I'm kind of chicken and like to know, in detail, what i'm doing before I mod my game. So i've been searching for info on skins. I scoured the internet and the FAQs before posting this question (i understand Geneticized skins now!), but i'm still a bit hazy.

I'm trying to figure out what i need to look for and how I can identify what skins are going to do what when i install them. I dont want to REPLACE the body styles Maxis has. I want to add to them. Can you have more than one variant of Fat/Fit/Thin in your game at the same time? If so, how do you identify which skins (new skin tones? default skin tones? default replacement skin tones? etc?) are going to peacefully co-exist and which ones are gonna nuke the originals? I want to make sure that it's possible to have maxis fat/fit/thin AND a different fat/fit/thin body structure (or two) at the same time, before i glitch the living hell out of my game. =)

To simplify, my two questions are:
1) Is it possible to have multiple variants of Fat/Fit/Thin in your game at once?
2) How can you tell if a download is IN ADDITION TO or INSTEAD OF the Maxis body types?

Feel free to reply or send me an email, smoke signals, morse code or any other type of response that you feel would be helpful to the cause!

Thanks for your help!


-grinEvilly
>=)


ps
-- +1,000 bonus points to anybody who does provide the correct answer entirely in morse code! Spelling counts! hahaha.

Last edited by grinevilly : 25th Apr 2012 at 10:00 PM. Reason: correcting a pronoun; clarification.

Replacement is just another word for default. If you install a default you are simply applying a game wide change in look to your sims, it doesn't actually nuke anything or do anything to your game. Reverting back to maxis skins is as easy as removing the default files. So of course make sure they go into a clearly labelled folder. If you install a default skin tone it will replace whatever skin tone it says it does. Either all 4 Maxis skins or if the files are seperated you can default just one. Supernatural skin tones are usually separate to naturals. Currently the only default skin I have is one for vampires and I am always trying naturals but I haven't found one that I like across every skin tone.

If you installed creator A default for sk 1 and 2, but prefer creator B's sk4 and creator C sk 3 you could have variants of fat/fit/thin. It would be consistent to the skin. If creator A fit skin is very muscular then all your fit sk 1 and 2 sims will look muscular. You won’t have variety among the same skin tone though.

You just have to read over what the creator says. Anyone decent will say exactly what the skin does unless you are getting something off the graveyard or an old archive folder. Then you take pot luck.

Thanks for replying so quickly.

So if i am to understand correctly, you could not have in your game sk1 super fat + sk1 maxis default + sk1 muscular, all at once?
If that's the case, you'll have saved me a bunch of time and headaches, and i appreciate your help!

That's correct; the default sk1 file will change all sk1 to look the same. You can only have one default in at a time. This applies to anything default. Skin, clothes, eyes, objects.

OK - well, in answer to your questions:
1. Yes, but it can be a bit of a fiddle.
2. Any skintones that are not defaults, are marked as custom in Bodyshop and CAS - so it's easy to tell.

This is what I do, it might help you understand:

1. I use a set of default replacements for the Maxis skintones - just because I prefer that. This is unnecessary. Defaults are skintones which have been made to replace the existing EAxis textures on the standard bodyshape. Your sims will look different (a lot of people like to add anatomical detail, for instance) but the shape will be the same.* If you like the Maxis barbie look then there is no need to change it so don't download skins called defaults or default replacements. If you do use defaults, you can only use one set at a time - a replacement, one each, of one, two, three or all four standard skintones. You can't have two dark defaults, for example but you can have one each of light, tan, medium and dark. You can also, as mentioned above, have supernatural defaults (this is a separate issue).

2. I use a wide range of other custom skintones. These are divided into two kinds: standard bodyshapes and custom bodyshapes. All of them are geneticised (you know what that means) - none of them overwrite the original Maxis skintones (it's only defaults - as in 1 - that do that).

Standard bodyshape skintones are simply new skins for the Maxis meshes. This means the skins have the standard EAxis bodyshape though the sims look different than the standard skins. I do this because I like variety. I tend to go for intermediate colours - so I have intermediate colours between the darkest skintone and the medium and between the medium and the tan and between the tan and the light. I also have some skins that are either darker than the standard dark or lighter than the standard light and things like an olive skintone for certain sims. Another thing I go for are certain types of body decoration - like tattoos, for example, or piercings. These are all geneticised so that they work when the sims breed. My tan sim with a medium mate has the option of producing offspring who are either tan or medium or any one of the skintones I have in between those two standard tones.

Custom bodyshape skintones are linked to different custom body meshes. That means the sims have different bodyshapes. I have some thin bodyshapes and fat bodyshapes and I also use Warlokk's bodyshape meshes which allow for females with different combinations of hip and boob size. I like these, in particular, because I got tired of EAxis's limited bodyshapes and wanted a pear-shaped woman, for example. As I said, I like variety. However, these skintones are the ones that are a bit of a fiddle because if you want your sims to be consistently fat, for instance, you also need to collect clothing that suits their bodyshape.

I have a thing for the genetics in game and, in particular, have a large collection of skintones (ALL of which work with the genetics). I don't think any of them are downloadable as I have them since I have fiddled about with the settings and sometimes altered the graphics or imported new graphics into the files. In particular, since I started using different bodyshapes in game, I have been downloading skin and clothing files like crazy. It occurs to me that this explains quite adequately why my downloads folder has been increasing so much in size recently. Hmmm. Anyway, I do know quite a lot about this, so ask any questions you like.

*It occurs to me to say that when dealing with skintones, as with all skins, you need to remember there are two elements: the mesh and the texture. When I'm talking about the bodyshape, I'm talking about the mesh - that is the actual 3D shape the body has. When I'm talking about the skintone, I'm talking about the texture - that is the graphic (picture) which overlays and wraps around the mesh to give you, literally, the skin.

Last edited by maxon : 25th Apr 2012 at 11:40 PM.

Thank you both, for getting back to me and answering my questions. You've been a really big help! I appreciate you taking the time to clear things up for me. =)

Hey grinevilly - I'm busy today, I'll answer your message later tonight.