I searched this forum for "see through skins" but nothing came up. Can someone please direct me to instructions on how to create see through clothes for the sims?

Thanks

They are available in sexy 2 sims site.

If all you want to do is make part of an outfit semi-transparent, you modify the alpha to be gray instead of black or white. That is how stockings are done, or lacy or mesh details on some shirts.

Now, that said, this does not change the SHAPE, it only allows the skin below to show through. So this really only works for most meshes where the clothing is close to skintight, it won't work on loose skirts or pants.

(There are also some alpha meshes that will allow you to get this effect on skirts and such, because they are designed with a separate body underneath)

Thanks tiggery. I remember now LOL. I used to skin a long time ago and I did use that. Totally spaced there LOL.

Now how do you reverse transparancy? I tried making the alphas white, I'm guessing that's right even though I got the opposite advice. It didn't seem to work though. Here's the mesh I'd like to make opaque:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=193332&c=1

I've done a bit of alpha editing and recoloring, but I'm nowhere near an expert. Any advice or help?

As it relates to alphas, white is fully opaque, black is completely transparent. 50% black (RGB 128,128,128) gives you exactly 50% transparent.

Try dumping 100% white into the alpha for the skirt layer and seeing how that works. That should work just fine.

Mildly related question: what is the grey bitmap called? The one you can manipulate to sort of change the texture to reflect folds and such...is that the bump map? I've been trying to play around with that layer to do my skirt folds and whenever I look up the bump maps they sound more like actual polygonal items to me. Oo

Yes, the grey one is the bump map. What Body Shop calls it escapes me at the moment, but the grey file is referred to as a bump map. Bump maps are... very tricky. Depending on what your recolour looks like, you can sometimes start your bump map by taking your texture image, desaturating it, and then lowering the contrast. However, if you have areas of pattern like, say, a plaid, you wouldn't want the darker lines on the plaid to look lower than the lighter areas, so you'd have to correct for that. You'll also run into things like, say, a darker tie on a lighter shirt - you'd want that tie to look higher than the shirt, not lower. Same thing with buttons, pockets, any areas of patterned texture, any area where two pieces of fabric overlap... So it can be a bit of a brain twister, looking at your bump map and trying to make sure everything's arranged properly. A very well-done bump map can add a lot to an outfit - but an improperly created bump map generally looks, well, horrible.

Because it's so difficult and time consuming to adjust bump maps (and because my graphics card doesn't view them anyway) I generally don't make my meshes bump-able, nor do I do bump maps on any outfit I make - I dump 50% grey in the bump map layer (RGB 128,128,128) and that seems to work just fine. It may be a bit of the easy way out, but in the two years I've been downloading custom content for Sims 2, I've seen maybe half a dozen total recolours made by users that used bump maps properly. If you're wanting to go that extra mile and do them right... more power to you, and good luck.

Haha, I'm trying my best. My graphics card is fair enough--I can see most of the bump map thingies, just not the really subtle ones.

Now to read all I can about them. I saw some tutorials already but i wasn't entirely sure if I was looking at the right thing so I thought I might as well ask.

Thanks!