Using my Hair Retexturing Kit

Hello peoples! Long time no teach. Get it? haha. nO

Okay seriously though, if you came here from my Hair Retexture Kit tumblr post, then you must be ready to get down to business. Let's get started.

First you need the following things:

Hair Retexture Kit (known from here as HRK)

Photoshop or another program for editing images

If you aren't using photoshop, you'll have to open the file you want as your faded color, and apply a motion blur to it a couple times.

So if you downloaded my HRK, you unzip that and you have 3 folders:

Pretty self explanatory, inside these folders you'll see this:

Manic Panic:

Natural:

PSD:

And in the PSD folders you'll just see the same file names as the ones in Manic Panic and Natural.

But they're fixed for ombre!

So if you wanna do just a Manic Panic color or a Natural color, then you don't need this tutorial. This is to show you how to make your own ombres with the HRK.

If you need to know about using S4S to retexture hairs then watch this:

She explains it perfectly fine and I won't need to type it all out. 

Just...you don't need to follow the part where she teaches you how to make your own texture, I guess. lol

Step 1:

Open the PSD of the color you want as your BOTTOM color, it should look like this (except as whatever color you chose)

Step 2:

Open the color you want as the TOP color, but NOT the PSD of it, it should look like this (whatever color you chose)

Step 3:

Hit CTRL + A to select all the purple (or whatever color you chose), then CTRL + C to copy it. Go back to the teal (or whatever color) and hit CTRL + V to paste it

Step 4:

Under layers click and hold the purple layer, to drag it under the teal one

Now if you're happy with this just CTRL + S and save it as a new image file (png is good for this) with a name not previously used! 

If you're not happy with this, however, you can do the following:

select the teal layer

then drag the teal image down (or up) while holding SHIFT to make sure it does straight down (or up)

If happy with it afterwards, then save it as a new image with a new name and you're good to continue on with that tutorial video up there.

If you're not satisfied with the color brightness or saturation just select the layer, hit CTRL + U and change it!

 And further adjustments can be made using 

IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST

If that's what you're into

Anyway, have fun and if you wanna tag me on tumblr to show me what you've come up with I'd love to see! #pixelatedzombies

Any questions can also be asked there, through my ask page!

Putting decals on shirts (or how to use my PSD's to make shirts) for Sims 3.

For Simblreen I gave out Sims 4 shirts but included the PSD so that you could 

1) Add it to any shirt you wanted or

2) Put them on Sims 3 shirts.

Here's how to do that. I'll split this tutorial up into two parts, Sims 3 and Sims 4. 

Sims 3

Today we'll be doing this with TSRW as it let's you preview, which is important for beginners. Warning: TSRW is a fickle bitch and can make you want to punch babies sometimes!

You'll need:

TSRW

Graphics editing program

Photoshop DDS plugin (dunno where to find the gimp one, you'll have to search it up)

Install TSRW and open it up. Wait for it to load, it takes a bit. 

Optional: Go to edit > preferences and make sure your expansions are all set right.

Click create new project > clothing and wait for it to load.

Then, the + beside human, then whatever age you want, then gender, then double-click everyday (if that's the category you're looking to get the top or whatnot from)

Find the shirt you want and click it, then click next. Tip: If you type aftop in the bar at the bottom, you can sort through a lot of junk easier.

Name your project and put a title:

Click next, then okay.

This screen! Okay, wait for it to load and then click the texture tab. Scroll down til you find "stencils" and hit the +

Here you have stencil A, B, etc.

If your shirt has a stencil on it right now, click the + beside the stencils until you find one that says "enabled" and "true" beside it. We'll use this.

If your shit doesn't have a stencil on it right now, click "stencil A" and beside enabled hit "false" and change it to "true"

Now scroll up and find "multiplier" should look something like this:

Click edit

Click export and save it somewhere.

Now open your graphics editing program and open the file you just saved. Also, open your PSD (if you're following this from my trick-or-treat thingie), or any other stencil you wanted to use. 

(1) On windows hit CTRL A to select all of the stencil (for the PSD's make sure you have the right layer selected!) if on anything else, use the marquee tool and just select everything that way.

Now CTRL C to copy or edit > copy

Now select your multiplier file and hit CTRL V or edit > paste

This is sorta what you should be seeing. CTRL V now or

(2) Now, move the stencil into the middle of the shirt. If you need to resize then hit CTRL T or edit > free transform. Hold shift and drag only from the corners. 

Once you've got it in the spot you want it, and the size you want it, delete the background layer. If your stencil was already white, don't worry about doing this part, if your stencil is a color though, do this.

CTRL U or image > adjustments > hue/saturation. Move the Lightness all the way to the right.

Click the new layer button, and then drag that new layer (layer 2) under the stencil layer (layer 1)

Now, grab the paint bucket tool, make sure the foreground color is black and then fill layer 2.

Now merge those two layers by clicking layer 1 and hitting CTRL E or layers > merge layers

You should now only have one layer. Hit CTRL A or the marquee tool and select it all and then CTRL C or edit > copy

Now undo. Undo until you are back to just your stencil, colored if it was originally colored or white if it was originally white.

This will be done with CTRL ALT Z or edit > undo. If you followed the steps right it should take you 5 or 6 undos.

Click your channels tab, and alpha and paste it here (CTRL V or edit> paste)

With your alpha layer selected you should see your white stencil on a black background. Go back to your layers tab, and click your layer. It'll go back to your original stencil.

 (3) File > save as > name it stencil or something idc. Save it as a DDS

Go back to TSRW and click edit beside stencil A or whatever one you have enabled.

import > your stencil dds file > open > done

Once it looks the way you want, and make no mistake you may have to go back in and move it around to get it perfect, you can go up to the dropdown and delete the extras. If you want more than once stencil then just choose those and replace the stencils just like you just did with this one. If not, you can select the presets and hit delete. 

Likewise, if you need to make more presets you can just hit duplicate. 

Now just go to file > export > sims3pack and save it wherever. OR you can go to edit > project contents > export > to package

And that's it. Just install it like you'd normally install your CC and you're good to go.

Sims 4

 You will need:

Sims 4 studio

Graphic editing program

And to save myself extra work, you can refer to above when it comes to actually using the graphics editing program.

Install Sims 4 studio, and check "make standalone" and click "create recolor"

When it loads, choose the shirt or whatnot that you want and hit next. 

When that loads you want to click "export texture" and save it somewhere. Now you want to open that in photoshop. From then on you'll follow the above tutorial from 1, to 2, then do 3. Then come back to me. No need to make an alpha for this so...

import texture > import the thing you just saved > save if you're done. 

There's a more in depth tutorial for Sims 4 studio here. But as always if you have additional questions you can ask me on tumblr (pixelatedzombies.tumblr.com)

I wrote this while extremely tired and in the middle of making dinner so if any part isn't clear feel free to message me and I'll fix it up and answer questions. Thanks for reading.

Using my sims 4 hair color presets

First thing you want to do is download them. Crazy, right? 

Unzip them and move them to this folder:

Your username thingie > AppData > Roaming > Adobe > Adobe Photoshop CS6 (or whatever version) > Presets > Hue and Saturation

Just paste 'em in that folder. Now close that and open photoshop. 

In here, you want to open the hue and saturation window and load them. Here's how to do that:

1. Image

2. Adjustments

3. Hue/Saturation

or

1. This icon here at the bottom of the layers window

2. Hue/Saturation

or CTRL U on windows.

But no matter how you do it, you should get this:

Hit this button here and click:

Pick your preset, you can only load one at a time but they'll all be on the list afterwards.

Open your hair, lighten it if you want. Select it and hit CTRL J to put it on a new layer.

Open the hue/saturation window and:

Make sure colorize is checked and pick your hair color. 

Lighten or darken if you wanna.

Your mileage may vary. I've probably changed the colors a bit before releasing them.

Save. Now go import to your program (I recommend Sims 4 Studio).

The end!

Creating Custom Thumbnails for CAS and launcher

TSR Workshop

The thumbnails must be saved as a .png!

You may need to make sure you name them something unique, not sure if it's like s3pe but probably so. So creatorname_itemname_thumb is probably a good start.

For launcher thumbnails you need to have a 64x64 thumbnail.

For CAS it's 256x256

Open TSR workshop, and your project and get to the project tab:

Click the + beside extras, click the 3 dots and then select your launcher thumbnail.

Now on the texture tab the place to upload your CAS thumb can either be under "configuration" or "Part Highlighting" so you just have to check around. Click the three dots and upload your CAS thumbnail.

If it's not makeup, then you can just export to sims3pack and be done with it. But I've heard that makeup is different and requires an extra step.

Edit > Project contents 

Find the PNG_PREVIEW and right click, go to renumber

Select group ID and click ok. Then export to sims3pack.

I have never personally made makeup, but all of the info I found points to this being the correct way so best thing to do is just try it out. No harm done.