Tutorials:Body Shop Recolouring 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 Game Help:Body Shop. If you're still having trouble you can post a question detailing your problem in this forum.

Why doesn't my Body Shop have all the outfits?

You are using the downloaded prerelease version of Body Shop. Don't use that - use the version that comes with your game. See the question below for how to run the proper version, which will have everything in it (including all your custom content).

How do I get Body Shop?

You do not need to download or install anything additional to use Body Shop as it comes installed with your game. You can access the shortcut for it via Start - Program Files - EA Games - The Sims 2 (or latest expansion) - The Sims 2 Body Shop.

What graphics editor can I use? Is there a free one?

For more information on this subject, please see: Graphics Editors for a list, links, and recommendations. Yes, there are free ones!

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 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?

There are three ways of doing this:

1. Create it as a skin-tight clothing - this will make it removable at will. Take a look at some clothes that have tattoos built-in (there are several from University, as well as one blue adult female halter top from the base game with a back tattoo).

2. 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.

3. Recommended: Make a tattoo overlay. The talented Morague has found a way to hack the sunburn/frozen overlays from Seasons to make overlays for tattoos and all sorts of other body texturing. For a tutorial, please see: Tutorials:Body Overlay Tattoos.

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. For information on doing that, see: Tutorials: Changing Clothing Categories - This tutorial also includes information on converting items to Seasons outerwear.

How do I change clothing to different genders?

Toddler and child: Because toddlers and children in the game are shaped exactly the same and use the same bodies, you can convert any toddler or child outfit from male to female, female to male, or make it show up for both ages. You can find information on changing the settings to do so using SimPE here: Tutorials:Converting clothes to different genders.

Teen, adult, young adult, and elder: These ages do not use the same body shape for male and female. In order to gender-switch clothing for any of these ages, you cannot just change settings as you can for toddlers and children - the neckline won't match up and it will just look bad. You would have to make a new body mesh to gender-convert clothing for these ages, which is quite a bit more advanced than just changing a few settings with SimPE.

How do I change clothing to different ages?

Adult, young adult, and elder: Because these three ages all use the same skeleton, you can convert full body meshes for these ages between any of these, or to work for all three. You may also convert top and bottom separate everyday outfits to work for both young adult and adult; top and bottom will not match up if made for all ages on elder unless you are using all "unsaggy" elder meshes. For information on converting clothes between these ages, or making them show up for all three, see: Tutorials:Converting clothes to different age groups.

Toddler, child, and teen: These ages do not use the same skeleton and body shape/size as adults, young adults, and elders, or each other... so in order to convert anything into or from these ages, you would have to make a new mesh. Age conversions can be quite challenging as meshing projects, and are only suitable for more advanced body meshers.

How do I make a realistic sim face?

Want to make a self-sim, celebrity, or ultra-realistic sim skin? See: Tutorials:Skintones and Simming.

How do I recolor clothing, hair, or accessories that use a custom mesh?

Custom mesh Body Shop items are recolored exactly the same as Maxis ones - Create New Project, choose the item you want to recolor, and make a new project of it.

You will need to make sure you have downloaded the mesh and at least one recolor for it to show up in Body Shop. If you have downloaded only the mesh, you will not see anything for that outfit in Body Shop. If you have downloaded only the recolor, you will see a Maxis default in Body Shop, without the proper custom mesh. Once you get both the recolor and custom mesh installed, you'll see the proper item in Body Shop and can then make a new project based on it.

What is a bump map, and how do I use it?

Bump maps are an additional image added to clothing (and many other items in the game) that create the illusion of added 3D without having to have a new mesh that includes those details on it. Bump maps can add a lot of detail to clothing, creating more realistic bits like buttons, pockets, seams, etc.

First, you should test whether you even can view bump maps in your game. Semloh made a bump map testing garment that you can get here.

Then, check out this tutorial for information on creating bump maps: How to Make a Bumpmap for Clothes.

What is a UV Map, and how do I use it?

A uv map is the information that tells a mesh how to apply a flat texture to its 3D shape. If you're having trouble matching up seams or figuring out what part of the texture to change to make the effect you want, having the UV map can be extremely helpful. See here for a tutorial: Exporting UV Maps for Better Clothing Recolours

How do I get the maid/gardener/repairman/etc. outfits?

Those clothes are normally hidden in Body Shop, and thus must be "unlocked" in order to show up. To unlock those clothes yourself, see this tutorial: Tutorials: Unlocking NPC Clothing. Or you can download a mod to unlock them all for you here: Clothing Equality Mod