How exactly do you recolour Tops

[jasmini]

This has been driving me crazy all day which lead to me having to reinstall the game because i made a mess up of the graphics rule. 
Which was meant to make the resolution suitable for Body shop textures.
What i don't get is when i try to edit Tops in Simpe there is no texture.

I've also had this problem with other textures being recoloured on simpe but when i preview it on Body shop the colour didn't change. 

[Theraven]

If you want to make recolors of clothes, you have to do so in Bodyshop. You can only edit them in SimPE after making them in Bodyshop first, because Bodyshop adds some code to the files that's needed for the file to work ingame.

SimPE can be used for making default replacement CAS items and editing existing CAS files, but anything having to do with custom CAS content can only be done in Bodyshop.

Also, SimPE isn't for editing textures. You can replace textures with it, but you can't edit them. For that you need Photoshop, Gimp or some other photo editing program.

Basic recoloring tutorial: http://classic.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=172166
More tutorials: http://classic.modthesims.info/forumdisplay.php?f=249

As for the Graphic Rule - I'm assuming you didn't do a backup of the files? That's the first thing you should do before messing about with important files. Usually says so in the tutorials.

I have no idea what you mean by "make the resolution suitable for Body shop textures" because most Bodyshop projects will have texture sizes of 1024x1024 or 512x512, and they will usually misbehave if you change the size, unless you know what you're doing. Besides, anything bigger than 1024x1024 will very likely cause game lag. I don't think the graphics rules has anything much to do with this. Maybe you need to change your ingame graphic settings first.

[jasmini]

You've missed my Question in the title.

I'm fully aware of how to recolour clothes in that procedure.

[Theraven]

Maybe you could be a bit more spesific in your question? It's easily misunderstood from the title. And I'm not sure what the graphics rule and resolution has to do with it.  

If you change the texture with SimPE, you need to use the DXT/DDS tools from Nvidia, on either DXT3 or DXT5, or you'll get troubles with the textures not updating or not applying properly or getting all blurry.

Are you opening Bodyshop files in SimPE, and can't find the texture? If it's a TS3/4 to TS2 conversion, tops often have a blank texture (for the skin) and a texture for the top.

[jasmini]

So on the title i asked "How exactly do you recolour tops" That was me being specific in my question. (I don't know what else you would refer outfit tops as)
The 3rd line i wrote, i cannot find the texture in the package file recolour.
There is usually a texture file in a package file. I've seen the image file in full outfits, but there is no sign of the image texture in outfit tops in Simpe.

The resolution was about me trying to adjust the resolution in Bodyshop, the purpose was to try and prevent the texture becoming blurry. (This was a bad idea)

[Theraven]

Maybe you're trying to open referenced clothing files. Those usually don't have textures at all, but need other outfits to show up properly (almost like slaved objects borrow textures from master meshes). They're usually part of a set, if teen to elder can use the same textures. The files are also very small, often around 2-6 kb since they don't contain textures.

If that's the case, you need to find the "master" files, the ones the referenced clothes borrow their textures from. If you have the full set of clothes, you should be able to recolor them normally in Bodyshop. They'll borrow textures from the master files to create a fully custom recolor.

As for the blurry textures, you can fix them with SimPE, but only by using the DXT tools. Importing the texture with the "import" button makes them even more blurry than in Bodyshop.

How to enable DXT (if you don't have it already) - http://moonlightdragon.freeforums.org/enabling-dxt-texturing-in-simpe-t1197.html
And how to use the DXT tools (just look at the recoloring parts) - http://moonlightdragon.freeforums.org/how-to-make-default-infant-outfits-simpe-t526.html

[jasmini]

Yes that's correct, it's a female teen top that was part of a set of other colours.
When you say the master, i'm assuming the adult category can be ruled out since its only with the teen recolour set i'm dealing with.

The way i usually do it, is by packaging the top with the sim and then extracting it out for simpe, because just like you indicated,
Bodyshop adds some kind of tag separating the copy from it's original.

Let me explain how weird this is.
After doing the editing with Photoshop and exporting the top back in Body-shop, the top comes out clear and well textured.
But as soon as i close body shop and re open it, the top comes out blurry and smudged.

Now you see the reason why i was messing around with the graphics rule which i assumed is in the CS config file.

[Theraven]

It's a common problem with Bodyshop, and some seem to have it worse than others.

You might want to go back and check if it's a referenced set of clothes. Packing the sim with the outfit will pick up the original file, but not the texture from the master file.

One thing you can do is to make a recolor of the outfit without actually changing anything - that way the new file picks up the proper recolor, but makes a custom file that doesn't need the "master" file to work. You should find the file in SavedSims after you've imported it to the game. You can get the original texture from the master outfit, if you want to make the quality better.