Cool - those who can, do the art - those (like me) who suck at art, make the tools!

A tool would be awesome Cmar! I love your MM tool and I was going to make a tool myself for the TONE files modeled after your interface, but then I realized I don't know how to code an application, lol.

If I wasn't so busy with school work this week (boo, midterms!) I would go through and post a full list of the TGI contents of the TONE file to expedite the work; but at the earliest, I could only hope to start that Thursday.

Also, in the TONE's data flags section, I believe there is a flag that controls whether the TONE can be selected randomly for NPC spawns; more research is needed though.

Also, after this project gets underway, the wiki entry for TONE files could use some annotation. I've never edited a wiki, so if anyone would like to take that up (or show me how to edit a wiki properly), that would be greatly appreciated.

You supplying info on the file contents and me coding an app seems like a good division of labor! I can start on reading and writing the TGIs and an interface to import and package image files, and you can post or pm me your list whenever you have time. Midterms come first of course! I don't have a whole lot of extra time during the workweek myself so no rush.

I've done an update on the Wiki for BGEO files - you basically just set up an account and then edit the entry using the wiki formatting codes, which I usually just copy from the same or another entry since I don't have patience to read the help like a normal person. I could do the entry at some point if you want but it's really pretty easy.

Rez - one nitpicky question. Your tut says the tone files are type 0x03555ba8, with one being a hair tone. In Fullbuild0 I see 7 skin tone files with type 0x0354796a, and 1 hair tone with type 0x03555ba8. Typo? Or am I hallucinating?

The Tut was written before I updated to 1.8/2.3, so the new file type and the additional file may have been added. I will check my archive of the 1.7 dump to make sure.

Anyways, the tutorial info was compiled from the six base-game skin colors (Blue, Red, Alien, Default, Red Tone, and Yellow Tone). Those all have the 0x0354796a type. The mannequin skin is not used by the game in the tone pick section, though it may have other uses.

And taking a quick look at the Default Hair's hex shows that it is completely dissimilar from the other tone files.

And to get started on the TGI list:
So far, all files have been found in Fullbuild2
TGI 000: 00B2D882:00000000:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ; Tone Ramp Unique per TONE
TGI 001: 00B2D882:00000000:DDD1D5C670ADA653 ; SkinSubSRamp
TGI 002: 00B2D882:00000000:6A00EC677E971DBC ; buBody_s
TGI 003: 00B2D882:00000000:B780860913C152E6 ; buBodyDark_m
TGI 004: 00B2D882:00000000:6A00EC677E971DA2 ; buBody_m
TGI 005: 00B2D882:00000000:6A00EC677E971DA1 ; buBody_n
TGI 006: 00000000:00000000:0000000000000000 ; Empty TGI


I noticed that in the buBody files there is an additional file for the ambient, but I don't see it used in the TONE file.

Edit: The 1.7 dump did have the hair tone as the different type; so that would be a 'my bad' in the tut. I will update the info in the original post.

I hate double posting as much as the next guy, but this is a lot of extra info, so I think it needs to be noticed. Sorry in advance if it offends anyone.

I hit a patch of insomnia, so I just went ahead and tore through the TGI list in the tone file.

The six base game tones all have the same TGI entries (85% certain, but at this stage of sleeplessness, who knows) with the exception of the lead entry.

The oddity is that mannequin tone. Not only is its header data different (I was expecting that since there would be a flag set so that the game wouldn't populate it like the other tones), but its TGI info is different too. The Mannequin Tone only has 37 entries in its TGI data, as opposed to the 74 entries in all the other tone files. It appears that the mannequin tone only contains specular(_s) and normal?(_n) entries. However, none of the the normal entries I tried would open in viewDDS from within S3PE, so I suspect that they are blank.

The final bit of info is that the Scalp Tone file appears to have no TGI entries at all. And we can probably assume that we will not need to do anything more with it for this endeavor--but maybe later someone can take it apart, since its wiki entry also needs work.

Attached is the full TGI list according to the six game tones (I only actually checked against 3.5 of them--2 full files, and the the remaining 4 partially)

Edit: I've been been wanting to comment on this all day but forgot... lol :
And those who can do neither (like me) do the digital equivalent of hitting things with a stick until they get lucky. Lol @ self-depreciation; actually wouldn't have found what I did if it wasn't for my knack for reading/comprehending written language/code.

Yikes, fast work! Thanks! Hopefully in the next few days I'll have a first draft-y app. Can't wait to test this. I assume the same CAS LAYO hack you posted earlier in the thread is good for 1.8/2.3?

The thought occurs that the mannequin tone might be used somehow for CAS - we know sims look somewhat different in CAS than in the game. Or they may have been created during development and then abandoned - there's a lot of files in the build packages that aren't used at all, as far as I can tell, everything from test sliders to all the morph meshes and VPXYs.

I can't seem to find any real info about the scalp - may need to figure out how it's textured.

And lol, reading the code and figuring out how all this works, not to mention the CAS hacking, is what's put all this in motion! :D

EA called the vampire skin 'mannequin' in TS2 so I think it may be like the weather files, hidden untill they need it for an expansion.

[QUOTE=And those who can do neither (like me) do the digital equivalent of hitting things with a stick until they get lucky.[/QUOTE]

This really made me laugh! I feel like that too sometimes......

BTW Rez it was rick and Delphy's body slider hack that was the culprit. I almost forgot!

Hate to post a dumb question in the middle of this exciting development but...I have one.

I need to know what "ramp" is defined as. As much as I understand it, tone is the actual texture - so ramp is what? My best guess is the color gradient???

I'm actually not too incredibly interested in PLAYING TS3. I purchased the game with the intention of creating mods for it (Primarily skins). This is what I do professionally and I have been on hiatus from work basically due to loss of inspiration - TS2 gave me a great amount of inspiration and modding that helped me tons in my real work - so I'm hoping creating these skin textures for TS3 will as well.

Anyhow. I am NOT proficient at the technical side at all, and these tutorials may make my brain explode. I do however have advanced programs and experience for creating the texture files. I work in C4D with Bodypaint, as well as photoshop cs2. My skills are in modeling, mapping and texturing for 3d rendering. This is my resume LOL.

I posted this in a couple other threads by I might as well here now too::::: - I'd love to do 100+ textures.

The purpose of saying that is if anyone would like to get together, handle the technical side of creating these NDSTs, I would love help create some of these 100+ textures needed. I also have a plethora of resource material from 3dsk and other sources. I could probably get them done in a couple of weeks, less if I had help...I usually work in a team of 3-5...

So PM whatever, let me know - - in the mean time I will be attempting to start the work (although I don't have 100 bases and don't know if I'm capable of getting them yet lol)

I'm afraid I'm far from an expert skinner and can only tell you what little I think I know.

My understanding of a skin tone in Sims 3 is that it's a set of textures making up a set of skins for all ages/genders, with a dark and light texture for each. The TONE file defines that set by linking to the textures. You're right, the ramp is a gradient that applies an overlay to the skin, determined by the setting of the skin color slider in CAS for each basic color. (default, redtone (pink??), yellowtone, red, blue, alien)

The community always needs good skinners. I'm working on a tool to make it easy to link and package the skin textures, so you creative guys can concentrate on the artistic side.

That's very interesting... I'm curious to see what was in that package that would cause a conflict with a Layout mod; too bad the download for it has been sealed off.



Those are interesting theorys, but one would think even vampires would have some variation in skin color (the ramp is pure white); and if it were used in CAS, there again, the white ramp would pose a problem as all the skin colors would remain static if you moved the slider. My theory, after more consideration after some sleep, is that it is the tone for ghosts. Without a mask texture, the mesh would (in theory) remain invisible, while leaving the specular texture would give the mesh a soft glow around it. The pure white ramp would not be considered, as (and I'm only postulating here) the tone-ramps only affect the mask textures. The specular textures have a separate tone ramp (the second TGI entry), and that default ramp is sub-divided into 6 chromatic scales, which could correspond to the 6 ghost colors (actually 5 ghost colors, plus the default specular (old-age ghosts use the default specular)).


There is no such thing as a dumb question on a modding forum, just dumb people who don't know how to use the search (and so far you have not fallen into this category).

'Ramp' is in fact the color gradient; by default, the game has 6 of them to pick from, but others (Check out Missy Harries' stuff!) have made new ramps to replace the base ones, or with this development make new ones.

And the reference to there being 100 files in the tone's tgi list from the tut was my enthusiasm getting the better of me, there are actually 74 entries in the TGI, but realistically, you only need to work on less than half of them.

Taking a look at the TGI list I posted will be helpful as I explain:
For normal skins, you wouldn't need to bother changing the scalp textures (its covered by hair most of the time), the normal maps (textures with the _n) for body textures are blank, and (for all but the most radical changes) the default specular maps (_s) are suitable. So, in reality you only need to modify the mask textures (_m) (light and dark) and maybe the overlay maps (_o)--for the overlay just copy the rgb channel from your modified mask, then edit the alpha channel.



Yep, the CAS UI Layout thats posted should work fine for almost every install. As noted above, there is a conflict with Rick and Delphy's old slider hack (which there is a new one by Drakah that I should check for conflicts), and also a glitch with an obscure mod I got from an Asian site (oddly, the Blue-Lot fixer broke the mod while attempting to repair it, so I just tossed it). These two were the last major hold-ups on me releasing my UI mods to the moderator queue; but pending any serious conflict with Drakah's mod... and I also wanted to do two more flavors for the Tone-pick box, the 5x5 layout would be ok for most CC users, but I can see where having more would be advantageous for the people making the skins; so before I upload to moderator queue, I'm going to make 10x10, and 15x20 sized tone-pick boxes.

As an aside, I kinda want to be able to have something to showcase what the UI layout change enables before putting it out for DL; so...

Missy Harries, may I convert your duo-tones to new tone files to include with the UI layout? (or maybe you want to convert them yourself and update the existing DL posts, that way I can link to them?)

-or-

Velocity, if you have a set of skins ready to go, I would be happy to assemble them into a new tone (a NDST as you put it--took me a bit to figure out the acronym, lol) for you; this would give both of us an opportunity to showcase our work (and our first uploads) in the best possible way.

EDIT:
To go a little OT,
Missy, you mentioned you were working on a super-tutorial for complete tone creation; how's the progress? Need any help?

EDIT2:
Cmar, when we (and by we, I mean your wonderful coding with my encouragement) get closer to finishing the app for making tone files, can we give it an awesome acronym like DABOOBS has?
One comes to mind:
Cmar and Rez' Acronymed Poly-Skin Hyper Original Output Tone

CRAPSHOOT??? LOLZ!!!!

Seriously, I also like my own working name for it - the Skininator - but no reason it can't have both names!

I was going to ask you to increase the number of tone slots. Great minds.

Depending on how things go I could try to do a mock-up set of skins with stripes or polka dots or something, just as a demo. Also want to see if the smaller image that goes with the tones is used for the 'thumbnail' - maybe you know? If so, we need to emphasize to skinners that they should make it distinctive so users can identify what's what in the tone picker.

Hay Rez. I have been very busy latley plus I've really been playing around with skintones so that I at least know a little of what I'm talking about! I just need to run through it, tidy it up and add screenshots. It's more of a 100% beginers guide with tips and advice based on what I've found out. Give it a couple O days and I'll post a draft up for you to run through. You can edit, criticize and add then.
I was thinking of giving it it's own thread with first two post's reserved for FAQ and update info, we can also update it once 'CRAPSHOOT/Skininator is done......
This would have been finished way back but I only get a couple of hours freetime in the evening.



I'm working on an asian skintone slider to have its own textures for a nice bit of ethnic diversity in my game, there is still a lot to do on it but you can always use that.

BTW, anyone know what the _a extension stands for in the skintone files and also what does it do because I seriously can't tell and I've really done some playing around with it...

_a might mean ambient? But I don't see any ambient links in the list Rez posted.

Thats what everyone else thinks but I've tried editing it, extreming the contrast, filling it with black/white, just splodging all over it and it doesn't change anything at all in game!!!! i really want to know what it's for!

I know the feeling! Like Rez I've done my share of hitting things (like my head against a wall) until some bit of knowledge falls out. Anyway - maybe the -a files just actually don't do anything? Lots of files seem to do nothing in the game.

Rez - am I right that ALL the tone files link to the exact same set of DDS files except for the ramp? Makes things easier. Also your listing is of great help since I'll have to have that list of defaults built in.

The _a does in fact mean ambient, but because its not referenced anywhere in the tone file, changing it won't (shouldn't) do anything to the skintone. The only place I know where changes to an ambient map are reflected, is in a piece of clothing with transparency; even then the ambient isn't guaranteed to show (depending on the depth of the transparency). I also suspect the ambient has something to with reflections on water (not mirrors), but thats a different issue.

I was also thinking about doing a mock-up. I was looking at some fur patterns for Photoshop (tiger-stripes?), it would be relatively easy to just bucket-fill a fur pattern over the default skins (flatten, rinse, repeat), then just change the ramp to a duo orange/white.

I was also thinking about the smaller ramp image... I'm fairly sure that it's part of the button, but changing to show custom items could prove to be a problem. The issue lies with the way the button itself changes color as you change the slider. If you paint text or something in the icon image, then only a small sliver would appear at a time. The most likely option would be to paint a solid horizontal line through it; but because the button is a circle, paint the line too low or too high and it might as well not be there; paint the line across the middle and you risk obscuring the color.

(Great minds do think alike; what are we like 3-for-3 now?)

Another option for recognizing custom tones, could be in the package header. Most other things in CAS that are collected via a 'populate' call (CASP files, sliders) have a float value (sortPriority) somewhere in their header that controls display order in CAS. We could change it so that all the custom tones display first or last. Unfortunately, I don't know how to fully read DBPF code yet (I'm learning as fast as my eyes and short attention span will allow).

Anyways, I'm at the start of my weekend now (I suffer through a hell of a Monday-Wednesday schedule, so don't go being envious of my 4 day weekends), so I will work out those different sized UI mods, work out a mock-up skin, do some testing on the icon file, and some testing on the package header.

EDIT:
With the exception of the tone ramp, the TGI list is the same for all tones (except the mannequin).

The header data is also very similar, but I can't say if it is exact or not since I've only looked at two of the headers.

The differences with the mannequin tone is probably a good place for me to start deciphering whats what in the header; but asides from that, the TGI differences are pretty simple. Aside from a stray TGI to a flat white fill in the section for babies, the TGI list the same, just remove everything but specular and normal maps.

EDIT2:
The CRAPSHOOT acronym was a joke (maybe a bad example?), but why should Delphy have all the fun when naming his apps?

EDIT3:
I just noticed something funny in the TGI list while comparing it to the mannequin tone: there is no specular for elder female. I just checked all the tone files to make sure, and its missing in all 7 files.

I wonder why the omission?

EDIT4:
Uploading the Mannequin TGI List.

Also, another observation, all seven (including mannequin) of the tone files have headers of the exact same length.

Alrighty, one last post for the night, and I'm gonna double post again (sorry) since I have new files to upload

First up, I made a zip file that contains every file referenced in the tone TGI Lists, the additional ramp-icon files, and the tone files themselves. This should be helpful for anyone wanting to quickly start the process of making NDST's without having to hunt files in S3PE; also could be used for including in the app. *woops* the zip is larger than 10MB, gonna have to use my dropbox: direct download link

Second up, is the two versions of the UI layout mod. I decided to go with two (instead of the three I mentioned earlier) because I finally managed to get the dang scroll-bar to show up properly. So the two sizes I ended up with are: the original 5x5 without scroll-bar (it may show up if you add more than 25 tones, but it wasn't designed for it, so it may be clipped off), and a 7x10 with a pretty scroll-bar and properly aligned boarders.

Included in the 7x10 zip is a stress-testing file, designed to test the limit on the number of tone files the game can handle at once. Sad to say (sad for my stamina, good for the mod), the game has me beat--I got to 262 tones in the box before I got tired of adding new copies of the tone. A word of caution though, the stress file contains 256 tone entries; adding it to the mods folder caused a slight, but noticeable increase in loading time on my play rig.

It should go without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway:
These files are posted here for tutorial aid and testing only--Do Not Distribute.

Notes about the UI Mod:
These are default replacement layout mods. They specifically contain the CASBasics.layo (0x97DB9E9DDA2D2671) file. It is not a core mod. Layout mods will not cause your game to crash.

Known conflicts: Drakah's Slider limit increase mod; Rick & Delphy's Slider Hack(depreciated).

Version Info: these mods are known to be compatible with 1.7/2.2 and have been tested and confirmed to run with 1.8/2.3

Install directions: Pick ONE (either the 5x5, or 7x10. NOT BOTH) and place the package file in your mods folder. If you are feeling brave, you may opt to use the stress file (also place in your mods folder).

I suspect most of the header info is age/gender flags and indexes into the TGI list. Later I can post my list of age/gender flags used in the faceblend files.

Hey, I like CRAPSHOOT as an aka name.

Still working on the file import interface for the Skininator. 74 is a lotta files.

And if you have questions about DBPF format, I learned to read and write packages for MorphMaker so would be glad to help if I can.

Whooo hoooo You have officially made my day!! Unfortunately I was so busy trying incredibly hard and unsuccessfully to follow the tutorial and comprehend the process that I have not actually touched textures in a couple days. (I did get as far as the hex editing part, but there I lost my mind ) Anyway I have downloaded your new file and today my workday will be spent creating textures for the tone files you included. I probably wont have this done as fast as you are ready to release your program/utility though as fast as it looks like you guys are working. Hopefully when I do finish them all I get someone to assist me in making sure they are all packaged properly for your utility.

Missy, if that is a newb tutorial you are working on, I have been creating one as I went along in this learning process myself. I would be happy to share with you the information I found myself needing as a complete newb to this process - you could use it as you like since I probably would never have uploaded it here. I will send you the four pages via PM today if I can, of course just never mind it if it isn't what you were talking about at all - this thread was my morning read before the first cup of coffee

I am VERY excited to just get back to doing the work I do best - textures lol.

These all showed up in my CAS just fine, didn't cause any problems that I noticed except:

The last three rows of color are unusable because they fall behind other icons on the bottom of the CAS screen. (accept check mark, cancel X, sim icon and others)

Is there a way to move the tone selection screen to the right hand side of the screen or make it moveable at all? Otherwise these last three rows are always going to be unusable.

One solution would be to make sure blanks were in the last three rows, or only create 7 rows of the circle tones. (That's my count anyway).

I am thinking monitor resolution or size might effect this as well? Or maybe not since it would all resize accordingly.

Anyway as it stands those last three rows can't be selected, so I'd suggest some kind of work around.

OOO MY GOSHH!! I should check this thread more often! here i am about to restart my set to be uplaoded ( check in the nearish future for my rainbow of sliders) And here we are doing amazing things! AHHHH! *faints*




*wakes up*



I am soo excited for this guys! And Cmar working on a program!! Guys this is amazing! I happily volunteer my game for ANY testing anyone needs for this! I want to help now more so than before!
I was just getting extraction and everything down to a science to! Making new sliders in 8 minutes each was seeming pretty good
Also, I agree about the last 3 rows thing. That could pose an issue.

I would have just edited but there is another post after mine, so please excuse the extra post - BUT I am having some troubles and some questions.

First and of the MOST importance: I am in dire need of the female sim .obj as well as the male sim .obj. My version of s3po keeps crashing at 76% of loading the fullbuild.0 package - and I think the sim bodies are in there. Anyway in order to use Bodypaint I need the .obj as well as the original UVMAP

Does anyone have this - that they are able to possibly zip up for me?? Honestly I'm not even 10% sure of the process on extracting these models from the sims and converting to .obj format.

Next - what in the heck are the BU files for? Not sure about those or PU or CU actually.

Next - I don't assume it would be politically correct in this arena to give the children-baby sims anatomically correct bodies??
That being the case should they just be given a better skin texture, or not messed with at all?

As I understand it, teen and elders use the adult skins, which I assume is why they don't have body files attributed to them. However - would it be of merit to give the elder sims different skins? Is that possible with this process? I do have aged skin resources that I could use on these. I can also make the teen skin different, but they grow to adults - would they then always carry the "teen" texture with them? Or should they continue to use the same "adult" texture?

I know that was a lot of questions at once, but they come up in the process of making these textures.

In the meantime, I am at a standstill until I can retrieve those .obj files and UVmaps - so please any help with that will be immensely valuable.