I'm working on recreating a Gunne Sax dress from the early 1970s; it was a Barbie dress I had.

This is a picture of the original dress...


This is my Sims version:


When I started working on my Sim version, I was doing so from memory, so many of the details are off, when compared to the original. I'm not necessarily interested in doing a slavish copy, so much, as a nice looking and believable Gunne Sax dress from the era. Having said that, this Sim version needs work -- shading and details, and possibly even cleaning up some of the details which are already on the dress (like making the neckline truly square, rather than square-ish).

It would also be great if I could find a mesh which more closely resembles the silhouette of this dress. This was the closest one I could find in a cursory search of this site, as well as TSR (I realize saying that's a dirty word, but still...). the mesh I'm using came from SapphireSims and is from SnowflakeSnowFairy. I'd like a mesh with an alpha-editable bell sleeve from the elbow -- the current mesh has a fixed length.

Any help, suggestions, ideas, or tips you can give me would be greatly appreciated!

BTW, I'm using GIMP, along with PhotoPaint so any tutes or help should take that into account. Thanks!

Your texture looks great, but you over bump mapped. so tone that down a bit.

Did you just copy the texture to the bump map, or add a layer of 50% grey over it?


I highly doubt you'll be able to find a dress like that with alpha editable sleeves (I've tired).


It's looking really good, and I can't wait to see how it looks finished!

actually, I'd say the bump-mapping is fine everywhere but the main fabric. The lace is fine.

While I have read the GIMP recoloring tutes, for bump maps, I basically just copy the texture file, then desaturate the color and maybe darken it a little using the brightness lever. I'm sure that's probably not appropriate technique; so I'm open to being told the proper way of doing things. :-)

On this outfit, I made the bump map pretty dark, so I've done it over, to remove a bit of the over-bumping. It looks better so far in Body Shop, but I haven't looked at it in-game yet...

Alpha-Editable Dress at your service.

It looks great IMO. But as Raps said, It needs bumpmapping in the center.

First of all, thanks for pointing to the alpha-editable mesh! Can I marry you and have your puppies? *grin*

Second, I'm not sure what you and Raps mean about bumpmapping in the center...

I'm a relative newbie at this stuff, so you have to pretend you're talking to a dummy... :-)