So I had the bright idea to have my first hand at actually editing a texture, but somehow I find that even trying ti find a program that is able to help me edit it seems difficult.

I tried Unitool first, but for whatever reason that just simply will not run for me (I do have the proper framewaork installed as desiganted by the Unitool). Next I tried TSR workshop, but that will not let me open up a costum content for some reason.

I did try to open up a new project in TSRW and I can't seem to figure out how to work with it.

Honestly, all I'd like to be able to do is just take an existing piece of cc I found (.package file), recolor a few bits, and then just save it and put that in the game. I thought that would be relatively simple, but it seems nothing is going simply here. Could someone help me out as to where I'm going wrong with this?

Hi there!

The basic place to start is with the program known as S3PE (which may get auto-linked, but here's an up to date link just in case).
This is your basic all around .package viewer and editor, which will be more than enough for a texture replacement.

If you're unsure about any of the program features or would like to know the extra steps involved in working with the texture files just let me know

Hey, I am not sure if it's a texture replacement, so much as a texture remodel I'm looking for. I have used S3PE in the past, but I am not fimiliar with all of its features. Basically, I will just need to take the downloaded mesh, and just take away a few of the shades. Would S3PE be sufficient for that as well? I did not see a brush to edit with or something last time I used it.

When opening the package file with S3PE, you'll see a bunch of files with different tags. You need to locate those with the IMG tag. Also, enable previews at the bottom, and expand the panel on your right so you can actually see it.



If you see a gray picture of the garment with a transparent background, that's the diffuse / multiplier map. That's the actual texture of the garment.



The red / yellow / magenta image, or the one with a transparent background and some red marks here and there, that's the mask map. It tells the game how the garment is going to be recolored.





The one that looks all gray, sort of like a relief, that's the normal map. It gives "depth" to the garment textures.



The image that is all black, or that has a full black background, is the specular map. It determines the shininess of the garment: black is opaque, white is totally shiny / reflective.


You could extract any of those images, edit them with Adobe Photoshop or Gimp, and replace them with S3PE.

Remember that in order to edit these images, you'll need a .dds plugin for each app.

To add the above, the .package is basically just a little archive of all the resources something requires and S3PE gives you access to them. The textures and meshes are in there, but they need to be exported and edited in their respective type of program (image editor or 3D modelling software).
Only text and certain data values can be directly edited with S3PE itself, but it's also the middle-man for exporting those other resources and importing them back in when you've edited them.

If you'd like to attach a screenshot of the CC you'd like to edit and describe what about it you want to be different, maybe we could help outline what that process would look like?

Sorry I didn't reply earlier. I had seen your replies, and tried to make things work as best as possible. I haven't gotten too far yet though since I had a busy weekend, Lol.

I think it's also important that I am a bit more clear on what I'm trying to do exactly. I had not done so earlier since I was afraid that this might possiblily dive too much into R-rated stuff for this site.. Let me explain:

What I'm essentially trying to do is edit a female skin. I wanted to have the possibility of creating a character that was either non-binary or post-top surgery transman. For these cases, I imagined more of a femine bodyframe, but in game, that would also mandate you are wearing some kind of top for swimwear and such, but a real trans/non-binary person would obviosly not do that. So basically I'm trying to create a more masculine (flat) chest on a female frame.

Trying to make this work has required that I am using some more R-rated downloads (so I do hope talking about this topic will pass the check for this forum). Now I don't know if you are fimiliar with how bare-chested women usually look like in the Sims 3, but essentially, even if you are using some kind of slider to make them as small as possible, the game will still have some kind of shading texture under where the female chests-appendages used to be. So it is all flat, but the texture will still show breasts basically (this was my first attempt to make this happen). I found a cc download on one of the more R-rated cc sites. So I am essentially just trying to take that skin, and edit away the shading, and just make it look properly flat.

I would like to outline the porblems I've been having and show the screenshots (don't worry, nothing R-rated), but I think it's better to take a moment to ask first if this is an ok topic to discuss here. I'm not really trying to create something R-rated, but it mandates me to use R-rated material. I could go to one of these R-rated mod/cc sites, but I felt the support was better here, which is why I wen here first. I guess I just kinda hoped I wouldn't need to get to this into the meat of things too much.

That's totally fine
As long as no screenshots contain inappropriate details, it's an unavoidable part of working on skins to involve some body part talk. All skins hosted here have doll anatomy, but I think it's the standard for pretty much all of the most popular default and non-default skins to be realistic. In that way, it has become the norm and isn't something restricted to adult mod sites.

Feel free to describe what you've tried so far. It's definitely possible, so I'll let you know what's next once I know where you're at in the process

Ok then, with that out of the way I'll just outline my process so far:
I have gotten myself the PS-app with a dds plugin, and I have been able to open up the images in PS, but they haven't quite been showing up the way I had hoped:

First off; I assume that this is because this is a skin and not clothing (as I assume ninfalara was talking about earlier) but in S3PE I only get 3 IMG tagged files,. There isn't any red//yellow/magenta file as ninfalara described, but the first three attached images will show what I do have here. Note on the first image! This shows a skinsuit when changing the aplha or inverted filter, but obviously I won't be able to upload that here. But I assume that this is the file I'm after to alter.

Now secondly, I have tried opening up all three of these in PS, as shown in the next three images attached here. The last image is taken from the file I'm after, but I am not sure how to filter it in PS as I did in S3PE. I can't realy start editing unless it can actually show me an image of a skinsuit obviously.

Lastly, most of the tutorials that I have found on skin-editing appear to go into 3d features of phototshop that the current version of PS unfortunatly no longer supports. Now I can try and find an older version of PS, but I am not sure at this point if such a thing would be neccesary or even where I could find one, as Adobe makes this a bit difficult. From what I have seen in these tutorials, it would probably allow for a more visual representation of what it will actually look like in-game, so I could see that as a benefit. But it's not something I ever used in PS (I am a bit of a PS novice in general), so it would be something I would have to learn. What are you guy's thoughts about this?

Thank you for the help so far btw. It is greatly appriciated. Will be looking out for a reply.

It seems like this piece of CC is a nude top, correct?
The reason it has no noticeable texture in the package is because it will simply be using whatever skin the sim wearing it has.

Rather than editing the CC itself, what you'd need to do is pick a non-default skin for the sim you're making and make your edits to the textures included in it. That way, it will look correct when that sim is wearing this 'top' if that makes sense

It is a nude full-skin actually. And I figure that editing a non-default skin was what I was doing here. Like I said in the post, in S3PE the textures doi show with the right filters (aplha off, or invert on). I'll show you the screenshot (retouched in PS so it stays within the site's guidelines).

[IMG][/IMG]

Problem is, I do not know how to make these textures show up in PS. In PS, all I'll get is the grey/black blocky panel that I showed in my earlier post.

Perhaps though you are making a point though that retouching this skin might not do it. The shading in on the homonculus suit from the IMG file is significacantly less than it is in thumbnail. Allthough it could be that this is just how it usually shows up in these types of files. I don't have the experience to know.

I was able to find a copy of the CC to take a proper look at the contents.

This nude top doesn't actually come with a skin in the real sense of the term (a face and body texture set that is selected in the skintone panel, that is). I'm assuming the body texture in the package may have been there for preview purposes while Venus was making the top or something along those lines.
The reason you have to untick alpha is because the texture is functionally invisible, from having a blank alpha channel. It's already a male texture to begin with, but it's not actually being used at all. Confusing for sure!

As noted, in-game it will use whatever body texture the sim already has. Which is a good thing really, because it would be a nightmare to use it on sims with different skintones if not! That's why you'll need to make those edits to your preferred skin.
A smoother EA-style skin would probably be easiest to edit, I'd recommend something like Imam's Tabula Rasa. Either by using the Clone Stamp tool in Photoshop to blend away the cleavage shading, or you could even make a skinblend combining the male torso with the female skin.

Wow, you were able to track it down? That's impressive given the obscure thread I located it at. Lol

You might be right.I had a feeling looking at the texture file that retexturing it may not do too much. I'll try fiddling around with the file you proposed and see where I get. I'll edit if anyhting comes up.

I know I said I'd edit, but I feel it would be easier to just make a new post. I got a little busy and some issues wth the game itself, so I put this project aside for a bit until today. So apologies for not updating this thread any sooner.

I would like to give an update on my progress (I feel like the images I'll upload will just be within the site's guidelines )

I was able to adjust the skins to a reasonable level that took out most of the shading for the breasts (this was more difficult than it looked at first, but I found out that the retouching tool is miraculous). As you can see from the images in terms of shading, this should work.

Before:
[IMG][/IMG]

After:
[IMG][/IMG]


I replaced the files in S3PE, put the newly edited package files into the Mods folder, booted up the game and tried it out.

I wasn't sure about this before, but I am now. It isn't the skintexture giving the breast outlines, but something within the game itself, as you can see here for yourself:

[IMG][/IMG]

Just to cover all the bases, I did try to use the sliders to make them look as well fitting and flat as possible, but obviously that didn't so anything.

I'm probably being overly optimistic, but I feel this may also be a blessing in disguise. If I knew what file(s) in the game do this to the skin, and I would be able to mod those parts out, I wouldn't even need a costum skin. But I obviously have no idea what part of the game does this, and I would have no idea where I would begin to look for this. I don't suppose anyone does?

I'm glad to see you're making progress!

The last thing that will leave an illusion of 3D shadowing is what's called the normal map (sometimes called the bump map), which aren't separate per skin but instead there is just one default per gender and age. You'd have to sacrifice the additional detail on all adult female sims, but other than that it would be possible to smooth out the cleavage shadow in the same way. You would still need both, as it wouldn't erase the effect of having the cleavage drawn onto the skin itself.
The file is called afbody_n and can be found in the FullBuild2 package- it can be intimidating finding and exporting things directly from the game files, so if you're unfamiliar I can gladly upload it.
Edit: I forgot there is also a cleavage normal that becomes more visible the higher the bust slider is set- that one is called afBodyCleavage_n and is found in Deltabuild2)

I'd also suggest adding any kind of immediately noticeable detail to your new skin texture (like just painting a big red X) temporarily to test that it is actually working, just to rule out that out! You may even want to test outside of CAS, as Live Mode renders things a little differently.
Is the sim in the screenshot wearing the flat CC top? The EA nude mesh will naturally self-shadow from not being flat.

Yeah, I figured that I should maybe try that after I posted.

I would like to try first to see how far I get with exporting the game file, but I have no clue where either Deltabuild2 or Fullbuild2 packages are located. I have never tried actually messing with the game files directly, and I don't even know where these files are kept (I tried a Discoverer search, but that didn't bring anything up).

If the game files are anything like messing with the cc content from before, it should probably be fine. But if it gets very complicated I will probably need to ask you for that upload.

As far as taking out the detail from other female skins, it may be an idea to just use both the default replacement variation as well as my edited version of the non-default replacemnt of this skin. That way I can still have some level of detail on the regular female sims, whilst having a smooth skin when needed.

No worries

From the install location for the game, the file path will look something like The Sims 3 > GameData > Shared > Packages. This folder has three FullBuild (the original game files) and three DeltaBuild (much of the same files updated + additions from patches).
They're .package format and can be opened like regular CC, the only differences to keep in mind being that they're very large and may take a while to load + you shouldn't save changes directly to these files, only export what you need.

The normal maps will appear greyscale in Photoshop and other image editors. Lights and darks represent height and depth, which informs the lighting engine of how to light the areas as if they had that detail in 3D.
These textures also use their Alpha channel as an additional layer, you'll want to edit it from the Channels tab (usually next to the Layers tab) as well.
Must be saved in DXT5 format to retain that Alpha.