#paramaker tutorial

Hey! Here's a very brief tutorial that does not touch upon the texture creation process:

Tutorial: creating your Paralives eye defaults

Create a new mod

Follow this tutorial. Steps briefly:

Start the game

Go to Mods, or CTRL + F2

Click Create New Mod, name it, and start editing it

Find the right entries in Characters -> Equipment

Go to Control panel and find the Equipment editor under the Characters category.

Because this is a default replacement, you're not creating any new lines. Instead, you're replacing linked textures in already existing entries. You're looking for:

EyeIrisGlobe for children and above

ToddlerEyes for babies and toddlers

Though these entries are separate, you can use the same eye textures for both.

You can find the reference textures in this Wiki page, or by browsing files locally. Find your Paralives installation directory, and search for textures and masks under Species -> Human -> BodyParts (my path: ...\Steam\steamapps\common\Paralives\Main.mod\Species\Human\BodyParts).

Create and link your textures

Note that even though you're working with default replacements, you should still add your textures to your mod's working folder. You can find it by clicking the folder icon next to your mod's name. You can read more about texture formats here.

Once you've added your textures, you may need to disable and enable your mod to trigger the game to import the texture.

Next, you want to replace the textures in both EyeIrisGlobe and ToddlerEyes. You're looking for these entries in your Equipment editor under Visual -> Textures -> HumanEyeLeft and HumanEyeRight under EyeIrisGlobe, or HumanToddlerEyeLeft and HumanToddlerEyeLeft under ToddlerEyes:

Texture GUID -> this is your grayscale texture. Replace this.

Mask texture GUID -> this is your mask with color channels. Replace this with your 3-color mask texture.

Remember to repeat this step for both EyeIrisGlobe and ToddlerEyes, unless you want different defaults for these age groups.

You can test whether the replacement works directly in the Paramaker, even as you edit the mod. Randomising the Para or clicking on the eyes should refresh the textures. However, if you're updating your texture files, you will need to trigger the file import by disabling and enabling the mod.