So, lets begin. Open bodyshop and first click on "Create Parts" and then on "Start New Project". "Load Saved Project" is used if you decided to continue a project you had started previously but not yet finished.
The next screen you will see is this:
This is where you decide what it is you want to make. The first button lets you create skin tones, eye colours and hair colours. The second button lets you create facial hair, make-up, face paints and recolour accessories and the third button lets you create clothing. As I'm showing you how to make clothing in this tutorial I will choose the bottom button.
At this stage you now have to select what age and gender you want to make the clothing item for. Bodyshop will always load an adult female first but you don't have to stay with that if you don't want.
Here you can see I have selected a hooded dress from the everyday catagory as the starting point for my new outfit. I now want to alter the design a little bit and then have it only appear in the workout catagory of clothing. I find the original MAXIS outfits kinda ugly. When you have chosen your starting outfit click on the "Export" button circled in red.
You will then be asked to name your project. This can be anything you like but CANNOT include spaces , . ? or / Give it a name that is easy to recognise. I decided to call mine 'BlackAthletic'. When you have entered a name click on the tick.
This is what you will be greeted with. Underneath the project title that you entered you can find the location where your project has been saved to.
DO NOT CLOSE BODYSHOP
Go and find the project folder and open it up. Inside you should find some files similar to these:
The Package file is what the game reads to load your clothing item;
The texture is the actual colour and pattern that you will see on your clothing item;
The Alpha file tells the game which bits of the texture to show and which bits to hide. Black gets hidden, white gets shown and any shades of grey in between become translucent. This is useful if you want see-through parts to your clothing;
The bump map file alters how the light hits your clothing. Any parts darker than the surrounding flat grey give the illusion of a dip in the clothing's surface and any lighter parts make it appear that it bumps out from the clothing. Don't worry if your clothing item doesn't have a bump map file as not all of the clothing items do.
If all you want to do is a simple recolour then just open the texture file and alter the colours however you want. When you have made the alterations hit the save button. Return to Bodyshop and press the refresh button (shown above) to see how it looks.
If you want to alter how the texture is shown then you will need to alter the alpha. You can easily do this in MS Paint as you are only working in shades of black and white and no real blending or smoothness is required. After making an alteration make sure to save the changes and then go back to the Bodyshop window and hit the refresh button so that you can see what has altered.
If you do alter the alpha then it is usually best to alter the bump map as well so that it matches, otherwise you may end up with areas of skin that have a material appearence to them or material parts that look flat.
Please be aware that older computers and graphics cards may not be able to show bump mapping even if the item has a bump map file.
The F keys on a keyboard come in very handy when working on a project in Bodyshop and can also be used when just creating a Sim.
F3 takes you into free-cam mode which allows you to get up close to the Sim to see how your textures match up at the seams. Holding the left mouse button allows you to rotate your Sim, the right mouse button allows you to zoom in and out and holding both the left and right mouse buttons together allows you to focus in on a particular area of your Sim. Press F3 again to exit free-cam mode.
The F6 key makes your Sim stand with their arms out to the sides allowing you to see the underside of the arms. To make them put their arms down you must press the refresh key.
F9 toggles the UI (user interface panel) on and off. Thats the bit with all the buttons.
(There are other F key funtions too but I can't remember what they are. sweatdrop If you find the EA readme file then all of the F keys are listed along with an EA Bodyshop tutorial)
Here you can see what alterations I have made to my clothing item. By adding a black band on the alpha I gave the dress the appearence of being a seperate top and bottom. I also altered the colour levels of the flip-flops to make them blue instead of black.
Now you have to choose what clothing catagories you want your new item to appear in. I want mine to be in the athletic wear catagory only so I click on the 'everyday' icon to deselect it and then click on the 'athletic' icon. Any icons in green are the catagories that the clothing will show up in. Please not that if you make a top or a bottom they can ONLY go in the 'everyday' catagory. If you have Seasons installed you will have an extra option of "outerwear" as you can see above to the right. This can be useful if you want to convert existing MAXIS outfits to the outerwear catagory.
If you want, you can add a tool tip where it says "Enter Tool Tip Here". Whatever you type in here will show up when you hover your mouse over the item in the catalogue. Unless I plan on uploading my creations to the internet I usually leave this part as it is. Deleting the text or leaving it as it is just means no tool tip gets generated.
When you are ready and you think you are finished then all you have to do is press the "Import" button.
You will get a green loading bar that usually fills very quickly (unless you are working on a skintone or hair) and then you will be notified that your project was imported. If anything goes wrong and you get an error message then you may unfortunately have to start again.
Your new clothing should now be in your game and it is safe to delete the project file. You can do this by either going to the projects folder and manually deleteing it or you can use the "Load Saved Project" option in bodyshop. When it asks which file to load, select the file you want to get rid of and press the delete symbol in the bottom right.
Well, that's it! I hope you found this tutorial helpful and not too complicated to follow either. Why not take some pictures of your Sims showing off your creations and post them in our picture thread?
exclaim You may notice that when using your own Bodyshop the lighting is extremely dark and makes it difficult to see what you are doing. To brighten up your Bodyshop like mine (or brighter if you like) you can download a file from the following link to do just that. http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=220884
If you use this download don't forget to show your thanks to the creator. Its just good manners. 3nodding exclaim
