I know a lot of Dopers play The Sims, and I was wondering how many of you have designed your own skins. I’d be really interested in seeing what other Dopers have created, so I hope that some of you will post some links!
I have made quite a few myself, although I only have a few available online. Since there are so many Sims sites and so many skins available out there, I try to only post things that are a bit unusual and not just like hundreds of other skins already available. I have a set of bellydancer costumes (in fact, the famous Jerome designed the harem pants mesh at my request!), Discworld characters, Regency gowns, and a few other things. You can see them all here:
I’ve downloaded many of your skins before, in fact I was the one who emailed you to tell you the Nobby skin wasn’t working. Small world, eh?
I’ve only made a very small number of skins, and all of them were merely changing those stupid HD formals, swimsuits & PJs to be usable by fat/skinny/dark characters, since NOBODY makes accessories for those characters, it seems! Unfortunately I don’t have enough space on my webpage to post them…maybe someday I will.
Whoa! What a coincidence! Thanks for that e-mail, by the way, I’d had no idea my link was screwed up.
Those Discworld skins may be the closest thing to a claim to fame I’ll ever have. I actually met someone in real life who’d downloaded them before. That was a real surprise, since I’d just met this girl and she happened to mention that she liked Terry Pratchett and had found some Discworld skins on the Internet. I think my jaw literally dropped.
Tell me about it! I’ve done a lot of similar file changing for my own game.
The Cloth Menagerie does have some nice lingerie and other clothes for larger women, I’ve downloaded a bunch of skins from there.
I’m considering making a set of superdark skins as a reaction to the ultralight ones I’ve seen on so many sites. I don’t understand the demand for such pale skins. I once did an albino set for The Sims Resource at the request of a kid who came from a family of albinos, and these turned out to be some of the most downloaded skins I ever posted to TSR.
You did the albino skins too? Wow. They became one of my favorite families in the game. They live next door to the Simpsons and the Nudists.
Have you seen Steve O’s Little Sims Site? That’s about the only place I’ve found that has accessories for all skin tones & body types. I keep bugging him to finish the Iron Chef skins, but I think he gave up…
Lyran’s Sim Design is another good place for accessories, but like so many other places, it’s mostly fair-skinned, fit women…
I made one based on Rose’s green lace dress in Titanic-e-mail me if you’re interested. Unfortunately, it’s only fair/fit because it was a first time skin, and I was just practicing. I didn’t think it would turn out as great as it did!
That’s your page! Wow! Dozens of those “damned hits” are from me!
You really should update, I always check to see if there’s anything new and there never is. Actually, I’ve been thinking of making some Sims pride gear myself…would you be interested in receiving a submission if I ever get around to actually making any?
Hee hee, this is so fun, I was talking about the sims with a friend once, back when the site had only been up for a couple of months, and they proceeded to tip me off about this fantastic site that I really should visit etc… Slowly, slowly it dawned on me that they meant mine :eek:
Yeah I might well be interested in a submission, I just realised all my email links on the site are screwed, but I will fix them up and you can mail it over for me to have a peek at
I do, but I’m really going to update my site (1st time since October)soon and when I do, a lot of my downloads are going away- at least until I find a new free site for them. Most of the objects will stay, but skins, floors and walls…get them soon if you want them. I haven’t decided if I’m going to leave up the pregnant skins, so maybe you ought to get them now too.
I haven’t played The Sims in forever. Am I correct in assuming that there are now millions of skins of The Osbournes? That was one of the first things I thought of when I saw the show.
I haven’t played The Sims in forever. Am I correct in assuming that there are now millions of skins of The Osbournes? That was one of the first things I thought of when I saw the show.
I tried to make the Bunkers from “All in the family” My Archie was bretty bad but meathead looked like his face was melting off the side of his head.
By the way Lamia your skins were some of the first I downloaded. I haven’t been on for a while but I noticed some of the bigger sites have become pay sites.
I’d love to get a good tutorial on how to make skins of my own, especially in generating new body types. Anyone up to explaining it?
Not a stupid question, although not one I think I can answer in detail here. You may want to look around on the Web; I’m sure there are tutorials available.
The ultra-short answer is that the only thing you really need to make skins is some sort of paint program (I use Adobe Photoshop). Skin files are just ordinary 256 color bitmap images, so that’s all you need to modify existing skins or create your own. Of course, it’s helpful to have some base skins to work from as well as a program that lets you preview the skins in 3D so you can see how they’ll look in the game. You’ll probably want to start out with downloading SimShow from the official Sims site. There are also a lot of other fan-made programs out there that you may find useful, but it may be best not to worry about those until you’ve already made a start of making skins.
Wow, cool! I hope you liked them.
It’s a shame, isn’t it? The Sims Resource is still free, but the search features and I think some other options are now only for paying members. The Well-Dressed Sim and SimFreaks, which used to be my two favorite skin sites, now only make a limited selection of their stuff available to non-subscribers.
Generating a new body type involves creating a new mesh (3D model), and is rather more complicated than making a new skin. It’s not something I’ve really tried experimenting with myself, although there may be other Dopers here who have. Failing that, I’m sure there are tutorials on the Web.
Actually, there’s a really simple program called Body Warp that is used to make many new meshes from existing ones. All it entails is using a pull down menu to pick a body part (or the whole body) to enlarge or make smaller. It’s what I used to make those pregnant skins I mentioned, and am using it now to perfect a baggy shorts mesh for men. I don’t know a site off the top of my head that offers it, but I’m sure if you put “sims body warp” into a search engine it’d come up on the first page. There are limits to what it can do, but it does a lot for an easy program. I think people who make more complicated skins (like skins with tails) probably use something milk shape 3-d, which I haven’t a clue how to use.
elfkin477, I messed around with BodyWarp once but I was too incompetant to make it do anything cool. Maybe I’ll give it another try one day, although I’ve had pretty good luck finding the meshes I need on the Web.
