(I know I could have edited my last post, but since I'm adding pictures- and am very proud of myself- I have opted to create a new post.)
***** S U C C E S S ! ! ! *****
Well it took a little perseverance, but with some effort, Body Shop, SimPE, PaintShop Pro X, a willing computer (which had to load/exit Sims 2 & the afore mentioned programs about a dozen times in the span of about an hour) & the help of Guy & Gal Tester, I have figured out how to add infant hair to any custom skintone I should happen across!
The first thing I did was open up the skins that had infant hair & poke around. It seemed easy enough; just change the bald infant hair file to something with hair, but the thing that threw me was that I wasn't sure how to get the toddler/infant hair to show on a skintone other than the one it "came with".
So for instance the custom skintone that gave S4 (dark skinned) infants a nice head of curly black hair has this infant hair file...
...and I wasn't sure how to get that head of hair to show up on a non-S4 toned skin. I was afraid that just copying the file into another skintone would give me some kind of strange half-n-half toned baby. (Head: skin S4 with hair, Body: whatever the custom skintone was.)
Anyway, it couldn't really be
that simple...could it?
Not knowing what else to do (which is pretty much a perpetual thing with me) I decided to give it a go. Since I needed something that would give me "obvious" results, I decided to paste the above Curly Black S4 file into a tweaked Alien skintone set I had.
Next I booted up the game & headed strait for...
...Guy & Gal Tester, the hapless residents of "Hood 89", aka Sacrificial Island. (Yeah, their names are Guy & Gal; I didn't want to get too attached to them. If you think that's bad, you should know that their two dogs- Danny & Sarah- are called Doggie 1 & Doggie 2. Like I said, I don't want to get too attached...)
Guy & Gal are the only playable Sims (aside from one of my many Cyd Roseland clones) that live on Sacrificial Island. Don't feel bad for what's about to happen to them; people dumb enough to move to a place called Sacrificial Island do not deserve your sympathy! (Cyd escaped this experiment as it would involve birthing babies & he's still a single dude. Anyway, I have other plans for him...& his little dog, too!)
Step one was to use the CL Custom Skintone Selector to change both Guy & Gal to be "ZW Alien" toned. (Yes, I
did actually call it that!) Step two was to use InSim to impregnate Gal with Guy's baby. (They couldn't do it the old fashion way as this is actually still their first day in their house & they only just recently developed a crush on each other. Nothing like an immaculate conception to jump start a relationship, eh?)
After Gal went into labor & Guy completely freaked out (which is pretty understandable, given the circumstances) I had my first test result...
...a baby girl named Surprise, who as you can see is hardly what I was hoping for. Bald & non-custom skinned; where did I go wrong?
A quick check with SimPE told the tale; Guy & Gal's DNA was still set to their Maxian default skins! So it seems the CL Tool is strictly cosmetic, not genetic like I had thought. Never mind, I'll just slap the code for ZW Alien skin into little Surprise's file & then I'll know if the hair works, right?
Wrong.
Little Surprise looked exactly the same when I reloaded the lot as when I had left it. No problem, I'll make her selectable & change her skin via the CL Tool...er, no, I won't, as the CL Tool reads as "No Actions Available" for infants. Okay, maybe if I use SimPE to change Guy & Gal to something else...except no matter what I enter in SimPE, Guy & Gal Tester don't change their appearance! The only way to get them to look different is to use the CL Tool in game.
Geeze, okay time for a rethink; if the CL Tool is only cosmetic & the DNA changes I make in SimPE are strictly genetic....* brain spark *...what if I use the CL Tool to change Guy & Gal's appearance, then use SimPE to set their genetics to match?
Sounds like a plan...only I need to eliminate the ZW Alien skintone as a factor, just in case it still has a problem.
But I still want infant hair.
So Guy gets set to the downloaded S1 with blonde infant hair, Gal gets set to the S2 with red infant hair (S1 & S2 were there original tones) & after setting their DNA via SimPE, it's time for round two on the "Instant Baby-o-Matic Express" for the duo.
So after putting Surprise on the floor, Gal delivers baby number two...
...a bouncing baby boy named Unexpected, with a lovely little head of red hair!!
Yippie!
So I now know the hair files work & I know how to get then to "take" correctly...but just how will that S4 hair look on a modified Alien skintone?
There's only one way to find out!
So Guy & Gal are set to ZW Alien via the CL Tool & are then set to have it as both their Dominate & their Recessive skintone. There is simply no way they will not produce a little green baby.
The only question is; will it have hair...or even a head, for that matter? (Remember, this is a skin that did
not have any infant hair originally & the one I am using is still on a S4 skin swatch.)
Again, there's only one way to know. So after a slightly delayed labor (as the Tester's kitchen wasn't designed as a delivery room & poor Gal kept running around looking for a place to have to deliver that wasn't already occupied by a baby, a chair, or her clueless roommate) Guy & Gal were proud to welcome...
...baby number 3, a little girl named Wonder.
I'm sure you've noticed that not only does she have a green head, but she has a magnificent head of curly black hair!
So it seems that it really
is just a matter of a copy-paste job to get a nice head of hair on a custom-skinned infant!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some skins to tweak...
-ZW