Sims 3 Eye Shadow Basics for Beginners

This eye shadow tutorial will teach you how to create your own eye shadow for The Sims 3 in the simplest way that I know of. We will be editing a Maxis eye shadow (I said it was simple!), and then importing it into the game. I know it’s not special, and we’re not fiddling around with colors and masks, but it’s the core basics for the beginners!

You will need:

• TSR Workshop (up-to-date, remember!)
• PhotoShop
• DDS plugin
• The Sims 3 (of course!)

We’ll start by opening TSR Workshop, and clicking “Create a new Project.”

Then this box should come up:

We want to select “Makeup/Facial overlay.”

Once it’s selected, click next. This tree should come up (it may take a moment to load the info):

When the tree pops up, click Young Adult, then Female, then Everyday. We want to select “afMakeupEyeshadowSweet.” This is because we will be creating an eye shadow tail (you’ll see what I mean later). Now click next.

This box comes up:

The box I’ve highlighted is the most important part of them all. Each item you make needs a Unique Identifier. So just add the first letter of your name or any word you like – as long as it’s unique (make sure it doesn’t have same identifier as another item basically).

Fill out your Project Name, Title and Description in any way you like… it’s totally up to you.

Click Next when you’re done. When the Finished box comes up, click Ok.

Now your 3D Object preview comes up. On the navigation panel to your right, click the “Texture” tab. Like so:

Then we want to export the Face Overlay into a .dds file. We do this by hovering over the Face Overlay bar and then clicking the small “…” box that comes up. Then this box comes up:

Can you see the similarity between these white smudges and the in-game eye shadow? It’s hard to think of at first, but you get the idea. We then need to click “Export”. I’d recommend creating a new folder and saving it as “makeup_face_overlay” or something like that. Then just click Save.

We don’t need to use the Workshop for the moment. So just minimize it. Then open up photoshop and open the Face Overlay file. Click Ok to the plugin box which comes up (make sure the “Load using Default Sizes” box is selected). Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a big gray box. Interesting. But don’t worry, you’ve done everything right! On the Layers box, click the Channels tab.

Then click the box next to the Alpha 1 channel so that an eye appears next to it. Oh no! It’s all gone pink. But at least we can see the eye shadow shape. Now we want to click the eye next to the RGB channel. Now select your Alpha 1 Channel.

Make sure your Channel box is exactly like this:

Your box should now be like this:

It’s just like in the Workshop!

Now time to start smudging. Select the smudge tool from the Tools navigator. We’re going to create a tail on the left eye, like this:

NOTE: You do not have to do this if you can edit the right eye to look like the left eye!

Copying the Eye we’ve just done

To save the hassle of making sure the right eye is the same, just duplicate the image. Then with the new image Photoshop creates, click the Channels tab and make sure that it’s like this:

Now we want to select the left eye (the one we’ve just done) with the rectangular marquee tool, like this:

Go to Image > Crop (remember this is on the DUPLICATED image). The eye we’ve just selected should now be in a separate box.. and it should still be selected. Now go to Image > Rotate Canvas > Flip Image Horizontal. Next, hit Ctrl + A then Copy + Paste it into the original .dds image. I recommend selecting the right eye on the original image then pasting our flipped eye into it that way.

We can only estimate if it’s aligned with the left eye. Guides are always helpful to use in these situations! I haven’t used a guide, but I strongly recommend you do!

Now go to Layer > Flatten Image. Then go to File > Save as.

Remember to save it as a .dds file (call it makeup_face_overlay_2 or something like that. DO NOT overwrite your original face overlay file. This is because we can always try again if we aren’t happy with our editing.etc without having to export the image again) with the settings “DXT5 ARGB 8 bpp | interpolated alpha.”

Now back to the Workshop! Keep Photoshop open if you want to go back and edit the .dds file. The Face Overlay Image Editor should still be up. If not, just hover over the Face Overlay box and click the small “…” box.

Click Import, then, using the browser, find the makeup_face_overlay_2 (or whatever you named our tailed eyeshadow). Then the image should changed to what we had in photoshop. Hit “Done”.

Go to File > Export > To Sims 3 Pack. Then just save it with whatever name you fancy.

Now we’re going to test our Eyeshadow! Install the package and load up the game!

I don’t know how it turned out for you; each attempt is different! But remember to look at the eyeshadow from all angles, and go back to edit it if you have to. Remember, if you want another go, the  makeup_face_overlay.dds file is still there!