I finally loaded Sims 3 on the new computer(it has over six months ). I am determined this time to NOT fill my game up with CC that I don't use and don't love. But I must have Custom skins.

However when I go looking for CC skins it is impossible to compare apples to apples as they are on sims they created with cc slider, make up and eye lashes. OH and great photography. I am just looking for skins that are good for everyday game play to give sims or even families some personality and distinctiveness.

So wondered if anyone was interested in playing Before and after skin makeovers with the SIMS that came with Sims 3... any hood, any character(s). (make up removed) Preferably in game pictures sims don't look the same CAS as in game.

Just a fun way of asking what are your favorite sim skins for everyday game play? What do you like about them... and can you show me how they actually look on puddings?

I love skins with freckles as they make freckles genetic. So off to get pictures of what use to be my favorite freckled skin.

The only thing I use are skins/additions to make my no mosaic Sims look more real and not like Barbies and Kens.....and cannot show that here. LOL

I was able to find kurasoberina's skins by doing a google search - second on the list was: http://kurasoberina.tumblr.com/post...y-elder-this-is

Hopefully this is of some use.

I don't actually use custom skins anymore, though when I did I liked Ladyfrontbum's Asian skins. http://www.ladyfrontbum.com/?p=2403

After all time I spent fussing and testing to find defaults for eyes and skins that I like for my Sims. I go to the university town where the townies don't use the defaults (I find this happens in the sub hoods, sometimes even the main hood. I don't know why) and think how nice the game skin and eyes actually are. But the problem is with the Sims I do play with, I'm too used to the cc skin and I find using the game skin and eyes changes the Sims too much.

I'm currently using this default:
https://monsternoirsims.tumblr.com/...ould-know-a-lot
Which you can find here (reg req)
https://moonskin93.wixsite.com/sata...hings/body-shop
https://moonskin93.wixsite.com/sata...and-custom-skin
https://moonskin93.wixsite.com/sata...fault-speculars

I also like this skin as a plainer choice:
http://simarex.tumblr.com/post/1639...x-hi-this-is-an

I don't use non-default skins because I tend to swap my defaults out too often and everyone must match.

daisylee - I am the opposite. I prefer the barbie and ken versions of skins and don't turn off mosaic. Though it annoys the square is so big it covers the toddlers completely.
Leo5 - lol... I use custom skins because I want variety

This is what I love soooo much about the sims, the ability to customize the game to our liking. It can be a different game for different people.

Interesting the comments on not using CC skins. I was noticing when playing with the before and afters I like the verity the skins give, but really it is the clown make up and things like the eye brows that annoy me more than the skin.

Gargoyle Cat - my least favorite thing about cc.... how it comes and goes as creators move on and site change location. I can't find my old favorite link either. Have to dig up the file and find the name.

Blueberry pie by Brntwaffles. I'm at work so can't share a pic but I just love how it looks on Sims
Can't really explain why, maybe it's the color and the smoothness.

http://brntwaffles.tumblr.com/post/...ecreate-liliths

Here are screenshots of one of my Maxis Match Sims and one of Dragon Valley NPC.

Left screenshot is Satellite Skin, right screenshot is Basic Skin of each Sim. Last two pics are of EA default skin.

Edited to add EA skin screenshots.

My favorite skin is Candy Crush by i like teh sims. My favorite thing about it is the lips on the sims. I just love the way the dryish looking lips look. I have it on Alouette and Oriole Bird, but I forgot to take before pictures, although I did find some online (Alouette got a makeover from someone). I kept Alouette's lipstick on, but otherwise she's devoid of makeup and Oriole is completely makeup-free.They also have default eyes.

Also, you mentioned liking genetic freckles, I think nraas Story Progression has an option for inheritable facial details like moles and freckles.
Alouette before
http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/...bbbf199437c.jpg
Oriole before
http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/...eenshot193z.jpg
Alouette after

Oriole after

chocoberrychoco thanks I completely forgot about there being a setting for freckles to make them genetic. I will look in MC
Love the after pictures. what settings are you using and are those EA eyebrows. I move my sim detail up to very high and was amazed at the difference it made I didn't hate all the EA stuff... eyes still have too big a pupil for me, but the eyebrows didn't look as painted on etc.
(default I think is low UGH and medium was still smeary on my freckled skin i have the file for but can't find the link).

I have had some I Like Sims and BurntWaffle skins in my game. I get overwhelmed with all the choices. I am trying to avoid hording for the sake of hording this time and just keep what I LOVE. I get afraid of what if I decide I like it later and can't find it. Nice to see some in game photos.

Sorry I have not posted mine. Can't figure out my new photo edit programs on my new computer.

Oh, I totally forgot that I had default brows! Sorry, that I forgot to take 'em out or at least say so in my post. If you're curious though, I believe these are the replacements, otherwise I believe all my settings are on the highest they can be though. Same on the hoarding, I purged a ton of skins in my game because it was just hard to find something if I was searching for a specific skin. I'm also super paranoid about content going missing from sites so I need to download them NOW, lol.

I'm glad i'm not the only one that's a hoarder.

Let me see how bad I am. ....................over 13000 CC items and that does not count some others in the game. :D

Emma Hatch from Sunset Valley. No make up or CC and not posed just paused and used MC to change the skin and take the same photo over and over. (took all cc expect skins out and cleared cashes)
This is why I spend more time playing with CC than playing the game. LOVE the communities creativity. Just a few skins to compare.

Candy Crush http://i-like-teh-sims.tumblr.com/p...similar-to-cake
this is by I LIKE SIMS. You have the option of so many tone sliders with this skin I got overwhelm and went with the EA tones in non default. Really like this one. Might be a good one for those that what all the same skin so their sims match but lots of tone choices. Question though is this really an HD skin?

Candied StarFruit http://kurasoberina.tumblr.com/post...fruit-re-upload lots of the old StarFruit Skins by Kurasoberina including FRECKLED
Kuraoberina has a new skin PRIMER that come in SD all the way up to utlra HD. I don't use the HD mod I might consider the SD but am not sure about the SD as it has 1k faces and 1 k bodies is that high or normal these days?

Freckled Berry http://brntwaffles.tumblr.com/post/...blend-blueberry
Nectar http://brntwaffles.tumblr.com/post/...coffee-and-this

I will add the links for the new three tomorrow. But I found the link for Freklz. Which was my favorite freckled skin

UPDATE: links to additional pictures
Freklz https://app.box.com/s/wshgl6dn4sapellh29tj : Scroll down freklz_nondefault.rar found in this old WCIF post with preview pic http://modthesims.info/t/591767
Natural LIGHT http://modthesims.info/d/493687 also the one skydome share ingame photo's of below. Though those might be the defaults. It is a mod the sims upload
Glam is a Navetsea skin that I thought I got at MTS. Second skin. http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=479460

The EA one looks best, in my disregard opinion, with "Candy Crush" a close second; but then, the Navy said I was color blind, so my opinion is so worthless even I disregard it.

I am amazed at how much I like EA's skin. So much so I don't think I will bother with a default replacement. I look three times to make sure I didn't have a default replacement in there hidden. And used CC magic to load JUST the skins I wanted to look at. I still like verity too much and will play with CC skins for sims I create. I make a game out of just searching for playing with Custom Content.

I think I would go with the BurntWaffles skins. They're stylistically different from the rest, and as such a Sim with that skin will not blend in with Sims without it, but the cartoon effect adds a layer of cuteness not normally seen in TS3. Actually, if you want to stay stylistically pure I think the Glam one is a much better choice.

You can change a decent amount with a skin texture, but finding a default skintone that works well on a wide variety of sims is pretty challenging - and, of course, depends a lot on what you personally prefer. TS3 anatomy is really stylized, so I agree that the cartoony/simple skins tend to work more seamlessly if you're sticking to the game's base style/play a lot of premades. Brntwaffles skins do fit nicely into that category. Candy Crush is a nice pick as well. Ephemera's skins are extremely popular, and there are quite a few defaults to choose from. The way the sims are lit in TS3, especially outdoors, can sometimes make every skin look pretty same-y, regardless of how much the textures themselves actually differ.

That being said, it is pretty fun to see *how* much you can change with texture edits alone. I've been trying to make new defaults that fit my preferred style for awhile, and the most challenging areas of the face remain the eyelids and nostrils. I think part of this is because the UV mapping around these areas is a little weird. (Anyone who's ever made their own eyebrow texture will know what I mean!) I've posted the results of these experiments on my blog, on my almost zeroed out female base (all sliders set to "0", except EA's jaw shape and chin size sliders), a few times. I also really enjoy skins with freckles. The last default-y WIP I posted had freckles:


In contrast to that, I think it's a little bit easier to vary up the body texture, which is why I think you'll probably notice more differences here when filtering through different CC skins.

Just wanted to say that you all have inspired me to go through and delete the skins that I don't use. Thanks!

Ok so these are screenshots I have taken, they're from the mods I uploaded. They're not really face closeups but this way you can check how they look in normal gameplay. Not just when you're staring at them. I'll try taking face pics when I play the game. This is the skin I used http://modthesims.info/d/493687 These Sims came with library by default. And kid is born through gene mixing in CAS.

Do you know what skin that sim is wearing?

As per my post, it's an unfinished skin I made. The eyelashes are an accessory mesh I made, and the contacts are also my own WIP. I have a lot of unfinished projects kicking around, because I've been trying to make some new defaults and non-defaults, but I'm terrible at completing projects.

The freckled skin earlier in the thread (Freckled Nectar) is by Brntwaffles - and it's primarily a blend of my older freckled skin (Freckled Fruit V1) and I think Ephemera's Fresh skin? Freckled Fruit Redux is still up in my archived skins folder: http://simfileshare.net/folder/13617/

Tractusopticus shared a pale skin with really subtle freckles and base sim a little while ago, if you're look for something more realistic. You could probably layer skin detail/make-up freckles on top of it for a similar look. I've noticed a ton of new skins popping up on CC find blogs, lately, so there are probably a lot more out there!

I've tested out a ton of skins trying to find one that I liked for the whole neighbourhood. When I tested them in game majority looked the same with maybe the mouth textures looking a bit different. I just thought that my graphic card being weaker & the skin was blurring/losing details because I can't do HD. & that is the skins, I still haven't found eyes on-line that even look half of what the previews show.

ameenah.n.y thank you for chiming in. Nice to have an expert. Your comments on how the lighting in the game effects skin texture is very helpful. I thought it was me.

I Love your skins. The one you are currently working on looks amazing. I have not yet tired PRIMER but it look amazing too. I was not sure which level to use if I do not use a HD mod, and did not know if the SD mod was pretty high or normal for CC skin textures at 1K face and 1K body. Or if you just really don't get that much texture different with SD? Perhaps you would be willing to advise.

For those interested in primer you can find it here. http://kurasoberina.tumblr.com/post...y-elder-this-is WOW!

Also added Freckled Starfruit picture as I left it out early. The skin is at a light settling as I didn't want to change the tone slider between photos to keep it all more constant. I consider it a keeper skin.

skydome I do have that skin in game and it is the skin I used for Snow White I uploaded here. And your picture are great as they show what you see as you play. Kinda what I originally had in mind. The nothing special game play shots.

I love CC skins and will use them for my characters, and probably switch by game which I am using. For me they give the characters a different feel and help me see them as individuals. For now I don't think I will "spend" game memory on default replacement skins for those sims just running around. EA skins are good enough for the townies for me at the moment. However the inner eye corner of the ea skin in CAS make it almost impossible for me to sculpt sims so I can't see me using it on sims I make.

Right now I am loving the Cartoony cuteness of nectar. Just fit this character. Next game it will probably be a different skin that feels right. I love how CC can make the game feel fresh for me.

Loving all the input, photos, and comments. Thank you.

UPDATED my earlier post with links to the addition three skins show in the photos I added.

Thank you so much for your kind words, lowrisim! I would not consider myself an expert, just an enthusiast, but a large part of the game for me IS definitely Create-a-Sim. So, I'm happy to ramble on the topic.

Primer is now almost three years old, so it's not something I actually use anymore (this is even more true for any skin of mine older than that) - skin creation is a huge hobby of mine, so what actually gets used in my personal game changes VERY rapidly. But, I can totally give you a better explanation of the various resolutions available! SD uses the same resolution for face and body as any skin out there. (1024 IS pretty standard. The EA default face/body textures are both 1024x1024. Things like accessories or some furniture items might have smaller textures, however.) If you don't use any kind of HQ modification in your game, it's unlikely that any HQ/HD skins will be useful, so I would stick with SD.

The ability to use a plethora of non-default skintones definitely adds to the variety of the game!

Editing this to add a tip for anyone trying to use a semi/hyper-realistic CC skin and getting lackluster results. If you've already confirmed that the skin you've downloaded is an appropriate resolution for your personal game, you might want to try out the "smooth normals" slider. (http://puchi-house.blogspot.com/201...malsslider.html) While the example on the download itself is not the greatest, this custom slider basically inverts the facial lighting. If used at a high value it's going to look pretty bizarre (your sim's head might resemble a lightbulb), but at moderate values it can be quite useful. For example, if you've attempted to sculpt an East Asian sim with an epicanthic eye fold, and you're struggling with a lot of unnecessary shadows/artifacts around the eye sockets - using this slider at a low value can diminish some of those shadows. Any hyper-realistic sim you see that's not using custom mesh replacements/isn't a photo manipulation most likely uses this slider.

I've read something like that before. I use one of your default skins PrimerHD with the SpecularHD and I don't use a HQ mod nor care to ever use one either. I'm wondering what is the difference between using a HD version of a skin with no HQ mod compared with using a HQ mod. I'm guessing you see more details with much higher clarity, right? I'm not too fussy about that but I did tweak some of my NVidia settings for the game in general a year more or less ago just to see if there would be a difference and then I had to adjust my eyes to it, especially after getting a new monitor. So basically, some of the NVidia settings like Anisotropic filtering is similar to an effect of a HQ mod?