Skintone recolor gone waaaay wrong...

[rdanner3]

I could seriously use some help with a basic task that (apparently) got too complex for me. I am attempting to make skin tones for my novel's characters (who are, many of them, members of a race with silver-based blood) based on the EAxis skin tones, and my first attempt at it really, really wound up looking bizarre. (See attached file)

Remember those characters in Star Trek: The Original Series who were half-white, half-black (and yes, I mean the grease-painted guys)! My attempt wound up looking weirder than they do. Didn't take a pic of the result, but let's just say it ain't pretty and go from there. Obviously, I did something seriously wrong.

I use Paint Shop Pro 9, so I am not sure that a tutorial for PhotoShop or The GIMP would actually be of any use, though I will attempt to follow such if necessary (and can at least legally obtain the latter).

I was working from a new project, and what I created isn't in my game. When I saw what it looked like, I looked at it, went "How bizarre!" and decided not to risk it.

[Miros1]

Okay............. that's different!

I'm vaguely remembering someone talking about this somewhere, but my head is full of hair binning tutorial at the moment. Will get back to you when I remember more!

[Greg]

This might help, Raymond.


UV Map of Original EA Adult Female Nude Body Mesh
Get the attachment for the full-size 1024x1024 image.

The UV Map shows where the dividing lines are between the parts.

Note that the texture as ten distinct areas:

1. body front
2. body back
3. front of left arm
4. back of left arm
5. front of right arm
6. back of right arm
7. left side of left foot
8. right side of left foot
9. left side of right foot
10. right side of right foot

The easiest way to see how it all maps would be to glob color on the sundry parts and make this a swimsuit.

As far as I know, the skull is divided vertically in the center. Note that the "hair" images in the skin tone set are actually the top and back of the skull.

Hair textures are separate objects so if you want black-and-white hair you'll have to do the hair styles indivdually.

[rdanner3]

I actually think I have figured out what I did wrong. During the attempt, I had exported Maxis' (Yes, I know a lot of folks call them EAxis, but I usually don't) pale skintone and grayscaled all the files. Obviously, this was a huge mistake.

I knew that making skintones isn't as easy as falling off a log, but it was an experiment gone radically wrong. I suspect I did something utterly bone headed and did too many files; I didn't check filenames as I did this, mind. Nor did I expect the insane result of my "meddling". (One thing it did show me (see the section of the graphic where it shows the back of the arms) is that a simple grayscaling won't precisely work, at least for this particular situation.) What I need is a skintone set that can be applied to any mesh (i.e.: one not specifically tied to a mesh) because I'll be using Warlokk's meshes for the females and (at times) the bodybuilder meshes for some of the males. (In particular, the really, really tall guy would get the big bodybuilder mesh, to enable me to make him (close to) the right height)

The range of skintones needed is pretty much identical to normal human (i.e.: I can work nicely with the "default" vanilla set, but would prefer about double that many increments) and I am experimenting with the Maxis sets before I try to clone other, better sets to make the actuals.

Greg, you or someone else asked once about tan-lines on the characters, and the answer is that they don't precisely have them. At worst, they'd have slightly lighter areas where swimsuits are. (the reason is that they can make their bodies shift things 'round to make the tan more consistent, thus most would appear to be doing something they aren't) Of course, there are those who do sunbathe without clothing, just as there are here on Earth. (Got the idea from one of Anne McCaffery's books, actually, and I've often wondered why anyone would want tan-lines.)

Man, do I ever need (but in my case, it would be double-strength tea instead; I can't abide the taste of most coffee products, and don't need the caffeine to boot) to get awake this AM, but will try again as soon as I can get another (clean) export of the skintone set.

Learning can be fun, but it can also be maddening.

In case you're wondering what i have, I have Sims 2 and Nightlife (which together are considered Sims 2 Deluxe and apparently have no patches other than a no-DVD.)

I remember (fondly) the early days of Electronic Arts. Excellent games that rarely (if ever) needed patching. (and I still wish they'd update LHX Attack Chopper for modern graphics. It was awesome the way it was coded to begin with, but it would be killer with modern graphics.) Of course, this observation is somewhat off-topic (note to Greg: Add the Off-Topic graphic from PearlSims) but ah well, right?

[Greg]

Originally Posted by rdanner3

What I need is a skintone set that can be applied to any mesh (i.e.: one not specifically tied to a mesh) because I'll be using Warlokk's meshes for the females and (at times) the bodybuilder meshes for some of the males.

The way The Sims 2 is hard-coded, a skin tone consists of a texture and a mesh; you can't separate the two. It should be possible for a skin tone to use meshes and textures from other files so that you don't have to duplicate things but I don't know how to do it.

[Miros1]

If you don't care what the Sims look like nekkid: Use almost any skintone with any outfit on one of Warlokk's meshes, and that's what the Sim will look like. If you need a Sim to pose nude, the Sim can wear "nude clothing" which is just invisible skintight clothing.

Your Sim will look like the mesh associated with his or her skintone when "true nude" such as showering, which is why the skintones associated with Warlokk and Marvine's meshes are referred to as "showerproof."

[Greg]

That might work. You could start with the sim with the texture you like on any body shape and then dress the sim in a mesh that matches the mesh you want at a given time.