Bounding box problems

Triple post, don't hate me! I've been doing some testing trying to figure it out, and I would very much appreciate input on my findings, so I want it to appear as a new post in the hopes that someone that might know the answer will see the new post.

I wanted to try and figure out if the add bounding box function making my package crash was related to my SimPE doing it wrong, my object, or the tiny mesh. I cloned a decorative object, and replaced it's mesh with the tiny one. I then tried adding bounding box. No crashing, and the bounding box now correctly matched the mesh of the car. Ergo the problem is specific to my package.

I thought I'd try copying the bounding box from my decorative object clone to my car clone, and as I had them open side by side I noticed that the Model Section - Transformations of my car object had lots of entries, but the bounding box was empty. The opposite was true for the decorative objects. I then decided to compare the other tabs of GMDC as well, and found that my car object had a bunch of entries in the Joints tab, whereas the decorative object did not.

Being the poke and prod kind of creator I am, I decided to delete the entries in Joints to see what happened. What happened was that the Model Section - Transformations window was now empty. I tried adding bounding box after that, and much to my surprise, the object no longer crashes the game and the bounding box did update correctly. Which brings me to my question, what are Joints and Model Section - Transformations? Is it safe to delete the Joints the way I did, or is there some reason why this is a bad idea? While it appears to have solved the problem, I wouldn't want to share something without understanding what my editing actually did.

EDIT: Phaenoh informed me that deleting joints is indeed a bad idea, and suggested ways to get rid of them that are safe, so that's what I'll be doing next.

The areas you're asking about (Joints and Model Section - Transformations) have to do with animated meshes that have joints - like a car. (Or armoire, gate, stove, counter, sink...) Which makes me think "Hmmmm" and wonder about something. Where you see the Model Section - Transformations? There's "Rebuild" right next to that. If I were to edit the position of a joint in the CRES, I'd want to click "Rebuild" afterwards.
Instead of deleting joints, I'm wondering if clicking "Rebuild" would have fixed the bounding box. I think you edited the CRES in some way (besides the Thumbnail Extension)? If you still have a version of this object where you DIDN'T delete (or otherwise get rid of or disable) the joints, give it a try and see what happens.

It sounds like the original car was exported and resized in Milkshape, and when you export jointed objects like that you do need to use the extract method, not the obj method (AFAIK). Otherwise, on import the bounding box is bust and you cant update it.

Um... Yeah, that ^ too.

Sorry, I'm a little confused. I have no meshing experience so all of these terms are very new to me. Leefish, what do you mean with extract method?

I always keep backups of each step of the process, so I can go back to whichever step necessary. mustluvcatz, I don't think I've done anything related to joints in CRES. I decided to revert to an earlier version where CRES has not been edited, as I found that the car-size footprint was caused by a line in the bhav. It seemed safer to just negate that, rather than edit things I don't understand. I think I already tried rebuilding model section lines, and then adding bounding box, but I'll try it again.

Instead of clicking Export, you right click the line in the GMDC and click extract. That will give you a file that is NOT an .obj - it'll be a .5gd. To import that file into MilkShape you'll need the Sims2 Unimesh Import/Export plug-ins that are available at MTS. (Wes Howe I think?) Those plug-ins keep the joints and allow you to assign them to your new mesh. (Although if you're just resizing, that shouldn't be necessary?)

There's more to it than that - like you have to be sure to copy the filename from the GMDC so you'll have it after you REPLACE the GMDC. If you need help doing this just let someone here (or MTS) know and we can point you in the right direction and/or help you out.

Not going to lie, feeling rather overwhelmed. I don't understand most of the advice I'm getting, and everything Milkshape stresses me out. I can't even put into words what it is I don't understand, because it's everything. Speaking realistically, I'd say the chances of me actually doing something that requires using Milkshape is zero. Partly because I have zero experience and have no idea how to use it or what things mean, but mostly because everything mesh-related gives me anxiety. Silly, I know, but I can't help it. The only reason I dared to try this creation is because I already had the mesh and thought I would not need to use Milkshape.

I'll try to read a few tutorials, and see if I can get through them, and see if Michelle has time/energy to explain a bit to me what's going on. Then I'll see if I can make sense of the stuff you guys said I really appreciate the help and input, I'm just too much of a newb in this area to understand it.

Its ok, the first time I used milkshape I was also baffled. I am still trying to get my mind around how jointed objects work. Nix is super at things like that.

Try with Michelle, see what she has to say. Worst case?The bounding box is kinda small.

Baffled is not quite the word. It's more like complete panic xD Every part of me wants to give up and forget about this project, but I'm hoping that's mostly lack of sleep, IRL stress and PMS doing the speaking rather than the rational part of my brain. I'm sure it's not actually that difficult if one just knows what they are doing. I got through slaving once I found a tutorial I could understand, so I suppose I ought to be able to do this too if I just find the information I need.

EDIT: Going to try and form my thoughts into a question.

In my car clone, the CRES has a ton of stuff in it that I don't know what they are for. I feel like I ought to clean it up a bit, since most of it is probably not necessary. In order to get rid of joints, Phaenoh suggested doing something related to cloning a decorative object and putting the tiny car mesh on it, then doing something in Milkshape and using the GMDC, SHPE and CRES of the decorative object in the car clone. That seems like a good idea, since that would also naturally clean out the CRES a bit. I don't understand what I was supposed to do, but does that sound like a plausible approach to you guys?

Yes, that sounds totally plausible. if you can just export the car mesh and swap it into a basic deco object, then fix the bhavs etc then that should work; you might find that easier than messing about with the GMND etc.