Testers wanted: Color Binning Tool 0.2.30

[Theo]

Color Binning Tool
-----------------------
Users of SimPe v0.58 should download version 0.2.26.1
For SimPe v0.60, download 0.2.29.1
For SimPe v0.63+, download 0.2.30.1

This plugin allows you to categorize your hair package files so that they will appear in the correct color bins in the game catalog.
You can also select which PropertySets you wish to keep or remove from the output packages.

The inspiration and indeed most of its logic is stated in this thread http://www.moreawesomethanyou.net/smf/index.php?topic=2119.0
But of course I would like to thank everyone that contributed with a bit of knowledge that was used in this tool.

I won't describe all its functionality in this post, because it would make it unnecessarily long, and that would discourage people from reading

So, I will try to maintain a kind of FAQ for the tool in this thread - You post your questions or requests, and I (or someone else) may provide an answer.

I've created a simple page that contains a bit more info: http://theos.chewbakkas.net/tools/color-binning-tool.html

Finally, I'll just point you to the step-by-step walkthrough of the tool. It's at http://theos.chewbakkas.net/tools/color-binning-tool-walkthrough.html


Update 2006-05-05: (changelog)

The compiler optimizations were disabled, as I suspect it is causing erratic behavior on some fast machines. I'm still not sure what's causing this, so if the tool is making you lose some recolors (apparently the blonde is the main target ), please notify me in this thread, or contact me by PM or email.

The plugin now fully supports binning of facial hair, including meshed beards.

Also an old annoyance that write-locked the output files was finally terminated.

And for those concerned with the integrity of their custom-hair-bearing sims's dna, I have included a highly experimental feature that will scan any neighborhood and replace the former custom hair guid with the new (standard) guid in the sims dna.
So if you hadn't a reason to backup your neighborhoods yet, this plugin will give you enough motivation to do so


Update 2006-05-12: (changelog)

This tool can now open and process clothing packages .
That's right, to accomodate a requested feature that allowed editing the footstep noise assigned to a skin, I also ended up adding the clothing package operations that are available in SimPe's Scan Folders tool.

This probably will be the last release of the tool in this format, as it is evolving to become Something Entirely Different 
In fact the code is beginning to be difficult to maintain with such distinct functionalities assembled into one plugin, so in the future I'll trim down this tool to its original purpose, and separate the remaining functions.


Update 2006-11-14

This probably will be the last release of the tool in this format, as it is evolving to become Something Entirely Different 
In fact the code is beginning to be difficult to maintain with such distinct functionalities assembled into one plugin, so in the future I'll trim down this tool to its original purpose, and separate the remaining functions.

Ok, I outrageously lied!

It's the same tool, with about the same look and usage, with just some updates to work with Pets.

It has a new option to specify if the packages should (or not) be renamed according to the current naming scheme. Of course new bugs are expected in this area, so proceed with caution. 

Edit: Changed the source distribution so that it can be compiled solely with .NET 2.0


Update 2006-11-16

The version for SimPe 0.60 was corrected: it no longer adds a "subtype" property to all PropertySets, that would make the hair vanish from the catalog


Update 2007-12-26

A very belated update, which only removes the nag box from the debug versions of SimPe.

[Motoki]

Awesome. Thanks for finally releasing this tool. I hope that once you're happy that it works well, has all the features you want and is bug free that Quaxi will add it to the SimPE package as a default part of the SimPE download.

[pioupiou]

When I try to use it I have an error message from simPe saying "unable to start tool plugin"
attached text file with the complete error message.
What am I missing ?

[mommytotwo]

theo i've installed it and did one hair already, and so far so good. i havent had any problems. thank you so much for this.

[BlueSoup]

Okay, I must be really stupid because I cannot figure out how to use this tool.     

[gypsylady]

Okay, I must be really stupid because I cannot figure out how to use this tool.     

Don't feel bad blue I havn't figured it out yet either

[BlueSoup]

Ok, with the tool that I redownloaded from this thread, I have figured out how to change it to the right colour bin.  But how do I know if something is just an extraneous age/texture/whatever without looking at it manually?

[skandelouslala]

Any chance of a more idiot friendly user guide in the future?

I messed with it breifly with some hair I didn't care if I screwed something up with.  I need to restart my game to see if it worked.  If this does work for me this will be the best thing ever. I'll let yah know if it worked for me here soon....

[Theo]

[...] But how do I know if something is just an extraneous age/texture/whatever without looking at it manually?

It does take some empirical knowledge to tell what can be deleted or not.
Besides, there are two main factors in this equation: the creator may have used a new mesh with the base textures (not likely), or it may have used the base mesh with a new texture! (very likely)

Normally if a hair says something like "Long Hair Recolors - For all ages!", it could mean that there is an age group that has a new mesh, so in those cases I wouldn't delete any recolors.

On other cases, the creator would just make some subtle changes to the textures, and they could pass unnoticed in the preview image!

The bottom line is that you may have to spot which age groups have a new mesh/recolor in the game catalog before using this tool!

Any chance of a more idiot friendly user guide in the future?

I just can't say no, can I? I could have done that guide already, I'm just too lazy! 

When I try to use it I have an error message from simPe saying "unable to start tool plugin"

That error looks unusual! I'll try to reproduce it in my computer and tell you if something can be done 

[BlueSoup]

A couple of things I've noticed with this tool:

It doesn't like it if you try to cancel something.  If I think I've messed up on a hair, I can't just pick something else because the tool won't recognize I've picked something else unless I restart SimPE.

I have my hair colours sorted into 4 bins for the 4 colours.  If I finish one colour and then move onto the next without changing the colour tab in the tool, the colour is now gone from the drop down menu for >Move to...

If all the grey is automatically deselected, how exactly do you make it so you can keep one grey?

**The above is said with the knowledge I have only tried to bin hair and delete extra textures, and I have not even looked at material definitions, seeing as I don't know what that is exactly. 

[pioupiou]

When I try to use it I have an error message from simPe saying "unable to start tool plugin"

That error looks unusual! I'll try to reproduce it in my computer and tell you if something can be done 

For me it is pretty easy to reproduce : it occurs each and every time I try to use it 
Do you need some more info ??

[skandelouslala]

Well it looks like I got the hang of it somewhat...but I also somehow ended up up red hair in my blonde bin in CAS as well lol

If I knew exactly what I was doing with it, I'm sure I would love it. As noted though I think I need a little more detailed explanation of specifics if possible.

[Motoki]

Theo: Is there a "hide in CAS" option that will set the flag to make a hair for a certain age not show up in the CAS?

The changelog says: "Corrected the value that was being set to a PropertySet flags, in order hide it from the catalog" but I didn't see an option to do that unless I missed it?

[pinhead]

i didn't notice the thread here before. sorry clogging your PM, Theo! lol

Motoki, Theo already implemented this in the latest version. However, something isn't right
because when you choose the ages to hide, will remove the TXMTs of the output package of
those hidden ages..
i sent a PM to Theo about this problem. (before i realised that exist a thread to discuss the tool - sorry).

to hide you just need to go to the options and Uncheck the box saying (Remove Unchecked Recolors).

[RMarques]

Theo: I noticed that after binning a hair the texture packages I used said "PACKAGEDISABLED" under their names. Does that means I can delete the original texture packages?

PS: if it makes any diference, I made the whole process in another folder, with copys of the textures of a hair I already had installed, I then just put he files the tool generated in the downloads folder. The hairs were binned when I checked them in Bodyshop.

[SIMplyLisa]

I got as far as putting a color in each tab but don't know about the grey either. Also, what if say there are more than 1 shade of brown recolor for a style.

Could the directions use a hair I can download and use to follow along with them, then I can see that the result come out the same as the directions?

This is really nice, no copy and paste needed! Thanks 

[pioupiou]

I have a question : how do you use this tool when binning hairs you want to put in the same family ?
For the moment I have only binned stand alone hair, so I have no pronlem and everything is working just fine. But I don't know how am I supposed to use it regarding family.
I don't think you can open multiple packages at once, right ?
One thing I really really appreciate is the fact that this tool not only change the properties set but also the hairtone xml (which I found in game play to be responsible for the hairtone used when the sim change to work uniform including hats.
Thank you so much for this wonderful tool.
Pioupiou

[SIMplyLisa]

you can open more than one package, go to the color tab and right click and open the package for that color, it makes them all one family when you save.

[pioupiou]

you can open more than one package, go to the color tab and right click and open the package for that color, it makes them all one family when you save.

OK I will try right now and let you know. Thanks for the quick answer
Pioupiou

[pioupiou]

I have only one word : Brilliant !!!!
Happily binning....
Pioupiou
Edit: Woaw... I'm really impressed, since writing this message (2 hours ago) I have totally finished binning my hair !! Totally, everything !!!
The first half took me almost 6 months (some days I was lacking motivation and preferred to simply play my sims...) and the second half took me only some hours, with no headaches and no pain in my fingers (so much lesser clicks !!)
Theo you are my hero !!! 

[Theo]

[...] However, something isn't right because when you choose the ages to hide, will remove the TXMTs of the output package of
those hidden ages..[...]

It would make sense to keep the Material definitions and textures, if you later wanted to re-enable them! Now I get it!
I'll work on it for the next version.

@Motoki:
The option that controls that behavior is named "Remove Unchecked Recolors", which defaults to true, as I also like to delete those resources. >-)

Theo: I noticed that after binning a hair the texture packages I used said "PACKAGEDISABLED" under their names. Does that means I can delete the original texture packages?

You can delete the files, I was too afraid to do it in the code!

And finally, a step-by-step walkthrough of the tool has been created.
http://theos.home.sapo.pt/ts2/walkthrough.html

[Ambular]

Theo: I noticed that after binning a hair the texture packages I used said "PACKAGEDISABLED" under their names. Does that means I can delete the original texture packages?

You can delete the files, I was too afraid to do it in the code!

I would recommend not doing this until you've finished binning everything and checked it out in both BodyShop and CAS and made sure that everything is showing up properly in the right bin.  I found several errors I had made, some of them involving colors that looked, for example, black in the tool's texture previews and in BodyShop, but which turned out to be brown, or that looked blond but was really a blondish red.  The easiest way I found to correct this without hopelessly confusing myself and generating a bazillion oddly named files was to go to the folder, delete the new version(s) made by the tool and rename the disabled file to a regular .package and try again.

Also, I had one texture up and disappear...the mesh showed up in the proper bin but with only the scalp color.  Dunno what went wrong there...luckily it wasn;t an important one!

[Theo]

Also, I had one texture up and disappear...the mesh showed up in the proper bin but with only the scalp color.  Dunno what went wrong there...luckily it wasn;t an important one!

Can you post the offending package file (hopefully if it isn't too large)?

BTW you can resize the three panels, so when in doubt, I usually make the texture preview box larger.
My problem still is trying to make those damned splitters to show up!

[BlueSoup]

Also, I had one texture up and disappear...the mesh showed up in the proper bin but with only the scalp color.  Dunno what went wrong there...luckily it wasn;t an important one!

Hehe, I had the same thing happen with one of the male hairs.

[Theo]

Also, I had one texture up and disappear...the mesh showed up in the proper bin but with only the scalp color.  Dunno what went wrong there...luckily it wasn;t an important one!

Hehe, I had the same thing happen with one of the mail hairs.

I'll have to concede on this one: one can't just delete PropertySets and expect the game to take it gently. (sigh)

Even after repeated warnings posted by Pinhead, I stubbornly kept the option to delete recolors on. I was wrong!

Your problems look like symptoms of that procedure, so I turned that option off by default in this version. In that safe mode, the recolors will be simply hidden from the game catalog.

So from now on, the "Delete Unchecked Recolors" option is off by default.

You can still turn it on, and you may find that deleting PropertySets didn't harm the hair package, but it's better to do it by the safest way.

It is highly recommended that you re-download the tool.