Thanks tiggerypum, you're a doll.

I'll just go ahead and try then :D

Is it possible to change the background for Body Shop?

You can, but it doesn't improve the lighting, unfortunately. From the readme files, here are your various options in body shop:


Hot Keys:
There are several hot keys in The Sims 2 Body Shop that help you preview your Sims. Many of these can be used in combination to get a precise view of your Sim.

F3 -- Toggles between “free camera” and “set camera” modes. In free camera, you can use the following mouse controls to rotate the camera in all dimensions:

* Click and drag the Left Mouse Button -- Orbits the camera around the Sim’s head.

* Click and drag the Right Mouse Button -- Controls the camera zoom. Move the mouse away from you to zoom out. Move the mouse toward you to zoom in.

* Click and drag Left and Right mouse buttons together -- Changes the center point the camera is looking at.

F5 -- Toggles the 3D room off and on. If there is a bitmap graphic named “userBkg.bmp” in the “\EA Games\The Sims 2\” folder in My Documents, the image will be displayed as a backdrop.

F6 -- Displays the Sim in the “bind pose,” with arms held straight out. This is helpful for viewing parts of the Sim that may be hidden by the normal pose. To return the Sim to the normal pose, click on any Sim thumbnail or content thumbnail.

F7 -- While in “set camera” mode, displays the Sim at the far zoom position.

F8 -- While in “set camera” mode, displays the Sim at the near zoom position.

F9 -- Toggles the UI off and on.

< and > -- Rotates the Sim. (Also shown on the keyboard as the comma “,” and period “.” keys.)

Display Options:
Pressing ALT+ENTER will toggle The Sims 2 Body Shop between windowed mode (default) and full-screen.

hello somebody can help me? the body shop doesn't star
this happened after I installed the sims 2 pets
pls!

F5 -- Toggles the 3D room off and on. If there is a bitmap graphic named “userBkg.bmp” in the “\EA Games\The Sims 2\” folder in My Documents, the image will be displayed as a backdrop.

Can you make self the bitmap graphic? I delete him

uhhh.. i have a question for you um cuz im new at this and i cant figure out how to even get to like a part where i can paint cloaths like on sims 1 in body shop. is there some way to do that on body shop ? or do i have to get another program ? plz help im so confused !!!

Buddy, this is nothing like the Sims 1 Bodyshop. You have to get a graphics program installed such as Adobe Photoshop. (It's the one i use) then you have to export the files, open them in your graphics program of choice and edit, recolour, change etc. the files there. THEN finally you have to import the files again to make them show up in the game. And that's just a baisic summary of what you have to do. Don't worry, it gets eaiser.
If you wanna know more i would reccomend taking a look at some of the fantastic tutorials that MTS2 has to offer on this subject. They will take you through all the basic steps. Sadly, when i began skinning, i did not know this site existed and i had to learn myself..... but im over it.
Goodluck!

thanks that sorta helps but i don't know how to do any of that stuff i red the tutorials and i still don;t undeerstand lol i guess i'll just request things insted of making them but thanks for all the help it was verry mutch apeached !!! XD (\__/)
(='.'=) :P
(")_(")

Hey, it's not that hard. I found it difficult to understand when i first started out. But i guess it helped that i did macromedia in class and have a pretty good understanding of how to use bodyshop....but like i said, it gets eaiser. Don't give up. You should keep practising, getting better and enjoy it of course. Try reading over the tutorials again . Reading something twice can sometimes make you click and you'll think to yourself...DUH!! why didn't i get it before? lol.

thx for all of your help im gona read the tutorals again and maby try to make somepthing easy! you rock

I just used bodyshop for the first time tonight. I changed one of my adult robes into something an elder can wear too. When I went into the game, it was there, everything was fine. I was happy. Then I had an idea I wanted to try and opened up bodyshop again and although it opened, there was no sim standing there waiting to be clothed and there were no clothes appearing in the window. What happened? I have NL and GL and was using the bodyshop from GL.
Can anyone help me?

Color me confused.

Choren, Did you try and run bodyshop and your game at the same time? You can't do that.

Tiggerypum, no. I closed everything down. um..... just went and checked again, still the same.
I am running the GL bodyshop. Would it be alright to run the body shop from NL or the base game? Are they all the same? Would it make a difference? I've tried rebooting everything. Gargh.

Why don't you try running a different version. Very odd. (I didn't even know that packs came with a bodyshop) The other question is did you add any downloads/content to your game. You can try moving your saved sims folder out, just to see if it's a file in there that's causing the problem.

no, no downloads in between using the bodyshop and SimPE...Anyway, I'll try using the NL one. see if that fixes things. I only have the one file in the saved sims folder. It was my one and only attempt at using body shop.

Thanks Tiggerypum.

PS
It worked! The NL one is working! Yay! Thanks again!!!

Here's a good way I've found of getting just the right set up for celebs... do it as a full skin genetic set. and copy the face on that way by creating the face graphic in phot shop, and then by using a mesh warp on the level in Photoshop, align the face around the eye holes. It might look a little messed up in your paint program, a little deformed, but once you're in the BS, just change nose and eye structure to fit the character better. The New Justin Timberlake above is a great example of it. The eyes were most probably edited in BS after the hard work to create the character. I'm getting ready to release some skins/sims with some wrestler characters now that I'm getting well enough experienced enough to do it.

Heh, DojoWrestling, I have a tutorial on making celebrity skins - I really advise doing it in much much smaller parts than the whole face graphic at once... and if you have later versions of Photoshop, the Warp transform type works great for fitting bits and pieces into place.

Ever since i downloaded the pets version the regular version of body shop wont work, nit that i need it really but all these f1..ect keys dont really work in the pets body shop

OOH! Paroxy? link me to that, cause I'm iching to make some Sims2Wrestlers!!!

I really need help. I read that many of you have problem with too dark bodyshop but I still do not understand how to change it and make it better for use. I've tried to change some adobe/gamma and display settings of my monitor - that didn't help at all. Everything gets brighter but somehow bleached. It is just opposite to previous, dark version. And.. it's not comfortable to work in that. My comp. and all graphic options, card etc. are very good because I work in design job but this bodyshop problem drives me crazy. Would you be so kind to help me?

Wes made a great solution for that. You can find it here http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=220884
Now, you have to chose which of the lights you want to use – and that depends on your monitor, graphics etc.
I found out that Wes’ darker light works great for most of my projects, except when I’m making something very dark…then I change to the next light. The brightest is way to bright for me.

Dear alexasrosa, many thanks for help and your very quick reply.

Does anyone know how to fix "broken" preview pictures in BS/CAS?

I downloaded some hair skins and (initially) forgot to download the mesh. Even though I have the mesh now, and the hair shows up perfectly fine when I put it on my sims, the preview picture still shows the 'default black straight hair' picture that you get when you don't have the mesh to go with the hair skin. I'd really like to be able to tell which hair color is which for these skins again.

[edited to fix grammer]

go to your my documents/ea games/sims 2/ folder and delete the stuff in the thumbnails folder. It'll all regenerate when you run bodyshop and/or the game

Thanks, tiggerypum! :D

Yay!