BASIC HAIR MESHING IN TSR WORKSHOP

What You Will Need

• TSR Workshop 0.8.7 or later (http://www.thesimsresource.com/workshop)
You will need TSR Workshop for importing/exporting your meshes and textures and exporting your final work as a .sim3package or .package. This tool doesn’t make meshes, you need a 3d application for that.

• A graphics editor capable of supporting DDS (I’ll be using Photoshop CS3)
You’ll need a graphics editor to draw your hair textures and save the textues in .dds format. This is the only format The Sims 3 recognizes. You can’t just save your textures in .bmp or .jpg.

• Milkshape 1.8.5 or later
You’ll need Milkshape mainly for bone assignments and because Workshop has Milkshape plugins to export – import .wso files. This format can hold bone assignment information. But for modelling I strongly recommend to use a more professional 3d application like 3ds Max, Maya and Cinema 4d. It doesn’t mean you can’t mesh in Milkshape. But Milkshape has very limited tools to help you get your work done faster, so you’d probably spend weeks in Milkshape to create a smooth and beautiful hair mesh. Trust me, it’s a lot of work!

• CrazyBump (http://www.crazybump.com/) (optional)
This program is amazing . You can make your bump maps, specular and normal maps within seconds with this tool. Try it!

Step 1

So, first things first. Install TSR Workshop then go to C:\Program Files\The Sims Resource\TSR Workshop\Extras\Milkshape Plugins and grab the two files named msTSRWorkshopExport.dll and msTSRWorkshopImport.dll. Now go to C:\Program Files\MilkShape 3D 1.8.5 and paste them there. Now your milkshape has TSR Workshop plugins!

Step 2

Now fire up TSR Workshop. Hit Create New Project > Hair > Age > Sex > Clothing Category and pick a hair from there.

Pick a hair that suits your new custom mesh best. If you’re planning to make a long hair pick a long one from the list so you can study how their vertices are assigned to bones and copy them. You can also pick a hair that has accessories like hair clips or hats if your new mesh has accessories too. This will make things easier later.

Step 3

Name your Project, find a unique name for the unique indentifier (for example creatorname_hair_01) find a name for the title and write a description. Since I’m too lazy to fill all those spaces I just paste Ulker_hair_00x to all of the spaces. It doesn’t matter what you write really. Just make sure the unique identifier is somewhat unique!

Step 4

Let’s just save our project in .wrk format and close Workshop. We’ll mesh hair now! Open your favorite 3d application and import one of the example bodies. I’ll be using 3ds Max 2010 and importing the adult female body in this tutorial. But you can do the same things I’ll be doing in another 3d application too. Now group the face, scalp and the body together and freeze them so you don’t move their verts by accident.