Look at what I made and worship me! (Post Your Creations)

[Quinctia]

I'm sure it's just going to be trial and error, but hopefully once I've figured out good base colors, I'll be able to do retextures more easily.

Oh well, I can rebin the brown (as red), probably mess with that to get an actual brown, the black is surprisingly fine, and so I only really have the blonde to redo.

[Captain Feathersword]

Hec, have you got Daemon Tools, or similar? I have either a mini image or noCD crack for all my TS2 games. Basegame I have mini image, haven't found a crack for that one but it makes switching a lot easier.

[Paden]

I like the last four or five items shown by the people here and will go so far as to ask where are they stashes cause I wants 'em... *looks around with wide, innocent eyes while feeling the caffeine rush* I would so download those!

[mando]

I've finally put my foot down with the damn Raon hair.  I like the meshes but ARGH THE TEXTURES.  Well, the actual texture isn't that bad, but nearly all the colors are.  So I'm learning how to do it myself.  My problem is that my colors are wayyyy too bright.

Even the brown, while passable, is a bit on the bright side for my tastes:


Hell, I'm sure I could get away with binning that as RED.  (No, I won't show you the others.  They look like primary colors practically, even though I swear it didn't seem that bad in BodyShop, and basically look worse than Peggy's colors.)

So anyway, if anyone has any advice, I'd appreciate it.  Could I just desaturate the bright ones a bit?  Or would I really need to start from scratch, and just eyedropper my base color from a photo...and do a completely different texture for each color?

The texture looks quite nice to me, Quinctia, and if the only trouble is that the colours are a bit off or too bright, you really shouldn't have to start from scratch to get the hue correct (what a nightmare that could be!).

Are you using Photoshop? There are some very nice time saving tools in the Image->Adjustments menu commands (very nice, but generally abused by many Sims 2 creators). The adjustments that I would use would be the "Hue/Saturation", "Brightness/Contrast", "Levels" and/or "Colour Balance" commands (and not necessarily all of them or all at once). Textures often look over saturated when you bring them in game so it is always worthwhile to turn the saturation way down. As well, from the "Hue/Saturation" tool, you can also make adjustments to the Hue and Brightness of the texture in order to balance it out properly. Keep in mind, though, that when using the adjustment commands that it is really easy to go too far and get degradation and pixellation so don't use them repeatedly one on top of the other.

If you do need to make several adjustments you can also make "Adjustment Layers" from the layers menu. This will create layers with adjustments set right in to prevent you from making permanent, ugly changes to your original image (if you don't like them you can just pull the layer out and throw it away). Also, as Hecubus suggested when she said the hair needed more green to make it browner, you could also use different layers with different colours and opacities to tone down the base hue. For example, a semi transparent blue/green layer over top of the base orange layer (even easier if you just copy that base colour and change it in "Hue/Saturation" or "Colour Balance" and then turn down the layer opacity a ton).

Hopefully that helps! Or least prevents you from having to start over from scratch for every different colour.

[Quinctia]

I was really worried about pixelation between adjusting for shades, which is why I'd rather be safe than sorry--I wouldn't mind outright making a texture if it ended up being impossible to adjust the original.

And I've got a handle on adjustment layers--it's how I made my original blonde, by putting a couple different colorization layers on top of the grayscale texture I made for the elder hair.

However, I'm happy to say, I managed to fix my textures.  I've decided to use that brown as a red, and I used a PSP adjuster called "Hue Map" to make the brown and the blonde (I usually HATE change, but I have to admit I like the stuff they added between versions 8 and 11).  I just desaturated both of them...then I darkened the brown, and added a little green, and I lightened the blonde ever so slightly.

I'm happy with the results.  As soon as I fix the binning (since the first go-round didn't seem to take), I'll be uploading them to MTS2.




Also, I wasn't joking about doing TONS of Raon hairs (I'm going to at least do the ones I use most often).  These textures will probably be pretty versatile, and I'm not opposed to making more.  Where's the best place to upload the pay mesh recolors?  SFV?  InSiminator?

[Sarafina]

Quinctia, those are lovely, much better than the originals.  If you're doing the recoloring, I'll be happy to do the downloading.

[mando]

I was really worried about pixelation between adjusting for shades, which is why I'd rather be safe than sorry--I wouldn't mind outright making a texture if it ended up being impossible to adjust the original.

And I've got a handle on adjustment layers--it's how I made my original blonde, by putting a couple different colorization layers on top of the grayscale texture I made for the elder hair.

However, I'm happy to say, I managed to fix my textures.  I've decided to use that brown as a red, and I used a PSP adjuster called "Hue Map" to make the brown and the blonde (I usually HATE change, but I have to admit I like the stuff they added between versions 8 and 11).  I just desaturated both of them...then I darkened the brown, and added a little green, and I lightened the blonde ever so slightly.

I'm happy with the results.  As soon as I fix the binning (since the first go-round didn't seem to take), I'll be uploading them to MTS2.

Yeah, adjustments can save you time, and they can almost as easily destroy work if you go that little bit too far. I've been playing around with CS3 and a lot of the adjustment tools have been fixed up (it's not so noticeable in a tool like "Hue/Saturation", but "Brightness/Contrast", for example, is majorly improved), and I'm really excited about some of the new features. I have to force myself not to use it though, as I have several projects I've got to finish off in CS2 first and I don't think I would be able to stop myself from using CS3 if I started up with it.

The colours and textures look really nice, and are very Maxis interchangeable (without looking like crap colour wise). I'm glad you found a way to make some recolours without having to repaint the entire thing. Repainting textures, I think, would seem okay at first but could easily become very tedious (even if the recolours were only for yourself).

[Quinctia]

Hmm...that's not too horrible, I'd probably tolerate that anyway.  But the alpha could probably be tweaked slightly without a ton of hassle, and it would look a bit better.  Did you even mess with that part of the alpha?  We are talking about a Peggy hair here.  It might not be your fault.

As for what to upload, after you click "import to game" in bodyshop, a .package file will appear in your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Saved Sims directory.  It will be formatted with a string of random characters, an underscore, and then the name of your project.  (One of mine was "1bf17ce2_Raon47Sane2.package" for an example.)  This is the file you would want to share.

I took mine, renamed them to something a bit more sane, binned them, then checked them in game.  Took some pics, and now they're in queue at MTS2.  You don't have to colorbin them, but I colorbin everything in my game, so I wouldn't share something that wasn't.

[FrenchOnion]

Here you go, Paden. This is my first time  :oops:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ev1zydtczek

http://www.mediafire.com/?1mo0z12jtoj

You'll still respect me in the morning, right?  :lol:

Seriously though, like I said before, I am VERY new at this  :shock: so I have little confidence that I haven't overlooked something here or that these will work for everyone. I think I am supposed to tell you I have Seasons installed...er something. I think. Please, anyone who gets these, help me ease my compulsion to worry and shoot a pm or something to let me know if these actually work. I hope they do! If so, Enjoy!

[Paden]

Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be fine. I have Seasons and I'll let you know how they work when I get them put in. Have some confidence, they looked good when you posted the shots, and I'm a picky bitch!

[Anyerfillag]

FrenchOnion: Love the Dali icon! I directed a play that had him as a character in my last year of University; crazy man but definately interesting :lol:

Quinctia: Love the Raon recolours

[FrenchOnion]

Paden: Thanks, I needed that.  :lol:

Anyer: Yes, I seem to have a thing for crazy men *looks lovingly at her husband across the room and grins*  :lol:

[Quinctia]

I've got a download link now for anyone who doesn't watch MTS2 like a hawk.

I'll probably do at least one more over the weekend.  I just have to pick the one that's annoying me most after that one, now.

I'm going to download those PJs, too, French Onion, but as I'm playing Legacy right now and the kids are all in Uni, it'll be awhile til I have anyone that's in character to wear something like that.  

[Flying Dutchman]

my latest things...

[Frank]

Arr! Made a new hotel replete with the pirate ship out back to play in. You can download the lot from here:

http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=58919









BTW, it's called Barnacle Bilgerat Inn..........ARRR!