Tips and tricks for BodyShop creations, from basic to advanced. Learn to refresh thumbnails, change age groups and more.
Level: Intermediate

Download PDF »

 

Tips and tricks for BodyShop clothes and hair creation, from basic to advanced.

 

Step 1 – Bodyshop basics.

Run the latest BodyShop. The new version of BodyShop isinstalled with every new expansion pack you load. Make sure your BodyShopshortcut points to the latest one. Typical BodyShop location: C:\ProgramFiles\EA Games\The Sims 2 Open For Business\CSBin\TS2BodyShop.exe

BodyShop shortcuts. Just to refresh your memory.

F3 – Free camera. Hold the left mouse button and drag to move the camera. Hold theright mouse button and drag to zoom. Hold both mouse buttons and drag to pan.To return to the standard camera, press F3 again.

F5 – Turns off the room background and replaces it with custom one. To customizethe background create a bmp image file of any color or pattern you like,recommended size 1024x768, call it userBkg.bmp and place it in MyDocuments\EA Games\The Sims 2 folder.

F6 – Puts the sim in the hands outstretched position.

F7 – Jump to far zoom.

F8 – Jump to close zoom

 F9 – Removes BodyShop interface. Pressing again restores it.

Alt-Enter – Opens BodyShop into full screen mode. Pressing againrestores it.

Refresh BodyShop thumbnails. There are times when the thumbnailpreview doesn’t get updated for one reason or another. BodyShop thumbnailpreviews are stored in the following file: My Documents\EA Games\The Sims2\cigen.package. To refresh the previews simply delete that file. Next timeyou run BodyShop, it will create a blank cigen.package file forcing allthe previews to be generated again.

Refresh CAS screen thumbnails. Delete the following file: MyDocuments\EA Games\The Sims 2\Thumbnails\ CASThumbnails.package.Next time you run the game, the file will be recreated and the game forced togenerate all the thumbnail previews.

Delete all projects. To quickly delete all projects fromBodyShop do the following. Make sure BodyShop is not running, open Projectsfolder in windows browser: My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Projects.Select everything in that folder except HomeCrafter Plus and hit Delete.

BodyShop window size. There are two window sizes forBodyShop: 800x600 and 1024x768. You can change the window size by adding acommand key to BodyShop shortcut. The key will look like this: -r1024x768.Make sure to add a space before a minus sign.

 

Avoid taking preview pictures in BodyShop. To others it will look likeyou didn’t bother to test your creation in the game. The BodyShop preview maylook fine to you but compare it to in-game shot and you will notice how darkthe first one is. In some cases BodyShop preview is not exactly accurate andsome details look different in the game. Not to mention that sims look morenatural in pictures taken in the game.

Make use of the tool tip. Fill in the Tool Tip field whencreating new project. Use it to identify yourself as a creator for example. Girlsblue swimsuit by windkeeper will also help the user to identify the file inDownloads folder if the file was named wind_girlsblueswimsuit.package (see the tip above).

 Bumpmap texture. A typical mistake of clothes creator is to use the sameimage for both clothes texture and bumpmap texture. The bumpmap texture is usedby the game to create an illusion of 3D details on a flat surface, like trims,folds, buttons, etc. Using this effect for fabric patterns makes clothes lookwrinkled and plastic like. See the difference for yourself.

 Ifyou don’t want to take time making proper bumpmap texture, just fill it in withgrey color of one tone. It will still look better than plastic clothes.

Step 2 - BodyShop Creations Advanced Tips. 

Changing age, gender, and category. You can change all theseproperties in Property Set  of the recolor file, using SimPE program. For example, you can set a jumpsuit to work for both boys and girls by changinggender property to 3, or modify adult outfit to work for young adults aswell by setting age to 48. Use with caution.

Sim age

age (dtUInteger)

Toddler

0x00000001

Child

0x00000002

Teen

0x00000004

Adult

0x00000008

Elder

0x00000010

Young Adult

0x00000040

Adult + YA

0x00000048

 

Sim gender

gender (dtUInteger)

Female

0x00000001

Male

0x00000002

Both

0x00000003

 

Category

age (dtUInteger)

Everyday

0x00000007

Formal

0x00000020

Undies

0x00000040

Pajamas

0x00000010

Swimsuit

0x00000008

Sportsuit

0x00000200

Maternity

0x00000100

Everyday+Formal

0x00000027

Undies+Pajamas

0x00000050

All categories

0x0000037F

Youcan combine properties by adding their values, as long as you remember that thevalues are in Hexadecimal format. Set windows calculator to work withHexadecimal format – change its View to Scientific and select Hex radio button. Then add the values as you would do in normal mode. For example,the total value for all categories is:

 

          7+8+10+20+40+100+200= 37F  

Padit with leading zeros to have 8 characters in total and add 0x in front:0x0000037F

Binning hair recolor. By default all the hair recolorsfall under custom category. You can modify the file to make it appear under oneof the hair color categories instead in the game catalog. This way your blackhair recolor will appear under black hair category for example. The hair willbecome genetic if binned. Matching eyebrows will be another advantage. There isa separate tutorial written by me that explains in more details how to bin hairrecolor - Assigning Custom Hair to Proper Hair Color Bin. Below is aquick reference for hair color, hairtone (dtString) line in PropertySet:

color

hairtone (dtString)

Black

00000001-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Brown

00000002-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Blond

00000003-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Red

00000004-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Grey

00000005-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

 

 Cleaning up hair recolor file. You can remove any unused age filesfrom your hair recolor package in SimPE. This helps prevent all those multipleduplicates of lets say the same hair color and style for toddlers and kids whenonly adult hair color has been changed. You will also make your files smallerby removing extra textures. The parts to remove are: Material Definition,Property Set, Texture Image, 3D ID Referencing File, and BinaryIndex. But first make sure the texture you are planning to remove is notused in any remaining Material Definitions. There is always only one PropertySet for each age group, use its instance number to locate and deletecorresponding 3D ID and Binary Index files. All three have thesame instance number.

Grey hair tip. When creating a new hair set, mesh plus recolors,include grey hair texture only in one file and delete it from all the others(see cleaning up tip above). This way your hair will not have duplicate greytextures. Best to include it in black hair recolor file, that is the one peoplemost likely to download.

Linking hair recolor files. This is useful when you createcustom hair mesh with several recolors. Copy the value of family (dtString) of any Property Set of one recolor file to all the property sets ofother recolor files, linking them into one family. If you select your hair inCAS screen and then switch to different hair color, the mesh selection willstay the same, just like it does when you select Maxis hair.

Using the same hair mesh for both genders. Gender property is set inhair recolor file, not in the mesh file. That means the same hair mesh can beused for both genders. Change gender (dtUInteger) string to 0x00000003and the same hair recolor will appear for both male and female sims. Note:adult male and female sims have different head proportions and in most casesrequire separate meshes. This tip is best used for teen, kid, and toddlermeshes only.

Changing Tool Tip. The length of a tool tip in BodyShopis limited. You can bypass that by editing that field in SimPE instead. Thetool tip is stored in Text Lists of a recolor file. If no tool tip hasbeen added in BodyShop, click Add string button to create one. Edit thetool tip in the String filed.

Note:you can press Enter while editing String, this creates multiple lines inthe description.