Skin changes when I import in Body Shop

[SuzySteamboat]

FYI, I've tried looking for an answer in this forum and couldn't find it. Did a keyword search, as well as browsed the topics going back 15 pages. So, here goes:

There are several pale skins that I've downloaded that I have saved as projects in Body Shop and exported to add "extras." Problem is, when I import the skin back, the head is always a darker color. The dark face does not show up in the bitmap files that are exported and that I edit, so I have no idea why the face always appears darker when I import them back into Body Shop (see attached images). Sometimes, the hair part of the face doesn't even show. Well, I guess that's a separate problem though. Does anyone know why this happens, and what I can do to stop the face bmp from importing as a darker tone and make the top back part of the skull show when I import? The original downloaded skins work fine and show everything, with no mismatching tones; it is only when I save the skins as a project and import them back into Body Shop that things go haywire.

[SimplyStella]

last problem (head not visible), happen to me sometimes. I dunno why. I only know that in the project folder there are some fles for the hair with real hair (sorry I don't know how to explain it..).
Usually there is one file wich cover that part of the head, but when it's invisible it's because there are the files of an hairstyle.. erm
every time I have to delete the projects and export textures again -.-

[kerriiskk]

Ack I'm having this issue too and it's getting really annoying it's only happening to the adult female... I fixed it on all the other ages and genders... there were 5 total but I can't get the A/F one working and I'm not sure what I did to make the others work but everything I did I did to all them and A/F is ugh anyway if anyone has any ideas how to fix this I'd appreciate it.

Kerri

[Faylen]

OK, I know the skintone matching issue came up before, and I think in that case it had something to do with either the skintone was downloaded for a sim, so not all the ages were recolored, or that the creator hadn't done all the gender/age/fitness level files. I looked, sorry, couldn't find it again.

The missing head part, though, has nothing to do with the skin - what you have there is a hair mesh missing. The scalp is part of the skintones set, but when it's covered by a nonexistent hair mesh, it disappears.

[newto411]

well i used to think creators did this to thier skintones so thta people wouldnt edit them becuase ive never had this problem with maxis skintone, but this is what you do in the files thye have names and the names have the age/ gender and you just have to save the teen face with an adult name... im hoping i explained this right maybe ill show you a coupple pics... soon but the poblem is completely resovable

[newto411]

you just have to find the file named: tfface~face~stdMatBaseTextureName

and copy, paste, and rename it
afface~face~stdMatBaseTextureName

i hope ive offered you some help, and as for the missing head file you can do the same just copy, paste one of those big blocks of color and rename it as
afhair~hair~stdMatBaseTextureName

[kerriiskk]

Ok well here's the deal I tried saving the tfface file as an afface and the problem is still there... the missing head file is also an issue for me even though all the files are there and properly named. I'm trying to make native american sims and as it sits when the female skin hits adult age they end up having white faces and native bodies... I've tried...

Saving another face file as : afface~face~stdMatBaseTextureName

Exporting another skin file and transfering all the edited ones into that folder (this got rid of a few of the odd heads)

removing the afface file completely, restarting body shop, putting the face back and again restarting bodyshop (incase it just wasn't recognizing it)

and

Re'coloring' a different afface and moving it in the folder

and after all that I still have white faced adult female natives....

[newto411]

hmmm well then i dont know what to say, my way has always worked for me when thta constantly happens

[helaene]

i have this problem too - the best way i know to solve it is to extract a default skintone, then go to 'my documents' and find your projects folder and copy all the files from the skin you'd like to edit into the default skintone folder (so that it overwrites each file). for some reason, whenever i export non-default skintones (even ones i've made) it doesn't export the heads correctly. ;)

just a note: *please* if you're editing other creator's skins, don't upload them anywhere after you alter them, just use them for your own game.

[kerriiskk]

These are a re'color' of a skin I did a while ago and thanks Helaene that did actually work great. BTW I LOVE your work... pretty much all the make-up my sims wear is yours.

[Faylen]

One of the other things I found is that if the color channels have been altered, some data may go missing, and that's one reason helaene's suggestion might have worked. There's stuff in the alpha channel that has information that will block out or black out a portion of the skin or hair (don't know about eyes or clothes because I haven't tried). It corrupts the whole file, though, so you do have to start with a working maxis item.

[helaene]

glad it worked! thanks for the compliment... ;)

[upinout]

I just fixed this problem in my game. For me, everytime I exported a skin file, the adult male heads all looked like that (for any skin, even maxis defaults).

Also, when I looked at the project folder for the exported skin, there were extra hair alphas in the folder.

I spent a couple hours sorting through my downloads, and finaly worked out that it was some hair recolors from TSR. Once I removed those files, i stopped haviing this particular problem, but then a new problem started up.

Now whenever I export a custom skin file, if I have used the skin to make a sim, the face file for the age that the sims I made was doesn't show up in the project folder.