Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 1st Jul 2021 at 6:56 AM
Default Tutorial for custom eyes?
Okay, so I am a VERY longtime Sims player, and I am pretty darn good with Photoshop (I do gigs here and there), but 100% totally new to even the thought at creating new Sims items.
Specifically, I have some eyes I'd like to create. Actually I have created them but I don't know what I need to do to actually get them into the game... or what I need to do to make them even compatible for the game... etc.

Is there a tutorial I can follow? I have been reading around a lot but I can't find a "Create Custom Sims Eyes for Dummies" lol.
I appreciate any help!!
Advertisement
Mad Poster
#2 Old 1st Jul 2021 at 1:28 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 1st Jul 2021 at 1:41 PM.
This looks like a lot, but is mostly button-clicking in text format, plus some "how does Bodyshop work" explaining. Making eyes is a lot harder in Photoshop than it is in Bodyshop, so if you've got Photoshop down, the Bodyshop steps should be a piece of cake

-Open Bodyshop
-Create genetics, select an eye (best to select one of the defaults, as some non-defaults can have various settings changed)
-Give your project a name
- Find the project in the "Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 (UC?)\Projects" folder
- Edit the "..stdMatBaseTextureName" file (there should be two textures, one is the alpha file, don't do anything to this for an eye edit).
- Eyes are placed sideways, and in the left upper corner, far left is "down" and "up" is the middle of the eye (mirrored). The texture needs to be 512x512, so there's not too much room to work with. Scaling it up doesn't work too well, as it's an overlay for faces, which are 512x512 (overlays use the texture underneath as the preferred size - makeup/eyes/etc.)
- Write something in the text field. This is the "tooltip" line, or "hovertext" that shows when you hover the mouse over the item in Bodyshop and with certain cheats in CAS.
- Make a swatch texture - it's the colorful picture in the Project folder for your project. It's the picture that's going to show when you select the eye ingame and in Bodyshop. Personally I just cut out a piece of the eye texture and maybe write something (but it's a tiny picture so make sure it shows).
- You can collapse layers and save (and then redo in Photoshop so you have the layers intact), and then use the "update" button in Bodyshop to see the result.
- When you're happy, make sure layers are collapsed and saved (you can save a copy of the PSD file for later use, but make sure it's a COPY, don't save the actual file, I'll come back to that).
- Do "Import to game". You can now find your new file in the SavedSims folder. (The file in the Project folder is a template file - don't be tempted to think this one is useful for anything else than Bodyshop. It won't work ingame).
- Now you can open back up the project in Bodyshop, and make a new eye with the same project, without closing down the file in Photoshop (here's where it's handy to save copies of the file as PSDs but not the actual file, because you can keep working). You can reuse the same project multiple times for the same kind of item.

Your files will end up in SavedSims, and you can rename them after you've closed down Bodyshop (you can arrange them after date/time to get them in the order you made them, if you made them using the same project - they'll have the same project name, but a different Hex code in front.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 1st Jul 2021 at 9:56 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
......

Thank you! I will give this a shot first chance I get! :D
Back to top