I've noticed a problem in my hood where two particular sims have an incorrectly colored torso. It's normally only visible when naked, but you can also see a visible skintone change at the neckline on their everyday outfits. It looks like this:



Both of these sims are S2 and adult male, however, it's not a problem with my S2 default, as newly created adult male S2 sims from CAS do not have this problem, and neither do a number of other S2 adult male sims in the same neighborhood, it's just these two sims in particular for some reason. I looked at the sim in this picture in SimPE, he has the proper S2 code in his simDNA, in his AgeData, in all of his PropertySets, and in his Material Definition, which matches the adult male S2 sim I created in CAS as well. The only real difference was that a) his character file is split, which I don't think should affect anything, and the character files some of the other unaffected sims in my neighborhood are also split, and b) he was born in game and has a different skintone in one of his Skintone Range genes, which I also think shouldn't affect anything and is also true for at least one unaffected sim. It's not a lighting issue, as all sims were observed standing outside during the daytime, and the problem is always present regardless of lighting conditions. So what could be the issue?

Maybe you have one of those 'naked top' outfits? If it's not the skin, I can't think what else it might be.

Have you tried taking out the default, seeing if that affects anything (sim should go back to regular maxis S2), and then putting it back in? Testing without the default would also test if you've got any other defaults interfering with the skin.

Have you tried deleting all the 2-4 cache files so they don't backlag CAS info?

Are you using any custom meshes for the naked bodies (thinking about the "HasTangentArray:" issue for meshes, which can cause them to show brighter)? It doesn't really look like that issue, since the skin showing on the sim's torso looks more like the Maxis S2 while the rest looks like a different skin - but you never know.

Have you checked if the Material Definition for all of the fit/fat/normal states in the default skin point to the correct textures?

I have RPC set up to autodelete the cache files every time I start the game.

I took out the default, this did cause the bottom texture to revert to regular EA S2 as well, but oddly enough the face did not, even after changing appearance (the face appeared to be EA S2 in the change appearance dialog, but not in the game afterwards). However, I'm sure I don't have any other skin defaults installed, so I don't know why that is.

I think it must be related to the fit bodyshape, though. I don't have any custom body shapes installed, but these two affected sims are both fit and have the abs texture. A third unaffected sim is also fit but does not have the abs texture yet (I guess maybe it hasn't triggered yet for whatever reason). I made my CAS sim fit and triggered the body shape update, and he instantly transitioned from fine to having a discolored torso. I don't know what specifically is wrong with the material definitions in the default, but maybe you would be able to figure it out, I have uploaded it here. I made this default myself from an existing skin, I followed some tutorial or other for how to do this in SimPE and don't remember at all what I did anymore.

The "amtopnaked-nudecut-s2_txtr" is missing from the file, so I'd think that's the issue.

The "amtopnaked_nudecut_s2_txmt" and "ambottomnaked_nudecut_s2_txmt" are also missing, but not sure if this skin actually needs the TXMTs (most skins can manage fine as texture-only replacements, so it depends if any changes have been done to the settings - haven't looked very closely at that).

You can extract these either from the game files or from a default skin that has them, and add them to the default, then change the skin. That should fix the problem.

The sims who are showing up fine probably have the normal bodyshape. The normal and fit skin use the same meshes, so if the textures used for those skins are identical (often done to make skin files smaller), it's very difficult to spot the difference.

What image am I supposed to replace it with, though? It looks like the other ones that are there are for the full body, not the top, and the same with the original skin that this was made from.

You can use the same as the original skin.

Looks like all the TM and AM skins use the same skin textures, so you can use any of these.

Ok, thanks. Looking through the other defaults, it looks like this same issue also exists with the S1 default, but I didn't notice because the only affected sim doesn't get naked to woohoo. Guess I'll try to fix this tomorrow.

So, I added those resources and replaced the skin textures, but now it is very odd. If I zoom in close to the sim, the skin is correct. However, if I zoom out, the torso gradually changes into the EA skintone again. I'm not sure why this would be happening.

Edit: Ok, sorry, I figured it out. The skins that I extracted the resource from had a bunch of lower resolution versions of the texture, which my defaults didn't have, I deleted the lower resolution images and it's all fixed now.

For a better quality result you need to use "build DXT3" (or DXT5) with the Nvidia DDS tool. This imports all the sizes properly.

Importing textures via "import" often lowers the quality of the texture. If you still want to use "import" you need to do "update all sizes".

Hmm, yeah, I do see how the image is lower quality. Is that some other tool I have to get from somewhere else? Anyway, none of the other textures in these packages have the lower resolution images and they seem fine in-game.

Depends how you added the file. It's probably fine to just keep the largest size.

DDS tool is here: https://developer.nvidia.com/gamewo...-utilities-8-31
(some browsers apparently have issues with the site not showing the download, but it works fine on Firefox, at least for me).

(I copied install/how-to-use instructions in the spoiler below)

Thanks, that does seem to have improved the images.