I only use aliens. (I keep thinking I will use plantsims but I never have my sims overspray their plants so it never happens) I think it was someone else who was eager for the supernatural defaults.
I think the Maxis alien skin is quite close to what I'd like. I'd want to do something so it looks more alien and less like a human with green coloring, though -- the folds of the skin, or the musculature and bones showing through, or something, being a bit off, might do it. Extra knuckling in the fingers? The hands don't move with as much detail as real hands already so it wouldn't matter if the extra knuckles don't bend. Horizontal neck ridges? Or gill slits, neck or chest, but chests are covered in clothing so gill slits there don't make physiological sense. Extra nipples? Trill spots have been done and they look quite nice. Pinfeather bumps? Scale vestiges? But as cartoonish as genensims.
I'm not actjually asking for this because it seems like such a huge effort I'd never ask for it, but I daydream about doing it myself.
topic drift:
BUT one of my long-term ideas is to create a multi-pt mod that I like. I don't like any of the ones out there -- most just look like prettified humans with funny eyes and decorated skin. A few look weird, but not organic, and they don't look like they'd make nice offspring. I like the Maxis aliens as a starting point, but I want more variety, and I want actually alien-looking skin and face presets for that. Again, I dont ask for it, but I do poke around in bodyshop to try to make faces that look alien enough, and good enough, to use. I have discarded almost every one of them that I have made, so far.
Well, you asked. But remember, I am not asking you to take on a wild and im;possible project for me, I am making conversation.
And I'm not taking on a new project (necessarily), just mining for inspiration and daydreams since our styles and opinions seem to cross. ;)
Awesome.
I have the same daydream about the PTs. I've never found one I like. I suppose the answer would be faces that are proportioned similarly to most sims (to avoid the mesh ridges that bad breeding sometimes creates) with really odd quirks in the facial features. One would really have to watch the areas where maxis splits the face into inheritable sections, so there weren't any anomalous vertices that wouldn't blend with "human" sims.
I dream of a semi-translucent skin for my aliens. With bones and veins and alien organs showing in places, and a sort of weird inner glow... That's an insanely hard texturing job to pull off, though. Which is why it's so fun to daydream about.
I saw a transparent sim somewhere, but it was just invisible, it didn't show any innards. I imagine a semi-translucent skin would all be in the surface, then. An illusion -- but that illusion would be hard to keep up in all positions.
Do you have a map for yourself of where the inheritable sections split?
The thing I am thinking about would be even harder, though, because there would be several very different alien faces, so they'd have to breed okay with each other as well as with normal sims.
I wish it was possible to geneticize a half-alien intermediate skin in such a way that it would only show up if the alien skin was in the ancestry. Maybe it is? If you gave the alien skin a really outside number, way higher or lower than all the other skins, and gave the intermediate skin a number that was between that and all the other skins. But I think it means only the F1 generation can have the skin . . . oh, that's like real hybridization, isn't it!
Guess I'll save that trick for when I think about this more.
Theoretically, you could link the skin to a mesh with an inner mesh, identical but smaller than the actual skin. It would take twice the number of textures, but that would give much more dimention to it. I was thinking all texture, no actual transparency. Yeah, the different angles would be hellish to account for, but I think most of them could be faked if it was carefully designed. But man... actual transparency, that would be interesting to mess with...
I've always meant to make that map, and the one for the different sliders (it's different for some reason :?). The sliders would be easy. The inheritance would take a bit of testing.
With a proper map, it would be easy to modify the structures of all the aliens to be proportional to the dividing lines, but still have different features in milkshape.
This map is sounding more and more useful. I just might make that my next mini-project. I know this computer can at least do that!
I can't find anything that says geneticizing the default alien skin would break things. Should be pretty easy to make between blends with intermediate values after that. That would be sweet.
I think the Maxis alien skin is quite close to what I'd like. I'd want to do something so it looks more alien and less like a human with green coloring, though -- the folds of the skin, or the musculature and bones showing through, or something, being a bit off, might do it. Extra knuckling in the fingers? The hands don't move with as much detail as real hands already so it wouldn't matter if the extra knuckles don't bend. Horizontal neck ridges? Or gill slits, neck or chest, but chests are covered in clothing so gill slits there don't make physiological sense. Extra nipples? Trill spots have been done and they look quite nice. Pinfeather bumps? Scale vestiges? But as cartoonish as genensims.
I'm not actjually asking for this because it seems like such a huge effort I'd never ask for it, but I daydream about doing it myself.
topic drift:
BUT one of my long-term ideas is to create a multi-pt mod that I like. I don't like any of the ones out there -- most just look like prettified humans with funny eyes and decorated skin. A few look weird, but not organic, and they don't look like they'd make nice offspring. I like the Maxis aliens as a starting point, but I want more variety, and I want actually alien-looking skin and face presets for that. Again, I dont ask for it, but I do poke around in bodyshop to try to make faces that look alien enough, and good enough, to use. I have discarded almost every one of them that I have made, so far.
Well, you asked. But remember, I am not asking you to take on a wild and im;possible project for me, I am making conversation.
Reply
Awesome.
I have the same daydream about the PTs. I've never found one I like. I suppose the answer would be faces that are proportioned similarly to most sims (to avoid the mesh ridges that bad breeding sometimes creates) with really odd quirks in the facial features. One would really have to watch the areas where maxis splits the face into inheritable sections, so there weren't any anomalous vertices that wouldn't blend with "human" sims.
I dream of a semi-translucent skin for my aliens. With bones and veins and alien organs showing in places, and a sort of weird inner glow... That's an insanely hard texturing job to pull off, though. Which is why it's so fun to daydream about.
Reply
I saw a transparent sim somewhere, but it was just invisible, it didn't show any innards. I imagine a semi-translucent skin would all be in the surface, then. An illusion -- but that illusion would be hard to keep up in all positions.
Do you have a map for yourself of where the inheritable sections split?
The thing I am thinking about would be even harder, though, because there would be several very different alien faces, so they'd have to breed okay with each other as well as with normal sims.
I wish it was possible to geneticize a half-alien intermediate skin in such a way that it would only show up if the alien skin was in the ancestry. Maybe it is? If you gave the alien skin a really outside number, way higher or lower than all the other skins, and gave the intermediate skin a number that was between that and all the other skins. But I think it means only the F1 generation can have the skin . . . oh, that's like real hybridization, isn't it!
Guess I'll save that trick for when I think about this more.
Reply
I was thinking all texture, no actual transparency. Yeah, the different angles would be hellish to account for, but I think most of them could be faked if it was carefully designed.
But man... actual transparency, that would be interesting to mess with...
I've always meant to make that map, and the one for the different sliders (it's different for some reason :?). The sliders would be easy. The inheritance would take a bit of testing.
With a proper map, it would be easy to modify the structures of all the aliens to be proportional to the dividing lines, but still have different features in milkshape.
This map is sounding more and more useful. I just might make that my next mini-project. I know this computer can at least do that!
I can't find anything that says geneticizing the default alien skin would break things. Should be pretty easy to make between blends with intermediate values after that. That would be sweet.
Reply
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