it works!
THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Are you putting it up for download?

here it is :D

I'm having a problem with amBodySpy
I'd like to make the cross and slashes on the chest transparent.
I removed these parts on the mask, since I don't want them recolorable (occurred to me later that they probably won't be affected by colors if they're transparent) I ran the game, everything worked fine, the sleeve slashes etc that are controlled by the same color group can still be recolored and the parts I want transparent are now white and can't be recolored, which is what I'd expected.
I looked at the _o image file next, but the whole chest piece is already just a transparent area.
The only 2 images left showing the areas I want removed are the _m and _s image files. So I removed a small part of the cross from the _m file just to check and see if that would affect transparency, I ran it in game and now none of the clothing is recorable at all (and the bit I removed of the cross hasn't changed, it's still white)
I have accidentally deleted the files, but I don't mind starting again if it can be done. Is there a way to make these areas transparent?
I was going to try again, this time leaving the mask alone, but I don't think that will work either.

Is this the result you're looking for?

This was made by simply adding an alpha channel to the m image. I've included the image as a zip file with this post if you want to look at it.

Yes, that's mostly what I was looking for. Thank you =)
I ran in to another problem when I noticed my Monarch had apparently shaved most of his chest :O

Seems it's all out of line with the nude skin again
I've made the cross and chest slashes on the _m transparent by removing them and then layered Tummyza's nude skin behind it in a better position, but that obviously goes back to being a recolorable area.
I tried adding an alpha layer to it like before but it ignores the added chest, because, I'm guessing, that's truly transparent.
I messed around with the mask for a while but couldn't get it to be non-recolorable and show the chest properly. When it wasn't recolorable at all it was just showing white on those areas, so it's currently in the blue and green channels because that can give the closest, most forgiving, match to his skin tone.
It means I can't change the color of his shirt on that one arm without affecting the chest, which isn't a huge problem. Not perfect, I know, but I really want the chest hair there *she said, in a non-perverted kind of way*

Is there a way to layer it so the chest matches up but have it not affected by the color channels?
I've obviously got confused and missed something somewhere, which is a bit annoying, but I've learned a little bit about the mask image and alpha channels along the way so it's all good. Thank you very much for your included file, it helped a lot.

I'll have to mess with it further, but I think it has to do with the mesh object. However, I'll say, from the screen shots it looks like you've done a wonderful job at geting everything looking right. But, I know, there is a difference from looking right to being right.

I'll be honest, the texture I uploaded was not from my part cloner, because it's quicker for "me" to edit an individual texture. However the results should be the same.

I'm still installing stuff to bring my new PC back to where my old PC was, and Milkshape is one of the last programs still need to add. Give me a day, or a week, at the most, and I'll try to give you a more complete answer.

By the way, never noticed your avatar before, but if that's really you, you're quite a honney. Tell your boyfriend I'm jelous.

The photo is a few years old, but that's me, and thank you.
The closest thing I've got to a boyfriend is a pixellated monarch, I tried to tell him but there seems to be a language....and sanity barrier lol

There's no rush for the answer, I'll use it the way it is just now, so take your time, and I have a new problem . I removed the chest piece but nothing I do will get rid of the leathery look.

Same process as the last one, I layered Tummyza's nude skin behind it. I've tried removing the piece from every file, I've made alphas for every file affecting that part, I've tried it inverting the alphas, but nothing seems to change it. I'm wondering if it might be a combination of 2 files affecting it, or something else entirely.

This is it truly transparent, the shading from under the arms lies across one side of his back too, not pretty.

With the nude skin layered behind and the leathery look, that won't go away. (I realize there's a width discrepancy between the 2 skin files here, but I can fix that)


I think the best long term solution is probably to learn how to get the actual nude file to line up correctly with any given mesh, but in the meantime, any ideas you have would be appreciated.
I was going to remove the solid leg covering from the consort's dress, but I assume that will have the same texturing problem if it doesn't line up correctly as well.

Thank you for all your help so far and Happy Valentines Day

Alright, I guess I did get around to installing Milkshape already. However, it seems the chest hair is a texture alignment issue only. Actually, I should have noticed that last night. I think your best bet is to add the chest just like you've done. In the Sims 3 clothing is added over the nude mesh, but in Medieval the clothing mesh seems to replace the nude mesh. Take your consort dress for example. The nude parts are included in the clothing geometry. Sadly, there is no one fix for all of the meshes, and you'll just have to figure out what works best in each scenario. Welcome to modding.

The consort dress looks like it should line up correct with the nude texture. The more skin showing on the original texture, the more likely alignment will be ok.

I may be reading it wrong, but I'm not understanding the issue you have with the mask. The sword and slashes are on the alpha channel of the mask texture. I have no issue removing them for being recolorable.

The leather look comes from two places. First is geometry. Second is what's called a normal map. Sorry, but my cloner doesn't pull this texture for you mainly because of where it's located. In the geometry files. I haven't gotten into parsing these masssive files. You can figure out what file is used in a couple of ways. The one I use is loading the geometry into Milkshape, and looking at the comments on the Group tab. If you don't have Milkshape you can open your full or delta build package, and look for it by name. It should be named similar to the other textures, but have a _n in the name. In this case the file name is amBodySpy_n. This texture is basically a bump map, and its usually created by modeling software. Not texture artists. You can however just fill the texture with neutral gray to smooth everything out.

I've already pulled this texture, so I'll put it here if you want to use it. Just pop it in your packages after you smooth it out. It should be named correctly for import into S3PE.

I hope this is helpfull, and it doesn't deter you from working on this stuff. If you think dealing with EAs textures is difficult you should try working with their code. Sometimes I think they have a group of trained monkeys making this stuff.

I recently made a dress shorter when I was messing around in milkshape only to find she had no legs, just feet.
I was going to ask about that at some point, but I figured one idiot question a day was probably enough for you =) this answers it, although I was hoping I'd just messed up somewhere.
I regrouped it with the nude mesh just to see if I could, and although the legs etc showed fine in game, it seemed to have messed up the clothing at the front (looked like it had all been pulled down the way) the back was still fine...she also displayed as completely flat chested in game, which might account for the messed up clothing?? Her butt also stuck out textured in the dress which wasn't overly attractive lol, The model looked just fine in milkshape though, so I didn't know what to alter.
I guess the answer is to not use the whole nude model? or to keep an altered version of the nude model for the purpose of replacing limbs? I don't have any real clue what I'm doing, as you know, just experimenting when I have the time, so again if you have the answer, I'd appreciate any help with this.


I'll keep this in mind, thank you.


I can remove them, but it displays the now non-recolorable area white in game (not solid white because I can still see the chest hair through it)


I saw a bump map in Tummyza's package, so am aware they're used in this version of the game, I think they first appeared in TS2, not that I've ever edited one, I've only ever looked at a few to see where they affect a skin. I just assumed your cloner pulled out everything associated with the file. So thank you again for the solution, and thank you so much for including it, I'll take a look in the build package and in milkshape too for future reference.



very helpful.Thank you so much, and no it doesn't deter me, I feel like I've learned loads so far with your help, so until I hit a brick wall completely, you're kind of stuck with my dumb questions :P

lol does that mean given a typewriter and enough time, the EA team will eventually write the entire works of Shakespeare :P

The pulled down clothing issue sounds like a missing bone. I can't be certain without seeing it though. It could also happen if you didn't renumber the polygons. When adding or removing polygons you need to make sure you renumber them. The morphs use these number to know which polygons are the same on the different morphs. Under the Vertex menu is Sims3 VertexID AutoNum. It should work as long as you have the right amount of polygons in each morph.

The "butt sticking out" is due to not removing the polygons hidden by the clothing. As the game blends the morphs together things can look messed up. In game sims are almost never solely one morph at a time, so even if the individual morphs look ok, a morphed sim may not. Even if this wasn't an issue, you should never have polygons in a game mesh that will never be seen, to keep the mesh working efficiently in game.

The "flat chested" issue I can't be sure. Maybe if I saw it.

When you're trying to do this kind of edit you have to be very careful. Any number of things can go wrong while putting two meshes together. You're doing well if you got it to load in game. When I was working on my nude meshes, I failed several times even just exporting the models. When you start adding and removing polygons things can get messed up quick. I always keep incremental saves when working on something like this. I also make one change, and test. Then the next change, and test. This way if something doesn't work you can quickly get back to a point that did work.

Good luck. And remember, I'm happy to answer any question when I have time.

Oh this is another file I threw out when I was clearing out those folders, because I had nothing to go back to so would probably never have attempted to sort it as it was. If I'm trying to do something seriously I keep multiple saves, but I was only curious with this one to see if I could get the legs to show in game.

I didn't know about renumbering the polygons, thank you for telling me how to do that.

Yes I've made a few attempts at different meshes that wouldn't let me export, when I hadn't changed that much, so I was surprised when this regrouped and shortened mesh not only exported but showed up in game.
I had one mesh that crashed the game when it was clicked on, but I know what I did (or didn't do) with that one, and it was deliberate, an experiment borne out of curiosity to see what would happen, the game didn't like it at all. That probably makes me sound a bit dumb, but it helps me understand why something's important, or even if it's wildly important at all, and the consequences of not doing things a certain way.

You've said things here that a few months ago would have just made my brain spin, but now I have a 'slight' grasp of what it means, given me a sense of some kind of progression, which is nice.

Thank you again for your help and quick reply, and thank you for actually explaining what's going on as well as letting me know how to fix it. It's much appreciated

Glad to help. I'm thrilled someone is getting some use out of this tutorial. I feel kind of bad because I suggested more advanced sections, but I haven't added them yet. Several of your questions would never have had to been asked if I had. If more people were asking I'd get on it, but I get few questions about it.

I wanted to mention, since I forgot in my earlier post, when renumbering a body mesh make sure to put 5000 as the first vertex number. I almost totally spaced that, but had a reply about sliders on my male adult mesh that reminded me.

Don't feel bad I'm happy enough to ask questions as I run into problems, if you're happy to answer them.

Thank you for the added info on vertex numbering, I haven't tried it yet so you're in time to save another question lol.

Oh the bump map worked, thank you, although it now looks weird in certain lights (mostly when outside) which I assume can be fixed by altering the _s image?, although I think I prefer the subtle look of the removed cross and slashes to the 'let it all hang out' look, so I may not mess around with this one anymore.

And it nearly did, it was still off though, enough to be noticable.....and backwards lol She looked fine till I turned her round.
The knee shading is on the back of her leg, and a part on the inside of one leg is a triangle shape and lighter than the skintone, I lined it up with the nude file so I can see where the lighter part is coming from, I had hoped this one wouldn't be a pain to do

Which brings me to my next idiot question....when dealing with a transparent area, is there a way to add modified (re-aligned) nude skin textures to a package for clothing so the game 'sees' those instead of the actual nude file?
Layering the body part underneath a transparent area is ok, but only really good for the one skin tone unless you want to spend ages fiddling with the colors and have another parts color dictated to you based on the skintone you're looking for.

I guess EA just decided to put stuff whever they wanted to in the textures. Except for the parts that they intended to be nude or partially transparent. I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer, but I can explain why a game developer may decide to do it like this. Basically, It allows them to make texture detail higher on more important pieces, while still being able to pack more into a single texture. I really thought EA would have been anticipating the mod community and not gone this route, but honestly, there's plenty of other stuff they neglected or screwed up in this game, so I'm not really surprised.

I did look to see if I could find a pointer to the nude textures, but I haven't found one, and didn't truely believe I would. It wouldn't make much sense, because of the multiple skintones.

I don't think there's any other option to make these edits apart from modifying the UV coordinates on the mesh, and realigning the textures. It's not too bad to do on a part of the mesh, but a whole mesh does get time consuming. If it's just the leg swap that looks bad in game, it really shouldn't be hard to move those UV's around, but as I was looking closer it seems the chest may be and issue too.

There's a good TS3 tutorial on UV mapping here, http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=135136, if you're interested in giving it a try. Give it a look, and see if it's something you want to try.

Good luck.

I've given the tutorial just a quick glance just now, but from what I've seen it looks well written, well broken down and informative, should be good. Thank you so much for the link, I noticed a few other links in the comments section to other relevant tutorials, which I'm hoping are similar in style to this one.
I got the impression right from the start that EA didn't want this game to be added to by custom content creators, which is a bit odd when your target group is simmers.

My comment was similar, but not the same. I think EA made the game moddable. I have been able to do a lot. Just, many things we consider make TS3 moddable are the tools that people have made. We truely lack the modder base that TS3 has. Really, sometimes I swear I'm the only coder that messes with this game. That's a big downfall, because it means much more than just script mods. It's tools that open up the game to other modders. Where would we be if EA had changed the .package format, and it no longer worked with S3PE? Look at the sorry state of my CASP Cloner compared to the equivalent TS3 tool. I had plans for this and the tutorial, but I'm ADD, and theres too much stuff I'm already messing with, like the Jealousy you requested, which I have working, but isn't yet to a standard that I feel is releasable (I will get it though), and NPC pregnancy, and Pose Player (which is also possible, if I ever get the time), and my adult meshes .... I'd love to see more coders get into this game.

The texture issue may be an oversight, or they may have expected texture and mesh artists to have a higher level of ability. This is where I think they missed the mark, because making a texture change is often one of the fisrt mods a person tries. However, I can see how being able to use any part of a texture for any piece gives a lot more freedom to the creators. Think of trying to put a long, wide dress on the default nude texture. Because the legs are so close, it's bound to have overlapping issues. Since a long dress doesn't use the legs, doesn't it make more sense to ignore their placement to allow the important parts of the texture to appear correctly.

EA has been good to us making this game as moddable as they have while trying to allow their professional artists as much freedom as possible. As modders, we too can enjoy the freedom that we get if we work a little bit harder. Perhaps it's unfeasable to expect one person to make these changes. Remember, EA has people who only do textures, and people who only do meshes, and people who only do code. It actually goes much deeper than this, but EA doesn't expect it's best people to do everything.

Sorry, to go off, but this seems to be a common feeling on this game.

I'd actually meant in some of the things EA have said themselves, they pretty much say 'don't touch it' without actually saying it in those words.
Not allowing patterns in cas kind of feels like saying (when put together with their hints at not touching it) that we can't be trusted to not put the sims in denim jeans and other inappropriate materials for the time period (which admittedly, I do, I love jeans), I don't know, maybe there's a reason for not having patterns in cas as well.
But yes I suppose they could have used some other format than .package for the files, so maybe they were hoping someone would do something to it.
I understand all that you said here, and I agree, and I love the detail in the meshes and the textures, things you'd find textured on to the skin in any other Sim game have been meshed on in this one, but I often wonder if the higher level of detail is because they didn't want, or didn't expect it to be modded.
Can't say it doesn't blow me away when all I want to do is remove a necklace or a close fitted top to find the ties are actually part of the mesh and the necklace stands out from the skin, and the only things stopping me from taking them out, but before I even thought about doing any kind of re-texture, I was incredibly appreciative of their attention to detail, so the fault lies with me I guess :P
I appreciate the way they've done skin textures gives them freedom to make it look better (although I didn't know this was the reason for doing it that way till you said, and your analogy with the dress makes perfect sense as to why this would be a better way of doing it), and I'm willing to learn because I love this game, not abandon it because I feel not enough can be done to it, which I'm aware others did, which is sad.
I stopped re-texturing clothing some time during TS2, but now wish I hadn't or I'd already know how to work properly with TSM textures, so a part of my annoyance with the misaligned nude skins is purely with myself for not knowing how to correct this stuff already.

I haven't used the TS3 equivalent of your CASP cloner, but yours does what it's meant to do and does it very quickly, and a monkey (i.e me, lol) could use it. I like it's simplicity, and the speed at which you put it together and released it as well was amazing. I think you're too hard on yourself with that one.

I wish there were more modders too, if only to take some of the weight off you, I considered begging the girl who makes meshes and skins at All About Style to take pity on us since she goes in for historical clothing quite a lot. And if the creator of pose player wants to make one for us I'll even buy them the game so they can look into it but hugs to you for adding it to your list. You are awesome, we all think you're awesome here, I'm sure anyone who posts here would agree with me, and I do realize we'd be completely lost without you. I actually worried the other day what would happen to what's left of the interest in this game if you decided to move on to something else.
If you can make no jealousy and get pose player to work in TSM I'll buy you a game of your choice off Steam to show my appreciation of all the effort you put into this (a serious offer....as long as you don't move away from us to mod that one of course ) we don't expect you to make all the changes, it just seems to be that you're the only one around who can, like I said I'd like to see more modders too if only to take some of the stress you must feel on occasion off of you (((hugs)))
I was going off this quote "Perhaps it's unfeasable to expect one person to make these changes." Perhaps I read it wrong, but I wouldn't ever want you to feel under valued, or that you have to make these things because no-one else can, you don't, we'll appreciate all you've done just the same

For the 3d modeling will Daz 3d work?

I was wondering because I was able to get if fro free, they are still giving it away for free actually...

I have a question, pertaining to this tutorial. I made a clone of the King's outfit, exactly the same one that the tutorial uses. I put it in my mods folder, it works fine... only thing is it is not a unique clothing object but rather a replacement for the standard one it was cloned from. The game only shows one of them. Where did I go wrong? I am attaching the package and a screenshot in CAS.

I've also had troble with mods in sims medieval but this was really helpful

Ok, aside from the fact that I do not seem able to create a unique clothing package this way, the one I make only replacing the one it is cloned from in the game. I also do not seem to be able to change the _o.dds image correctly. I am a poor boy so I can not afford high end stuff like photoshop so am trying to do this with gimp (yes I have a dds plug in for it) does anyone out there use gimp for this? Can you please give me a run-down on the proper settings, when to turn on mipmaps, etc?

I do not fault the tutorial for my failure in this attempt to follow it, I am the dumb one here. It seems all of you are like programmer/artists or something... I am not. Can anyone help a 10-thumbed goof like me or should I just give up?

I've heard of people using gimp for TS3 so I'd say it's the same, and it should work fine for you.
I've never used gimp, so I don't know why you can't edit it....at a guess if you can't touch it at all, try inverting the alpha channel and see if you can edit it then. A wild stab in the dark, and probably not what your problem is.
I use a converter for dds as my version of psp is quite old now, but for me different items use different settings. Most things will work on Nvidia dxt5. If you're still talking about hair, I'd try dxt5 first, I don't know what other options you have available to you, since I know my converter has different options to Grim's paint program, so I don't know if Gimp is different again.

Here's what Grim says in the tutorial
Now we just need to save the file. Make sure the image is only on one layer by collapsing layers as necessary. Also, I get an error if I try to save a DDS with anything selected, so deselect everything. Click File->Save. A new dialog should show up for the DDS properties. Sorry my software isn’t getting a screen shot at the moment for this dialog. You need to select DXT5 ARGB 8 bpp | interpolated alpha from the drop down menu, and you must make sure Generate MIP Maps is selected. Click save.

As for your one replacing the game file, it must be using the same id. Did you extract the file using the cloner, or take it out the build files yourself?....the cloner should create a new id for you from what I recall.
If you're using the files from this thread you may have to update the instance ID to make them unique, I didn't download them so I don't know. I would imagine they're different to the game one, since I'm sure Grim would have done it this way......unless you mean your one is overwriting Grim's one, in which case you have to change the instance ID to get yours to appear as well as his.
Again just guessing.

I downloaded your overlay file and I can edit it fine in psp.....try saving it in another format and see if it will let you open that and edit it, then when you're done save it as a dds before importing into S3pe. I really don't know how gimp works, but I assume this is feasible. You could try making a small but noticeable change to see if this method works for you and checking it in game, before you move on to work on it properly.

This tool, like other TS3/TSM tools, uses the objects name to create the unique identifier for the game. It's an FNV64 hash. Google it if you want the specifics. Ultimately, to make a unique clone you only have to give it a unique name.

As for files created in GIMP or any other program, the output files is all that matters. I suspect you problems heart lies in the non-unique clone. Try giving your clone a unique name, and therefore a unique FNV64 hash tag.