I need help with making my own archetype for Create a Sim and BodyShop. But the instructions on this page are proving to be too complicated. I've gotten as far as extracting the Sim's face that I want to clone for each life stage. But I haven't been able to progress any further.

I wanted to use one of my CAS Sims as an archetype so that I can replace his ears with the ones from the elf ears template. Since he's supposed to have elf ears. And no, I cannot accept any shortcuts (e.g. using a custom ear slider to mimic the appearance of elf ears as they have to be from the actual elf ears template, or using the Make a Child option as facial features gradually change as they are passed down with each generation)

What I need are some rewritten instructions that will be easier to follow than the ones I linked from More Awesome than You.

I think the problem with that tutorial is it assumes you already know how to make a default replacement face template, instead it is explaining how to make an additional/non-default one.

This is a D-R tutorial, I found it quite easy to follow.

https://katu-sims.livejournal.com/18978.html

Doesn't that mean I'd have to learn how to make a default replacement face template first? Is that really necessary since I shouldn't really need to learn something that's not going of any use for me. Even if it means that I'll be able to learn how to do something that is going to be of use for me later on.

If it helps you make something that is of use to you then is it not of use to you?

I suppose so. Although I would have preferred to just skip to making the thing that is of use to me.

Sure, but if you can't understand it then you need to learn the easy stuff first.

Turns out I actually do know how to make my own replacement archetypes. I just didn't realise that I did, because I'd never actually turned a custom template into a replacement archetype. Therefore, I didn't realise that the principles that applied were almost the same. All I'd ever done was replace all the elder Maxis templates with the adult versions.

I still haven't learnt how to make non-default replacements. But by temporarily turning Abraham Summerdream's face template into a default replacement of the 2nd face template (Archbase), I was able to select the 26th face template (Archeelf), then select the eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, and jaw of Abraham's template repeatedly until I was certain that the eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, and jaw of the 26th face template had been completely washed out.