Sims 2 Tutorial: Changing and editing Skintones (via SimPE)
- phdsimmer
- Jan 1
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 2
I recently had an issue in my neighbourhood where all my Sims ended up with Skintone 1 after I removed some CC. In my Sims 2 Pleasantview, I also had a problem where two Sims with standard skintones (Skintone 1 and Skintone 3) had a baby which was born with a custom content blue fantasy/alien skin I'd downloaded. I realised I would have to find a way to fix my skintones and change the skintone/genetics of the Pleasantview baby. I eventually found a method to do so. I thought I'd share what I've learned for anyone else who needs to edit skintones or edit a Sim's skintone/genetics in SimPE.
Background to Skintones
Firstly, the standard four maxis skintones range from light to dark and are given a numeric value between 0.1 and 0.9 to represent this:
S1 = 0.1 (light)
S2 = 0.3 (medium-light)
S3 = 0.6 (medium-dark)
S4 = 0.9 (dark)
When a baby is born they can inherit the skintone of either one of their parents or one inbetween them e.g. a child of a Sim with skintone 1 (0.1) and skintone 4 (0.9) could have any skintone as their parents cover 0.1 to 0.9. Conversely, if a Sim with skintone 1 (0.1) and skintone 2 (0.3) their off-spring can only have skintone 1 or 2. To put it simply, Sims can only inherit skintones within the genetic range of their parents.
Custom Content Skintones
Custom content skintones can sit within the range of this scale (between 0.01 to 0.99 very pale - very dark) or outside of it (from 1.00 to 9.00) for non-standard (typicaly fantasy/alien skintones). This allows for different shades between the standard for skintones in the vanilla game.
A custom content skintone can be "townified" which means the skintone can be randomly assigned to newly generated townies or NPCs. A skintone can also be "geneticised" which means it works within the Sims 2 genetics/inhertiance system.
Custom content skintones may also be described as "custom". The are always dominant, and it's more likely a child will be born with a custom skintone if one of their parents has it. Alien skins have a similar effect = a alien sim and a non-alien sim can have a baby, and it is more likely their offspring will have the alien skintone.
Often when you're downloading skins it will state if they are custom or geneticised/townified.
My Problem
It is worth being cautious when you download custom skintones that are geneticised as you want to ensure they "fit" in with your other skintones and any default replacements you might have for the standard 4 skintones. The problem in my game was I downloaded a genticised blue alien/fantasy skintone which had been given a value of 0.4. Therefore, when my two sims (father had skintone 1 = 0.1 and mother had skintone 3 = 0.6) had a baby it was born with the blue alien/fantasy skintone as this had a value of 0.4 which falls between these two skintones. I managed to fix this skintone and change the baby so they had appropriate skintone and genetics.
Modifying a skintone value in SimPE
As usual make a backup copy of your game files, and the skintone file you are editing before you do anything. If anything goes wrong just restore your back ups!
Open the skintone file you want to edit in SimPE.
Under the "Resource Tree" click "Skin Tone XML" which contains the genetic information for the skintone.
Under the "Resource List", click the file (usually named “Light” or “Dark” or similar).
Under the "Plugin View" tab find the line "genetic" and this will show the value assigned to the skintone e.g. 0.4
Change the value depending where you want the skintone to sit on the scale. For standard skintones choose a value between 0.01 to 0.99 (very pale - very dark) e.g. 0.8 would be a dark skin as it's close to 0.9 and 0.2 would be a light skin as it is close ot 0.1.
For non standard or fantasy/alien skintones choose you can choose a value from 1.00 to 9.00.
You can view the skintone in the "Texture Image" section if you want to double check the skintone you're editing to ensure it's the correct one or check the colour to determine where to put it on the scale.
After you have entered a new value press "Commit" then "File > Save".
Making a skin "townified" (or not) in SimPE
As usual make a backup copy of your game files, and the skintone file you are editing before you do anything. If anything goes wrong just restore your back ups!
Open the skintone file you want to edit in SimPE.
Under the "Resource Tree" click "Skin Tone XML" which contains the genetic information for the skintone.
Under the "Resource List", click the file (usually named “Light” or “Dark” or similar).
Under the Plugin View tab find the line "flags":
Depending what you want to do, change the value to either 0x00000008 (not townified) or 0x00000000 (townified).
After you have entered a new value press "Commit" then "File > Save".
Changing a Sim's appearance and genetics in game
After you've changed the skintone in SimPE you may have Sim(s) you want to edit as their skintone and genetics won't be changed automatically by doing the above (that just fixes the skintone for any new babies/generated Sims).
As usual make a backup copy of your game files before you do anything in SimPE. If anything goes wrong just restore your back ups!
Open Sim PE, select "Neighbourhood Browser" and select the neighbourhood containing the Sim you want to edit (in this example it will be N001 Pleasantview).
Neighbourhood browser button Then select "Sim Browser"
Find the Sim you wan to edit, select them and click "Open".
Under "Plugin View" select the tab called "More" and then "Open Sim DNA"
There are two sections, one for dominant genes and one for recessive genes. Dominant genes are the ones that are expressed and can be seen in the Sim's appearance in game. We are looking at the lines called "Skintone" in each section.
Each of the four Maxis skintones has a code as shown below, custom skins will also have codes which could be a series of letters/numbers:
S1 (light) = 00000001-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
S2 (lmedium-light) = 00000002-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
S3 (medium-dark)= 00000003-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
S4 (dark) = 00000004-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
You can change the dominant and recessive skintone values to that of a different skintone or that of a custom fantasy/alien skintone if you know it. After you changed them press "Commit" and then "File > Save".
Changes may or may not show up in the game straight away, or the Sim's body may change but the face remains with the old skintone. You can have a Sim change their appearance in the mirror to update them (the game may pause/lag temporarily).
Dominant genes are those that are expressed and seen visually in game. You can make the Sim have the same skintone for both dominant and recessive, this is termed "homozygous" or they can have different skintones for dominant and recessive, this is termed "heterozygous".
You can also correct the Skintone range if it's incorrect for any reason, the skintone range represents the range of the parents. Sim's without parents will have the same skintone range as their skin colour.
In the case of my Pleasantview baby when I opened their Sim DNA I found custom skin codes in both dominant and recessive accounting for her custome blue fantasy/alien skin. I swapped out these values for Skin 1 (light) codes for dominant and recessive respectively, so in game the baby now has the same skin as their father.
Additional Steps if you want to use this method to change Eye Colour and/or Hair Colour
Skintones may appear changed in game immediately (or once your Sim has changed their appearance in the mirror) and doesn't usually require any further steps. If you change something like eye-colour or hair-colour (see codes for these here) there are a further few steps to do:
After following the Steps above outlined to change the dominant/recessive genes open your Sim in "Sim Browser" again.
Click "More" and then "Open Character File"
Under "Resource Tree" click "Age Data (AGED)"
Under "Resource List" click "Age Data"
Click the string for what you are changing
hair: haircolor(dtString) =
eyes: eyecolor(dtString) =
Change the code in the "Value" box to match the code you put in for the hair colour/eye colour when you changed the dominant/recessive genes.
The press "Commit" and then select "File > Save".
Close SimPE, open your game and take the Sim you are changing to the mirror and click "change appearance" to update them (the game may pause/lag temporarily). Unfortunately, without mods you can't do this for babies so you have to wait for them to age-up to toddlers for any eye-colour/hair-colour changes to show.