Help with a skintone...

[Ambular]

I've searched around and seen that this is a common problem, but I have yet to run across a solution or workaround that has worked for me.

When I try to create a custom skintone in BodyShop, the adult female face doesn't import correctly and neither do a couple of the other textures.  I've tried opening the file in SimPE and importing the missing textures, but BodyShop or the game always replaces them with the originals when I try to load it.

I've tried using both downloaded skins and the Maxis originals as bases, and the problem persists.  I've also tried cloning a skin in SimPE and bypassing BodyShop completely, but since they don't appear to have GUID's, I'm a bit lost as to how to stop it overwriting the original...

Any suggestions?

[Sleepycat]

I had the same problem with Bodyshop "forgetting" to export all the skintone files    I think if you check the project folder you will find that yours aren't importing correctly because they weren't exported. I could be wrong though, your problem might be alittle different then mine.


I never found a way to fix it and it stopped doing it at some point since the last few I've exported have been fine. Although when I had the problem I could usually get the default skintones to export ok, hmmm have you tried removing all your custom skintones (including default replacements) and then trying to export a new skintone project?

The only other thing I could suggest is downloading a bunch of other peoples skintones and then using simpe to export and then re-import(via Build DXT) the edited files 

[maxon]

I had the same problem with Bodyshop "forgetting" to export all the skintone files    I think if you check the project folder you will find that yours aren't importing correctly because they weren't exported. I could be wrong though, your problem might be alittle different then mine.

Yes, it's something like that.  There was a problem with some of the Maxis skintones but I thought it was fixed with University (or was it the patch?).  Basically, there was always a bit missing and you found you couldn't reimport a skin project if you'd cloned, exported and made a new skin with Bodyshop.  It was only a problem with some skin tones - not all of them.  The third eye baby skin thing is a similar problem.  This was supposedly fixed with University but returned with Nightlife.  I would guess because Nightlife reset your game to use the original default skins and not the replacements that came with University.

However, my solution is to replace the missing parts.  Either just copy over a file of an adult female face from another skintone which is the same colour (I spent a week a while back fixing ALL my skintones so they worked properly for ALL ages and both sexes and I archived all the textures) or, if this is not possible, you can use the face of the teen female and make a copy into a new file for the adult female.

[Ambular]

I had the same problem with Bodyshop "forgetting" to export all the skintone files    I think if you check the project folder you will find that yours aren't importing correctly because they weren't exported. I could be wrong though, your problem might be alittle different then mine.

Yes, it's something like that.  There was a problem with some of the Maxis skintones but I thought it was fixed with University (or was it the patch?).  Basically, there was always a bit missing and you found you couldn't reimport a skin project if you'd cloned, exported and made a new skin with Bodyshop.  It was only a problem with some skin tones - not all of them.  The third eye baby skin thing is a similar problem.  This was supposedly fixed with University but returned with Nightlife.  I would guess because Nightlife reset your game to use the original default skins and not the replacements that came with University.

However, my solution is to replace the missing parts.  Either just copy over a file of an adult female face from another skintone which is the same colour (I spent a week a while back fixing ALL my skintones so they worked properly for ALL ages and both sexes and I archived all the textures) or, if this is not possible, you can use the face of the teen female and make a copy into a new file for the adult female.

The problem I found though, was that all the textures were there in the file, but neither BodyShop nor the game seemed to recognize them.  I'd replace all of them with the correct skintones in SimPE and save the file, then reload it in SimPE just to be sure, and there they were...but when I loaded the file in BodyShop or CAS, the replacements I'd added were replaced within the file by the original textures.  This happened even after I marked the file read-only!  ><

I finally got one to work by taking a skin I'd downloaded and replacing all the textures by hand in SimPE, which was an enormous pain in the keister since the filenames in the downloaded one differed from those I had extracted to edit and I had to compare them visually one by one... *Sighs*

[Knukleur]

This is a tangent to the problem you're describing,  but I thought this information might be helpful to you. While working on a "redneck" tanline (or farmers tan or whatever you'd call it) I discovered that naked fat adult male Sims display the lower half of the texture for normal males.  It's only noticeable if you're using something like Crammyboy's nudist hack, since otherwise you'll only see it when they bathe or if they're outgoing and get naked in the hottub. Fat adult males still use the correct texture file top-to-bottom with clothing (briefs, boxers, swim trunks, bermuda shorts etc.) I was able to tell the difference because the fat guy's legs were just lightly tanned between the bottom of his bermuda shorts and the tops of his socks, while the normal guy's legs were tan from the bottom of his trunks (higher up the thigh than bermuda's) to the tops of his sandal straps. My tan normal guy also had a slight tan down to the waist of the trunks, too, so the fat guy displayed a tan "belt" around his pastey waist, between his midline to where the Maxis adult male swim trunks fit on the hips. I removed the nudist hack and the Quaxi blur remover to make sure it wasn't a side-effect, but I could still see the difference in their legs. I only modified the adult male textures so I don't know whether this is evident for other age groups or female Sims, and I am reporting on what I saw using one skin project on three Sims in the same neighborhood. So in other words, even if you're getting your project's images to import into the game, the game seems to have funny rules about when it displays the image. At least that's my generally non-technical observation.

[maxon]

This is a tangent to the problem you're describing,  but I thought this information might be helpful to you. While working on a "redneck" tanline (or farmers tan or whatever you'd call it) I discovered that naked fat adult male Sims display the lower half of the texture for normal males.  It's only noticeable if you're using something like Crammyboy's nudist hack, since otherwise you'll only see it when they bathe or if they're outgoing and get naked in the hottub. Fat adult males still use the correct texture file top-to-bottom with clothing (briefs, boxers, swim trunks, bermuda shorts etc.) I was able to tell the difference because the fat guy's legs were just lightly tanned between the bottom of his bermuda shorts and the tops of his socks, while the normal guy's legs were tan from the bottom of his trunks (higher up the thigh than bermuda's) to the tops of his sandal straps. My tan normal guy also had a slight tan down to the waist of the trunks, too, so the fat guy displayed a tan "belt" around his pastey waist, between his midline to where the Maxis adult male swim trunks fit on the hips. I removed the nudist hack and the Quaxi blur remover to make sure it wasn't a side-effect, but I could still see the difference in their legs. I only modified the adult male textures so I don't know whether this is evident for other age groups or female Sims, and I am reporting on what I saw using one skin project on three Sims in the same neighborhood. So in other words, even if you're getting your project's images to import into the game, the game seems to have funny rules about when it displays the image. At least that's my generally non-technical observation.

That's interesting although it makes (kind of) sense.  The skintones are displayed differently in different parts - there's a top and a bottom mesh for all the bodies (and the head is separate too, of course) which are all covered by the different parts of the skintone.  Of course, if would MAKE SENSE if the bottom part of the fat adult male texture covered the bottom of the fat adult male mesh but ... well, you know.  Maxis doesn't have a strong suit in making sense.  It means you can't do your project how you want it though.

Amber Diceless: If you are still having problems, I could have a look at the files for you.  Having done my own skintones, I do have some experience of getting skintones to work.  I'm not saying I'd succeed but I'd be interested to try and work out what the problem is.