Is there a way to change a Sim's displayed skintone without SimPE?

[staroverthebay]

So I have this sim I've painstakingly crafted in CAS (STFU, it took me forever to build her because I'm so damned indecisive) and I think she's pretty cute, and she's rather fun for a knowledge sim.

But she's got this weird side effect whenever she gets naked to take a shower or a bath... That's right: floating head! No body at all, not even hands or feet, just a random floating head. It goes back to normal when she gets dressed.

I used a custom skintone with her, (and I don't remember who the creator is), so I assume it's a flaw in the skintone or an incompatibility with BV. I'm willing to deal with that... but this is really disconcerting to see, and I'd like to change her displayed skintone to a default one if I could. I can fix her genetic one later, once SimPE is out, but meanwhile, I don't want to use her because her bodilessness freaks me out whenever she showers or bathes.

Problem is, how do I change her displayed skintone? Since SimPE isn't working for BV yet, and you can't change skintones by going to the mirror and selecting "Change Appearance" I can't figure out what to do to put a temporary bandaid on this problem so I can continue playing this sim without cheating her hygiene at 100% all the time so I don't have to deal with her naked.

[Madame Mim]

The only thing I know of are BobCatBen's skin changer vials http://www.genensims2.com/guest/bobcatben/index.htm (and I don't know if they are BV compatible because AFAIK he hasn't been around for a while). But if it works it should do exactly what you want - give her a non-genetic skintone overwrite.The only problem is that the only skins he has available are some of the Genensims animal skins.

[cabelle]

Would Christianlov's Skintone Selector work? http://files.sims2graveyard.com/christianlov/

[Zeljka]

I was thinking the same thing.
Sounds like one of those skins linked to a mesh though, I've had one or two and unfortunately, though they'll go nude in the shower, accessories (rings, nailpolish and miscellaneous uhm, bits) will still show up.

You think a floating head is disturbing? Try the floating head over the Crammyboy... rings and necklaces don't make it any prettier.

[jolrei]

What would happen if the custom skin was simply taken out of the game and the 'hood was loaded without it?  Would the game simply choose a default EAxoid skintone randomly, or would something bad happen?

Naturally, any other sim with the same skintone would also be affected.  Problem is that if you don't know which skintone is "offending" you end up having to take them all out, thus resetting all your sims that have CC skins.  Better if you can just remove the offending one.

I personally would try it, being of an experimental temperament, but I would back-up before doing so.

[J. M. Pescado]

Maybe your sim would turn flashing blue?

[Flamingo]

SimPE does not throw (a lot of) errors when loading character files. If you just made her in CAS, she should be towards the end.

I remember this happening to me before, however. There is definitely a problem file in your download's folder.

[seelindarun]

What would happen if the custom skin was simply taken out of the game and the 'hood was loaded without it?  Would the game simply choose a default EAxoid skintone randomly, or would something bad happen?

I've already done this experiment, so you won't have to.    The game assigns the default S2 skin to all affected sims when you rip out the custom one.  I'm not sure what would happen if the custom skin had been linked to a custom mesh also.  All of mine are simply textures.  Maybe they would flash blue as JMP speculates.

The unfortunate thing is that when you do this, the sim's genetics get borked.  Their DNA continues to point to the non-existent skin which means that their children no longer follow the Maxian rules for their genetic inheritance.

[staroverthebay]

I've tracked down which skin-file it is (I remembered what the thumbnail looked like, so I used CleanInstaller to look at them), and turns out it's a skin file that is for a Warlokk mesh. So that explains why the naked sim has no body -- cuz I don't have that mesh. Funny that it works for her with clothes despite the body mesh. Well, I'll disable it, and when SimPE is updated, I'll change her genetics so that the DNA doesn't point to it anymore.

[notveryawesome]

Just an FYI: If you use Christianlov's skintone selector or some other way to change skintone in-game, you need to use a global skin-preserver. BobCatBen at MTS2 has one, as well as a few other people whose names escape me ATM.

[LadyCrimsonSkye]

Please type slowly, I'm new and don't understand. 

If I remove all custom skintones, and re-start my game, All Sims with custom skintones will revert back to default skintones, thus borking the sim's DNA and all DNA of offspring? Does this apply to default eye colors as well?

Would it be easier to clone the sim in question, put new skin on in CAS mode, and use the boolprop tool to bring back her/his skills, interests, etc?

I'd like to change a few Sim skintones, but most of them are default Maxis sims. I don't know if it's worth the effort.  Wouldn't it just be easier to replace these sims? 

[seelindarun]

I should have been more specific about what kind of custom skintone I was discussing.  The OP just had one sim with this custom skintone, so I knew it could not have been a default replacement.

Removing default replacement skins or eyes causes no harm to the genes.  Everybody gets new versions of the appropriate skin or eyes, i.e. dark sims stay dark, pale ones stay pale.

Removing custom skins (geneticised or not) makes all the sims who had that skin display the default S2.  Whether they used to be dark or pale does not matter, the game by default will display S2 if the skin file goes missing.  Their genes however, aren't overwritten.  They continue to point to the missing file which means that their children inherit garbage for DNA.

The same applies to eye color.  For that the default is brown.

If you just want to change a few sims, the best way is to do it in SimPE.  That way they permanently express the skin you want, and you can fix their DNA to match.  It's not necessary to clone or rip those characters out of the game.

[J. M. Pescado]

You don't actually need new SimPE to simply edit an SDNA anyway, just disable all the broken plugins or use the leaked QA SimPE if you're too stupid to figure out how.