OK, I gathered this information from vaious threads (mostly by the very learned PinHead) and thought it might help if someone made a quick 'mini tutorial' (as I keep getting lots of pm's asking me how to do it)

I am assuming that you are following the usual method of accessory making (and your colour package is still in the Saved Sims folder created by Bodyshop during the cloning stage)....

ok....start by opening SimPE (v0.52 or later)....

Go to Tools/Scan Folders...and a window opens...







1. Navigate to your 'Saved Sims' folder


2. click 'scan' ..... (wait while it loads....)

3. In the main window select your (BodyShop produced) package that you are curently working on....

4) Click 'Operations'

5) Scroll down until you see 'set Catagories'...then tick (or untick) which catagories you want it to be wearable with...

6)click 'set'

You MUST change the appearence of any Sims already wearing the 'old' version of the accessory for the changes to take effect.

This (as you probably know) is because the game 'builds' each accessory as you put it on the Sim....not each time the game loads.

Therefore 'unwear' the 'old' version.....go back into the lot...then 'change appearence' and wear the 'new' version...

o, very helpful
thanks!

I have a question..
IF you download SimPE will it maybe give you a virus or something similar to a virus? I am just wondering because I have been thinking about getting SimPE
Thank you and keep up the awesome work. I appreciate it.

Simmy, I'm trying my best to be polite - but first of all you should be asking questions specific this tutorial in this specific thread.... so a general SimPE question is not really applicable.

Secondly, I can't imagine *what you are thinking*. I mean do you really think that this site with the thousands of creators and members would be promoting or USING some virus laden software to modify our games?

That said, you can break things in your game with Simpe, it is a tool that will let you change anything.... so be sure to backup your neighborhood, downloads, and any other files you might touch before using it. And then follow the directions given carefully.

Remember this is all a game and for fun.

wheres the actual tutorial for making accessories anyone know?

There isn't exactly one, but there is the collected info about it (including a short advanced tutorial) in the FAQ/Infocenter.

http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=451

Thanks tiggerypum

Just tried it, and this tutorial works like a charm! Thanx so much Boblishman! Now my winged sims don't get amputated every time they go swimming, W00T!

~ Syn

Thank-you so much!! The picks also answered my age question too. I'm off to try it.

Can this same method be used to make an accessory usable by other ages and genders? If not, how would you go about doing that? If I'm posting this in the wrong place, please point me in the right direction.

FennShysa, in order to make accessories usable by other ages and genders (for instance, to make an accessory that's currently available for adult females work for teen males), you have to create a whole new mesh file for the other ages and genders, change the mesh's positioning, etc., which would require you have preexisting knowledge in meshing, assigning vertices to the proper bones, etc.... If you've never done any meshing before, I suggest you start the basic body meshing tutorials available here, and then work your way up to doing accessories (which is generally more complex).

Not in and of itself, because you will need to make new meshes that fit the heads/bodies of the other ages/genders. Your best bet (in terms of tutorials) is to learn how to modify a body mesh using Unimesh as a start. Do the Unimesh one, as that also works for accessories. Once you've gotten those steps down, you'll still need to learn about bone assignments and how to find the parts of an accessory, but that will all build on what you learn in the body meshing - as you'll need to build a new mesh file just like for the body, and most of the other steps.

Using my very limited knowledge I took a pair of wings that was only usable for adult males and changed the gender value in the mesh overlay so that they appeared for adult females. They looked fine, seemed attached in the right place. The only problem was that the male version was no longer available. What I'm really needing is simply a way to make both versions available at the same time. I've looked at other wings and things that are available for both genders and tried to model what I've done after that, but I'm evidently missing something because I always get one or the other to show up, but not both.

Oops, never mind. I feel stupid now. Been working on it for the last few hours using a tutorial for converting clothes from one gender to the other I found elsewhere here on MTS2. It's easily done with bodyshop and simpe. Probably wouldn't work well for converting over to teens or children. But from male adult to female adult it seemed to work great.

For that particular accessory, which doesn't actually 'fit' onto the body, it was certainly worth a try. Might even work for teens, I have no idea how large the wings are. If they use an alpha and they attach at the right spot, you could do a teens only recolor and then adjust the size of the wings in the recolor. Might be worth a shot. Depends if they sit on the right spot on the back - as the assignment is probably a spine one, they might.

I'm planning on trying for teens and elders, just haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm pretty sure it won't have any problems for elders. Teens might look funny though. Thought about trying it out for children for a laugh.

Thanx boblishman
this is really helpful for my cow sims to wear it all the time

I have a question:

how can i make the accesoary wearable in combination with other accesoares?

Check out the article in the faq/infocenter area - the one about ACCESSORIES. The third article in that set has the instructions

Accessory Meshing Info + Advanced Tutorial
http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=451

Thank you it works!!

many greetings
Diablight

Why did it say "Unreadable Files Found" on my SimPE? I am using version 0.60. So, what now?

can you go over to the SimPE area on site: http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=133 and then be more explicit about this error, like exactly when you see it, what you do first, if SimPE seems to load correctly or not, etc.

Wonderfully-written tutorial...very easy to follow

This only works with BodyShop created Sims? Not ones created naturally in CAS?

AndarielHalo - this tutorial isn't about Sims at all. It's about modifying a user-made accessory -- something usually which would be done by the person who created the accessory to begin with.