More Awesome Than You!

Hi :)

I hope it isn't wong to post this here. I know a lot of your are intereseted in body overlays & not everyone visits MTS2.

I've managed to get them working :)

Tattoos http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=239851 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=239851) & anatony bits at the sexysims2.com adult site. I won't post a link but they are in the hacks section there.

Morague

Thankyou. I can't wait to give them a try.

Very nice!

Is it possible for a Sim to have multiple overlays? (hair + nipples + tattoo)

Is it possible to set a 'default' overlay? For example, making the anatomy bits default to on for all new sims... those featureless townies always creep me out. :)

Wouldn't it be easier to use replacement default skins?   ???  Here's one:  http://www.demusedsims.com/age-restricted.html (http://www.demusedsims.com/age-restricted.html)

Farsight,

Yes - you can have multiple overlays - both anatomy bits & the tattoos & as far as I tested it works with the Vampires. I don;t think there's an easy way to apply it to everyone but I actually didn;t look into that. LOL - I spent two solid weeks getting this part working.

BastDawn, using default replacements is still certainly a choice. I just wanted to be able to have blonds & redheds with the right hair colors. My file is tiny, especially when compared to a skin replacement, let alone multiple replacements. But it's really personal choice. This will just give people a lot more choices & freedom to put what they want on the skins they want.

I was really impressed when I saw it, because it's something people have been wanting for AGES (I'd seen it asked about in a number of places) and nobody had figured out how to do -- the ability to give a Sim tattoos without either having to use a custom skin (which may be inherited, which doesn't always make sense, and therefore requires screwing around with SimPE) or putting them on the outfit (which either means they disappear eventually, or else a Sim with a tattoo will need a full set of custom clothes for each age and each outfit type that bares the skin the tattoo is on).

I may have to grab the tattoo one once the directions are up (most of my skintones already have nipples, and I can't be bothered to give my male Sims dangly bits, so I would not normally notice if the rug matches the drapes).

Ah, I get it now.   :)

Some questions:

If I want to use the anatomy bits, does this mean I should get rid of my default replacement skins?  It's an either/or thing right?  If I use both, the overlay will just cover whatever the default skin is anyway, correct?  (I just want to make sure I understand how it works).


Is there a reason why it doesn't work with werewolves or plantsims?  Is it due to how those overlays work?  Are you using the werewolf and plantsim level overlays to do tattoos and anatomy bits for all other sims?  Or, is it something that you are looking to add, in the future, so it also works with werewolves and plantsims?


For male anatomy bits, is it just pubic hair?  I assume your anatomy bits don't actually had penises and testicles.  It basiclaly just makes sure that the carpet matches the drapes, right? :D


Is the overlay based on genetics?   So, if you change your sims appearance, will the hair color below also change, or will it remain whatever was originally chosen (in CAS or what they were born with)?


ETA:

Also, is there a way to convert the existing tattoos to use the overlay method instead of acting as clothes? (There are tattoos in the game right?  I vaguely recall seeing them, but I haven't used them myself pretty for the reasons you mentioned).



Ste

Hi Ste :)

Basically - you could use both custom skins & defaults with the anatomy bits. You have to actually choose to put the bits on each sime. They may or may not cover up what's already on existing skins - these are slightly transparent & may not be exactly the same size/shape as custom skins. Hopefully many of the full skin creators will like this idea & will convert their anatomy bits to share & leave their actual custom skins bare so people can choose the skins tones 7 whatever biits they want - sort of how to please everyone. I don;t expect this to happen overnight! But I do think most people will see the benefits of converting them.

It probably could be made to work with the plantsims & Werewolves - but - they both have the same priority in the game & the Plantsim/Werewolf skins are not very transparent, so, while the bits are likelystill there, they don;t show & I wasn;t positive they they wouldn;t conflict. So, i decided to exclude them. I may look into this decision again next week, but i need a break from it right now :)

Yeah - the males is just pubic hair. I didn;t really spend a lot of time on the graphics because I assumed people would just swap out my textures anyway. My main goal was just getting this to work & work correctly.

I think you might have to remove the anatomy bits & reapply them if you change skin tone or hair color but I'm not positive. I didn;t actually try it. I tested going from teen through elder & that part works. Worst case is you have to remove then reapply them.

There are some clothes in the game that have tattoos on them - actually the male tattoo is the one from the Uni urbz skin, I think. These outfits will need to be converted if people want them. The esiest way to make new tattoos is to look for some "dingbat" fonts & use them - that's how I did the female tattoos :)

Hmm, interesting. I had been messing with this for awhile passively, but never made it work quite right. The more interesting question is, so what procedure did youfollow to make this work?

LOL

Well, it was a lot of trial & much error :)

When I was working on getting the sunburn overlays working, I noticed that 0x017C was pointing to the instance Number of a collection in the globalcatbin.package, which tied into the same instance numbered 3IDR that pointed to the appropriate Text List with all the Property Sets names. But I was still missing something. Eventually I stumbled across Wes's tutorial on how to add dog collars - which explained how there are 3 sets of keys linking stuff together. I had to dig through about 800 3IDRs in the globalcatbin package to find the right 3iDRs because you can't access that info in debug mode because the overlays never show up.

Then I just extracted everything related to the sunburn overlays & started slowly morphing it from EAs to mine by changing one thing at a time until it didn't work. Later I figured out that I had to use the global group rather than a custom group for the TXTR & TXMTs & once that happened the rest fell into place. Starting with the sunburn overlays was the key for me - I knew we should be able to replicate this effect because the sunburn overlay gets put on when the sim is in distress & removed when they recover, unlike the vampire overlay which is basically there until they are non-vampires.

Yeah, when I started poking this, I was starting from the vampire overlays, and I couldn't get it to consistently work.

When I looked in the hacks category I couldn't find anything.  I couldn't find it in resent posts either.  I had to search for your name to find the link.
I'm posting it: http://www.sexysims2.com/showthread.php?t=169543  We're all men of the world here, right?  Considering some of the stuff over at sexysims I think it's safer to link tender people directly to the stuff than to make them flip through page after page of vagina murals.

I find this funny on a sims site.  Not the assumption that everyone here can handle the link, but the number who will wonder when they became men.

Not true - every woman knows (or should know) that she was a man in a previous life. It's just that she's now evolved to a higher level.

 ;D ;)

Thanks Gwill for letting me know. I was just trying to be, you know, discrete.

Thanks for posting the links!

JM - yeah - starting with the sunburn was the key as it allowed me to actually see what the primitive is doing. The vamp overlay doesn't allow that - it either is or isn't "on".

Sweet. I have a family in a competition that uses a "freckled all over" custom skin.. wasn't till the female showered and decided she'd spend the rest of the day nude that I realized she had no headlights. Oddly, I find it MORE disturbing when they have none than when they do.

Currently the bits are set up to just use the standard maxis skin tones. I've posted a message in the Sexysims2 thread that explains how to switch the numbers for custom skins, so I won;t repeat it here. It's easy to do unless you want to add additional skintone ranges & that'll take some work. i'll do a tutorial on how to add more, but not til next week :)

Morague and Paleoanth are about the only two people I know of that managed to understand the 3 keys method.
Besides linking overlays in, I am convinced, but have never proven (for lack of effort) that that is the way to add any set of objects (such as a set for all age groups or the 3 pet body sizes) to the game that doesn't fit the ordinary catalog analogy. This would include non-replacement face templates, new pet coat colors and all the rest of the stuff in CAS that does not have a direct method of adding custom content.

The tough part is all the manual linking you have to do with 3IDRs.

Anyway, Morague is to be congratulated for ingenuity and perseverance.
And for making shiny stuff.

Hmmmn.  So if I wanted to make a pet coat pattern with stripes on the legs and tails but nowhere else, I could do it if I learn this technique?  Suddenly pets are looking interesting again...

I made a coat color, but since I was lazy and only made one body size, it was unstable.
If you want to work on this, it is still a R&D technique.
However, as for the legs part, I would have to revisit my old work to be sure, but what I rememebr is that I made the texture image from a pet coat and just twiddled the color mix dials in Paint Shop Pro to get an orangey color. Had I drawn some specific stuff on just the legs or whatever, I expect that is what would have been mixed into the pet coat.
I posted my incomplete package at:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1506002#post1506002
The item works, and as far as I know will break nothing, but because I only put one body size in the package, when you start changing the pet, the color gets defaulted to one of the other ones.
The 3 keys technique is documented in the Pet Collar tutorial on MTS2, and also in this message here at MATY: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6753.0.html
It is not simple, it is like being back in "the good old days" when we had to manually link all the parts of an object together by hand.
You might want to review the whole thread, which was started by Echo. I think all that was lacking at the time was any great interest in modding pets.
<* Wes *>

I've known about it for a while too (since Nightlife actually, I was just stumped as to how to find the needed binx), that's how I did the alien/zombie fitness textures that were missing. More recently the missing cper and csla archetypes and a non-replacement archetype here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9028.msg247957.html#msg247957). It's really easy to make the face parts (nose/eye/brow/etc) for CAS once you have a non-replacement archetype too, it's just a matter of cloning the binx and changing the collection.

Edit: I just saw in your pet collar tutorial that it has a bunch of "needs research", I already know what all those lines mean except for maybe version (but oddly enough it affects young adult items).

d'oh! lol
Well, downloading it anyhow, let's see if I can work out how to get them to show up on the custom freckle skins.

You are welcome to use any of that material if you want, including updating the unknown fields (if they affect YA, then that is probably why they were unused in Pets).

I didn't notice you had completed a non-replacement archetype, because the thread title is different. Congratulations, we need some more discoveries like yours. C'mon, it's only been just under 3 years that the game has been out. I know that the 3 key technique goes all the way back to the base game.

<* Wes *>

Yeah, Argon, you really should publicize that breakthrough properly, at least with its own thread here if not at MTS2.  Unless you're waiting until you've got that tutorial written.  ;)

I vote for:


A) moving the original post to the Peasantry, including the post with the links to Sexy Sims (I agree with Gwill, it was kind of a pain to have to search through the site for Morague's stuff at first, and sifting through all the vaginas was especially not all that appealing to me :P).

B) splitting off the informative posts, including the info that Morague, wes_h, and Argon are discussing and maybe moving it into the War Room section, so peasants may still be able to reply, and at least it will be easily to find and won't get lost in the Podium if/when the thread dies.


Ste

Sure we'll go with that answer lol

*is bad at publicity

If someone knew of an easy way to rename models and have the references update automatically, it would really help a lot.

Nice signature, Strangle!
/me laughs.

(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t83/Strange-Angel/Macro/Telepathcat.jpg)

:P~~~~