Hi there. So for the monthly theme I was thinking of doing some recolors for MonoChaos's Black Work out Shorts with converse for teen males, which has been my favorite workout outfit structure for that age/gender group. I got her permission years ago to recolor as long as I credit her work on the converse, which of course I plan on doing if the custom content is accepted I just would like some feedback/help since I have never uploaded any re-color files to the site before.

I don't think the resolution matters. I wonder if the size can be wrong because texture files are usually 1024x1024 pixels. Maybe the game will stretch it if it's smaller??

Also you can make a test recolor which you bucket fill with one color (First, clear The entire image). Then you will see exactly what the mesh looks like.

The mesh is just the shape though - the mismatch at the shoulder line is because the texture isn't accurately matched for the front and back I would guess - you could try altering the alpha layer for the front or the back - I'd suggest back (that is the black and white layer which dictates what part of the texture can be seen - I think it's called the alpha layer). It looks like the back part of the vest needs to be moved outwards a little. If that is the case, then the texture itself will need to be altered but you need to get the matching sorted first. Fruitsymphony's suggestion is a good idea because it will allow you to see clearly where the alpha/texture project onto the mesh. Alternatively you could use UV Mapper to re-export the UV Map from the mesh and clean it up that way. If you have a close look, the original is also mismatched at the neck so there does seem to be a fault in the mapping for the existing textures.

Are the edges of the t-shirt around the armholes meant to be white? Or is that something you need to get round to?

The texture resolution is a thing and I believe there are workarounds. I have to say I think I would be tempted, if that happened to me, to make the recolour with Bodyshop as normal then reimport the texture using SimPE via the DDS utilities thing (you can get a better quality image that way - I think you'd need to recompress the file then too). However, I'm not a big skinner and don't know the exact technique. There must be one because you see plenty of high quality textures on skins all over the place. Hopefully, someone more knowledgeable will come over and give us some pointers. I would like to know what it is too so thanks for asking the question.

Edit: oh I see now - it's actually a EAxis recolour (I thought it was a new mesh). Extracting the mesh to re-UV map it would be a a longer process (though doable). I'm not surprised at the mis-match then, EAxis could be sloppy. I think the easiest process is going to be fiddling with the alpha.

I'm posting again (sorry) because I have quite a bit new to say.

I fiddled with the alpha from Monochaos's original - in the pictures you can see what I did. It's the best I can do, the UV mapping is a bit weird (standard with EAxis meshes). I've attached the new alpha if you want to use it - just drop it in the project file and let it overwrite (or take the original out first).

Pictures show:
The Problem - mis-matched alpha layers (sigh - they came out back to front, read right to left)
Two of the half way point where I'd 'fixed' one side
Final version with the fix mirrored over to the other side

Sorry about the lighting - it is BS after all.

Incidentally, the textures came through BS as 1024x1024 so I think you're right and you have an issue there with the size.

This is really helpful, the straps were driving me crazy, so thank you! I unzipped your alpha and replaced my old one (though I backed it up first) and body shop keeps loading existing outfits, none of which look like the gym out fit when I click on this project now. Any idea why?

You probably need to start (over) a new project - BS tends to reset in certain circumstances. It might not be my texture - did you remove from your game the original texture (Monochaos's original) you were working from?

When you start afresh, don't delete the old projects for now (you'll need the textures). With a fresh project, you should be able to just drag the new textures over the old. Unless it is because the picture sizes are different? Incidentally, if you export from there, it should work anyway, it's just that you can't see what it's supposed to look like.

The other alternative is I can post the fiddled-with file (that is the whole skin) and you can work from that because it should export the alpha I made (since that's what's in there).

Maxon, I will try your first suggestion when I get back from my vacation this weekend. Thanks!

@Maxon

Again, thanks for all you have done to help. I guess my body shop has an issue because I re-started the project and the three files are exported at 512 x 512 pixels with a resolution of 72 and a document size of 7.111 x 7.111 - not 1024 x 1024. I realized anytime I tried changing the size of the files and loaded the project, it would show any other clothes items like my above picture. Now, I took your alpha base file and sized it to the 512 x 512 and the shirt strap problem was fixed, so that's a step in the right direction! I am going to go investigate this sizing issue and see if there is a fix before continuing so it's not so low-resolution.

Ah right Charmful - that sounds logical. I wonder why you're having an issue with that. I can't think of a reason.

As a last resort, if you can't sort it out, someone like me can do the final importing for you - in fact, I will do it if you like. All you need to do is send me the textures at the right size. I thought you might want to do that before the end of the month and the end of the theme so you can get them to upload. If you want me to do that, let me know. Though you need to sort that issue out if you can.

I found a thread on how to get rid of blurriness - changing files in the graphics rules files for each expansion - I will try again and probably working on this all day but will let you know if I need someone else to export the files. Thanks!

So thanks to @maxon's help with the mesh, the gym outfit top looks better. Also figured out how to get the images to look not as fuzzy.



The outfits with black tanks I still am working on, they have stripes of white or light grey still showing which looks off.
But do the non-black tank top outfit look good? Or do you see any more adjustments I could make on the re-color?

Difficult to tell properly, can we have closer views please?

They certainly look clearer as far as I can see from those pictures (second KarenLorraine's request). How did you resolve the blurriness issue? I don't think it's related to the rendering of your graphics card - which is what you seem to be implying by the comment above). With the wall stencils, which I was showing in a thread on here, what I did was double the image size and that improves the focus/level of detail. Is that what you did? Makes the filesizes larger though. Also, what happened with your version of BS and the image size being output too small?

With the black - avoid using pure black as it doesn't look good with the in game lighting.

I know nobody has responded to this thread in months, but I want to say thank you to Maxon for the alpha file. I've been utilizing it recently and I appreciate your efforts to fix the broken Maxis file. Again, thanks!