#tutorialz

miss dolly is gonna be our model today. she already has a skin but im gonna add some little details for the sake of example + some tats cause ive been meaning to anyway.

so when i first get started on making someone a skin, ill find a good base to use and then add details from other categories like nosemasks, eyebags, contours, etc.

my fav skin creators are @sims3melancholic and @thisisthem. my bases are usually thisisthem, and then i'll pick through a couple s3m skins and make notes on my phone about what parts i wanna take off of them (like, say, i like how a certain s3m skin's nose looks. i'll use that instead of a nosemask)

my goal when im gathering things i wanna add is to free up as many slots as i can. id rather add cheshire's freckles onto her skin than use up the freckle slot in skin details that i could use for something else, yknow?

ill repeat this process for makeup next. obviously im not giving my ocs permanent full glam, but some lipsticks can add better texture, you can get highlights/blush from........the blush section LOL and i love using this obscurus eyeliner at a low-ish opacity

just adds an extra level of detail i love. i think what keeps my sims looking consistent next to each other is that i tend to use some of the same details all across the board

make sure for all makeup/skin detail/tattoo category swatches you use, you make note of what swatch it exactly is. when you go into s4s to export the file, you're gonna have to manually select it and if u cant remember what skintone u chose out it can be annoying :/

note that she is completely nakey aside from her piercings while i pick what im gonna use for her skin! no clothing but u can keep on their hair. this is so we have a clear view of everything (and i mean EVERYTHING) for blender.

after you make sure u save the sim/household to ur gallery, you can close out of cas and save ur game! i forgot to do this bc im a fucking idiot but its okay bc you will not. its not REALLY necessary to do this as long as you know exactly what packages you need to locate for texture exporting

step one is done!!!! close out ur game

i have a million fucking characters so i made a deja senti skinblending folder to keep it all organized :-)

this is what it looks like inside. gives u a pretty good overview of what ur gonna be doing tbh. the 't' folder is all the textures we're about to export

thankfully i do have a version of dahlia saved in my gallery so even tho i didnt go it before i closed my game i can still show u what to do in tray importer lol. i have multiple sims in one household, so i narrowed it down by going up top and selecting dahlia / human / and her everyday outfit.

since im gonna give her this blush, i right click and hit open w package viewer so itll find it and open s4s for me

anime wow sound. im gonna change the color manually in photoshop so it doesnt matter to me what swatch i export. hit that green export button under the list of diffuse/shadow/etc (u dont need to worry about all those options, just diffuse) and save it to ur folder!

once ur done gathering ur textures ur good to close out of tray importer and s4s(we'll come back to s4s later tho)

thats step two! the quickest step lawl

this is where i start being a little extra. u dont have to rip ur sim and use blender if u dont want to, but i think it can rly help bc the default sim in s4s doesn't have ur sims facial features and can make ur skins look wonky/wont give an accurate representation of how itll look in game. this cuts out having to go in game/out of game over and over to check

so in simripper once u load up ur sim, the important part is to make sure u have it set to export the dae with separate meshes. once thats done u can import it into blender and there's plenty of other tutorials out there how to use simripper n all that.

so once u get the dae loaded into blender im gonna send u on a little side quest over to this ask i answered where i explain how i separate eyes from the head mesh. next thing ur gonna open is photoshop! or whatever u have thats similar

say hi to flat dahlia. u should have ur own guy but flat open now too :-) along with everything else ur gonna combine. in my case its blush and a titty mask. im gonna start w the blush so i zoomed into her face in blender. i went into the blush file and copied, then back into my base skin file and pasted into place with crtl+shift+v

please do not be like me. make sure u rename ur layers as you copy and paste them into the main skin file. do this because it DOES matter what order ur layers are in. u dont want to put ur highlight under ur nose mask cause the nose mask will just cover the highlight etc etc. i already lost what layer the new blush i added is. what is wrong w me

so when u have ur first detail pasted on and in place, ur gonna save the base skin file as a psd. then go into blender, and in the little textures window ur gonna replace the diffuse file ur dae came loaded with with ur new psd file

u should see the change u made but mine was super subtle so im gonna show it to u when i put on the cleavage overlay

when it comes to stuff like this, ur obviously gonna want to pick the closest to ur skintone swatch as u can. i did not do this, because again, im an idiot

mine is way too pale LAWL whoops. we can fix this tho

i add a hue/saturation adjustment and make it a clipping mask using that square w the arrow so the adjustment will ONLY affect the mask

from there i just make little adjustments until the color match up is as perfect as i can make it. for example for this, ik that it needs to be a little warmer and a little more saturated, so im gonna bump the hue and saturation sliders to the right and it was pretty much perfect

tiddies with no mask > with mask no adjustments > with mask and adjustments

and ur gonna go ahead and repeat that process with every single thing u wanna add to ur skin.

so as for tattoos! this is another thing ur gonna wanna rename the layers for because depending on how heavily ur sims can be tatted it can get A LOT

here's psyche's neat little tattoo folder. its separated into where the tattoo is and then

what it is

i find all my tattoo inspo on pinterest using flash sheets/keywords in the search. my ocs usually have sub-boards that i hoard inspo in for them specifically. dahlia doesnt have one bc ive never seen her as the most tattooed person, but i think she'd have some at least

this process is pretty much the same as putting on skin details! its all about adjusting to what u like. for example, i like when my sims tattoos are a little faded and a bit blurred at the edges cause it looks a little more real

when it comes to images i find on pinterest, ill save the image and first try to make it as clean as i can

for example, this lil guy

a curve mask made the whites brighter and the blacks darker as u can see. then ill go into filter > reduce noise to soften the harsh edges

then i flatten it, copy and paste to the skin file, n place it wherever i want it to go :-)

louder anime wow!!!

okay so now ur gonna want to make sure u .psd file is saved (it should be bc we've been checking our progress w blender) and then merge the visible layers (NOT flatten, merge visible. we need the transparency around the skin to be in tact)

ur done in photoshop and blender!!! good job :-)

step whatever number we're on. back into s4s!

ur focus is over here. make sure the option filled is the top one, and then hit the cas button

this menu will open, ur gonna go up to part type and find the option skin details, forehead. pick the first forehead wrinkle option that appears and hit 'next.' itll prompt you to save ur new file n give it a name, i usually just make it my sim's name cause i have a folder in my mods folder for specifically my cc

remember wayyyy back when we were exporting the skin details? ur gonna go back to that same section and hit 'import' instead of export. select ur skin's .png file, and poof !

ur skin :DD it looks great man good job

this part is EXTREMELY important. go up to the warehouse tab

in the 'data' section ur gonna see a box at the top labeled 'filter.' thats where i typed in 'compos' just so it would show me JUST the compositionmethod section since theres a lot of shit in there lawl. yours is initially gonna say '3,' but we're gonna change it to '0' mind you, this is because MY skins are all alpha. maxis match overlays do not show up on my skins because my comp method is set to 0, meaning it has top priority essentially.

after you do that, you can hit save and place that .package file you created into your mods folder!!! and GUESS WHAT BESTIE UR DONE!!!!! U DID IT :DDDD

so first off if u dont have this setting enabled on simsripper, definitely turn it on

it makes a huuuuge difference.

i render in eevee nowadays so i also make sure to check ambient occulsion on so i have sexc shadows

and these are my node usual settings for that look of pores/gloss my sims faces/bodies have it is MAGIC

to do this you have to separate the eyes from the head/the body parts from the top and bottom meshes, which can be done in the UV editing tab

this is what it looks like when u go into the uv editor after selecting the head mesh

click those little arrow guys so it looks like this and u can select the eyes part of the head

hover over the other window (the viewport thingy where u can see ur actual sim) and hit the P key, then hit selection and itll separate the two! this is suuuuper useful its how i add varying texture/shine to clothes n shit and u can even delete parts of meshes u dont like if the texture cooperates

i feel like there may be a better way to do this?? but back over in the layout tab ur gonna go to the materials section

and hit that little minus so that the material thing goes away. it doesnt matter which part u do this on(the head mesh or ur new eye mesh) it just unlinks the textures so u can edit them separately

hit new

and then i usually go to another mesh that i havent messed w the nodes in and copy + paste them into this ~ new ~ material thingy u get it LAWL. so now it should turn from white to the normal texture and u can edit it at will! repeat one million times for everything u wanna change kjhkljhk

this is usually how my eyes nodes look

and again this is my head/body nodes like we saw before! the bump map is what gives it that look of pores its soooo sexy. u can get those by hitting shift + a and searching for color ramp + bump. obviously i mess w these settings depending on the vibe/lighting but yeah thats how i set up my skins for Realism!! :-)

so i always turn AO on at the very beginning, but we're also gonna check the bloom box as well! note that i personally render using eevee

so with bloom and ao on, im gonna go over to this website in the hdri section polyhaven. ur gonna scroll thru all those options until u find one that u think will fit ur Vibe. now, you dont have to use an hdri, but i think it adds a nice realistic detail to my lighting and can take care of a lot of the work for me including adding a background. u can skip over this step and just change the background world color if u want

so ur gonna go into the shaders panel like u would to apply texture to ur sims and instead of shader type > object, ur gonna go to world. delete that background node and copy this set up

ur gonna get these nodes by hitting shift + a and then searching up texture coordinate, mapping, and environment texture. click that open button and load in the .exr file u downloaded off of polyhaven

so when u load it in it may or may not look the way u want to at first. mine......does not! so im gonna fuck w all the sliders in the mapping node until i can change it into something more suited for my style

slay. but oh no! its dark as shit now. time 2 light it better

so more often than not ur gonna wanna turn contact shadows on when u make a new light. it just helps create more realistic depth

i use point lights for a lot of things! depending on the size and power u can pretty much get away with using solely point lights. i like cheating cigarettes w a tiny little yellow light w bloom turned on.

sun is this big bitch. i dont use it so idk her rly. she can b REALLY overpowering i literally put it behind him so it wouldn't just wash him out completely. (granted jay is pale as a mf)

spotlight is sun's sexier cousin. it gives..... a spotlight effect! wow .

area is like spotlight but.......square :-)

so with these tools in hand.........we can combine our knowledge and make mr old as fuck look pretty like he did in his youth

ur gonna go into ur camera tab and check that dof box

next in that same panel, go under viewport display and check the limits box