Let's say I have an item of Sim clothing that, for whatever reason, I want to recategorize in SimPE so that the game considers it an accessory (and thus wearable with other clothing). Is this at all precedented? How might I go about doing it?

I think you'd have to make an accessory mesh and replace the GMDC with one you extracted from the piece of clothing. It's probably not going to look right, though. There will most likely be a lot of bleed-through because the bone assignments of the accessory will never be the same as the body underneath (and even if they were identical to one body/outfit, they wouldn't be identical to all the others).

When you say to make a new mesh, can I just export the clothing mesh, re-import it as an accessory mesh, and then attach the texture? Or is it more complicated than that? I could probably do all that with a tutorial but I couldn't possibly work with a meshing program at this point.

You shouldn't need to use MilkShape or any other meshing program; you should be able to do it with just SimPE and Body Shop. You can export the clothing mesh and the accessory mesh from Body Shop. Then replace the GMDC for the accessory with the one from the clothing. Then attach the texture (using Build DXT...). I haven't tried it -- and I don't have SimPE on this machine I'm currently typing on -- so I hope I'm remembering everything correctly. I gave up on accessories after trying to rescue the Maxis mittens from the game files. Even after I got the mesh to display (which took forever), my Sim's fingers kept poking through... which looked really weird.

What is it you're trying to turn into an accessory? A jacket?

Well, "Build DXT" is grayed out...and there's no nvdxt.exe to be found, before or after the reinstall. Time for another ride aboard the technical difficulties train!

It's not a jacket, though I did think of that as another example of why someone might want to do this. What I'm trying to do is use the Maxis nude mesh as a base for skintight accessories such as gloves and stockings, so I won't have to clone an entire outfit just because one sim has fishnet mania. I've looked all over but it seems like nobody has done this exact thing before, or at least hasn't uploaded it, so I have to cobble my own.

(I'm trusting that by posting this, I won't inspire any "real" modders to beat me to the punch! Kestin needs the experience )

Well, the gloves should work (I don't think I've seen any altered Sim hands out there) but stockings could be problematic since some custom meshes have different-sized legs. If your stockings (on the Maxis nude mesh) are thinner than the legs of the custom mesh that you want to wear the accessory, they might not show up (because they'll actually be sitting "inside" the custom legs).

Aside from that, I'm not sure if a full body as an accessory would work. It might wreak havoc with slower computers. It's worth a try, though, even if it's just for the experience.

Good point. If I upload it, I'll have to mention that it's not for custom body shapes. Although I don't know if I'll upload it to start with because I doubt it'll be accepted, especially if that's true about slowing the game considerably...I wouldn't have thought so, because it's on the same mesh (I imagine it would be like a skin with the accessories painted on). It's not like it's adding any polys. Unless it counts as an entire Sim's worth of them, which I guess I can imagine, seeing as there's a lot I don't know about meshes >.<

It will count as a whole Sim's worth of mesh unless you can somehow link to the Maxis mesh in the game... but I'm not sure if you can do that. I know you can link a custom mesh to an existing texture to save space, but I'm not sure if you can link an existing mesh to a custom texture without overriding something.

Well, damn. I wouldn't even know where to begin on something like that. I'm having more than enough trouble just linking a texture to a mesh...guess I'll probably end up keeping this one to myself then, if I do succeed. Thanks for the help though.

I'm in the process of a similar project, so here is what I've learnt:
"When you say to make a new mesh, can I just export the clothing mesh, re-import it as an accessory mesh, and then attach the texture? Or is it more complicated than that?"
You could probably not get away without a little bit of meshing - you would need to enlarge the nude mesh a little bit for the stockings to sit above the nude skin of the sim. Otherwise the two textures - the transparent texture of the outfit and the stockings texture of the accessory would "fight" and there's no knowing which would show up when.
There are gloves by Bloom at Insim (http://www.insimenator.org/index.ph...c,81152.0.html), those might be useful for your project.

Ah, that would be a problem then. I guess I retract what I said about hoping nobody wants to "steal" the idea, because now I figure the only way I'd get to have this accessory is if someone did...

Those gloves are a good start, but I have three problems with them in this context: a) they obviously aren't fullbody, meaning I can't fulfill my main goal of having a matching set of stockings on the same texture; b) they aren't truly skintight, so I can't make them very long without the ends sticking out (and the mesh itself isn't as long as it ideally would be for full customization); and c) they have a gap that drives me crazy, and I've tried fixing it via the opacity map with no results.

If you still want to make those stockings I think I have the answer for you.
You don't want to make accessories - you want to make overlay boxes! Those use overlays, just as you first wanted - textures on the nude sim body. No separate mesh needed, no danger of mesh clipping or texture fighting. You need to have Seasons, though (or Seasons or higher, I'm not sure).
Here's an examle by Quinctia at GOS (http://www.digitalperversion.net/ga...p?topic=14350.0) and here's a tutorial, also be her: (http://www.digitalperversion.net/ga...?topic=16433.0).
Hope that helps.

That looks doable enough, except for the game-breaking fact that I have no idea what she means by a "box", or how to create one. Should I just download one of her files, clone it, and use it as a base, or am I underestimating the complexity of step one?

Also, as a belated thought, I'm not sure why there would be texture clipping if I created an accessory on the nude mesh; isn't that what's used for Maxis swimsuits? Or are those actually meshed slightly above the skin? I've never noticed swimsuits or underwear slowing down my game, nor any other skintight item I've ever created, and it doesn't seem to be an issue with uploads that include gloves or tights as part of the texture.

Download one of her tattoo boxes and you'll see how it works. Then follow her tutorial - yes, it is more complex than simply cloning.
The main problem with using accessory meshes is not that they would slow the system down - after all, it would be just like having a 6000 something hair item instead of a 3000 something hair item, which plenty of people use nowadays. The problem is that an accessory MUST use a separate mesh - it cannot use the same nude mesh that a clothing item worn by the sim at the same time uses. The two meshes can be identical in shape, but a sim wearing e.g. a swimsuit on a nude mesh and a stocking on a nude mesh will always use TWO meshes. That might still not be a problem as long as the two meshes are completely identical (I might have been wrong on that earlier). But as soon as e.g. the shape of the leg of the clothing mesh is different - ever so slightly, because of different shoes or just different bone assignments - the two meshes will clip and you'll end up part of the stocking showing, part of it buried in the sim's leg.

Oh, I meant in terms of creating the object to work with in the first place; I skimmed the tutorial for difficulty and I have no illusions of simplicity, but from what I can tell it's outlined well enough to follow.

I see, sort of. So it's not a problem with, say, a glove mesh that only covers the arms and a tank top that doesn't extend beyond the shoulders, because they don't overlap, but the nude mesh covers the whole body in both instances so any difference in one of them would cause the problem? Well, either way, I gave up on that method, so it doesn't matter; hopefully this one will work out