[Mod Commission Request][PAID] Werewolf Overhaul

Hey, I usually just browse the S4S forums for stray game files S4S doesn't include, so I know this might be a bit sketchy considering its my first post. I just wanted to let you know that I'm hoping to dig into the Werewolf pack next week for the same exact reasons you want to. I'm an illustrator (and 3D modeler, but as a hobby) and I've been messing around with the deformer maps in the game, mostly for occults because I like adding visual quirks to "monster races." What you're looking for is DMap (deformer map) replacements, which dictate the outcomes of each CAS slider (or SMod, sim modifier). Here's a list of what's possible, what I can definitely do (and plan to do for free anyways), and what complications I might face with some of the overhaul elements. I'm a bit energized right now from a grocery run, so I apologize if I miss anything, lol.

Wolf-like facial tweaks-- Possible, will do anyways.
These are easy, small mesh changes that I'd make to allow the nose, eye, mouth, jaw, cheek, and forehead modifiers to achieve finer details to look more realistic. Picture a nose that fits the shape of a narrower muzzle, cheek fluff that blends into the neck/upper head, and pronounced cheek/jaw shapes. All of these are optional in CAS, of course. These wouldn't change the base mesh (aka the skintight), just the shapes you can achieve with the base game sliders.

Realistic wolf eyes, fantasy options too-- Already done, used the vampire eyes as a base to work on them before the pack came out.
A simple texture change, with their own meshes to allow for glowing (emissive material properties). I'm really happy with them so far. The glow can either be subtle or wild, in any colors or blinking speeds. I haven't polished the package or added it to my game yet for reasons I'll state below.

Teeth options or replacers-- Possible, done it with the vamps, but with a few visual quirks to work out.
I was actually just working on this last night for the vampires in anticipation for this pack, and it worked well for the most part. The mesh editing, rigging, and UVs worked perfectly, and it looked and functioned great in game. My issue is with the base game textures, and how EA does some funky stuff with the UVs for the fangs in order to get them to look right. The fix to this is just creating my own fang textures that are made specifically for fangs, and adjusting the UVs for them accordingly. Simple stuff, no biggie.

Better (sorry EA) fur/skin textures-- Definitely doing anyways, to match the eyes.
This doesn't account for changes to the mesh that would make it look like real hair. This refers to just the texture that wraps around the base game skintight mesh. I'd like to add some normal maps to give it a bit more depth, but I'm not sure how that'll pan out on fur. If everything goes super well with the other parts of the overhaul, I'd like to experiment with adding some wispy fluff and hair to parts of the default werewolf bodies, but that comes with a LOT of challenges. For now, just as textures, this is a very easy step that I love doing. This does mean full illustrations, however, so they might take time.

Here's where we get into the big boy work:

Monstrous default bodies-- Possible, but technically difficult.
I've done this before for the human physiques, so it's definitely on my list of what I'm doing for the werewolves. This is where things get delicate, though, because every texture, clothing item, smod, and animation in the game relies on the vertices of the skintight being in a particular order. The Sims rigs in particular are dictated by vertex groups tied to bones, so the main shape of the mesh can only be distorted so much before the vertices fall out of order and make everything look wacky in game. The entire process of making this is very careful, with constant in-game checks to make sure it's all working well. Also, EA has a habit of hiding their physique smods as unlabeled in the game files, so this might require me to manually dig those out instead of using something like Morph Maker. That's fine, though, it's just a bit of searching and script editing. I've done it for the heavy physique, I can do it again.

Tails in general-- Possible, with some sacrifices to functionality.
If we're talking static, non-posable or scalable tails, totally doable. They can even be body defaults so all werewolves have them. I do, however, want to try to make animated, scalable tails, but that's a lot of experimenting and learning on my end. I know that Morph Maker has tail options, so obviously there's mods out there that do what I'm looking to do. I'll have to find a few of those and dive into them to see what the creators did to make it all work. I picture these working similar to the peepees in WickedWhims, as just an additional mesh with a new, custom rig for the werewolf animations to use. In theory, it's not that hard to accomplish, but tweaking every werewolf animation sounds daunting. Not impossible, but daunting.

Hand shapes-- Very, very, very tricky.
If there's one thing you don't mess with in DMaps, its the Sim's hands (and the eyes, inside mouth area, ankles, etc.). Hands are crucial for most Sims interaction animations, and for some odd reason, the baseline for basically anything that has to do with a Sim. There's a reason there's no hand modifiers in CAS. What I could do is take inspiration from the bear costumes in game to make false hands that come as werewolf body defaults. Anything to do with the hands is going to need to be a mesh of its own.

Hand paw pads, claws-- Possible, doing anyways.
Pretty easy case of adding little accessories to the hands using the in-game accessories as bases. Can be both body defaults or CAS options.

Digitigrade feet and paws-- Pretty tricky, big technical obstacles.
Ankles are another thing you don't mess with in the Sims. In regards to the digitigrade legs, I don't see many options that are possible for my skillset. I can try my best to warp the legs, but I'm not confident that I can make them function properly with all the animations. If I really took the time to deep dive into changing the legs, I'd start with the legs of in-game dogs and try to rig a Sim's legs similarly, but holy heck that's basically an entire reconstruction of the rig. And this is all assuming I can reanimate every werewolf animation in the game. If I do this, it'll have to be mostly cosmetic. For the feet, that also becomes tricky when you consider their connection to the danger zone, the ankles. They likely won't be able to work with human shoes, because there aren't enough bones in the feet rig to accommodate for such drastic shape changes. Unlike shirts and hair, shoes are only affected by a feet bigger/smaller smod, so they can't warp with the body all that much. This would have to be done in a similar way to the hand shape replacers. But, paired with the digitigrade leg issues, most paw shapes might look odd.

That's all I can think of right now, I'll have to make a list later so I can get things more organized. I'm unfamiliar with XML tuning, so unfortunately I can't change any game mechanics/traits/buffs at a polish that I'm comfortable releasing. Some of the things for the overhaul I plan to do anyways, and I'll let you know when I release them on TSR (or anywhere else). I'd love to work with you to create this cosmetic werewolf overhaul, so if you're interested, lemme know. Idk if there's a pm feature here on S4S, but you can reach out to me at OatArts on Instagram if you'd like. I don't update that page with artwork often, so I can send you some of my recent work and Sims 4 mods if you want to see my past stuff.

I've actually also started working on a werewolf appearance mod along similar lines. I don't have much experience with Sims modding, but I have made anthro-themed mods for a few other games, including XCOM2.

I'm planning to start with some head modifications- longer, more wolf-like muzzles, shorter, slight recessed chins with thicker mystacial pads, wider ears, eyes with a more realistic shape when viewed from the sides, and so on. If the models turn out well, I'll share them with the community so that they can be used in other werewolf mods- I generally prefer contributing assets to other mods over releasing mods myself, since I rarely stick with one game long enough to provide reliable mod updates.

I have run into an initial problem, however. I've found what looks like models defining a basic shape of the werewolf heads in the "head" category in S4S, but exporting the models to blender files then immediately re-importing the files without any changes results in badly messed-up rigging in-game. Does anyone know what that's about? Do we just need to wait for an S4S update that takes into account the new DLC?

Imagine offering to pay a thousand dollars for a mod that already existed before the game pack even came out lol

As far as digitigrade legs go, you actually wouldn't need to reconstruct the rig too much. I do VRChat avatars, specifically for anthropomorphic animals such as wolves and such, and before we came out with the constraints-based dynamic digilegs system, we just used "false" digilegs, rigged as planti. So the rig was still a normal human leg, but the mesh itself would be digi.

Basically what you do there is, you rig everything below the knee to the lower leg bone, up to the actual foot, which is on the foot bone- so the digi "ankle" wouldn't actually bend.





You could also lower the ankle a bit for a "semi-digitigrade" look to limit any possible clipping or awkward animations, rather than going "full beast mode digi". That way they can at least have paws, but their legs wouldn't necessarily be super beastlike.

For example, VRChat's rexouium legs:



Legs are still faaaairly humanoid, but still have a bit of that digi-paw look, and humanoid animations work pretty much perfectly for them.

(also, for anyone who wants it, I am 100% willing to provide my paw mesh for modding. I would love to see my own paws used in TS4, but I do not have knowledge of TS4 modding specifically although I am a 3D artist lol)