#sims 3 hair tutorial

[nonsensical-pixels]

this was requested by @chrissybrown1127, who was struggling to retexture skysims 050, which, like many skysims hairs, does not actually have a gray recolour for elders. so, here is a tutorial for how to make your hair retexture have elders go gray!

it was particularly intended for chrissy, who does struggle with tutorials and prefers visual learning. the hair that i retextured for this can be found here. and for people who struggle to retexture my volatile bases, the process is exactly the same for them as it is for this 🎊

TUTORIAL: GOOGLE DOCS | PDF 👱🏻‍♀️

if there are any tutorials that you need and feel i can provide, lmk! i'm still learning myself, so there's probably a lot of easier ways to do the things i do than my ways 🥰

[bellakenobi]

Tutorial - Extracting the assets from Shining Nikki for conversion for Sims games (or anything, really)

Finally! In advance I'm sorry for any errors since english isn't my first language (and even writing in my actual language is difficult for me so)

And first, a shoutout to The VG Resource forums, where I found initially info about this topic 😊 I'm just compilating all the knowledge I found there + the stuff I figured out in a single text, because boy I really wanted to find a guide like that when I first thought about converting SN stuff lol (and because there's a lot of creators more seasoned than me that could do a really good job with these assets 👀)

What this tutorial will teach you:

How to find and extract meshes and textures (when there's any) for later use, and some tips about how stuff are mapped etc on Shining Nikki.

What this tutorial will not teach you:

How to fully convert these assets for something usable for any sims game (because honestly neither I know how to do that stuff properly lol). It is assumed that you already know how to do that. If you don't know but has interest in learning about CC making (specially for TS3), I'd suggest you take a look at the TS3 Tutorial Hub, the MTS tutorials and This Post by Plumdrops if you're interested in hair conversion. Also take a look on my TS3 tutorials tag, that's where I reblog tutorials that I think might be useful :)

What you'll need:

An Android emulator (I recomend Nox)

A HEX editor (I recomend HxD)

Python and This Script for mass editing

AssetStudio

A 3D Modeling Software for later use. I use Blender 2.93 for major editing, and (begrudingly) Milkshape for hair (mostly because of the extra data tool).

Download everything you don't have and install it before starting this tutorial.

Now, before we continue, a little advice:

I wrote this tutorial assuming that people who would benefit from it will not put the finished work derivative from these assets behind a paywall or in any sort of monetization. These assets belong to Paper Games. So please don't be an ass and put your Shining Nikki conversions/edits/whatever behind a paywall.

The tutorial starts after the cut (and it's a long one).

Step 1:

Launch Nox, then open Play Store and log in with a Google account (if you don't have one, create it). Now download Shining Nikki from there.

After downloading the game, launch it. It will download a part of the game files. After that, log in on the game, or create a new account in any server (the server is only important if you want to actually play the game. For extracting it doesn't really matter since the game already has the assets for the upcoming events and chapters. It also doesn't matter if you actually own an item in game, you can extract the meshes and textures even if you don't have it in game). If you're creating a new account, the game will lead you through the presentation of it etc (unfortunately there's no way to skip it).

After that, click on that little arrow button on the main screen. There, you can download the actual clothing assets. Wait for the download to finish (at the date I'm writing this tutorial, it is around 13GB). When finished, close the game (not the emulator).

Step 2:

Now we're going to copy the assets to our computer. Click on Tools, then on Amaze File Manager. Navigate to Android > data > com.papergames.nn4.en > files > DownloadedBundle > art > character. This is the folder where (I believe) most of the assets are stored.

Now, where the stuff is located respectively:

Meshes are on the meshes > splitmeshs folder

Textures are on the textures > cloth folder

Tip: Want to really data dump everything? Just select the folders you want and copy to your PC! 😉

Click on the three dots on the side of the wished folder, then in copy. Then click on the three lines on the left upper corner to open the menu, and then click on Download. Now just pull the header of the app to show the Paste option and click on it. It might take a while to copy completely (the cloth folder might take longer since it's bigger, so be patient).

If you're confused, just follow the guide below:

The copied folder will be located at C:\Users\{your username}\Nox_share\Download

Step 3:

Now that we got the files, we need to make them readable by AssetStudio.

For this, we need to open the desired .asset file on a hex editor, and then delete the first 8 bytes of the file, and then save.

You can see it is a pain to do that manually to a lot of files right? This is why I asked my boyfriend to create a script to mass edit them. (I only manually edit when I'm grabbing the textures I want, because afaik the script won't work with .tga and the .png files, more about that forward this tutorial)

How to use the script:

Make sure Python is already installed, grab the nikki-fix-headers.py file and place it on the folder where you copied the folder from the game (mine is still the Nox_Share Download folder).

It should look like this, the meshs folder and the script.

Let's open the Command Prompt. Hit Windows + R to open the Run dialog box, then type in cmd and hit Enter.

Now follow the instructions pictured below:

The folder with the edited files will be at the same location:

Now, we finally can open it all on AssetStudio and see whats inside 👀

Step 4:

Open AssetStudio. Now click on File > Load Folder and select the folder where your edited meshes are (mine is "splitmeshs-fixed"). Wait the program load everything. Click on Filter Type > Mesh, and the on the Asset List tab, click twice on the Name to sort everything by the right order, and now we can see the meshes!

To extract any asset, just select and right-click the desired groups, click in Export selected assets and select a folder where you wish to save it.

Stuff you need to know about the meshes:

Step 4-A: Everything is separated by groups.

Of course you'll have to export everything to have a complete piece. Only a few pieces has a single group. When exporting, you have to select every group with the same name (read below), and the result will be .obj files of each group that you have to put together in a 3D application.

Step 4-B: The names are weird.

They're a code that indicates the set, the piece, the group.

Items that doesn't belong to a set won't have the "S...something", instead they'll have another letter with numbers, but the part/piece type and group logic is the same.

As for the parts, here are the ones I figured out so far:

D = Dress

H = Hair

AEA = Earrings

ANE = Necklace

BS = Shoes

ABA = Handheld accessory

AHE and AHC = Headpieces/hats/hairpins

AFA = Face accessory (as glasses, eyepatches, masks)

(maybe I'll update here in the future with the ones I remember)

Step 4-C: The "missing pearls" issue.

Often you'll find a group that seems empty, and it has a weird name like this:

I figured out that it's referent to pearls that a piece might contain (as in a pearl necklace, or a little pearl in a earring, pearls decorating a dress, etc). The group seems empty, but when you import it to Blender, you can see that it actually has some vertices, and they're located where the aforementioned pearls would be. I think that Unity (SN engine) uses this to generate/place the pearls from a master mesh, but I honestly have no idea of how the game does that. So you'll probably have to model a sphere to place where the pearls were located, I don't know 🤷‍♀️ (And if you know how to turn the vertices into spheres (???) please let me know!)

Step 5:

Now that you already extracted a mesh, we're gonna extract the textures (when any). Copy the textures > cloth folder to your PC like you did with the splitmeshs folder.

Open it, and in the search box, type the name of the desired item like this. If the item has textures, it will show in the results.

Grab all the files and open them in HxD (I usually just open HxD and drag the files I want to edit there), and edit them like I teached above. Then you can open them (or load the cloth folder) on AssetStudio, and export them like you did with the meshes.

Stuff you need to know about the textures, UV map, etc:

Step 5-A: The UV mapping is a hot mess (at least for us used to how things works in sims games).

See this half edited hoodie and the UV map for a idea:

So for any Sims game, you'll have to remap everything 🙃 Also, stencil-like textures all have their own separated file.

As for hair, they all use the same texture and mapping! BUT sometimes they are arranged like this...

Here's the example of a very messed one (it even has some WTF poly). Most of them aren't that messy, but be prepared to find stuff like this.

Shining Nikki just repeat the texture so it end up covering everything, for Sims you'll need to remap, and the easiest way is by selecting "blocks" of hair strands, ticking the magnet button to make your seletion snap to what is already placed (if you have familiarity with blender, you know what I'm saying). Oh, some clothes are also mapped with the same logic.

Regarding the hair texture, I couldn't locate where they are, but here is a pack with all of them ripped and ready to use. You can also grab the textures from any SN hair I already converted :)

The only items with a fine UV map are the accessories, at least for TS3 that the accessory has a UV map independent from the body.

"But I typed the ID for the set and piece and couldn't find anything!"

A good thing to do is to search with only the set ID and edit all the files with it, because some items (especially accessories) share the same texture file. But if even then you can't find anything, it means that there's no texture for this particular item/group because Shining Nikki use material shaders* to render different materials like metal, crystal, some fancy fabrics, etc. So you'll have to bake or paint a texture for it.

*I believe that those shaders are located on the other cloth folder in the game files. This one is way bigger than the other one and once I copied it to see what it was, AssetStudio took ages to load everything, almost used all my 16GB of RAM, and then there was only code that the illiterate me didn't know what it was 🤷‍♀️

So that was it! I hope I explained everything, although it is a little confusing.

If you have any questions, you can comment on this post or send me a PM!

[freezerbunny-sims2]

Fully Underwater Lot Tutorial

@creida-sims @kitkat99

UPDATE January 2025

There is now a much, much easier way to do this. This version of SimPE now includes a tool to change terrain geometry. To edit the terrain in SimPE, go to Tools/Neighborhood/Neighborhood Browser and load your neighborhood. In the Resource Tree, select Neighborhood Terrain Geometry (NHTG) and select the only resource in the Resource List. In Plugin View, click Terrain Editor. It's very intuitive, but basically, you can edit the terrain under a lot to make it be underwater. You can also delete the road with the Road Editor.

I'll keep the old tutorial for archival purposes, but unless you can't or don't want to install this version of SimPE, it is pretty much obsolete.

Some warnings and disclaimers

1. This is not a beginner tutorial. I have tried to explain with as much detail as I can, but still, if you just started playing The Sims 2 I recommend trying out other building tutorials first.

2. I have tested it but there's always a possibility that some new problems will come up. Follow at your own risk. Backup your neighborhoods before trying this. Test it first in a new empty neighborhood.

3. These lots are roadless, so they require specific gameplay conditions to avoid breaking immersion (pun intended).

4. They will behave like normal lots in the sense that sims can walk around and do anything as if they were on land. There's one big problem to consider: when sims go fully underwater, their hair and some parts of their clothing might disappear visually.

So this is more useful for structures that sit above the water, shallow water that doesn't reach a sim's head or, with some modifications, small islands surrounded by water. So unless you want bald mermaids, I don't recommend this for sims that live underwater.

5. If you use Voeille's hood water mod, reflections will look glitchy in lot view, because this is technically not a beach lot. The only solution I found is enabling "Lot view ocean reflections" in RPC Launcher. Otherwise you'll have to deal with glitchy reflections.

6. Before following this tutorial, make sure you know the basics of creating, editing, importing and exporting SimCity 4 terrains. Written tutorial by SimEchoes here, video tutorial by loonaplum here.

Software and mods used

The Sims 2 FreeTime expansion pack (required for the modifyNeighborhoodTerrain cheat)

SimCity 4 (required) Hood Replace by Mootilda (required)

Lot Adjuster by Mootilda (required)

Portal revealer by Inge Jones (required)

Voeille's pond and sea water overhaul and RPC Launcher (optional, see disclaimers)

The Sims 2 Apartment Life and Bon Voyage expansion packs (optional, for "walk to lot/work/school" options)

Cheat codes used

moveObjects on/off

modifyNeighborhoodTerrain on/off

1. Creating/editing a terrain in SimCity 4

1.1. You can edit an already existing terrain or create your own from scratch. In both cases, you need to keep two things in mind: If you want the usable area of the lot to be underwater, such as making houses for mermaids or a coral reef, make sure the water is shallow. No more than a few short clicks with the terraforming tools in SimCity 4. This is because The Sims 2 live mode camera won't go underwater, so making the water too deep might make it uncomfortable to build or play the lot.

If you goal is to build a structure mostly above water, like a ship or an oil rig, you can get away with making the water a bit deeper, but not too much. I've noticed that sometimes the lot terrain tools stop working correctly if there a hill that's too steep.

1.2. Once you've created the terrain, you will need to add a small island on the area where your lot will be. I know it seems contradictory, but trust me, it will make sense. Create and name your city. Use the terraforming tools in city mode to make a tiny island of about 6x2 squares.

1.3. On the island, use the road tool to place a straight road that takes up 4 squares. Then, using the street tool (the last option), place two short streets at each end of the road.

Streets will disappear in TS2, only roads translate to roads in ts2, so why do we place them? Well, placing a street at the end of a road will get rid of the rounded end bit in TS2, which can't be used to place lots. This will be important for the placement of the lot and to make sure the edges of the lot are underwater. If this doesn't make sense yet, don't worry, it might make sense later.

1.4. Save the terrain. Don't exit SimCity 4. Copy your new/edited sc4 terrain from your SimCity 4 folder to your SC4Terrains folder in your Sims 2 documents directory. It is usually

"C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\SC4Terrains"

1.5. Back in SimCity 4, we're going to make a second version of this terrain. Remove the roads and streets you made before, with the bulldozer tool. With the level terrain tool in Mayor mode, carefully remove the island, so it's on the same level as the bottom of the ocean/lake. Don't change anything else. Save, exit and copy this second terrain to your Sims 2 SC4Terrains folder. Make sure you rename the file to something different from the first one, like adding "no roads" to the filename. You should have two terrains by the end of this step. One with the small island and one without it.

2. Editing the terrain in The Sims 2

2.1. Open The Sims 2 and create a new neighborhood using your new terrain. Something to keep in mind: if you want the terrain to be a subhood of another neighborhood, make it a subhood from the start. You will not be able to move the lot once it's finished, since it will be roadless. I don't recommend decorating the neighborhood for now. Leave it empty until the end of this tutorial.

2.2. Place the smallest empty lot (3x1) on the island.

2.3. In neighborhood view, open the cheat console by pressing Control + Shift + C, and type

modifyNeighborhoodTerrain on

To quote The Sims Wiki:

"This allows you to alter the neighborhood terrain by raising or lowering it. To use this cheat, be in the neighborhood view, then enter the cheat "modifyNeighborhoodTerrain on" (without the quotation marks), and click over the area you would like to change. To select a larger area, click and drag the cursor to highlight the desired area. Press [ or ] to raise or lower the terrain by one click, press \ to level the terrain, and press P to flatten terrain. When you're finished, type “modifyNeighborhoodTerrain off” in the cheat box (again, without the quotations)."

If you use an English keyboard, these instructions will probably be enough for you. If you don't, I recommend first testing the cheat, because the keys for using this cheat are different in other languages. For example, in my spanish keyboard, the question marks are used to raise and lower the terrain and the º/ª key flattens it.

Another aside: When you select an area using this cheat, a green overlay is supposed to show up. Some lighting mods make this green overlay invisible, like the one I use. If that's your case, you kind of have to eyeball it. Remember that one neighborhood grid square in TS2 is equivalent to 10 lot tiles, or the width of a road. I recommend getting a mod that allows you to tilt the neighborhood camera on the Y axis, which will allow you to have a bird eye's view of the terrain.

2.4. Flatten the terrain around the lot so it's at water level. This cheat won't allow you to edit the terrain inside the lot, so you have to edit the terrain around the lot. Make sure there is plenty of flat underwater space around the island. You should end up with something like the picture above. The water will have some holes, but don't worry, those get filled with water the next time you load the neighborhood.

2.5. Enter the lot and place any object on it. Save the lot and exit the game. This is so LotAdjuster recognizes the lot in the next step.

3. Expanding the lot with Lot Adjuster

3.1. Open Lot Adjuster and select your neighborhood and lot.

3.2. Click "Advanced…". Check "Over the road (only enlarge front yard)". Use the arrows to add 20 tiles to the front yard. Click "Finish" and "Restart".

3.3. Select the same lot again. This time, check "Add and remove roads". Uncheck the road checkbox for the front yard. Add 20 Tiles to the back yard, 20 tiles to the left side and 10 tiles to the right side. Check "Place portals manually". You should end up with a 60x60 lot, which is the biggest size. You might want a smaller lot, but unless you know what you are doing, I recommend starting with this size. You can shrink it later. The goal of making the lot this big is making sure the edges of the lot are underwater. Click "Finish" and exit.

4. Moving portals and flattening the lot

4.1. Make sure you have the portal revealer by Inge installed in your Downloads folder before the next step. Open your game and load your neighborhood. The lot should look something like the picture above.

4.2. Load the lot. Delete the object you placed before. Place the portal revealer on the lot near the mailbox/phone booth and trashcan. It looks like a yellow flamingo and you can find it in Build Mode/Doors and Windows/Multi-Story Windows catalogue. You will notice that when you select the object from the catalogue, some yellow cubes appear on the lot, and when you place the object, the cubes disappear. After placing the portal revealer, pick it up and place it again. This will make the yellow boxes visible again.

So what are those yellow boxes? They are portals. They determine where sims and cars arrive and leave the lot. The ones on both ends of the sidewalk are called pedestrian portals, and in the street, one lane has portals for service vehicles (maids, gardeners, etc.) and the opposite is for owned cars and carpools. You can see the portal's names if you pick them up. Make sure not to delete any of them.

Now, since this is going to be a roadless lot, ideally there won't be vehicles in it. This means that the lot would ideally be accessed through walking only. In community lots, this would not be an issue if you have the Bon Voyage expansion pack, which allows sims to walk to lots.

In residential lots, you might run into some problems. Service NPCs always arrive on vehicles, and unless your sim owns a vehicle, the carpool and school bus will always come to pick sims up for work/school. It might break your immersion to have a vehicle show up underwater or on a ship. There are many options to avoid this: having sims work on an owned business instead of a regular job, not having kids on the lot, making the kids homeschooled, avoiding calling service NPCs… it depends on how you want to play the lot. For example, my icebreaker is a residential lot, only adults live there, some sims live in it temporarily and none of them have a regular job.

All of this is relevant because we're going to move the portals. Where you move the portals depends on you. Think about how you're going to use the lot. In my icebreaker, I placed the car portals (which won't be used) underwater, on a corner of the lot. I placed the pedestrian portals on the ship, to pretend that the walkbys are part of the crew or passengers. But for now, just move the portals, mailbox/phone booth and trashcan to a corner of the lot. To be able to pick up the mailbox/phone booth and trashcan, use the cheat moveObjects on. Delete the street and sidewalk tiles using the floor tool (Control + click and hold left mouse button + drag).

4.3. Flatten the island with the level terrain tool. Save the lot. Almost done! Don't mind the hole in the water, this will be fixed. You will notice that in neighborhood view, the island is still there. This is because the neighborhood terrain under the lot hasn't updated. I don't know why this happens, but it does. Normally, moving the lot would fix it, but we can't move this lot using the game's tools. Instead, we are going to fix the terrain with Hood Replace. Don't exit the game yet.

5. Updating the terrain with Hood Replace

5.1. Create a new neighborhood using the new roadless terrain. Make sure it has the same type of terrain (lush, desert, etc.) as the first one. Again, name it "NO ROADS" or something similar. Exit the game.

5.2. Open HoodReplace. On the left column you will select your "NO ROADS" neighborhood. In the right column, select the neighborhood that has the underwater lot. Check these settings: Replace terrain, replace road, and versioned backups. Leave everything else unchecked. Click Copy.

5.3. Open The Sims 2 and load the neighborhood to check if the changes worked. That concludes the tutorial. At this point you can shrink the lot if you don't want it to be so big. Remember to move the portals to their final placement when you're done building the lot. Also keep in mind pedestrians (walkbys) always walk by the mailbox, so keep the mailbox accessible for sims.

If you're going to have multiple underwater lots, I recommend making them first, and decorating the neighborhood after. Doing this in an already existing neighborhood might be more difficult, mainly because, if you made any changes to the terrain using the modifyNeighborhoodTerrain cheat in the past, they might get reset when using Hood Replace.

[nectar-cellar]

Siren Eyes Tutorial - TS3

Trying something new on the blog!

I wanted to share a mini tutorial + slider recommendations about how to create a sultry "siren eye" shape in CAS. This is my go-to method for shaping my sims' eyes. It's really quick and simple.

Step 0: Create the basic shape of the eye like the rotation, eye depth, eye corner height, scale, etc.

Step 1: Use the Eye Stretch slider to elongate the eyes a bit. I like to use around 50 to 100.

download it here

with NRAAS Master Controller, you can shift + click on sliders to edit the number values.

Step 2: Use the Eye Width slider to make the eyes narrower. I like to use both sliders below, at around -25 to -50 for each.

download them here: eye width / eyelids width

Step 3: Use the SEP Eye Shape slider to shape the eyes. I like to use around 100 to 200.

download it here

in CAS, it's located in the head section, not the eyes section

Step 4: Add eyelashes and makeup to complete the look.

That's it! I hope you enjoyed reading my mini tut. I feel like CAS tutorials for TS3 are rare so I wanted to try writing a short one. 🤍

Step by step pics and CC list:

Eyebrows: not sure which set but it's by @sourlemonsimblr

Contacts: Anva Anette by brntwaffles

Lashes: S-Club and w0esies

Lipstick: Angels Kiss lipstick by Pralinesims

Skin: Gardenia by me

Hair: Simpliciaty Ruby, by ifcasims

CAS Lighting Mod: Pure V1 by Criisolate

[simminginstars]

how i draw hair :) applies for TS3 & TS4

a few people have asked for this so i thought i'd just show my process, i'm still learning myself but sharing is caring. This is all done in the Procreate app on the ipad.

i used to use these brushes when i had my old ts3 acc: photoshop brushes these are super good if you might be be able to draw the individual strands, now i just use 3 brushes from samdoesart patreon:

round brush: has some hard edges air brush: better for curly hair as it's soft syrup brush : i use this more for straight/wavy hair

procreate does have FREE brushes so alternatives for the brushes i use are found in: calligraphy - 'script', airbrushing - 'hard blend' & 'soft brush'.

step1: i'll gather reference on pinterest for curly/wavy hair as straight hair is more simple to draw, this help me to understand how the hair falls and where to put highlight/shadows

step2: *create new layer* pick the brush and colour pick the hair, i like a lot of loose strands and messy looking hair, start drawing your strands lightly and build up. The only thing that differs with sims 3 is that when drawing the strands i use a bigger brush size to start with then go in with smaller strands later.

step3: *create new layer* blending mode: multiply opacity: 50-60% i'll add shadows to the parts of the hair that 'bend' to add more depth. (remember shadows are never usually completely black, so if the sim has blue hair make the shadow a dark blue)

step4: *create new layer* blending mode: add. opacity 20-30%. i'll add highlight by using the selection tool and similar to how anime hair looks with the hair higlight ill add zig zag lines going around the hair, then go in with my brush lightly making the centre more intense. Once done ill get the eraser and make sure the edges aren't too harsh

step5: *create new layer* blending mode: normal (place under shadows layer. i'll add colour highlights, (for black hair i'll use a littie bit of brown as no ones hair is really completely black)

step 6: *create new layer* blending mode: add. this one is for lighting purposes. for the rest of the screenshot then i'll add extra shine to hair & add shadows to the body

step 7: once i'm done. *create new layer* blending mode: overlay and i'll go over the parts that are in the light. merge all layers together and add some grain so the hair drawing blends in with the rest of the screenshot.

if you have any questions feel free to direct them to my inbox & u can check out other tutorials here

[lingyunxi]

Self-use Sims 3 CC Tutorials List

Here is a list of tutorials from which I learn to convert/create sims 3 cc in a few months (and as a poor English speaker). I think it might help someone who also wants to try making things for sims 3 but doesn't know where to start, though it's been 15 years from the game release and even Inzoi is coming hahah.

The list covers objects, clothes, hairs and eyes. I know there're lots of tutorials not listed here, that's because I haven't tried them in my projects by hand. But The list will be updated with new things I learn. Most tutorials are in English. Thanks to all these creators for sharing their precious knowledge!

Sorry for the miserable format, cuz I wrote them in Patreon and paste here. You can also read it there, free of course.

Where I find tutorials

sims 3 tutorial hub

ts3 creators cave and its discord

Mod the sims tutorial wiki and the forum

pis3update tutorials tag

General

CC basic concepts by nightosphere (for clothes, most knowledge is shared with objects)

Tools

TSRW guide by apple (for objects, most knowledge is shared with clothes)

Blender

shortcut by Blender Guru

beginner tutorial for version 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 4.0

3.5入门教程 (youtube / bilibili)

设置切换语言快捷键 change language shortcut settings

图片取色器网站

Mesh ToolKit with Seam Fixer for all ages

Topaz gigapixel AI guide / higher quality texture

Texture

Nicer bake / bake in blender 2.78

Bake in blender 2.93

Make normal map

small size blank texture

Reasons for black blocks on baked image

Adjust texture color without losing quality

Object

clone obejcts with S3OC

4t3

Functional Objects

Functional bed

TSRW setting

Combining Textures for Objects with Multiple Textures

Add normal map to objects

Introduction to slot categories

Add slots in TSRW

Edit in-door shadow or occluders in TSRW / Talks about 3 kinds of in-game shadow by Pocci

Clothes

4t3 by nightosphere

Reduce polycount / fix seams, holes, shadows or normals

Bone reference rule

Avoid milkshape workflow / adjust bone assignment and morphs in blender

Manually fix bone in blender

Convert between ages/body meshes

TSRW check list

Fix long clothes clip with body

Fix holes on morphs (easier in blender)

Extrude collars

Create texture in PS

Avoid TSRW workflow / CTU tutorial

Hairs

Avoid milkshape and TSRW workflow / delete backfaces / handmade morphs / DABOOBS guide

Keys pointing to in-game blank textures to save file size (for DABOOBS not TSRW)

Reduce polycount

4t3

Fix weird seam lines on hairs from s4s

Fix pigtail issue

Eyes

Convert contacts to default eyes

[cosmicsimsi]

Tutorial: How I edit my pics (Photoshop)

A not so helpful guide by me~

(orig. post)

For the beginning: I use my own Reshade and use only Photoshop to edit. (for videos I use Premiere Pro/After Effects)

Ingame: I use SRWE with the profile 3840x2400 to get it already in a better qualitity. For this pic I also used ReLight.

In Photoshop:

I start with using Topaz Clean with these Settings:

Next I make a Vignette ("Filter"-> "Lens Correction") with these Settings:

After that, I start making a bloom you can use this tutorial for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMxnXfN7ZDg

Before and After

Now I put a filmic grain on it . For that I go on "Edit" and click on "Fill"

you want it to look like that

The pic will turn gray but thats normal!:)

Now I convert it into a smart object by right clicking on the layer.

Next I change the layer to "Overlay"

I continue with going to "Filter" and click on "Noise" -> "Add Noise"

The window will look like that. I like to put the Amount to 8 but that's all preference:)

That's it for the filmic grain. (I made it into an Action so it's faster)

My next step is to put a Curve to make the pic a bit more moody.

I don't put too much though lol, it also changes depening on the pic.

After that, I put a Color Lookup to change the color a bit.

For that I click on the little half moon bottom right.

I like to use on of the first 2 Kodak LUTs (Kodak 5205 or Kodak 5218)

I put the Fill of that layer around 40% to make it less strong.

Next I draw hair! (still a noob at it...) I use this Brush "Kyle's Real Oil Round Flex Wet" that comes with Photoshop:

Before and After

For the next step I use 2 Hue/Saturation Layers also on the little halfmoon bottom right.

With that I draw Shadows and Highlights!

For Highlights For Shadows

After that, I click Ctrl+I to invert the Layers and start drawing on the mask layer.

Before and After

The pic is in an area with lots of colored lights, it would naturally reflect on the Sims, so I put some pinkish and blueish colors on highlights like this:

Now to the effects to make it look more fun!

3 of the Sims are using water guns and they splash with it ofc! So I added some water splashes with a brush and put a slight motion blur on it.

and since it's a lot of people, water splashes everywhere. Because of that, in some areas I added some water splashing effects (Photoshop Brush) that are making it look like there is movement.

looks way more alive now right?

It still felt a bit "empty" though, so I decided to put a picture of a moon in the sky and added some bubbles (Photoshop Brush) around.

fun fun

Now I put a light leak overlay I found on the internet over the pic.

I put the Fill of that Layer on really low though, so it has a “soft“ effect.

At the end, I made a chromatic aberration (color distortion)

For that I make a Layer copy of the pic and double click the new copy layer and a menu should open.

Under channels uncheck G and B. After that close the window and just resize the Layer a bit.

And that's it! Hope it was helpful somehow:)

[saturngalore]

mariela afro puffs 🦋

my first cc ever! it’s not perfect but i love it 😇 it’s named after one of my first sims i made when i wanted to become a simblr, mariela (my lovely model ⬆️). i had this idea of making afro puffs back in january but i couldn’t figure out how to operate both blender and gimp so i gave up. but luckily, i saw @powluna youtube tutorial and it was sooo easy to follow as a beginner. so, a big thanks to @powluna and to all my amazing testers especially kayla and mori <3

base game compatible (bgc)

maxis palette (24 swatches)

teen-elder

fem frame

not hat compatible (but some hats will fit on sims with noticeable clipping in the back)

minor ear clipping

custom thumbnails

disallowed for random

all lods

please tag me if you do use my cc! i would absolutely love to see it! also, please let me know if you encounter any issues with my cc! here’s my tou. i hope y’all enjoy it <3

download via simsharefile (sfs) or on patreon - ALWAYS FREE!

tysm to cc rebloggers! @public-ccfinds @maxismatchccworld @alwaysfreecc

** i know that there is a small line around the hairline that is slightly visible. im new to this so idk how to fix it for now but i will update this hair once i find a solution! thanks again 🫶🏾

[studiok2sims]

Vamp Life - poses for when your sim needs to vamp

FINALLY! I got together something in time for Simblreen! I'm not able to do the porch light thing, so I am posting the treat publicly.

This is a mega pose pack containing 120 vampire-inspired poses. It started out as just a small pack of a few "inverted" poses (thanks for the inspiration @murfeelee!) and I just went crazy from there. There is a little bit of everything in there.

There are far too many pictures to include here, so I encourage you to visit my flikr album to see the larger pictures. I'll also include a download link for just the photos.

Credits and download links below the cut.

POSE NAMES

The list is too long to pose here, so I included it in the download file.

NOTES

Some of the poses are the same, just in different orientations (lying, floating, inverted, or standing).

Some poses have slightly different variations to accommodate the different male and female physique.

Many of the vignettes are made to "snap" together. Where it made sense to do, I also included "stand alone" versions. They will have the subscript "_sa".

All of the poses intended to be ceiling height (such as the inverted ones and ceiling crawlers) as well as all of the coffin and bed poses have been lowered to make them more flexible. Use OMSP to raise them to desired height.

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

Cmomoney : Pose Player and Pose Pack Creator

OrangeMittens : Complete Pose Tutorial Using Blender

A : Sims 3 Clip Tool for Blender (original)

@lazyduchess : Sims 3 Clip Tool for Blender 3.X

Inge and Peter Jones : s3pe

Muraono : Backdrop for Screenshots

Covershot inspired by "Dracula And His Brides" by Alex Horley

CC USED IN PHOTOS

Naus Allien : Vampire Coffin

@leahlillith : Mia hair

Cazy : Lisa B hair

Cazy : Hair 200 D hair

Hezeh (vmsims conversion) : Hair 41

@oneeuromutt : BDry v1 hair

Nightcrawler (@shimydim conversion) : Vogue B hair

@kijiko-sims : Toyger Kitten hair

Ade_Darma : Stephanie (no bangs) hair

Tattoos are mine and haven't been released

DOWNLOAD (Poses) : SIMSFILESHARE | MTS

DOWNLOAD (Screenshots) : SIMSFILESHARE | FLIKR

[gigglecoffin]

MY CAS RESOURSES

WHELP HERES THE LONG AWAITED CAS RESOURCES!!! everything listed will always be in my recourses tab with my other fav cc links and tutorials!! i will try to update as much as i can!!!

GENETICS

m skin 1 skin N10

m skin 2 N14 -new

m skin 3 yujun & hector -new

f skin 1 kiko

f skin 2 jimi

f skin 3 skin N11

-

face shadow spotlight

mouth corners 1 N3

mouth corners 2 N2

nose mask 1 N1

nose mask 2 N4 upd

nose mask mm N7 -new

eyebag 1 OS-Eyebag 01

eyebag 2 N7

freckles 1 N1

freckles 2 naomi

moles 1

moles 2 N1

moles 3 N2

hairline 1 N1

hairline 2 TASHA HAIRLINE

hairline 3 PIXELORE ORGANIC HAIRLINE RECOLOR & FIX BY QWERTYSIMS

body overlay -new

LIGHTING

gentle cas lighting

PRESETS

m body 1 ir7770_ElezenPreset01

m body 2 David male body

m body 3 N3

m body 4 DARK ELF M PRESET E2

m body 5

f body 1 N2

f body 2 pear

-

eye 1 fox eye preset

eye 2 MMSIMS Preset AM Eyes 1

eye 3 01

eye 4 02

eye 5 eyes v1

nose 1 button nose

nose 2 Female Nose Presets 04-09

nose 3  Male Nose Presets 04-06

nose 4 male preset 1

lips 1 ghostly

lips 2 puffy pt2

lips 3 puffy pt1

lips 4 jamie

lips 5 lips presets #10-32

jaw/chin 1

GO TO'S

teeth -new

face shadows 1 -new

face shadows 2 -new

eyes 1 -new

eyes 2 -new

eyes 3 -new

eyes 4 #76 -new

highlight -new

SLIDERS

anything by obscurus-sims, Dumbaby, Luumia, and Teamoon

SHADERS

sept 2022 shaders

heavy rain

TUTS BY ME

alpha hair recolor tut

FAVS

sept 5th 2022

hair acc

f skinblends

overall hairs

m hairs

glasses

july 12th 2024

cc creators @ the moment -new

[simtanico]

Ellie Williams (inspired by The Last of Us) for The Sims 3

Teen | Brave, Loner, Artistic, Animal Lover

Behold: my pride and joy. You could say that this character is the reason I started creating CC in earnest. Now it's been almost 10 years since I first saved a version of her in CAS and here she finally is! A whole depressing heart-wrenching sequel to her story and a live action adaptation has come out since then!

So maybe this is the opportunity to give her the fun-filled tragedy-less life she deserves?????? Perhaps???????

If you're up for it, Ellie comes with brand new CC including her hair, Fall Hoodie, Summer Top and an edit of the Diesel High Kee jeans I recently released and a soft-launched slider that is soooooooo niche that I don't think merits its own post. You can find it at my sliders page and in the download. :)

And her being a sim of mine, she has a LOT of CC requirements and uses a ton of sliders. You've been warned!!!

The rest of the details below!

The List (and credits):

Skin: @kurasoberina Primer Skin HD+ (Default) with @chinsims Extra Tones [She will probably do well with another skin, as most of her features are slider and makeup reliant.]

Eyebrows: @simmillercc Low Full Tweezed brows from the EA Female Eyebrow Overhaul (Non-Default) collection (MTS archive.org link, current Patreon link does not have the non-default version of the eyebrows, afaik)

Face Details: Gosik Subtle Freckles v2 // v3 // v5 | @pralinesims Delicate Freckles for the Nose // Delicate Freckles for the Cheek

Makeup:

NOTE: ALL MAKEUP THAT WASN'T ORIGINALLY ENABLED FOR TEENS WAS MADE SO. This tutorial covers how to do that with s3pe.

Eyeshadow: 1. Base Game Eyeshadow (w/ lavsm's default replacement alpha fixes) 2. mochi029 inner eyelid make06 [reuploaded by @hyperkaos] 3. @sk-sims Natural Eyebag 4. Ephemera E121228eyeshadow [hosted by me here]

Eyeliner: 1. @sclub-privee Eyelash 3NA 2. Eyelid 2 by me [included in download] 3. Base Game Top Eyeliner

Blush: 1. @gramssims Contour 2 and Contour 5 [Link inactive. Click here for official archive link.] 2. mochi029 plainMakeSet A 3. Tifa Shading Line Blush // Nose Mask V2 [creator inactive, shared by @simdreams] 4. ModernLover Nosemask 5. @agnelid Bloodland Blush N1 Part 3

Lips: 11 IN3S Dry Lips [re-hosted by @villesims] | 2. Lip Definition III by me [included in download]

The Riding Pants in her athletic outfit (with the striped shirt) are by @sweetdevil-sims!

*** she does require a slider that I have not been able to find reuploaded anywhere, Ottershell's Chin Tallness. Link here. ***

For any other defaults and mods installed please visit my newly-updated resources page linked on my page!

Last thing: Feel free to change her up as you need. Simplify her slider usage, use her as a base, whatever. Just, please, do not claim you made her all on your own OR make money from reposting her or subsequent sims. I've spent years making her and worked very hard to compile all this. If you've made it this far, thank you!!!!!!!!!!

Download .sim and included CC (and leave a 💖): https://simfileshare.net/download/4512068/

Please tag me in any photos you might take!

She will also eventually be hosted on simblr.cc!

[mookymilksims]

Never shop for teen cc again!!! | Guide and Tutorial | The Sims 3

What's up everyone and welcome back to my channel! In this video I'm going to very quickly show you guys how to never shop for teen cc ever again! SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TY FOR 600 TUMBLR FOLLOWERS AND 800 SUBSCRIBERS!

I've been seeing a lot of newer simmers and veteran simmers ask about teen cc, and requests for cc creators and converters to make teen version of cas cc.

The reason why a lot of people don't is because you can enable adult cas cc for teens. You don't actually need teen versions of anything!

This means you can pretty much delete all of your teen cc, and save up space your game can use running the sims 3 instead.

So we are going to get:

NRAAS MC + integration module.

Teen male head replacer.

That's it!

So only the teen male head is needing a replacer because it's not the same head as YA and A male sims. However, the sims 3 uses the same head for female teens, YA, and A so you don't have to worry about them.

So when you go in cas mode in game, right click the 3 dots in the bottom left hand corner of the screen, this opens up the MC CAS menu. Then you navigate to category changes > enable acc for teens, enabled adult clothing for teens, and optionally elders as well as body hair for teens.

You can also export this setting into your library folder so you won't have to worry about doing this again.

Now all of your teens (and optionally elders) will be able to wear all of the same clothes, shoes, and accessories as your YA and Adults without that awkward neck gap. So if you do try to put teen clothes on a teen sim after applying this setting you will get the awkward neck gap because their heads are no longer fitting for the teen body clothes and shoes.

So this can actually be considered as a performance boost as well, since you only really need to shop for babies, toddlers, kids, and YA. That's only 4 age groups you are getting CAS CC stuff for, which really frees up a lot of space in your cc folders when you don't have to worry about teens, Adults, and Elders.

So that's literally it, that's all I have to show you for today's video, I really hope this helped, it shouldn't have been a kept secret at all, everyone should know about this trick, frankly, so I'm going to get out of here, some of you have some cc folders to clean out, happy simming, I love you guys, and I'll see you in the next video!

NRAAS MC

MC Integration

Teen Male Head Replacer

[nectar-cellar]

making default replacement CAS - TS3

hi i'm writing a rough outline of one way to make default replacements. i discovered this method recently on reddit as shared by 80sBabyGirl and it's worked well for me so far, so i want to share with other creators out there.

a disclaimer: i'm no expert on how to do this so please read w a grain of salt. please also feel free to add further comments and correct me on any errors. i'm sharing this post not as a 100% foolproof tutorial but more of a guide or outline of the basic steps.

i like this method because you can easily turn any CC package into a default replacement package, without exporting a bunch of textures meshes etc that beginners may not be comfortable doing. also great for lazy people like me.

i have had success using this method to make default replacement hairs, beards, and clothing. i assume the principle is the same for most other CAS items although i'm sure there are more complicated exceptions out there.

so with those disclaimers out of the way, let's start:

first, you will need to download Sims 3 Package Editor (S3PE) and Sims 3 Object Cloner (S3OC)

next, you will use S3OC to clone the in-game item you want to replace, such as a hairstyle.

make sure to "deep clone", include the thumbnails, and do not check "renumber internally".

next, you will open the cloned in-game hair using S3PE. you will also be opening and editing your cc hair package in S3PE, so make a backup of that somewhere before proceeding with the edits.

80sBabyGirl on reddit:

"First, export the Maxis hair's CASP resource to a folder, and close the file. Then, export the CC hair's CASP resource to a different folder. Go back to the Maxis hair folder. Don't open the CASP file, don't copy the file either, just copy its name. Go to the CC hair folder and paste the Maxis hair's name to replace the CC hair's name. Then import the renamed CC CASP resource into the CC hair file. Delete the original CASP resource to avoid duplicates. Then you can do the exact same process with thumbnails. For hairs with accessories, you can retrieve thumbnails for all 3 swatches inside the CASThumbnails.package file that's in the Thumbnails folder."

finally, save the cc hair package, close it in S3PE, and put it in your overrides or packages folder to test in-game. it should now function as a default replacement.

thumbnails

another way to make the cc item's thumbnail into the default replacement item's thumbnail:

in your cloned game item, double-click on the thumbnail resource. click on "copy rk".

in your cc item, double-click on the thumbnail resource. click on "paste rk".

this will make the game read the cc item's thumbnail as the default item's thumbnail.

handy reference for which thumbnail codes are for what

in summary

ultimately you are just editing 2 resources in the cc package to turn it into a default replacement.

the CASP resource

the thumbnail resource

testing in game and the textures are fucked up??

whenever you default replace anything, you usually have to delete your caches and re-apply the item in CAS for it appear properly.

the textures are still fucked ?

if this happens, it may be because the default textures and the cc textures need to be properly linked in S3PE.

in your cloned game item, double-click on each "_IMG" resource. click on "copy rk".

in your cc item, double-click on the corresponding "_IMG" resource. click on "paste rk".

you will need to do this for the multiplier, mask, specular, and normal map textures.

this will make the game read each texture as the default item's texture.

in conclusion:

[nightospheresims]

ginko G121 Hair (For The Sims 3)

forgot to upload the hair from my hair conversion tutorial. here it is!

available for tf - ef

custom thumb

20k poly

♡ DOWNLOAD ♡

Patreon (free)

or mediafire

♡  CREDITS & TAGS  ♡

this belongs to ginko, it's not mine! original post 

@xto3conversionsfinds @katsujiiccfinds

♡ LINKS ♡

♡  Support Me (Ko-fi) | All Downloads | TOU ♡

[lingyunxi]

4t3 Simandy Larsson Hair

Hi! I convert this sims 4 maxis match hair, because I want to keep my game smooth with cc hairs that have under 13k polycount. But alpha hairs' polycount is often between 20-40k. So here I am! Trying to convert some clay hairs~

Info

Original sims 4 post here by @simandy

Converted by me

Polycount: 12k (reduced from 14k by me)

The roots and the tips are not recolorable, but the main hair and the highlights are recolorable.

Pigtail problem fixed

Credits:

@simandy for mesh, texture and the generous TOU, @nightospheresims, @gruesim and @maryjanesims3 for their wonderful tutorials, Anubis360 for control base.

DOWNLOAD

Simfileshare / Patreon (free)

NOTES seen below

1. There are some scratches in the sims 4 mesh, brought to sims 3 as well because I don't know how to fix it. It seems hard to be noticed in sims 4 game, but sadly can be seen in sims 3.

2. The top of the head might not look good with Mxao effect on in Reshade / GShade, so better to turn Mxao off.

BONUS:

That Don was making snow angel besides us, when I tried to make screenshots for preview. Scroll down to see his innocent, happy face (yes, this is the bonus).

[yoruqueenofnightsims]

Tutorial: Converting all types of CAS CC to work with color sliders (+ how to disable it)

This enables CAS CC to work with Color Sliders for Hair, Clothes, & Accessories by thepancake1 and @mizoreyukii.

Since S4 Studio only let's you batch convert hairs and update makeup for compatibility, I present to you: TS4AlphaConverter_2_2_0_0 by CmarNYC.

Keep in mind that enabling CAS CC for color sliders will increase the file sizes of your .package files!

Sliders will also always affect all the texture, i.e. you can't exclude accessories like buttons or zippers, so some textures might not work well.

Also check out this tutorial: Fixing slider compatible CAS CC with broken textures

💜 Requirements:

Color Slider mod

TS4AlphaConverter_2_2_0_0

CAS CC you want to enable

Featured CC by @trillyke @daylifesims @jius-sims @magic-bot

💜How to enable CC for color sliders

1. Download the required program, mod and CC you want. This is my outfit before sliders:

2. Open up Alpha Converter

3. For enabling sliders, you can only use the folder option and not single files: Select your input folder which contains the .packages you want to enable. Then select your output folder where you want to save the new files. "Include subfolders" is handy if your CC goes into more folders inside your input folder. It will reproduce the same file structure.

4. I would recommend enabling "Don't change package names" so you can just replace your input files directly, otherwise it adds "_Fixed" at the end of the filename. I will also leave "Don't copy unchanged packages" checked.

5. Next we will select "Convert RLE2 to LRLE" to enable color sliders. I will explain the others later. It then enables "Convert only textures linked from CASPs" which is good, e.g. it will only target actual CAS CC textures then and no Build & Buy for example. Leave "Convert all diffuse textures linked from CASP" checked if you want to convert all types of CAS CC.

6. These are my finished settings:

7. Press "Go". It will then take a while depending on file amount and swatches, as it will have to go through textures one by one.

8. Check your finished files. The file size should be bigger, in this case it went up by 30 MB for only 5 files.

This is how the outfit looks after applying sliders to all pieces:

💜 How to disable CAS CC for color sliders

This time select "Convert LRLE to RLE2". You can leave "Convert only textures linked from CASPs".

2. Press "Go" and let it do it's thing.

3. As you can see, the file size went down again (middle), but it is not the same size as from the original file (right).

You will no longer be able to use sliders on the CAS CC piece, except transparency, which always works.

💜 Fixing slider compatible CAS CC with broken textures

If some of your CAS CC displays huge areas of missing, pixelated textures there is an issue with compression.

I don't know how and why this happens, but check out * this tutorial * on how to fix it.

@thefoxburyinstitute @maxismatchccworld @emilyccfinds @sssvitlanz