Custom Content: The quest for the perfect male tee

[strangetomato]

There's been a lot of cool custom content being created among my friends and cohorts on livejournal lately, and I'm loving it. You've all been making such great stuff. smjoshsims made these conversions of Phobia's eyes on the Maxis sclera, xel_squirgle_ox made these recolours of the Eye Candy eyes by icnitos, and simgaroop made these great Maxis-match male hair retextures (using Neena textures), to name just a few of the most recent offerings. I wanted to say thank you for all of your efforts, and for sharing all this lovely content.

So far, I haven't really had much to share. I've been picking away at some clothing and eye edits for my own use, and a handful of painting recolours, but it's not much to speak of. Lately, though, I'm been working on a little clothing project.

Okay, so here's the deal: for quite some time now, I'm been on the search for what I'd consider to be the perfect tee for male sims. This shirt would be snug, but not skin-tight. Most importantly, it would not be covered in ridiculous (and dated) screenprints.

I'm guessing I'm in the minority here, but I've always found those untuckable tees (by fanseelamb on MTS2, though I'm sure you all know that) to be too tight for the average sim guy. I appreciate them, don't get me wrong, and they're great when used on the right sim, but I just don't see most guys wearing those skin-tight tees. On the other end of the spectrum, we have those basegame tees and jeans combos that are just sloppy and baggy. Also not ideal.




Then came Teen Style Stuff, which had some very nice options in the tee department, and those meshes were converted for adults by cloudlessnights. I LOVE those outfits, but they do have the problem of the screenprints. I don't mind using them sometimes (even if the asymmetrical placement was only trendy for five minutes), but what I really want is a plain tee. An added benefit of this would be the ease with which we could make recolours with different and new screenprints and logos on them.

So I decided to remove the screenprint myself, by editing it out by hand.




Since I'm giving you the narrative version, I'll show you my first version. It was pretty crappy. *is embarrassed*

The method I was using to recolour this was giving me that weird pixely distortion. I didn't really know what I was doing, and my options (and knowledge) were limited in GIMP.

Still, I was happy enough to have it, and I used it in this short story.




After switching to Photoshop, I gave it another try. My SO knows the program pretty well (he teaches a course on it), so I asked him to show me a better method for adjusting the hue and saturation of the shirt. He figures there are a number of acceptable methods, but suggested that I fiddle with the blending mode of a colour on a new layer.

That seemed to work just fine. I have good control over the hue, and if there's any loss of quality, it seems pretty minimal, don't you think? *squints* I'm still not convinced it's perfect, but it's getting closer.

(If anyone has further tips, I'm all ears, by the way.)




I think the "inside" of the sleeves are still in that olive brown colour, but I don't think it's very noticeable, or much of a big deal either way. It just looks like the dark shadow on the inside of the sleeve to me. What do you think?

So now I'm planning to make a whole set of these in different colours. This was my own personal mission for the perfect male tee, but I thought some of you might like them too, so I'm going to share them when they're finished. With that in mind, I'm open to some suggestions for colours. Otherwise, you'll be at the mercy of my palette.

What I'd really love is for someone to make a mesh conversion to place this tee with the H&M jeans (my favourites), or liberate it to be a top-only mesh. My handful of attempts at meshing weren't very successful, so I'll have to keep dreaming that someone else will decide to do it. I do like the TSS mesh as a whole, though, so I'm happy enough with just that.




I hope to get this set of recolours together in time to post them as a sort of holiday gift, if all goes well (most of the hard work of cloning over the design is finished, so it shouldn't be too difficult to do).

For now, I'll share this one plain red tee shirt, since it's all ready to go. You'll be seeing this one worn by Ripp after his next transition.

You can download it here:

Link to TSS Plain Tee with Jeans collection download

You'll be needing the mesh for the Teen Style Jeans and T-Shirts converted for Adults, brought to you by cloudlessnights, who has made me a very happy camper with these conversions. *loves*

The file was compressorized and I'm pretty sure it works for both YA and adult life stages. If you have any problems with it, or notice any oddities or errors, just let me know and I'll try to fix it.

Comments

[akatonbo.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you! I have been meaning to make a plain version of that shirt myself (and thank goodness for the current trend of making sepatates out of full-body meshes that means that somebody someday might in fact make it top-only), you have saved me the work. ;) A white or light grey version, when you do the larger batch, would be even more useful in that regard.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I was thinking about the white one, and I'm not sure I can get to white from this mid-value brown base. I can get grey, easy enough, and black too, but for white I may have to go back and edit the white tee from the orginal set, unless someone has a better way to suggest to me.

There is a sort of white one in the original set, but it has a rather large screenprint on it. I'll see what I can do with it. A plain white shirt is an essential staple, and it would be great to have it.

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

WOO! An advertisement! XD

I feel like I'm so backwards doing defaults before custom colors and contacts though, hehe.

(I might also be putting hair retextures into my repertoire soon! Right at this minute I'm working on an ancient xmsims mesh that would look really cute if it was tweaked a little bit.)

I'm loving the shirts! And I totally laughed when the screen popped up saying that Ripp thought Helena was hot.

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

Ooh, and for color suggestions... I think a navy blue and an olive green would look good. And maybe one like that brown one but without the ducks.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'll do the straight conversion of the same colour without the ducks (seriously, Maxis? Ducks? :P), for sure, since I have it.

It's good you mentioned the navy blue, because it wouldn't have occured to me to make one in that hue myself. For olive, are you thinking like an army green? That could be useful.

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

I know, when I realized that was ducks I LOL'd. Navy blue seems to be one of those common colors that everybodyforgets about but it always gets used.

And definitely army green.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Navy blue is a colour I almost never use, actually. In fact, I usually delete it if it comes in a set, along with bright cobalt blue, true yellow, and anything that combines black and orange (or yellow). These colours just don't appeal to me very much.

And that's why I asked for some requests. Colour is a pretty personal thing.

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

I use navy blue all the time. In fact, it's one of the colors I wear the most besides purple, black, and grey. (Damn, I am such a "winter" like Frances lol.)

But yeah, I delete true yellow and anything with black and orange too.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's because I can't wear it, and have just learned to avoid it in my own clothing. I have a very pale and warm skintone (read: yellow), and it doesn't look any good with navy blue. I prefer a pale blue or something aqua or turquoise for myself.

Black and yellow will always remind me of bees, and black and orange will always remind me of Halloween. :P Red and green is another iffy one, because of Christmas, but you can pull it off if the green is different (looks great with lime green, for example).

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Shout out! :D

I did defaults before custom eyes too (though, it did do a contact or two). It wasn't so bad, if you follow the tutorial.

I've attempted some hair, but I always bail out. I made that one retexture for the story, but that's it. I think my problem is trying to use Maxis meshes. I've heard people say they're hard to work with. I may attempt to alpha edit that short and choppy male conversion again, though. I really want to snip those bangs.

Thanks. The best part about that window was that I forgot it was in the screencap. :P I had just posed him with the "scope room" interaction, and that was his verdict. He liked Jaxy and Zoe too, and rolled wants to go on a date with all three of them (at the same time, maybe?).

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

Maxis meshes are very difficult to retexture. I tried to edit the "Beau Broke hair" and it came out awful. Unless it's a very straight mesh (like the rocker one), it's very hard if you can't draw your own textures and understand the odd alpha edits.

(And that, in my opinion, is a huge idiocy from Maxis. Heck, what's the point of releasing BodyShop if the average player can't edit THEIR meshes?!)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I agree. You'd think they would make it user friendly. Sometimes it seems like they regret their whole decision to encourage the player to create custom content.

(Aren't they doing something to limit it with Sims 3? I thought I saw a rumour somewhere...)

I was going to try to retexture that fe-mullet hair from Sim Artist Union, and I considered using some of the texture from those zombie hairs from the Sims 2 Store. Needless to say, I ended that attempt quickly. My brain still hurts, just thinking about that mess.

[showercapfrog.livejournal.com]

I would LOVE to get a hold of your recolours. I like the skintight plain shirts, but seriously, most guys don't wear skintight clothes.

And I'm unoriginal, so I don't really have any colours to contribute. Actually, I do! Would you possibly be able to make a purple, similar to the colour you've dressed Stella Terrano in? The shade looks so awesome on aliens, and I'm sure would be pretty good for other sims too.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to share them, now that they don't look like crap anymore. :P It's not that I dislike the skin-tight tees, but I use them in moderation. They make the sim look really skinny, because they're painted directly on the skin, yet give the impression that the body is smaller than the tee.

Oh, there'll be a couple of different purples, I'm sure. I'm a big fan of the red-pink-purple range, so it will be overly represented in this set. I'll be sure to match one to Stella's dress.

Making alien-appropriate tee colours is a very good idea, so that's for suggesting it. I like pinks, purples, reds (again, my favourite colours, but they compliment green) and some greens for aliens. I'll be sure to make some of those.

[showercapfrog.livejournal.com]

The link to the eyes are broken :( http://smjoshsims.livejournal.com/41172.html
Oh, I see, you're just missing the l.

Skintight frustrates me, because it means that they look about half the size they look in their formal wear, for example. I could totally go with that for certain characters (wearing Daddy's suit or something), but it really doesn't work most of the time.

And yay, now I'm really excited. Alien specific colours will be fantastic!

(I'm so happy everyone seems to be making stuff. Christmas really is coming early!)

[inkbottleblue.livejournal.com]

I have been on a quest lately for regular tees and it is very hard to find anything but those super skintight tees! Thanks so much for sharing this.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome. I knew I couldn't be the only one who had that wish. Even if you're a huge fan of the skinny tees, it's nice to have variety, especially if you're a storyteller.

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

I got a shout out! :D ^__^

I love the shirt. I commend your efforts too, men need some good clothes as well.

It really does look amazing. I love how bright the red is too! +___+

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

Oh, and color wise, I'd like pretty much anything green. I second Van's suggestion of Army Green, along with a dark green. GREEN FTW.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

So, by dark you mean like a truer (not too yellow, not too blue) green? A forest green, shall we say? I just made a nice lime green too. Green seems extra versatile for a colour. How many different oranges can you think of, for example? There are so many greens out there, and they're good greens.

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly., Kind of like the green from the H&M Sweater (I love that sweater). I like dark greens.

All greens are good greens! :P

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Sure did, babby. ;) I'm pretty excited about those eyes.

It's true. The menfolk need more clothes. I wish I could remember where I downloaded the recolours of that suit Franklin's wearing. Do you have them too? I'm really overusing them. I'd love to have even more colours. (Hmmm... could be another project.)

The red is actually pretty desaturated. I like that it's bright and punchy, but it's not a true red. I'll probably make a brighter red too, just because it's RED. It deserves my love because it's the best colour.

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

The second set is coming slowly but surely. :D

No, I don't. I was going to ask you where you got them. I love that suit so much, I wish I had it in MOAR colors.

I like red a lot too, but I don;t wear it. I'm very much into Gray, Black and Dark Blues (I'm so predictable- whenever I go shopping my family already knows what I buy because it's always in those three colors.)

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

LOL at "Helena is HOT!" So much for restraining your urges, Ripp!

The t-shirt looks neat! I sometimes use the fanseelamb t-shirts, but I agree they are too tight for most sims. For example, I can't see someone like Buck wearing them :P. And I detest the base game ones, mostly because of those ugly sandals. There's yet another odd fixation from Maxis: Sandals, bobs, llamas, pee (a psychoanalyst would have a field day if he tried to interpret this). I downloaded a mesh replacement from MTS that gets rid of the sandals, but the shirts looks odd (too square).

Anyway... (Man! Am I rambling today!)

As for color suggestions, I guess the other comments have my choices already covered. White, black, purple, blue and green ('cause we already have red!). It's a neat idea and I hope you get the hang of Photoshop (it's a bit intimidating at first) pretty soon.

You could also make a request at GOS for someone to separate that mesh in two. They do that kind of stuff all the time (I remember they posted the K&B sweaters as separates, along with the AL jackets, for example).

Thanks for the t-shirt! (and the shout out :) )

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Maybe Ripp just wants to get it out in the open, so it won't eat away at his insides. :P

Yeah, the sandals are a bit excessive. The worst is the BV outfits that have sandals with socks. That's so wrong.

I think I saw that replacement. It makes the tee very form fitting, right? It reminds me a little of those replacements to the "Don Lothario" outfit that give it less shoulders and more flared jeans. It's about the opposite of what I want to happen.

I'm really having trouble trying to figure out how to get black, but I'm going to seek advice from my "tutor." I'm getting the hang of the Photoshop thing, a little at a time. My SO has taught me a lot of hotkeys, so that makes it easier.

Hmmm. Maybe I should finally sign up for GOS and make a request. I'd like to thank some of the creators I've been enjoying too, but I'm such a lurker over there.

You're welcome! I'm just returning the favour. :)

[muslemura.livejournal.com]

I've been searching for regular male t-shirts lately but haven't had much luck. Until now :) I have some sims that (to me) looks really strange and our of character in fitted ones. Thanks for sharing :)

[cindyanne1.livejournal.com]

I love it! Thank you! It's just what my sim husband would wear. Right now I put him in the plain Maxis tank top with jeans, but he's not really a tank top guy unless he's working outside in the summer. He's a T shirt guy. In fact, dressing up for him involves a nice new colored T shirt (with or without pocket) that hasn't been ripped or stained. :D

He's a classy guy, my husband. But he does clean up well should the occasion arise.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

Adding to the love. I'm with you on the tight clothes thing. It annoys me almost as much as all the female shirts being belly button revealing. Come on, EVERY shirt shouldn't be like that.

Question. Does this shirt look good on fatties? (translation: is there a working fat morph) And I'd like to see it made into man-ternity wear, too (not that I'm demanding you do it, I'm just putting it out there). My preggo boys are starting to grow weary of the sweatpant jokes.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Oooh, very good point. Thanks for bringing that up. I don't think it has a preggo morph, but I'll check on the fat morph. Hopefully, it doesn't just explode into a sea of pixelly shards, like that H&M suit does. (Buck was NOT amused.)

I've been using that hack that allows for real clothing during pregnancy, but not many male clothing comes with manternity meshes. Migamoo has some, but I'm not sure about the rest.

And I'm so with you about the belly shirts. I don't mind them in moderation, because they're good for different characters (like everything - it's good for the variety), but Maxis goes way too far. I downloaded some of those default replacements by HP, just to lank down those tank tops.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

The HM suit breaks on fatties? I've never used it on a fatty. What I've noticed (and hate) is when you change a fatty into an outfit with no morph, they get skinny. I wanted to put JL in that goofy raver girl outfit (with the pluses on the boobs?) but it made her skinny. Now where's the fun in THAT?

I have some converted boy preggo outfits. Albert will be sporting one for his pregnancy (I think they're HM outfits, the nice pants with the untucked dress shirts--perfect for preggos). I like the preg wear anything hack in general but I get annoyed when sims don't have a visible bulging stomach (I guess I could make them fat to compensate but it's not the same).

I was meaning to download the replacements for the cropped girl t-shirts but I think I forgot. I like some of those maxis tshirts (the one with monkey on it cracks me up) but they look like they shrunk in the wash.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it appears to have fat morph issues. If I had any idea about meshing, I'd try to fix it, but that's beyond my skill level.

Those meshes that make the sim skinny just don't have a fat morph at all, I think. Fat morphs are pretty neglected, really. I guess their logic is that nobody who's fat would dare wear something that revealing, which is clearly bullshit. It might not be incredibly flattering, but that's no excuse. (And it's not flattering on anyone.)

There was a set on MTS2 that had some H&M preg morphs, and migamoo's altered H&M stuff (like the "bowling" shirt and plaid button-ups on the H&M jeans) usually has preg morphs too.

Some of the cc preg morphs are laughably big too. One of the ones I used on Nyssa Lioncourt was HUGE. I'd honestly prefer that to too small, though.

Some of those replacements are good, but some of them are funny. I downloaded the one that added white tights to the plunging Dina Caliente dress just for a laugh (and what a laugh it was). They're not all useful for me, like her obsession with pale tights, but I'm glad someone decided to lengthen those tees and tanks.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

They just don't appreciate the humor in putting ones fat self sim in unflattering outfits.

I have the HM man preg set. I'll have to look at migamoo's altered set (I think I've seen it but don't know that I have it). The bowling shirt thing would be really good for Albert (goes with what he already wears).

Yeah, that set of replacements had a lot of stuff that I wasn't into (too much tights).

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Clearly, they do not. Based on their clothing in general, you'd think they had a GREAT sense of humour (especially some of that Sims Store stuff and some of the clothing in AL), so that's disappointing.

I really like that bowling shirt alteration and retexture. I use the plain black one on Ripp. It's a nice "average dude" sort of outfit to me, especially with the H&M jeans. I think there are a couple with the original designs (like Alvbert wears) on the jeans too. I do love those jeans.

I'm actually a pretty big fan of tights, but they should be dark (or at least bright) in most cases. It's hard to wear white tights unless you're a little girl, and HP was pairing them with athletic-type outfits, which is all kinds of WTF to me. As part of a bottom mesh that has a short skirt and knee boots, it would make more sense, and I'd love to have it.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Oh, and this is only slightly related...

You mentioned wanting recolours of that activity table from FT, so I was wondering what sort of colours you were interested in. Were you thinking along the lines of other candy-coated kid colours, or something more subtle? (Bright would be easier, I think.)

I'm not going to make any promises, but I've been thinking of dabbling in object recolouring too (since I'm drawing a pretty big blank on writing lately).

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

Really, anything would be fine. I'm just so SICK of that damn Mario Bros mushroom looking orange. (really, I think of Mario mushrooms every time I see it, even though they're red)

A neutral color would be really nice though. I love the table but it takes up so much room I often have to put it in the living room area. Since it has to be out in the open, I'd like it to blend in a bit more (my poor sims have kinder-crap all over their houses because I'm lazy).

I wonder if it's hard to recolor or something? I was cc shopping for different crib bedding (and other kiddie stuff) and the only place I've been where they even touched the table was parsimonious. They re-did it big time (like making it wooden) but that's not what I really wanted (it would stick out MORE).

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

*snicker* I like the colour it came with (maybe because of the Mario Bros. thing), but some variety would be nice. Some neutral browns and greys would work for the mushroom theme too.

I tried to recolour something, but I ended up with a really blurry result. I think I probably missed a step there somewhere, so I'd like to try it again. It's harder than clothing because you have to use SimPE. Clothing can be created in Body Shop.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

Oh, since we've gotten a bit OT.

Know of any decent curtains out there? I'm on a window dressing kick (after so many years of no drapes) and I find the maxis offerings are sadly lacking. What I've found so far are usually parts of sets (which makes the curtains not really work when taken out of context).

Advice?

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I've been into drapery lately too. *snicker* Weird.

I have some decent recolours of the Maxis curtains from MTS2, and some meshes that convert then to single window from double, etc. (I'm not sure where I got those offhand, but I just googled it), but I'm wary of most cc curtain meshes. I don't like the really frou-frou ones. With some recolours, I don;t mind some of the Maxis offerings.

Holy Simoly has my favourite curtain mesh: the Sinply Elegant curtains from the first donation pack (you can get it in the booty). Sunni Sims makes a useful one tile recolour.

I also usethese wooden blinds by Sims2Play.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

I blame the house makeovers I do for maxis_taste. Once you've redone a whole room you really notice the lack of curtains.

I like the maxis meshes but there's just not enough colors. The little cafe curtains are my favorite. I like the blinds, too, but the colors aren't so hot.

Thanks for the links. *adds to cc email*

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

For some rooms and certain types of windows, a curtain is needed. Otherwise, it seems bare to me. I'm going to really like the next feature that comes with M&G (I think it's a new cheat): you can split the grid into four smaller sections, to move things on the half tile. I'm hoping it will help make the curtains more useable. I hate how some single tile windows are really centered on two tiles, and not all the curtains work with all the windows.

The cafe curtains are cool, but I haven't seen a whole lot of recolours (let me know if you do find some, okay?) and I like the loft curtains too.

No problem. If you find any other cool cc options, I'd love to hear about it.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

(worry wart alert) Just remember, you'll need a new cd crack for MG.

That grid thing does sound great. That and the new animations (like sliding down the bannister). Those things have me interested in that pack (and the plants, especially the wanger one).

http://www.modthesims2.com/download.php?t=207363 That's the only interesting curtain I've found so far. Most of the recolors I've found weren't what I wanted. I'm really looking for neutral. I just don't think curtains should be the focal point of a room (especially for my sims, who are pretty boring when it comes to decorating).

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I'm back to answer your question.

As you can see, it DOES have a fat morph, and it looks pretty good too.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

SOLD!

(and nice bewbie there in the background *points and giggles*)

[silvainsims.livejournal.com]

Oooh, lovely. More clothes for the menfolk!!

Color suggestions? Um... black, of course, and maybe a dark gray? And a light blue (sky blue, about? Or a bit lighter).

[inkbottleblue.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's just me, but I can't find this in the game? I looked in both separates and full outfits and I have the mesh so that isn't the problem...Is it just me? I'll try downloading it again, but I just wanted to see if anyone else was having the same problem.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

They were. Thanks for pointing this out to me (though I still managed to make the same mistake while uploading the whole set - ooops!).

It should be all fixed now. You can use the link on this page or the post that collects them all (it will take you to the same file).