Servo recolors

[Motoki]

Okay, so I figured out how to recolor servos and get it to work. Sort of. Here's my problem. I can't find a simple way to distribute this for the SimPE-o-phobic.

The way it works now is I can have a package with the body and head recolor. You use Pescado's clothing tool to plan the outfit and pick the new colored body for the various outfits etc. You get to the mirror part and pick the recolored robot head for 'hair'. BUT, this adds a default human face that looks like a mask over the Servo head.

I've found the way to get rid of this is to replace the property for the face into the 3D ID reference in the actual sim's character file with a nullface property. This can be done with some manual entry in SimPE, but I haven't found a way to get rid of the damned face in the game. 

Also, in order for the outfit and the head to show up, I have to unhide them and make them buyable and show up in the CAS, but then you end up with robot bodies and heads in the CAS and clothing rack.  I can get around this by making a second package that rehides them again and just start the package name with ZZ so it loads after the original one and have the user not put that one in until AFTER they've planned their servo outfit, but this is starting to get pretty damned convoluted. 

Soooo, where I'm at with this is I guess I can write a tutorial for it, but it's kind of convoluted and there's a lot of steps. It's not really hard, just complicated. And this puts it out of reach for the hopelessly SimPE deficient. I was hoping for a cleaner solution. I wish there were some way to set the null face value on a sim within the game itself. I've had sims end up without a face a couple of times due to bugs, but I don't know how to reproduce it.

So any thoughts on this? Should I just write up a tutorial complicated as it may be or does anyone have any suggestions for a cleaner solution that can be dealt with in game?

[Liss]

I'd be willing to follow a tutorial to get a colored Servo. Love the Pink, adorable!  It would have to be very detailed though, because I'm slow learning Sim PE, but I eventually get it with a good tutorial.

Can you add directions on how to recolor Servo ourselves?

[liegenschonheit]

I've been following your quest for a pink servo since the beginning, and I have to say that I want one! I would be most appreciative if you made it available for download and point us in the right direction simpe wise.

[Morague]

I've been looking into this - actually spent weeks on it when I was doing the Grim Reaper.

The problem is that there isn't a selectable face category to clone anything from in order to make use the facenull value. I made a hairnull file & it works fine but because we can't actually choose a face even if we make the facenul file there's no way for anyone to choose it :/ I tried manipulating the make up, too. That doesn't work because it's only an overlay file - it's not the same as a skin file. If there's anyway to get this to work it'll have to be through some manipulation of something like the Vampire Full Face "makeup" - that's the closest face thing that can be selected. I will look into that some more & see if I can make that make the face disappear.

Blink13y made some invisible & headless sims (see simSlice web site) & those files work perfectly in Body Shop & CAS to construct a servo, but there isn;t any way to choose them at a mirror :/

I tried everything I could think of. I can construct new servos in CAS or BodyShop but there isn't any way to get rif of the human face in game, it has to be done through SimPe. I need to do some mre investigating to see if I can change some of the values to change the mesh overlay to make the face disappear.

LOL - I even tried making a new face archetype but that didn't turn out too good either.

[Motoki]

*Edit: Morague I just saw over at VS that your husband is very sick. I tried to post there but I guess Pam squelched me from posting or something. Anyway, I'm really sorry to hear that. I wish your husband and your family the best and will be sending positive thoughts your way. Don't worry about replying to this or any of this TS2 stuff unless helps take your mind off things for a little bit.


Hi Morague. Thanks for replying, even with the bad news. And you were the person who I thought if anyone knew how to get around this, it would be you.

I thought about the face archetype thing too. Like maybe it's something that could be selected via the surgery machine career reward, but if you say you tried and it didn't work, I won't bother trying.

Thing is, if the mirror is setting the face value, you'd think there's some way to get it to set the null one, or maybe to just not have it remove the existing null face value. Possibly something a hacked mirror could do? Unless it's just hard coded that if a sim doesn't have a face using the mirror will add one, or rather restore the one that's there because I believe all sims have a face mesh, it's just that the servos hide it and in other cases I've had it hidden through bugs in the game but was able to fix it via the mirror.

[Motoki]

I got it to work by putting her on an empty lot with one CAS sim (needed someone to activate her) and uploaded her to the Exchange. I'll start a thread in Peasantry about it but here's the link anyhow:

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/lot_detail.php?asset_id=334614&asset_type=lot&user_id=106882

[vilia]

She looks adorable Motoki! 

[Theo]

[..] I've found the way to get rid of this is to replace the property for the face into the 3D ID reference in the actual sim's character file with a nullface property. This can be done with some manual entry in SimPE [...]

Motoki, I could that on the alternate sim surgery plugin, the problem is I don't quite understand how to interpret all those 3IDR entries in the character file.
How can you tell which property refers to the character's face?

[Motoki]

Theo, when I changed my servo to use a different 'hair' (even the recolored servo head is technically hair) via Pescado's clothing tool and save then open up her character data to look at the 3D ID reference data it looks like this:

Resource Node: E519C933 - FCB631C9 -FFFFFFFF - FFDF89DF
UI Data: 00000000 - 00000000 - 00000000 - 00000000
Resource Node: E519C933 - 3CC1ADAA - 1C0532FA - FF6B8A91
Property Set: EBCF3E27 - 00000000 - 5F2C3CAD - 00000003 (this is the robot head I recolored, it is considered 'hair' by the game)
Property Set: EBCF3E27 - 00000000 - FFFFFFFF - 00000001 (this is a default human face)
Property Set: EBCF3E27 - 00000000 - 5FC0056F - 00000001 (this is the robot body I recolored, it is considering 'clothing' by the game)
Property Set: EBCF3E27 - 00000000 - 2C17B74A - F0237AE7 (this is the default Maxis servo body)
Property Set: EBCF3E27 - 00000000 - 2C17B74A - F0237AE8 (this is the default Maxis servo 'formal' outfit)
Property Set: EBCF3E27 - 00000000 - 2C17B74A - CD913851 (CASIE_afhairbald_skin_s1)
Property Set: EBCF3E27 - 00000000 - 2C17B74A - CC1EF8A5 (CASIE_aftopnaked_nude_s1)
Property Set: EBCF3E27 - 00000000 - 2C17B74A - 6C1EFA34 (CASIE_afbottomnaked_nude_s1)

Now if I replace that 5th line, the default human face, with this:

Property Set: EBCF3E27 - 00000000 - 2C17B74A - ACD4CF56 (aufacenull_null)

Then the face goes away.

Does that help at all?

[Theo]

Well, I didn't realize that the property order was important, normally I would just dump the property references in the character file.

I still don't have any servos in my game, but can you change their appearance with regular mirrors?

[gypsylady]

Thanks so much Motoki this is cool

[Motoki]

Well, I didn't realize that the property order was important, normally I would just dump the property references in the character file.

I still don't have any servos in my game, but can you change their appearance with regular mirrors?

Not without a hack no. Squinge has one at MTS2 that lets you do it. Or you can use Pescado's clothing tool on them.

The order definitely did make a difference in this case. When I just stuck the null face in at the bottom the face didn't go away. But when I moved null face up to the 5th position and deleted the value that was there, the face did go away.

Also for hairs the order of the Material data in the 3D ID reference is really important because if you mess it up and put it out of order the alphas will lay the wrong way. I found this out the hard when when I did my afro. Of course this only goes for hairs that use multiple alpha layers, but most of them seem to.

[Hairfish]

What if your recolored Servos just had bigger heads, so the "human" head would be completely covered?

Servo's a robot...s/he can be any shape you want.