Asymmetrizing blush for dollface reduction (among other things)

UPDATE: These are derived from the freckles at
http://www.modthesims2.com/member/s...ad.php?t=212525
and collide with them in an unfriendly manner. I'm in the process of contacting alkaloid to figure out where to go from here. More details down in the comments.




The human face is not perfectly symmetric, but computer generated renderings of it often are-- yielding a doll-like effect. Deliberately introduced skin tone asymmetry can reduce this. Human face recognition is also quick to pick up on asymmetries, and so an asymmetric face can be easier to recognize quickly than a symmetric one-- which means slightly asymmetric faces are often perceived as more individual.

These blushes take two different approaches to decreasing the symmetry of Sims' faces. The first uses Genensims faces-- much like the tanner/antitanner tinters of
http://www.modthesims2.com/member/s...ad.php?t=209659 . The second uses Louis skin faces and Genensims faces-- one darker and one lighter-- for each of Louis tones "Dark", "Dark Tan", "Tan", "Medium", "Lite", and "Pale". Since a match between the underlying skintone and the thrown tint is a null operation, using these with Louis skintones allows them to be used just as dark-patch creators or light-patch creators for skintones in the middle of the range.

It is possible to wear these with other blushes, as illustrated in the figure. UPDATE: because they're derived from the hacked blush at
http://www.modthesims2.com/member/s...ad.php?t=212525
which means they collide in an unfriendly way with it-- and possibly other things, I'm not sure.
See the comments for more details.

This is a subtle effect-- perhaps the easiest thing to do is to grab the files and play with them in BodyShop or CAS with various underlying skintones. Many combinations simply won't work, but some you might not expect to will-- or will have other potential uses. While humans will accept color variation on a face as being part of the underlying skin to a degree, too gross a change is perceived as being the result of a substance ON the skin. Since these patterns are asymmetric-- as opposed to skillfully cosmetic makeup, which is usually symmetric-- unusual combinations can look like light dust, dark dirt, or badly applied foundation. (Or a really icky skin condition. But hey.)

It is safe to assume that most of what's really cool about all this may be credited to Genensims and Louis, whose skintones are absolutely brilliant. (Conversely, anything about it that stinks is my fault and mine entirely.) If you haven't done so already, check out http://www.genensims.com and http://louis.new21.net/ ; the stuff there is, quite literally, inspirational. I didn't use any oepu's stuff here directly, but it did serve as inspiration. If you're looking for skintones with reduced dollfacing designed from scratch, check out http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=43133 . UPDATE: The layering thing is entirely derived from
http://www.modthesims2.com/member/s...ad.php?t=212525 ,
though.

Design note: the patterns thrown are rotationally symmetric with color inversion, which is the same symmetry as a typical yin-yang symbol. This is done to maximize the left-right mirror asymmetry while keeping the tint itself from overwhelming the detail of the underlying skin. The number of underlying patterns thrown is close to but not identical to the number of blushes-- generating them and building the composited masks is tedious enough that I recycled in a few places. Obviously, each of these is only an example of (say) a 25% asymmetric pattern-- others could be made, and otherwise identical Sims wearing two different ones would look like different people. (In fact, this is one of the ways humans tell identical twins apart.) However, I think there's enough here for most purposes already, and properly documenting the algorithm I used to build these would be a project in and of itself-- so for the time being, I'm going to skip it.


Please do not upload any of this stuff or anything derived from it to pay sites. Further, this stuff is itself derived from Genensims and Louis' work-- so credit them appropriately for anything derived from this.

UPDATE: Further, these are derived from the freckles at
http://www.modthesims2.com/member/s...ad.php?t=212525
which I didn't realize was a hacked blush at the time I uploaded these. (I thought it used base-game available components I simply hadn't noticed before.) I'm in the process of contacting alkaloid to figure out where to go from here.