Beginning Clothing Recolor using The Gimp

This Tutorial uses Bodyshop and The GIMP graphics editor (available for free on the web, for installation instructions see here).

With those tools, you can customize your sim's clothing to have new colors and designs on it.

This series of tutes normally live at http://www.sublimesims.net/ and are being posted here at the request of the lovely Tiggerypum. This is a series of tutorials; each tutorial teaches another technique in making changes to sim outfits. See the end of this tutorial for the link to the next one.

1. Hi Guys, today we are going to learn how to do a very basic recolour of an outfit. A basic recolour is a type of skinning where you don’t actually change anything about the texture or the shape of an outfit; you just alter the colour by using a combination of layers and filters in a graphics program.

2. This tutorial uses the most current version of the Gimp available as at 30 th October 2005 (version 2.6.9). The Gimp is an excellent and free image-editing program that can be downloaded from http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html. If you have any questions about the basics of using or installing this program, please see the tutorial here or visit the help files on the Gimp site.

3.Ok, now let’s begin. Open up Bodyshop and Click Create Parts.



4. Click on Start New Project.



5. Click Create Clothing



6.Ensure that you have the Female and Adult categories selected, then select Formal.



7.Find the Green hippy formal dress, then click Export Selected Textures. (See circled)



8. This brings you to the Export screen. Write a title for your project in the box, in this case call it something like tutorial_dress so your project is easy to find for our next stage. Click the tick to export.



9. The screen you come to now allows you to preview your work in progress, or change the category of an outfit. At this point we just need it to help us find our project. The path to find your completed project is written on the top right of this screen. (see circled). The path will probably be My Documents/EA Games/ The Sims 2/ Projects/tutorial_dress/. Keep Bodyshop and open up The Gimp.



10. In The Gimp click on the File menu choice and select Open.



11. Find your project folder following the path provided by Bodyshop earlier.

To explain what you are looking at, the three files below all do different things. In simple terms

body-stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp determines how a skin is coloured or textured

body-stdMatBaseTextureName_alpha.bmp determines what part of body-stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp is visible.

body-stdMatNormalMapTextureName.bmp helps to render bumps and shapes on the sim.

As we are only working on the colour of the outfit today, find and open up the file entitled body_stdMatBaseTextureName.bmp.



12. On the floating toolbar Click on the paintpot Fill With Colour or Pattern. Doubleclick on the black upper square about half way down the floating toolbar (see circled). This will allow you to select the foreground colour. The foreground colour is the colour that you’re going to tint your outfit.



13. Use the sliders to chose a colour you want to chose and click ok.



14. Ensure the paintpot is still selected, that the option FG color fill is selected and that you have selected Fill whole selection. Leave opacity at 100 percent and the mode as Normal.



15. Click the menu choice Layer. Chose the option New Layer.



16. This brings up the New Layer box. Be sure that the Layer Fill Type Transparency is checked then click ok.



17. Fill your layer with your chosen colour. At this point you’re probably panicking going “Eeep! Kathleen! It’s covered over the top of the dress!” Don’t panic guys, it’s supposed to look like this at this point. It will reappear within the next few steps.



18. Select the menu choice Dialogs and the option Layers. This brings up the layers dialog box.



19. Click on the Mode box and slide it down until you pick Hard Light Mode. (I will mention that the mode is entirely a matter of personal choice, the Gimp defaults to Normal and any choice other than that will create a variation of the effect we want, for the original outfit to show through). Click the red x to close the layers box.



20. The dress is now recoloured red. Save your file and close The Gimp once you are happy with the colour. (All I can suggest is if you look at your first go at this and go “Ewwwww” just keep fiddling with it until you’re content.)



21. Click the refresh button towards the bottom of the screen (see circled). Your modified dress will now appear on the podium.



22. Your recoloured dress will now appear among your Sims outfits.
If you are happy with it, click the 'Import' button to bring it into your game. If not, you can edit and refresh again until you are (then remember to import)

Congratulations, you’ve just done your first basic recolour! I hope you have enjoyed doing this tutorial as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Take care Kathleen (Vashti)



For the next level tutorial, please see GIMP Clothing Tutorial #2, Using a New Texture

I did everything you said, but when I looked at it in the game its way too blurry.
how can i make this un-blurry?

Assuming your graphics were NOT blurry, you're having a bodyshop issue. Please check the FAQ for the close blurry fix/info.

I downloaded the software and did as u told. I selected the dress and tried to export. But it doesnt budge. It does not react. If u know anything bout' this plzzz help me....

Steps are numbered. On step 8 you type in a name (simple letters and numbers?) and click the checkbox and you don't see the screen for step 9 next??

Thats whats happening. I dont know whats wrong..... Help e if u can or else I'll break my comp to pieces

Sirith, that is bodyshop, it came with your game. I'm puzzled as to why it might not be working properly.

In the GAME HELP area there are some articles about bodyshop. Maybe this can help you figure out what's going on with your bodyshop.
http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=177332

If not, please post a new thread or in the bodyshop thread (as it isn't really a tutorial issue, but a computer issue) , and give us as much info as you can about what you tried and what happened, etc.

Sorry dude , I found it out. There were files in the folder which shouldnt have been there. Some of the downloaded files had been misplaced to the Projects folder. I deleted them and now the bodyshop is exporting the things.
Ne way thanks for the concern.

I tried installing the Gimp, and it just keeps going to the setup. I'm looking for any other installed icons, but even in the start Menu the only thing I can do is select a language, and I've done that about 4 times now. I've also tried doing the setup over, but it's the same story. Any suggestions?

Did you try the 'Install Gimp' tutorial? There's 2 programs that Gimp Requires to run.
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=182601

If that doesn't work, please go to http://www.gimp.org/ and look for help there, because I cannot begin to guess what could be going wrong with the install.

Well, there was one program that it made me install with it automatically, but I saw no other one, unless I already had it for some reason. But my boyfriend is a computer genius, so he's going to take a look at it for me. If he can't figure it out, I'll try the gimp website. Thank you! <3

I downloaded Gimp and everything worked fine until I got to the part about the hard light. I clicked on that and closed it, but the pants didn't reappear. It stayed blue. Did I do something wrong?

Matey did you create another layer before you added the colour and add the new colour to the second layer?

Cheers

Kath

No I didn't. I skipped that part. I tried all your tutrials and they really help. Good job on explaining them!

:-) Ah good, and thank you so much for letting me know that.. And that's what I write tutes for, so that you guys get to come play with everyone else even if you don't have the cash..

I tried to download gimp but when i had i downloaded it it said could not run without libgimp...please help?

Miggs did you download and install the GTK program first? It won't run without it..

Hi,when saving it says cannot save because bmp can't handle transparency and when I choose ignore it says cannot save image with alpha channel,even when I already exported the file.How?

Im having the same problem, any help?

Ok that sounds like the transition message when you hit save. What you need to do is click ok on the box that has the message and it will save.

Cheers

Kath

Oh My goodness!! I just loved your tutorials!! . I was able to follow through each and every step of the way. And I was able to make several re-colors of some really awful Maxis clothing into something worth having my Sims wear. Even the 2nd tute of the series was easy to follow. Thank you so very much for writing something that even I could understand. Now I've turned into a recolor-a-holic!!
The next step is Tute #3. Wish me luck
Thanks again.

Raven

Woohoo!! That is so very cool!! And it's even better not having to spend a cent on it :-) Hey, I'm about half way through doing a shadows and highlights tute for Gimp (I'm stuck half way through writing it right now) and Tig is doing a details tute, so by the time you're finished you should have a complete bag of tricks and mostly be able to do about anything you want..

Do me a favour and drop me a pm and show me some of your stuff.. I'd love to see..

Cheers

Kath
http://www.sublimesims.net/

Vashti71,

I can't wait to see your next tutorial, I'm sure it will as easy to follow as the others. Have you ever thought about printing them up and offering them to the site for sale? Some of the profits could go to you and possibly some going to MTS2 to keep it running. I know I would buy a copy. Any way, it's just an idea.
Thanks again for writing such wonderful tutes. And I will PM you with some of the re-colors I've done soon.

TTFN

Raven, reading back I see you have done all 3 clothing tuts (but just posted in this one). The 4th (and another after it) are in the works. It just takes a lot of time to get things right.

While I won't put words in Vashti's mouth, I believe that she (like myself and Delphy and many others here) believe in freely sharing things. That's also why she chose to do these tutorials with GIMP, because it's free, and thus accessible for all.

I did it!!!! Thanks so much for the great tutorials!!! Never thought I could do it, since I havent got an artistic bone in my body, but I did it!! Think I scared the cat I got so excited!! lol