More Awesome Than You!

Does anyone else use default replacement skins? I've been using Helaene's 705s but that line down the inner thigh really bugs me. I like the 805's but All of the sims look like they have oily skin. So I wanted to hear from the rest of y'all to see what defaults you use and umm where i can get them lol.

Linda.

I currently use exem's defaualt replacement skintones but  they are a paysite.. how ever Jfreddog has some good default replacements at Mod the sims2  http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=71168

For light, I use the 805 female body, w/ the belly ring removed, w/ the 705 male bodies and "air brushed" their faces b/c otherwise they all look like they've got skin problems. For tan, I use the 705 skin, but I'm not so happy w/ that, and I've been scouring for replacements. For med to dark, I use the Oepu skintones which can be found on MTS2, and while the med skintone required some major editing, the dark one is fantastic and flaw free - the best default I've found so far.

In my experience, there's always bound to be at least one issue w/ some part of a skin or another, and it's quite hard to find a skin that'll flatter all face types and all sims in a skin category. That's why I've basically gathered up the stuff I liked and put them all other. One part here, another part there. That way, you're guaranteed a result you'll like.

I make my own default replacements. That way I can have exactly what I want. (I don't actually make my own skins, I download ones that I like and make defaults out of them) It seems like I never like the shade of skintone that other people choose to make defaults out of. For example I might want a lighter or darker S3, than what somebody else has made a default for. So if I like some of the defaults someone else made I'll use some of them, and incorporate some of my own. Making defaults is actually really easy. (Just tedious and time consuming) Here's a tutorial by ldms510 of modthesims2:

http://www.geocities.com/ldms510/Defaulting.html

It's very easy if you follow the instructions step by step. I don't know anything about simpe, but I was able to get this right on the first try so you probably won't have any problems. Right now I'm using simscribbling's skins, but I just change them out whenever I get bored.

Wishy-washy i could kiss ya. Thanks so much i have never seen that tutorial. You the BOMB

You're very welcome. I was very happy when ldms510 sent it to me. I don't think that he/she has posted it anywhere. I found it very helpful. He/she gave me permission to give other people the link.

I have two skins from Starrats over at thesimsZone.co.uk which work beautifully - one is pale blue, the other goth.  I also have a very pale, slight blemished skin from AlleMeinesims which I use a lot, and DeviKittySims has a good medium and dark skin in a more reddish tone than the Maxis default, and looks excellent in game.

A much easier way to do it though, is just to d/l a default skintone, and replace the textures w/ your own. Much quicker than building a package from scratch. The only thing you have to be careful of is using "Build DXT" to import your textures rather than the "import" feature, b/c the first time I edited my skins, I totally screwed them up by using the "import" feature.

I've heard of other people doing it this way, too. For some reason, though, I just like something about building it from scratch because then I know that everything is right. You know what I mean? I guess I'm just anal. ::)

I suppose. But considering that this just changes the textures the game pulls, and nothing else, doing it this way is no less stable than doing it from scratch. And on top of that it saves a LOT of time. I built the entire light default from scratch before I realized I could do it this way, and then I had to kick myself for wasting all that time when I coulda been over and done w/it, and playing the game instead.

Well, as I am simpe challenged, would you mind posting how to use someome else's default to make your own? I have no idea how to go about accomplishing that. I would appreciate it a lot if it's way easier as you say.

First, just d/l the Nvidia DDS utilities. There should be a link to it on the SimPE site. Then, open up the default you want to edit. For each texture, right click it and click "Build DXT". Pick a file, click ok. Commit. Repeat w/ each texture until you've editied the ones you want. Save. And that's it.

Downloaded the dds utilities. Don't have the option to build dxt when I right click on a texture image file. I did however have build dds when I clicked on the picture. Did you mean the picture or the texture image file? Do I just replace it with another texture file (what kind of file bmp., png.)? So I have to extract all the texture files from the skin that I want and then import the images into the default file? I keep getting error messages so I think I'm doing something wrong. As I said I'm simpe challenged. I can't figure things out unless I have it step-by-step with very clear instructions: eg. Step One: Open a default file with simpe. Step Two: Click this exact button. Step Three: Click some other exact button. I guess that's why I liked ldms510's tutorial. It told me exactly how to do it. If I can't figure this out I guess I'll just stick with the "old fashioned way."  :-\ Thanks very much for trying to help me anyway. :)

Aah. Forgot to add this - make sure you tell SimPE that the utilities are on your comp. Otherwise it won't know. Go to extra > preferences. There should be a line for the location of the DDS utilities. Type in/Browse for the location. Click ok. Then "Build DXT" opens up.

And don't give up so easily. It's not good to underestimate yourself.  ;)

Hmm i hate to break in but can anyone tell me a GOOD skin they use with mathmans vulva?  The one i use causes a weird underwear like line to appear on them.

Also in case your wondering i'm using default skins from Duddly for all the sims except for the Zombie which i use IAmTheRad.  They look quite good in game and i'm pleased with them but as i said they don't work with mathmans vulva mesh.

If you guys haven't seen it, you might have a look at this thread...  A lot of people are posting there about replacing the maxis defaults.  mostly heads I think, but useful :)

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1250.0

reading that thead I realized that they are taliking about replacing the "bones" of the faces... the basic meshes being used, not the skins.  Sorry that thread is totally unrelated to this.
I tried a few of the newer default replacements from Simscribbing (at MTS2), Helaene (also MTS2) and Oepu (Opeu?) and ended up going back to Duddley's female defaults and a hairy male default at MTS2 that I was already using...

I have skins in the basic maxis colors are MTS2, one set for nondefault and one set for default, although you need both sets for the defaults to work. They were made to be used with duddley and Mathman add on meshes. Some people like them a lot and others not so much. To each his/her own. My username is the same everywhere, so if you search for my name you will find the few things I made over there.

I have updated them in my own game to use crammys meshes, but I borrowed some faces from elsewhere that I incorporated as well so I cant share them. It really is easy to make default replacements with the newer Simpe versions. Use bodyshop to get your skins just right and then open up simpe and use the skintone plugin to make them defaults. Its important to note that when editing other peoples skins that you will need to pay sharp attention to the face and the body, because if you change the body tone a bit, the face tone will need to be changed as well to match.

I use Allan Akbars default replacements except for aliens, I use one of my own default skintone replacement files (I switch colors depending on my mood lol) 

Thanks i'll check it out.

 idtaminger,   ;D Thank you so much! I actually did it! It takes a little twiddling around, but I just opened it up in body shop and Gasp! There it was, one of Enayla's amazing skins as the default light female skintone.

What I did was take another default replacement and used it as a template. Not sure how kosher that is, but I didn't want to screw up the whole game if it didn't work.

It isn't really hard at all! This is amazing. All the other tutorials were just so confusing.  ::)

One helpful step to add is to export the skin you want to make default thru body-shop. It just makes it a lot easier to find, under projects. :)

jmtmom, you can do your own alien default skin the same way  ;D

if you want a alien default skintone replacement package file to work off of then you can get one of mine at
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=137
I have other colors there also  ;)

I think the default replacements I use are from SimCribbing (modified to be default by someone on MTS2).

While I'm at it; can anyone tell me if it's my alen replacement skin that keeps my alien babies from having the solid black alien eyes?

Gwill, when you uhmmm...get a chance to play again, you could try using a different replacement skin to see if it is the skin...well by then I will probably have an answer if someone else dosen't already know.

I've been wondering this myself because with mine, I know I get the alien eyes Except when my sims are teens  ??? 

they will have alien eyes as babys/toddlers/children/     /young adults/adults/elders, but as teens they end up with brown maxis eyes (even though I have replacements in)


right now I have replacemnets in for the alien eyes and a alien baby that needs to grow up before I can check....hmmm maybe I will check in strangetown, those brothers make great alien skin testers  ;D

I use the Paradise Sims defaults.  They're realistic without looking like they could solve our oil crisis with their foreheads.

*cracks up*

The super-shiny problem is exactly why I don't have many custom skintones. Well, that and the line drawn on the boobs that I think is supposed to look like cleavage but really just looks super weird and kind of scary.

I currently Louis's newer skin tones as my default, but I need to replace them.  The lightest skintone does wierd things to the nostril/upper lip area and the darker two are too splotchy.  I'm thinking of replacing them with Enayla's (http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=40418) because they're pretty gorgeous. 

I use duddly's default replacements, along with replacements for the zombies based on these by someone from mts2.
For my personal use I have assembled an additional skin replacement package which replaces S4 with S2.

Thats exactly the one I use, Im quite happy with it.  Cannot remember who made the replacements though.

Those are the ones I use too. And they were made into default skins by PattyMcPat at MTS2.

I've been using Helaene's 705's. I was using the first version of Sim Scribblings but I didn't like the chain and belly piercing on every single sim. I didn't see that defaults had been made of the new Sim Scribbling skins. Will have to try those out.

I'm not too keen on the belly button piercing on simcribbing's skins either, but hardly any of my sims ever show off their bellies, so it doesn't matter much.

I also have a really freaky-looking zombie replacement.  In fact it's so freaky and strange I usually let my zombies roam around naked, since any kind of clothes look odd on them.  Maybe I should try to get hold of some raggs.  I can't remember who made it, but it's from mts2, and I can look it up if anyone cares.

I use a vampire replacement that's a little less blue and it's got some neat veins and stuff.

JM said a short time ago that the Alien eyes are basically empty holes, and the black eyes you see on aliens are actually painted on the alien skintone. http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1423.msg80921#msg80921

If this is true, then the reason your sims have weird eyes is because the skintone you are using has those eyes instead of black alien eyes. Now, if you download default replacement EYES, that will probably fix the problem.

They don't have weird eyes, just normal dull eyes.
Anyway, that was pretty much what I figured the problem was.  Maybe I'll just modify the skins.  I don't think I've ever seen default replacement alien eyes.

http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?topic=17.0

pretty purple alien default replacement eyes (skintone and a better looking pollitech also available at that link)

Tried out the new scribbling skins just a bit ago.
Everything is beautiful about them only I can't stand that there seems to be so little definition to the faces. Just doesn't look right to me around their noses.  Ahh well. Maybe I've just been using helaene's so long that the change to smooth-pretty facial skin is just too much for my senses to handle.

I've done some looking around at realistic nude skintones and I still like Allan Akbars the best, they can be found here
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=905

It's in the adult section so you will need to be registered and have adult access (PM Kathy for it)


Something I keep forgetting, which is funny since I requested it in the first place, is SimPE has made it extremely easy to make any skintone a default skintone (replacing the skintone of your choice) including Alien, Zombie and Vampire

scan folder/pick custom skintone/select it and then go down to the bottom, one of the tabs has the spot where you can choose which skintone to have it replace, select which one, a window will popup for you to give it a name, save and within moments (depending on your computer) you will have a new default skintone  ;D

I took one of my tattooed skins (based on Allan Akbars) and made it my new alien default, worked great! but a few mins later when I was going thru my "pre-Uni" folder (boy am I glad I didn't just delete it) I happened to come across all my copys of Allan Akbars skintones and stuff (from his site when he still had it) including his very dark african one (which was the base for the tattooed skin I had just made into a default alien) so I decided to make that one my default alien skintone for now (while I decide if I want to do a special tattooed one)

I think after I get some sleep I will be updating my memory on his skintones, I used to love his ones with tanlines so I may make one of them a default  ;D

SleepyCat,

thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! I can't believe how easy this was and I thought the previous way of replacing textures was easy enough.

In less than 5 minutes, I had replaced all my defaults with Enayla skins. Unbelievable!

***Felt I should add this. The really easy method almost blew-up my game. I figured out how to fix it all, but it complicates things when you want to switch out your defaults. The build DXT method isn't that much tougher, so that's all I use now.***

I've been watching this thread with interest, and things have gotten very interesting indeed!


I don't understand what you mean (the bit in italics and bold). What exactly is the name of the tab, and where can I find it once I've opened the file in simpe?

jmtmom, your very welcome  :D





To get the tabs, you have to scan folders first and then select the skintone file, look down and the tabs are

scanner settings, operations, cache

you want the operations tab, scroll down till you see "skintone scanner" Base skin - pick which you want your skintone to be as default ie; Light, Normal, Medium, Dark, Alien, Zombie etc...

then just click "create default skin override"

Thank you - that is a lot clearer - I'll give it a go  :)

your welcome  :)


this time I opened simpe so I could explain better  ;)

I followed your instructions, fired up the game...

... and it worked! It worked beautifully! Thank you, thank you, thank you so so much for sharing this info - it saves a heck of a lot of eye-crossing and hair-pulling! Thank you!

Sleepycat, thanks so much for the excellent tutorial, it worked great!
Do you know if there's a way to create default eyes just as easy? :)

Yes, yes! That's what I want to do next too.  ;D

I recently changed to Enayla's skins, i made them defaults myself.  They look VERY realistic, the eye and cheek area seems a little light on my computer that's the only thing aside that their great.  Oh and they only have the nipples done the crotch isn't textured, it's a shame but oh well  :-\ .

Do you recall which skins you used as the replacements for the main skins?  I'm seriously considering using hers myself (as I mentioned upthread).

Funny you should say that.  I've been Helaene's 800 series and so far I have resisted changing my default  I like the texture around the face, I think it adds realism.  Some people say it looks like a skin problem, but <shrug> to each their own.

She has a new set at http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=122941&page=8&pp=25

Sleepy, thank so much for that can't-be-easier method for creating default skin.  I took the liberty of explaining the method to Enayla over at MTS2 in her request thread.  I gave you full credit of course.  Maybe you should write a short tutorial and post it over at MTS2.  It's amazing that here is this method, obviously built in SimsPE, but almost no one knows about.  Boogles the mind :)

I've never tried to make default eyes so I can't help with that  :(  I assume you could do it like skintones (the old way) by altering a package that is already a default eye package but I've never even attempted recoloring eyes in Bodyshop...


I hope Maxis eventually gives us more default skintones and eyes to choose from *cough*change*cough* I have more skintones I'd like to use as defaults without giving up the ones I'm using *laughs*  I dislike using "custom" skintones because they end up dominate(sp?) and at one point I had like 30 kids (of all ages) and they all "grew up" to teen and had tattoos (made me sick&tired of my own tattooed skintones really fast) *sigh*


I looked at Enayla's skintones, very beautiful but I didn't care for the blush on all of them (why "blush" the skintones anyway? thats what makeup is for) atleast one of her skintones would have looked great with my black blush.


hmmm time to download the newest version of SimPE and have a snack...


edit -
angelyne, goodness I don't need credit for that info *laughs*  I'm just glad I could help and get the word out about that feature of simpe.
I know how frustrating it can be to want to make a default skintone replacement and not know how to do it or have anyway of getting it done!! *cough* long story *won't go into that*

I'm not crazy about the blush myself but they do look rather nice and their about the best FREE skins that i've found.

Here's what i currently use, pale blush is currently done twice when i find a light that appeals to me more i'll change it.  I tried to pick a normal skintone that didn't have the blush so big and BLEH.

Dusk - Dark
Deep Earth - Medium
Pale Blush - Normal
Pale Blush - Light
Fae Blue - Zombie
Unearthly - Alien

For some reason my defaults still turn out to need the original packages i don't really care but it is odd.  Also anyone know how to change default eyes?  I want to use the eyes Enayla has to replace the originals (i like keeping my quality in sync, if one changes the other must)

Thank you all for the links and the SimPE tips, now all my sims will have lovely Enayla skins.  :D  Beautiful without being too realistic and looking ridiculous in-game.  And they're not anatomically correct, which I prefer.

My default replacement eyes are a few steps behind in realism, but I can live with that.  At least until somebody who admits that grey and green are both valid eye colours makes a better set.  Most of the ones I've seen have either blue or pinkish-grey (why?) for grey, or some dark hazel instead of green.  Which irritates the crap out of me, since my eyes are light green.  They really aren't that unusual, Lance Bass and Jensen Ackles spring to mind.

Yeah, I'm a little bit bitter.

diamonde, allow me to point you to Gunmod's defaults (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=88441&highlight=default) made from Helaene's realistic eyes. They're gorgeous in-game, and might be what you're after...

I found this comment odd, I hadn't had a chance to try my new default alien in-game but bodyshop was showing it properly when I checked (under create parts, change mannican(sp?) skin) but after reading your comment I checked again and it wasn't showing properly anymore (I guess because i took out the other file) so I fired up my game and checked in-game and...well lets just say the results were very odd  :-X  I'm going to redo my alien default the old way! 

I installed the new version of simpe alittle while ago but it keeps crashing on me so I couldn't really do any checking, wonder if restarting would help with the crashing...I'll try that soon, if not I'll reinstall the older version.





the default eyes I use are by sugarandcaffeine at mts2.com
http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=56315&highlight=sugarandcaffeine

They look really nice in-game and the green eyes are green!


I've tried Helaene's that GunMod made defaults but they seemed to dark to me and they creeped me out *laughs*

I use sugarandcaffiene's default replacements too, and like them enough that I've made addtional colours based on them. I like that they have sclera and a little bit of shading up towards the top of the eye to make it look more three dimensional, but not so much that they look bizarre when a sim opens it's eyes really wide. I've noticed that most of the 'realistic' eyes, pretty as they are, have this big streak of dark shading up top and to the sides so that whenever a sim has an extreme expression (so, half of the time almost *L*) one sees the little bit of pretty eye and then this messy dark shading.

I can see why creators do that - the extra shading gives the eye a three dimensional look as well - but artistically it's pretty lazy to do something so messy on a part that WILL be seen.

These are the default eyes I use:

http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?topic=14.0

They look really pretty :)

Sleepycat,

Whenever you use the shortcut method (scan folders method) in SimPe to make a default skin you must keep the original skin package plus the newly created one for it to work properly. It seems odd but what is cool about it is if you decide you dont like that default anymore you can simply get rid of the default part and not loose the original skin package from which you made the defaults. If you removed the original skin package you made the defaults from, you will generally get matrix skin or some other weird variation. So you can do it the old way and loose the base skin package as an option (turning it strictly into a default) or you can do it the shortcut method and have to keep both files in your downloads but not loose the base skin if you decide you no longer want it as a default. Make sense?

I often hear this, and it makes me wonder.  Are there better skin that are pay?  Unless you mean those ultra-realistic skin tones from Exnem?  I don't really like them.  They are just too realistic.  I like his eyes though, but I haven't been able yet to wean myself away from Helaene's default eyes.

I'm looking into making default eyes.  I did ask Gunmod some time back and he sent me some instructions.  Now I just need to figure it out ! :)  I'm working from some default alien eyes replacement. When I do figure it out, I'll let you guys know.


Well I'm glad. I don't want to step on any toes.  But if you did ask for it then you do deserve credit !!.

Crap in a HAT, is that why mine aren't working? I thought I was just totally stupid and wasn't understanding. That and the fact that I have to restart SimPe after every skin since it throws me "out of memory" errors--I have frigging 2GB--if I don't.

Mokey, I also have to restart SimPE after every default replacement skin I make - not because it gives me memory errors but because it spends about half a second 'making' the default replacement, which ends up being a 1KB file that doesn't do a damned thing. It's irritating, but the thought of doing it the hard way gives me fits.

I noticed that the default files are huge too: 3.4 to 8.4 MB. Is there a way to make them smaller?

Thanks for the links to the default eyes guys, i've decided to go with sugarandcaffeine's eye replacements.  I'm not 100% satisfied with them because of their brightness on the lighter colors but their a nice improvement.

Paid skins aren't necessarily good but you CAN find some very good ones.  There's one guy who owns a pay site and made some i can't remember the name his weren't bad looking but he seriously over did it on the wrinkles for the elder stage.

Does anyone know exactly how to create default replacement eyes using simpe?  I'm just curious as to how it would be done or would it just be easier to use a already replacement package and merely change the image inside?  Reason i ask is i'm thinking of gathering the eyes done by Enayla and changing them to default replacements because their just, WOW.

Edit: I have successfully changed one of Enayla's eyes into a default and will be doing so for the rest of my eyes.  If anyone wants to know i did it like this.

1. I downloaded sugarandcaffeine's default eyes
2. I opened the Enayla eye i wanted and found the eye texture then right clicked and selected export, then saved the image.
3. I opened the approriate color of sugarandcaffeine's eyes with simpe right clicked the eye texture and selected import then selected the file i saved.
4. Commit changes and it's done.

I had a issue where the changes kept coming out big pixel looking for a few of the eyes.  This was fixed after i changed the format setting on the texture to Raw32bit, figured I'd give a heads up on that since i just spent the last hour trying to work out why the quality when from WOW to BLEH everytime i imported it.

Does Sim Surgery work well for changing a skin ?  I know the few times I tried it with SimsPE, I had weird results with the neck not maching the body.  Has that been fixed?  And how difficult is it to adjust the genetics afterward.  Oh and if you pick as model a sims with a default skin tone, will that work correctly?

I don't really understand the skin tony only *from archetype.  But all the tones are listed?  blah wish there was a manual that came with this


I'm looking at the new default I created and SimPe doesn't see them as skins but as recolor.  So maybe that's why both are required.  It's  not a standard skin but something else?

I've successfully changed all 5 defaults to use Enayla's eyes.  The light blue and dark blue i personally had to photoshop to get the color right as there were none already done.  Here's how they all look.

(http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/5715/eyes8gr.jpg)

ya I got the matrix look *giggles* I ended up doing one the old way which gave me a chance to fiddle with the skintone, got it closer to the color I wanted AND I managed to get the alien eyes to work for teens by changing the eyes on the skintone images *is very pleased* 

now I must show off Patty Curious, Pascals teenage alien daughter (please excuse her makeup, she hasn't learned how to apply it properly yet)

(http://mercury.walagata.com/w/sleepycat/pattycurious.png)


I even tried making new default alien eyes, worked but old Garns (I think thats his name - the pollitech dude living in strangetown) face texture disappeared *giggles*

Doing the default skintone replacments the shortcut way is better then nothing and it's certainly faster and I may use it again now that I know that it requires the other file. I normally don't keep custom skintones in because the only ones I use are default replacements, I dislike custom anything being dominate (which is why I put the time in to bin custom hair, before I knew how to do it I wouldn't use custom hair) but I'm getting sick and tired of only seeing 4/5 skintones (my main hood only has 1 alien (still an infant) at the moment, no vampires yet and there will never be zombies) so I may go on a downloading spree soon and get a bunch of custom skintones and just use simpe to make sure they aren't always the passed on skintone, which will give me a reason to play with DNA  ::)


Anyway hopefully I feel up to playing tonight, I've added a number of new things I want to check out (like crammys cock *giggles* ) and I to need to set up the lot sync timer too! *finally decided to try them out*

Those are lovely, and the green is green!  Thanks. :)

This is all so cool Sleepycat.  I love what you have done. 

And what is cool about this place, is for the first time, I feel like I can actually do (some) of this.

It's crammyboy's hack great?  I don't see how I cou;d go back to playing without it.  It's just so disturbing to see....nothing.  Think of the pity we would feel for a real person thus afflicted.   

The only problem with Enyala's skin is that they are hairless.  I asked about that in her thread and from the comments, you'd think I was suggesting sacrificing babies.  Anyway, that will teach me to post at MTS2.  I wonder how difficult it would be to actually modify the skins.

But what I really wish, is that crammy boy would modifies his mesh to add hair.  It could turned on or off via the controls.  This way any skin could be made anatomically correct, everyone would be happy: The people who want normal looking sims and the people who prefer them handicapped (:P)

Crammys hack already has those options.... You can turn the hair off, change the color of the hair, on, change the color of "it", as well as the size shape, religion...etc...are you sure you have the right version?

I've got whatever he has posted at MTS2.  It's been there for a while, so I think I have the most recent version.  I never saw any options for hair, or changing colors.  Just the options that controls when it's actually shown.

I'm in the same boat as you, angelyne. I don't have any of those options and have the most recent version I was able to find from MTS2. To think what I'm missing out on...  :D

I'm going to go back and reread through this thread now because I think I missed somewhere how to fix the alien eyes not showing with certain default replacement skins, but  just in case I didn't miss it and it's not actually in here would someone be able to explain how to do that?

*edit - nevermind I found it. Now I just have to teach myself how to edit the skins.

and to add, angelyne, apparently you have to click on the *object* itself to get all those other options. (I re-read the download thread)

Oh uhm yes, I forgot to mention that minor detail...heh

eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww you mean I have to touch it ??  :D

This is awesome, now I'll be able to use any skin I want.  If only the same thing existed for women, maybe I'll have to learn to edit skins as well.  (and yes I know about Mathman's "object")

angelyne, some of your comments about the skintones gave me a chuckle  :D  I remember when I first started playing, got rid of the blur and then discovered my sims had no nipples  :o  it just seemed so wrong! It didn't take me long to track down some nice realistic default replacements! heh, when I was a kid I used a pen/marker or a crayon or something to give my barbie dolls nipples  ::)

I haven't had a chance to play with crammys *cough* errr...play the game yet... I ended up needing to go back to bed  :(  I'm not sure if I'll be up to playing later, I should take a nap now but part of me wants to go on a downloading spree  ;D

After I download a bunch of custom hair I might download Enyala's skintones (now that I have a nice shiny satellite connection) and edit them, they need atleast some hair "down below"  My skintone editing skill leaves alot to be desired but maybe I'll get lucky (or I'll just snitch the needed "parts" off another skintone hehehe) maybe I can get rid of the blush on the cheeks too  :-\  My graphics program can do so much, if only I had more "know how" and a memory *laughs*

I totally understand the feeling of not being able to do something and the joy of feeling that this is something I might be able to do!  I felt so empowered when my friend Grykon (aka Tim) was kind enough to make me a default alien file (and give me directions) so I could work off of it to make my own.



myskaal,  I had a problem of my teens not having the alien eyes, they had these brown maxis eyes (even though I have default eye replacements)  I managed to fix mine by editing the skintone files, on each face image file an eye is shown (hard to explain)
damn and for some reason I can't sign into my image host account hmmm I zip it and attach it, now you can see what I mean and you can copy the eye part if you want to try it on yours and see if that helps. I changed the eye part on every face image even though only teens were having the problem (for some reason the teen female face isn't even used)
I am also attaching a zip of the black alien eyes done up as a default replacement file (was testing with it) I don't know if it will work with the default alien skintone file you are using (I only checked it with Garn and his face lost its texture *laughs* but I think it was just his problem because he had the same problem with a different version of the file)

[404'ed!]

I pretty much understand the concept of how to fix the eye problem, and any other things that one might want to change about a particular skin file.
What I can't figure out is how to change an already exisitng skintone. I would guess one uses SimPE in some way but I've only ever used bodyshop to clone and make my own and damn all the "help me!!!1!" threads that fill up the forums with no replies to weed through to try to find one that actually explains it.
Allergies, bronchial infection and a whoooole lotta meds do not make for a patient tutorial browsing.

SleepyCat: I got the same face texture problem when trying your file and i think i know why.  Your color seems to expand outside the small eye box, i'm not certain but it seems to be acting as a modification to the face.  Looks like you can add face tattoos in within the eye file.  Remove all the color that goes outside the eye box and it should work.

I used that file to make myself a default alien eye replace and it worked perfectly except that the teens get the default green eyes for some odd reason.  When i tried using mutiple texture files in it bodyshop stopped responding everytime.  I'm not sure what's causing it as i even tried copying only the instance values to another file to try it.  The same teen eye bug result occured so unless there's a problem with the instance i'm not sure what's causing it.  Do you know of any alien default replacements that don't have the teen eye problem?  BTW thanks for the file now my aliens have a nicer eye look even if the teen one is screwed up.

Myskaal, it depends - do you want to change the skintone of a sim that has a custom skintone or a default skintone? If they have a default skintone and you make default replacements, their skins will automatically change when you load up their lot. If the sim has a custom skintone, then it looks like you'll have to fiddle with DNA and sim surgery, afaik.  :-\

I want to edit a default replacement skintone.

Like SleepyCat was talking about. I like the default replacements I currently have but there are a couple of minor changes I want to make to them - like the eyes in the head.

Tell me if this is right:
Load the skintone.package. Resource Tree - Texture Image
Select the particular piece I want to change (ex. puface-s4_txtr). Export. Change what I want about it in my editing program, save. Then back in SimPE choose Replace?

Oh dear. *L* I have no idea! I suppose in theory it should work... Are they default replacements like SimPE makes? I don't know if it will want to pull the texture from the original package or the second package it makes. Er, if that makes sense, I was writing for five hours and my brain's gone a bit loopy.

 :D
I don't know if they're default replacements like simPE makes. If you mean default replacements that replace the Maxis defaults then Yep! That's the kind.  ::)

Remove the whole default part out of it and lets think simply skintone. I have a skintone by Louis at Sim Scribbling but I wasnt to alter the facial part of it with SimPE. (I know I can simply clone it and change what I want through BodyShop, but that gives me a whole new skin file rather than changing the exisitng one). I'm wondering if I can do it the way I posted above.

I suppose I could just do it and see if anything blows up, eh? Gods love a backup.

Haha, well, when one makes default replacements through SimPE's default replacement maker it makes a package, but the original skin tone has to be kept too, so you have two packages. They both have images in them, and I don't know if editing the faces of just one of the packages would work.

 If you just have a single package though, doing it the way you outlined should work fine - I've done that with eyes and clothing skins before. Remember that there are a lot of different faces for different ages!

Yes Myskal that is basically it.

Open the package you want to edit find the texture images you want to fiddle with, export them, fiddle with them, save them and then reimport them. I use the build method because I have bad results from just right clicking and replacing. But yeah, you have the general idea of it.

And yes it would be a good idea to make a copy and put it some place safe while you fiddle. (you know, just in case, although I have my SimPe set to automatically make a backup copy)


Simpe has great tutorial sections without all the stupid crap

ahhh... I got the alien eye info from a non-default alien eye package that Allan Akbar did, I trimed it down for using on my skintone "face" image files to replace the eye on them and managed to fix the teens alien eyes that way. You could try exporting all the "face" image files from your default alien skintone and edit them like I did to try and fix yours or if you like my dark default alien skintone shown on (teenage) Patty Curious (in the pic in my other post) I could send you it to you.




you can use simpe to export any of the image files ( or whatever they are called *laughs* ) in existing skintone (or eye) packages and edit them to your hearts desire and then import them back in (I suggest the build ddx thingymybob instead of import)

I've done that to the default override package I have for the babys diaper (gives the babys a nice sleeper outfit instead of the diaper)

Thanks Sleepycat but i think i'll pass at least for now i don't feel like going through all that work.  I'll just see if i can find a normal default alien eye replacer, then i can edit it with the eyes i want.  I'm sure that would fix the problem with the teens.

Edit: Hmm found and tried a alien eye default replacement oddly it had the teen eye error.  Maybe its a error in simpe or the actual game?

Right! I've got it then. Thanks for all your help and support. ;)

Sleepycat, thanks also for the alien eyes. I'm using them to fix mine up and so far all is going well. Will test it out in game after working through all the faces.

LFox, I tried getting alien defaults to work to (to fix the teen problem) but the only thing that worked was editing the eyes on the skintone  :-\ 


myskaal, your welcome :) let me know if it does work for you (it should since it did for me)

Yeah it must be a problem with either simpe or the game then.  No biggie teen stage doesn't last very long especially when your like me sending em off to uni shortly after they age to a teen.

It worked. I used the build DXT as suggested. Came out much better that way. :) And now that I know how to do that I feel I'm about to go on a photoshopping spree.

Oh I so want to do that.  I hate that diaper.  Who dresses their baby in only a diaper unless it's really hot.  If she was dressed, maybe I wouldn't feel so weird about leaving her on the floor.  Although I just downloaded a nice play pen, that was cloned from a crib, so now I can use that.

I've had something weird happen when I replaced the default zombie skin.  I noticed my one of my sim kid had some green around his hair line.  So I clicked on change appearance to see if I could fix that.  To my surprise all the hair styles were sporting the new zombie skin.  So I shut down the game and deleted the default zombie skin and everything went back to norma.  Weird huh?

myskaal, thats great! I hope your enjoying your photoshopping spree  ;D



angelyne, thats strange!  :o  I haven't tried to change the zombie skin, I don't plan to have any of them *laughs*



I decided to try out Enayla's skintones as defaults, used the simpe shortcut for now  ;)

so far I did
 
S1 = Porcelain Doll
S2 = Sweet Fall
S3 = Rich Gold
S4 = Deep Earth

Alien = Dusk

I may change them around abit, depends how the Porcelain Doll skintone looks in-game  :-\  Enayla's skintones are so vibrant(sp?) that all others kind of look blah *laughs* but I need to see them in-game (which I plan to do in alittle while) and if I like them then I'll make standalone defaults out of them.

angelyne,

I think the default override of the baby diaper Sleepycat is talking about is the one I did, if there's any requests for the sleep-suit or anyone wants a particular texture, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

yup thats the one *still loves it* 

every so often I fiddle with it for different colors but I'm never satisfied with them so I go back to using the red abc one you did *laughs*

I'd love a sleeper override for the diaper. It's so silly they didn't put one in. My (real) 4 week old baby not only wears a sleeper, I wrap her up tight in a flannel blanket too. Just a diaper would be way to cold.

Jorenne, put me on the interested list.  Funny how these things happen.  Last night I was just grumbling to myself about that darn diaper and wishing there was a way to change it.  And next thing I know, voila! :)


Sleepycat, I played with making Enyala's skin default as well.  However I find either her porcelain or alabaster skin too cool in tone to really replace the pale skin tone.  I think a pale skin should be very like that girl in Charmed, the girl with the really really pale skin. 

And the golden tone doesn't fit either as a universal skin.  It's too hmm golden. No one really looks like that.  It's a perfect look for a fairie king or queen, but not a normal person.  However I love sweet fall, it's just perfect. Love those freckles as well.

However, it seems to me that her skins are too "finished".  Default skins should be a little bland, a little more generic, so that you can customize them with makeup.  Her skins do not need makeup, they are complete in themselves, very much like she does her painting.  It makes for wonderful painting and sims, but isn't really practical as replacement skins.  I'm afraid that if I used them, all my sims would end up looking like the same, only with different hair.

Am I making any sense?

Beside I am curiously attached to Helaena's 800 series faces.  I just love them.

Jorenne,

Where can I find your diaper override? I would love that.   ;D  As far as textures, maybe a neutral color, white or tan that might work in period hoods too. Maybe even a onesie.

Sleepycat,

The skintone I used for the pale was "pale-blush" from her first pale collection. I like the color, it's very nice. I love the "sweet fall", but don't always want the freckles, they look strange on some faces. I used it for normal anyway. I used "Deep Gold" for medium and "Deep Earth" for dark. The "Dusk" tone is beautiful, but too dark for a default I think. "Jade" is my alien replacement. Haven't tried to replace zombie or vampire as I just don't do anything with them in the game.

Hopefully she'll make some a bit more suitable for defaults, but even with their minor flaws, they are so much better than anything else I've tried.

I'm not sure if it's that I have GunMod's lighting mod or what, but Enayla's normal skins look awful in my game.  I tried "alabaster" for pale, and everyone looks dead.  Their faces are too shiny, and it's creepy.  "Pale blush" was better in that they didn't look dead, but still a little off.  Dusk, by contrast, is much too dark for the darkest skin.  However, Enayla's alien and zombie skins look excellent in-game, so I'm using those.  For my normal defaults, I went with Simcribbling, which all look great in-game.

you can download what 've already done from www.sim2living.com (it's a paysite so be fore-warned)  Or I did send them to Maggie from romance sims, but I don't know if she has them up on her site right now.  The issue I have is I have absolutely no hosting available to me right now, so anyone who wants the default onesies I've already done, PM me and I'll mail you something (maybe if I remember, a bottle of wine to myself an a few marital probelms are blurring my sense of reality right now)

Well I checked Enayla's out in-game and decided to make standalone defaults out of them the way I listed above, figure I'll use them for awhile and see how I feel about them after I get a chance to really play for awhile  ::)

Porcelain Doll is a tad bit too pale, looks abit goulish *laughs* but I really need a "different look" for atleast alittle while, I may end up fiddling with it  ::)  I did discover that quite abit of my custom makeup still looks good on these skintones  :D

I deleted her earlier skintones after checking them out in Bodyshop, the uhmmmm...nipples were just sooooooooo misplaced  :o  It's bad enough they are all nueters(sp?) misplaced nipples was just too wrong *laughs*


Dusk is perfect for my aliens....you may not have seen my black alien default skintone over at InSIM  ;) Out of all the colors I did for alien defaults, I perfered the black one but it is a tad bit too dark  ::)

I've never been interested in odd colored sims (green, purple, blue, rainbow) and Enayla' come close to being "to unnatural" but I found myself laughing at how creepy some of my sims look now  :D

heh, 2 more hours and I'll have been awake for 24 hours *sigh* insomnia sucks!


I managed to get the game all confused regarding skintones tonight, after deleteing and ageing sims up and down and having one lose his face completely (I did manage to get it back for him) I decided restarting my computer would probably help so hopefully when I play tomorrow my sims will not be still trying to have a different skintone on their faces then the one on their body  ::)

No it doesn't. Insomnia is a good thing. Sleep is for wusses.

*giggles*


hey JM, shouldn't I be a "Loudmouth Catfish"?   ;)

I agree. Sleeping is a waste of time. I mean, instead of sleeping I could be reading or playing the sims or staring blankly at the wall!

I love Enayla's skins and plan to make them default replacements... for my fantasy neighborhood. Like her artwork, they are very unearthly and would look odd on normal human sims, but they'll look great on elves and faeries.

I'm at least one person who nudged her about the nipple issue. ;) She was very friendly about my suggestions for getting it fixed; I think like a lot of artists who work primarily in 2D, some errors are bound to crop up when working on something that would wrap around a 3D object and hints on how to make it work are appreciated. Not that she didn't make all of the other features work well!

Congratulations on your new title Sleepycat it's well deserved !! :D

Renatus, I am really glad you nudged her and gave her some suggestions for fixing the nipples *laughs* 

I agree that her skins are perfect for otherworldly creatures *nods her head* I may or may not keep them in my somewhat normal hood, it does have a pointy eared slut who has a couple bastard children (atleast one has her mothers ears) and I may add more pointy eared sims cause I'm really getting tired of "normal" sims. For now, I plan to just enjoy these skins in my game and forget "realistic and normal" *laughs* I look forward to seeing the next ones she makes  :)




Thank you  ;D isn't it just great? *laughs*

Woot guess what.  Enyala has answered my PM.  She is working on some default replacement skins.  They are gorgeous ! Preview here : http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1032178#post1032178 (bottom of page 2)

I kinda promised her to try to turn them into default replacement <gulp>.  I felt a little responsible since I outlined that method Sleepycat showed us before testing it and realizing it has some quirks.  Since it's a bit wonky, you can't really post the resulting files.  She would be flooded with people complaining about it not working.

Maybe some of you feel like helping <ingratiating smile> ? :)

*drools* heh looks like I will be using custom skintones after all (was trying to avoid it) and I wasted my time making her others defaults because I will want her new ones as defaults instead *laughs*

those preview pictures are of other skintones she is working on, I'm gonna end up with all of them  :D


angelyne, I'll be happy to help  :)  If I'm feeling up to it when she gets them finished then I would even be willing to do the whole S1 to 4 set, it's not work if I like the skintones *laughs*

Wait she said that those skins aren't default, just an example of an asian skin and a nordic skin with freckles.  Her REAL default skins are coming.

Wow, productive girl.  I can't wait :)

OooOooh. Those certainly look nice! I'm glad she's doing realistic tones as well - I like my skins from Oepu well enough but something about that "so hyper realistic it's not realistic" look grabs me. :D

She finished them! She finished them! She finished them! *is excited*  I PMed her and gave her my email and told her I would do the default versions for her if she wants, haven't heard back yet *is impatient* *wants them!*


*laughs*

Hey Sleepycat check your PM please :)

Excellent - thanks.  Would you mind if I posted this on another newsgroup?

maxon, sure go ahead but also add that the original file must be kept in the downloads folder with it or it won't work right

Just wanted to post on what I just did for myself for a new alien default - thought others might like to know.

I wanted Enayla's Unearthly Jade for my new alien default, so to start I used the method SleepyCat outlined to create a default replacement file.
Then I opened the file in SimE and exported all of the images. I changed the eyes to the alien black on all the images in my image editor.
Then I opened up another already made default replacement file to use as a template (the one I used happened to be Sim Scribblings Alien Default Replacement by PattyMcPat) and replaced all the images with my altered Jade images via BuildDXT.

Viola. New default with no original file needed in the DL folder for it to work.

edit to add - it seems Enayla's skin doesn't have all the different fit styles included (at least the default file SimPE created from it didn't) so I ended up just putting the same fit style over all the fit styles available on my sim scribbling default. I'm not sure if this is because Enayla didn't make different fitness levels or because of something SimPE did to the file when making it a default because I didn't look through Enayla's skin before defaulting it but anyway... there's a short cut. Could probably skip the creating a default from the skin part first but it just seemed to make it easier to find the textures that way.

I walked angelyne through the way I do it (make standalone defaults) yesterday, I think she might have plans to make a tutorial up but I'm not sure.

this is how I do it.

1, I get setup - rename the default files and make folders for each set of pngs

2, open Bodyshop and under create, I start a new project and export (and then cancel) each skintone (that gives me all the texture files I need, with names)

3, open my graphics program (I use PhotoImpact 10) and (batch) open the files for 1 skintone and then save them all as pngs to the folder I made earlier (you can batch save if you want)

4, open SimPE, open renamed default file and swap all the textures via BuildDXT (commit each time and save when all are swapped)

5, check new default in-Bodshop and/or in-game


The hardest part for beginners is getting accustomed to the texture file names.



edit - the simpe "shortcut" dosen't make proper defaults, if it did then you wouldn't need the original file but I consider the shortcut to be perfect for those that don't want to learn (or can't or just plain don't have time) the longer way. Everyone should be able to have their favorite skintones as defaults if they want and the shortcut makes that possible.

Yes thank you again for that Sleepycat, that method rocks.

I went ahead and made Enayla alien skin default as well.  It was good practice.  I'm seriously thinking of writing a step-by-step tutorial.  I would  include which files correspond to which to make it easy as pie.

It's a really easy method and fairly quick once you get the hang of it.

I'll post it here first so you guys can tell me if it's clear, concise, easy to follow and most of all accurate.  Anyone interested?

Put me down as interested in a tutorial. I've tried the "easy" method and would like to master the standalone method too.

Well it's done.  Please let me know if you find it easy to follow.  I especially want to know if the chart I made is exact.

you can find it at http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2930.0

On and Enayla has released her default replacement skins.  They were made just for this purpose, and they are just gorgeous.  She match Maxis default colors, only in "her style", as she says.

yes, it is, I double-checked it  :)  I'm glad you did the alien default after all, good practice  :D


Enayla's Opaline and Golden Grace skintones are also available, that is if the damn sever isn't to busy  ::)  I managed to get them after a couple trys.

Very nicely done Angeline. You have a knack for making things simpler to follow.

I have a question though. When I did this before, using Patty McPat's cribbing defaults as a base, I never used a paint program. I just exported the skintones with body shop and then used those files to replace the textures in the default with dxt as you described. It worked fine. Is it really neccessary to use a paint program to convert them to png?

That's a good question!  I was being a good little soldier and following instructions.  Didn't really stop to wonder why.  I know that just replacing the texture in SimPe can lead to a loss of quality that's why we use the build function. 

I did try the method using bmp file and it seems to work, although I did not save the work.

Sleepycat do you have any idea?

no clue...maybe buildDXT is the difference or maybe simpe changed something. I only know that I was told they had to be pngs more then 6 months ago, when I first started making alien default replacments *was also being a good little soldier*  but if bmp/png really makes no difference then it makes it even easier  *laugh*


/rant on

What the hell is wrong with people over at mts2?  Enayla did those beautiful skintones, provides them as defaults (like people wanted) and quite a few people have to bitch about wanting them as non-defaults before they'll even download even after I posted how they could have them as non-defaults simply by exporting/importing them in Bodyshop *growls*

/rant off


edit - angelyne, I managed to get all my sims sorted out with their proper skintones between saving and exiting the lots and using the mirror a few times.

From my limited interactions with the larger MST2 community, it seems that they are never, ever content with something longer than 3 minutes.  The first few responses to a new object/mod/creation is always "I"M FIRST!!Thanks!", "You're Awesome", "I can't wait to see this in my game!" and then the resquests start, as though the creator has any obligation to change the product they're giving away. 

Anyway, I have Enayla's defaults now.  I can't wait to see them in my game. ;)

I totally agree, if you haven't had to pay for something, you have no right to complain if it isn't just what you wanted!  For that matter, if you have paid a sub to a site, you do that from choice, and although obviously if something is faulty, you have a right (and an obligation) to inform the creator, you still can't really demand that they change something which works perfectly well, just because it isn't exactly what you expected!  That kind of attitude if it becomes too prevalent will only serve to make creators reluctant to share their work with anyone, either on a free or a pay site!

 To be fair, there are creators who make things for themselves but are nice enough to share, but there are also a number of creators who ask for feedback and welcome requests. They seem to enjoy the challenge.
 I don't see anything wrong with politely asking about requests, I've had very positive response to the few requests I've made. However I do wish people would actually read the whole thread first to see if a request has already been answered. Too annoying to see people repeat the same request over and over after the creator has already given an answer. Especially if they are rude and whiny about it!

Well, I would go along with that - I did use the word "demand", which I think is a little different from "ask politely" - and a polite request is something I know most creators would at least consider, but a demand is more likely to get their back up!  And there are definitely some people who haven't a clue how to "ask politely" just as they haven't a clue how to just be polite!

Lol, somehow I had a feeling that's what you would say.  Mayber at the time buildDXT didn't support anything else but pngs.  I'll find some skin to make default and will try it with bmps.  If it works, i'll modify the procedure.

lol, no kidding.  I was saying for god's sake! to myself reading that.  And btw, no one reads threads.  They just hop in and ask their question, even if it's been asked a million times upthread. It's a wonder that a creator even bothers.  In between the endless repeated questions and the slavish mindless praise (ok I'm guilty of that too lol), the thread doesn't make for interesting reading.  So beautiful..GORGEOUS, ur so talented and my favorite...keep up the good work.  <wince>

So glad this place isn't like that lol.

Oh and glad to hear you got everything sorted out.  I had only a small glitch with a toddler.  There was like a blue shadow of her.  The toddler mirror fixed it.  My sims are even more attractive than I had expected with her new skins tones.  I couldn't stop taking pictures of my sims.  It was worth loosing some hmm details :)   The only skin I am not sure about is the darkest tone.  She had trouble with that one, and you can see that dark skin is not what she does best.

I really should be more careful when I edit myself before posting, insert into my post that BuildDXT wasn't used back then, well I didn't even know about it until just before I quit making different alien defaults *laughs*

as for mts2, I certainly was reminded why I started following JM around when he started his shifts from place to place before settling here :D


I agree, her skintones are so beautiful that it's worth losing a few details to have them, specially when we can play with crammys cock *giggles*  I think she said something about doing more dark skintones soon but first she needs to do a "dark template" to work from. I know from my own experiences that making a dark skintone from a light one is difficult. The light difference between Bodyshop and cas and actual in-game - dosen't help either  :P

I may switch to using Deep Earth as S4 again, I think I liked it alittle better then LateFall. Thats the wonderful thing about being able to make defaults, I can have the ones I like best as my defaults and use her others as non-defaults *has her cake and gets to eat it too* *laughs*


I'm still thinking about restarting again, this time doing what I was going to do before and start with my sims as YAs in a fresh custom hood instead of a maxis premade, which also gives me a chance to use some of Enayla's non-default skintones without having to add more sims to my existing hood *laughs*

I'm only using the first 2 defaults she made, the later fall i changed to do the 3rd skin and i'm still using dusk as the 4th.  Not too sure why but i think it suits fine to have two light and two black skins as defaults.

The people over at MTS2 are pretty ignorant which is why i never bother posting there or visiting it much except for a few things.

I don't have an ounce of loyalty in me!   Lol, I was just looking at Oepu's new skins and they are quite realistic, teeth, nails, bellybutton, and they include other "details" as well :)  I am gonna give them a spin.  And I can make them into defaults if I want.  Thanks Sleepycat  ! munch scrunch munch <mouth full of cake>

I love "Dusk" I made it my alien default so I will be wanting my males to get abducted *laughs* (I use the better looking polli-tech from laverwinkle) I did come close to making it the 4th. Two light and two dark would suit me fine also...or even 1 light, 3 dark...hmmm maybe I'll do alittle shifting around...again...and just make the 5 I like best as defaults and screw the light to darker theme  *laughs* although the way custom is dominate I'd be better off making my least favorites defaults  ::)  unless I only pick 5 to use and don't use the others at all  :-\ 


It would be really nice if Maxis would give us more default skintones (and eyes) so we could replace them too *giggles*


edit - hey you keep talking about Oepu's skintones but I don't recall seeing a link! *laughs*

Ah I never mentioned her before. I checked out her skins some time back, but liked the ones by Helaena better.  But she's made new ones since then so, I'll see.  I have yet to see them in game http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=43133

I didn't like Oepu's skins as defaults, they were to grainy(I think that's the word I'm looking for) in my game.  Almost like fabric or cardboard rather than skin.  

If my computer could handle SimPE a little better or if my brain could handle the long way, I would make Rich Earth my darkest default, I really love how sims look with that skintone.  As it is, I'm happy with what I gots.  

well doh! stupid me, I have actually looked at those and was just looking at her elf template a little while ago  ::)

I still like Enayla's better  :D


Batelle, I have a copy of Deep Earth as a S4 default file, is Deep Earth the one you mean?

Errr, maybe.  It's not as rich as Dusk, but it's in the same pack.  She's put out so many in such a short amount of time that the names all sort of meld together.

yes they do get confusing *laughs* well if you want to PM me with your email, I can send it to you and you can see if it's the one your thinking of  :)

I broke down and installed Enayla's new defaults today. They were too shiny to resist. I also added her two other realistic skintones and the Rich Gold, Deep Earth, and Dusk skintones to my normal neighborhood. After some genetics switching I have a very nice variety on my sims. Rich Gold is a bit of a cool colour for a skintone but I'm partial to it (and it's close to the colour my skin is when I get a tan, when I can manage to hit that very narrow border between 'deathly pale' and 'burnt to a crisp' - right now I'm about the colour of her Opaline skintone) so one sim got that, and while Dusk is very dark I've seen a few people around Espoo (where I live) with skin that colour and I really like it. I've always been fascinated with that very dark, rich skin colour.

Currently I'm debating if I want Blue Midnight or Fae as my alien skintone. After the Laverwinkle alien tone I don't know if I can go back to green.  :D

Oepu did mention taking some bits and pieces of other creators and using them on her own skins.  Wish I knew how to do that

You simply extract the png files either with Body shop or simpe, make folders and keep all the different skintones you want to work with in those folders. I have a folder name for instance Opal Skintone, and inside I have it broken up between male and female so I can quickly get to what I need. I do this for all the skintones I like, its in my Projects folder, so if I ever want to go borrow this or that, I can very quickly. I also have texture folders for other projects etc...

Then I have my separate current project folder, with the skintones that I am going to edit to make how I want them to be, of course these are just the png files that I extracted from the package I am working on to change. You open two corresponding skins in a graphics editing program, I have Photoshop CS, you use what you like. I take the host parts I want from one skin tone from my mulitpurpose project folder and copy them to the new skin tone, then blend them in to the new skintone so that they look like they belong. Merge the layers, save it and move on to the next one. You have to do this for each sex you are fixing. Children and younger dont have sex, so skip those. Thats about it really. Once you are done editing all the files you simply reimport them (build dxt) or you can do the bodyshop method. From there you can make defaults or whatever you like, or decide that your parts dont look right and go back and edit them some more.

Dont be afraid to try. I always empty out my downloads folder when working on these types of projects only leaving in what I am working on and testing. It saves a lot of load time since you may need to go back and forth between programs a few times to check your results...unless you of course are me, and can do it perfectly the first time. :P

I keep thinking of making Dusk my S4 default and making Porcelain Doll into my alien default, it's creepy/goulish/different enough to be perfect for aliens *giggles* I've always hated the shade of green Maxis used, I could never go back to it.

totally un-natural colors like green and blue and purple for my sims, just don't interest me... Porcelain Doll is almost normal and it kind of reminds me of myself when I'm feeling like death warmed over  ::)


angelyne, if you can edit pictures at all then you should be able to do it, once you select the "part" you want (thats the tricky part) then you can copy it and then paste it to another skin, it dosen't always look right but sometimes it's good enough *laughs*

Well I can always experiement.  It won't hurt.  Although I am not an advanced user when it comes to photoshopping.  I just wonder how you would take let's say a bit from one skin and then past it on a different skin, how would the skin color match?

Anyway, it could be fun to try.  At least now I understand the whole concept of exporting/important texture.

BTW, nectere, do you know why we convert BMP files into PNG and work with those? We were wondering upthread about that, and the only thing we could come up with is "we were told to do it this way".

 

In photoshop there is an option to match color, you will pick your first layer (the base skin) to match the pasted part to, I use normalize as an added option. This will take the new part and recolor it closer to the underlying skintone. You may still have to fiddle with it using color adjustments, or curves or whatever method you want to try. Obviously you want to work with tones that are similar to each other, you wouldnt want to paste a dark tone on a pale tone and expect to get great results, its possible but it would take a whole lot of fiddling.

But the key here is to try. To try and try some more until you can do it yourself, then you will find that a whole new world opens up when you look at something, whether it is a skintone or an object.

Bmp files are too big, you wouldnt want to work with bmps, jpgs are too small and can become degraded quickly. I actually work with raw files a lot until I am ready to import then I save it as a png. The point is if you used bmp files instead of having a skintone that is say around 4 mb, it would be around 7 or so. At least that is my uderstanding. I rarely use bodyshop for anything so I dont see bmp files I guess. In fact the few times I used bodyshop I dont recall it dumping out bmp files, but rather png files. But its been a while since I have used body shop, since the lighting sucks and you really cant see what you are working when working with anatom skins. Plus it just takes too darn long to boot up.

**spelling issues...

Well Jtmom, here is your answer.  A bit late but better late than never. I exported a skin and the size of all the files was 70 MB.  Converted to PNG.. 10 MB.  You can well imagine the size of your skin if you used BMP's.

Thanks for that information Nectere.  I am looking at a png now and trying to think how to approach the subject lol.  Amazing how much like a photograph it is up close.  I'll keep your instructions in mind

Bodyshop exports bitmap files. The reason they are so large is because they do not compress information at all, so all of the detail is retained. PNG is a 'lossy' compression format but from what I understand it is a good one and loses less image data than JPG, which has some very obvious compression artifacts at medium quality.

OK, now I get it. That also explains why my files were so huge! Well, I'll do it "properly" from now on.  ::)

I have turned skin set into a default overrides, and this works fine for new Sims. With /some/ standard Sims there's issues though:
-one Sim has an old S4 body, but a new S4 head (other S4 Sims display new/new)
-one Sim has *no* body (he is a floating head) in casual clothes, he has a body in all other clothes (and other S2s have no problems even with the same clothes).

Is this just a very risky treatment in general, or is the SimPE method bugged? (I have kept the original non-defaults in my game also, as TS2 crashes otherwise)

That happens to me with override skins too, I just use the mirror to update the appearance and that takes care of it, but its a pain to do it for all the townies etc. I dont seem to have a problem with true defaults though, just the ones made with the skin plugin where you need both the custom skin and the override file.

I had the same problem after trying default skintones that were done the simpe "shortcut" way, my sims had 1 skintone for their heads and another for their bodys.


After I switched back to real default files - using the mirrors and then saving&exiting the Lots usually worked. Sometimes it took a couple trys but I was able to fix all my sims, I haven't seen any townies so I don't know if they are mixed up or not. The few sims I had fixed before switching back to real defaults had to be fixed again so I was glad I hadn't fixed very many.

I'm not sure what simpe does to make them the shortcut way, the files usually end up twice the size of the original and yet still require the original to be left in  :P 

Thankfully doing real default replacements the longer way is easy enough, just takes alittle longer.

How do you make a real default file, ie not the shortcut way? Renaming all textures doesn't seem to stick unfortunately.

maybe its random, sounds like Sleepycat's sims still will have twotone skin even using the traditional defaults. So Jordi I dont know the answer to that question, because it sounds like you already know how to do long method on defaults rather than the shortcut or plugin method.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2930.0   ;D


I had the problem with the twotone skin I think because I was stupid and had entered and saved each of my Lots (with the mixed up skin) before switching back to real defaults. I was installing JMs Lot Sync Timer (I should have waited) and didn't realize at first that my sims were confused about their skintones. I think that if I hadn't saved all my sims with mixed up skins then I wouldn't have had to fix them  :-\

edit - I've switched real default files before without any problems

*frown*

I cant find a set of skins I like, default or not default. Maxis skins (and all the ones that basically take those and add pubes) are too flat and cartoony and uninteresting. Enayla's are WAY too shiny. Helaene's are gorgeous on adult women, but on men and children they are downright creepy as they look like they're wearing very heavy eyeliner and sometimes lipstick.

Any good places to look for skins besides those creators and besides MTS2, which has been "loading" my search for "default skins" for about the last five minutes?

Untill I switched to Enayla's I was using Allan Akbar's (available in the adult section over at InSim) and was happy with them. I only switched because after using his since I started playing Sims 2, I needed a change  ::) 

I wonder if you could do a default skin using textures from different creators.

In a default file, all the textures are different, Male and Female, children toddler teen adult and Elder.  Except children and toddler share the same textures for both sexes. 

The only problem I would see right off the bat, is the head texture is shared for both women and men.  So that might look weird.

However in a standard skin, it's not.  So I theorize it could be possible to create a skin with different textures for the different ages and sex.  Interesting idea.  Maybe I'll experiement one day.

Kate Enayla's skins are really shiny, but I think they look good in the game.  They make for weird looking thumbnails though.  My current Avatar uses her skin.  But it's really all a question of taste.

angelyne, I've wondered about that myself, always meant to try it out but I keep forgetting  ::)


right now I'm trying to decide if I want to use Warlokk's new Default Replacement Top & Bottom  (nipples and more for females - even when nude)

http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=4382

adult access is required to see the very newest versions.


I may need to switch back to my old default skintones or edit Enaylas, if I do decide to use Warlokks new stuff...

I have a veery good pale custom skin from Alle Meine Sims (called Pergamenthout) which is very realistic for North European types (no naughty bits though!)

I also have a good pale skin and a pale blue elf skin from Starrats at the sims Zone (the UK site).

Also, two lovely mid tones from Devil Kitty Sims.

None of these look over shiny in my game.

some of the creators over at InSIM have some nice skintones
http://www.insimenator.net/forums.php