I am a simmer from years ago but am trying out Sims 4 seriously for the first time.

What is a little frustrating and surprising to me is the lack of realistic default skintones. I have found plenty of overlay skintones but would love my sims to be born into beautiful skins.

I have a favourite set of overlay skintones. How difficult would it be to convert these into a set of default skintones? Is it possible for a newbie to do it? Is there a tutorial anywhere?

Is it possible that these particular overlays have already been converted? https://www.thesimsresource.com/dow...-v3/id/1346781/

Thanks!

It's not an easy project. The problem is that true skin tones that show up in the skin color section are composed of two parts:

1) A grayscale texture with shading, contouring, and body details like nostrils, bellybutton, etc. This in turn is a blend of the textures for the average, fit, fat, and bony states plus a blend of textures for the face, eyes, mouth, etc. from the facial presets.
2) A texture with the skin color and a little shading.

Overlay 'skin tones' are a combination of shading and color in a single texture.

In order to convert an overlay you'd have to separate it into grayscale and color, then replace the default body details images and the default skin tone color images and skin tones. You can clone default replacements in TS4 Skininator.

The Ms Blue skin you linked to is a true skin tone, but not a default replacement.

Thanks for your reply! Ok I am showing my newbie ignorance - I must admit I don't know the difference between an overlay skintone and a true skintone. Would a true skintone like the Ms Blue skin be easier to convert into a default set than an overlay skintone?

A true skin tone shows up in the skin colors section in CAS and combines separate grayscale and color textures as explained above. An overlay shows up in the skin details section and is a single texture that goes over the sim's skin tone.

Yes, something like the Ms Blue skin can be converted to default replacement much more easily than an overlay. You'd have to use TS4 Skininator to make default replacement clones of the EA skins, open the Ms Blue package and export the images for the different colors, and import the images to the corresponding colors in your default replacement package. I can give you more detailed instructions with pictures if you like.

That's great news that this is do-able. I did make a default skins set in Sims 2 (which I realise is a much less complex accomplishment), so I feel I might at least try my hand at this.

I'd love more detailed instructions please if you have the time!

Sure! This method requires s4pe as well as TS4 Skininator.

1. Make a copy of the Ms Blue package to work with.

2. Clone the EA skintones. In Skininator, in the Cloning Tool tab, put checks in the boxes for the skintones you want to replace, select default replacement, and click the Clone button. In this case I'm only cloning the base game human skin colors. (Note that the first tone in the list, with the white swatch, is for mannequins.)

3. Run Skininator twice and open the two packages in the Cloned Package Editor tab, one in each. Click through the tones and decide which Ms Blue tones most closely match which EA tones. Use the Sort Order to identify them. Write down a list of the EA sort order and the corresponding Ms Blue sort order.

4. Close both Skininators and open both the EA clone package and the Ms Blue package in s4pe. Highlight the first Ms Blue tone and use the sort order to locate the corresponding tone in the EA package. (Also note the Grid button.)

5. Double-click the EA tone and copy the Instance from the popup. Then in the Ms Blue package, double-click the corresponding tone and paste the instance from the EA tone. Click OK. Then, in the Ms Blue package, click the Grid button and change the sort order to the EA sort order and commit. Repeat for all the EA tones. Save the Ms Blue package.

6. Now, open both the EA and Ms Blue packages in Skininator again. Match up the tones, and for each one copy the EA swatch color to the corresponding Ms Blue tone by copying the red, green, and blue values. Commit each time.

7. Delete any of the Ms Blue tones that you didn't match up with an EA tone. Save and test.

That should do it. If you want support for tanning and burning, use TS4 Skin Converter to convert the package. Hope it's not too confusing!

Wow thank you so much for taking the time to write this tutorial! I am totally new to these programs so it might take me a while to work through it.

Quick question before I start - would it be an easier, quicker process to take someone else's default skintone set and copy the MS Blue ones over that instead of copying over the EA skintones? Would it save me any steps?

What makes it a default replacement is the Instance ID used to identify the TONE file - the game has a set of TONEs which are the defaults and by giving your TONEs the same ID numbers you replace the game defaults. In the instructions you're copying the default ID numbers, and the sort order and swatch color (to duplicate the default genetics behavior), to the Ms Blue skin. Copying those values from another default replacement would make no difference.