin called 'model cleaner' but you could skip that if you really want to only go for Blender. Just use remove doubles then. Now the seams across the arms and the legs are smooth and gone, which means you won't see that in game either.
Though, it doesn't fix the neck and leg seams. What you could do, which i'm not sure of if it really works, is selecting the entire body except for the Neck and the end of the legs and use remove doubles to keep the normals needed for the game to not show any visible neck seams. But then, you might encounter another problem, which is easier fixed in Milkshape than Blender, is that the neck part and the leg part may create a gap-looking.Like it's not connected to the sims head/feet. So that's why I use Milkshape to fix these things, to weld that together because it's simply impossible to do in Blender.

Since I will have to use the model cleaner I guess I can't import morph meshes from blender since the cleaner will make it different from the base mesh
I absolutely hate having to do major stuff like that in Milkshape

I know the feeling >-< But it literally will become this repeating thing. Like Meshing in Blender>export as obj. to Milkshape. >Use plugins> export as Wso.>meshtoolkit>repeat. That's literally all XD

But Meshing in Blender is fine! Then just export it to Milkshape, apply Align normals, model cleaner, fix those neck seams, and that's it. I really try to aviod doing anything meshing like in Milkshape and to be honest, I don't really like Milkshape either, but sometimes a way around is just impossible >-< Also! if you use Model cleaner, press 'no' on all popups that comes up. Else it will mess up your entire mesh.