Tutorials:Body Shop Recolouring FAQ

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Frequently Asked Questions (Read the FAQ!)

These are questions asked all the time when creating Body Shop projects.

Body Shop is not working! Body Shop does not work as it should!

For all issues relating to the technical operation and/or misbehaving of Body Shop, please see this FAQ. If you're still having trouble you can post a question detailing your problem in this forum.

How do you separate a full outfit into a top and bottom, or combine a top and bottom into a full outfit?

You can't take a full body and chop it in half in any way that doesn't require making a new mesh (nor can you combine two separates into a full-body mesh without making a new mesh)... And meshing is certainly much more difficult and complicated than recolouring clothing.

If you want an existing outfit in separate parts without making a new mesh, you'll can find existing top and bottom separate meshes that are similar in shape, design, and dimensions to your original full body mesh. Then, make new projects of those separates, and then copy over the top texture and the bottom textures from your existing full-body outfit separately. You will probably have to do some work to get the old textures to fit right on the new meshes, as meshes often vary in the way they map a texture to the 3d shape, but as long as neither mesh has any particularly exotic mapping, it should be doable with some time, care, effort, and a lot of reloads of the textures in Body Shop to check your work. The same thing, just reversed, will work for trying to convert a full body clothing into separates - copy textures from the full body onto projects for separates, then adjust. If you're still unclear on the way meshes and textures work and the limitations of meshes, try reading Tutorials: Skinning From The Inside Out.

How do I share my Body Shop creations?

When you have completed your texturing for your project, you will use the Import to Game button to finish the project. When you Import to Game, Body Shop will collect up all your finished textures together into a working .package file.

The file you need to share with others is located in your My Documents \ EA Games \ The Sims 2 \ SavedSims folder. It will be named something like 8e4fb73a_MyProjectName.package - a random string at the beginning, an underscore, and the name you gave your project in Body Shop. That is the finished, complete file. You can rename this file to something more descriptive if you like.

Make sure you do NOT distribute the file from My Documents \ EA Games \ The Sims 2 \ Projects \ MyProjectName - there will be a MyProjectName.package file located in your Projects folder, but this is an unfinished file. It will not work in anyone's game. Make sure you only distribute the file from SavedSims as described above.

If your project requires a custom mesh for hair, clothing, or accessories, you will need to find out which mesh you have recoloured so you can tell people where to get it. Without it, your creation will not work in anyone else's game.

If you would like to share your finished project as an upload on MTS2, please make sure you read MTS2's Creator Guidelines so you know what pictures and information you will need to include, and the standards for upload.

How do I make makeup/tattoos/texturing for the body?

Currently, there are only two known ways of doing this. The first is to create it as a skin-tight clothing - this will make it removable at will. Take a look at some clothings that have makeup built-in (there are several from University, as well as one blue adult female halter top from the base game with a back tattoo).

The second is to create it as a skintone, editing the age(s) and gender(s) you wish the texturing to work for. You cannot easily switch between skintones, and tattoos and texturing will then work genetically.

There is not currently any known way to create easily-removable/switchable makeup for the body in any other way than clothing. Makeup that shows up under blush, lipstick, full-face makeup, etc., has no known way of modding it to work for the full body, and there's no good way for it to work as accessories, either. Nor is there any known way of modding the overlay skintone used for vampires to work for it. If and when information on how to do so is discovered, links will be posted here.

How do I make shiny clothing/skin/hair?

There's some discussion on how to do that here in this thread, including on how to get an actual shine to items - but make sure you read the whole thread to truly understand how to do shiny textures, and the limitations of the modding method described there.

For further tips on shiny stuff, see threads on:

• Shiny white latex/PVC
• Shiny patent leather
• Making glitter

How do I photoskin?

The basic concepts for photoskinning anything - clothing, skin, hair, makeup, etc. - are all exactly the same. You need excellent, high-quality, well-lit photos that don't have any weird shadowing or highlights, crazy tints, or weird skews to them. Then you begin selecting pieces from your source photo - what size and shape pieces depend on what you're creating. Copy those pieces and place them over the texture. Adjust the size and shape to fit the area of texture, and then blend the edges.

For further techniques and tips that will be useful for photoskinning, see:

• Tutorials:How to make a sim's face using source pics - Photoskin a celebrity face. The same technique works for the whole body, just in bigger pieces.
• Tutorials:Realistic Faces for Skins - Same idea, slightly different tools used.
• Skintones and Simming: General Tips and Tricks - Lots of links for where to get pics for photoskinning sims and skins.
• Tutorials:How to Make a Top Out of a Picture - Photoskin a shirt. Same technique works well for all clothing.
• Tutorials:Beyond Photoskinning: Transformation and Displacement Mapping in Photoshop - Some techniques that can work better than Photoskinning for many applications.

How do I change clothes to different categories?

To make an outfit show up in different categories, the easiest way is to just go into Body Shop, go to Create New Project, select the existing outfit for a new project, and then just Import to Game after choosing whatever different category options you like. This method is quick and easy, but it does result in a slight degrading of the textures as you have to import them again.

To avoid textures degrading, or if you would like to do something odd like make swimwear for toddlers, you can use SimPE to change the values for the outfit's category.