Default Skin Overrides A La Carte

[Ambular]

Some time ago, Vtuggle asked me for a set of overrides that replaced just the teen through elder female body textures with more detailed images, leaving the Maxis skintones otherwise unchanged.  I made and posted them here, and they were well-received enough that I decided to expand on the concept a bit.

So, here's a set of four default skin override files that replace the Maxis skin files by gender and body part rather than entire skintones at once.  The body overrides include fit, fat and normal textures.

1.  Female Teen through Elder with body hair and nipples, based on the female textures from AllenABQ's hairy skin sets at InSimAdult (adults only/reg required!):





2.  An alternate version of the above but with just nipples, no hair (use only one, not both!)

3.  Male Teen through Elder with body hair, based on AllenABQ's Hairy Sims set #3 at InSimAdult (adults only/reg required!); Allen's transparent overlays are also available at InSimAdult:





4.  Faces with minor edits around the lips and eyes (Maxis versus the replacement shown below.)  The teeth (not shown) are based on a set (by Hairfish, I think) at Mermaid Cove, and the eyes (also not shown) are by Barcelonista at MTS2:



So what's the point of doing it this way instead of just using regular default replacements?

- By replacing only those textures that actually need to be replaced and using the Maxis-supplied images for the rest, you can save some disk space and load time.

- Not running the images through Bodyshop means no image degradation and thus nicer-looking skins, especially in the darker tones.

- Easy mixing and matching is now possible.  These four files give you a dozen different possible combinations of Maxis and custom textures.  The more people use these as bases to create new overrides, the more possible combinations there will be!

- All "bare" skin types will automatically match without having to download multiple files.  (Vampires use an overlay, not a normal skin; the werewolves and Bigfoots don't seem to suffer for lack of detail, but they could easily be added by anyone with a bit of SimPE experience.)  If you don't have Uni or Seasons, having the extra images in your game shouldn't hurt anything, but the extras can also be harmlessly deleted with SimPE.

- All ages and all eight skin types are included in the face file.  I should note that I'm not especially happy with the faces uploaded here; I included the file for the sake of completeness, so please, feel free to create new ones!

The downside? They won't play nice with regular default replacements (though you could tailor them to your needs by selectively deleting the images in the files,) and if you don't like the basic coloring of the Maxis skins, you're pretty much out of luck.

How to create new overrides using these files: You can edit these files directly, or you can do what I did and extract the original LIFO files from the game itself, which are found in the base game, Uni and Seasons directories (in TSData/Res/Sims3D/SimsXX.package or TSData/Res/3D/SimsXX.package, where XX = assorted file numbers; you may have to search a bit.  SimPE's Resource Finder helps!)  Edit them in the graphics program of your choice and use Build DTX in SimPE to import them directly over the .TXTR files (I suggest using DXT5 for the highest image quality.)

The biggest thing to remember when editing is that, as with regular skin files, the coloring in the faces, bodies and scalps must match or you'll get seams at the neck and around the face on the finished product.

I also highly recommend using jfade's Compressorizer to shrink your finished override files, since you'll otherwise have to use the slow and crappy SimPE compression or else wind up with monstrously huge files.

Scalp, child, toddler and baby body overrides are not included at this time, but I may make some at a later date if there's any call for it.  These are really intended more for those who basically like the Maxis skins and just want an easy and flexible way to tweak them a little bit, though.

Feedback, as always, is welcome and greatly appreciated!

Download the files:

Female Overrides
Female Overrides, no hair
Male Overrides
Face Overrides

[Ambular]

Updated the face file to add werewolf faces with teeth that match the rest.

[pbox]

Heya

Yes I *see* that this is an age-old thread, but the link is still in your sig ..

Neither the downloads nor the images in the OP work anymore: I'd like to try these overrides, do you have a pointer where they can be found nowadays? Unless they're somehow outdated with current EPs, of course. Thank you =)

[Ambular]

Heya

Yes I *see* that this is an age-old thread, but the link is still in your sig ..

Neither the downloads nor the images in the OP work anymore: I'd like to try these overrides, do you have a pointer where they can be found nowadays? Unless they're somehow outdated with current EPs, of course. Thank you =)

Whoops, gimme a few minutes.  I'll see if I can find a better place to host the stuffs.

[Ambular]

(Posting again to be sure the requester is notified)

There, give it another shot, they should work now.

[pbox]

Wow, speedy service! Thanks for the prompt reply =)

[Assmitten]

Yay! I raise the roof for these, which replace my old broken default ones by another creator. Thanks Ambular!

[mdankoski]

I like this idea. Due to living in a rural area, I'm forced to use dial-up, and I'm going to have to wait a little over 45 minutes for each to download, so I'm going to ask rather than just experiment sometime tomorrow. Are these actually skins, or just over-rides for hair and nipples? If the latter is the case, then is there any way to make a transparent texture around the nipples and hair that could let ANY default texture appear through the transparency, while showing the new, prettier nipple or hair show? The problem is, I do have some new default skins I like, but if they have good nipples, the bottoms are barbie, or if the bottom is good and hairy, the nipples look like inverted coffee-cup saucers with lipstick.

If this isn't possible, is there a tutorial anywhere on how to import JUST the hair or nipple in SimPE. maybe through the export-import feature or maybe the other way around? I don't really know how to word it in the SimPE search box, and the searches won't do just 'nipple' or 'pubic.'

Sorry if this question is in the wrong section. I am actually asking this creator, as it appears that is what this thread is concerning. Thanks. 

[Ambular]

I like this idea. Due to living in a rural area, I'm forced to use dial-up, and I'm going to have to wait a little over 45 minutes for each to download, so I'm going to ask rather than just experiment sometime tomorrow. Are these actually skins, or just over-rides for hair and nipples? If the latter is the case, then is there any way to make a transparent texture around the nipples and hair that could let ANY default texture appear through the transparency, while showing the new, prettier nipple or hair show? The problem is, I do have some new default skins I like, but if they have good nipples, the bottoms are barbie, or if the bottom is good and hairy, the nipples look like inverted coffee-cup saucers with lipstick.

If this isn't possible, is there a tutorial anywhere on how to import JUST the hair or nipple in SimPE. maybe through the export-import feature or maybe the other way around? I don't really know how to word it in the SimPE search box, and the searches won't do just 'nipple' or 'pubic.'

Sorry if this question is in the wrong section. I am actually asking this creator, as it appears that is what this thread is concerning. Thanks. 

No, that's fine.  I'll try to explain.

A 'normal' custom skintone made in BodyShop contains a whole lotta separate images: three body textures  (regular, fit and fat) for adult females, three for adult males, and so on for elders and teens; one face texture each for male and female adults, teens and elders; one body and face texture for toddlers, one body and face texture for infants, and (let me think...) I believe seven scalp textures for the various ages and genders.  All of these in a particular skintone package are for that skintone only; the game itself includes one of these sets for each of the four standard skintones, one for the alien skin, and partial sets for zombies, plantsims and the bodyshop mannequin.

What this mod does is change those skintones by replacing some of the textures but leaving others untouched.  If you download (for example) just the female body replacements, you will get just the body textures for all the female adult, teen and elder skins, but the game will continue to use the original face and scalp textures for women and all the original textures for males, children, toddlers and infants.  This saves you some extra load time and disk space over using a standard default replacement skin, which replaces every texture for whichever skintone it overrides.  It also ensures that all your skins will match in style.

Now, if what you want is a transparent overlay that can be applied to any skin, those exist too.  Register at sexysims.com and do a search for 'hair overlay' and it should find you the object you want. 

[mdankoski]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll probably go with yours, but i'll check out the link, too. All I really wanted was to "kill" barbie off, and have sims looking natural. I think you captured that, from the pics. I just never knew the right words to search under, and found this thread by accident, and you have it right there. I still have 5 more minutes left to download, and I'll try it out. Thank God my computer's fast, even if my phone isn't.

Thank you so much.

[mdankoski]

One more time. These are EXACTLY what I've been looking for seems like forever. I also found some transparent overlays at Insimadult that have to be put on in a graphics program, just in case I find a custom skin (like tattoos or freckles or scars or whatever). The others you suggested are just clothing, and I don't think normal people take off their hair and nipples to shower or sleep, then put them back on when they're done, so yours really are the best of the best. Thanks.

[Ambular]

One more time. These are EXACTLY what I've been looking for seems like forever. I also found some transparent overlays at Insimadult that have to be put on in a graphics program, just in case I find a custom skin (like tattoos or freckles or scars or whatever). The others you suggested are just clothing, and I don't think normal people take off their hair and nipples to shower or sleep, then put them back on when they're done, so yours really are the best of the best. Thanks.

Actually the ones I meant to suggest were these:

http://www.sexysims2.com/showthread.php?t=169543 (female anatomy bits)
http://www.sexysims2.com/showthread.php?t=171263 (male body hair)

They're set up as objects which you click to assign the desired features to your Sim regardless of skintone, and they stick in the shower, etc. also (though I do see that there were some issues about losing them when Sims leave the lot.)  At any rate, whichever mod you ultimately go with, I'm glad you like mine!  Thanks! 

[mdankoski]

well, after finding some more stuff, and trying them all for a couple of weeks, crashing the game with some of them, conflicting with hacks on the others, and some which flatly not working at all, yours are the only ones that work fine all the time. I really appreciate them.

Thanks again.