How to make a sim's face using source pics

[HystericalParoxysm]

Whether simming a celebrity, a friend/family member, yourself, or someone you just dreamed up, getting a sim to look exactly like who they're supposed to resemble can be quite a challenge. It can take a lot of time and a lot of practice - but the basic concepts explained here apply to all sims, and should help you get started on becoming a talented sim-creator.

Requirements:

Body Shop - This comes with the game and can be found under the Start Menu entry for the most recent expansion you have installed. You already have this. :)
A graphics editing program - Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, just about any program except MS Paint can be used.
High resolution, good-quality, detailed photos of the person you're wanting to sim. You will need at LEAST one direct front picture and one profile, and a 3/4 view is also helpful. The subject cannot be smiling, open-mouthed, or making any other sort of expression, wearing glasses, with hair in their face, in heavy shadow, sun, coloured lighting, or otherwise obscured. Ideally, you want mug shots. The better your pictures, the better the result. Your result will only be as good as the pics you use, so make sure you've got GREAT ones! For celebrities, try Googling "(celeb name) pictures" or "(celeb name) gallery" for fansite galleries... Google Image Search is generally not as useful for finding high-quality pics.


For this tutorial, I will be demonstrating with Photoshop CS2. Any other program should work roughly the same.

I'll be simming Dr. Gaius Baltar (James Callis) from the AMAZING new Battlestar Galactica series (since I was planning on doing so anyway). For him, I found some fantastic pics at Dark Thoughts. Here are the pics I'm going to be using, and these are GREAT examples of good pics to use. Your pics should be similar - big, clear, un-tinted, un-shadowed, etc... Despite these being huge, they're actually not ideal due to the rather bluish, dusk-like lighting hitting him from the left. Because the right side is mostly even and not as brightly lit, they should still be okay though. I also have several profiles that you'll see in the screenshots later on. But these are my main pics. ;)

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/Gaius1-s.jpghttp://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/Gaius2-s.jpghttp://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/Gaius3-s.jpg

Skill Level:
Moderate/Hard (Depending on who you're making) - You must know all basic Windows functions, and know how to operate your graphics program. You must also already know how to operate Body Shop to make projects. I'll be telling you WHAT to do but not so much HOW to do it - it's expected by the time you do this tutorial, you should already be experienced in Body Shop and your graphics editing program enough that you can follow my instructions... I will explain how to use a graphics program to do a facial texture, but not how to use the graphics program itself. It also helps a LOT if you have some level of artistic skill... an eye for colour and tone. Owning a graphics tablet to hand paint and smooth certain areas can also be helpful, but not required.

Time:
Long Project - For good results, expect to spend multiple hours. Anywhere from 3 to several dozen, depending on who you're simming, how difficult they are to do, your existing skill level, and the effect you're going for. For my project, the facial texturing took over a dozen, and the whole sim (recolours of clothing and eyes, and a new hair mesh) took roughly 2 weeks.

Introduction:

All the time beginning simmers ask, "What is the secret to creating realistic sims that look like who they're supposed to be?" And to be quite honest, there is no secret! There are exactly two things that ALL sims have in common. When they're done right, they look like who they're supposed to be. These are:

1. Facial geometry. The sim's facial features should be the right shapes, sizes, and proportions. This is done in Body Shop by adjusting the sliders.
2. Facial texturing. The sim's skin, eyebrows, etc., should be accurate, and they can have any additional features added, like moles, freckles, scars, wrinkles, discoloration, eyelids, stubble, etc.

And that's ALL there is to it! This is not to say that working on these two elements can't be extremely time consuming and require a lot of effort (and skill) but those are the basic concepts used on every accurate sim.

Adjusting Geometry:

For this part, there's really only so much that one can show you how to do - for the most part it really is just a matter of playing with the sliders. But I'll try to give you some good tips to get you started.

Go ahead and start up Body Shop from its start menu shortcut. Make sure you're using the shortcut under the most recent expansion pack you have (or the base game if you have no EPs).

Once you get in, click Build Sims, Build or Clone Sims. And then click the big green plus sign (+) to Build a Sim.

1. It'll give you a random sim of a random gender. First, hit F3 to go into free camera mode. Click and drag to rotate around. Right-click and drag to zoom in and out. Right-click AND left-click and drag at the same time to move. Position the camera so the sim's head is centered in the side of the view.

Pull the window over to the side and position your source pics so you can see them and the whole set of controls in Body Shop at once.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/BS-1-s.jpg

2. Switch the sim to the correct gender, choose the best skin, hair, eyes, and eyebrows out of what you currently have, and put them in a bald hairstyle (yes, bald - you don't want any hair in the way while you're trying to see the facial features). Choose one of the default face templates that looks kinda close. I'm using SimCribbling's skin - partially because I like it a lot and use it for almost everything, and partially because it's got a really open recolour policy, so I can do this to it and nobody's gonna get mad - which is IMPORTANT if you're doing this for anything but personal use.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/BS-2-s.jpg

3. And now, well... Honestly, there isn't anything to getting a sim's geometry "correct" except playing with the different presets and the fine tuning sliders. Keep playing with the different sliders in different combinations, turning the sim into profile to check the accuracy of the front view and side view. I usually try to get the front view pretty close, and then turn to work on the side view, and then keep switching back and forth. You can use the rotate buttons on the bottom to make sure your sim stays in full light so you can see what you're doing. It may take a while depending on how unusual the person's face is.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/BS-3-s.jpg

A few tips that I've found helpful... (My apologies for my silly names of the sliders - they don't have tooltips in Body Shop) Feel free to post your own tips here, too!:

For an upturned nose that's flat on top for females (like Sarah Michelle Gellar's), first upturn the nose, then, max out the whole-nose-width. Readjust the nostrils back to a normal size, and then use the upper-nose-width slider to make the upper nose more narrow.
You cannot adjust face width (grr) but you can make a face appear a little wider by adjusting the upper-head-pinchyness toward the right, then using the whole-face-fatness slider, make the face wider. Counteract the pudgy effect of that slider if necessary by using the middle-face-fatness slider.
Get to the end of the slider and still need some more adjustment one way or the other? Click the premade parts button, and choose any premade face part (for something you haven't changed yet, or can easily redo). Go back to the fine adjustments and you'll find that slider has gone back to the middle. Repeat as necessary.


4. Compare Over Your Source Photos: When you've got something that's looking pretty close, position the sim the same as your straight on pic, and hit Print Screen (Prnt Scr) on your keyboard, usually above Insert. This will copy your current screen to your clipboard. Switch over to Photoshop and CTRL-N to make a new document. CTRL-V to paste into it, then copy just the face and paste into your document with your front view source image. Adjust the layer opacity to around 50% so you can see the photo beneath and then size the picture of your sim to fit over the photo - make sure you keep your aspect ratio the same when resizing (change length and width by the same amount). You may have to rotate it a little bit, too. You want the pupils of the eyes to line up, and the line of the mouth to line up.

Make the layer viewable/invisible and adjust its opacity, and flip back and forth to check what's different. You can do this with the profile, too, and then readjust your sim's face as necessary. Repeat again if you make more adjustments till the sim matches up as closely as possible.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/BS-4-s.jpg

5. When you're satisfied with your result and can't get it any closer, click the checkmark at the bottom to approve the sim.

Now, if you've ended up with a really easy person to sim, and lucked out on having a skintone that worked for them, congratulations! You may not need to do the next part of this tutorial. But in many cases, if you want a really spooky accurate result, you'll need to do some work with texturing.

Texturing:

1. Get Your Skintone to Work On: Still in Body Shop, click Create Parts, Start New Project, Create Genetics. Select the skintone you used on your sim and click Export Selected Textures (folder icon) to make a new project from it. Give the project a name (I'm calling mine "GaiusSkin") and click the checkmark. Wait for it to export all the textures (it'll take a sec, skintones are big).

2. Now you'll be viewing your project. Switch to the right age/gender if necessary, and then go ahead and start up your graphics editing program if you haven't already.

3. Open up your full-face graphic in your graphics editing program. You also will want to open the facial texture for the age group you're working on. Open your My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Projects/MyProjectName folder (where MyProjectName is what you named your project) and take a look inside. You'll see a whole bunch of .bmp files. They're named based on gender, age, and what part they're for. For Gaius, I'm going to open amface~face~stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp since I'm doing an adult male and I want the face. E for Elder, T for Teen, C for Child, B for baby, P for Toddler. Young adults use the same face as adults.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-1-s.jpg

4. I've gone ahead and upped the saturation a little on my source image, so the tone matches a bit more with the skin texture. The original was a bit washed out.

Because the left side of his face is highlighted a bit from that side, I'm mainly going to work with the right side. If you have a more even-toned photo that's the same on both sides, you can select the whole thing, but as long as the face is pretty symmetrical, working on just one side like I am works fine too.

Start by using the polygon select tool to select the forehead up to the edges of the eyebrows and around the hairline. Because he's got those little creases in his forehead, I'm selecting those, too.

Copy that selected bit from your source image and paste over to your face texture on a new layer. Resize it till it fits in the same area of forehead on the skin texture - if it overlaps the brows or is a little larger, that's okay, you just want it in about the same place.

Reduce the layer opacity to around 65% to get the texture from the source pic to overlay the face texture. The colour may not match exactly right now - that's okay, we'll fix that shortly. Using the eraser tool with a big, fuzzy brush on a low opacity, go around all the edges and erase the obvious lines. Be careful in any areas with interesting details (like between the eyebrows on Gaius here) - you want to make sure to retain those.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-2-s.jpg

5. Now select another piece. I've selected the bridge of the nose this time... And some more of the forehead wrinklies just to make sure they show up nicely, and a little around the nose. Note how I made sure NOT to select the shiny part on the left side of his nose where the light's hitting him. I want the lighting to be uniform. I'm also not doing the whole nose at once - I'll leave the nostrils and such for another piece, as they need to be positioned exactly or your sim's nose will look weird.

Again, paste onto a new layer in your face document, resize to fit the area, reduce the opacity to around 65%, and then use a big soft eraser brush to blend the edges. You may have to erase a little more from any areas that overlap - you still want to be able to see the existing skintone underneath a little.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-3-s.jpg

6. And now, select the end of the nose. Again, making sure not to get any of the highlight on the side. Copy, paste into the texture document, resize, lower opacity, and blend. Make sure you get the nostril holes and the edges of the nostrils lined up or your nose will look odd on the sim. On the bottom of the nose, I've made my opacity a little higher, just to make the nose look a little more like his.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-4-s.jpg

7. And really, you just continue with the rest of the face just like that, selecting small pieces of the face texture, copying them, reducing their opacity, resizing them and moving them into place, and then erasing the edges. For areas that need more detail, where the person you're creating has wrinkles, moles, freckles, or other interesting features, try a bit higher opacity. The smaller the pieces you use, the easier it will be to fit them correctly into place, so don't try to rush - take your time and use nice, small pieces.

Something you need to keep in mind as you do this: The proportions of the person's face you're trying to sim do not matter whatsoever at this point. The texture will be stretching to fit the face, so all of your features must be in exactly the right place. If your person has a wide nose, don't make the nose of your texture any wider than it is on the existing texture. Everything should line up, especially in the nose and eye area. The crease of the eyelid is very tricky, so use VERY small parts, doing the eyelid and above the eye separately. Also, the area across the cheek and from the outer corner of the eye toward the ear stretches horizontally - so any detailing you add in that area will stretch also. Try to minimize the details you put in that area unless they're essential for the person to be accurate - if you must, shrink the width of any texturing you put in this area by about 50% to compensate for the stretching.

Don't worry about any details that only appear on one side of the face, like particular scars or moles - smooth those areas out using the Healing Brush or Clone Stamp to get a nice smooth background. We'll add those details in last.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-5-s.jpg

8. You may run into certain areas where you don't have enough of the source image to fit the area you need to cover. One area this is likely to happen, especially on men, is the area above the eyelid, under the eyebrow.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-6-s.jpg

9. For that, you can use the Clone Stamp tool with Aligned unchecked (so it samples from the same spot with each new click). Fill in the area around it with the same texture by using the Clone Stamp tool with a big fuzzy brush.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-7-s.jpg

10. If you don't have the perfect custom eyebrows for your sim, then you can go ahead and add their brows to the texture, too. You don't want them too thick - remember, there's a brow thickness slider in the game, and you don't want them to stretch into the wrong place.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-8-s.jpg

11. With the addition of the brows, Gaius's face is looking just about where I want him, I think. Go ahead and save your file. I'm saving mine as GaiusFace-LayerSeparated.psd. That ensures that we still have all the bits pulled apart in case we want to change something on one of them. Then, once it's saved, combine all the texturing layers together into one - do NOT include your background layer, just the texturing you've added from the photo.

My new texturing still doesn't blend quite right with the background... So I've gone around the sharp edges a little bit more with a light eraser brush, and to get the colour to blend, I'll apply a Photo Filter to warm it up quite a bit.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-9-s.jpg

12. Now duplicate that layer, flip it horizontally, and line it up on the other side of the face.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-10-s.jpg

13. If the person has any additional features that are only on one side of the face (like moles or scars) you can add those in now on a new layer. Copy from your source image the same way as before. Make sure you match the colour on those layers, too, by using the Photo Filter at the same settings level as before. For small, dark moles, it may be easier to just draw those yourself, laying down a dot of very dark brown using a small, fuzzy brush on a high opacity setting (around 80%).

14. When you're ready, first save your new document as a .psd - do not save over your layer separated version. Save As and give it a new name. I'm going to call mine GaiusFace-CombinedLayers.psd.

Then, save your image over the original .bmp file you opened in the YourProjectName folder. Photoshop will try to save as a copy - make sure you take out the " copy" part of the filename to save over the original. It'll confirm that you want to overwrite it.

Then switch over to Body Shop and reload the textures (the little circle arrow next to the box to enter text) to view your edited texture. Now, you're viewing on the default Body Shop mannequin rather than the face of the person you're trying to sim, so it's not going to look perfectly like them, but you can check here to make sure all the features are placed correctly - check especially the edges of the lips, the nostrils, edges of the nose, eyelids, and eyebrows. If anything is not placed correctly, go back to your layer separated version (step 11) and fix it.

My texture's looking good, so I'm going to go ahead and Import to Game to have the game package my textures up into a working skintone. Make sure you enter some text for the tooltip.

15. Still in Body Shop, go to Build Sims, Build or Clone Sims. Select the sim you'd made previously and clone them. Go into the skintones and select the first one in the list, which should be the one you just created. Then take a close look at your sim. They should look a lot more like themselves now. You may need to make some changes to their face now that you have a texture on them - or you may need to go back and continue to work on your texture... As I've had to do with my Gaius...

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-11-s.jpg

In my case, I think the result looks too photoskinned - there are highlights in the wrong places, and some of the details, like the lines down from his nose haven't translated correctly. Overall, the colouring is too different, so he looks a bit blotchy, and the end of the nose is dark, so it doesn't look the right shape. I've also had to change a lot of facial geometry.

I'm going back to my layer separated document and going to work on the texture some more. I'm not showing a step-by-step of everything I did, as it was a lot of really small things and tweaks here and there, and what I did is not going to be exactly what you will need to do, as these tweaks are going to vary widely depending on your source pics, how you put them on the texture, and the look you're going for. With Gaius's face, I've smoothed out a lot of the texturing, shrunk the eyebrows, evened out the skintone, tweaked the bags under his eyes, adjusted the texture on the nose and lips here and there, and added lines around his mouth. I've also done sideburns painted onto the skin.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-12-s.jpg

Most of my edits were done with a fuzzy, low opacity brush, with the colour sampled from the surrounding texture. In some areas, I used Clone Stamp. In almost all cases, I used my graphics tablet to paint my changes - it can be done with a mouse on a lower opacity and with several steps, but it's a lot more fun to do with a tablet. I also recoloured some eyes I'd made for him, recoloured clothing, added hair to his skin, and made him a whole new hair mesh. All in all, making Gaius probably took me a good 2 weeks from start to finish, working on him at least an hour (and generally several) every day.

Not everyone will be able to do everything here - or get as good a result. I've been a graphic artist for years now, I'm a perfectionist, and getting a sim of Gaius that satisfied me took me two weeks... but anyone can get a decent result with lots of time, effort, and persistence. I don't want to sound discouraging, but I do want everyone to realize, especially if you've chosen someone with a very interesting face (like Gaius), it's going to take a LOT of work and it's NOT going to be easy. But I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't enjoy it, too. ;)

If you're interested, all kinds of photos of my finished Gaius (from many angles) can be found on his upload thread.

~*~

The Pre-FAQ :P

What if I don't want to put the face texture directly on the skintone?
Skintone files are BIG files, and making a whole new one for each new sim when all you want is facial texturing is a bit wasteful of resources. If you're doing body texturing, like tattoos, body hair, etc., you'll have to do it as a skintone, but if you're just doing some additions to the face, you can use this handy-dandy trick to make an instant alpha in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs will do this - try the help file) to do it on a full-face makeup or whatever other facial overlay... When you've got everything together, layer separated, laying on top of your base texture properly, save your texture as the main texture in the facial overlay. Then duplicate ALL your texturing layers (everything but the background), merge those layers, and lock the transparency. Fill that layer white. Make a new layer, and put it right behind your newly-white texture layer. Fill that new layer black. Now save what you have as the alpha - your white should be over the black in exactly the right proportion for an alpha of your texture. Neat, huh?

But full-face makeups are over all the others, and you can only wear one...
Facial overlays are pretty complicated, but there is an order to the way they layer so you can make a sim more versatile with other makeups, AND you can make them multi-wearable, too, just like accessories. It's fairly technical, but if you're concerned with such things, there's info on that here.

Where can I find the right content for my sim?
Try MTS2's download section first - there's SO MUCH stuff in there, it's nuts. I find new stuff every time I look. Remember, the site has TWO search functions, and you may have to try several different search terms, and just browse around some, too. You can also try the Where Can I Find area at S2C (MTS2's social forums - requires separate registration) and see if someone can find something you need to get your sim just right from the rest of the community. Looking for something in a particular theme? Try this site. MTS2 has a requests area if you have specific pics of what you would like to see made... make sure you read the rest of the guidelines too. But... a lot of the time, it comes down to having to make it yourself, or compromise and use something that's not quite right. If you're really picky and doing something unusual, you're probably going to have to learn to make stuff yourself. ;)

But this is hard, and I didn't get it!
Yeah, well, I did say you needed to be experienced with the programs and functions involved BEFORE trying it, didn't I? :giggler:

Where do I get Photoshop? Can I use something else? Can I use (insert program name here)? Where can I get a free program to do this?
If you don't know the answer to that already, or how to find the answer yourself, you're not ready to do this tutorial. Run along, this isn't for you.

~*~

Questions about this tutorial and its techniques? Related tips and tricks? Please post here rather than PMing me. Thanks.

Keywords: how make a sim of a person celebrity simming tutorial source pics reference photos pictures

[dymoneyes]

That is a great tutorial. If people put up pictures like yours, they would get much better sims and we would enjoy creating the sim much more.

HystericalParoxysm Nice job on the sim!!

[Rsim]

This is indeed a great tutorial. Dymoneyes, is this who you get your ideas from?

[JennG18]

Hello!
Thanks for this tutorial! I need a little help though, I followed it very easily but I have a problem, I am very handy with Photoshop but when it comes to Body Shop I am a newbie! So I am guessing my problem is a Body Shop one... anyway I have done everything it says but when I save it (made sure it wasn't as a copy) anyway nothing is different when I reload the face in Body Shop, The face isn't changing no matter what I seem to do...

Any help would be much appreciated!!

Thank
Jenn xx
:)

[Faylen]

That's addressed in the recolor tutorials - you need to save as a .bmp file. Photoshop will automatically save as a .psd file, which won't change a thing in Body Shop.

[JennG18]

I do save as a bmp not psd as that’s a Photoshop file, as I said I know Photoshop well... the strange thing is when I recolour clothes and save. reload them it works... just not the faces... oh well lol :|

[harvey47]

What a great tutorial! Thank you so much for posting this, I've just about finished up my first face.

I did one thing a little differently... when I saved it as a full-face makeup, I made the alpha by coloring the whole box white. You wear the full face (as well as the eyes). So easy!

I wish I had tried saving it as a makeup earlier, so I didn't have to wait for those skins to load every time I wanted to check something. ;)

[harvey47]

When I save the face as full-face makeup, the eyebrows remain uncovered. Is there some way around this? (like to select that the skin has no brows?)

[HystericalParoxysm]

Ah, I think I understand what you're trying to do - if you're saving it as a full-face makeup with brows built into your facial texturing, then you'll just want to have the full-face makeup... When you build the sim, they'll automatically come with brows, but you can go onto the brow chooser screen and click the first icon to remove the brows.

[takeemma]

Oh, GOD！！ so how can you learn. That is a great tutorial，Thank you

[lilartistgrrl]

this was SO helpful for me, thankyou!

[HeidiStungun]

This is a wonderful tutorial. Just what I was searching for. Thanks :]

[TouchMySoul]

Thanks! What I've been looking for.

[Jessy500]

This is a very good tutorial. Ive managed to make a very realistic self-sim. Thanx!

[gfo69]

I think its hard also because certain facial features like around the nose and the temple areas its hard to really get it perfect for some peoples features. And this is a great tutorial by the way very easy to follow. But I tried to make a sim of my youngest son who is 6 and going to try for my oldest who is 11 because they want me to because they love the game. The only problem is my 6 year olds face is to round lol to get it right. And in the body shop I can't get his face round enough lol. Thanks for the tut it was a good one. :-Þ :up:

[bsett]

Thanks for the tut and great tips. I had always been trying to use to big of pieces when photoskining textures but will try again using small pieces. I just wish there was a way to overlay your reference image right on top of bodyshop face while shaping.

[HystericalParoxysm]

bsett, it IS possible to get your sim's geometry so that you can view your texture on it as you work... However, you can't do it using just Body Shop.

Here's how it's done, if you're interested. You'll need SimPE, Milkshape, and the Unimesh plugins ($25 for Milkshape) and perhaps a little bit of meshing knowledge. If you've never done body meshes before this might be kind of confusing, but I'll write it out anyway for your or anyone else's benefit who might want to do this. This is actually how I do my sims (see?):

1. Finish the sim in Body Shop how you want them. You can always go back and clone them to make changes later, but once you have roughly the geometry you need, save the sim.
2. Close Body Shop.
3. Open your My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/SavedSims folder. Sort the files within by Date Created. Find the newest file - it'll have a long alphanumeric string for a filename. Open that .package file in SimPE.
4. Select the Geometric Data Container (GMDC) resources in the file. It'll show you that there are two - age 3 and age3 LOD 15. Right-click on the one that just says age3 and extract it.
5. Open Milkshape and use the Unimesh plugins to import the GMDC you just extracted. Make sure you have Autosmooth unchecked or it'll make the lips look really weird when you import.
6. Create a new material and set it up with your facial texturing image.
7. Select the face group and apply the new material to it. Right-click on the 3D viewport and make sure it's set to "Textured" rather than wireframe, flat shaded, or smooth shaded.
8. Now you can look at your texturing on your actual sim's face. If you want to update the texturing, just save a new version of your texturing and re-select the texture image for your material. If you find Milkshape disappears entirely when you mouse-over the image to select it, type the filename rather than choosing it with the mouse (weird bug I get a lot).

I realize this may be a bit confusing if you're not a mesher, but if you're willing to pay the $25 for Milkshape, it helps a lot... and the $25 is worth it if you ever want to make Body Shop meshes... Also, you can use this same technique to preview skintones. The example bodies can be downloaded in the Body Shop Meshing Infocenter, and skintone textures are applied the same way as I describe above. MUCH better lighting than Body Shop, and it doesn't take a good 60 seconds each time you make a change to refresh the textures.

[bsett]

I have all these tools along with maya 7 and this is kind of how I do my clothing.In maya I can use the psd network feature that alows me to change my texture in photoshop and view the results on the mesh. What I was hoping was a way to use the reference images as an overlay while moving the bodyshop sliders. Sorta some way of making transparent windows so you could move the reference imgage window on top of bodyshop.

[rosebearer]

HystericalParoxysm, that is some tutorial. Oo WOW.

Although now I'm figuring it was a mistake peeking at your tutorial because it's tempting me to do it for my own Sims and y'know, I've not played (as in really played the game) for about a couple of months now because I've been busy fiddling with custom eye and hair colours...

Oops, my obsessiveness is showing.

[Katzentanja]

HystericalParoxysm, thank you so much for the tutorial.

I have a question. After completing steps 1-5 in Body Shop (I clicked the checkmark to approve the sim), I wanted to go on with the texturing. You wrote:

"Select the skintone you used on your sim and click export ...."

But when I export the selected texture, I only export the original skintone I used on my sim, but not the changes I made on the face during steps 1-5 to adjust mouth, eyes etc.

So what can I do to get the skin with my changes on it to do the texturing? Otherwise I would have a different mouth, eyes, etc (the eyes and mouth of the original skin) I hope you understand, what I'm trying to say.

Thank you very much in advance,
Greetings from Germany, Tanja

[HystericalParoxysm]

Katzentanja:

When you start the sim in Body Shop, you're changing the 3d shape of the face. The skintone, eyes, or any other content you choose at that point doesn't really matter all that much, besides being fairly close so it's not too distracting as you're trying to sculpt the face shape (you wouldn't want to use a very light skintone if you were making a sim of a person with very dark skin, for example).

With the second part of the tutorial, the texturing... none of your changes to the actual shape of the face from the first part matter... Think of the texture you're using as a piece of fabric, and it's going to be stretched tight over whatever 3d shape the face is. Whether the person you're simming has a big nose or a small one, the texture you do in the second part will be the same dimensions for the nose, just with different texturing, highlighting, shadow, and colour in those areas - but the nostrils will still be in the same place, etc... So you're exporting the skintone you used in the first part as a guide to placing the features from your pictures, as well as proper colour and shading... note how I used a combination of Luminosity blend types, erasing, and Photo Filter to blend the texture and colour of my texturing for my project with the skintone I was using.

Once you get your texture set up correctly from your photo, with the same proportions as the original skintone, then you can use that texture to make a full-face makeup (or whatever other type of face texture you want to put it as - makeup or skintone, as I explain in the Pre-FAQ at the end. Then you can go back and make a copy of the sim you made in the first part, and put that new texture on their face. You'll still have the same 3d shape of the facial features, just with your lovely new texture stretched over them, and, depending on how you did the texture for the face, add other makeup, put on the right hair and outfit, etc...

Usually I end up with about 10 copies of any one sim in my list of premade sims, just in the process of perfecting them, and eventually I remember to go back in and delete all but the newest one.

I do hope this has been helpful and answered what you were confused about. ;)

[Katzentanja]

Thank you for your help and the wonderful explanation.

Now I understood and finally, I have a brandnew skin.

Greetings, Tanja

[gwionrhysdavies]

you are a STAR

[wolfgal]

I was reading how to make a sim's face. Its seem confusing me. I am not sure if I used GIMP or what? I don't want to buy the Photoshop. Where can I buy CD or download for me to make sim's face.

[HystericalParoxysm]

You could try using GIMP for this, but personally, I find Gimp is more useful as a photo editor - cropping, removing red eye, small colour changes, etc... It's a great little program for the price but investing even in a used copy of Photoshop is worth the money - you can find a copy of Photoshop 7 on eBay for around $40 most of the time, and the differences between it and CS2 are... relatively minimal. CS2 does have some features I love, like the Warp transform type, so you can stretch and pull a piece of texture into whatever area you need to cover, but the price difference may not be enough to justify the purchase of the newer version.

[wolfgal]

Oh Ok no problem I just want try it myself as because I am waiting for someone to make the sims of my boyfriend and myself. I will do it. Thank you!

Marie

[wolfgal]

Hysterical Paroxym,

I found about Photo Shop and I can't afford to buy it. I noticed about Paint Photo Pro. I don't know which one I can buy it? Thanks

YOU ARE STAR! AND GOOD ARTIST.

Marie

[wolfgal]

I can't afford to buy Photo Shop. I just am wondering is there any cheaper for me to buy it. I am wondering all about Paint Shop Pro X which that good?

Marie

[tiggerypum]

wolfgal

Please do not double post. There's an edit button.

You could get yourself a used/older version of photoshop fairly cheaply, or paint shop pro, or the gimp (which is free). You will have to learn how to use the program, which you can do with any tutorials on the web - especially about how to work with layers, adjusting colors and anything else you see mentioned in the tutorials. Once you know how to make your particular program with layers do what you want/need - then you can pretty much follow along with the procedures with almost any of them, and it will be very similar.

[kabukivii]

nice tutorial =D this should help me a LOT :) thanks thanks thanks, one thing on the nose though, the nose in the picture and the texture look really alike(picture on number 10) but when you put it on the 3d shape, the mesh will ofcourse, stretch, and the nose gets wider, i suggest making the mesh part of the nose a bit less wider so that when it gets stretched it'll be more alike(picture on number 15), bah! what do i know anyway, hehe =D question btw, which is better, doin it as a make-up or as a skin itself? coz i think the eyebrows'll get covered if i use make-up

[HystericalParoxysm]

kabukivii, sorry for the slow reply... didn't see your post till now.

If you check out the Gaius on the actual upload you'll see the nose is done a little different than that pic. ;)

If you do it as makeup it won't cover the eyebrows - they're on a high level above normal makeup, but you can always change the layering of your makeup if you look at the link in the pre-FAQ. I would recommend doing it as a skintone if you have other things you're doing - like adding tattoos, body hair, birthmarks, or something like that, since that's pretty much your only option for that. If you're just doing facial texturing, do it as a mask, as multi-wearable makeup (as described in that link in the pre-faq part). It makes for smaller files. That is, unless you want to make the facial texturing work for all ages and both genders, so your sim will breed properly with that face... which may or may not look right on the other ages and genders.

This stuff is too complicated. ;)

[Brad2006]

Hmm,I can't seem to find any other tutorials about face skinning except yours,I would like to learn face skinning without source pics...(partly because searching for decent pics was hell) :blink:

[tiggerypum]

Uhm Brad, simply use your graphics program to make the changes to a base face (you know, the face hp extracted from the sim that the new pieces were then pasted over and blended with)

[animebooklover]

Thank you so much for this tutorial, it's very helpful. To be honest I've never used body shop but I'm very good in both psp and ps, so hopefully I'll be able to create a custom sim. I've been wanting a realistic looking James Marsters ::points to avatar:: so I'm definitely going to try and make him using your tutorial :D

[faerietalex3]

How come when i export a skin, The whole body except the face gets exported?

This is a great tutorial btw =D

[HystericalParoxysm]

faerietalex3, I'm not really sure - you should be getting the bodies and faces and everything exported - there aren't quite a few .bmp files that say "face" in your project folder on export? Maybe try a different skin, see if it's just a glitch?

[Conanthegreat]

Firstly Congratulations on a clear concise and easy to follow tutorial, I made quite a few custom heads for the Sims 1 for use in my own game and fixed almost as many less than perfect downloads but have yet to try any for the Sims 2 until now. I tried when I first got the Sims 2 making a look-alike sim using the slider controls but didn't have the patience to make the fidly adjustments needed and the results were less than impressive. I had an idea that a similar method to the one I employed for the Sims 1 would work for a custom skin but I have to confess that I never thought of transfering only parts of the face at a time instead the whole thing at once.
With regard to faerietalex3's post above there is a glitch in bodyshop that seems to popup when you export a already customised skin that leaves out the faces or subtitutes a lighter hue version for the correct one ie a pale face in place of a light,light instead of tan etc.My short solution to that was to export and keep a masterfile of the maxis skintones and copy the bmp files of the affected skin into a copy of the right colour skin,being careful not to transfer the problem face.Just replacing the face in the problem project folder never worked as the package file in that folder never recognised the added or substituted face file.
:up:

[ThunderSim]

that one is a really greate tutorial on faces congratulations.

do you know if there is an easy to follow tutorial non the rest of thr bodypart or are you able to make one???

please reply.

[HystericalParoxysm]

ThunderSim, if you're asking about creating skintones, there is a tutorial on that in the Tutorials area here in Body Shop Skinning that explains how it differs from other Body Shop projects and what files you'll be looking at. Creating skintones from pictures is done the exact same way as this, just on a larger scale - cut out little bits, then blend like mad. Hand paint where needed till done. ;)

If you're asking about doing textures for clothing, again, we have tutorials on that too - read Faylen's if you use Photoshop, or Vashti's if you're using GIMP.

If you're asking about creating different shapes for body parts (like you want to sculpt them the same way the face is done) that's not really that easy - and is done with a new mesh (3d model). There is info on creating those in the Body Shop Meshing forum, but it's certainly not for beginners.

[ThunderSim]

thx for the answer, well I am doing faces for a while and I really get better doing it with the photoskinning method but I do have no idea for the rest of the body and I wanted to offer them for downloads but I think that nobody want a sim with a real looking face and a normal sim body :-)

[jesicah03]

I think your tutorial is great, I just had a few problems and I'm assuming it's all in body shop, but I could be wrong. When I save, and yes I'm saving it as .bmp and not as a copy either, my sim in body shop shows up with a black face. I don't know what on earth I could be doing wrong, but any input would be greatly appreciated!

[Sam1988]

I think his nose is to big but nice job Babe.......:up:

[jj1973]

Hi

How do you recolor the eyes??

JJ

[jj1973]

Its a nice tutorial, BUT, you say to save the sim as the result, then you say to texture a sim with skin and all of that. If someone who has already done that in the first step of the tutorial will not be able to find their face structure they made before of the sim mold. You should have been more clear on that. Because I spent a lot of time molding my Sim face, so I can texture it, and then I was not able to find the face I just created because it was saved as a built and cloned Sim. I had the face setup, the skin tone, structure, etc. And now I do not know where to find that sim face so I can add the texture to it. And to make a new texture, it does not keep everythin in tact and you cant model the face as I had it before.

It would be great if I could just apply the texture to the face that I made and saved already.


JJ

[HystericalParoxysm]

Err, JJ, you do the sculpting first so you have something to put your texturing on when you're done, to check its accuracy. Then when you're done with the texturing, you go and look at your cloned sim. I state that in step 15:

My texture's looking good, so I'm going to go ahead and Import to Game to have the game package my textures up into a working skintone. Make sure you enter some text for the tooltip.

15. Still in Body Shop, go to Build Sims, Build or Clone Sims. Select the sim you'd made previously and clone them. Go into the skintones and select the first one in the list, which should be the one you just created.

You do the eyes separately, as an eye recolour. Which is something one should likely have done before they get here, as eyes are much easier than this technique.

Please do not double-post. Edit your post if you have something to add or change.

[meurt_petite_etoile]

amazing tutorial! thank you so much!
im trying to make a sims right now but when it appears in bodyshop & in my game the skin is blurry :S :S i dont know what to do :(..

[tiggerypum]

If you export an adult outfit to edit in bodyshop, is it 1024x1024?? - that's a full sized body. If it's not, check the FAQ for 'clothing blurry', and that will probably solve your problems with this also. Once you get it working right, you'll need to start a NEW project in order to get all the graphics the correct size.

[alexa_volkova]

I have a big trouble!!! when I finished the bpm file and replaced the original, I looked the body shop and I saw that my celebrity skin wasn't there :-( and it was the original... I closed the bodyshop and opened it again and it was the original skintone...what I did wrong?

[tiggerypum]

alexa_volkova, have you recolored clothing before? Before taking on this sort of project, if you haven't, you should work through the clothing tutorial set that matches your graphics program, they go into more detail and have pictures of all the steps.

[alexa_volkova]

actually I was doing a celebrity face.. I wasn't doing clothings.. I still dunno what happens :-(

[AnubisMaxwell]

I have a big trouble!!! when I finished the bmp file and replaced the original, I looked the body shop and I saw that my celebrity skin wasn't there :-( and it was the original... I closed the bodyshop and opened it again and it was the original skintone...what I did wrong?

I have the same problem.

BTW, thanks for the tutorial! Was very well explained :).

[Sims&Slayer666]

WOW HP I had no idea bout the free camera mode! extremely helpful I got sick of squinting :D

[V1ND1CARE]

I just wanted to thank you for the terrific tutorial. It's provided me with a few things that I hadn't thought of.

[sims2roxs4793]

Wow I Totally Love This Site. I've Seen Like 5 Tutorials And I'm Still Impressed! I Am So Happy I Finally Found This Site! I'm Going To Look At The Downloadables Now. P.S. Great Job On The Sim. I Like It A Lot! :up:

[Geranium]

Great tutorial! Thanks for taking the time to share.

[DismemberedDoll]

wow!
this helped alot!!
I'm not exactly using it for the purpose you gave but It gave me an idea for me to touch up a skin tone i made =-]

[Melzawelza]

Hi there!!

first off, AMAZING tutorial. i had never done any sort of modding at all and this tut helped me so so much!!!!

Just a quick question that is probably obvious and something i have missed, but i am having the 'eyebrow' problem others before me mentioned, where the sim eyebrows are still visible over my custom eyebrows. I gather this means i have saved it as a makeup rather than a skintone, but i cant work out where to make it a skin tone rather than a makeup. the 'sim' eyebrows are ruining the face completely and its driving me insane!! haha

Any help would be really appreciated, thanks in advance!

[CB15]

This is a great tutorial! It's my second try for the day (for some reason I didn't quite grasph simpe and all that for sims clothing.)

But I am having the same problem as a few members that posted. I spent like ten hours figuring out everything and then I went to save it over the existing bmp file and when I go into body shop, a black face pops up... ? I don't get what went wrong. :help:

[ModernChemistry]

This is so wonderful! Thank you so much. But I was wondering about the Milkshape 3D part. Can you make all the changes in Milkshape and not even bother using the Body Shop sliders? I was trying to do that but it wasn't working for me. The changes weren't showing up.

[HystericalParoxysm]

Melzawelza: In order to do it as a skintone, you make a new skintone project in Create New Project and then use your texture as the face .bmp - Tiggerypum has a great tutorial that explains what the different textures are for skintones here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=203339

CB15: I'm not sure why that would be happening. Can you please post your texture and alpha for your project (click Go Advanced, then Manage Attachments and upload them to this thread) so I can take a look at what you have?

EternalxLove26: Milkshape is mainly for previewing the texture on the face of your choosing. You CAN edit faces in 3D but it's not really easy or practical for most applications. I have a little set of instructions on doing that here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=207836

[ModernChemistry]

Thanks for the info. I thought I'd give it a shot for part of the editing.

[Saiyuri-Chan]

The skin is incredible. This tutorial is incredible!

[Melzawelza]

Melzawelza: In order to do it as a skintone, you make a new skintone project in Create New Project and then use your texture as the face .bmp - Tiggerypum has a great tutorial that explains what the different textures are for skintones here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=203339


Thanks for the reply!!

only problem is thats what i did the first time! i did it through genetics -> create new skintone. I just re did it and still get the same problem.

When i view it on the default model in the skintone section of bodyshop it's fine- no annoying sim eyebrows, but as soon as i go to 'add/clone a sim' and put it on my sim with the bone structure i wanted the eyebrows are there. the skintone works, and i can see my custom eyebrows underneath, but the annoying sim eyebrows are still on top!

Its driving me nuts! haha.

[HystericalParoxysm]

Ohhhh. I get it now. Just click the little "no eyebrows" icon that will be the first thing under the eyebrows selection in Body Shop/the game. That'll give your sim no "real" eyebrows, leaving your eyebrows textured onto the skin.

[fiepijah]

great toturial:) the only problem is that I use another editing program where I can't choose the opacity of the eraser:( so I get these marked lines! is there any other tool I can use to wash away those lines?

[meganwinchester]

This is an EXCELLANT tutorial and I've spent a good few hours trying it. I wonder: Do you think this is easier or just attempting to figure out how to paste the celebrity face straight onto that bmp file (what can I say, my celeb is HOT).

Do you think he might be too difficult to try out and if not, do you have any suggestions on how I should go about doing him?

(Image attached)

[HystericalParoxysm]

Mmmm. Jensen Ackles. Dean is such a badass hottie. XD

You would need bigger pics and you wouldn't be able to just copy-paste either way - both of those pics, the shading and lighting is not the same on both sides (so you would need to do the same as I did for mine, only taking texture from one half), and you would still need to shape each part to fit the mapping of the face texture. If you could find bigger ones of those they would work though - the one with the buttoned shirt better than the other, as it has more texturing to work with.

[meganwinchester]

A fan!

They're actually those two huge hi-resolution pictures but I had to shrink them for attaching.

So I just want to take the half of the face without the lighting and map it on like with Gaius then?

Had one helluva time trying to make the head in Body Shop *grimace*

[HystericalParoxysm]

Hehe, yeah. I don't get to watch it as much as I'd like as it's on at like... the most ridiculous time here, when I am normally asleep, but if I happen to stay up way past my bedtime, I'll watch it. :)

Yeah, if you have those in high-res they'll work just fine. On the buttoned-up shirt pic you'd want to use the left side of the pic, without the shadowing and highlighting. You could probably do all your texturing with that one - I would work exclusively with that one, and then maybe use bits of the right-size of the just-the-face pic if you need to smooth out any details from the other one. Chop the pic into itty bitty bits like I have shown and make sure they're aligned in the right place, then blend, blend, blend, and add some highlighting and shadow if you need to fix any bits that look over-photoskinned. S'all there is to it.

Making the face in Body Shop can be a big pain - and often, once you get the mask on, you'll want to make further changes - keep at it, and when you have something presentable, post up some pics in our Creator Feedback forum (you'll find a link from the main Create page). I've never seen a truly awesome Jensen Ackles sim made yet, so I'd love to see you polish him to a pretty-boy shine, Mrs. Winchester. :)

[meganwinchester]

Oooh boy. Heh. BTW, I've PM'ed you about the show.

I tried cutting it into small bits like you've suggested (do you use the lasso tool to select?) I'm going to have to do some pretty serious adjusting to try get his skin to a normal color. I've found it difficult (and I'm sure you did as well) that it's rather difficult to do when the face is all smushy like it is when you import it.

[Purple Sheera]

Great tutorial , HP excellent JOB !

I've done everything , and everything looked good, can you please tell me how to upload the sim that i made in the site ? Do i have to upload the skin only from my savedsims folder (as SimPe file) or make it as sims2pack, or what ? please reply .

Thanx again
"2 thumbs up"

[combustion03]

hey.i have a laptop computer.and my prt sc button is with insert and i do not know how to use it! any ideas?
btw great tutorial!

[KSTrillian]

There's a featured artist on TSR2 that I've begged to make a tutorial on how he makes his celebrity Sims as they are almost always dead on, but he hasn't given in. However, a very kindly person gave me the link to your tutorial here and I'm excited to try it out!

I don't know if other people have this problem, but when I try to print forum threads like this, I get a fat blue column between the avatars and the actual conversation which cuts off 2/3 of the text. "Resizing to fit" never works to solve it. Anyway, I've cut and paste the main tutorial (not the questions and comments at the end) into a Word document that's 11 pages, formatted to use as little space as possible while keeping the info straight and easy to read. How or where could I upload this file to share with everyone else who has the same problem? (I don't check the forums that frequently, so PM me with how I can share this with others if you think it would be appreciated.)

[HystericalParoxysm]

KSTrillian, if you click on Thread Tools and then Show Printable Version you'll get a version that, well, you can print, without that problem with stuff getting knocked out of whack.

If you want to send me the document I can attach it to the thread - folks may want to read it offline rather than printing it. I'll PM you my email address. :)

[KSTrillian]

Oops! I feel silly! I HAD wondered why MTS2 didn't make it printable. :) Oh well, I did email it to you, but my PM to you telling you so didn't go.

[holly.95.sims]

good jod!
u'r great!

[jj1973]

Err, JJ, you do the sculpting first so you have something to put your texturing on when you're done, to check its accuracy. Then when you're done with the texturing, you go and look at your cloned sim. I state that in step 15:



You do the eyes separately, as an eye recolour. Which is something one should likely have done before they get here, as eyes are much easier than this technique.

Please do not double-post. Edit your post if you have something to add or change.

Sorry about the double postings. I am new here and am not sure how to work everyhing yet. lol. The thing is, when I did the sculpture, I was not suer where to find the sim that I cloned. That is where i got confused.

J

[jj1973]

I created the face. But it does not show up when I go to create sims.

J

[riiko14]

Thnx Hy.

I was wondering how people did that!!!

Now I'm going to Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Morsten, and Hugh Jackman! My favorite guy actors, there so HOT!!!!

Anyway thnx again Hy.

[$RaMRoM$]

Wow!! this is great! thanks HP

[tacos]

how come this tutorial is in make up? no offence though its great and i tried it but i was wanting to try to make make up and cant find a tutorial on it

[CuteDoggyPal]

Hysterical, how exactly DO you find decent source pics of people you dreamed up of?

[Sweeetcandyc]

when i tried to open my skin in gimp it said unknown file type >.< help?

[preemptive_doodle]

This is very helpful, HP. I just found this because I've been itching to make better sims of the band Interpol. Thanks. :)

how come this tutorial is in make up? no offence though its great and i tried it but i was wanting to try to make make up and cant find a tutorial on it

It looks like the other tuts are up yet or no one has written one. Google it if you can't find it here or elsewhere.

[monkeyz_and_turkeyz]

this is great! before this i've been making sims that look a little bit similiar to who i wanted i made a orlando bloom that looked a frodo
:lol: :rofl: :lol:

[$RaMRoM$]

when i tried to open my skin in gimp it said unknown file type >.< help?

Make sure you are opening the BMP image not the package, can you show me a pic?

Hysterical, how exactly DO you find decent source pics of people you dreamed up of?

try google image search.

I created the face. But it does not show up when I go to create sims.

J
did u load the project and imported it to the game?? :)

[lexielex]

your insturstions are the BEST ive read and this is my first time doing something like this and i think ive done ok soo far but like i jus get confused here and there when using the photoshop and somethings in your instructions but one thing im really confuse on is what you are saying here
like i have no idea how i saved but i know i did it wrong because it wont show up when i did the thing with the circle/arrow thing but then by accident i imported the to the game and i then i went back and just used the same skin tone that i used to make face but do u think you could help me!
sorry if im asking to much but i would really appreciate it if you could help me?!?! :D :help:

"Then, save your image over the original .bmp file you opened in the YourProjectName folder. Photoshop will try to save as a copy - make sure you take out the " copy" part of the filename to save over the original. It'll confirm that you want to overwrite it.

Then switch over to Body Shop and reload the textures (the little circle arrow next to the box to enter text) to view your edited texture. Now, you're viewing on the default Body Shop mannequin rather than the face of the person you're trying to sim"

[Sephirayne]

Great tutorial. I've been trying to figure out hoe to do photo reskinning for a while this was a great help. The only problem I'm having is that my new skin/face isn't showing in Bodyshop. I'm using PaintShopPro6. It has all the tools that you have sugguested and I've managed to create the face. I do want to check it in bodyshop before I go any further but it won't show up. Instead I get a default sim with the lighter skin tone but a default face. I've made sure that the file is saved as a .bmp but it still won't show.

I'm having a go at making Jason Isaacs/Lucius Malfoy. I've done his eyes now I want to do the face. The pic below is a resize of a high res pic I have.

S xx

[distel]

I think I love you. :blink:

[Datpicest]

is it me or the pics not working in the tutorial...because i dont know if im doin it right or wrong

[$RaMRoM$]

is it me or the pics not working in the tutorial...because i dont know if im doin it right or wrong

I think its just you, the pics show fine in my PC :)

[Narck]

Great tutorial. I've been trying to figure out hoe to do photo reskinning for a while this was a great help. The only problem I'm having is that my new skin/face isn't showing in Bodyshop. I'm using PaintShopPro6. It has all the tools that you have sugguested and I've managed to create the face. I do want to check it in bodyshop before I go any further but it won't show up. Instead I get a default sim with the lighter skin tone but a default face. I've made sure that the file is saved as a .bmp but it still won't show.

I'm having a go at making Jason Isaacs/Lucius Malfoy. I've done his eyes now I want to do the face. The pic below is a resize of a high res pic I have.

S xx

I have the same problem as him/her. I went through all the steps and did everything correctly I'm sure of it. But the skin just won't show up in Bodyshop. Instead I get a default sim with a darker skin tone but a default face.
Can someone please help me?

[jj1973]

Ok. This tutorial was a bit hard to understand at points. I did not get my face to show up in bodyshop, also, it referred to a tool from photoshop that I just could not for the life of me find. lol. Which was the polygon tool. Could not find that anywhere. lol. So I just decided to skin it my own way and got everything to work. This is my FIRST Sim creation, so for a first time, I do not think I did that bad. I made one of Mandy Moore. I know I will get better as I go along, and her face is so differently shaped, and she has so many different expressions and does not look the same in every photo so she is not the easiest to create. But I did it, and I think she came out pretty good for a first time. Let me know what you guys think..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/JJ1973/newmsim.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/JJ1973/mmsimshort.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/JJ1973/ltwsim.jpg



TC,

JJ

[billielith]

Oh wow! There was that celebrity sim I was working on. I left him aside because I wasn't sure how to advance any further.

Now the tough part will mainly be to find GOOD pics. I tried the links provided but all I could find were female hotties and celebrities. That's not exactly what I'm looking for.

Pics as big and clear as yours are kinda rare on the web, but I suppose it's still possible to work from snapshots taken from movies. That's what I'm trying to do right now.

Anyway, thanks for this one, HP. :)

[tiggerypum]

vindicatedmess,
Did you put a bodyshop lighting mod on your sim? Because she looks overlit (or maybe you need to take the color a bit darker) I'd check that part in game lighting and see how she looks.

Also, and maybe it's just me, it seems her skin is very smooth, etc - so I'm not sure a custom skin for her face is necessary - I'm not sure if you've had the sim through creator feedback for her face - she looks close, but what I've seen is that when people post and ask for suggestions usually that helps get the sim's face itself from close to closer - somehow many 'eyes' are better than one.

[tatu97]

Thank you so much for this guide! I read it carefully and tried my best on my first sims 2 sim! (Did some skinning for the sims 1). I tried my favorite idol, Julia Volkova from t.A.T.u, but I did not have the right resolution photo for the one I wanted to use. So until I find the HQ picture, this is what I got so far!

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/8537/1297098nc0kd2.jpg Used this photo

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/1640/yuliasim5rr1.jpg

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/729/yuliasim2ko6.jpg

I want to thank you so much for the good tutorial and hopefully I'll be making good quality sims in no time!

[rebelgurl]

I tried this tutorial, but unfortunately I just don't have the "eye" to properly configure the face in body shop. I was wondering if anyone knows anyone that does custom sim faces for commission. If you could let me know that would be great. :up:

[Utadafan#1]

could u use something else then adobe photoshop?? (^_^)

[HystericalParoxysm]

Utadafan#1 - Yes, you could. Any program that has multiple layers, brushes, blend types, etc. could accomplish this... but you would need to know how to use that program to get basically the same effect, as I only tend to use Photoshop. The commands should be roughly the same, just accessed in different places.

[gemini-babe]

hey this tutorial is amazing! thanks for the help!!
i have one question though. once you have finished all the adjustments on the graphic program how do you transfer them over to the game so you can use them when playing the sims 2? if you could answer it for me i would appreciate it!
once again thanks for the tutorial!

[HystericalParoxysm]

gemini-babe - See steps 14 and 15, and the Pre-FAQ part.

[stressmagnet]

Absolutely terrific tutorial. thanks!!!

[Endersgirl07]

Thanks for the helpful tutorial! Being that I've got photoshop, I will have to give this a try... especially with my latest project, as it's a little tougher than I expected. Thanks again!

[JadedDiva]

OK...this is a fantastic tutorial! I am also attempting Jensen Ackles. Finding those high resolution pictures are a chore! I do have a couple questions:

Jensen has a small cleft in his chin. No matter how I try playing with those sliders, I just can't get the cleft in there without making his chin look humungous! Is there a way to do this?

Also, is it possible to change the width of the face in a 3D program without too much trouble?

Thanks!

[ooga booga]

Your a great creator. I owe you one for this tutorial I'me starting to try this technique I have a long way to go but I just produced my best sim ever. but is there anywhere easier to find big pictures to cut and paste from? Thanks a ton!

[HystericalParoxysm]

JadedDiva - You could do a little shadowy bit in his chin with texturing. Changing the face in 3d is possible (I have a little mini tutorial on it) but it's not for beginner meshers, nor will it let you do everything... you can't add detail and I don't think there's actually a way to put a physical dent in the center of the chin... you also can't really widen the face beyond what the game will let you do, since the edges where it meets the hairline have to be identical to the original.

ooga booga - Finding source pics depends on who you're simming. And it can be really tricky. Requires search skills and Google Fu, which are beyond the realm of this tutorial. In my case, I got my pictures from a fan gallery that offered super-high-resolution versions of promotional pictures from Battlestar Galactica... If you're making skintones, www.3d.sk is a great source (there is nudity - but it's for skinning purposes - and it's pay, but it's worth it). Other than that it's a matter of being persistent and just searching your butt off.

[Dezzie]

Is it possible and if you dont mind making a tutorial with gimp? or you dont feel like? kk nvm since you only use photoshop nvm lol

[Dezzie]

kk thanks :) Btw good tutorial!

[HystericalParoxysm]

I don't use GIMP. Well, I have GIMP, but I only use it for generating normal maps for Oblivion textures. Not texturing. But if you're familiar with GIMP and its tools you should be able to do most of this - the basic concepts still apply... cut the image into little pieces, shape them into place, and blend blend blend, then adjust it so it looks right on a sim face. The exact tools you may use may have different names and be in different places, and I know you don't have the Warp tool, but other than that it should be essentially the same basic process.

[Dezzie]

All i can say is thankyou for the tutorial! And your a very smart woman :)

[kelseysgr8]

thank-you so much! This will really help! Thanks again!

[adalita_m]

thanks I will try this when I get home from work!!!

[girlgamer90210]

thanks sir! my duncan james looks fine. at least fine enough for a beginner like me :D
thanks for this, a lot! hoping in few more creations, ill be much better.

[Saby77]

Good evening, excuse me to disturb you, I for a long time try to create a sims while following your instructions but unfortunately I despair, I do not arrive there at all. Help me please. Cordially

[aillae]

Thank you so much. I've been struggling with making celeb sims and now I can rest assured a little (just a little, because finding those great pics like the ones you used as examples is going to be difficult). But I can relax a little now that I have hopes in creating the celeb sims I've dreamed of. Thank you thank you! You are brilliant.

:bookmarks page:

Edit: Although I wish I could skin though, the pictures I have are terrible. They're usually at the wrong angles are just plain bad quality. But I'll happily use the first tutorial for now. Take care.

[La_exotique]

Can i add that this site has great high resolution large images of celebrities that could be used for this type of skinning.

http://www.gossiprocks.com/forum/latest-photos/

also http://www.bellazon.org/ has alot of high res images of famous supermodels that is great for body work


These two sites are my favorite for source images and they should keep others occupied for a while.


I learnt through this tutorial, i suggest people work in high resolution, (make the image big) that way when you reduce it, you have better detailing.

[ginga_05]

I NEED HELP BADLY!!! :( :(
I've made my skintone but i have no idea how to get the skintone i have made on to the actuall game itself (Bodyshop) Please please please can you reply. I need this help despretley. Please reply as soon as possible.

Thank You!! :up:

[La_exotique]

I NEED HELP BADLY!!! :( :(
I've made my skintone but i have no idea how to get the skintone i have made on to the actuall game itself (Bodyshop) Please please please can you reply. I need this help despretley. Please reply as soon as possible.

Thank You!! :up:

Open BodyShop, go to Create Parts, Load Saved Projects, and choose your project that you want to import, from the list. Once you have that, you should have the option of importing by clicking on the little folder with the arrow wrapped around it.

[Marier1984]

I just tryed this..but i used paint.net because I dont have photoshop and its too expensive to buy. I followed your directions to a T and it made the sims face turn black!! What happened?? I tryed redoing it several times but it still turned black...any ideas why?? Maybe I cant use paint.net? Please help..

[Ninaiso]

Would photoshop elements 6 work? I really would like to create a kimimaro sim. :3

[La_exotique]

I just tryed this..but i used paint.net because I dont have photoshop and its too expensive to buy. I followed your directions to a T and it made the sims face turn black!! What happened?? I tryed redoing it several times but it still turned black...any ideas why?? Maybe I cant use paint.net? Please help..check that the sizing of your image is correct

[the_i_woman]

thanks for the tutorial, its really helpfull, i am having trouble though at the texturing part. i followed the points exactly but when i go to the skin tone to use it in my graphics editor it doesnt show up the the one i want, just a random bloke. can you help please? thanks.

[Ichsimsealles]

OMG...okay...I try to make a really good Harry Potter.

[Heytara]

I followed your tutorial on the textures, and I exported it, and I had a really bad result. I didn't want to post the giant screenshots here, so I made a thread.

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=272801

[purplerainsim]

I am stuck at the part where you do a photo filter I dont see that in adobe photoshop 7.0 am i missing something?

[missMSBplayer]

I completely got lost on Texturing! I need help....I'm an idiot...

So I changed the opacity on the sim's face, and I have the sim skin file in photoshop,

Now What????????

[melical]

This was exactly what I was looking for! Thank you so much for the tutorial!
I already created a nice skin and although it looks pretty cool already, it will still need a lot of work to make it perfect. At least now I know it's worth the time and effort, because it will turn out good. :D

[SnoopY6love6]

That is a great tutorial!!!

[ila20]

Wow, thank you so much for your help! This tutorial really gave me the help I so desperately needed. It was easy to follow, despite my serious inexpertise. You really are the best!

[jj1973]

Ok. I got good use out of this tutorial, at first it was hard, but I was able to do the skinning in my own way, that was affective, and used some help for makeup and things from other great sites. Like the eyes, and some of the clothes, etc. I posted up a Mandy Moore sim that I did previously, that I skinned from a younger photo of her. She is not the easiest to skin, and there is not one on here that looked much like her, and I wanted to make one for my game that did, since I am downloading celeb sims that look like the celebs and having a neighborhood of them. I would like to share some of my photos of my latest version of Mandy Moore sim that I made the day before yesterday...I think she came out pretty good, and is a pretty close likeness, especially since her looks and hair change so much.

JJ

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/JJ1973/Mandy%20Sim/sim1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/JJ1973/Mandy%20Sim/sim3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/JJ1973/Mandy%20Sim/sim4.jpg

[jane_s]

This is such a wonderful tutorial! It helped me so much! I created Emma Watson's sim version and although I didn't use any textures, I think I got her face pretty close:

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/9971/janesemmawatsonoz1.jpg

I used some HP5 photos therefore I think she looks like Hermione in the fifth movie. Please guys tell me what do you think! Does she look like Emma or not? :lol:

[Beatrix2]

Hey this is a nice tutorial but there's just one thing that bugs me : I'm on Mac, I can't right-click. Where could I find out how to zoom in-out on Mac ?

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask, I'm a bit confused right now :S

[urrl]

I use a microsoft wireless mouse; works well on my Macbook Pro.

Hi all, someone e-mailed me to make a Michael Jackson for the Sims. Although I'm not a real fan of MJ I did do him just for fun for the game Oblivion. Here he is with some other celeb downloads of mine.

MJ
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16273

Rowan Atkinson
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16311

Vivica Fox
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17029

Teal'c of SG-1
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16313

Chuck Norris
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16312

This looks like a good tutorial thread and a nice place to start when I have time. The process looks similar to Oblivion facial modding. Just checking in to say hi to you all Hope this thread is not dead as I see it was started a long while ago.

[J. Shelley]

Great tutorial. Thanks, HP! David Krumholtz Sim, coming right up!

[xbsth]

Amazing tutorial, this helped a lot!
One question though.
When I finish creating my skin, it all looks perfect. But then when I use it in the game, my sims go extremely pixelated. Is there any way I can fix this?
Thank you xo

[Gaaragurl18]

I'm stuck...I can't figure out how to save my sim into the project folder! If that's even what I'm supposed to be doing...Sorry if the answer is super obvious. I'm not exactly the smartest when it comes to this stuff. :lol:


:help: !Please help! :help:

[Sheepy-Pie]

Hi, i'm having trouble with my Anthony Perkins skin

http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/645/apskinsm4.png

I cant get it to look properly blended..

I'm using the GIMP btw

[the_i_woman]

hey, this is an amazing tutorial and i have followed it all, it looks great in my graphix software (serif photoplus 10, not your conventional one) but when i put it on the face it always comes out really dark and a bit gray. and i cant get it to blend properly on the existing face. any tips? thanks

[HystericalParoxysm]

Sheepy-Pie and the_i_woman - Try playing with the layer blend types and see if any of those would work better than the one I recommended - sometimes with certain texturing other sorts might work a bit better. You can also try using hue, saturation, brightness, and contrast adjustments to better-blend the skin yourself by just playing with the sliders and seeing what looks better. Erasing the edges with a low-strength big fuzzy brush will help blend those in better, and you'll likely find you need to add some highlighting and shading yourself (handpainting) with a low strength fuzzy brush in certain areas that need a bit more work.

[inkatchi]

hey, ive got a question, i wanna make a couple anime sims, can they be done the same as this one?

[xvampire]

Hello!
Thanks for this tutorial! I need a little help though, I followed it very easily but I have a problem, I am very handy with Photoshop but when it comes to Body Shop I am a newbie! So I am guessing my problem is a Body Shop one... anyway I have done everything it says but when I save it (made sure it wasn't as a copy) anyway nothing is different when I reload the face in Body Shop, The face isn't changing no matter what I seem to do...
Any help would be much appreciated!!

Thank
Jenn xx
:)

I have the same problem
Help please? =/

just correct me if I'm wrong, after you create a skin in photoshop you save it in the same folder (projects) where you opened it and overwrite the original one? That's what I did, but not sure if I did it right.

[HystericalParoxysm]

inkatchi - You can do the face sculpting as I describe, but you wouldn't want to skin an anime/cartoon face from pictures as they generally lack realistic shading and texture.

JennG18/xvampire - If you are saving over the original, it should change after you reload the project using the little whirly-arrow reload button. If it's not, I haven't a clue why it's not.

[xvampire]

Thank you, I fixed it now and it's working! x]

[Naruto Fan 10989]

First I wish Someone would help me I've been working on making Naruto Characters Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke the first not Shippuden or whatever please please someone help me work Blender all it is is a block and I don't know what to do I've tryed EVERYTHING PLEASE OHHHHHHH PLEASE PLEASE PLEAAAAAAAASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!

[Naruto Fan 10989]

Ohhhh and I don't have a 3d Graphics Program but I can't see how to get it ( I'm really stupid compared to others at least they know how to get on 3d Graphics Programs I got on Blender but................. it's like I can't get anywhere with this and that's the reason I got The Sims 2 on Computer I would have got it on Game Cube but it seems they don't make anymore GameCube Games hummmmmmmmmmmmmm.......... well if anyone can help me Id be more then greatfull to listen ohhh and nice job on the Sim

[HystericalParoxysm]

Naruto Fan 10989 - This tutorial has -nothing- to do with Blender or 3D editing. All texture editing is done in a graphics editing progam like Photoshop, Paint.NET, or GIMP. All face shape editing is done in Body Shop, which comes with the game.

[xvampire]

hi guys! I need help again.
This time I'm making female sim - Michelle Rodriguez and now I've finished making a skin for her, but I'm not sure which file I have to replace with my new made skin bfm,tff...there's a lot. I was looking through some online tutorials and found this:

The first letter is the age:
a = adult
b = baby
c = child
e = elder
p = unsure
t = teen

The next letter is the sex:
f = female
m = male
(babies and children use the male body type)

The next word is the part:
body
face
hair

There are three body types for each sex in the adult, edler and teen ages:
cut = muscular
normal = normal muscle tone
soft = no real muscle tone

so that means if I'm making adult female with normal body type I should replace the file with filename: affn...bmp? there's no such file and I'm stuck on it now. I changed all the faces and only child and baby got her skin when I click adult or teen there's no skin change..also, I was thinking if you're making sim do you have to only edit one skin or all? cause if you don't edit all then a sim when he will be elder and child won't have the same skin as adult, isn't so? I'd need just a little help-explanation on this pretty please? x]

[super_niin]

Great tuturial but I'm stuck on the lips! I'm trying to do hermione but the only good pic I could find has a really thin top lip. I'm using a better version of this picture: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/b/b5/Hermione_granger.jpg how would I do the top lip??

also: how do you make the rest of the ody look like the face?????????? I'm also stuck on the ears because they're covered in this pic

[xvampire]

what about these two, super_niin?

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_e8KlhC6HmDU/RsFaMHHndFI/AAAAAAAAArc/kqQZmTLxNO4/emma34.jpg

http://aycu08.webshots.com/image/29727/2001859743846495170_rs.jpg

I think it may be helpful. x]

[HystericalParoxysm]

xvampire - There aren't different textures for different body types for the face. Just modify the one that starts with afface. Also, p = toddler.

super_niin - Not a really great picture all around as she's looking down quite a bit so the nose is going to be off too. The one working one that xvampire posted is some better but it's very very blue so you'd have to readjust the colour quite a bit. The body and ears will depend on whatever skin you're basing yours on - unless the celeb has a very distinct body texturing, tattoos, or weird ears, you don't really need to mess with them - just get your texturing to match the skin that you're using.

[super_niin]

thanks xvampire the pics are r really good :D


ok I'll do that to et them to match
thanks
:D

[xvampire]

your welcome.

HystericalParoxysm thanks for explaining, I figured now I had some strange skin and 'afface' pic was missing so I replaced it now with other skin and it worked. x]

So if I understood right, for a sim you only have to modify afface and amface files for male and female and that's it? that means if you choose then to play this sim you made say in teen version, it will have the same face as adult one so you don't have to modify teen face as well? I was confused about it cause I checked angelina jolie's skin of the sim that I downloaded and there were all skins for female edited (young,adult,teen,toddler...)

[HystericalParoxysm]

xvampire - You'll want to edit whatever ages you want that skin to work for. If you want your sim's kids' faces to look similar to theirs then you can edit the other ages as well - if you want them to be able to age and stay looking the same, you can also edit the elder faces. It's really up to you. You only -have- to edit the one age for the sim you're making but for completeness sake it's usually a good idea to edit more than that.

[xvampire]

OK, good to know. thanks a lot! x]

[Luposz]

Thanks for the tutorial, I always wanted to create Sims that look like someone...
But I think I need a little more experience with the BodyShop
Well... I get a little confused in a step of your tutorial, it's in the texturing part.
When I use a skintone to work on, it gives me a random face, it's not the one in what i been working on, and does not have eyebrows

I'm doing something wrong?

[HystericalParoxysm]

Luposz - That's normal and you're not doing anything wrong - the face you get for texturing will be a template face and if the skin doesn't have eyebrows, neither will that face. You'll have to import your project to see it on your actual edited face.

[Luposz]

Nice =D
Thanks a lot.
I'm already finishing my Sim, it start to look like me
Thanks a lot for the tutorial =D

[Ioana-sama]

That's a great tutorial, Hysterical Paroxysm ! It really helped me a lot ! ^_^
But I have one major problem ! I followed your tutorial, but still, when I want to preview the new face, the sims' face becomes totally black ! What can I do ? I've spent almost 8 hours on that face and now I can't even see if it worked out well... :((


~ Actually, I managed to repair it ! ^_^

[KrlyGrl]

i think i already know the answer, but im gonna ask anyway.
if i gave you a picture of a person, would you be able to make a sim of them?
i know, i know, you probably get asked this a lot.
and you dont want to waste time doing something for some stranger.
i just wanted to throw it out there...

[HystericalParoxysm]

KrlyGrl - I don't take requests, but I did make this nifty tutorial to teach people how to do it themselves. Why not give it a try yourself?

[danceswithwands]

Thank you so much for this very well written, easy to understand, tutorial. :)

I've been doing fine with creating sims in bodyshop but no matter how much I tweak them and get them right "structurally" there is often something crucial missing by way of the facial "character" or the skintones... or some"thing".

This will be very useful! I've always wanted to learn the secrets of photo-skinning. ;)

NOW--- I am going to go get myself a copy of photoshop and study this tutorial until I have it memorized!!!

Thank you again. :D

[MrsLovett:MrTodd]

Hey. Great tutorial! The only thing is that I don't have photoshop and I was wondering if it is possible to do the same thing but with Paint, PhotoArtMaster or something else. Any help will be great. Thanx

[ak-musen]

Very nice job, but I can't do the things in number 4

pleas replay. :)

[I.want.blood]

thank you,
I'm a sim now!

[Buffysim02]

I have a question about doing men with facial hair such as Tim McGraw. I don't want the facial hair to be part of the skin because when he has sim babies they tend to have the facial hair. How do you get around that when your pictures has him with facial hair?

[Plasimfreak]

WOW this is an amazing tutorial i am so glad i finally have photoshop it's the best and i'm making a skin which i am going to upload on a sim.

[juniorni]

Thanks For Ur Sharing!!

[missMSBplayer]

Hey. Great tutorial. The problem is, whenever I press print screen to copy my pic, and then press ctrl v, it doesn't show up. A link to a website is what comes up. What do I do?

[@SeluXSims2]

hi thanks i already know how to make realistic celebs but i read this tutorial over and over anyway ;) but the problem is i dont like basing the skin on other creators is it possible you could make and easy tutorial on how to make realsitic skins with photoshop and bodyshop thanks you rock :)

[aesh55738]

I tried folowing your tutorial but I use gimp and I cant figure out how to resize the parts of the picture I take out of the original :!: :cry: :(

[mizzmetalfreak]

Thanks so much for this tutorial it's great. I am going to try it out!

[andriguel]

i have a question please? how do i get to make celebrity skintones that looks more err... you know... detailed? im not saying urs ain't.. but it has less details than what i was expecting... im talkin bout shiny, extremely detailed celebrity skintones? you know, like ChazDesigns skintone?i tried it on GIMP but the skintone looked DEAD :( does the latest photoshop give a little more details to the picture? I feel like im bein left out:( i know i could make awesome celeb sims only if could make better skintones...

[writerchick]

I'm an admitted techno-retard. Honest!

But I've been following this tutorial and am already seeing a great looking Sim emerge. He's so much more realistic than anything I could simply create in Body Shop (and, BTW... thanks to your tutorial, I now know that you can enter Body Shop without going into the game! Yes, I'm a Sims newbie AND a techno-retard! Go me! *big grin*)

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks, as this Sim is just... well... he's terrific! And so are you! :-)

[Talanta]

HystericalParoxysm - what folder do I put my new skin in when I have completely finished the new face? I exported the skins folder from Body Shop onto a removable drive, because my graphics program is on another computer. Then on the second computer I made the face from source pics just like you said and saved back to my removable desk. Now I'm going to go back to my computer that has The Sims 2 on it... where do I put the files so that when I open Body Shop I can put the new skin on my Sim?

[xvincentx]

will this work for me using corel paint shop pro X2 ?

[xvincentx]

will this work for me using corel paint shop pro X2 ? if so can u please make a tutorial using corel paint shop pro X2?

[hollywoodlola]

Hey!The tutorial worked just fine, but I have only one problem, though:
When I try to play the game using my skin only the face shows up and the body is all black.

[Fayne]

Will this work for making a man in a mask? It sounds a lot simpler then making the mask as a seperate object, but I wanted to be sure. :|

[zac_efrons_gurl7]

Hello and thanks for the pleasant tutorial!! i mostlyget the point..except.how do i make a face mask,which will be found in fullfacemakeup section? and could u help me with photoshop layers a little?i hav ps cs 2 too! thanks in advance :)

[zac_efrons_gurl7]

oh and what about the hair?? i really want it to be the same :T

[firebird]

Great tut! I was on my way doing it, but I realized I had a prob - is it normal for the base skin images to be so small? As I see from the screenshots they're fairly big (and not pixelated), and mine are round 128x128. Any ideas if that's normal, and if not - how to fix it? :)

[CatOfEvilGenius]

firebird - Please post your question in the Create BodyShop Recoloring forum, not here. If you are using SimPE, you can get 1024x1024 images, just look for the LIFO resources, not the TXTR.

[Casey_210]

How nice

[Lily_Allen]

Thanks so much. This is really easy to do now. :)

[miaaa21]

Hi :) That is really a great Tut.
I did everything just as you described and everything was good until this:

Then, once it's saved, combine all the texturing layers together into one - do NOT include your background layer, just the texturing you've added from the photo.

I really dont know how to combine layers... :( And i didnt find an answer for this at the adobe photoshop help either... I looked at the FAQ's over here too but didnt find anything. :(
Can you help me and tell me how to combine all the layers please?

Thank you for this tut and your help
miaaa :)

[chlark7]

Hallo, I am in the process of making my Sim, and I finished creating her in the Body Shop. So the next step says, 'hit Print Screen (Prnt Scr) on your keyboard, usually above Insert' I do this and I am using Paint.NET, but when I press Crtl + V it says 'The clipboard doesn't contain an image' am I missing something? Thanks. (:

[harryishere]

if you have a higher opacity and sharpen the image it makes it look really realistic, but it does make it harder to get the same color as the background

[zionfeather9]

Nice tutorial. Thank U.

[Meredith White]

Wow, this tut is EXACTLY what I needed. I looked everywhere for a sim of Maynard James Keenan but amazingly, no one's made him yet! Thanks to you, I shall be the first! :D

[Meredith White]

I just spent about six hours tweaking my Maynard sim's face skin, tried it on in body shop and it looks awful, lol. Some people just will not pose nicely for a photograph. XD

[Housefan49]

Thank you for this tutorial! I have been TRYING to make decent sims for quite some time now. Before I saw this I was a rotten sim maker. Much appreciation. BTW, great icon!

[KinkyLollipopz]

Thanks for the tutorial :)

I did my face mask and it came out quite well ... but the only problem is the body is fugly as hell. -.- Not to worry, he'll just have to wear a diving suit for swimming, haha.

I did Matt Bellamy, by the way ... it took me so long, my dad had to help :blink:

But anyway, thanks again..

[Dark Puggy]

Does anyone know how to use this in terms of a kids face?

I tried using it for my daughter it didnt turn out to well...

any advice?

[Gr3ml1nn]

This tutorial works great! I just made Jim Morrison! =D

[Cousin Barney]

Awesome tutorial as always HP. I think this is one of the first ones I read, but I finally got around to actually DOING it and making a sim-a-like

[lotr434]

Can this same process work with pain.net? Im trying to make this sim and i dont have what you are using in this tutorial. I have been trying to figure this out for a while :cry:

[serenium]

Wow. Another very nice tutorial. I would probably never be able to do this but I still think is worth a try. Thanks for writing this all out (:

[Noir Stardust]

Really awesome tutorial.
I think I am going to try this one out.
Thanks
xx

[LikieSimmy203]

is there ANY way to do this with GIMP 2.6? i know its going to be WAY more difficult but ill do anything!

[~Phunkay~]

hey HystericalParoxysm, I've tried building sims while going step-to-step on the tutorial. But I find it hard to, you know, get the right facial structure of my celebs. That is beacuse the facial template which comes in the BodyShop is kinda rigid and not soft and friendly at all... (catch my point?) how can I get a different facial template when I import skintones from BodySHop?
Awaiting your reply.....

[~Phunkay~]

:!: :!: :!: :!: I have trueSpace 7.61 (3D modelling program), Google Sketchup (3D modelling program), MS PAINT, GIMP 2.6, Adobe Photoshop 5.0 Limited Edition, and Microsoft Office Picture Manager (part of Microsoft Office). I like to use them all, because they each have some different and special functions in making graphics.

To answer your question, there is a way to make a realistic face using facial mask. Like what it is written in the Photoshop tutorial on this thread, Gimp also has a Clone tool. If you use the Clone tool, you can brush over places with the same texture. In Gimp, you can also select a layer and resize the layer to fit a layer over something. You can also add filters and special effects. You can also make raster graphical animations and other fun stuff. ;) Hope that helps!

[obsydian butterfly]

hysterical paroxysim, you're a modding genius. I have long been wanting to make a Tony Gordon/ Gray O'Brien skin and had all but given up. He's not perfect but I think he's a hell of a lot better after using your tutorial. x

[I'mSimalicious!]

What happened to the accompanying photos?

[manbotdbot]

The photos are gone!

[sistersister601]

The pics dont work :(

[babianna92]

I can't see the pictures!!

[catc0617]

O.o there are no pictures! this is the case on most of the tutorials... =S

[Jothana]

The photos have gone! Is there any way you can bring these back? Thanks.

[hktpublic]

Okay...something happened between Sep and Dec 2009 that caused the pics to vanish...was it during that time that some of the downloads also got deleted...? Now that I have the time to make some Sims, the visual part of the tutorial is ..GONE. :( Guess I'll do it the hard way.

[hktpublic]

Until the pics re-appear, Here's vindicatedmess' video tutorial. Subscribe...there's more - 40 to be exact. Thanks to VM :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg5Bt6KSrag

[Morristm]

Please help me i have tried everything :(

i made my face into a sim on photoshop saved it as a bmp file in the right place. however, on body shop, when i click the file and import it, it just comes out completely black, theres not a face there at all.

have you got any ideas?

please help, if you have time. :)

thanks a lot

xx

[angia101]

What if body shop won't open?

[lkh]

There's a tool out there called face factory 2.... I want it.

[xXOctoberXx]

I can't see the pictures, theres a red x

[jeffman89]

Yes, is there any way you can bring the pictures back to the tutorial? I would love to be able to use it.

Thanks!

[fannymanson]

Just a little tip- Adobe allows you to download a free 30 day trial of Photoshop (and other programs) from their website.

[RaveCandy]

This was a great tutorial, I had no trouble following the easy instructions. You had mentioned that creating a sim for the first time was difficult and would take a great deal of time and patience. I guess some people just have what it takes, it took me a short time to create one following your instructions, and the skintone was easy to make. Unfortunately I must have missed a step with the skintone because it refuses to show up at all in bodyshop, but none the less I did create a very realistic looking sim and matching skin, I greatly appreciate how much you've helped! I just wanted to say thank you and keep up the good work. :)

[DJ.]

Thanks! I'll use this for the Sim I'm currently making and I hope it'll be accepted on MTS!

[plüschpopo]

when i save that face-skin-file with the photo of the person on it and import it to body shop, the whole face appears completely in black. does anyone know what i'm doing wrong?

[LadyAngel]

Please bring back the pics! :(

[Ghost_Sim]

**Helpful hint**
If you have the sliders maxed out and it's still not enough just save the sim and reclone it. All the sliders will reset and you can go to town again on each one. It's kind of fun to play around with. :)

I only mention this because it's impossible to get that really narrow face anime characters have if you're going about it the normal way.

[ghostarin]

What a shame that the images doesn't work. They usually help me A LOT. However, besides that, this is great, thank you.

[bbyvrd]

Whether simming a celebrity, a friend/family member, yourself, or someone you just dreamed up, getting a sim to look exactly like who they're supposed to resemble can be quite a challenge. It can take a lot of time and a lot of practice - but the basic concepts explained here apply to all sims, and should help you get started on becoming a talented sim-creator.

Requirements:

Body Shop - This comes with the game and can be found under the Start Menu entry for the most recent expansion you have installed. You already have this. :)
A graphics editing program - Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, just about any program except MS Paint can be used.
High resolution, good-quality, detailed photos of the person you're wanting to sim. You will need at LEAST one direct front picture and one profile, and a 3/4 view is also helpful. The subject cannot be smiling, open-mouthed, or making any other sort of expression, wearing glasses, with hair in their face, in heavy shadow, sun, coloured lighting, or otherwise obscured. Ideally, you want mug shots. The better your pictures, the better the result. Your result will only be as good as the pics you use, so make sure you've got GREAT ones! For celebrities, try Googling "(celeb name) pictures" or "(celeb name) gallery" for fansite galleries... Google Image Search is generally not as useful for finding high-quality pics.


For this tutorial, I will be demonstrating with Photoshop CS2. Any other program should work roughly the same.

I'll be simming Dr. Gaius Baltar (James Callis) from the AMAZING new Battlestar Galactica series (since I was planning on doing so anyway). For him, I found some fantastic pics at Dark Thoughts. Here are the pics I'm going to be using, and these are GREAT examples of good pics to use. Your pics should be similar - big, clear, un-tinted, un-shadowed, etc... Despite these being huge, they're actually not ideal due to the rather bluish, dusk-like lighting hitting him from the left. Because the right side is mostly even and not as brightly lit, they should still be okay though. I also have several profiles that you'll see in the screenshots later on. But these are my main pics. ;)

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/Gaius1-s.jpghttp://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/Gaius2-s.jpghttp://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/Gaius3-s.jpg

Skill Level:
Moderate/Hard (Depending on who you're making) - You must know all basic Windows functions, and know how to operate your graphics program. You must also already know how to operate Body Shop to make projects. I'll be telling you WHAT to do but not so much HOW to do it - it's expected by the time you do this tutorial, you should already be experienced in Body Shop and your graphics editing program enough that you can follow my instructions... I will explain how to use a graphics program to do a facial texture, but not how to use the graphics program itself. It also helps a LOT if you have some level of artistic skill... an eye for colour and tone. Owning a graphics tablet to hand paint and smooth certain areas can also be helpful, but not required.

Time:
Long Project - For good results, expect to spend multiple hours. Anywhere from 3 to several dozen, depending on who you're simming, how difficult they are to do, your existing skill level, and the effect you're going for. For my project, the facial texturing took over a dozen, and the whole sim (recolours of clothing and eyes, and a new hair mesh) took roughly 2 weeks.

Introduction:

All the time beginning simmers ask, "What is the secret to creating realistic sims that look like who they're supposed to be?" And to be quite honest, there is no secret! There are exactly two things that ALL sims have in common. When they're done right, they look like who they're supposed to be. These are:

1. Facial geometry. The sim's facial features should be the right shapes, sizes, and proportions. This is done in Body Shop by adjusting the sliders.
2. Facial texturing. The sim's skin, eyebrows, etc., should be accurate, and they can have any additional features added, like moles, freckles, scars, wrinkles, discoloration, eyelids, stubble, etc.

And that's ALL there is to it! This is not to say that working on these two elements can't be extremely time consuming and require a lot of effort (and skill) but those are the basic concepts used on every accurate sim.

Adjusting Geometry:

For this part, there's really only so much that one can show you how to do - for the most part it really is just a matter of playing with the sliders. But I'll try to give you some good tips to get you started.

Go ahead and start up Body Shop from its start menu shortcut. Make sure you're using the shortcut under the most recent expansion pack you have (or the base game if you have no EPs).

Once you get in, click Build Sims, Build or Clone Sims. And then click the big green plus sign (+) to Build a Sim.

1. It'll give you a random sim of a random gender. First, hit F3 to go into free camera mode. Click and drag to rotate around. Right-click and drag to zoom in and out. Right-click AND left-click and drag at the same time to move. Position the camera so the sim's head is centered in the side of the view.

Pull the window over to the side and position your source pics so you can see them and the whole set of controls in Body Shop at once.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/BS-1-s.jpg

2. Switch the sim to the correct gender, choose the best skin, hair, eyes, and eyebrows out of what you currently have, and put them in a bald hairstyle (yes, bald - you don't want any hair in the way while you're trying to see the facial features). Choose one of the default face templates that looks kinda close. I'm using SimCribbling's skin - partially because I like it a lot and use it for almost everything, and partially because it's got a really open recolour policy, so I can do this to it and nobody's gonna get mad - which is IMPORTANT if you're doing this for anything but personal use.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/BS-2-s.jpg

3. And now, well... Honestly, there isn't anything to getting a sim's geometry "correct" except playing with the different presets and the fine tuning sliders. Keep playing with the different sliders in different combinations, turning the sim into profile to check the accuracy of the front view and side view. I usually try to get the front view pretty close, and then turn to work on the side view, and then keep switching back and forth. You can use the rotate buttons on the bottom to make sure your sim stays in full light so you can see what you're doing. It may take a while depending on how unusual the person's face is.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/BS-3-s.jpg

A few tips that I've found helpful... (My apologies for my silly names of the sliders - they don't have tooltips in Body Shop) Feel free to post your own tips here, too!:

For an upturned nose that's flat on top for females (like Sarah Michelle Gellar's), first upturn the nose, then, max out the whole-nose-width. Readjust the nostrils back to a normal size, and then use the upper-nose-width slider to make the upper nose more narrow.
You cannot adjust face width (grr) but you can make a face appear a little wider by adjusting the upper-head-pinchyness toward the right, then using the whole-face-fatness slider, make the face wider. Counteract the pudgy effect of that slider if necessary by using the middle-face-fatness slider.
Get to the end of the slider and still need some more adjustment one way or the other? Click the premade parts button, and choose any premade face part (for something you haven't changed yet, or can easily redo). Go back to the fine adjustments and you'll find that slider has gone back to the middle. Repeat as necessary.


4. Compare Over Your Source Photos: When you've got something that's looking pretty close, position the sim the same as your straight on pic, and hit Print Screen (Prnt Scr) on your keyboard, usually above Insert. This will copy your current screen to your clipboard. Switch over to Photoshop and CTRL-N to make a new document. CTRL-V to paste into it, then copy just the face and paste into your document with your front view source image. Adjust the layer opacity to around 50% so you can see the photo beneath and then size the picture of your sim to fit over the photo - make sure you keep your aspect ratio the same when resizing (change length and width by the same amount). You may have to rotate it a little bit, too. You want the pupils of the eyes to line up, and the line of the mouth to line up.

Make the layer viewable/invisible and adjust its opacity, and flip back and forth to check what's different. You can do this with the profile, too, and then readjust your sim's face as necessary. Repeat again if you make more adjustments till the sim matches up as closely as possible.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/BS-4-s.jpg

5. When you're satisfied with your result and can't get it any closer, click the checkmark at the bottom to approve the sim.

Now, if you've ended up with a really easy person to sim, and lucked out on having a skintone that worked for them, congratulations! You may not need to do the next part of this tutorial. But in many cases, if you want a really spooky accurate result, you'll need to do some work with texturing.

Texturing:

1. Get Your Skintone to Work On: Still in Body Shop, click Create Parts, Start New Project, Create Genetics. Select the skintone you used on your sim and click Export Selected Textures (folder icon) to make a new project from it. Give the project a name (I'm calling mine "GaiusSkin") and click the checkmark. Wait for it to export all the textures (it'll take a sec, skintones are big).

2. Now you'll be viewing your project. Switch to the right age/gender if necessary, and then go ahead and start up your graphics editing program if you haven't already.

3. Open up your full-face graphic in your graphics editing program. You also will want to open the facial texture for the age group you're working on. Open your My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Projects/MyProjectName folder (where MyProjectName is what you named your project) and take a look inside. You'll see a whole bunch of .bmp files. They're named based on gender, age, and what part they're for. For Gaius, I'm going to open amface~face~stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp since I'm doing an adult male and I want the face. E for Elder, T for Teen, C for Child, B for baby, P for Toddler. Young adults use the same face as adults.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-1-s.jpg

4. I've gone ahead and upped the saturation a little on my source image, so the tone matches a bit more with the skin texture. The original was a bit washed out.

Because the left side of his face is highlighted a bit from that side, I'm mainly going to work with the right side. If you have a more even-toned photo that's the same on both sides, you can select the whole thing, but as long as the face is pretty symmetrical, working on just one side like I am works fine too.

Start by using the polygon select tool to select the forehead up to the edges of the eyebrows and around the hairline. Because he's got those little creases in his forehead, I'm selecting those, too.

Copy that selected bit from your source image and paste over to your face texture on a new layer. Resize it till it fits in the same area of forehead on the skin texture - if it overlaps the brows or is a little larger, that's okay, you just want it in about the same place.

Reduce the layer opacity to around 65% to get the texture from the source pic to overlay the face texture. The colour may not match exactly right now - that's okay, we'll fix that shortly. Using the eraser tool with a big, fuzzy brush on a low opacity, go around all the edges and erase the obvious lines. Be careful in any areas with interesting details (like between the eyebrows on Gaius here) - you want to make sure to retain those.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-2-s.jpg

5. Now select another piece. I've selected the bridge of the nose this time... And some more of the forehead wrinklies just to make sure they show up nicely, and a little around the nose. Note how I made sure NOT to select the shiny part on the left side of his nose where the light's hitting him. I want the lighting to be uniform. I'm also not doing the whole nose at once - I'll leave the nostrils and such for another piece, as they need to be positioned exactly or your sim's nose will look weird.

Again, paste onto a new layer in your face document, resize to fit the area, reduce the opacity to around 65%, and then use a big soft eraser brush to blend the edges. You may have to erase a little more from any areas that overlap - you still want to be able to see the existing skintone underneath a little.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-3-s.jpg

6. And now, select the end of the nose. Again, making sure not to get any of the highlight on the side. Copy, paste into the texture document, resize, lower opacity, and blend. Make sure you get the nostril holes and the edges of the nostrils lined up or your nose will look odd on the sim. On the bottom of the nose, I've made my opacity a little higher, just to make the nose look a little more like his.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-4-s.jpg

7. And really, you just continue with the rest of the face just like that, selecting small pieces of the face texture, copying them, reducing their opacity, resizing them and moving them into place, and then erasing the edges. For areas that need more detail, where the person you're creating has wrinkles, moles, freckles, or other interesting features, try a bit higher opacity. The smaller the pieces you use, the easier it will be to fit them correctly into place, so don't try to rush - take your time and use nice, small pieces.

Something you need to keep in mind as you do this: The proportions of the person's face you're trying to sim do not matter whatsoever at this point. The texture will be stretching to fit the face, so all of your features must be in exactly the right place. If your person has a wide nose, don't make the nose of your texture any wider than it is on the existing texture. Everything should line up, especially in the nose and eye area. The crease of the eyelid is very tricky, so use VERY small parts, doing the eyelid and above the eye separately. Also, the area across the cheek and from the outer corner of the eye toward the ear stretches horizontally - so any detailing you add in that area will stretch also. Try to minimize the details you put in that area unless they're essential for the person to be accurate - if you must, shrink the width of any texturing you put in this area by about 50% to compensate for the stretching.

Don't worry about any details that only appear on one side of the face, like particular scars or moles - smooth those areas out using the Healing Brush or Clone Stamp to get a nice smooth background. We'll add those details in last.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-5-s.jpg

8. You may run into certain areas where you don't have enough of the source image to fit the area you need to cover. One area this is likely to happen, especially on men, is the area above the eyelid, under the eyebrow.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-6-s.jpg

9. For that, you can use the Clone Stamp tool with Aligned unchecked (so it samples from the same spot with each new click). Fill in the area around it with the same texture by using the Clone Stamp tool with a big fuzzy brush.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-7-s.jpg

10. If you don't have the perfect custom eyebrows for your sim, then you can go ahead and add their brows to the texture, too. You don't want them too thick - remember, there's a brow thickness slider in the game, and you don't want them to stretch into the wrong place.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-8-s.jpg

11. With the addition of the brows, Gaius's face is looking just about where I want him, I think. Go ahead and save your file. I'm saving mine as GaiusFace-LayerSeparated.psd. That ensures that we still have all the bits pulled apart in case we want to change something on one of them. Then, once it's saved, combine all the texturing layers together into one - do NOT include your background layer, just the texturing you've added from the photo.

My new texturing still doesn't blend quite right with the background... So I've gone around the sharp edges a little bit more with a light eraser brush, and to get the colour to blend, I'll apply a Photo Filter to warm it up quite a bit.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-9-s.jpg

12. Now duplicate that layer, flip it horizontally, and line it up on the other side of the face.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-10-s.jpg

13. If the person has any additional features that are only on one side of the face (like moles or scars) you can add those in now on a new layer. Copy from your source image the same way as before. Make sure you match the colour on those layers, too, by using the Photo Filter at the same settings level as before. For small, dark moles, it may be easier to just draw those yourself, laying down a dot of very dark brown using a small, fuzzy brush on a high opacity setting (around 80%).

14. When you're ready, first save your new document as a .psd - do not save over your layer separated version. Save As and give it a new name. I'm going to call mine GaiusFace-CombinedLayers.psd.

Then, save your image over the original .bmp file you opened in the YourProjectName folder. Photoshop will try to save as a copy - make sure you take out the " copy" part of the filename to save over the original. It'll confirm that you want to overwrite it.

Then switch over to Body Shop and reload the textures (the little circle arrow next to the box to enter text) to view your edited texture. Now, you're viewing on the default Body Shop mannequin rather than the face of the person you're trying to sim, so it's not going to look perfectly like them, but you can check here to make sure all the features are placed correctly - check especially the edges of the lips, the nostrils, edges of the nose, eyelids, and eyebrows. If anything is not placed correctly, go back to your layer separated version (step 11) and fix it.

My texture's looking good, so I'm going to go ahead and Import to Game to have the game package my textures up into a working skintone. Make sure you enter some text for the tooltip.

15. Still in Body Shop, go to Build Sims, Build or Clone Sims. Select the sim you'd made previously and clone them. Go into the skintones and select the first one in the list, which should be the one you just created. Then take a close look at your sim. They should look a lot more like themselves now. You may need to make some changes to their face now that you have a texture on them - or you may need to go back and continue to work on your texture... As I've had to do with my Gaius...

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-11-s.jpg

In my case, I think the result looks too photoskinned - there are highlights in the wrong places, and some of the details, like the lines down from his nose haven't translated correctly. Overall, the colouring is too different, so he looks a bit blotchy, and the end of the nose is dark, so it doesn't look the right shape. I've also had to change a lot of facial geometry.

I'm going back to my layer separated document and going to work on the texture some more. I'm not showing a step-by-step of everything I did, as it was a lot of really small things and tweaks here and there, and what I did is not going to be exactly what you will need to do, as these tweaks are going to vary widely depending on your source pics, how you put them on the texture, and the look you're going for. With Gaius's face, I've smoothed out a lot of the texturing, shrunk the eyebrows, evened out the skintone, tweaked the bags under his eyes, adjusted the texture on the nose and lips here and there, and added lines around his mouth. I've also done sideburns painted onto the skin.

http://www.demusedsims.com/images/SimFaceTutorial/PS-12-s.jpg

Most of my edits were done with a fuzzy, low opacity brush, with the colour sampled from the surrounding texture. In some areas, I used Clone Stamp. In almost all cases, I used my graphics tablet to paint my changes - it can be done with a mouse on a lower opacity and with several steps, but it's a lot more fun to do with a tablet. I also recoloured some eyes I'd made for him, recoloured clothing, added hair to his skin, and made him a whole new hair mesh. All in all, making Gaius probably took me a good 2 weeks from start to finish, working on him at least an hour (and generally several) every day.

Not everyone will be able to do everything here - or get as good a result. I've been a graphic artist for years now, I'm a perfectionist, and getting a sim of Gaius that satisfied me took me two weeks... but anyone can get a decent result with lots of time, effort, and persistence. I don't want to sound discouraging, but I do want everyone to realize, especially if you've chosen someone with a very interesting face (like Gaius), it's going to take a LOT of work and it's NOT going to be easy. But I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't enjoy it, too. ;)

If you're interested, all kinds of photos of my finished Gaius (from many angles) can be found on his upload thread.

~*~

The Pre-FAQ :P

What if I don't want to put the face texture directly on the skintone?
Skintone files are BIG files, and making a whole new one for each new sim when all you want is facial texturing is a bit wasteful of resources. If you're doing body texturing, like tattoos, body hair, etc., you'll have to do it as a skintone, but if you're just doing some additions to the face, you can use this handy-dandy trick to make an instant alpha in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs will do this - try the help file) to do it on a full-face makeup or whatever other facial overlay... When you've got everything together, layer separated, laying on top of your base texture properly, save your texture as the main texture in the facial overlay. Then duplicate ALL your texturing layers (everything but the background), merge those layers, and lock the transparency. Fill that layer white. Make a new layer, and put it right behind your newly-white texture layer. Fill that new layer black. Now save what you have as the alpha - your white should be over the black in exactly the right proportion for an alpha of your texture. Neat, huh?

But full-face makeups are over all the others, and you can only wear one...
Facial overlays are pretty complicated, but there is an order to the way they layer so you can make a sim more versatile with other makeups, AND you can make them multi-wearable, too, just like accessories. It's fairly technical, but if you're concerned with such things, there's info on that here.

Where can I find the right content for my sim?
Try MTS2's download section first - there's SO MUCH stuff in there, it's nuts. I find new stuff every time I look. Remember, the site has TWO search functions, and you may have to try several different search terms, and just browse around some, too. You can also try the Where Can I Find area at S2C (MTS2's social forums - requires separate registration) and see if someone can find something you need to get your sim just right from the rest of the community. Looking for something in a particular theme? Try this site. MTS2 has a requests area if you have specific pics of what you would like to see made... make sure you read the rest of the guidelines too. But... a lot of the time, it comes down to having to make it yourself, or compromise and use something that's not quite right. If you're really picky and doing something unusual, you're probably going to have to learn to make stuff yourself. ;)

But this is hard, and I didn't get it!
Yeah, well, I did say you needed to be experienced with the programs and functions involved BEFORE trying it, didn't I? :giggler:

Where do I get Photoshop? Can I use something else? Can I use (insert program name here)? Where can I get a free program to do this?
If you don't know the answer to that already, or how to find the answer yourself, you're not ready to do this tutorial. Run along, this isn't for you.

~*~

Questions about this tutorial and its techniques? Related tips and tricks? Please post here rather than PMing me. Thanks.

Keywords: how make a sim of a person celebrity simming tutorial source pics reference photos pictures


I don't have body shop?

[TheChildWithin]

Hey, this tut is very helpful. But unfortunately, the pics have gone. But that's not my question:

I'm wondering, if there is a version of this for the sims 3? Or if you will make one... ore somebody else has made one? ;-)

[BBdoll3]

I was sent this link, but for some reason, your pics are not available. Can you tell me why?

[KittyPirate95]

Hey, I'm not sure if I am posting this right, I've never posted in one of these before -.- Anyway, I figured I would give this tutorial a try because I simply cannot find any Jared Padalecki or Jensen Ackles sims that I like. Well I did everything the tutorial said (although I am using GIMP, which was pretty easy to figure out), I used the amface~face~stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp and I exported it from GIMP as a .bmp, replacing the previous amface texture. When I refreshed my body shop preview, nothing I did to the face showed up, it just turned completely blue! I attached a picture (I think) with this post. I have no idea what I did wrong, and I tried multiple times. Someone please help! :cry:

[Effelenn]

This sounds like a potentially smashing tutorial, but where are the pictures? :(

[joviz]

where you able to get them ? I want them too :(