Good Gawd...

[SimsDiva]

I've just spent the last six hours properly binning all the hairs in my game.  I swear it just about made me go cross-eyed in the process.  Shit.  But it is nice to see everything where it should be, instead of lumped together in the custom bin.  I wish I'd taken the time to figure out how to do it a long time ago now that I know how easy it is to do.

Which begs the question... why are there still so many unbinned hairs being put up out there?     It doesn't take that long to do it for a handful of recolors!  Ugh...

[Gwill]

Feels great doesn't it?
Back in the days before Theo's tool I spent two weeks binning all my downloads manually.  Just as I was done, the plugin came out and I went to Hong Kong for 6 months and coluldn't play.

[J. M. Pescado]

* J. M. Pescado points and laughs at Fat Gwilly People.

[eevilcat]

I bet the unbinned hairs mostly came from paysites.

[Gwill]

I never even bother to check if hair I download is binned.  I just re-bin it to make sure it's done right.  I'm very picky.

[Zazazu]

*has to start doing that*
Yeah, Peggy and Raon are the biggest culprits for that. Well, Sunair too....but generally half of the hairs she does in a set are oddball colors, so I partially forgive her. I did a big binning project awhile ago. I binned, then I cleaned. Assbackwards? Yes. But I have a lot of custom hair, and paging through the custom bin was a nightmare.

Keep forgetting to keep it up, and one of my sims uses brown hair that's in the custom bin. Every time she transitions her cute little pigtails change to dreads.

[Arina]

I did a big binning project awhile ago. I binned, then I cleaned. Assbackwards? Yes. But I have a lot of custom hair, and paging through the custom bin was a nightmare.

That's the best way to do it! Binning hair isn't hard, but it's an effort to go through. So if you're in the middle of binning a hair, you're more likely to realise you hate it and never use it because you don't want to bin it. Or when you go back into the game or bodyshop and you see that particular brown hair next to the others, you realise it's low quality or something.

What's really annoyed me though is that, after my huge hair clearout, I've noticed I'd kept some hairs that had actual meshes and textures for teen/child/toddler, but didn't check that those didn't have gaps and stuff.

[akatonbo]

I never even bother to check if hair I download is binned.  I just re-bin it to make sure it's done right.  I'm very picky.

I really need to do that. I binned almost all of my un-binned male hair, but some of the already binned stuff is shoddily done. I waffle on how important family data is, but on the other hand, even hair that comes binned is sometimes binned WRONG.

[Gwill]

I've occationally whined about how XMsims bin a lot of hair that I consider blond into the brown bin, but last time I checked, she'd put the fairest of the "brown" shades in the blond category.  Flora is one of the few creators out there who is really adapting and learning.  And of course; it's free.

[akatonbo]

Oh, goodness, yes, XM not only gets very high marks for improvement, but there's really nothing to complain about anymore. Mesh quality has improved, she makes more natural colors, everything is not only binned, but as far as I can tell it's listed according to what bin it's placed in, and I seem to recall some of them are animated nicely now too. (Or maybe it's somebody else who learned to do that well.) When there's a new XM hair I like, I know exactly which 4 shades to download to get a set of hair that will fit into my game. (I still download recolors, because sometimes somebody else does a job I like better, but they're no longer a requirement.)

[Gwill]

XMsims was one of the first places to animate hair; all hairs that look like they should move do.  She's still not as good at textures as some creators are, but still by far my favourite.

[Ambular]

Binning is one of several steps I take care of after I download something but before it goes into its final subfolder (along with categorizing, compressing and updating files for Pets compatibility.)  I don't know why many creators don't do it either, but then also I don't get a lot of other stuff creators do.  XD

[Sapnish]

Oh gosh, yeah. Binning hairs is actually one of the things I don't mind doing, because it was the first thing I ever learned how to do in SimPE. So I really don't get why so many don't. And is it really that hard, when binning a set, to remove all but one of the grey recolors? Or to take out the repeat meshes for toddlers and children when the hair is for teen-elder only? I don't know how many times I've downloaded a hair that claimed to be "color-binned!" only to find that I have four grey colors and a repeat of a toddler hair that came with the base game. So I have to open up the hair file, pull out the useless parts, and (even though it makes absolutely no difference) fix the creator, flag, and product values so it shows up without the star.

And I don't like Theo's plugin.  I don't get how to use it and binning manually is just easier for me anyway....

[Ambular]

And I don't like Theo's plugin.  I don't get how to use it and binning manually is just easier for me anyway....

It's actually very easy to use.  Unfortunately, explaining the process is much more difficult than actually doing it.  :p

[akatonbo]

Yeah, I resisted for ages because I didn't like the descriptions of how it worked, but then I actually tried it, and it is most excellent.

[Zazazu]

And I don't like Theo's plugin.  I don't get how to use it and binning manually is just easier for me anyway....

It's actually very easy to use.  Unfortunately, explaining the process is much more difficult than actually doing it.  :p

Yeah. I don't know how to do it the old fashioned way. I could learn, but that would take effort. I didn't even glance at the directions. Just play with it.

[Flamingo]

Yeah. I don't know how to do it the old fashioned way. I could learn, but that would take effort. I didn't even glance at the directions. Just play with it.

I've tried to use Theo's plug-in before many times, and have managed to fail spectacularly each time, somehow. Things have either ended up in the wrong color, or just not working at all.

Doing it manually is very easy, and you only have to change a few values.

[Mens Mortuus]

Peggy and Raon bin and even family-link their hair these days. I should know, I'm a junkie. But I agree with everyone that binning is a priority with hair. I only download hair if it has the four shades and one elder, and I get rid of the rest. Some creators don't do one elder color in white, but all four colors. A dye-job, so to speak... but myself I prefer my elders to have white hair. Quick identification when you see them in comm lots

[SimsDiva]

I never even bother to check if hair I download is binned.  I just re-bin it to make sure it's done right.  I'm very picky.

I guess I'm picky, too, because I spent some time re-binning hairs to go where *I* thought they should go.  My idea of what should be binned as brown and blonde shades are a little different from some of the creators out there.     But bless them for binning it at all! 

[SimsDiva]

Oh gosh, yeah. Binning hairs is actually one of the things I don't mind doing, because it was the first thing I ever learned how to do in SimPE. So I really don't get why so many don't. And is it really that hard, when binning a set, to remove all but one of the grey recolors? Or to take out the repeat meshes for toddlers and children when the hair is for teen-elder only? I don't know how many times I've downloaded a hair that claimed to be "color-binned!" only to find that I have four grey colors and a repeat of a toddler hair that came with the base game. So I have to open up the hair file, pull out the useless parts, and (even though it makes absolutely no difference) fix the creator, flag, and product values so it shows up without the star.

And I don't like Theo's plugin.  I don't get how to use it and binning manually is just easier for me anyway....

I still need to figure out what parts I can safely remove from the hair files.  I have several hairs that are all ages, and most of them look pretty darn silly on toddlers/children.  And the repeat toddler files are present in some as well.  I'm going to re-read the tut's, pick a guinea pig file, and see if I can manage to remove the right stuff.

I haven't used the plug-in yet.  The instructions confuse me a little.  I guess I'll just have to dive in headfirst and see if I can figure it out as I use it.  If not, no big deal.  Manual binning will work just fine for me!

[Sapnish]

Oh gosh, yeah. Binning hairs is actually one of the things I don't mind doing, because it was the first thing I ever learned how to do in SimPE. So I really don't get why so many don't. And is it really that hard, when binning a set, to remove all but one of the grey recolors? Or to take out the repeat meshes for toddlers and children when the hair is for teen-elder only? I don't know how many times I've downloaded a hair that claimed to be "color-binned!" only to find that I have four grey colors and a repeat of a toddler hair that came with the base game. So I have to open up the hair file, pull out the useless parts, and (even though it makes absolutely no difference) fix the creator, flag, and product values so it shows up without the star.

And I don't like Theo's plugin.  I don't get how to use it and binning manually is just easier for me anyway....

I still need to figure out what parts I can safely remove from the hair files.  I have several hairs that are all ages, and most of them look pretty darn silly on toddlers/children.  And the repeat toddler files are present in some as well.  I'm going to re-read the tut's, pick a guinea pig file, and see if I can manage to remove the right stuff.

I haven't used the plug-in yet.  The instructions confuse me a little.  I guess I'll just have to dive in headfirst and see if I can figure it out as I use it.  If not, no big deal.  Manual binning will work just fine for me!

I have gotten into the habit of keeping all my downloads' original zip files (in a seperate folder), just case I screw something up. lol.

As for what you can remove from hair files, I never touch anything that isn't in the Property Set part. What's in there is what matters. And since the names are pretty straightforward (u = unisex, m = male, etc [the only roadbump: p =  toddler]), just check in Bodyshop what ages you need to get rid of and delete the corresponding name from the file. Ex: you have a file cloned from the longish messy male hair*. The property set lists five ages, toddler through elder, but in BodyShop, only teen through elder have this hair, and the toddler and child corresponding hair is a maxian repeat. Deleting the "puhairpuff_black" and the "cmhairricebowl_black" parts from the property set will be all you'd need to do (the color is almost always black. it's weird that way. This doesn't mean the hair file you're mucking about in is the black recolor, though. Check the texture image to be sure of the hair color you're working with, if it's not plainly labeled in the file name). You can delete the one marked "_grey" from all but one of the recolor files, and that'll be your one elder recolor. The rest of the ages will have names "[age][gender]hairmessy_black." Just bin these as nescessary. Also, I've found out that more often than not, the ages that didn't change from a maxis original have a name different from the rest of the ages. But it's best to double check before removing anything you're not sure of.

So...I hope that made sense. Just because I know what I mean, I'm not sure if my explanation is clear enough for other people to follow....  

*I use this as an example because I just happen to have it open, as I'm binning it right now. heh.
(Also, I wish colorbinning facial hair was this easy)

[J. M. Pescado]

That's not all. You also get to remove the redundant gray textures, merge the adult and YA propertysets onto a single propertyset, and remove the corresponding MATD(?) of everything you deleted, then rearrange the 3IDRs and Binary index entries for everything you deleted, fix the "Hairtone" entry, and make sure everything isn't "black" or whatever anymore. Lots of fun. I try to avoid too much custom hair for this reason.

[notveryawesome]

I just leave them as custom hair. Non-binned hair doesn't bother me that much, and I have enough properly binned hairs that there is some variety with my townies and aging-up sims, but then I'm not one of those people who downloads a lot of custom hairstyles. I have maybe 30 of them, about half of which which are already binned by the creators.

[Ambular]

I just leave them as custom hair. Non-binned hair doesn't bother me that much, and I have enough properly binned hairs that there is some variety with my townies and aging-up sims, but then I'm not one of those people who downloads a lot of custom hairstyles. I have maybe 30 of them, about half of which which are already binned by the creators.

It wouldn't bug me so much if it was just a matter of finding the hair in the bins, but the whole turn-ons/turn-offs thing makes unbinned hair a pain in the neck.  :p

[Sapnish]

That's not all. You also get to remove the redundant gray textures, merge the adult and YA propertysets onto a single propertyset, and remove the corresponding MATD(?) of everything you deleted, then rearrange the 3IDRs and Binary index entries for everything you deleted, fix the "Hairtone" entry, and make sure everything isn't "black" or whatever anymore. Lots of fun. I try to avoid too much custom hair for this reason.

Meh. I've never touched those things, and I've never run into any problems because of it. Of course, I don't touch them because I don't know what they do, and if I don't know what something does...I leave it alone so I don't screw it up.