TUTORIAL: All About Skins – Adding skintones plus sliders and replacing default sliders

[missy harries]

This guide is aimed at beginners so if your pretty nifty with skintones and file types you may not find this much use (though you never know.....), it will teach you how to add sliders, add skintones and if you feel like how to replace the default sliders. It also takes a look at the different file types used in skintones and as a bonus (for 100% beginners) it'll give you advice on how to edit the slider colours image in an graphics program.

What will I need?
- The Skininator by CmarNYC found here (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=389488)
(Lets give a huge thanks to them for making it possible :up: )

You can get all of the original textures you need from CmarNYC in the Skininator download thread.


Have fun!

[missy harries]

FAQ

Why is my skintone black in game? You didn't save properly. Go back, make sure you've merged your layers, saved as DXT5/DXT3 and checked load mipmaps then reload and save, I guarantee I'll be showing fine when you go back in game.

I can't Make Package with skininator? Then I'll be because your using V2, for some reson it doesn't like having just the Tone Ramps loaded so go and get the first skininator and it'll work fine.

[missy harries]

Updates

06/02/10 - Tutorial added

[AllaraPheonix]

In the tutorial you say "You should use an existing ramp as a base so open one up in your imaging program of choice" Where do I find the exisiting ramps to open??? Not a clue!!!

[CmarNYC]

Until Missy adds the files, tone ramps are available along with the other skin files in the Skininator download linked in the first post.

[AllaraPheonix]

Thankyou :)

[LadyFrontbum]

Thanks for this Missy! And thanks CmarNYC and Rez too. :)

What have I done wrong if my little preview dot is coming up black every time?

[CmarNYC]

Thanks for this Missy! And thanks CmarNYC and Rez too. :)

What have I done wrong if my little preview dot is coming up black every time?

Interesting you should say that. If you have black text in your 'thumbnail' png, the preview dot is picking up its color from a black spot in that image. How it decides where in the image to get its color, I don't know at this point - it seems almost random. Once it has a particular color for each tone ramp, it seems to stay with that color.

[LadyFrontbum]

Oh I was wondering if it could be the black text. I might try it with a different coloured text when I get a chance and see what happens. Thanks CmarNYC :)

I wish there was a way to make those dots bigger or something, so we can actually see what we are choosing without having to click through every single nondefault skin we've installed. It'd be awesome if skins had it's own window similar to all the other cas options with big thumbs.

[CmarNYC]

Yeah, I've tried to enlarge the dot and tried to figure out if there's any way to get the tooltip in CAS to show the package name or something, but no luck.

[Fallenindarkness]

Hey can anybody make a tutorial for me about mixing n matching face and body skintones? I put them all in the skins folder in my program files/EA/Sims 3 but when im in CAS, it only shows the body and the face is completely black. Plus, I can only select one skintone which comes with a slider so how do you select two? How do you mix faces or even have the face go with the body?

[CmarNYC]

Hey can anybody make a tutorial for me about mixing n matching face and body skintones? I put them all in the skins folder in my program files/EA/Sims 3 but when im in CAS, it only shows the body and the face is completely black. Plus, I can only select one skintone which comes with a slider so how do you select two? How do you mix faces or even have the face go with the body?

I don't know why you'd be getting black faces - that should only happen if the game can't find the face skin files.

There's no way in the game to match a face from one skin with a body from another. They go together. But I'm currently working on a program to do exactly that outside the game - to let people make new skin packages for their own use from existing ones, choosing exactly which faces and bodies they want to go together. (Skinmix & Match or S&M. :))

[missy harries]

Well I'm finally back! Sorry guy's, didn't mean to be off for so long but unfortunately in life s#*t happens. There's definatly a lot to update with hopfully by end of next week though I have to get back into the swing of things.....

CmarNYC, thank you so much for keeping an eye on for me. You really are a sweetheart and deserve a massive >hug<, thanks babe.

[sleepalldaypartyallnight]

I'm trying to make a new tone ramp with Skinninator following the instructions in the tutorial, but I'm doing something wrong and I'm not sure what. I've made a new ramp saved it in dds and png format, and it's 64x64 pixels. I then open Skinninator, type in a new name and browse to the dds and png files, but the make package button is still greyed out. I want the tone to just use whatever defaults are installed, and the tutorial says I should just leave the boxes blank for the tone to use defaults. What am I missing?

[missy harries]

I'm trying to make a new tone ramp with Skinninator following the instructions in the tutorial, but I'm doing something wrong and I'm not sure what. I've made a new ramp saved it in dds and png format, and it's 64x64 pixels. I then open Skinninator, type in a new name and browse to the dds and png files, but the make package button is still greyed out. I want the tone to just use whatever defaults are installed, and the tutorial says I should just leave the boxes blank for the tone to use defaults. What am I missing?

Your using V2 of skininator then. For some reason you have to load in at least one file into one of the other feilds before it'll let you Make Package.
Download the first version of skininator and it'll work fine. :p

[sleepalldaypartyallnight]

Yes, I am using v2. I'm glad it wasn't just me being dense - thankyou!

[jmtmom]

I had the same problem, no way to just do different tone ramps. So I plugged in the default scalp texture for one age group and used V2. That was my solution.

[missy harries]

I had the same problem, no way to just do different tone ramps. So I plugged in the default scalp texture for one age group and used V2. That was my solution.

The problem with that is if someone else has a diffrent default then it may be noticable on bald sims but it is true that most creators leave the scalp alone anyway.

I use V1 for the ramps and V2 I find is better for the textures :)

[CmarNYC]

I'm trying to make a new tone ramp with Skinninator following the instructions in the tutorial, but I'm doing something wrong and I'm not sure what. I've made a new ramp saved it in dds and png format, and it's 64x64 pixels. I then open Skinninator, type in a new name and browse to the dds and png files, but the make package button is still greyed out. I want the tone to just use whatever defaults are installed, and the tutorial says I should just leave the boxes blank for the tone to use defaults. What am I missing?

The reason for this is the logic in Skininator for enabling the 'Make Package' button was messed up - sorry, guys! :( Fixed in V2.1.

[Kraahlix]

"When you save it as a DDS make sure you save as either DTX3 or DTX5
with Load Mipmaps checked."

How do i do that? I'm using Photoshop CS4, and i dont know how to do it :/

[missy harries]

"When you save it as a DDS make sure you save as either DTX3 or DTX5
with Load Mipmaps checked."

How do i do that? I'm using Photoshop CS4, and i dont know how to do it :/

I'm not familiar with CS4 but have you got the DDS plugin for it? If so when you hit save and the dialouge box pops up there should be a drop down box to allow you to save in diffrent formats ie - png, jpeg, dds. Select dds and you should then get the dialouge box to load mipmaps and change dds type.
Hope that helps. :)

[LongLiveHarryPotter7]

Um ... you can't open the first file :( ... wellI I can't access ... don't know if that goes for others :/

[missy harries]

Um ... you can't open the first file :( ... wellI I can't access ... don't know if that goes for others :/

Sorry, rez's UI mod is now out of date and not needed anymore, all you need is Skininator. I'll update. :)

[mashella]

I would like you put more sample pictures in your tutorial and more details, such as directions of the files you are talking about. I am a real begginer and I cannot understand your tutorial and it's not easy to follow. Perhaps, I want to ask one question(maybe I am not in the right thread...)... I have changed an adult female face in Photoshop and saved it as .DDS. How do I put it in the game as a new non-default skin?
Could you pease explain step by step?
Thank you for you attention.

[Onaakakit]

I downloaded everything and have figured out much of this. The only thing i can't get to work is a DDS file texture for the overlay. I took a wolf fur picture off of bing images, placed in gimp, saved it as a DDS file, placed that file in all the overlay slots. I then saved it as a package and placed it in game. It worked as far as going in game, however the DDS texture did not show up. I am obviously doing something wrong, but am not sure how to fix it. I really want to make anthrosims again. Ideas?

[Onaakakit]

Back!

I figured out the skininator! Woot for that. However I do not understand the .tone file options. I made a skintone, saved it in both dds format and png, but could not save it as a .tone file. How do i do this?

[missy harries]

You don't need to worry about the tone. file, just use skininator and make package, it'll all be made for you there. Are you still having trouble with the overlay? Sorry for late reply but I didn't realise there were posts!

[Onaakakit]

Not the overlay. =] My skin texture is still being difficult. Texture is to much and color isn't showing up right. Then if texture isn't to much, the face looks way to bright. XD But i will get there! I want anthro sims back! Never give up and never surrender!

[lilibug1]

So I got through all of this but am stuck on the overlay. I am not sure what to put in the DDS files that I upload to Skininator. I am just using the normal ramp, and I want my skin to look like this when I'm done, with the blue arrows as the overlay: http://www.sharecg.com/images/medium/92655.png%3C/a%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class=

Can somebody please help me?

[CmarNYC]

You'd put the blue arrows in the overlay on a transparent background. Use the base skin tone as a guide to locate the arrows. If that doesn't answer your question, could you be more specific about what you've tried and what the problem is?

[lilibug1]

Use the base skin tone as a guide to locate the arrows.

How do I do this? How would I use it as a guide? Sorry for being so clueless but CAS parts are not really my strong point...

[CmarNYC]

1) Open one of the base skintones in GIMP or Photoshop or whatever graphics program you use. For adult males, you'd use S3_00B2D882_00000000_4DB46D1662895FC3_amBody_m.dds, for example, but any of the images that show the body skin texture.

2) Add a transparent layer above the skintone image.

3) Working in the new layer, paint your arrows and decorations. The skintone image underneath will show you where on the body the parts you're painting will be applied.

4. When done, delete the skintone image layer.

5. Save as DXT5 interpolated alpha, and you're done.

The scalp is harder - there's no overlay for it as far as I know. If you need it you could try using a neutral color on the scalp image with an arrow over it, but it's not going to match the face and body. A bald hair with the arrow painted on it might work, but I've never worked with hair and can't tell you how to do it.

[lilibug1]

It's almost working, thank you for the help! :D Just a few more questions, though.

What is the cutness (in the overlay section)?
How do I put an overlay on the face?

Also, for some reason my teen and up male overlay isn't showing up...but I"m going to play around with it a bit more first and then post here. :)

[CmarNYC]

Cutness is the muscle definition used in the muscle slider.

A face overlay is a problem. By default, all skintones use the same face overlay so if you change it it'll affect every skin. This is something I want to experiment with, though, since the TONE structure looks like it would support a lot more customization including separate face overlays. A tool to do it easily will have to wait for when I update Skininator. I guess I could do a quickie patch if you really want to do this now. :)

[lilibug1]

Cutness is the muscle definition used in the muscle slider.

A face overlay is a problem. By default, all skintones use the same face overlay so if you change it it'll affect every skin. This is something I want to experiment with, though, since the TONE structure looks like it would support a lot more customization including separate face overlays. A tool to do it easily will have to wait for when I update Skininator. I guess I could do a quickie patch if you really want to do this now. :)

Yes please, but only if it's not too much trouble. :)

I notice that this skin seems to have a face overlay, do you know how they did it? http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=486766

Thank you by the way for all of your help, I've got all of the body overlays working now and I just need to adjust the placement a bit. :D

[CmarNYC]

That skin probably uses the base texture, not an overlay. And I'm glad you're making good progress!

[lilibug1]

Thanks! :D Since there's no way to do a custom face overlay yet, I've put that other skin on hold and did an invisible skin to make the bonehilda and grim reaper outfits usable in cas. Somebody asked me if there was a way to customize the dot on the color palette, is this possible? If it is, how do I do it?

[CmarNYC]

Look in the description for Skininator. (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=389488) you need to make a custom tone ramp, which can be a copy of one the defaults. There's a DDS tone ramp and a png that's used as the thumbnail. Put text on the png as shown in the description. The color of the dot will be the color of the pixel at the exact center of that png, so position the text to make that dot the color you want.

[lilibug1]

According to the people who tested it for me, it isn't working. I just put all the bodies/faces/everything else as transparent, but it's showing up black in game. How would I actually make an invisible skin?

[CmarNYC]

According to the people who tested it for me, it isn't working. I just put all the bodies/faces/everything else as transparent, but it's showing up black in game. How would I actually make an invisible skin?

I vaguely remember trying to do something like this a couple of years ago, and never succeeded. I don't think transparency works on the skin textures. You could do it with the shader in the mesh by setting it to SimHairSimple - it wouldn't be a custom skintone anymore, though, it would be clothing, and you'd have to figure out some way to use an alternate head.

[lilibug1]

Huh, I wonder how EA does it then? If it were clothing then the Bonehilda and Grim outfits wouldn't work.

[CmarNYC]

I suspect it may be lighting effects. When I get time I'll look at the code and see if I figure anything out.

[whrm3]

Where can I Fullbuild2 in Windows 7?

[CmarNYC]

Where can I Fullbuild2 in Windows 7?

C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\Packages (32-bit systems)
or
C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\Packages (64-bit systems)

[jwghost]

Thanks, this is very helpful.
but I'm stuck in that part: "Still in S3PE open up one of the newly exported packages (I've got the DDS opened)". How do you opened the DDS file on S3PE? I've edited mine dds file and I want to put it in-game.

[missy harries]

jwghost it can all be done with the Skininator, if the DDS is ready then load it into Skininator and make your .package using that :)