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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 17th Jan 2021 at 5:49 PM Last edited by kathcberg91 : 17th Jan 2021 at 7:21 PM.
Default "Nondefaulting" a skin
Hello! Quick backstory: I love lillithsims' marigold skins, as well as dreadpirate's honeygold skins, and want to add them to my genetic setup. However, dreadpirate built their honeygold skins on top of lillith's marigold skins, so one overrides the other. I've tried to import the textures into a new file with bodyshop, but bodyshop compresses the textures so that they end up looking pixelated. I have done the "blurry bodyshop" fix, which works, but hasn't stopped the compression. For reference, here is the original texture vs. the compressed texture:

https://imgur.com/QtJBgY8
https://imgur.com/ecQbZxU

I've tried using SimPE to manually import the uncompressed textures, but none of the textures are labeled in SimPE, so it's really difficult to match up the correct texture to the correct texture file in SimPE. Is there any way that I can use the marigold and honeygold skins together (i.e. making them compatible with each other), and/or to fix Bodyshop's compression of the textures? Thank you!
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 17th Jan 2021 at 6:10 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 17th Jan 2021 at 6:42 PM.
If you compare the names of the TXTRs to the name strings found in the TXMTs ("stdMatBaseTextureName" string), you'll see which ones are used where.

The TXTRs are often reused in non-defaults, just so you're aware. If Bodyshop detects identical textures, they're combined to compress the size of the file, so if for instance the AF and TF face uses the exact same texture you'll see just one TXTR, and the TXMTs for those two will reference that same TXTR. Can be good to know when you're trying to puzzle it all together in SimPE. You'll only see the combined TXTRs in SimPE.

In Bodyshop (or in the Project folder) when making a new skin, you'll see all the texture files (they're supposed to be individually editable, after all)

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You should be able to make a recolor of a default replacement skin and make it standalone without doing anything more to it (unless it's been tinkered with to such a degree it causes Bodyshop to stumble). Then you can replace textures if needed. That skin should be custom. If you want to then import in the uncompressed textures, you can match them to those that already are there (maybe a bit easier).

In SimPE, make sure you use the proper settings - Personally I use DXT3 or 5 for most of my recoloring, and "none" as the sharpen setting. DXT3 is fine for anything without an alpha texture, DXT5 for anything with an alpha (transparent or visible+invisible parts) but works fine for non-alpha too (I haven't found a difference in these two save for the transparency). I tend to get good results with that. Don't use DXT1 or Import, those give you pixellated results.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 17th Jan 2021 at 7:33 PM
Thank you! I've been able to match the TXTRs to their TXMTs, can I safely rename the TXTRs so that they are more clear as to what the texture is? Can I just rename the texture in the plugin view and then commit that, or do I need to also change something in the TXMTs so that they still point to the correct files?
Mad Poster
#4 Old 17th Jan 2021 at 8:06 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 17th Jan 2021 at 8:36 PM.
I wouldn't recommend renaming the resources, because when renaming you have to be quite spesific with what you rename and how you do it, and if you miss something you can end up messing up the file. The resources are often referenced several places. Also, if you recolor the file, Bodyshop won't keep the names. I rarely rename resources unless it's necessary for the function of the file (esthetic renaming often causes more trouble than it's worth).

The reason the defualt files say "afface" and so on is because they're defaults, and extracted from the game. Custom skins get randomised names (with the group number as the first part of the name for all of them, and a randomized number as the second part).

By the way, if you want the skins to be standalone, make sure you make new recolors in Bodyshop (and use the SavedSims files, not the Package files in the Project folders). You can replace the textures in SimPE, but recoloring in Bodyshop makes the files standalone.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 9th Feb 2021 at 11:03 PM
Hello again! It seems to work, but it's extremely tedious, if it isn't too much trouble, is anyone aware of an easier method? My current method involves a spreadsheet and several hours of copying and pasting numbers and importing png files into simpe.
Mad Poster
#6 Old 10th Feb 2021 at 12:48 AM
I'm not sure why it's taking you so long, but that could be the whole spreadsheet thing. Usually when I do all of this, I don't bother with a spreadsheet. I look at the TXMT for the age/gender, find the TXTR it belongs to, extract the texture, and would probably in this case rename the extracted texture files to for instance "SkintoneName_AF_Face" (and Body + Head, plus BodyFit and BodyFat if those are used for teen and up, and with the right age/gender prefixes, of course)

There will probably be some duplicates this way, but you can paste the last 8 digits of the TXTR onto the end of the filename, so you can see which ones you don't need to keep (the ones with similar numbers are the duplicates).

Anyway, that's another method. Shouldn't take too long to extract the files (most of the text is copy/pasta friendly once you've done a few files), and since you have all the info you need in the filenames, they should be easy to load into the new file.
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