How to change custom skins?

Assuming creators are using the terms right:

• Skin = default appearance
• Skintone = colour
• Skin overaly = goes on top of a skin

Both Beauty Skin Female V2 and Lauruna Skin are also categorized as Skintones in TSR - all three are.

I downloaded all three and added them to the test save I was using for other things today and made new Sims. Notably, in Skintones only a few were marked as CC, and with nothing suggesting there are other skintones available. I think your issue here is that these are old files, from before some really big changes to the skintone system and its UI, which was in 2020.

Anyway, I put one Sim in a no-wrench skintone and the other two in different wrenched tones. S4TI shows that all three Sims are using Skintone Set 3, so I think that's behaving like a default skin... but one that's trying to call up XML not currently in the game.

Unfortunately, I think your solution here is to find more recent skin CC.

NOTE: I may be missing something here. But this is what I suspect based on how old these files are.

@luthienrising Hmm, so are you implying that I can only change their skin using recent custom skin/skin overlay and I can select them from Skin Details section? Is it true that skin overlays are listed in Skin Details?

I forgot to mention, the first sim is Lea Sawyer by divaka45 and the second is Britney Chamberlain also by divaka45 both from TSR and yes they are old sims, I think they were both created in 2017.

Also, is it true that it means I can't use Lauruna Skin and Beauty Skin Female V2 on my newly created sim?

Edit:

I have another question regarding CC management. I've downloaded a bunch of sims with its CCs and found that they're almost always use at least 1 same CC. When it comes to CC management especially sims, I separate the folder by the sim name i.e: /Mods/Sims/divaka45 (author name)/Lea Sawyer (sim name) so it's way easier for me to track and preserve what CC used by their respective sims. Currently for the previously used CC on previous installed sims, on the second sim using that CC I use Windows shortcut to keep CCs from duplicating while still giving me information on what CC they're using. But it's really a hassle when it comes to adding +20 sims.

To prevent this, can I merge all CC packages used by Lea and merge all CC packages used by Britney using Sims 4 Studio? Will the game and S4TI still detect duplicates by doing that?

While still keeping backup of individual sim's CCs on another folder in case one of CC is broken or needs to be updated.

@nativecoruscant Most creators put their skin overlays in Skin Details, but not all. And yes, there are definitely a lot of old skin mods that are no longer compatible with the game because of the 2020 update.

For CC management, it's really important to make sure you don't end up with duplicates. I recomment sorting by creator, not by what Sims you use it on. It's going to be a lot easier in the long run for when you have a lot of Sims or a lot of CC, or for when a whole category of CC breaks and you need to update files.

Please don't merge files. It gives you no load time advantage, increases the chance of duplicates, and means you can't find that CC when it breaks or needs an update.

Really, you'll be better served by not trying to sort by Sim. If you want separate tracking for what a Sim is using, without needing to use tools like MC Command Center or Tray Importer to show you what a Sim is wearing, you could keep a spreadsheet or document.

@luthienrising Okay, maybe I'll try to give my old sims some newer skin overlays to change the look of their skin.

Would you recommend to sort solely by its creator? How about clothing, skins, shoes, furnitures -- do I still need to make /Skins, /Shoes, or still stick to sort only using creator?

Huh right, it really does make sense that merging packages will be way harder in the long run.

Yes, I use S4TI very often to track which CC is used by a sim and lot and which one is installed properly, and of course check if there's any duplicates. I also use MCCC for years but never knew and tried all of its features. How do I track what CC used by a sim with MCCC?

@nativecoruscant Personally, I prefer creator as my main sorting level. For creatos I have a lot of content from, I might break that down into subfolders. But the goal is to have a consistent structure that makes it easy to find older versions of content or content that's been reported as broken.

I'm honestly not sure how the MCCC function works, and I don't have it fully installed to test right now. My vague recollection is that it comes up in the shift-click menu on a Sim. Deaderppool has good support, though. You could ask there.

@luthienrising Thanks for the suggestion and warning! I might use TwistedMexi's mod organization template as it's sorting by creators but also dividing by categories 🙂

@nativecoruscant A heads up with using Sims 4 Mod Manager -- it renames mod files, which can make it easy to end up with duplicates. Watch for that.