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23spindles's avatar
23spindles
Rising Novice
5 years ago

Pitch-Black Sims and broken default skin tones

Expansion packs installed: Cats & Dogs, City Living, Discover University, Get Famous, Get To Work, Get Together, Seasons, Snowy Escape.

Game packs installed: Dine Out, Jungle Adventure, Outdoor Retreat, Parenthood, Realm of Magic, Spa Day, Vampires.

Stuff packs installed: Backyard, Kids Room, Laundry Day, Movie Hangout, Paranormal, Spooky,  Tiny Living, Toddler.

Kits installed: None.

OS: PC/Windows 10

I searched through the master list and couldn't find any info on this one.

For me, MANY random default skin tones broke after the patch for Paranormal (I think). Now both in Create A Sim and all other modes (even the family portraits when you click on a household in any world), Sims are appearing as pitch-black. Randomly generated townies are pitch-black too, and as you can imagine it's irritating to see them in-game.

I do use custom content and mods, but I disabled those and the error still occurs. Repairing the game did not fix them either. I've attached images where you can see a randomly selected swatch working, but the next one not working. I'd say somewhere around 70%-80% of them don't work. At the moment my workaround is to find a swatch that DOES work and then use a custom skin overlay to get the skin tone I want (a custom skin overlay on a broken default skin tone will NOT work). This is all well and good for the households I create, but again, it's the townies creeping around like they've been charred to a crisp that gets me.

I saw another post where a player's Sims turned black when they left the house - this isn't the case for me. They are pitch black from the moment they are generated by the game.

I reached out on Reddit with no success. I'm hoping someone from EA can recognise and help me with this problem.

Thanks in advance 🙂

pc

1 Reply

  • crinrict's avatar
    crinrict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    Hi @23spindles 

    this usually happens if you have custom skin tones or if you remove them. If you have used custom skins (which it sounds like you do), there's one or more potentially still active in your game.

    Try resetting your user files as described in the factory reset described in this post: http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-4/FAQ-Troubleshooting-Steps-amp-Known-Issues/m-p/3621199

    You won't loose anything. Just make sure to not delete any files  and make a backup.

    After renaming, repair your game by right clicking on the game in Origin.

    Try on a new game with nothing added back first (start new game). If it works, put back your save game and try again. If it still works, you can start putting stuff back.

    • Options.ini (or just re-set all your settings manually)
    • Tray Folder
    • Screenshots/Videos/Custom music
    • Rest of the save games (leave out slot_00000001.save which is the autosave and no longer needed - if you still have it)
    • Custom content like clothing, hair, skins, make up ....
    • ConfigOverride, if you have your own configuration files.
    • Mods (one by one, making sure they all still work)

    The rest does not need putting back, cause they are mostly cache files that recreate or log files that are not needed for the game.

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