Insimenator.org

Hey Warlokk, i know this has been talked about a while ago, for once you got the alpha meshes worked out, this was something in the "to-do" pile, but maybe this might give a little motivation to get custom sized maid outfits made, well.. maybe. Paladin just released one of the coolest mods i think Sims2 has yet...
Playable Maid Controller (http://148.122.173.174/pplace/playable-maid-controller.htm)

Ya know how you dont want to make any "default replacers" for anything, including NPC's.. well this just solved our problem.  Paladin makes some of the neatest and ingenious mods and this one is right up there. I think many will be pleased. Thanks goes to Paladin :)

So this way, all diff sizes of the maid outfit can be made, and playble sims hired as the maid can wear them, in all the variable size glory.   I just saw this and had to share :)

Have you tried running NPC Replacer, Raveshade?

Every time I've tried it, I get a "path not found" error.

no havnt tried the npc replacer. iv seen that.. but never tried to figure it out, and also didnt want to replace the npc's outright.  I just like the idea of making anyone the maid and having it be one of your player sims better.

and what part are you getting a path not found error?  I tried getting both the maid controller and the npc changer from paladin's site and i get the files fine. no errors.  unless his IP was temporarily down.. as of this msg its workin.

Busines EP requiered, snif

Oh!  That explains why on my machine it can't find the path it's looking for.

ohh.. are you talkin about the link?... well.. yea your right it doesnt work now, as i just tested it.  it did when i posted.. maybe something to do with cache or ip change. but yea now it just directs me to paladins front page.  sorry :)

Question though, what sizes would some be looking for maid outfits in?  I'm toying with the idea of doing a set of some sort while Warlokk focuses on other sets, but I'm curious...

(Keep in mind, I have Pets currently, and 'patched' the bodyshop, though I will grab the classic version if need be for this...)

Don't forget I already released a 34De-36 Maid replacer and outfit... I'm not planning to do other replacement sizes, but more outfits would be fine if you'd like to tackle it.  Keep in mind it's an alpha mesh though, it introduces a few more elements.

Anything I should keep in mind when dealing with alpha layers?

Extract them as separate .obj's and apply your magnets to them separately... then put them back together in Milkshape/Unimesh.  The ObjX export/import works great for this, then all you have to do is rename and reorder the groups back to the originals, and the plugin does the work.

Alright, I did them separate, but how can the magnets grab something that's not there in the alpha layer?

Ah, that's the fun part... you have to import them into Poser separately and apply the magnets to each part, and re-export.  So you will have a reshaped Body mesh and Alpha mesh, which you then combine in Milkshape.  Usually the magnets don't affect the different parts exactly the same though, so expect to have to tweak the fit a bit in Milkshape to keep the parts from overlapping.

I get that, but the way the alpha layer is, when I apply the magnets, they instantly disappear and no change is made to that layer, as there is literally no points or faces for it to grab.

Aaaah, that's because the alpha has a different group name when you import it into Poser.  There's 2 ways around this, you can either go into the Properties tab of each magnet, click the Choose Target (or something like that, I forget) and choose the body_alpha group (or whatever it's called).  Or, the easier way, is go into the Properties tab of the alpha mesh itself, at the top under the filename is the group name.  Change this to "body" before you apply the magnets, then they will affect it the way you want.  Then before you export, change the name back.

That helped immensely.  My final issue is selecting the frill around the top of the buster as it seems to be somewhat inside of it.  I may try to play with it, but determining which points is a pain...