[Jessica]

I originally learned how to mesh because I wanted to add heels to one of warlokk's meshes that didnt have heels available.
I read the bodymeshing tutorials at mts2 and they barely touched on how to add shoes, so this will be for any of you wondering how to, too.
Any screenshots I post here, you can click on them to see a larger image.


Note: feel free to tell me ways of making this tutorial better, I just did it real quick for kiki and I would like to fine-tune it later


Requirements:
Milkshape/Unimesh
Bodyshop
SimPE


Experience Necessary:
Basic meshing -- must have followed Bodymeshing for Beginners 1, 2, and 3


In the mts2 tutorial "bodymeshing for beginners 3 -- combining mesh parts", we learned how to add maxis shoes from one outfit, to a different maxis outfit. We will be using those skills in this tutorial here, so if you need to brush up, please redo that tutorial.


1.) Decide which mesh and which shoes you want to put together. I will be using Tyler's teen female shorts mesh and i will be adding maxi's teen wedges from h&m sp.


2.) Now I'm going to create a base mesh. I am going to use the one I'll be stealing the shoes from. To do this, I will export the outfit with the shoes on it in Bodyshop. I will be calling it teenwedges. Import it back into bodyshop since this is just a temporary texture.

3.) Close bodyshop and open up SimPE. Since you've already followed the mts2 tutorials I linked to earlier, you should already know what to do next to create the base mesh but I'll go over it real quick
--Open the texture you just exported. It will be in your Saved Sims folder (My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Saved Sims) and will be named with a set of numbers at the beginning, and then the filename you gave it. For example: 5ff4301d_teenwedges.package

--Look for the property set (on the left). There you will see the name of the mesh. Mine says tfbodyelite_browngreen. The important part of this is the ‘tfbodyelite’. Using Window > Resource Finder I am going to choose "Namemap Search" in the Find dropdown menu then in the Match box type: tfbodyelite and wait for my results to show up.

--In the Resource Finder results, we’re going to look for our mesh parts in 4 files; The GMDC from the Sims03.package, the GMND from the Sims04.package, the SHPE from the Sims05.package, the CRES from the Sims06.package. Double-click on each one, right-click and choose extract in the main menu, save the extracted ones to a new folder on your desktop.


--In SimPE, click File – New. Right click on the large empty window and click "add", select one of the files we just extracted to our desktop, then right-click and add again, until all 4 files are shown.


--Save the file. Use menu - File - Save As. Name your new mesh file something like:“MESH_yournick_agesexmeshname_date”. For mine I will be putting: MESH_wsjessica_tftylershortswedges_jan2008. Save this file into your sims2 downloads folder. Fix Integrity. Tools – Object Tools – Fix Integrity. Type the mesh name (MESH_yournick_agesexmeshname_date) then hit "update", hit ok when its done. Save your mesh file (File - Save)


--Save your new Resource Node (CRES) and Shape (SHPE) files to your new desktop folder by right-clicking on each and choosing 'Extract'. Give them the name ‘modifiedcres’ and ‘modifiedshape’, so you can tell them from the originals.

4.) Now we need to attach our new mesh to that temporary texture we gave it. You should already know how to do this part too, but if not, go back to Tig's tutorial on mts2 and redo Part IV (steps 20-27).

5.) Now its time to open up the custom mesh we're going to add the shoes to. In my case, it is called "TFMESH_summeroutfit1.package"
--Look for the gmdc of this mesh and right-click on it. Extract and save it to your new desktop folder where the other files are, but save it as something else so you'll know what it is. I will be saving it as tylershorts.

6.) Time to edit the meshes! Close simpe and open up milkshape
--Turn on milkshape and choose File > Import > Sims2 Unimesh Import. Then find the gmdc for the outfit mesh you're going to eventually add the shoes to. For me, this would be tylershorts.gmdc. It will ask you if you want to create blend groups, say NO (you'll be doing the fat/preg morphs later once you have your mesh perfected, and dont need 4 different morphs in there while you're editing the two meshes together).

--File > Import > Sims2 Unimesh Import, find the gmdc for the mesh youre going to steal the shoes from. For me, this would be "AC4F8687-51F5A93C-1C0532FA-FF199D3C.gmdc"

--If it asks you "If you import over another model, results may be unreliable. Do you want to continue?" say YES. Otherwise it wont add the second mesh and you won't be able to edit them together lol. If it asks you about bone definitions, say NO (it will add an additional skeleton if you say yes and you dont want that). If it asks you about Skin Weights, say YES. You should now have both meshes sitting on top of each other in milkshape.

7.) Edit the mesh to add the shoes to the outfit mesh, fix uvmaps, add morphs, fix shoe sounds. You should know how to do this already since it was covered in the tutorial on mts2.
--If you need a refresher, go back to here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=179177 it will help you with your current mesh.