Lots and lots of lips...

[strangetomato]

So... I made a lot of lips. A whole lot. Do you think I got carried away?

Yeah, that's right. I made eighteen of them. There are six greens, six purples, three blues, one gold, one red, and one hot pink. I made these thumbnails too. I want to take some nice screenshots to include with the download post and do it up all nice, but other than that, they're ready to go.

One question: does anyone know how people take nice CAS shots where all the lips are the same, all the eyes are opened, etc.? My sims move around too much in CAS and Bodyshop is too dark and small for good preview pics. How do people do it?

Comments

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

They look amazing! I like the variety of purples and the hot pink. Even if they are for aliens, I'll probably use them with my regular sims too.

Those preview pictures are much easier to do on Bodyshop (that's how I take my previews, but I'm so lazy with that), but I agree that the lips will look much nicer if you take them in game.

What I'd do is use the Hula and More mod from Squinge and force the sim to adopt a still pose. Or maybe the "Pose" feature from Bon Voyage, but the sim would still move a little. Then, you set a camera angle (I've never done that, but I think you can "record" specific angles to the F1-F4 keys, I don't know well) and take the first picture.

Then, you use the Insiminator, in particular the "Social Adjustor" (looks like a bunch of balloons) to give the sim a makeover without need to cancel the previous pose or make them move to a mirror. Change the lipstick, set the pose and angle again and so on until you have all your screenshots.

Now, here's my tip. If you have Photoshop, open a new document and paste all the screenshots as different layers. Since all the pictures are supposed to be identical, the face of the sim will be at the exact position in all the poses. Then, you crop the faces out at the size you want them (I usually use 200px width and 300px height, but you probably need smaller pictures). You'll end up with a neat little document with all the layers cropped the same way.

Open another new document and drag all your layers to it. Then, you can sort them out. Use the stroke option (Inside) if you want to draw lines between every little screenshot. Flatten the image, resize and sharpen if you want to and that's it!

I really, really hope this makes sense!

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

I'm keen to see these on non-aliens, too.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I can include some preview shots on the normals too, if you like.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

That would be fa-bu-lous.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Your wish is my command.

I'm sure they'll work just fine. The lips use an alpha by Bruno that fades out as you get to the edge, which is why the purple lipstick had that effect that you commented on in the last post (it wasn't as noticeable on the greens because there was nothing to contrast with).

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

Sweet. Some will look really nice on darker vs lighter skins. (I love that faded/mixed look)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

The darker ones will look better on darker skins, most likely.

And that's really getting me to thinking about the possibility of having a darker alien skin. It could be mint green like the Maxis version, but darker.

Of course, I'm happy enough with just the pale mint, but it'd be nice for variety.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

Like an alien skin with a tan?

What I still long for (yet not enough to figure out how to do it myself, I R lazy) is green freckles on the normal skin tones.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks! ^_^ I'm sure they'll be just as fun for normal sims, and the way the alpha is constructed, they should blend just fine with most skintones.

I agree that Bodyshop seems so much easier. Some people have suggested a lighting mod. I should probably go looking for that.

Thanks for these detailed tips! It's very helpful, and I'm sure they will come in handy.