Sorry for the delay!

[Brynne]

I may have Ashley and Castor re-adopt their alien toddlers, now! When they were born, I said "errrrrrrrr, no."

[Star]

I decided to test out the skin, and I absolutely love it! Here are a few pictures of Orian as a baby, toddler, child, and teen:



 

[GloamingMerle]

Aw, I love seeing before & after pictures with my default replacements! 

Orion looks fantastic. I love those custom eyes on him, they look really surreal/whimsical with the laverwinkle skin.

Rainbow: Maybe I'm just biased, but I like the 'after' version better! That make-up looks really lovely with the laverwinkle skin... With the green not so much!   

I think it's harder to find clothes that the green aliens look good in, but maybe that's just me... I think the laverwinkle tends to be more forgiving.

You guys might like to know this. The natural hair color of my PT is black, I think the original PT had blonde... Of the natural hair colors, I thought black looked best you see. They also look great in plenty of unnatural hair colors. Magenta for example.

[lauraglenn]

Which do you think is prettier?

I love the after.   
Great looking skintones, GloamingMerle.  I never play aliens or vampires but I may give them a whirl with your skintones.  Thanks for sharing!

[RainbowTigress]

Rainbow: Maybe I'm just biased, but I like the 'after' version better! That make-up looks really lovely with the laverwinkle skin... With the green not so much!   

It was really intended to go with the laverwinkle skin since I took the skintone out long enough to take the picture, then put it back in.  But I always had trouble picking makeup and clothes that didn't clash so much with the green skin.  What was Maxis thinking, anyway? 

[GloamingMerle]

Rainbow: Maybe I'm just biased, but I like the 'after' version better! That make-up looks really lovely with the laverwinkle skin... With the green not so much!   

It was really intended to go with the laverwinkle skin since I took the skintone out long enough to take the picture, then put it back in.  But I always had trouble picking makeup and clothes that didn't clash so much with the green skin.  What was Maxis thinking, anyway? 

They were thinking: "Let's make the aliens as cliche and hideous as we possibly can! That'll be a riot, for sure!"

There's a riot alright, but not one in which people are laughing. 

[Dark Trepie]

Okay, this is a bit strange.  I know for a fact that I took out the default eyes file (I'm looking at it on my desktop right now).  And the only files that remain are your other three files.  (the alien skin, the polination tech, and the vampire skin).

I went back to that lot just now (with the default eyes files still sitting on my desktop) and they still had the swirly eyes.  But the teen girl I showed in that before and after pic only had one day left till she became an adult.  So I made her age transition to see what happend and the regular black eyes came back...

Hmm, maybe if I took the skin out completely, restart the game and load that lot to see that their all green again, then quit and put that skin back into the downloads folder, then restart again...

[Dark Trepie]

Okay, I just can't figure this out.  I'm 100% sure the eyes are not in there, but they still have the purple swirly eyes.  And the girl gets the regular alien eyes when she age transistions.  Just to prove this, I had her little brother stand next to her.



You can easily tell the he has the swirly eyes and she has the regular eyes.  I have no clue what is going on here.  Why would they have the swirly eyes when defaultalieneyes.package isn't in the downloads folder?   

Oh well, anyway, I used TwoJeffs College Adjuster to vamp the dad while I was messing around with things to check it out...



Take note Maxis.  This is what a vampire is supposed to look like!   

[GloamingMerle]

Gosh, I wish I knew what to tell you... Did you actually shut down the game before you took out the files? I'm at a loss, really... Everything worked completely fine when I took it out and started up the game. Sorry you are having issues... 

There's obviously some unknown factor here, and I'm running out of ideas as to what it might be.

[Dark Trepie]

It's becoming quite clear that this has nothing to do whith you're skins.  I just visited Chloe Singles and Lola Singles lots, and they have the normal eyes back.  And it turns out that the mom from the family I've been showing has the normal black eyes too.  (She was off in the corner of the lot meditating through her pregnancy, but I guess that's no excuse for not checking)  The problem seems to be centered on these two teens for some reason...

While revisiting that lot, I noticed something pretty freaky...



Maybe the lot is buggy.  Maybe the two teens are buggy.  Maybe my game is smoking crack.  Your guess is as good as mine right now.   

Edit:  And yes, I've completely shut the game down each and everytime I've moved the hacks around.

[GloamingMerle]

Wow. To be honest, I'm kinda relieved it's not my fault. 

That is a really peculiar issue... Maybe you should try to take it up with Jeff or Pescado? I'm not nearly awesome enough to help you with that kind of thing. Have you tried moveobjects on and then deleting them? That will completely reset them, so it may bring them up to date. That's the most I can suggest... Best of luck to you.

By the way, I like your sims.. 

[Dark Trepie]

Well, upon further testing, it seems that all of my teen alien sims will have this problem.  I went and aged Lola Singles, Chloe Singles, and Polination Tech 9 all down to teenagers with the agesimscheat and they all went from black eyes to swirly eyes...

This just gets stranger and stranger...

[GloamingMerle]

Yeesh.. No kidding... Isn't their a cache folder somewhere for the game? I don't know what kind of stuff it does or doesn't keep, but it can't hurt to empty it.

Update: I did a little research... In your My Documents/EA Games/Sims 2 folder you should see a file called Groups.cache... I've read that deleting said folder can fix numerous issues, including ones where things are not updating properly. It's worth a shot.

MaxoidTom explains: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=67356

[Andygal]

Your skins are awwweeesooome. Haven't actually gotten a chance to look at the alien one yet. But the vampire one is much better then that stupid looking blue one.

Now if only somebody could figure out how to stop them from walking around like idiots with their arms in front of their faces because that is really starting to piss me off because it looks DUMB.

[DrBeast]

I must confess: I haven't even SEEN how an alien looks like in-game. I've never played any maxis-made characters and only played maxis neighborhoods in the very beginning. An alien sim in my custom neighborhood is a thing unseen. Dylan's skin gave me second thoughts though. It looks too damn good to be left out of the showcase. Now, vampires? Well, they'll have to wait till I get Nightlife. That is, when JM's done upgrading his hacks. I absolutely REFUSE to play the game without his and TJ's hacks!
BTW Dylan, are these skins anatomically correct or "barbie-ken" skins?

[GloamingMerle]

Nipples for all ages and genders, but genetalia is still the equivalent of Barbie and Ken

[DrBeast]

Nipples for all ages and genders, but genetalia is still the equivalent of Barbie and Ken

No sweat, I use cboy's penis and mathman's vulva.

[KellyQ]

Maybe the lot is buggy.  Maybe the two teens are buggy.  Maybe my game is smoking crack. 

Trepie, you now owe me a new keyboard, lol.

GloamingMerle, I love the new skins. Tried them out on Strangetown last night and they look fantastic. It will make it so much easier using clothes and makeup on aliens, I will actually start enjoying playing them now (and vampires, which I have never played). Thanks so much for posting this here.

[DrBeast]

Ok, what the hell happened to my manners? Thanx Dylan, you did an awesome job! Haven't seen the alien skin in-game yet (too addicted to San Andreas these days to play Sims!), but judging from the screenie it looks very well done!

[veilchen]

I'm taking the time to thank you for the truly great vampire replacement skin. It looks fabulous, Reg was right, you are very talented. I like it that the eyes have changed too, I find the red eyes very creepy.

Anyway, since that one turned out so wonderful, I will now try your alien skin replacement. I don't mind green, but I am fond of lavender. Advancing age maybe? (Can't be, I think I was always fond of lavender....at least I think I was....I can't rightly remember :D)

[GloamingMerle]

Thanks you guys.. 

I'm really glad my replacements seem to be so popular. Now if only Angelfire would cooperate! I sent them a message detailing my problem, and you want to know what they told me? They told me to clear my cache! They didn't even give me a "-and if that's not the problem, try this."... Dummies! The first thing I did when I had issues was clear my cache. I clear it on a regular basis anyway. Some help they were, but I guess it can't be their fault, can it? Oh no, it's never the company's fault... That's just ludicrous. *obvious sarcasm*

[RainbowTigress]

Thanks you guys.. 

I'm really glad my replacements seem to be so popular. Now if only Angelfire would cooperate! I sent them a message detailing my problem, and you want to know what they told me? They told me to clear my cache! They didn't even give me a "-and if that's not the problem, try this."... Dummies! The first thing I did when I had issues was clear my cache. I clear it on a regular basis anyway. Some help they were, but I guess it can't be their fault, can it? Oh no, it's never the company's fault... That's just ludicrous. *obvious sarcasm*

But of course.  I think that is the standard answer across the board.  I remember when I worked in tech support, that was one of the first things we were supposed to suggest to the customer when they were having problems.  We even made out detailed directions for each browser people used so we could walk them through the process, because most people didn't even know how to do it.  It reminds me of Maxis' standard answer--Reinstall.  It would make more sense if they told them to delete the groups.cache like you talked about earlier, which would be similar to clearing the browser's cache.  But they didn't know about that one.

[GloamingMerle]

"We even made out detailed directions for each browser people used so we could walk them through the process, because most people didn't even know how to do it."

That is exactly what they did to me. They explained how to clear my cache in about 5 different ways, but didn't bother to give me even one suggestion unrelated to cache clearing. I realize a lot of people are computer illiterate, but come on. Tech support should make a habit of giving people the benefit of the doubt and offer a little more than the 'standard answer'... I know this stuff is pre-typed and pasted in.. Would it hurt to paste in something at the bottom for people who know better and have already gone through the basic steps? *sigh*

At least, my mom and I are going to be setting up our very own forum-based site... It'll be much easier to put my stuff on the web that way. All the benefits, none of the crud.

[RainbowTigress]

"We even made out detailed directions for each browser people used so we could walk them through the process, because most people didn't even know how to do it."

That is exactly what they did to me. They explained how to clear my cache in about 5 different ways, but didn't bother to give me even one suggestion unrelated to cache clearing. I realize a lot of people are computer illiterate, but come on. Tech support should make a habit of giving people the benefit of the doubt and offer a little more than the 'standard answer'... I know this stuff is pre-typed and pasted in.. Would it hurt to paste in something at the bottom for people who know better and have already gone through the basic steps? *sigh*

At least, my mom and I are going to be setting up our very own forum-based site... It'll be much easier to put my stuff on the web that way. All the benefits, none of the crud.

I agree.  After we helped them clear the cache, if that didn't solve the problem, we'd explore other things.  If we were sending an email, we always had our phone number and encouraged them to call in if they were still having trouble.  But I do know how it was to be stuck in the middle between the customer and the technicians.  I knew that the problems weren't always caused by browser cache issues, but we'd get the same thing from the technicians when we reported problems, "Did you have them empty their cache?"  Uhhh, Yeah!  So what is your next piece of wisdom?  Grrrr!!!

Anyway, sounds like getting your own site is the way to go.  Then you won't have to deal with this crap.  I can't wait to see it!

[Motoki]

Well, I wanted to post my remade Amelia and Bartholomew from MaxoidMonkey and had been meaning to so here they are. They've got your skin GloamingMerle and the hairs are from MTS2. Eyebrows I think are Helaene and the blush on Amelia is Sussi Friberg's. Eye's are Echo's. I tried to make my own red eyes that weren't so cartoonish but I ended up not caring for them. :p I also modified they're facial features in the bodyshop so they weren't cartoony looking in a Maxis default face template sorta way.

Bart looks a bit girly in his pic, but he can be an Anne Rice style vampire. He looks a bit more menacing in a suave sort of way in his icon pic, but he had Patches' vamp skin on in that pic and I didn't care for the veins on that one.

Both of them, BTW are smoking cuz' they're out in the daylight. 

I made them NPCs by moving them into the NPC bin like the Counts and Countesses are, but they never show up on community lots because the game won't make vamps show up before dark and it seems to not to want to make teens show up after dark. 

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