I just reinstalled the Sims 2, and I'm noticing an issue with most of my AF custom content. Everything shows up fine in CAS, Body Shop, and the family picture that shows on the loading screen. BUT, when I do actually get in game, the top-only custom content doesn't show up and my sims appear topless. It also happens with sets. Some shirts are fine, but 90% of them just show topless. Once I've entered, the family portraits change and show topless sims as well.

I couldn't really find anything on google (looking up 'sims 2 topless' got me exactly what you expect) except for this one. No mesh is required, I tried taking all my custom content out except for the affected ones and that didn't work, I don't have any mods, and more confusing is that the TF version which is slaved to the AF one works perfectly fine.

This is one of the pieces I'm having an issue with.

Any help is greatly appreciated because this is the issue with most of my cc.

EDIT: I have The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection from Origin if that helps.

The most likely problem is your ingame settings. The dresses need your game to have the Sim/Detail set to high, and probably a few other settings, too. Make sure your game isn't on the lowest performance settings.

----------------

Are some of the clothes perhaps high-poly, as in very detailed or smooth? If so, you may need this cheat in your userStartup file, since High-poly CAS items need shaders to show ingame:
boolProp UseShaders true

The example dress (DeeDee's dress/top) from the link is not high-poly enough to trigger the need for that cheat, but others could need it. First try the Sim/detail setting.

---

It could be your memory settings (GraphicRules and 4GB patch). I had some issues on an older computer before I installed the 4GB patch. Items would disappear and reappear. I'd get headless sims, clothes would disappear, and other weird issues. Fixing the memory handling and setting up the game properly fixed those issues. I think adding the cheat above was one of the things I did, but it's so long ago I can't remember if I did that one before or after or as part of fixing the memory issues. I just know I had the cheat active.

---------------

How do you place your CC? Do you use a lot of subfoldering and layering? TS2 doesn't read beyond 256 characters, so if your pathing looks something like this, that could be part of the issue:

C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\EA Games\The Sims™ 2 Ultimate Collection\Downloads\Subfolder with very long name\Subfolder with very long name\Subfolder with very long name\Subfolder with very long name\Subfolder with very long name\DeeDee_Skittlessims_4t2EP12DressShirt_TopOnly_AF\DeeDee_Skittlessims_4t2EP12DressShirt_TopOnly_AF_MESH (and recolor files)

The items could still show in Bodyshop, or the mesh and repo'd items get read but not the master files, which results in items that shows up skin-colored.