This tutorial is intended for anyone who wants to make more realistic eye textures by creating multi-colored eye texture replacements. This tutorial assumes that you already know how to create eye texture replacements, as well as Packaging them with S3PE. I'm also going to assume you already know how to use your imaging program.

If you don't know how to make default eye texture replacements, follow this Tutorial
http://linna.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=353861 by aikea guinea

What You'll need
-Adobe Photoshop
-Nvidia DDS plugins for Adobe Photoshop
-S3PE to create the package file
-Extracted Eye Texture

1. After Extracting your default eye textures, and opening the file in Adobe Photoshop (Or whatever program you use), and creating the eye texture that you want. Make a layer above it.

This will be the layer that we are going to add the color that we want to use as a highlight. Set the blend mode to Overlay.



Note: This color will never change regardless of what color a person chooses for the base color. You can also set the blending mode to something else if you prefer. Play around with it, and see what works best for you.

2. Color in where you want your highlights, but make sure not to cover the entire eye. Leave some areas uncolored so that the base color can show through. I found that if you use lighter nuetral colors, it will blend well with shades of eyes such as Red, light Brown, Purple and Grey.


3. When you are done, Save your file as a DXT3.

4. Package your files, and save them in your Mods/Packages folder.

5. Check in game to see if you like them. If not go back and re-edit the texture.

- Tips:
If you keep your imaging program open you can easily go back and edit the file if need be. You can also save your file as a PSD, should you ever need to go back to it later.

Use the smudge tool to soften the color up a bit, and/or blend other colors.

Check all the base colors in game to makes sure that they look good.

You can only have one default replacement of anything. You should un-install any Eye replacements that you have before attempting to put another one in your Packages folder.

If your texture is not showing up make sure to delete your simCompositorCache file from the C:\Users\Mari\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 directory.

That's it. Pretty easy, Huh?

There is absolutely no need to replace ingame files, you can create custom additional packages:

http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=355034

Yes, but that is a mask. The color will be whatever the mask is. If you do it the way I've written in my tutorial, You can choose what color you want the eyes to be. They don't have to be the same, and they will still have the highlights.

Also, for the mask to work properly according to the other thread the sims actual eyes always have to be white. :3

You can change colors with the mask too by creating the masks layers accordingly. The hint with the white eyes was at an somewhat early experimenting phase. If you read that thread further you see that I later discovered more details, even the possibility to layer colors.

And of course you still see the highlights. As shown in the screenshots.

Still no need to replace ingame files...

There's no -absolute need- to create replacements, but it's fine to do them as replacements. I don't think many people are really fond of the defaults, so replacing them works fine.

Sure, people who want to do it this way should absolutely do so. I am not questioning that in the least.

On the other side it should be absolutely clear to less tech-savvy users that there is a way to get new eyes without replacing the originals. Replacing ingame resources is more likely to break a game than creating alternatives. Or so I think...

I dunno, I think buggy CASParts are more likely to cause issues than a simple texture replacement.