Tutorials:Body Shop Recolouring FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions (Read the FAQ!)

• 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 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