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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 23rd Apr 2018 at 5:06 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default Lighting issue with Body Shop skintone and BG clothing
I made a couple of skins in Body Shop for a themed neighbourhood I wanted to start, but I noticed something odd about the lighting when using BG clothing or hair. This doesn't happen for CC or anything from EPs/SPs. I'm presuming this has something to do with GunMod's Radiance Lighting as well, I haven't yet tried uninstalling it, but it would make sense. Is there anything else I could do about it, any way to fix the skintone?



You can see that the lighting on the hair is different and the neck has a weird "cut".
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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#2 Old 23rd Apr 2018 at 5:14 PM
Definitely not a Radiance Lighting issue, it looks even worse with Maxis lighting!
Mad Poster
#3 Old 23rd Apr 2018 at 5:39 PM
Which program did you use when recoloring the skins?

Gimp and various other programs have a bug where they don't save BMP files as 24-bit (the version Bodyshop prefers) by default, which can make bugs like this. There are ways to save the files properly, though.

I use Photoshop (which doesn't have this bug) for the recoloring I do - and the only times I get bugs like this is if there's something wrong with the bump map, so that's the 2nd option. Since skins don't have recolorable bump maps by default, that's probably not the issue for you.

If it's a bump map issue, most often the bump map has been saved improperly (the 24 bit issue), or is bigger/smaller than the skin texture it's put on (why you usually can't have 1024x1024 textures for toddlers if there's a bump map too).
Mad Poster
#4 Old 23rd Apr 2018 at 5:40 PM
To me it looks like a normal map issue. Is your game is set to show normal map? (bump map...)
ETA Look at the buttons on the shirt, it is a normal map issue...That new skin seems to deactivate it.

Je mange des girafes et je parle aussi français !...surtout :0)

Find all my old MTS Uploads, on my SFS, And all new uploads Here . :)
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#5 Old 23rd Apr 2018 at 6:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
Which program did you use when recoloring the skins?

Gimp and various other programs have a bug where they don't save BMP files as 24-bit (the version Bodyshop prefers) by default, which can make bugs like this. There are ways to save the files properly, though.

I use Photoshop (which doesn't have this bug) for the recoloring I do - and the only times I get bugs like this is if there's something wrong with the bump map, so that's the 2nd option. Since skins don't have recolorable bump maps by default, that's probably not the issue for you.

If it's a bump map issue, most often the bump map has been saved improperly (the 24 bit issue), or is bigger/smaller than the skin texture it's put on (why you usually can't have 1024x1024 textures for toddlers if there's a bump map too).


I used paint.net and made sure to save as 24-bit (I even posted in another thread earlier about saving in 24-bit), and I only recoloured the textures so the file sizes can't differ in size. Hmmm...

Quote: Originally posted by Rosebine
To me it looks like a normal map issue. Is your game is set to show normal map? (bump map...)
ETA Look at the buttons on the shirt, it is a normal map issue...That new skin seems to deactivate it.


How would I go about fixing this? I'm slightly confused, sorry, I've never been very good at body shop or image manipulation
Mad Poster
#6 Old 23rd Apr 2018 at 6:32 PM
I am sorry, skintone is something I do not create.
But you might get more help in the BodyShop Recoloring/Create forums.
http://modthesims.info/forumdisplay.php?f=20

Je mange des girafes et je parle aussi français !...surtout :0)

Find all my old MTS Uploads, on my SFS, And all new uploads Here . :)
Mad Poster
#7 Old 23rd Apr 2018 at 7:20 PM
That particular male outfit seems to have problems around the neck anyway (at least it does in my game). I use Sleepytabby's skins (http://www.modthesims.info/browse.p...All=1&u=8793450) and that outfit has always had that weird line around the neck. Do any of your other outfits do this? If not, I'd say the lighting on the hair is your only real problem.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#8 Old 23rd Apr 2018 at 7:23 PM
Quote: Originally posted by RoxEllen1965
That particular male outfit seems to have problems around the neck anyway (at least it does in my game). I use Sleepytabby's skins (http://www.modthesims.info/browse.p...All=1&u=8793450) and that outfit has always had that weird line around the neck. Do any of your other outfits do this? If not, I'd say the lighting on the hair is your only real problem.

All of the base game outfits and hairs (with very few exceptions) have this issue. None of the EP/SP outfits or hairs do, and neither does any of the CC. I'm quite confused really. I can play with just CC or EP/SP clothing, but I use the BG hairs quite a bit...
Mad Poster
#9 Old 23rd Apr 2018 at 8:36 PM
I think Paint.net has the 24-bit issue, too. I'm not sure if you also have to change another setting, but I'd think so. I've never used the program, so I can't say for sure. I've only ever used the paint program that comes with Windows, and that's a long time ago.

Most of the BG outfits have bump maps, and it's possible the 24-bit issue somehow makes other CAS Items show up with inverted normals, hence the weird light issues.

The outfit shown at the top looks fine in my game, and I've got bumpmaps enabled.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#10 Old 24th Apr 2018 at 8:32 PM Last edited by TuxxedoCat : 24th Apr 2018 at 8:54 PM.
This seems to be happening with any skin exported from Body Shop, regardless of whether or not I edit it. The lighting is messed up not only in-game but also in Body Shop itself. I'm quite confused.

ETA: I think Body Shop is exporting the textures as 512x512 and not 1024x1024. That seems to be causing it, weird though, I don't think I've ever had this issue before, but I've also not made a skintone in a very long time.
ETA2: Yup, exactly the issue. I'm changing all of the file sizes now.
Mad Poster
#11 Old 24th Apr 2018 at 9:12 PM
How do you look at the textures? You never need the textures that BS export. In fact, all you want is to import in game, so you have a file to open in SimPE. That package file in your SavedSims folder, this is the one you open. In there, under Texture, you'll find your 1024 x 1024 texture to edit. Leave the Project folder alone.

Je mange des girafes et je parle aussi français !...surtout :0)

Find all my old MTS Uploads, on my SFS, And all new uploads Here . :)
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#12 Old 24th Apr 2018 at 9:29 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Rosebine
How do you look at the textures? You never need the textures that BS export. In fact, all you want is to import in game, so you have a file to open in SimPE. That package file in your SavedSims folder, this is the one you open. In there, under Texture, you'll find your 1024 x 1024 texture to edit. Leave the Project folder alone.

I've always used the textures in the project folder... That's good to know then.
Mad Poster
#13 Old 24th Apr 2018 at 9:42 PM
Oh! Well then you will need the NVIDIA DDS Utilities . Because while you will Export the 1024 x 1024 textures from SimPE to your paint-editing program, you will want to Build DXT your edited texture back in your package...

Je mange des girafes et je parle aussi français !...surtout :0)

Find all my old MTS Uploads, on my SFS, And all new uploads Here . :)
Mad Poster
#14 Old 24th Apr 2018 at 9:47 PM
What you can do is to export a PNG file in the correct size (or a DDS file) and "build DXT" with SimPE using the DDS tool. If you use a PNG file, make sure to use DXT3 or DXT5 (DXT3 is enough, and the difference between 3 and 5 is in the alpha, not the texture - if there are invisible or partly visible items in textures, use DXT5), because DXT1 and the import function give a pixellated result.

It's enough to use the DDS/DXT tool, and it updates all sizes automatically, even if you use a bigger or smaller texture (but don't use the "update all sizes" funciton in SimPE - that's only useful for the import function).

Whenever you edit textures in SimPE (particularly skins) you'll want to use the compressorizer, or you'll get files with ridicolous sizes (an uncompressed 1024x1024 texture is roughly 1 MB)
Test Subject
#15 Old 13th Jun 2022 at 2:56 AM
I've run into the exact same issue described here. Is there a solution for this? I've never heard of making custom skintones through SimPE before, every tutorial out there talks about using Body Shop.
Mad Poster
#16 Old 13th Jun 2022 at 4:02 AM
You have to make the files with Bodyshop to make them unique, but you can edit them with SimPE.

If it happens when Bodyshop exports the wrong sizes, try this:
https://www.wikihow.com/Fix-Your-Bo...s-in-The-Sims-2
https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?ti...y_Shop_Projects (has updated links for UC, if you need that)

If it only happens with certain pieces of clothing, ot items are showing up too bright, it could be an issue with the meshes not having proper bump map support (a few ingame meshes seem to be affected, too). Usually these lack a line in the mesh comments ("HasTangentArray:" as the 3rd line, if using Milkshape). Meshes can be fixed by adding in that line, or you can do an overall fix of the shaders with LD's fix, here: https://lazyduchess.tumblr.com/post...-bright-cas-fix
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