#saylby

things needed

tsrw aka the sims resource workshop

an imaging program like photoshop or gimp

.dds plugin for imaging program

the sims 3 game

(disclaimer: i'm using photoshop cs5; i'm also assuming that you already have (1) an imaging program and know how to use its basics, (2) already have tsrw installed, and (3) already have your .dds plugin installed)

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instructions

STEP ONE

inspiration

the first thing to do is to figure out exactly what design you want for your nails. i'd recommend browsing nail art blogs or magazines. if you'd like to browse some magazine scans, i'd recommend vvshu or zazhimi; they have good magazine scans of nail art. i'd recommend nail up! (though a lot of the other fashion magazines usually have a section on popular nail art ideas as well)...

for this tutorial, i've decided to use this image as inspiration

{this is taken from the october 2013 edition of vivi}

STEP TWO

the mesh

now we need to decide on a mesh. remember to pick a mesh that you have permission to edit. please respect the original creator's TOU (terms of use). usually most allow retextures of their meshes. if they don't allow it or you can't find whether or not they allow it, just ask.. they might just say you can use it.

i personally just use ikarisims recolor of aikea-guinea's mesh. {if you're searching for ikarisims' nails.. go to her 'downloads' --> click on 'old downloads' --> then download '[IW] T-AF Multicolor Nails.rar'}

(you can also use one of my recolors -- for minmi nails, i used my nodo nails as a base since it's the same mesh as the above two)

STEP THREE

opening the mesh

the next step is to open the mesh in tsrw

begin by opening up tsrw.

when it's loaded and opened

click on 'Create New Project'

and in the screen that pops up

click 'new import'

and then 'next'

now your screen should look like this

under 'file to import', click browse

then navigate to where your package file or the simpack file of the nail mesh you want to use is... you might have to click the dropdown menu in the lower right hand corner to change the type of file ('.wrk', '.package', or, '.simpack') to the file you are going to use

for this tutorial, i'm going to use my 'nodo nail' as the base mesh

when you've located and clicked on the file you want to open, click 'open'

now under 'file to import', you should see your file

then click 'next' in the lower right corner of the screen

now you should see this screen

under project nail type in the name you want to give your nails (i also recommend that you put your name in there somewhere)

then change the title to the same as your project name

you can even then give a description of what the nails are... though i think this is usually only important when you are making things for your house

then click 'next'

now your screen should look like this

click 'ok'

then let your mesh load completely

after it's loaded you should see an image similar to this

the default sim might be wearing different clothing, but it's the same principle

STEP FOUR

getting the mask

(EDIT : with this tutorial we don't actually edit the mask file that you are going to extract... i realized that i just use the multiplier as a base and make the mask of that... so instead of exporting the mask, you can just export the multiplier... sorry i made it confusing... however, i'd recommend that you do these steps and name the mask you export as mask and then when you save your new mask, just save it over this file)

on the right hand side, at the top, you should see three tabs

click the 'texture' tab

now your screen should look like this

now look on the right side at the column.. usually i just edit the mask to change the recolorable areas.. however, you could change the actual texture of the nails if you wanted to by changing the muliplier

however, for this tutorial, i'm just going to edit the mask

so in the right hand column

click 'mask' and next to it should pop up 'edit'

click 'edit'

a new window should pop up

click 'export'

now save it to where you can find it (i'd recommend that you make a folder and keep all your files relating to your nails in it for easy access)

you can rename it to whatever you'd like (i'd recommend that you save it as 'mask' so that you know what it is)

make sure that you save it as a .dds file

after naming and navigating to where you want to save the file, click 'save'

now you have your mask file to edit

then repeat the same steps to export the 'multiplier' file (this is so that you have a base or a guide when you make your new mask; remember to save it as 'multiplier' or something similar so that you can find it easily)

STEP FIVE

creating the mask

(i just want to remind that you should save your files sporadically just to make sure that your work is saved. i would recommend if you are working in photoshop to save .psd files of the mask that you are making using the multiplier that you extracted and if you are making an overlay, then save that as a .psd file as well... this way your layers are saved and if you just need to edit one layer or a small detail it will be easier than starting everything from the beginning)

now open up your imaging program

i’m using photoshop cs5, so your screen might look different than mine

(i’m going to finish writing as if for photoshop users)

so after photoshop has loaded, open up the 'multiplier' file that you just exported from tsrw.

now let's focus on the multiplier

it should look something like this

or something similar

the first thing you'll notice is that there is one large set of nails next to another set of smaller nails next to another set of smaller nail, etc.

we only need to work with the largest set of nails so go ahead and crop it using canvas size

to get to canvas size, click 'image' then 'canvas size' OR CTRL+ALT+C

now the canvas size screen should pop up

now click 'inches'

and a drop down menu should appear

change 'inches' to 'pixels'

now you will notice that the height is 1024. that is also what you want your width to be

so change the width from '2047' to '1024'

and in the part where it says anchor, click the arrow on the left side

now click 'ok' and another popup message will appear

click 'proceed' and your image should be cropped

the next thing to do is assign which pattern goes on what nail

using this particular mesh, each nail represents a particular nail on which the nail art appears

by keeping this in mind, you can plan on which nail you want which design

keep in mind that you can only have up to 4 different color channels or recolorable areas

looking at my inspiration image, you can tell that i'd have to have 5 different colors... so i decided that i would make black and white as non-recolorable channels (i'll instead add these colors in the overlay). i did this so that my 4 recolorable channels would be as follows

{by keeping the houndstooth pattern as a recolorable channel, i can add any pattern to it, including the houndstooth pattern; also this way i don't have to actually paint it, but i can let the game fill it in}

another thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to make the nail art the exact way as the original nail art.. you can omit or add designs to it if you want

so now i'm going to start assigning the colors for the mask... there are three vital colors that you need to assign: red, yellow, and magenta. l've decided that the purple should be defined by red, blue defined by yellow, and pink defined by magenta.

the next part for me is to start drawing the lines associated with each color.. i'm going to start with the red channel which is going to represent purple.

so i make a layer and name it red

now i'm going to draw all the lines that i want to be purple in the color red

so i go to color picker and pick red (rgb values should be 255, 0, 0)

next i start drawing the lines in the layer marked as 'red'

notice that i don't exactly color in the lines.. this is okay.. only the gray parts will actually show the color... the color in the black part will not show

next i go ahead and use yellow to color the parts where i want blue to show

so i repeat the same steps but instead of making a 'red' layer, i make a 'yellow' layer, and i use yellow (rgb values of 225, 225, 0) to draw my lines

now i'm going to repeat the same steps above, but make a 'magenta' layer to draw the pink lines on; then i draw the lines in magenta (rgb values of 255, 0, 255)

so now i've got three of my colors already done

now to edit the alpha layer

notice that i haven't assigned a channel for the houndstooth pattern.. i intend to assign the alpha layer for the houndstooth pattern

but before i do the alpha channel... i notice that the lines i made are too thick.. so i go back and edit them to look more like my inspiration image

(you can barely see any difference though... oh well)

okay onto the alpha channel

now i've decided to have the houndstooth pattern appear on the ring finger

so the first thing i need to do is to go into the 'channels' tab

you should see four 'layers' or channels

the first should be 'RGB', which is followed by a 'red' channel, a 'green' channel', and a 'blue' channel'. if you have another channel called 'alpha 1', delete it

now after making sure that you have only the four channels, click a new layer (in the channels tab), it should say 'alpha 1'; it should be completely black

in color picker (where you chose the colors red, magenta, and yellow), choose white (rgb values of 255, 255, 255).

then select (each channel should be visible) all the channels in the channels tab including alpha 1

click on alpha 1 (like in the image above)

your image should look something like this colorwise

then using white, color in the area you want for your alpha channel (you can draw a design or even just color a large portion of it)

now go back to the 'layer' tab and deselect {make invisible} the background image that was originally the multiplier

(ah in the above images ignore the 'overlay' layer... i was working ahead of the tutorial so it's just showing up there... but we'll get to that later)

now your image should look like this

and that's your four recolorable channels

then go to save as (CTRL+SHIFT+S) and save it (i recommend that you save it over the 'mask' you exported from tsrw)

remember to save it as a .dds file or else it won't work

after pressing save, you should get another popup

make sure that this is selected or else your alpha layer won't show up

after hitting save, wait for it to save and then go back to tsrw

unless you exited it, you should be on this

this time instead of export, click import and import the new mask you just created

click 'open' and you should notice that the mask has changed

then click 'done'

you'll get the above pop-up. click 'yes' and your new mask should be imported into tsrw

now here is the most important part. if you only have 3 or less channels instead of 4, you need to select 3 channels. only select 4 channels if you have 4 channels, otherwise your mask won't show up correctly

also notice where it says 'amAccessoryRingWeddingBand'

this is a variation

if you click the drop down menu next to it, you may or may not see more variations

if you just want one variation, then delete the rest (if they exist) or else you need to go and choose colors and edit the mask for each variation (sorry i'm not going to cover that in this tutorial)

STEP SIX

assigning the mask colors

now scroll down in the right hand column

and you will come to a section called 'patterns'

each pattern represents one of the channels we created for our mask

channel a is the red channel, channel b is the yellow channel, channel c is the magenta channel, and channel d is the alpha channel (at least i think that those are the channels associated)

now if you have less than three channels, like say for example only two, then disable pattern c by clicking on enabled and changing true to false in the dropdown menu that appears

however, if you are using all three channels or all four channels (depending on whether you you chose 3 or 4 channels)

now click on each pattern and edit the color or pattern of each of the patterns that you are going to use

for colors (i'm editing pattern A)

click on pattern A

then on edit

in the pattern editor that pops up, click the rgb values

a drop down menu showing a color picker should drop down

pick the color you want and then press 'done

for patterns (i'm editing pattern D)

click on pattern D (like you did for pattern A)

and then edit

however in the pattern editor that pops up, click the folder icon or the new file icon

the folder icon will take you to patterns that are currently in game (i think that they are the patterns that come with the game, but i may be wrong and it may include custom patterns that are already installed), whereas the new file icon will let you create a new pattern

since i wanted a houndstooth pattern, i chose the folder icon, browsed to fabrics, and then to the pattern that i wanted and clicked 'done'

now the pattern editor looks like this... you can then go ahead and change the colors of the pattern if you want, but since i wanted black and white, i left it the way it was and clicked 'done'

and that was it for the pattern

STEP SEVEN

the overlay (optional)

now my nails look like this

which is nothing like the original image

i'm still missing the white and black areas

by this time, i've decided that i want the black and white areas to remain constant and not be recolorable

so i decide to do an overlay

so i go back into photoshop

and open up the original multiplier

and paint the areas i want to be white and black in the colors of white and black

after making the background layer invisible

i save the file as overlay in the .dds format like i did for the mask

then in tsrw go to 'overlay' (located above the mask)

and using the same steps like you did for the mask, import the overlay that you just created

and then press 'done' and 'yes'

and you have it

and that's all i'm doing to the nails

STEP EIGHT

saving and exporting

so now remember to save your final project

then it's time to test your new nails

for that we need to go into the game and see if it works

first we need to make it into a simpack and/or package

go to file --> export --> to simpack

once you click 'to simpack' it should ask you to save your file

then after naming your file and pressing 'save', it will compress your files and make a simpack

when it's done you should get this

STEP NINE

testing and custom thumbnails

now it's time for testing

you can convert your new simpack into a package file or just use the simpack and install the file into your game

load up your game and go to cas to see if it's showing up and working

now remember that if you are using the same nail mesh that i used, the nails are going to be in the accessories tab and be located with the other earrings

so scroll down to the earrings and find your cc

(as you can see it's in the earrings category, but the thumbnail just shows an ear, this is because you need to make a custom thumbnail to show what it is)

so go ahead and put them on your sim and then you can test the CASTable channels to see if they are working

then it's time for a photoshoot

the pictures you take can be used for making custom thumbnails

so since i have really bad graphics, i take off all other accessories and makeup, EXCEPT for the new nails

so then exit out of cas and then set up your photoshoot

i'd recommend using a pose that shows off all five nails of one hand or you might get lucky and your sim might just do an action that will allow you to see all five nails

then you can go ahead and exit out of your game and open up your image editor and edit your image

after editing your image, then crop it into a square

then i would personally recommend to write the name of your nails and your own name so that it can be easily found and recognized as your nails

i'd recommend that you don't put the name down in the lower right hand corner because it might not be seen clearly due to the cc icon in cas

then you need to scale it down for a custom thumbnail

CTRL + ALT + I

make sure that the constrain proportions are on, but basically you need to scale the image to 256 x 256 and save it as a .png

(you can also save the image as a psd so you can edit it quickly... remember to save it before scaling it though)

then go back to your file in tsrw

now there are two places to upload your thumbnail

one is for the launcher thumbnail and the other is for the cas thumbnail

launcher thumbnail

in tsrw

go to the project tab

and scroll down to the very bottom until you see 'extra'

click on it to open it up

click where it says 'launcher thumbnail'

and upload your custom thumbnail there

cas thumbnail

now go to the textures tab

and scroll down until you see 'parthighlighting'

click to open it up

and where it says 'cas thumbnail', upload your custom thumbnail

then go ahead and save your file

and then export it as a simpack

then you should be done

you can then go back into game and test out whether your custom thumbnails are showing up in the launcher and cas

and then you're done <3

hopefully this wasn't too hard to follow... sorry that it was really long...