Hello all

--I say this in every post but I have to, just in case any staff members feel the need to shout at me: I never know if I'm posting questions etc in the right place so if this is not the right place then I DO apologize and it's not intentional!--

So basically I had a few questions about Sim creation and something a little more important towards the end, any help is appreciated greatly

So the generic questions I have are the following:
1) My child sims are supposed to range from 5 years old to 12 years old. Is there a way to apply makeup effects and such to them to make a 5 year old look younger than a 12 year old for example? In one of my families, a toddler just grew into a child so she's classed as 5 years old but her 10 year old sister is practically identical to her With adults it's easy 'cause you can just apply wrinkles and stuff but with children I find it far harder to distinguish ages (without looking at what I've written in their bio). I suppose the question is, can anyone help advise me on how to help with that?
2) Is there a way to apply makeup to a Sim's hair or clothes without making a whole new mesh or anything? This question is from my friend who has been using makeup that make a Sim's face look dirty (they apply it if their Sim's hygeiene drops outside or something) but they said it's annoying that only their face is dirty rather than clothes and hair as well.
3) I was trying to design some new sims the other day and I struggled with a particular aspect. I was trying to make a little girl for one of my families and I wanted to give her a 'cute button nose' in other words, round, small and a little upturned (I would have supplied an image example if I had the time, sorry). Thankfully I've seen other people complain about nose shapes on here so I know I'm not alone in trying to make them look exactly how you want them. Any advice? I DO have a couple of nose mask downloads (although there isn't many, wish there were more) but they're no good for some sims.

Anyway, the small things aside, I myself am not actually a creator. I tried ages ago to make some hairs and clothes and I learnt something: I'm crap. They all got rejected, not that I blame them That aside, there are some makeups I REALLY want to make for my game as part of a realism thing (eg: I want to make Sims' faces look wet with drips and such for when the're in the rain, have food on their face for after a food fight, things like that) but I have tried to create makeup and I never know what the best thing to Extract is in the first place like blush or full face, etc. For example I tried using a maxis blush as a base but it was one that made their face paler so it looked silly. I wish there was a 'blank face' template or something. Then there's the issue of actually MAKING the makeup. Basically I suppose you could say I'd like a tutorial or something on how to create makeup. The one on this website just says "trial and error" which, no offense to the staff, is not very helpful
One thing I did want to ask, once I finally make some makeup, how can I make it layerable? In other words, how can I use it with other makeup at the same time? Or does the game just allow for it automatically?

And yes, I know it's been years since the game was realsed but hey it's never too late to learn new things

I thank you all in advance for any help you can give. When it comes to making my own content, I'm the worst member on here, really, I have never made a single thing that I've actually even kept and used myself, let alone submitted
Thanks again, MTS ROCKS!

Cheers, Kai

OH! Another quick question. Is it safe to use bodyshop AND sims 2 at the same time? I haven't tried it just in case it would mess with the game but I'd like to be able to add stuff to the game without having to close and reopen it (the loading times... the horror.. the HORROR!) Also it stops me getting bored of one thing since I could just switch to the other for a few minutes

Unfortunately, you can't run Body Shop and The Sims 2 at the same time. (I wish you could, though... It would be so nice for us creators not to have to wait through all those loading times!)

As to your other questions:

1) Technically, it's possible to apply makeup to children to make them look younger or older. As long as the makeup is wearable by the child age group, of course. I can't remember seeing any custom makeup to make a child look younger, though. Five-year-old kids who look just like 12-year-old kids are just one of the game's limitations. (You could always make them look younger by what they wear.)

2) You wouldn't have to make a new mesh to have a dirty version of hair and clothes; you just need recolours. But you'd still have to change them manually when your Sims get stinky (Sims don't have a "dirty state" like objects).

3) Playing with the nose shape in CAS (or Body Shop, which has more sliders) and applying nose masks is about all you can do. I know it's not the answer you wanted to hear, but... trial and error. Yeah, that's about it. There's not really a single set of instructions. Content creation is sort of an art and, like any art, a lot of it is trial and error.

And, finally, makeup can be layerable, but I'm not sure how to do it. I know there is layerable stuff available for download, so you could either have a look at how those are done (it'll probably be something you need to change in SimPE) or ask one of the creators.

Thanks for your reply I'm actually a huge fan of your downloads and have a lot of your clothes installed. I wish I had that kind of skill my friend!

I do use the 'make them younger by what they wear' trick and it DOES help a lot (the toddler that grew up is wearing dungerees for example whilst her sister is wearing some of your tiered shirts and pants combination ) I'm not sure what kind of makeup would make them look younger, that was probably a daft question

I wish I could change Sims appearance without going to a mirror at least so that I could have the affect of a 'dirty state' rather than seeing them go to a mirror. I did actually request a creator to make some wet, food splattered and such makeups but they haven't written back to me yet.

Number 3 again seems like a daft question now. Although I would like to know if you know of any nose masks? I have a few sets but only one of them usable as the others don't even look like nose masks Just in case I've missed some or if other sites have some.

I think I will have to trail and error some dirty state kind of things. My main question there is is there a blank template? Like I said I tried to put water drops on a sims' face and it worked great until I realied their face was a lot brighter because the base I used was a maxis blush that whitened their face a little :S

Thanks again

Sorry... I don't have any useful links for nose masks. I've never really used them (but I know that you can get some really interesting looks with them).

I don't think there is a blank template. A full-face blush like the whitish one you used will have the alpha layer slightly white (instead of black). For water droplets on a face, you'd need to have just the water droplets white in the alpha layer and the rest black; something transparent like that will take some fiddling with the alpha layer, but I don't see why it can't be done.

As advice on making cute little button noses, I'd suggest examining the sims made by AlfredAskew (here at MTS: http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=1933427 or at livejournal: http://alfredaskew.livejournal.com/ ). She has done quite a few really nice sims with little noses like that.