Poll: Substituting Recolors

[Ambular]

I've never done a poll, so why the hell not.  This should be a nice non-controversial topic.  I hope.  XD

I'm somewhat O/C about keeping my downloads organized and every possible aspect of my game pruned of stuff I don't like/never use.  I've considered more than once going through all my object meshes and replacing hideous default textures with recolors I consider nicer, to save some disk space and load time and to cut down the number of useless catalog icons I have to click through, but it would take quite some time.

So what do y'all think?  For the record, I've already replaced my defaults for practically everything, hidden a bunch of Maxis crap (some of it via a method which makes my game crash if I load a lot containing stuff that's hidden--surprisingly not a problem very often, since I prefer to build my own houses,) Compressorized everything, re-categorized a sizeable chunk of it, and done the texture switch with one or two items that just had too many craptacular textures to be tolerated.  Should I launch a full-scale texture replacement campaign, and perhaps report back here whether or not it makes an appreciable difference in gameplay?  Or am I just carrying the whole thing too far and need to go talk to a shrink about this obsessive micromanagement problem of mine?  XD

* Option #2 was included just for shits & giggles, incidentally.  I have no compunction whatsoever about changing things for use in my own game.

[Flamingo]

Whether or not you should go through with this really depends on the amount of crappy default textures you have. The amount of effort you will have to put in to locate the better textures is also important.

[CandyToast]

If I had the ability to do it I'd do it in my own game, however,  I'm OCD to start with. I agree with Flamingo though, be sure not to bite off more than you can chew.

[akatonbo]

I have actually considered doing this myself. I use a lot of default replacements (skintone, eyes, lipstick, eyeshadow, eyebrows, a few clothing meshes) and I do a lot of pruning, recategorizing, binning, etc. -- in fact, right this moment I'm binning and creating missing colors for eyebrows and facial hair -- and I do have a few things I've downloaded that have a bunch of recolors I like, but the default texture is meh. Not sure I'll ever get around to it, though, given how much other crap I have to do.

[Zazazu]

Go for it. Part of my cleaning project included editing approximately 70 outfits to remove painted on jewelry (hate it, it looks flat and crappy and unreal). It took a few hours, but it was totally worth it. I used to pass over the items because I hated the jewelry but didn't want to delete them because otherwise they were nice. Now everything's usable.

[witch]

Yes and no.

I'm envious that people have the time to do this stuff. Sometimes I spend ages organising sim stuff, to the detriment of actually playing. Then I wonder if gaming has turned into a chore instead of fun. But then, the people who are attracted to sims tend to be micro-managers and strategists anyway, so it kind of fits the personality profile.

Plus, there's something very satisfying about having things done and right.

[Ambular]

Go for it. Part of my cleaning project included editing approximately 70 outfits to remove painted on jewelry (hate it, it looks flat and crappy and unreal). It took a few hours, but it was totally worth it. I used to pass over the items because I hated the jewelry but didn't want to delete them because otherwise they were nice. Now everything's usable.

Heh, I've done that before too, and I may do some more one of these days.  Though I often solve the problem by just not downloading something if it has attached jewelry. 

[Gwill]

Heh, I've done that before too, and I may do some more one of these days.  Though I often solve the problem by just not downloading something if it has attached jewelry. 

Unfortunately, clothing creators tend to be overly creative about their screenshots, so it can be hard to tell if something is a part of the clothing or just an accessory put there to sprite things up.

[eevilcat]

Interesting. If an object looks yuck I'm unlikely to download it in the first place so I don't think I would save much by weeding out/replacing undesirable textures. I'd much rather remove large swathes of crap that come with the game that I'd never use in a million years. Floor and wall coverings are amongst the biggest offenders. It would have been much better if EAxis had designated one default for each type of inventory item (to prevent crashes) with the option to remove all their others. I know that view is completely at odds with their build and share policy but I make my own stuff for myself and download CC that I like. It looks like we're all egging you on to do it, so good luck!

[akatonbo]

Interesting. If an object looks yuck I'm unlikely to download it in the first place

I won't either, but if I then later see a bunch of nice recolors for it, I'll download the mesh with the ugly texture so I can have the pretty recolors.

[Ambular]

Interesting. If an object looks yuck I'm unlikely to download it in the first place so I don't think I would save much by weeding out/replacing undesirable textures. I'd much rather remove large swathes of crap that come with the game that I'd never use in a million years. Floor and wall coverings are amongst the biggest offenders. It would have been much better if EAxis had designated one default for each type of inventory item (to prevent crashes) with the option to remove all their others. I know that view is completely at odds with their build and share policy but I make my own stuff for myself and download CC that I like. It looks like we're all egging you on to do it, so good luck!

Thanks!    What sometimes happens is I'll come across a lovely recolor for something with a link to the mesh, and I'll want it for the recolor but OMG UGLY DEFAULT TEXTURE.  And then every once in a while I'll find a mesh with a hideous texture and think, "Hmm, I like the item, but I'll have to recolor it before I can use it."  (And of course sometimes I do get around to it, sometimes I don't.  I'd prolly fix some of the "didn't"s as part of the project.)