Tutorials

Simple Retexturing for The Sims 4

Written by BlackGarden
This tutorial will show you how to make a really simple dress for The Sims 4, using a repeating pattern of your choice and a few custom content tools.

Anulaa89 has written a Polish tutorial available here and SimsZoo have written a German tutorial. Have you translated this tutorial or written your own in another language? Let me know so I can add your link!

Last updated: 10th September 2014

Before you start, you will need:

  • A copy of The Sims 4 or The Sims 4 Create-A-Sim demo in your Origin account
  • Photoshop (I’m using CS5) and the DDS texture tools
    • Alternatively, you can use Gimp and its DDS plugin, but this tutorial won’t cover how to use that software.
  • A basic knowledge of your chosen photo editing software. Although I have tried to explain the Photoshop parts in reasonable detail, I haven’t gone into every tiny detail, so if you have never used Photoshop before, you may need to ask for Google’s help on some parts (or ask in the comments below).
  • S4PE – I highly recommend that you extract this using 7-zip, as several people have reported that they are unable to export DDS if they unpacked it with WinRAR (myself included!)
  • Color Magic – this tutorial uses version 0.8.0, and the latest version is always available for download here.
Important disclaimer

It should go without saying but I just want to make this really clear: modding for The Sims 4 is at a very early stage! The programmers who are spending their spare time working on the Color Magic tool and s4pe are not magical beings. They are still learning about the structure of The Sims 4’s files, and the structure of the files that we need to make. Some items might cause your game to crash, or make strange things happen, and for the time being, that’s the way it is.

If you experience any bugs with your packages, it’s always worth dropping the creators of the tool a line in their forum: http://sims4.the-prof.net/?forum=sims-4-modding. Make sure you include details like the item you were recolouring from and the settings you were using. Include a link to download the package file which causes the bug if you can. This will help them to identify the causes of these bugs, and ultimately improve the tool.

Step 1: Creating the .package file

First you need to create the actual .package file for your recolour. This is the file that you would send to other people to share it.

Open up Color Magic, continue to the first step and from the drop-down box, choose whether to use the full The Sims 4 game or the demo. This step is important because recolours made for the demo will not work in the full game. Also enter your creator identity – this will help to avoid you accidentally creating a file that’s named the same as somebody else’s.

 

Next, you need to find the item you want to recolour from. I’m going to start with the short ruched dress. In the left side of the window you’ll see a bunch of slightly complicated names for each item in the demo. The first letter is for the age group, “y” for young adult. The second letter is for the gender, “f” for female, “m” for male, and “u” for unisex. Next is the type of item, “Acc” for accessories, and the rest are fairly self-explanatory. After that there’s an underscore, then the name of the item, followed by another underscore and the colour name.

2014-08-07_20-07-10

I’m looking for the ruched dress pictured above, so I filter by female, young adult and full body, and eventually find what I’m looking for: yfBody_DressRuchedParty. When you click on an item on the left side, it shows you what the texture for that looks like, and I can see this looks like the dress I was after. I’ve chosen to export yfBody_DressRuchedParty_GoldPale.

Click the “next” button. Here you can alter the swatch for your item. I want to use an image swatch for my item, so I click the “Add” button and a little C M icon appears – we’ll replace that with a custom icon later. I also changed the last part of my item’s name from _GoldPale to something a little more suitable _Leopard.

The “Edit Flags” button allows you to change your item’s tags in the game. This is where you select what ages it’s appropriate for, the colour, and the style. I’m not changing my dress that drastically from the original so I’m leaving this be for now.

Click Finish and a Save As dialog will appear. Navigate to C:\Users\[your name]\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\Mods (or if you’re using the demo, C:\Users\[your name]\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4 Create A Sim Demo\Mods and save your package there.

Step 2: Extracting the DDS texture file

Now open up S4PE. You might get an error about updates when you initially launch it – you can ignore this and the software will load up fine. Go to file > open, and find the file you just saved in the Documents folder. My package contains 4 resources. One of these is just some general information about your package. One is thought to be the specular map, another is thought to be the bump map. One of them is the swatch icon which we’ll edit later on. Finally, the one that we are interested in is the texture itself. When you click on the resources in the left side pane, you should see a preview on the right. Click the resources on the left until you find the one that looks like a full colour version of the clothes texture, like the one shown below:

Right-click on this resource, and choose “export to DDS”. If you do not see this option, close s4pe now, re-download it from the link at the top of the post, and extract it using 7-zip. There are known issues with using some other programs to extract s4pe, such as WinRAR.

I made a new folder in My Documents to put all the texture files that I’m working on, and saved it there. It doesn’t particularly matter where you save it, but if you plan on doing a lot of recolouring then keep your “working” folder tidy, for your own sanity!

Step 3: Editing the texture
3.1: Making a pattern

Open up Photoshop. I’m going to be making this short party dress a whole lot classier by giving it a leopard print texture. If you want to put a pattern like leopard print onto clothes, it’s important to start with a pattern that repeats (tiles), so you don’t get any obvious “edges”. There are lots of websites that are a great resource for these kinds of patterns – one of my favourites is The Fat Strawberry and that’s where I’ve found the leopard print pattern I’m going to be working with. It’s on page 5 of “world & travel” as of the time of writing this tutorial if you want to use the same pattern.

First open up the pattern you’re going to use. I resized mine down to 256px by 256px, as the pattern looked a little large originally. Go to edit > define pattern to save your pattern so that you can use it with Photoshop’s fill tool.

3.2: Applying the pattern to the clothes

Next, open up the DDS file you saved in step 2. Hold ctrl+shift+N to create a new layer, and click “ok” on the dialog. Get the paint bucket tool out by pressing G (if you get the gradient tool from this, press shift+G to switch to the paint bucket). At the top of the window, choose “pattern” rather than “foreground”, and choose the pattern you created.

2014-08-10_15-30-09

Click once to fill your new layer with the pattern. That’s a lot of leopard print.

Next, you need to blend this layer with the layer below it, so that you have the crinkles and details from the dress, with the pattern of the leopard print. To achieve this, I chose the “overlay” layer blending option at 70% opacity.

2014-08-10_15-33-18

This looks ok, but the leopard pattern is overpowering the crinkles from the dress a bit, so you need to make them show up a bit more. Click on the background layer, then go to the Image menu, and choose Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. You can adjust this until you’re happy with how it looks, and of course change the blending mode and opacity some more (“soft light” is also a good option for this type of blending). I went for these settings:

2014-08-10_15-36-00

3.3: Finishing touches

Finally, the leopard pattern all over is a touch unrealistic – it would look better if the bands at the top and bottom of the dress did not have the pattern. Hide the leopard layer by clicking the eye next to it. Press Z to get the zoom tool, and zoom in so you can see what you’re doing. Then press P for the pen tool. Click on the left side of the bottom of the band, and then on the next “sharp” corner, which I guess is between the boobs. Click half-way along the line that appears, then hold CTRL and drag it to match the line of the band more closely.

2014-08-10_15-40-42

Click again anywhere that the line doesn’t quite match the line of the band, hold CTRL, and drag into position. When you’re happy with this section, click the next “sharp” corner of the band (just the other side of the centre line between the boobs here). This section is really short and doesn’t need adjusting. Then click the next “sharp” corner – I’ve gone for the next seam along, and adjust as before. Keep repeating this until you have a line that matches the bottom edge of the band. That was the trickiest part of this tutorial, so fix yourself a drink, you deserve it.

Now you need you complete your path, but you want it to go all around the outside of the top of the dress (when you get round to the start, click on the first point to complete the path). My finished path looks like this (the red is just to show clearly where the path is, yours won’t be red):

2014-08-10_15-45-57Above the layers panel in the bottom-right corner of your screen, there should be a tab called “paths”. Click on this, then hold the CTRL key and click the “Work Path” to make a selection from it. Click on the “Layers” tab again.

First, we need to delete the pattern on this part. Click on the leopard layer, and just hit the delete key. Looking better already. Next, I also want to make this band darker, so I’m going to copy this part of the texture onto a new layer to mess with it separately. Select the path again, go to your texture layer, and then copy (ctrl+C) and paste (ctrl+V) it onto a new layer.

Grab the rectangular marquee tool (M) and draw a rectangle around the band at the bottom of the dress. As before, delete the selection from the leopard print, and copy and paste the band from the texture to a new layer.

2014-08-10_15-53-02

Finally, since you’ve removed the texture from the top and bottom of the dress, you should also remove it from those two blobs floating out to the right hand side of the dress. In CAS those blobs will be difficult to spot, but they will join up to the top and bottom of the dress. Draw a big rectangle around those with the marquee tool, delete the leopard print, and copy and paste the texture to a new layer. Now your full texture should look something like this:

2014-08-10_15-56-03Now you have 5 layers: the leopard print, 3 layers with bits of the top/bottom of the dress, and then another with the rest of the texture. Hold ctrl+E and click on each layer that is part of the top/bottom of the dress, then right-click and choose “Merge layers”.

2014-08-10_15-58-53

With this new merged layer selected, press ctrl+U to bring up the hue/saturation tool. We’re going to make all of these bits into a rich black. An important thing to note about making “black” on these textures is that if you literally make it with no colour to it at all, it looks really flat. It’s better to go for something slightly dark blue than actual black. Tick the “colorize” box, and go for something like the settings below:

2014-08-10_16-02-11

You could also make these bands dark brown, or bright pink, whatever you feel like! Here’s what my finished texture looks like:

2014-08-10_16-03-07

3.4: Saving the finished texture

When you’re happy with your new texture, go to the File menu and choose “Save As”. Before you press the “save” button, make sure you choose “DDS” from the “format” list.

2014-08-10_16-05-02

A huge dialog full of settings will pop up next, make sure that you choose DXT5 (Interpolated Alpha) and Generate MIP maps, then press the save button.

2014-08-10_16-06-49
 

Step 4: Importing the DDS

Now go back to S4PE, which should still have your package file open in it. Right-click on the texture you exported earlier, and choose “Import from DDS”

A dialog will spring up, asking you if you want to “Commit changes”. Click yes on this.

Next, right-click on the resource which says _IMG. Nothing will show up in the preview pane for this with the current version of s4pe – that’s fine. Right-click it and choose Export > To file… then save it somewhere – this is your swatch file. Don’t change the name of this file, s4pe will later use this information.

 

Open your swatch file in Photoshop. A dialog about MIP maps will appear – choose “Yes” – I’ve found this is the best way to make sure the MIP maps are correct. You will now have this in Photoshop:

2014-09-07_11-17-58

 

Create a new layer by hitting Shift+Ctrl+N. Using the rectangular marquee tool (M), select around the leftmost square Grab the paint bucket tool (G) and fill the square with your pattern, just like you did earlier for the dress itself. It should look like this:

2014-09-07_11-21-08

Now copy (ctrl+C) and paste (ctrl+V) your square. This creates a new layer. Use the transform tool (ctrl+T) to resize your layer to exactly 50% of the original size. You can make sure it’s exact by entering in 50% for the new width and height at the top:

2014-09-07_11-22-53

Move it to cover the second square. Now copy your smaller square and repeat the process to cover the next one. On the smaller square sizes you might notice some green creeping through from the background, due to Photoshop antialiasing when it resizes. To fix this, you can right-click any layer and duplicate it until the green disappears.

When you’re happy, merge all your layers (shift+ctrl+E). Mine looks like this:

2014-09-07_11-42-27

Save your swatch over the file you exported (the long complicated name), and make sure you choose Use existing MIP maps in the save dialog.

2014-09-07_11-41-33

 

Back in S4PE, right-click the _IMG resource and choose import > from file. Open the file you just saved. The long complicated name helps s4pe to rebuild the information about the file.

Go to File > Save to save your completed package file. Close S4PE.

2014-09-10_20-32-45

Step 5: Test it!

Now we’re finally ready to check out the fruits of our labour! Open up The Sims 4 or the Create-A-Sim demo, and look for your dress!

 

Find the dress you cloned from, then look for your swatch:

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Here’s my super-classy looking dress:

2014-08-10_16-34-31Now that we’ve covered the basic recolouring process, look out for more tutorials coming soon which will cover how make some really original looking clothes.

Please do feel free to share links to your own recolouring successes in the comments below!

Leave a Reply to Elizabeth X

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166 Comments

    • Hi there,

      Are you sure? It will have the same swatch as the one you cloned from so it might not be obvious until you click on the swatch. If it’s definitely not there, and your file is definitely in the right place, there’s a couple more things to try.

      1) grab the latest version of the recolouring tool (“Color Magic”) here and rebuild your package file: http://sims4.the-prof.net/?p=265
      2) ask for help on the creator of the tool’s website here: http://sims4.the-prof.net/?topic=color-magic-v-8314-instructions/ (don’t forget to include useful details like exactly which item you cloned from).

      Good luck!

      • i did everything you did as said and same my didn’t show up either I clicked ever colored dress and still didnt show up 🙁 you should have also stated that we needed a plugin because I was freaking out how it didnt know what a DDS was.. 🙁

        • Hi Mark. It says at the top of the post what plugins and software you need to download before you start. Sorry if you missed that but it’s definitely there!

          Could you send me your finished package file so I can check it? You can email it to [email protected]. Cheers 🙂

    • Glad you liked it 🙂 The next tutorial hopefully will be next week sometime (unfortunately I won’t have much time this weekend :() and it’ll focus on painting folds/creases on clothes.

  • When I try to get to C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 4 Create A Sim Demo\Data\Client, it doesn’t work. I installed the Create-A-Sim demo through origin, but when I open the folder Origin Games, nothing shows up. It looks completely blank. Please help!

    • I installed it from origin, but it installed to C:\Users\Owner\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4 Create A Sim Demo, and now I have no data folder. Is there a way to fix this? (ignore the last post though. Same person.)

      • Hi there,

        The demo puts files in two places. One is in C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 4 Create A Sim Demo (or C:\Program Files\Origin Games\The Sims 4 Create A Sim Demo on 32-bit operating systems) and the other is the one that you found. The Program Files one is where you find the data folder, and the Documents one has a mods folder inside that you save your package files to.

        Hope this helps!

    • Hi there,

      Worth checking where your Origin is installing games to. In Origin, go to Origin (top left corner) > Application Settings > Advanced and check the “Downloaded games” path where it says “your games will be installed in the following location:”

      Then look in wherever that folder is 🙂

  • I was following this method on another item with CS5 and a newer DDS plugin. I’m not sure why but I found that something I did in PS screwed up the alpha so the item was all transparent. Once I re-did the alpha it was fine– Except I tried it in game and now I had an incorrect thumbnail.

    • Hmm not quite sure what happened there. With the thumbnail, which version of Color Magic are you using? For default replacements it’s always impossible (at the moment) to change the thumbnail, and with other items unless you specifically change the thumbnail it will be the same as the item you cloned from.

  • Hello!

    First off, thanks for the tutorial! Incredibly helpful. I just have one issue:

    I created a new non-default tank-top, everything went great and it worked in-game, but when I decided to make a different re-texture of the same type of tank-top, the tank-top copies the textures from the very first tank-top I made – yet I created a whole new package file for it AND the textures show up in S4PE perfectly.

    Is there anything I’m doing wrong? Any help is greatly appreciated, Thank you!

    • Hi, that sounds very odd! Try dropping the creators of the Color Magic tool a line on their website – see if they have any ideas. Include details and links to the package files.

    • I Have the same issue , and i found out that has something to do maybe with Color Magic creating the same IMG ID as the one you cloned before ? don’t know for sure and don’t know the exact fix to it, what i did to make it right was clon a diferent tank that the one before ( for example i first cloned yfTop_TankSheerPunk_SolidPinkBlack.package and made my retexture my next can’t be clone from the same .package so i went and clone a diferent one lets say yfTop_TankSheerPunk_SolidBlackBlack.package and redo it again), is the only thing has worked for me and is really annoying, what i’m going to do when there’s no more package to clone? XD. It also happens with Skater Skirts. Well if anyone has the same problem i’ will greatly appreciate comments on what to solve it

  • Hi, this is a very good tutorial 🙂
    Thank you so much for sharing it.
    I just have a problem when I open on s4pe on step 2.
    S4pe cant open the texture file it just say error so I cannot import the file.

    • Do you mean that when you open the .package file in s4pe it doesn’t work? If so then that’s a bug with the Color Magic tool, so you should let them know on their website. Make sure you include details of exactly what you were cloning 🙂

  • Has anyone successfully done this with GIMP do we load the mipmaps when we first open the exported file in GIMP?

  • I have a question, I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.. but after i save, the textures become… uh messy? I have a picture, i enlarged it so you can see whats going on, it happens on everything that I’ve made so far, even to test it out i just repackaged a dress without doing anything to it, and the textures were different there also

    http://imgur.com/f2FdcDY

  • Is there a way to undo this after you click commit changes, the game won’t start now, it says that information is damaged or missing

    • Hi there,

      Just delete your modded .package file from the Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4 Create A Sim Demo\Mods folder. If you’re still experiencing issues, you might have accidentally edited one of the files in Program Files. To fix that, go to Origin, find the demo in the “my games” folder, right-click it, and choose “repair game”.

      • Thanks, I actually got it to work though turns out that if you leave s4pe open it will give you that message

      • This error can also occur if you have your mod package open in S4PE when you launch the demo. Be sure to close s4pe when you finish you changes so that the game can read the package file.

  • Thanks for this tutorial. It took some time to figure it all out, as I have GIMP installed (in Dutch version so there is a ‘translation issue’)In the end it worked and that’s what matters. I made a very rough version of my own, see on my tumblr but it sure needs some extra work.

    I wonder if you could ad a extra screenshot at the end of step 1. What about those colorswaps… Guess I’m blond, I don’t get it.
    For now practise, practise etc.
    I hope there will be more great tutorials coming

    • Hi Frannie,

      The bit at the end of step one you just click “Finish” unless you aren’t making a default replacement. There will be a new tutorial soon that focuses on making something that’s not a default replacement, so I’ll include details on what to do there in that one. For now though, you can just click “Finish” if you’re not sure 🙂

      • Thanks for your reply. I was actually referring to making recolors and not default replacements, so I’ll await your new tutorial that will (hopefully) makes it more clear for me.

  • Hi, thanks for this amazing tutorial.

    I have a problem I was hoping you can help me with.
    Everything works fine up to the point I import back the DDS file into S4PE.
    I click okay on commit changes, and then an error comes up, here’s how it looks like: http://oi58.tinypic.com/oqcg7o.jpg

    I would appreciate your help!

    • Hi Jessica,

      That’s exactly how it’s meant to look at that point – you did it right! Save the file and try it out.

  • Did what you saidexcept i did a shirt and i put a stencil on it and followed the instructions and it will not show up T_T

    • Hi Jessica,

      Make sure that the .package file you created is in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4 Create-A-Sim Demo\Mods. Then, when you open the demo, it will look exactly like what you cloned from in the swatches on the right. Until you click on it to put it on your Sim it won’t look any different. If it’s still not showing after trying that, then you might have found a bug. Let the creators of the tool know at http://sims4.the-prof.net/?forum=sims-4-modding.

  • Thanks for the tutorial.
    I’m with a problem with the s4pe, I downloaded the link above but still does not appear “Export to DDS”
    Can you help me?
    Thanks

    • Hi Kiara,

      Did you extract s4pe with 7-zip as suggested in the tutorial? There are known issues which cause exactly this problem using WinRAR and other programs to extract it. Extracting with 7-zip seems to be the only way to fix it.

      Hope this helps.

  • Thank you so much for this guide! I’ve always wanted to try and make custom content and now I can! Now I can finally recolor that dress I liked in the demo. 🙂

  • Ahh, I really need help, When in s4pe, When I try to find the right texture, EVERY one says ‘Error reading resource’

    I understand everything else perfectly, please reply!

  • I did everything in gimp first because the dds plugin wasn’t working in my photoshop (it’s working now though) but I got a different dialog when clicking export as in gimp (See here: http://imgur.com/akUa9Qg ). Did I click something wrong? I can’t figure out how another commenter got their dialog box (Theirs is here: https://i.imgur.com/33pnAUA.png ). I tried also clicking BC3/DXT5 beside compression and left mipmaps unchecked, but when I loaded CAS it crashed while hovering over the swatch for the dress, even though I used the work around found here (first page): http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/771325/color-magic-bugfix

    I redid everything in photoshop afterwards when I was able to open the dds extension and did the work around for the crashing and it now shows up in CAS. However, I want to know why it wouldn’t work in gimp for me. Or why I have a different dialog box. I can’t save as to dds in gimp, only export as. Can anyone help me? Thanks.

    • Looks like the same dialog to me – they clicked the little – box next to the Advanced thing to open up extra options.

      The crashing bug sounds like it’s not related though. That is a known issue in Color Magic when you make non-default replacements on some items. Yesterday, Granthes got some info from SimGuruModSquad to help fix it (I notice the post is from 17th August so it might not have complete info on how to fix the bug). It should be fixed in the next version of Color Magic, which, all being well, will be released this weekend 🙂

      • Hi Kayli, I just followed the installation instructions and it worked fine. Sorry, I have no idea what is going on for you, but maybe the makers of the plugin can help?

  • So, I don’t understand why because I have tried installing S4PE through both winrar and 7z and neither way will let me export dds files… what am I possibly doing wrong?

  • I have an issue, whenever I try to install s4pe Norton refuses to let me claiming the files are hazardous and deletes all of the installation files before I can install the program to my laptop!

    • Hi Becki,

      Unfortunately that’s an issue with Norton – it is incorrectly detecting that the files are hazardous. I suggest you disable Norton while you install, or even uninstall Norton and use a different anti-virus such as Avast. You can also let the creators of s4pe know that Norton does this here: http://www.den.simlogical.com/denforum/index.php?topic=3140.0 but there might not be much they can do about it, since it’s down to Norton.

  • Fantastic tutorial! Another help question (sorry)- while I got one to work yesterday, today when i load a different custom package into CAS, I see an extra swatch but the actual hair looks exactly the same as the original version? If i view in S4PE i can see the colours have changed but it’s not reflected in game? Any ideas?

    • Hi, sounds like you’ve got a crashing item there – try making it as a default replacement or wait for the next version of Color Magic which should fix this issue. Might be available this weekend 🙂

  • THANK YOU – THANK YOU – THANK YOU !!!
    That is really great, I just finished to make my first recolour of a shirt – and even better: it is a real recolor (no default replacement) – and the demo doesn’t crash ;o))

    • Awesome, glad you got it working! It sounds like the next version of Color Magic will be fixed to stop any of the non-defaults crashing too 🙂

  • I made the item, and exported as resources, yet it is not showing in the edit tool. I did not choose to replace the original items, is that why I cannot see my stuff? Thanks for reading~

    • Hi,

      That looks right to me 🙂 Save the file and open it in the game. It will look exactly like the one that you cloned from until you click it to put it on.

  • Thank you for the tutorial, it is really clear and easy to follow 🙂 But I did everything you said, and my game crashes everytime I pick the new jacket. Do you know why this is happening?

    • Hi there,

      There is a bug in the current version of Color Magic that causes this to happen with some items when you don’t make them as default replacements. Luckily, Maxis have given the creator of Color Magic the info that they need to fix the bug so the next version should fix it 🙂 For now, make it as a default replacement and it shouldn’t crash.

  • I keep getting an “Unhandled exception has occurred in your application” error when I go into S4PE to Import From DDS. 🙁

  • I followed this tutorial and successfully retextured some shorts but when I toggled back and forth from the one I used to retexture to my rextexture there’s a difference? The original one gives the sim a little shine in her hair and body and eyes. & when I go to mine it takes away that shine? Why is that? Is it bad? It doesn’t look that bad but it’s a difference.. I wanted to share it but I probably won’t if it’s a bad thing. 🙁

  • Great Tutorial!

    Thanks so much, I’ve been able to create my first ever CC with the assistance on your tutorial.
    Just wondering how we’re able to share them as package files for others to download?

    Thanks!

  • Hi! first, thanks for everything 🙂

    Can someone give me a little help here? I have my dds. textures all done, separate in 7 color variations I made. But I can’t understand how can I put all these variations to the package file. I don’t want to make a replacement, I wanted to make a new item with my variations. I have 4 programs now… Mesh cloner, Color Magic, S4PE and Cascloner. I’m used to Workshop, so I can’t figure out how to this with these tools 🙁 thanks for any help.

  • I did exactly what says here but I end up with a invisible / transparent item. It’s like there is no mesh. I already checked my dds, everything is okay, I can see nothing wrong with my alpha. I have no idea why this is happening 🙁

  • Thank you very much for this well made tutorial.
    Fortunately making custom clothing doesn’t seem to be very different in Sims 4 as it was in Sims 3. Still I can’t get it right.
    I’m following your steps perfectly but in the end when I boot up the demo I just can’t find the new shirt in the game. I tried it with different shirts, played around with swatches but nothing helped.
    What am I doing wrong?

  • Thanks for the amazing tutorial. I will try this soon. I have a few questions:

    1) Is it possible to add additional swatches instead of replacing existing swatches?

    2) Can we locate the eyes, skin, hair, tattoos etc and edit those the same way as well?

    Thanks so much ^__^

    • Hi Ying, make sure you follow the updated instructions carefully and you will have created an additional swatch by the end 🙂 I’m not sure about eyes skin and hair but I’ve seen a lot of people have successfully made these so I assume so! I’ll be looking into these myself soon!

    • Hi Anulaa. First thanks for writing a Polish tutorial! The jeans you make in your tutorial are very cool! I’ve added a link to your tutorial at the top of mine, hope that’s ok 🙂

      Unfortunately I’m not sure what that bug is either 🙁 did he unzip the latest version of s4pe with 7Zip? And does he have the latest version of Color Magic? Worth making those are all up to date. If he’s still having issues I can only suggest trying the official forums in case anybody knows the issue there: http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/categories/mods

      • Thank you for link to my Polish version of your tutorial <3 I hope that useful to many people. 🙂

        Ok. 🙂 I'll tell him to try to unpack s4pe with 7zip program and download the latest version of the Color Magic, and if that doesn't help then I will look for further help. 🙂

        Thank you for your help!
        Regards

  • Hi and thanks so much for this awesome program. It makes the game so much better!

    I was wondering if it’s possible to reshaping objects from the game. Or should I say “reshaping some 3D objects. For example, making some shoes bigger, making a dress or a skirt longer, taking off the ears of the bunny slippers. Yesterday I spent a lot of time trying to take off the ears outfrom those funny bunny slippers. I’ve erased them on photoshop but once the project finished, in game the ears were still there. They were all black except a little part.

    I have 3D studio Max. Is there a program to allow us the reshape or making new 3D objects? Thanks a lot.

    • Hi Roxanne. I didn’t make the programs, they comes from a collaboration of talented programmers and modders. But they are getting close to figuring out how to make completely new clothing items and that will one day include meshes 🙂 Keep an eye on this page for the latest developments: http://sims4.the-prof.net/?page_id=404

  • Great tutorial, thank you very much for it!
    I only have one problem, when I open the DDS file in PSCS5 all I get is a green picture. When I open it in Windows Picture Viewer it looks like it’s supposed to be. I didn’t uncheck alpha or any of the other boxes in ColorMagic. I really can’t find the problem 🙁 Maybe you know what I’m doing wrong? Thanks in advance!

  • This is such a great tutorial!! Unfortunately I simply can’t get the pattern to blend in with the texture in photoshop. I used a different pattern website as the link you gave came up as harmful on my computer, do you think it could be the patterns?

    • Hi Plummbob, you might need to adjust the hue/saturation and brightness/contrast of the clothes to get them to blend nicely with your chosen pattern. Good luck!

  • Hi,
    thanks again for your updated tutorial!

    I made the first German tutorial on 31st August, of course with giving credits to you and your great tutorial, without that I wouldn’t have been able to make recolours at all!
    I did not make an exakt translation, but of course it is almost the same, just in my own words.
    Today I’ve updated it with Color Magic 0.8.0

    If I may post a link – you can find it here: http://www.simszoo.de/include.php?path=article&contentid=85

    THANK YOU !!!

    • Awesome, I’ve linked to your German tutorial in mine now. Cute shorts, great idea 😀 Also thanks for letting me know 0.8.0 is out, I can’t keep up with these releases! I’ll update my tutorial too today then!

  • I´ve downloaded a lot of clothes but how do I get them into the game? It´s a lot of zip files and stuff like that. Please help me. 🙂

    • Hi Emma, you just need to extract the files to Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\Mods folder. Sometimes a mod might come with special installation instructions – read them carefully. Some zip files you don’t extract and put directly in the mods folder, and you might need to change your resource.cfg. If it’s just clothes though, you just extract them to the mods folder 🙂

    • Hi Adla, the DDS plugin is probably not set up properly. Make sure you followed the installation instructions, and if you have a 32-bit and a 64-bit version of Photoshop make sure it’s installed for the version you’re using.

  • Hey, thank you so much for updating you tutorial! I’m having a really annoying problem tho. I have the updated versions of everything, and I only use 7zip so I know that’s not the issue, but every time I load my cc into the game it looks great in cas, but crashes in the loading screen. I have re-made it all since the Demo, and I’ve asked around and no luck, any ideas?

  • Thanks for this tutorial=))) I have a problem with Color Magic. In CM (step 1)i can’t to choose the way and if i click on “Next” the program give me an error. Please helpppp!!!

  • Thank you so much for this tutorial, I love it! I will link to it in my blogg to morron.

    Can I do like this in Photoshop Elements 12? I plan to buy it specilly if I can use it for this. Do you think there will be a dds-plugin for Photoshop Elements 12? Maybe you do not know but hopefully someone else can answer.

    I love this tutorial so thank you again! ???? ????

  • I’m having a problem.
    When I recolor something from the same original piece twice,
    only one of them seems to appear available in the game. The other one cannot be found anwhere.
    Even if it was there before.

    Like… I recolored a suit. It worked fine. Then I did another recolor of the same thing.
    Different name an all of course. Old one is gone. :/
    However the new relcolor’s preview pic (the bigger one ingame) shows the old one’s preview.

    So what’s happening? Can I only recolor everything once?

  • Hi! I understand the tutorial until the export to dds thing in s4pe? I tried doing that, and when i tried to open it in photoshop, it said that it could not open it because it wasn’t the right format. And could you go into detail with the photoshop part please?

    • Hi Lilah,

      To open the file in Photoshop you need the DDS plugins linked at the top of the post.

      I think the Photoshop part is covered in pretty good detail. If you need more help with Photoshop I suggest taking some beginners’ tutorials on just using Photoshop first – walk before you can run!

  • Hi I was able to create a shirt and it showed up in game but when I go to make another I do all the same steps and it will only show the 1st shirt I made. Do you know what the problem might be?

  • Thanks for a Great tutorial!

    I’m having trouble with opening the dds file in Photoshop as it says it is the wrong type of file :L Is is only certain Photoshops that you can open up a dds file in?

  • I followed all the steps and everything in s4pe looks like it should, with all the images showing up how I edited them. However when I try and see it in game, it looks like I didn’t do a thing. Same white t-shirt, same green cm swatch.

  • Hi, I managed to do all of this besides the colour swatch.. I did the bit where you add and you get the CM sign but When opening in s4pe. the image file doesn’t show up, just 3 with tags UNKN and 1 CASP. I don’t know where I have gone wrong here :-/

  • Hi! Awesome tutorial!
    But, I have a little problem with the swatch thumbnails.
    I follow your instructions but when I save the dds file, the img is cut. Only the left side of the img is there. Any idea how to fix this? 🙂

  • Thank you, everything went great!
    But I have problem: content shows up in game but after I put this on my sims and go to play game crashes. Any idea?

  • Hah! Figured it out. Simple, yet important mistake. When I opened DDS in my Photoshop it automatically used green background. When background is completely deleted and only shoes remain then everyhting is ok.

  • Thank you for this wonderful tutorial. I recolored a a short dress, followed every step, but it doesn’t show up in the game. 🙁 Should I move my saved package file somewhere perhaps?

    Thank you!

  • first of all thank you so much for these artickle
    i did exactly what you told (except from the photoshop part only for the way im using patterns)
    i dont think that the photoshop part is responsible for the fail!
    well when i try to open sims 4 it shows a message ” unable to start : cannot start becauze required game data is misssing or damaged. please try reinstal the game”then i go and delete the package i create and all its ok.
    sometimes tha game starts correctly with other of my packages
    every time i follow your steps but i dont know what happen
    sorry for my english!!

  • Hello,can you please help,I did all the steps several times and the end result is always black and white.Why?Where did I go wrong?Thanks

  • Hello! Thanks for the tutorial it was very helpful. I am having an issue though, my first recolor worked perfectly but I made a second one of the same outfit and named it differently. When I open the game my first recolor shows up but not my second one. Any idea why?

    • Nevermind, I figured it out I think, I have to create a whole new package with colormagic. Just copying and renaming the same package didn’t work, but re-opening the original package and saving a new one with color magic and transfering my recolor onto it worked and it showed up in my game.

  • I followed all the steps, and The shirt I recolored shows up in CAS, but when I actually start playing the game, it looks as if the sim has no shirt on at all. Is there a way to fix this problem?

  • I did the one in the tutorial, exactly as you did it and it worked fine. Then I tried exactly the same thing and it lookes line until I try and put it into the game where it doesnt appear?

  • I have a issue: Every time I open it, it goes well until the “select game” screen. When I put next, it crashes. What can I do?

  • Thank you for having responded to me you do not remember if you made a procedure for the background? I do not automatically remains on white background with the image of clothing ..