milkshapemilkshapemilkshapemilkshapemilkshapemilkshapemilkshapem

16-Sep-2009 Version 0.15 Wesley Howe Program notes for: "Q-Mesh Sims 3 GEOM Importer Vn.nn - by Wesley Howe" (body meshes). "Q-Mesh Sims 3 GEOM Exporter Vn.nn - by Wesley Howe" (body meshes). "Sims3 Extra Data Tool Vn.nn - by Wesley Howe" (VertexID and TagVal editor) Where n.nn is the version number. NOTE: This version requires release 1.8.5 of MilkShape. This release requires MilkShape version 1.8.5. Support for the TagVal items used in hair meshes and faces (to control color channels per-vertex) requires the new version of MilkShape. Installation for all MilkShape plugins consists of unzipping the file and placing it in the MilkShape program folder. It you used the installation defaults, this will be "C:\Program Files\MilkShape 3D 1.8.5" or, on Vista 64-bit it will be "C:\Program Files (x86)\MilkShape 3D 1.8.5". After placing the plugin in the program directory, close (if you are using MilkShape) and restart the program. Plugins are searched for only when the program starts up. If you put this in the right place, you will find a new entry in the File->Export or File->Export labelled as lised above. ================ Sims 3 files ======================================= As used in the game, all of the game items are named with 4 numbers, and packaged in a file with the extension .package using version 2 of EA's DBPF format. This plugin knows nothing about the package files themselves, it works only with files already extracted from a package file. Details on using a package file program are not included here. The extracted files are named following a scheme in which the 4 numbers from the package, the type [TID], group [GID], instance_hi and instance_lo [IID] (which are combined into a 64-bit single number) are converted to hex digits. You don't have to know any more details about this process, although they are documented elsewhere. The layout of a name looks like this: S3_015A1849_00A0A12D_0000000098ABE74D_GEOM.simgeom S3_00AE6C67_00A0A12D_00000000B9DEE910_BONE.skcon The layout of the names is such that each filename should be unique. For many types, the last 4 characters will be an acronym for the type value, and the file extension will be created such that various tools (including paint programs) will recognize those that they understand. This importer program understands the GEOM .simgeom (sim body mesh files), and the BONE .skcon (skin controller) files. Programs that extract these files include the bulk file tool s3chop, Postal and the S3PI tool, and for meshes the CTU tool. Inside the GEOM file is a reference to the appropriate BONE file for that mesh. The BONE file includes, as you would expect, the information on where the joints for the mesh should be placed, while the GEOM file itself contains the mesh and the assignment and weighting information that allows the mesh to be deformed properly for animation. While the plugin itself can follow the reference inside the GEOM file to look for the correct BONE file, the methods to determine which BONE goes with which GEOM is external to this plugin. If the BONE file is not found, it will tell you, and list the filename it was looking for, but you will need to locate and extract that file and then run the importer again to adjust the bones locations to match the mesh design. As you would expect, meshes for adults and children are different sizes. Lacking the correct BONE file, the importer will use a default adult skeleton, if the mesh is one for a child, this will be wildly mis-sized. GEOM files only contain a single group, and a full body mesh will consist of a hair mesh, a face mesh, either a full-body or separate top/bottom meshes, a feet mesh and possibly several body morph meshes. These meshes can be imported overtop each other. The importer will issue a warning when it is used and any mesh is already loaded, because the process of building a complete sim mesh will not work if the files are mixed between different meshes or multiple of the same parts are loaded. When working with morphs, the base mesh must be the first loaded group, including for export. Further complicating the process is that multiple LOD (less detailed versions) exist for each mesh. Further information on how the game arranges these files will be posted elsewhere, as they are discovered. Like the predecessor Sims 2 UniMesh plugins, Q-Mesh understands morphs and can load them, however in Sims 3 these morphs are separate files from the base body mesh, and only the morphs that match the base mesh can be loaded, and then only after the base mesh has already been loaded. In the base and body meshes the entire face list and a VertID exist for each vertex, and these all must match before a morph import will finish. Altered morphs do not work in the game until a new BGEO file has been created (seperate tool and process). ================ Animation ======================================= Meshes can be imported and can be animated within MilkShape to check assignments and skin weighting or just to pose the mesh. ================ Comments ============================================= The importer creates a set of comments for each group to remember some specific mesh related data that will be used later together with the mesh itself to rebuild a GEOM package. While the exporter plugin needs more game testing before it can be released, a typical set of comments is shown below: FVFItems: 7 References: 4 TGIRef00: 00B2D882 00000000 BD1CB80A 22C4F88D TGIRef01: 00B2D882 00000000 BD1CB80A 22C4F88E TGIRef02: 00B2D882 00000000 BD1CB80A 22C4F890 TGIRef03: 00AE6C67 00005323 00000000 580AEA00 The FVFItems value will be either 3 (a morph) or one of 6, 7, or 8. The values six is a complete mesh, but lacks VertID or TagVal data (more on these later). Type 7 has a VertID (vertex id number) and type 8 has both a VertID and the TagVal (purpose uncertain, but appears to be related to applying vertex colors). Each VertID will be unique for each vertex across all parts of the entire mesh, while the TagVal data is applied to multiple sets of vertices. More research on this is required, and no simple tools exist to modify the values. But the importer can read these, and stores them in the imported mesh, and MilkShape saves them in the default save file format (.ms3d). The References value is the count of items from a table in the original file, and the following number of items is retained. Each set of values are type, group and instance (hi and lo) of those used in a file that supports the mesh. Type "00B2D882" are the textures (in .dds format) and type "00AE6C67" are the referenced BONE file. Fom the values for the BONE file, the expected filename is built and searched for on import. Additionally, for base meshes (FVFItems: count 6, 7 or 8) there will be additional data in the comments section: EmbeddedType: 548394B9 EmbeddedSize: 308 EmbeddedLong000: 464E544D EmbeddedLong001: 00000000 ... EmbeddedLong076: 00000000 Actual data may vary. This is a special data section, an embedded MTNF block, which is not currently editable. The data is stored and carried over on export. Without this data, meshes do not work or may crash the game. Locating the necessary meshes to modify is at present a difficult process. However, in each SIMO file the .xml data refers to the various mesh parts by name, after the tag daefilename. An example: afShoesSandalLowFlatNatural00_sandalLeather_lod1 This is the first most detailed level-of-detail (_lod1) of the adult female (af) Sandal and would be located in FullBuild0.package, where the other game mesh files are to be found. In FullBuild0 is a namemap (_KEY) file that contains the names and Quad Word (64-bit) instance IDs of the items. The file layout is: QWORD InstanceID DWORD name_length [varies] name characters. The QWORD is written typi