Insimenator.org

This tutorial is different than my default one in that you won't need to mess with graphics at all.  Making eyes function in the game like the defaults (i.e. genetic) is done by changing internal values on the genetic line.  Lost?  Don't be.  Just follow along the tutorial.  It's not that hard.

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Making Genetic Eyes: A “Dummies” version.
For Lilwen, by request.


Got eyes?  Sure you do, but I mean for Sims2.  If you are like most people you have tons of eyes, all custom, but none of them play nice with the default textures or replacements.  There’s a very simple reason for that, Bodyshop assigns a genetic value to custom eyes that assumes those eyes should always dominate over the in-game eyes.  But you don’t have to stand for this behavior.  You can change it!  

What you need:
SimPE
Eyes to mod
This tutorial


First off, you’ll need to know a bit about how the genetic structure for Sims 2 works.  For eyes there are currently 5 values the game is known to accept, and possibly there are more. Here are the values in order of dominance:

Custom  = 0
Brown/Dark Blue = 1
Green/Gray/Light Blue = 2
Not used = 3
Not used = 4

Notice that the higher the number the more recessive it is. The game does not blend values, so there are no in between numbers either.

Also notice that the value 2 carries the entire group of ‘recessive’ eye colors in the game.

If you use default replacements you can set your browns to 1, your hazels and greens to 2 and your blues to 3 by simply making all three of the default recessive colors shades of green and hazel and assigning the blues as NPC ready versions.  I’m sure there are ways to change the default swatches too, I just haven’t come across them yet.

Okay, so now you should sort your eyes.  

I’m going to pick one of Rensims’ eyes at random to walk you through this

Here's the view in SimPE

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_018-1.jpg)

My random eye is dark green.  That qualifies it for a recessive placement of 2 no matter how I set up my default replacements.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_018text.jpg)

notice the 1. 2. 3. here.
1 is the resource tree window. 2 is the resource list window. 3 is the plugin view window.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_020-4.jpg)

In the resource tree window select the “Texture Overlay XML (XTOL) (1)” line.
 
In the resource list window there will be a single item.  It will say Texture Overlay XML. Select it too.  In the plugin view below those windows you will see this:
 
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_021-2.jpg)

It’s the CPE editor that we want to use.  There are a lot of values here I know.  Most of them you can ignore.  

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_022-2.jpg)

The important line here that we want to edit is the “genetic (dtSingle) = 0” one.  Notice that ‘0’ there?  That is what tells the game the eye is a custom one and should always override any other non-custom genetic eyes.   Select that line and notice that the boxes, ‘Name:’ ‘Type:’ and ‘Value:’ on the right each have part of that line’s information in them.  What we want to change is the ‘Value:’ box.
 
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_023-2.jpg)

Then hit the ‘commit’ box.  

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_024-1.jpg)

The final step is to save the file.  I always use “save as” to remind myself to rename the file.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_025-1.jpg)


Bonus Info:

How about making those eyes you just geneticized into ones that the game will use for NPC’s and townies?

While in the same screen you will want to change two more lines, the “creator (dtString) =”  and the “family (dtString) =” .  Both lines have long letter-number strings behind them and those strings vary for every custom eye package.  

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_026-1.jpg)

So copy this:
 
00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Select the creator (dtString) line and in the value box highlight the existing string. To paste the new value in that box use “Ctrl-v” on your keyboard.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_027.jpg)

Do the same thing for the family (dtString) line. (note in a few cases this has caused problems, if your eye package is not an individual eye texture or if you find that the eyes don't work after changing this value then revert to the original data string.  This is why I tell you to do 'save as' and rename)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/dewshine2003/YAFSS_028.jpg)

Commit.  Save as. (Remember, I do this to change the name of the file.  I want to note this is an NPC ready version).

There.  It's a rinse and repeat operation from here.  

I usually set my pink, red, and off colored eyes to 4 and don't use 0 at all.  You could however use 0 for your black colored eyes and those few custom eyes you really like if you don't mind them being so dominant they take over your neighborhood.

This is great Dew! Thank you so much. I've been looking for how to make NPC eyes. May I ask what makes them NPC exactly?

Woohooo bout time I needed this one lol Thank you DEW!!

When you set the creator and family values to all 0 you are telling the game that those eyes are, in fact, original game files.  Thus the game includes them when making random characters.

At least that's what I've been told.  The little custom icon should go away on eyes with that information changed.

Thank you Dewshine!
I was looking all over the place this weekend to find this. I found it right at the last minute. Can hardly wait to see how well I do. Thanks again of all your help. "With this TUT and trying to tell me How Last Week".
You're the best.
I think I've got everutnig I need now.
Dolphin crosses fins.

Question-
Do I need to change the file name?  The eyes I edited are now missing from the Eye Bin, even though they're in the downloads folder (actually, it's a subfolder, but you get what I mean).

If you let them overwrite so that there is only one copy you should be fine.  It sounds like to me that you have both the edited file and the original file still in your downloads.  

It is not required that you rename the files though.  I recommend it to keep track of which files have been altered.  If you still have trouble with the files you have changed please upload one package file, compressed, and I'll take a look at it.

I scoured through all my subfolders, and I didn't find any duplicates.
I looked into the creator and family values- would an extra space at the end be the cause?

That it might.  you should only have the 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 there.
It is rather specific I do believe, on the number of digits.

Yeah, it still didn't work :(
I'm attaching the package for you to take a look at.

I looked through your package file, and there was one texture overlay that still had the space behind the 0 string. When I removed the space on the one the file showed up in bodyshop. However only the dark green showed up in the game itself.  

I've never seen eyes packaged quite like this before, frankly.  No wonder you are having problems.  I'll do a complete look over and see if I can't figure out what is going on.

Thanks for this tutorial Dewshine.  I've been using your genetisized Enayla skins and eyes, but have been wanting to make Schuldig's eyes genetic for a while.

Could you clarify a few things for me?
1 - If I want to have my NPCs & Townies using these eyes, do I need to create two different files for one eyecolor?
2 - I have a set of default eyes for Schuldig.  Do I need to genetisize these or are they automatically genetic.

And a questions - are you going to do a tutorial on genetisizing skins (HP's Idolatry of the Flesh comes to mind) ;)

Thanks for your help & great job.
Gail

1)  no you don't need two versions of the files. The altered file will work for both your CAS sims and NPC and townies.

2) Default eyes are already geneticized and NPC/Townie ready.  They should be using the ingame files and only be replacing the texture anyway.

Ah, genetics for skins... Yeah, I can do that.  I'm going to work on it and make a "tutorial for dummies" that addresses that, just because you reminded me that I should, lol. :D

Looks like I something wrong... I tried to modify my small eyes collection consisting of JoanneDyer's Small Eyes and Barcelonista's Rev. 4 series eyes.
Now I checked them in Bodyshop and was confronted with this:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/princess_familiar/eyes_mass-select.jpg)
When I select one of the colours, the whole series is selected instead and the first light blue colour is displayed.

As suggested in the tutorial, I saved the files as "Originalfile-GenRes.package" and moved the original files to a temporary folder outside the game.

Some random tests had no extra spaces or other invalid keys in the value box.

The only edited colours that show up correctly are those few multicoloured ones which I assigned as genetic value 4.
Neither do they show up in CAS, except the multicoloured ones.

Any idea what I've done wrong?

If your eye package has many colors inside one package that might be a problem.  

The other eye package file I looked at that was not showing up in CAS but in bodyshop had many eyes inside a single package file and only showed up there.  on the evidence I see I almost think this is similar.

However, you say that the ones set to 4 are working so that is your issue. Um.  It's hard for me to tell what is going on without a package to look at.  

If you don't want them NPC ready you could try leaving off that step, and just do the genetic values.  I do wonder if perhaps (and I don't know this for sure) barcelonista copied package files in SimPE and altered the image file instead of going through bodyshop. If so there may be some internal numbers that cannot be changed that are telling the game that the eyes are all in the same file.  

if that's the case then running the individual eyes through bodyshop as a project and resaving them might work.

However, I'm still looking at VioletSky's multi-eyes-in-one package file to see if there is some way to make that system work and I'm drawing the conclusion that it will require doing some very intensive editing of the files to reduce the texture overlays inside the package to 4 and relinking the reduced numbers back into the all the bits and pieces to make it work.  

So if you are trying to place many eyes inside a single package file you may have a huge amount of editing in store to make this work.

Uhh, thanks for replying.
I'll zip up and upload some problem files once I'm back on my gaming computer, if that helps.


Would those additional colours appear in the Texture Image (TXTR) list?
I'm quite certain that there was only one texture in each edited file. The name in the resource list in Texture Overlay XML however was named differently than in your tutorial pics - "uml"-something, I believe.
Probably you're right about the file copying ...


I'm afraid I don't understand - assigning them as 4 can cause a problem?


Tried to do it after reading about a different problem, but Bodyshop won't let me export a project due to the mass selection.



I can't say I tried to do that and honestly, I don't have any idea why anyone would do that. I prefer to be able to delete individual files once I don't like them anymore.

Actually setting eyes to '4' as a genetic value is not a problem.  Those worked, yes?  It's the other files that did not.  
Ok, this gives me some clue as to what the problem might be:
Having the file will help though.  I looked at Barcelonista's eyes at MTS2 but her "realistic" revision 4 looks different than the ones you show above.

 You had a single texture in each package file, that I get.  So this is a different problem then VioletSky's.

I want you to know that I'll be happy to help you sort this out, and that assigning a genetic value of 4 is fine.

Alright, the line in Texture Overlay XML says uuface_eye_dkbrown.
Recent discovery: Those few eyes that used to work - like a green/brownish colour of Barcelonista - decided to behave like all the rest. So selecting any colour now ends with selecting all colours.

I decided to pack all edited eyes plus the originals. Guess that'll be better than letting me decide for a single one.
It's up on my webspace as RAR file (http://www.jdpliquett.de/MessedUpEyes.rar).

I got the file, I'll take a look.

Ok, I must tell you, you did everything correctly, Missloaf. It seems to be something in how the BARev4 eyes themselves were made.  I got them to work correctly for me by adding back the family data information.  Therefore, I'm not fully sure if they are going to work on NPCs.  The creator data still is all 0's and the genetic info is the same as you had it, while I restored the the alpha-numeric string from the original packages.  The eyes now only select one at a time. They have the names you used so you might want to pull your folder out and test these.

Hey, what a service :) Thanks a lot!

*Bows*  

Yes, nothing like tutorials with 'expert' help attached, lol. :D

I found the problem.  I followed the tutorial on Mod The Sims 2 (found here (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=204919))
You're not supposed to edit the family value, only version, product, flags, and creator.  I followed that and my eyes worked perfectly.

The family value, set to 0 is supposed to make NPC's use the eyes.  But if it doesn't work for the specific set you are using then don't change it.  I might have to note that in my tutorial.

Thank you VioletSky and MissLoaf