This is probably not the first time someone has said this, but I will nevertheless type this message.
A common characteristic we all share is that we are pirates. Whether it's the booty's shopping list or MATY's store downloads, most of us have crossed over to the ‘dark' side of the internet. I suspect that there are at least thousands of us - yet we have never tried to change the tide.
While talented (and not-so-talented) artists are stuck solely with low-grade Milkshape or Blender, we have the option to upgrade to professional tools such as Maya and 3DS Max. Many steps become automated and it is as easy as drawing lines with a pencil to create meshes. I have played around with the programs and I believe they can create high-quality custom content; under our direction. All we need is to familiarize ourselves with the software. It won't be easy, and I am surprised that no one has done it before (assuming there isn't already a pirate group). Now if we could find more experienced creators to help us...
To get started, I'm just going to link to some key tools:
Here is a thread containing Sims 3 models in .OBJ format.
WesHowe made a plugin to include Maya 2009 into the workflow of Sims 3 modding. You would need
CTU or
TSR Workshop >
MilkShape 1.8.5 beta along with the
Serial >
WesHowe's GEOM plugins > and then
Maya 2009 . The only downside is that bones may need to be reassigned. WesHowe claims that using SMD file formats will preserve the bones. I personally could not get Maya to load it without crashing. The
SMD import / export requires Steam's
SDK.
Bobbuilder45 converted Blender's GEOM plugin to work with
3DS Max 2011. This workflow would be similar to Maya only you would use 3DS Max 2011 instead. At the end of his thread, I believe he uploaded
rig files or bones so you wouldn't have to reassign them. I cannot get SMD files to properly show the bones, but can see the Sim. I tried
wunderboy SMD importers and exporters to no avail.
A potential game changer is CmarNYC's new
meshing toolkit. I haven't reached this stage yet, but I do hope that others expand this idea
"If we all had Maya and the Granny Exporters for it, with the original artist-made files, and a few more instructions and tools that EA used, adding one more animation would be much easier." -WesHowe
I found Granny
here, but I'm not sure if it completely works. I hope this post leads to something.