I just stumbled on the late Cmar's Mesh Tangent Recalculator while browsing through his content and I was impressed by the screenshots; those are incredible results. The only thing is that when I tried to download it myself & booted it up, I felt like I was out of my tech-boomer brain depth when this popup came up (attached picture) and I was too afraid to do anything lest it screws up my game.

Unfortunately, Cmar was also kind of vague on how to use his program in the description of that download's page.

So appreciate anyone who could help out.

You only need to use this tool if you've made CC that is experiencing the error shown in those screenshots. It has no use for anything else.
The description provided for using it is actually quite indepth- it just assumes the user already knows about working with meshes, because that's who the tool is for :p
If you have a mesh (which are in a format called GEOM) that needs recalculating, you would just select it from within the tool.

It was later included in MeshToolKit, a program used in almost all CAS CC creation, which is why this standalone one isn't mentioned much anymore.

By MeshToolKit, you mean the S3PE?

Cmar is a she. I say "is", because her work lives on. ))) Meshing Tool Kit (aka MTK), is one of the best things to happen to TS3 modding.
https://modthesims.info/d/481950/me...12-20-2018.html

There is an updated version by Thornowl, that fixed a couple of things, but I forget where it is. Maybe @CardinalSims knows.

Would it be this one?
https://thornowl.tumblr.com/post/75...m-fixer-fix/amp


Also, I see no GEOM tag in the modded skintone I downloaded when I open those packages up in S3PE :/

Yes, that's @Thornowl's update. And, I have no idea what you're talking about, "GEOM tags in the modded skintone I downloaded when I open those packages up in S3PE."???

GEOM are meshes ie. the 3D shape that makes up a piece of clothing or a hair.
Skintones do not have any meshes because they're... well, skintones. They'll only have textures and TONE files, neither of which have anything to do with this tool.

I guess my language ability is breaking haha

Maybe it's best I show you with picture (i.e: screencap).

So attached is the list of tags for Neiuro's Mango Yogurt Skin when I open the package file in S3PE. Throughout the list of tags, there isn't one I see that says "GEOM".

And it seems to be the same for most if not all of the skintones I've downloaded.

It's exactly what @CardinalSims wrote. Your game already has geoms for whatever outfit. Skin textures simple put color to exposed skin areas of a mesh in game.

In this case, this question would probably sound super boomer, or maybe it's already answered but the answer flew way over my head, but where would I need to find the GEOM mesh that deals with the Sim's skin's 3D shape which I'll be opening the Mesh ToolKit with?

I've already gotten thornowl's thing downloaded & ready to go (see attached screenshot).

Let's start over. What are you trying to do? This began with tangents and MTK, and has evolved to skins, which has nothing to do with the first.

It sounds like mythik is trying to make a custom body?

Possibly... and thinks the body mesh comes in the skins package?

So I think this might have come from exposure to Sims 1 and Sims 2 where the language for body meshes did include reference to skins somehow (I wasn't making body meshes but I was reading discussions about them, so my memory is vague)

Yeah, that's a fair question. So according to Cmar's page I initially posted there's apparently default "seams" in the original vanilla Sims skins/mesh (or whatever that specific thing is called). I'm assuming that it is still true even now. So I am trying to see if I can smoothen out the alleged seams in the default vanilla sims skin (which I assume is still indeed there); as what Cmar claims his download does.

Sorry if I wasn't clear earlier, I hope this clears things out.

So that raises the question: Are you at this time experiencing problems with the default mesh (or skin?) that you can see? Because of you aren't, maybe don't worry about it?

Sometimes there is more confusion in trying to assign logic to something that started from confusion :P

There is nothing on Cmar's download that states that the vanilla EA meshes have this error- in fact, the way the tool works is by applying EA data to the mesh you put into it.
The key words to pay attention to in that tool's description are custom and Milkshape. It has everything to do with custom content and issues that can arise from using 3D meshing software (that's what Milkshape is), and nothing to do with anything else.
If you aren't working with either of those things, you don't have anything to use this tool on.

Something that might help solidify your understanding is to know that sim's body parts are included with their clothes. They don't wear clothes over a body mesh, and as such, there isn't one body mesh that can be edited.
When custom clothes are made, the body parts they include (ie. the legs included with a pair of shorts) can have the issue shown in Cmar's screenshots. Her tool is for fixing that, if and when it occurs.

I wasn't being dismissive in my first reply, quite literally there is nothing this tool can do for you if you don't already have a custom GEOM that is suffering from that error. It's not a bug that vanilla content has.

I believe one of the issues with seams relates to normals mapping, particularly teen male and female nude. The normals map isn't referenced by EA. If you open adult male or female nude in TSRW, or S3OC using deep clone, you will have a normals map. If you open a teen, you do not. I believe Cmar added a reference for this in her fixes. I did the same in my top and bottom nudes for teens.

Unfortunately, Cmar's MTK didn't fix teen seams for geom or .wso, however, both Thornowl's MTK and the seam fix in Smug Tomato's tools for Blender 2.8x do a good job. Blender even fixes L2 and L3 for those who care. I often match those seams... just because I can.

IDK if I should consider this a problem. But I think I see that skinline that Cmar was refering to in his original post (attached).

To be fair, I'm Neiuro's mango smoothie/yogurt skin download so I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. But even if it did, is there anything that I can do about it?

This looks more like a bad seam, but once more- these issues do not have anything to do with the skin texture. It's the pair of CC shorts that sim is wearing that has the flaw.
It could also be worsened by low graphics settings, or it may just be poorly made- though it's an issue that's easy to miss.

It can be fixed with a few intermediate steps related to CC creation that you may or may not be confident doing, but because it's an issue with the clothing itself you can also just put the sim in different bottoms. None of the EA options will have it, and neither will well-made CC.