Programs
Paintshop Pro (PSP) - Get a free trial at
Simshow - You can get this at the official site.
Simpose - You can get this at the Simpose website.
Get your base skins from www.thesimsresource.com
Go to the programs section and download the nude bases. The zip file will include skins for women, men and children.
Let's Get Started!
Step 1: Firstly you need to decide on what type of skin you want to make. I find that it is easier to draw your idea onto some paper. You need to choose which meah you would like to use and what kid of person this is for. (e.g women, man, fit, fat etc.)
Step 2: Open up your skin in PSP and go to the colours menu, increase colour depth, 16 million colours. Bring up the layers menu and click on create new raster layer - this is where you will create your skin.
NOTE: Navigation. A skin is a funny looking thing. The arms are down the left side, and you can probably guess which part is the front and back. The sides do not exactly join up, the left side of the back of the body, joins up with the left side of the front of the body. Get it? Just make sure that the sides match up so you don't have a very funny looking piece of clothing.
Step 3: Start drawing! You can use all the tools in PSP to help you create your skin. Put on a top, skirt, pants, or dress and colour it in with plain colours or a pattern - it's up to you. When you are finished, change the colours back to 256 colours (You can go colours, decrease colour depth, 256 colours or hold down Ctrl+Shift+3) Save your skin in programfiles/maxis/simshow/gamedata/textures. Then open Simshow.
NOTE: When you change your skin back to 256 colours, two messages will pop up. Hit enter on the first one, but on the second one, change the first option to optimised octree, then hit enter. When the skin is 256 colours it only has one layer. You will have to hit Ctrl+Z to get it back to seperate layers and 16 million colours.
Step 4: Click on your skin and click on the appropriate mesh. See if there are any details that need fixing, skirt too long, neckline wrong... Go back to PSP press Ctrl+Z and make the changes. Once you are completely happy with the skin export it into the game and tada, your very own skin!
NOTE: If you want to put your skin on a site, use Simpose to take a pic of it and then place on your website. I recommend thought that you change the pic into jpeg or gif format because they are small and take less download time. You can do this by opening up the picture in paintshop pro and then clicking 'save as'. Name your picture and scroll down to .jpeg or .gif format and click save!
Women
Men
Kids
Make-up
Women
Men
Kids
Objects
Houses
Walls and
Floors
Installing
Tutorial
Skinning
Contact
Links