More Awesome Than You!

I am having real trouble finding nice hair to download. Sure they all look good on the website but they are crap when you see them on your sims. Some still a blue hairline etc.

I downloaded alot from Simconnection but they looked really fake on my sims and just not as subtle as the maxis made ones. They seemed to 'move' wrong. Anything trying to achieve a curly look looks like a painting on my sims head - not like hair.

Pronupsims have great hair, but again the curly look just doesn't work.

Anyone found any good sites with nice hair that isn't too fake and are well made? They tend to be such big files, I only want to download good ones.

Cheers
Stormy

It's hard to make good hair in games. You can't do stuff like Poser does with modeling every strand in some cases because the poly counts on those would choke games. So you have to settle for low poly stuff which tends to look plasticy. Alpha channels help, as does a good texture but there's really on so much you can do.

Also good is in the eyes of the beholder and while I agree with you about a lot of custom hairs looking fake or having cracks show through in the mesh etc, there seem to be a lot of people who like them and are quite happy with them. I even notice people doing the gender swapping on hairs and being quite happy to ignore the fact that there's a gaping whole in the head because the hair wasn't made to fit that gender's head mesh. :P

I guess to start I could ask are there any hairs Maxis or custom that you liked and then maybe get an idea what you're looking for and see what I could come up with. Also are you looking for women's, men's, kid's etc?

Thanks Motoki. I have no idea whats involved with making hair and I truly do appreciate the time people take to make them but yep, I'm fussy and often go back to maxis hair. But again I have found pronupsims to be the best, particluary their really long straightish hair and the big bun style.

Most ponytails turn out good too for some reason.

I like the maxis colours and I like bangs with formal updo's.

I am happy to live with maxis ones I guess.

I think one of the reasons custom hair meshes look "plastic" is because, from what I understand, impossible to animate them like Maxis hair. Long Maxis hair moves so smoothly, but I think there is only so much movement you can have with custom hair. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

I was really disapointed with Simconnection hairs.  http://sussissogoodsims2.com/ has some very nice ones.

Thanks everyone. I just downloaded one from http://sussissogoodsims2.com/ to try. Hopefully I will like it!

Have you tried hair styles from Guppy Sims?  I didn't like all of them, but there were a few I thought were pretty good.  Like you, I've run through a lot of hairstyles in my game and ended up throwing most of them out because they just didn't quite work.  I also really appreciate all the hard work that goes into them but at the same time can't quite get past the ones that look like plastic.

Here's the link to Guppy Sims: http://guppysims.webcindario.com/frame.htm

There's another site or two I've found styles I liked, some of them kind of curly-looking but I'll have to see if I can locate from whence they came.  My everything's just not quite as organized as it should be at the moment.

I like the hair at Simpathethic.com, it moves like it is supposed to most of the time.
Other than that I find good stuff at MTS2, SanMoo's stuff is fairly good.
I have tried pronupsims hair and Janna's hair. No thank you, too plasticcy.

I think it depends on how they do it. If they use and existing Maxis mesh but merely modify the shape it should still retain the animations, albeit they might look funky with the new shape. Also people tend to do this to make a hair longer but then it stretches the texture and they don't bother to modify the UV Map (the coordinates for how the texture is to lay onto the mesh) to fix this.

If they use a completely new mesh for their hair then as far as I am aware yes there's no known way to animate it yet so it will just sit there in place. That works okay for short hairs but looks rather odd for long hairs.

Also a lot of the longer hairs tend to clip through the body and not move correctly with the body either. Like if a sim were to tilt there head down to look down, the hair will stay at the same angle and then stick straight out instead of lying flat against the back.

Oh and I agree about Sussi's hairs. I'm picky about my hairs too but I do use hers. She has a lot of very nice updos.

I also use some of Peggygirls hairs (mainly the shorter ones)

http://www.peggysims2.net/

Some from Sim Cribbling:

http://mado.new21.net/louis/sims/

The Jeannette Biedermann one if you don't already have that (it's a Maxis made hair) and there's a male version of it at MTS2 too.

Also I use a few other random hairs from MTS2 but you know how it is there, it's kind of a hodge podge and you really have to dig through stuff to find something good, kind of like those bargain basement stores. ;)

I have a lot of simsconnection hair, too. I don't like to criticize too much, since I haven't the first clue on how to mesh, myself, but I agree that many of those styles look just plain bizarre in the game. Of course, there are a few from that site that I like very much, as well, and use all the time.

I am a big fan of Neptune Suzy's hair at TSR. Many are recolors of Dr. Pixels and others' meshes. She just does the best texturing!

I have a question that maybe you can answer, Motoki, or any others familiar with meshing. About that "gap" that often shows in hairstyles. I use RoddyAleixo's backwards cap on many of my sims, as well as some backwards caps from simsconnection, simsquirts, and other sites. They all have a gap at the nape of the neck, where daylight shows through. I tried with my trial version of milkshape to make my own mesh for the backwards cap, but I need some seriously easy to follow tutorials on hair meshing as all I seemed to do was get the cap into the program, then somehow send the image so far off into the distance it was just a pinpoint on my screen  :-\. My question is about these current meshes, though. Is there a way to close that gap so that when my guys look downward I don't see daylight? It's a bit creepy, but my guys must have their hats lol! Anyone willing to give me "The Idiot's Guide to Closing the Daylight Gap"? 

There's no real way to close the gap without going into a 3D program I'm sorry to say. And while there are tutorials, in my personal opinion most 3D programs have a pretty steep learning curve. Then again I learned on 3D Studio Max which is one of the harder 3D programs to learn, or so I'm told. It took me a year on and off (more off than on lol) to really get it down to the point where I could use it. What really helped me a lot was some video tutorials I found that were basically a class on how to use it that started from absolute beginner and how to use the interface.

That's one thing you really need to learn first in any 3D program, the interface. Otherwise you end up with the mesh being way far off in the distance and not knowing how to get to it. ;) It's not always the easiest thing to do either because I swear some of those 3D program have more buttons and controls than a 747.  :o

The reason I did the female afro in the first place is because some people modified the male one to go on women but there were horrible gaps. I spent a lot of time closing all the damned gaps and it too me a while too. I kept rotating the head and hair from every angle in the 3D program and then going into the bodyshop and doing the same as well. It seems like every time I closed a gap I'd find another one. :P I'm still not completely happy with the shape of it, but at least I think I sealed all the cracks.  :-\

I'm definitely no expert on 3D so I don't think I'm the best person to ask about any of it, but I've been doing little bits here and there for several years. I'm very picky about my own stuff and not to sound like a snob but it seems like a lot of people are far less picky when it comes to sims hairs and will happily use them with huge gaping gaps where the sunlight shines through.

Thanks for that reply, Motoki! Milkshape was mind-boggling to me, and like I said, I had a baseball cap so far off into the distance I couldn't do a thing with it. I read the tutorials, too, but still, whoosh! Right over my head. Did a lot of cussing that day LOL

Are there any other 3d programs that have free trials and are somewhat easy (relative term, I know) for a beginner to use? I do a lot of graphics stuff, but not any 3d stuff. I think I had a free trial of 3d max, come to think of it, but never used it and I'm pretty sure it's expired. All I want to do is close these freakin' gaps on my guys necks!

Hairfish has some good recolours and slight remodelings of the Surfer boy hair.  I also have lovely recolours from The sims Zone UK made by Starrat, and a few from The Real Sim and some long hair recolours from Around The sims.

I have one daughter who I believe would have the wherewithal to learn 3D meshing and I'm trying to encourage her in that direction.  My oldest daughter tried MilkShape and it was too confusing for her, which seems extremely odd considering how well she learns other things, but maybe it's just not her cup of tea.  She seems to be a lot more flatsy-artsy inclined, rather talented I think.  But my younger daughter is not as creative on paper but more creative in other ways.

I don't remember if I've ever been to Sussi's site but have downloaded some from MTS2 and if they're hairs I'm thinking of have been pretty happy with them.

I found one site months back and went on a downloading spree (one of my first hair sprees) and put them all in the game and realized that no matter what kind of sim I had at least one of those hair styles was never going to look right.  Although the others are a bit stiff they look reasonably good in the game so I use them from time to time.

With the turn-ons in NL I'm finding I wish more of my custom hairs were programmed like GuppySim's to show up in regular hair instead of custom.  I think maybe I could fix that myself, just need to find out how.

I really like WDS's hair. Of course, it's a paysite, but some are free, and they look very nice in my game (to me, at least.) I also use Sim Cribbling's hair a LOT.

re: learning 3D programs

I'm a firm believer that anyone can do it given enough time and patience and desire to learn it. Some people will pick it up faster than others of course, but that doesn't mean those of us who look at it and go 'HUH?  ??? ' can never learn it. It's totally cliche, but if I can learn it, anyone can. Believe me when I say I was NOT one of those people who picked it up quickly. I used to think I would never be able to learn to use those 3D programs and make or modify meshes and I tried and gave up many times, but I kept going back to it and eventually now I'm at the point while not anywhere near an expert, I can make some things with it.

The best thing I can tell you is read all the tutorials you can and just keep at it and even if you're totally frustrated or intimidated keep trying.

As far as what program is best, I learned 3DS Max because it was really the only program I could mod for Morrowind with which was what I was interested in doing at the time. I haven't ever bothered to learn Milkshape when I went over to making TS2 files other than to use it enough to convert files back and forth between Max. If I were starting out learning specifically for TS2 though Milkshape probably makes the most sense. All the 3D programs are pretty much intimidating and confusing when you start out IMHO. I've never seen what I would consider and easy to learn user friendly 3D program, but if someone knows when let me know!

Once you get the controls down though, that is by far the hardest part since you can do anything if you don't know how to navigate the controls.

Yeah, all those controls! Like you said, it has more controls than a 747. And it flew right over my head just like a 747, too!

Well, I couldn't even do anything for Sims1 apart from rugs (with the rugomatic!) so Sims2 is just not on for me - and I can't afford a decent paint program, even if I could work out how to use the darn things!

If in need of a paint program, google GIMP. Has all the necessary functionality of Paint Shop, but is free. Open source is a wonderful thing.

I learned Animation Master last year. I'm not bad at working with it; my problem is that I never know what to do. If I already have a project, sure, but just doing something off the top of my head is hard.

Thanks Odyssey, I'll maybe try it, but I always come off second best against any paint program I've tried!

Gimp is awesome. I've used that for a couple of years, now.

Well, I did go and have a look at the website, but I couldn't suss out what exactly I should download! 

Here's the Gimp for Windows download page:

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

Thanks, Brynne.  I did actualy find that page, but I just couldn't work out which version to download.

Go here: http://freeserifsoftware.com/
They have free graphics software that is actually possible to learn...
I have used photoplus for my pathetic attempts at skinning. Well, at least it wasn't the programs fault that I sucked.

Thanks, I've put it in my Favourites folder and I'll have a look at it tomorrow.

I know how you feel about the whole hair thing...I've downloaded a bunch that looks great on the "models" people have up on their sites with the downloads..but then I get the hair into my game and it looks horrible.  I'm still debating rather to do away with my hair folder and start fresh due to this problem.

The majority of the hair that I use..I do believe I got from TSR.  Of course only if you have a subscription for downloading would you probably be able to get the ones that are actually nice and the meshes and all.

The hair I got from MTS2 I am also pretty happy with.

Well, I got a lot of hair from TSR, but it looks so awful I won't use it.  It just sits there waiting for me to clear it out!

The stuff I got from TSR that actually looks good most of it came from these creators

Neptunesuzy
Lola
Big Bad Shar has made a few that I really like


If you haven't tried those and subscribe to TSR they are worth looking into..the majority of those look good in the game (well to me anyways lol) if you like the styles.

Neptunesuzy and Lola though have probably been where 95% of the hair I got from TSR has come from and are my two personal faves.

I'll add to the TSR bandwagon. I got most of my hair there, too. NeptuneSuzy is excellent, and Janna (or is it Jaana?). I tend to stay away from meshes for hair because they mostly look really strange, but there are lots of hairs at TSR that don't need meshes. You can sort by date, so go with the earlier ones.

Some of Janna's look ok, but there are others that just look like wigs!  I did get quite a few while I was still subscribed to TSR, but I can't afford paysites now.

I downloaded a Lola mesh from TSR not to long ago and found it to be very high poly and deleted it. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one and it's probably not in free rotation anymore so I can't go back and check.

Big Bad Shar's About a Girl looks like a bad weave to me, but I like that lol! I put it on some my ghetto sims. ;)

Some of the Janna and Neptunesuzy retextures of Maxis stuff are nice, you can also find most of Janna's stuff on simsconnection and she did put some stuff on Spiffy Sims and even the Exchange at one point. Neptune Suzy has started putting some stuff up on Buntah's page.

If you're looking for ethnic hairs, Hairfish has some nice short cropped hair and TLMeyn has some really nice finger curls and such at MTS2.

Hairfish's crops are great, I use them quite often - I've even got light-blue-skinned elves with the light red version, looks really unusual!

Thank you...but I just piddle with alphas, no new meshes. I can handle Milkshape OK, but when it comes to putting anything into a .package file, my brain starts making Goofy noises: "Heyup-yup!"

Check this site out:
http://www.sims2.gamersunity.de/php/include.php?path=content/overview.php&type=4&letter=&catid=14&order=&themeid=25

Beware, they're packaged Sims, .Sims2Pack files, and I don't think custom meshes get packed up with the textures. BUT, they come with readme/credits, that say where any needed meshes are from ("Haars"), so you can find them and download them. I honestly haven't installed any of these that I know of ~ I'm certain I have some of the meshes ~ but on "my other forum," the praise has been high from some very fussy Simmers.  :)

Looks an interesting site.  I've bookmarked it for further investigation....

I found a bunch of great hair that looks good in-game at www.simplyelau.it  You can sift through hair at www.sims2sisters.com as well.

Isn't Simply Elau a pay site? In any case, it seems to be down for me at the moment.

Sims2sisters as far as I know doesn't have any new hair meshes, just recolors of hair meshes from other places. Some of them look funky and the recolors do nothing to help that. Others are high poly so watch out and check the counts in SimPE. Sim2sisters will include meshes with their recolors which is convenient because you then don't have to go hunting around all over the place to get the darned mesh, but they take no care to look out for poly counts and have posted some objects meshes from places like Sims2Ellis which has some horrendously high polygon count objects.

And a lot of them now look a bit old hat, I think, in game, when other sites are producing beautiful, low-poly objects!  And if you want nice beds, Sims2Play has beds that are really good in game, don't take forever to load up all the custom beddings that you may have, and don't cause your game to lag!  But then, Shoukeir has always been, to my mind, one of the most talented object creators around!

Simply Elau is partly pay - they do have some free stuff. 

As for the poly count, what is considered high?  And do all places tell you the count, or is there some way to tell if they don't mention it?

Some sites tell you the count for everything, others don't.  Some, like SimFreaks2, guarantee that everything on the site is within the limits recommended by Maxis.

You can use SimPE to check on poly counts, but I'll pass on explaining it and let someone more knowledgeable help you with that.  All I know is, if you have a lot of downloads, you're talking hours and hours running through them!

I've wondered that, too. As far as hair meshes (and clothing, too, for that matter) how high is too high-poly?
Ugh I wish there was an easier way to clean out some of those more awful hair meshes from my folder, lol.
I always hate to name names because I'm afraid the creator of the hairstyle would drop by and read it and get offended, but I have a lot of Janna's hair that just looks terrible. Somehow it looked okay in the pictures on the site, but in the game it looks like cemented Medusa hair, or something.
I said above and I say again since so many people here have, I love Neptune Suzy's recolors. They're all nice and shiny. Really pretty stuff. Her medieval hair is gorgeous. She's definitely in my top 5 fave artists at TSR, and worth letting them take money out of my account every month for... 

This is kind of my guidelines, so take it with a grain of salt, but I would say for the face count:

under 1k = great, no problem
1k-2k = pretty good
2k-3k = not too bad, but might want to use sparingly
3k-4k = kinda pushing it, use sparingly
4k-5k = only use if you absolutely love it to death and try not to give it to more than one sim on a lot if you can help it.
5k+ = too high

You can get away with ones with higher counts sometimes without problems, but remember it's not necessarily the one mesh that will cause problems alone (well unless it's like 30k+ faces :P) but moreso the cumulative effect. Consider the fact if you download a lot of other stuff it will add up and some of the Maxis stuff itself isn't always super low poly. Also try to think about the type of family you will be using the hair with. A single sim in a small starter home might not have problems with a high poly hair, but later on if she gets married and has 6 kids and moves into a huge mansion on a large lot with a bunch of junk it's not going to help the game run any faster that's for sure.

Also, if you are putting custom hairs on townies try to be mindful of the counts and avoid putting high poly hairs on them. A bunch of townies all on the same lot with high poly hairs could be asking for trouble. At least in my game those community lots, particularly the downtown ones, run slow enough as it is and don't need any help. :P

Okay, thanks for the guide, Motoki! Luckily my main house consists of males, mostly, which just use recolored maxis hair. Some of the visiting girlfriends, though...I'll have to check them out.

I just checked the simply elau site - nice looking hair there!

just wondering - do the colours that match the maxis ones show up in the colour categories, or are they all lumped in custom?

getting ready for work, otherwise I would grab a few and check for myself.

Everything that isn't part of the original set, as far as I know, ends up in custom - including a few of Maxis own recolours.

I've got some custom hair that shows up in the appropriate colour with the asterisk on it - I prefer it that way, otherwise you get piles of hair in custom, and it just takes far too long to sort through.

and I hate changing hair colour - I prefer them to stay as they were born...  a reflection of me, perhaps - 30 and never coloured my hair in any way at all!

Some sims just look so much better if you change their hair colour!  I always change the youngest Broke brother to blond so he looks like his father and brothers, and he always looks better, I think!  When he grows up to adult he usually gets the Maxis custom hair with the lilac streak!  (And the goth eyeshadow.....)

In my game he still has his black hair color, albeit a custom hairstyle, and he's still pretty hot, if I do say so myself. It gives him a dark & mysterious vibe. :P

If you have a little patience (or a lot, directly correlating with the quantity of custom hair you have... ;)) you can make it show up as Maxis genetic yourself.  It takes me less than 5 minutes to fix a set of 4 colors.  I've got the codes saved to a simple text file and just copy/paste in the appropriate lines.  It makes my life much simpler, and I get townies/downtownies/children spawning with these hairs.  The downside to that is occasionally I get a nanny spawned with what I consider "young adult" hair. :P  Anyway, the (plagiarized) tutorial is here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1204.msg42615#msg42615 (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1204.msg42615#msg42615)

Hmm. I was always kind of confused about this. CC hair that shows up in the genetics bin gets recognized as genetic hair color? So w/ NL, if I had a sim who was turned on by blondes, and I had a CC hair in the blond bin, then that sim would be attracted to the person wearing that particular CC hair?

A huge problem I have w/ the CC hairs at the moment is that I pretty much have to make all my male sims attracted to CC hair, and since everyone pretty much uses CC hair, my sims are attracted to practically every single sim out there. If this would fix the problem, I'd be very pleased.

That's one of my pet peeves, too. Same for my female sims. Almost everybody has "custom hair" and "fitness" as a turn-on, and "stink" as a turn-off. I've been meaning to categorize my hair because of this, and I am at this moment having datgen run through my downloads folder. 

Yes that's correct. Any hair that shows up in the color bins CC or no will count as a turn on for that color.

IMO, it's the responsibility of the creators to make their hairs work correctly with the genetics. I know Maxis didn't give us the tools to do that, but they didn't give us to the tools to make new meshes either and people have found work arounds for that.

My new hairs from WDS and Pronup sims are in the correct colors.  I was soooo excited to be able to set a specific hair color in Turn on/off's.

Another bonus of having hair categorized in the right bins is that townies and NPCs might get it. I download a lot of wild-looking hair, and it always amuses me to see it show up on some totally inappropriate NPC. I once had a cop show up who had hair a mile long and looking like it could put someone's eye out.

I categorize ALL hair in Datgen. If it's blond, black, brown, or red, it goes in the right bins. Even if it has streaks of purple in it. As long as I can tell what color it's supposed to be, it goes in the right bins.

Okay. I just tried changing hair colours, and I am incredibly confused. Mostly I'm confused about the families. What families do we have to set the hairs to? Are there different families for different hair colours? And do elder hairs have a separate family? Or is it the same family for all colours through elder?

I looked at the DatGen tutorial, and my head was spinning. Doesn't explain very well at all.

I would have love to have seen that I am downloading DatGen now ,it will help with my downloads I hope as I am having issues with hair meshes showing up as choice to put on my sims head in the in game hair bin obviously thats one choice I never make. my sim would be running around with some odd or bizarre looking hair to say the least. all my sims male or female either have custom hair or a recolor of maxis hair on their heads. in the males case its about25/75 most have recolors  . in my female sims  they have custom hair

Datgen is completely confusing to me.  That's why I did it with SimPe, and it's extremely easy.  Link is in my post above for family numbers and hairtones.  The good thing about Pe is that you can see the texture if the filename doesn't tell you, especially since the base color is frequently not the correct one.  :-\  Once you've done a few, it's ridiculously simple.


Motoki, I agree with you, but since very few of the creators feel the same way, I've just been doing it myself.  ;D

Well, I read your post, and that was a bit ambiguous as well. First it says: Click on each Property Set and find the line that says "Family". Change the value to "b52b9d28-7b62-4f41-bd88-fb382721db82".

But then it says:
One of the property sets of each hairstyle will be grey for the elders.You'll know which Property Set is for the elders because the line "name (dtString)" will list the colour as "grey", instead of the actual colour. When you find the elder Property Set for each style, just enter the code for grey instead of the regular colour.

So is there a different family value for the grey hair?

Datgen is really easy. It's just drag and drop. It really only takes a minute or less. Get the debug version and follow the tutorial

http://www.datgen.info/tutorials/sm_hairtone.aspx

I didn't even really read through the whole thing, I just dragged the hair entries over and dropped them to the proper color and saved. The key here is knowing which hair is what color. Their internal names may NOT match what color they really are because if someone started off with a black hair in the bodyshop and made a red recolor out of it, the internal name may still say black while the true color of the texture is red.

The best thing to do is load only the red package in Datgen, drag all of the parts of it except the grey to red, save, load the black, drag all the parts except the black onto black, save etc.

Where is the latest debug version? The version I have is 7.12.
It really sucks that Darkmatter isn't going to update it anymore...

No, it's not a different family, but a different hairtone. 

So, for the one that is gray, you'd put 00000005-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 in the hairtone line instead of 00000001-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 for black, or whatever tone you are working with.

The family number you enter in is the same for every hairtone.  The only thing that changes is the hairtone number. :)

I have 7.13.495

So no need to change the families at all? Cuz the tutorial had a whole big section about families, and I really didn't know what to set to what.

I didn't mess with all that no, I just did the drag and drop on the color and it worked for me. *shrug*

Where did you get it?

http://www.datgen.info/downloads.aspx

From the first link. That site is slow as hell for me though.

idtamer, are you doing SimPe way or DatGen way?  I'm getting confused... :-X  I thought by your earlier post you were trying to do SimPe, but maybe I'm wrong.  If you aren't, disregard this.

You do need to change the families. 

The way I do it is to open a hair in SimPe. 
Select the "Property Set" option on the left which gives me a short list of sets.
Then I go to my text file, highlight the family string (that's the b52b9d28-7b62-4f41-bd88-fb382721db82), right click/copy, switch back to SimPe and click on the first in the row of property sets, highlighting the family line at the bottom, and pasting that string in the box on the bottom right overwriting what is there. 
Hit commit and go to the next property set, repeating all the way to the bottom. 
Then, I go back to my text list and select the hairtone I am categorizing, let's pretend it's blonde. 
I start at the top again, only this time instead of highlighting "family", I highlight "hairtone" and paste in the "00000003-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" all the way down.  Sometimes I skip the gray step and just throw them in the regular category cause I'm lazy lol.
Save it (it overwrites the original but provides a backup) and you're done. 

It sounds more complex than it really is, especially once you know where the two things you are changing are.

Well, I'm leaning towards DatGen, cuz for some reason SimPE takes ages to navigate. It takes a couple of seconds each time it loads a set of data, and the seconds can really add up. That's the only reason I don't like SimPE - cuz it takes too long to use.


Hmm. When I clicked and dragged a file to the color folder, the elder hair ended up in the color bin as well. Do you know if its okay to leave it that way? Or must I individually drag each age's hair file into the color bin and exclude the elder?

You should be able to redrag just the elder hair into grey. I wouldn't leave it in the color I don't think it will show up for elders but might show up for adults.  :o

The advantage to changing the family numbers is that it groups all colors of the same hairstyle. For example, say you've got a ponytail mesh with all the basic colors. If you make it so that the family number is the same throughout all the ages and colors of the hairstyle, not only will it be inherited correctly, but if you are in bodyshop, cas, or changing appearance looking at the ponytail in red, and decide you want it in say, black, when you click black it will still show the new color in the same style as opposed to showing a different style. You need to give every different hairstyle a different family number if you want everything to function correctly.

I hope that made sense. I _just_ figured it all out and I need to go to sleep. :)

The problem is that not all custom hairstyles have all ages, or some of the ages don't match. Say, someone used a blond Maxis hair and then only changed the teen, adult and elder hair, making them black. If you make the whole hairstyle genetic, then toddlers and children will have blond hair and only get the correct black hair when turning into teenagers. Also, you're going to have a ton of identical toddler and child hairs, because these have not been edited in most cases, even if they match the color otherwise.

very true there I have many of Natrobo's toddler hairstyles that are only for toddlers but body shop hasnt figured that out so it substitues a maxis hair in other age groups as a result I end up having to delete a ton of maxis duplicates in body shop and CAS.the game thinks a hair mesh is for all ages automaticallywhich isnt necessarily true so the game in an effort to compensate for what it percieves to be a missing hairstyle in an age group substitutes  what ever maxis hairstyle will fit the mesh

Well, one assumes that if the mesh is only for toddlers, then the game can do little else than substitute something when the toddler grows up, and it's safer if it chooses default meshes - you can always change them later!  (And for the short time kids are toddlers, I would never bother to give them custom hair, although I'd change their hair if they're bald!

Interesting that you feel that way.  My reaction was just the opposite.  I can't stand the default toddler hairstyles, either for boys or for girls (well, the toddler girl hairstyle is OK, but it turns into that godawful "lawn mower cut" when they become kids, so I hate it....)  I use a bunch of different custom hair styles, mostly downloaded from TSR or Sims Connection, in my game.  Nearly all the adult Sims in my neighborhood now were born with custom hair styles, and so their babies also inherit the custom hair.  I love the variety this produces in the toddlers.

I agree, it's a pain when you download custom hair only to find it doesn't work for all ages. 

Karen

I use custom hairstyles on my toddlers because unfortunately the face templates are limited in the toddler age group.the hairstyle helps the toddlers have different genetic appearances rather than all toddlers looking like Identical twins in the game.

Although I haven't tested it in game, I would assume that as long as you set the genetic color to be correct for the custom hair, you won't have the mismatching problem if a generation is missing.

OH, if I'm creating toddlers in CAS, I might give them a custom hairstyle as long as I know it's part of a complete set, but with born-in-game infants, I just wait until they're kids.  Except for twins, I rarely have more than one toddler in a house, so knowing which one it is isn't hard!  And if I wait until they grow up to be kids, at least then I know which hair group they would have been in.

I change the hair in toddlerhood if the hairstyle I want is available to children and up. for a hair stylye thatis all ages I tend to give the parents the custom style in CAS that way when they have children its automatically in herited as custom hair is dominant in the DNA Pool. the default style that all toddlers get if they are female I cant stand because it becomes meg hair in childhood,I finally found a way to dress it up though I down loaded hair ribbons for it

The hair that reallt annoys me is the Maxis Nightlife one with the headphones!  The minute a sim takes a shower, changes into PE kit, or what have you, they have the awful lank pony tail that looks like they got up without brushing their hair and just stuck it in a band!

Exnem from The Sims Vault has some nice hair.  The one I have downloaded (the one he put up on MTS2) looks great in game.  I'm not sure what the poly count is, I've always suspected that his objects had high poly counts but never really bothered to check

The Compulsive D hair meshes (you can find them on Simpathetic.com) are high poly but all really nice and welcome breath of fresh hair in the "ethnic" hair department.

I tend to stay away from the long hair meshes because of, like everyone else said, animation issues.  Sunair also has nice hair.  Some are from Poser/Renderosity so they might be high in polygon count as well.

Someone uploaded a really cute ponytail w/ bangs mesh on MTS2 a week or so back.  The animation of the ponytail is pretty good and it looks great in game (works with all ages).

I went through and checked the poly counts on all my hair meshes yesterday, and found one that had 19,959 faces.  Delete!  There were a few in the 12 to 13 thou range, too.  Naturally, those were my favorite styles.

Perhaps we need a list of ones people find, like Damage did a while back for SimFreaks with objects.  Hair-meshes, in a way, are more destructive and invasive, as you have no control over non-controllable sims turning up on lots with them!  Of course, you can zap them, but if you don't know who they are, it's difficult.

I'm rather interested in those hair ribbons...  spill the beans!

I've got to say that I would like some more hair styles, but I'm very fussy - I want them to show up in the normal colour bins, the sims that get them need to blend in with the others, and I want them to move naturally and not chop through bodies...  very hard to find anything like that at all!

This isn't a game problem, it's a Bodyshop problem. When people make a mesh, even if the mesh is only for adults, Bodyshop will create a complete package that includes all age groups.

I can tell you how to get rid of crappy default hair in the age groups that a custom mesh (or recolor, for that matter) did not alter.

1. Open the RECOLORS (not the mesh) in SimPE.

2. On the top-left select Property Set.

3. On the top-right select whatever age that the mesh did not cover (i.e. if your mesh if for teen-elder, then you want to edit the ones for toddler and child). The one that starts with "pu" is toddler, and "cf" or "cm" is child.

4. On the bottom-left select "age (dtUInteger) =". It will have a number in there like 0x00000001 for toddler and 0x00000002 for child. Just change that to 0x00000000.

5. Remember to click the Commit button after each change. Save the file.

The mesh will show up in teen-elder like it should, but absolutely nothing will show up in toddler or child. Now you can have the best of both worlds -- new meshes show up in the correct colorbins, but the unchanged age groups don't get spammed with nasty hairstyles.

This method will work any time you have hair in an age group that you don't want it in. This is how to get rid of it without affecting the other age groups. Note that if you do something like get rid of a teen hair for a mesh that is for child and adult (but left teen as a default nasty style) then when the child grows into a teen he will receive a completely random hair style. Hope that made sense.

You can also safely delete them and their accompanying texture, the latter of which will save a good bit of space. As long as you know the # code for the age you are deleting and the codes used on the textures (am=adult male af=adult female tf=teen female cu=child unisex pu=toddler unisex etc) then you should be fine but of course back up your files first. Anyway, simpe also makes a backup eveytime you change a package file.

IMO it makes more sense to just delete them because all those texture files are large and take up a lot of space and really add to the time it takes to load the game.

thats what I ended up doing. I did inadvertantly delete one mesh but it was no big deal as I save all meshes in a seperate file on my desktop. I simply went back and reinstalled it when I saw my sim running around bald. even though her picture  on her panel showed the correct hairstyle and color

There is also some nice recolours and meshes at:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SimmillionHomes3/

I like the Diva hairstyle, and the "That Girl" is fitting for some of my nerdy looking sims :P

You need to be a member to download but I thought it was worth it.  No idea how "high" the poly counts are for these.  Got Simpe just yesterday and I'm still playing around with it.

IIRC correctly that Diva one was pretty high poly. That's the one Lola did right? If so, I saw the count and immediately deleted it.

I think it was Milla M, and the hairstyle is called Bombshell Diva.  There isn't any of Lola's on that site afaik.

Sorry, I was thinking of her just meant Milla instead of Lola, can't keep 'em straight.

And I doubled checked it and yes this is the one I was thinking of.

The Diva hair mesh is 10,324 faces and 6,003 vertices. This is extremely high and I strongly reccomend people not to use this mesh. It's your game so do what you want, but I personally wouldn't use a bed with that high of a count let alone hair. It's not like it's some complex style with a lot of pieces either like dreads or something, it's basically plastic stiff one piece looking and could and should have been optimized down a lot more instead of just ripped straight off from Poser or whatever other high poly rendering program it came from. :P

Sorry, this is just a real sore point with me and I think it's very irresponsible of people to pass off these high poly meshes that were never intended for games on unspecting users. We have enough trouble with this game being buggy and slow as it is and then when people start having problems they likely won't have any clue what caused it.  >:(

That Girl, by the way, is 3849 faces and 1943 vertices which isn't a wonderfully low count, but passable I guess.

It should be a rule that creators display this type of information. I'm sure the likes of TSR etc don't because they would probably lose half their files that people upload.

I guess I really need to go through all my downloads and check the poly's (now that I have simpe).  I don't have that many downloads really but I've noticed my game is quite slow and I have noticible lag when my mouse hovers from one side of the screen to the other.

There was a thread where you mentioned how to check the poly counts Motoki, but I can't seem to remember which one it was.  Thanks for the heads up on that btw, I'm quite fussy about what goes into my game.

The diva hair is actually up at TSR but the count is not posted for it there. Their policy is to make it optional and allow the decision whether or not to post the numbers up to the creator. The more responsible creators all do post their numbers. Even those who make objects with high counts will post them if they are responsible and there are a couple of people at TSR who fairly consistantly make mid to high poly stuff but still post their numbers.

Maybe Milla isn't even aware of the issue. A lot of people, ahem, 'borrow' meshes from other sources and so may not be true 3D modelers but just someone who learned how to use the tools enough to convert meshes from one another form to one that TS2 can use. If this is the case, they wouldn't have learned the basics of 3D modeling and may not even be aware of the counts or that they are an issue. :(

Was just reading your Simpotence thread Motoki and I am so thankful that you hang here so much. You are VERY helpful. Thankyou.

Oh it's not too hard to do. You open the package in question with the mesh. On the left hand side select the Geometric Data Container, then to the right of that window is another window that she then also list the Geometric Data Container. Select that as well. Then in the lower portion of the screen make sure you are in the plugin view. The new SimPE interface should default to this but with the old one you may have to select the plugin view tab. Now you want to find the tab that says 3D Mesh and select that. Once you do, you should see where it says Models (Faces= Vertices= ) those are your counts.

I'm in tears, now (nooooooo not really), since I have to go and delete all of those Milla meshes I just put in the other day. And I think I even told you in my last PM, Motoki, that I was wondering why my game was suddenly loading so slowly. Jeez. All those damn hair meshes I just downloaded! And I haven't even used them, yet.

Ideleted alot of stuff yesterday that SimPE flagged as have huge polygon counts and "oversized Geometric Meshes". thats how I accidently deleted a mesh from Lola which wasnt flagged by SimPE.I  have found that most of the meshes Ive gotten from TSR,Pronup, and MTS2 are on the lower end of Polygon counts and look better in game than the high PolyGon Count Hair and Meshes. SimPE does an awesome Job Flagging files that are potentially game slowing in Red. it flagged a few items that it wasnt sure were EP Ready that are EP ready and work fine . they were recolors of maxis items.Beware  everyone Maxis  apparently pays no heed to polygon counts in their objects such as cars and shrubbery. or in other objects such as the alienware computer. SimPE flagged those  Items as being extremely high in Poly gon counts. the downloadable roadster and the PUNTO were the two cars that got flagged in my game. I deleted the Roadster and the Punto and all shrubbery that was flagged as well as the alien ware computer. if you can live without those items in your game you are better off

Well, unless you actually put them on a lot, they won't cause problems, and if your lot is low in polygon counts on other things, then you can put them in without raising the level too high.  But I remember from the discussion at the time the issue was raised, when it was pointed out that a lot depends on the number of tiles the object takes up, ie a bed which has 6 times the count of a chair may not be overly high, as it takes up 6 tiles to the chair's 1.

As to the Alienware computer, I very rarely use it, and I have a funny feeling it's useless in UNI.

the alienware computer is most definitely completely useless in uni.

The tile guideline as far as I know was more to give a higher limit to larger stuff than anything technical to do with the number of tiles use. It's a decent guideline but you also need to take other things into account like the relative size and complexity of an object too. I would be more lenient to say a large complex one tiled statue than I would be with a tiny flower. Also relatively simple boxey or squarish objects shouldn't need to be high poly at all no matter how many tiles they take up. A large plain 3 tiled flat square poster does not need 800 vertices per tile and shouldn't be anywhere near that count.

As for objects not causing a problem if not used on lots, for the most part I believe that to be the case, particularly with slowness. However I have had at least one instance of an object causing a lot to not load when the object didn't even exist on the lot. I have no idea if that was related to the polygon count at all or just something messed up about that object but if I recall correctly that was a high count object. I'm not saying that high poly objects will necessarily cause problems loading or anything like that, but the game definitely preloads at startup so it seems like it might be a possibility. At very least it won't help your load times, but that's a necessary evil anyway when you deal with a lot of downloads.

Maxis frequently does not follow their own guidelines as you guys found out. ;) I don't use the Punta because the count is just so much higher compared to the other cars, even the sports car, and I don't really see where it looks all that more complex. Someone said it might be due to the logo and I suppose that could well be the case.

I do use the alienware even though it is a bit highish, and I use the hacked one from MTS2 with the college stuff. I pretty much have one per house at most though and I definitely wouldn't make an internet cafe full of them. :O

Well, you understand all this polygon stuff better than me, Motoki!  I mean I know just about what they are, and why too many of them is a no-no, but I have to admit I've also downloaded one or two things claiming low poly and found they were also low in visual attractiveness!  I must admit, I'm more worried about high poly hair meshes and dining chairs than I am about high poly beds.  (Mainly because the chairs tend to be used in larger numbers, and the hair goes everywhere the sim goes!)

As to the alienware - I rarely use it these days.  Since it isn't any use in Uni, I avoid it, and mainly use the laptop from 4ESF2 for my students as it seems to go wrong less often than the cheap one, but if yours is much lower poly, I might consider that too.

Oh yeah, with me blabbing about the counts it would help if I posted them on my own stuff huh?  ::)

Anyhow, it's really low, it's basically two rectangles and a mouse heh. The face count is 366 and the vertex count is 256 so I suppose if someone's concerned about counts and really wants something with the Alienware brand name that has the university functions they could go for that.

And I agree with you on the beds. I'm far less strict on what I let slide for beds and sofas and such since they aren't likely to be used many times on a lot. That's not to say I will use one with 50k polygons or anything ;) but I'm much more careful about stuff like kitchen chairs, lights, flowers, windows, fences etc since those will likely be used many times over on a lot and even one of those objects that's moderate in the count can add up real fast multipled many times over.

Hairs are kind of like that too but you have some more control over that. Although, I've heard hairs set up with the Maxis genetic colors will show up on townies, but very few people set their hair up that way anyhow. Oh and my fro's pretty low too, but then again I didn't add or remove any polys from the Maxis male fro' I just changed the shape. It's 1092 faces and 599 vertices.

Unlike those beautiful dreadlocks!  (I've installed them and created a family who all have them!  Haven't played them yet, so I'll have to do so and report back if they cause probs.)

I had his short dreads a while back on one sim and didn't seem to have any noticable problems. That hair I believe was in the 6k face range. But it was also on a very small lot (Numenor's 2x2 A frame special) and only one other sim was living there and she had regular Maxis hair. I think having that one somewhat high poly hair on that tiny lot still wasn't as big as having a big assed lot filled with junk on it heh so a lot of it depends on how you are playing too.

So when he gets rich and moves to a big house and marries a Fortune sim wife, then he'll have to go for one of Hairfish's short crops instead!

Okay, help me out here.  How do I find the poly count on a hair?  I opened one in SimPE and poked around but without knowing what I am looking for I'm kind of lost.  Thanks for explaining.

It works the same as checking on an object.  You have to open the mesh, not a texture.  I think it's the first option--Geometric Data Container, then click on the line in the righthand box, and the poly/vertex count shows up beneath.  If it's really big, it might take a bit.  :P

Okay, here is what I find for one of the meshes in my download file.  I am assuming I am interested in the "Models" numbers, not the one's below?  There are check boxes in front of all the "hair" lines and the top one is checked.  Thanks again for explaining to me.  My given name is Denise and I learned a long time ago that if I wrote my name too fast it sometimes came out Dense!!!

Models (Faces=832, Vertices=530):
hair (Face Count=30, Vertex=24)
hair_alpha9 (Face Count=30, Vertex=24)
hair_alpha5 (Face Count=30, Vertex=24)
hair_alpha7 (Face Count=176, Vertex=111)
hair_alpha3 (Face Count=176, Vertex=111)

The ones below are basically separate pieces of the mesh and when added together should equal the numbers listed after Models, but yes you really want to look at the Models numbers because that's the total.

Don't feel bad, we weren't born knowing any of this stuff, we all have to start somewhere.

So, if I understand this correctly, my 832 Faces = less than 1k and is okay to use? 

 :P I hate feeling dumb.

Yes that's fine, that's a quite low count.

Motoki,

I still havent gotten around to messing with hair but I do have a exnem mesh that sorely needs fixing and its my favorite hairstyle. (Its an updo thing but with good anims and usually find its way on all the nannies) Of course however it has a big gap at the back of the neck, am I supposed to just stretch the mesh down to cover the gap or am I add on to the mesh to cover it? Someone said the gaps were a transparency issue which led me to believe they were speaking of the alpha and textures etc but I cant figure out how editing that will make a difference. So could you go back to the part about fixing gaps and drop a few hints? I'd be really greatful!

I'd be afraid adding something to it might screw up the animations but you could try it. If you added it as a separate piece it may not but I definitely wouldn't add more polys straight onto that piece.

Stretching it would work, but also stretches the texture unless you update the UVmap (which is basically a blueprint that tells the game how the texture is to be laid out on the mesh). I've seen a lot of people just stretch hair or clothes or whatever but I'm picky about that sort of thing and most times it ends up looking terrible.

Oh and I forgot to mention if you add a new piece you'll have to assign a UV map and texture to it, though you can reuse one of the existing textures.

If it truly is just a transparency issue then messing with the alpha channels may fix it. You should be able to just export the alpha in SIMPE and then mess around with it and reimport your changed one over the original (save a backup first of course). If that's truly what the problem is then that's probably the easiest way to go, but messing with alphas can be a pain because you'll have to keep running back to the bodyshop and see if how the changes actually look.

OK, Motoki - a question. I've downloaded a hairstyle here that is available for multiple ages. So in SimPE, there are 3 different meshes that get used: cm, tm & am.

When you talk about it being "bad" for a hairstyle to have, say, over 2000 polygons - does that apply only to the age group that is currently selected, or to the entire thing? I don't know whether the game only loads the mesh for the age group in question, or if it loads all of them together.

The cm mesh has 238 polygons, the tm mesh has 550, and the am mesh has 546. So 546 polygons for an adult hair would fit firmly in the "low poly" camp, whereas 546+550+238 = 1334 polygons is getting a bit clunkier. Which number should I use as my guideline?

Thanks!

Edit: Gratuitous swearwords! I downloaded a statue of Bender from Futurama from MTS2, and noticed that one of the comments said "This was just ripped from Poser". Opened it in SimPE: 11282 polygons! You are so not going in my game!

Further edit: 1662 polygons for an earring? (not even earrings, it's just one). On a sim that also has custom hair & custom clothing meshes? I'm thinking potential for badness? Or shall I just accept this sim as a one-off? (he's one of my real-person pop star sims)

 ::) And you know, most of that Poser stuff has license agreements on it too. Some of it is also pay content and not supposed to be distributed. At very least even those most lenient Poser creators I've come across want acknowlegement as the original creator. But no one in the sims community seems to do that. I've seen people post Poser meshes and not even mention that it was Poser at all and then have multiple people tell them how great and talented they are and of course they neglected to mention they didn't make the mesh. :P The ironic thing is, if anyone did that to them my god all hell would break loose! And it has before in the past too. For a community that's so fiercely protective of its work, this community doesn't seem to give a hot damn about ripping stuff off of other communities. Apparently, as long as it's not a mesh someone else made for TS2, it's fair game.

The other thing is that people aren't getting that Poser is a still render program. It renders the scene in 3D once so polygons aren't such an issue. The Sims 2 is constantly rendering its stuff on screen at 30 plus frames per second and it's computing other stuff too like various code. It's a totally different environment and has a whole lot more going on than just taking a single snapshot.

/soapbox

Okay, regarding the ages, the count the matters is pretty much whatever the current age is. The game is only going to render the hair for a specific age, it won't render all the ages hairs at once. So if you have a hair that you like in the child version with a decent count but then say the teen has a high count, you can always change the hair when the turn into a teen or just before and it shouldn't be a problem.

Oh and regarding that rock star sim, I'd check every damned custom mesh that was on him, but that's just me heh.

It transpires that he's actually ok - the earring mesh I looked at was the wrong one. His earring has ~480 polygons, and his hair has 806.

However, some of my objects are terrifying. I have some lovely stackable objects that look like wardrobes from An.onymous.SimSite - ~1300 polys each, and you can stack them up to 3 high per square, making a total of 3900 polygons.

A one-square cupboard with a glass front and pots from A.Well-known.SimSite - 6500 polygons! I trusted that creator to know what they were doing, as they've been using a 3D modelling program to make their objects since Sims 1 - but nothing seems to be optimised at all. I'm having to seriously rethink some of my decorating, because the particular set that the cupboard came from is lovely, but all the objects in it except the actual tables & counters are way way over 800 polygons per square. I have a high-end computer - now - but by the time I have 5 or 6 Sims 2 EPs on it, it won't be anymore. And if I have those objects in houses with sims with custom hair & clothing...

Various (piano) keyboards from various places - all around ~3300 polygons. At least keyboards tend to be 2-4 square items, so it gets averaged out.

More creators really should post their polygon counts online, and the information that it's important should be propagated more widely, and not just in English :-/.

Heh, well the only other language I can speak even a little bit is Japanese, and I haven't really used it for several years and am pretty crappy at that even, but everyone else is free to preach on. ;)

I felt really bad when I found out that kind of thing was going on. I went to several Poser sites, and was floored by how many of those meshes I recognized...and I've never used Poser myself! I immediately went through my downloads and deleted entire sites' collections, feeling downright sick the whole time. My scruples felt very bruised.

Since then, I've become more careful about what I download, and where it comes from.

I download from all over the place but if a mesh is needed for and item I wont download the item unless the mesh maker is given proper credit if it isnt the creation of the person who did the recolor or hair . I down loaded a toddler hairstyle  and the mesh was Natrobo's  and kudos to the recolorer the credited and linked to Natrobo's mesh. I hate it when I get a mesh etc  where proper credits arent given. and I will ddelete items when I discover that to be the case.

Yes well I hate to say it, but if that's your policy then I suspect you'd have to delete most of your files as most of us would. It's not easy to model hair and most that I've seen has been 'borrowed' or borrowed and modified. Trouble is, if we don't browse Poser sites and 3Dcafe, TurboSquid, Renderosity etc etc. then we'll probably never even know if a mesh was borrowed from there because most of the 'creators' sure aren't talking.

It's the dirty little secret of the Sims 2 community that no one wants to talk about.

Im aware that most meshes are borrowed from elsewhere in the community.but when i speak of creator .Im not talking about the original designer. most creators have altered the borrowed mesh considerably after borrowing it  that being the case if you download the altered mesh and have problems with it  its easier to contact the alterer if proper credits are given.thats why I tend not to keep a file without credits given to the creator of the hair or dress or whatever item it is. the original maker of the mesh isnt the one that modified it.....

I've seen meshes literally taken exactly as they are in many cases from other sites and simply convertered. Even if a mesh is altered considerably, it's common courtesy to at least mention the original creator. If someone took a mesh someone else made in the Sims 2 community and altered it considerably they'd have a fit! How many times how you seen 'Do not clone, recolor, alter, upload to the Exchange...bla bla bla' notices when you've downloaded something? Because I see it all the time. Also, a lot of those original meshes have user agreements that explicity state they are not to be modified and redistributed.

With all due respect Bagelnuts, I think that's a pretty crappy attitude. It seems to be 'As long as the person is in the Sims 2 community, they must be credited, otherwise it doesn't matter' and I just don't agree with that. If we as a community and if the creators in the community want respect then we must respect ALL creators and their content no matter what the source. Otherwise we are all hyppocrites.

3300 polygons for a 4-tile object is not bad at all, in my opinion. The original Maxis piano has over 3000 polygons, as well. But, yes, I agree in general it is important to keep an eye on the polygon/vertex counts.

When I started up my site, I considered posting update information in more than one language, but since I only speak two languages fluently, I would have needed someone to translate full sentences for me every time I update my site. And then which languages should you include besides English? German, French, Spanish, Portuguese? That amount of text will clutter up your site pretty fast, and will still not cover all the languages that your visitors speak, since at least my site gets visitors from all over the world. There are translating sites that'll translate a whole site for you, and I see people using those on my website on a regular basis. With the way my site is built, it seems to work pretty well, too. I think that's a much better solution than having all the information on your site posted in 5+ languages. And "1500 polygons" should be pretty self-explanatory in any language if the polygon count is what people are looking for.

Which ever language is used, I would like to see more creators to post the polygon or vertex counts for their objects, or alternatively state that the objects are within the recommended limits

after a stroll through my files I discovered only one mesh that didnt have proper credits to the creator .Ironically the creator was Maxis that the person who recolored it didnt credit, all my other downloads have a creator and the recolorer  credited.I ditched the mesh that didnt have creator on it. the mesh in question was  the hair that is default for maxis on toddlers . the new item added to it was a hair bow.I do undeerstand what your saying though and yes I have seen those user agreements constantly and they  actually com in the form of a pop up on Pronup Sims

Jumping back to the catagorizing hairs to go into the right color bins; shouldn't you (theoretically) be able to make a sim, age back to toddler and get the same hairstyle through to elder? I tried this with b52b9d28-7b62-4f41-bd88-fb382721db82 as family and with
00000002-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 as hairtone, and get different style with different ages.  Two of them are the same style (not the one I picked), but the rest aren't. How badly have I screwed this up?

I think, when someone makes something, allows everyone to share it, and the only thing they ask is credit where credit is due, then anyone who consistently fails to do so should be ostracized, and no one should download their stuff!  But then, I also feel strongly about people who steal from Pay Sites and offer stolen creations on their site - it's a creator's choice whether they give things away or want to make some money from their work, it's not up to anyone else to say they are right or wrong.

I agree with you Zephyr. Itry not to download an Item that is stolen if I can avoid it and I know for a fact its stolen . and I never ever upload CC to the exchange because half the time I cant remember at that exact moment who made the item, and many creators  specifically state dont upload this to the exchange or anywhere else with out their express permission to do so also most meshes dont transfer when you upload an item so the consequence in a sim may well be a bald head or a maxis replacement.unfortunately the only thing that seems to upload tp the exchabge with ease is the  "unwanted" hacks

That's the way I do it because that's the way I was shown how.  I think someone earlier in the thread said that each hair has to have a unique family number to maintain the same style through the age groups.  I'm not about to mess with it now, especially since my hairs have all been done already with the same family number.  It doesn't really bother me as much as having 237162398302372 pages of custom hair to scroll through.  ;)

Well, you know, most of the time I change the hairstyle anyway.... so I guess it doesn't really matter.  And the few that I've done do show up in the right bin and that is most important.  I think I only have 237162398302369 pages of custom hair, so I will keep plugging away.  Thanks for your answer Mokey Hokey!

If that is the same Milla that used to post on TSR, apparently (not to spread around Sims 2 community gossip), there was a big scandal when it was found out that she had been taking her hair meshes from Poser and posting them as her own, hence the high poly count.  When the owners of the meshes found out, they threatened to take legal action against TSR, TSR pulled all her meshes but are now working with the original owners to fix the meshes (lower the poly count) and repost them on the site with proper credits. 

With respect, I think you've misunderstood what I meant. I don't particularly care what language a site is run in, as long as it uses either a) images that are understood globally, like the icons from the game, to represent the categories of downloads or b) text that can be pasted into a translation site. Sites that use images of words annoy me, because if the word is not in your language and you don't understand it, you can't paste the image into a translation site and expect it to work :).

My point was that it's all very well Mod The Sims 2 having a thread about polygon limits (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=58193&highlight=polygon). But because MTS2 is an English-speaking site, to participate in the forums requires that people have a reasonable command of English. As The Sims is released internationally, many creators are native speakers of other languages, and it should not be assumed that they will all speak English to a high enough level to understand what "polygons" and "vertices" are. Notice how many native English speakers don't know what the words mean!

So the information that Maxis recommend 800 vertices per square and that it is a good idea to stick to this needs to be translated into every language that Sims 2 is released in, and then posted online somewhere for people to find. Very possibly this is something Maxis themselves should do, as they have translators and access to the official Sims 2 web sites of every country that has one. But failing that, we as a community should lobby all the educated fans who are fluent in more than one language to translate the information, so it is available for other creators who only understand one language.

Oh is THAT why Thomas is posting new converted Poser hair meshes with permission from the creators? heh

Wonder if they're paying those Poser people now. Probably. :p Took the threat of legal action to do it though I guess.

OK, sorry, I misunderstood your statement.

I do think it is important for all the mesh creators to understand what polygons and vertices mean, and I think it should be their responsibility to ensure that high polygon objects are avoided. It's true there is a huge non-English Sims community out there, and passing on information like that to all the creators seems difficult, although I have to say that a large part of the non-native English speakers still understand a fair amount of English, and many non-English websites also have an English section. They just may not be seeking the information in the first place. I have no idea if polygon numbers are a hot topic in the German or any other Sims communities. The English Sims communities are the only ones I visit, and I don't even know any other Finnish object creators, not to mention Sims 2 creation discussion forums in Finnish, but maybe other "bilingual" people from larger languages can do more.

May I ask a stupid question?  What program can I use to look at my objects sizes easily?  Is there one that will list the object name and the polygon/vertice/face count next to it in a big list without me having to open each one separately? 

Thanks!

Chris

SimPE  Geometric Data

I use DatGen for this. It has a feature called Download Maid which has an option to look for poly-heavy meshes. It will scan your entire Downloads folder and find the ones that are potentially a problem. You then have the option to quarantine them to a new folder, which will then allow you to open each one individually (if necessary) and decide how to deal with it.

DatGen does not tell you the exact poly count. What it tells you is how much more than recommended a mesh is. For example, it can tell you that an object is 4 times the recommended/safe amount. Now, when you open that object, it might turn out that it has something like 2000 polygons and it's a really, really cool object that you don't want to do without. 2000 is not THAT bad, as long as you don't use a ton of them on the same lot, so you might decide to keep it. But an object that shows up as 19x more than recommended will probably have something like 25,000 polygons and must be deleted immediately. Screenshot http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/saramkirk/datgenpic.jpg (http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/saramkirk/datgenpic.jpg)

So you will still have to use SimPE to open each file individually, but DatGen can at least tell you which files you need to look at and which ones you don't need to look at at all. Much better than just opening every single file blindly.

I think SimPE also has some kind of ability to scan for poly-heavy meshes but I haven't looked into that. For me, SimPE tends to hang if asked to scan more than about 1000 files, and since I have way more than that, I avoid using it for that.

I keep my files in folders according to site, which makes it much easier for simPE to scan, you just tackle one site at a time.  However, with hairmeshes etc. it's not possible to isolate them without NL.  With NL, you can make a folder in Downloads for all your hair files and simply get SimPE to scan that.

One question I have, though, is, is there or is there not a relation between polygon count and file size?  If there is, then that should help pinpoint the more urgent files.

It does, you can go to tools, then scan folders and then in the scanner settings tab uncheck everything but the health scanner. When the scan is done sort by type and look for the stuff flagged as high poly. It will also scan for other problems too.


There's not an easy answer to that question. High poly meshes all other things being equal will be a larger file than a low poly mesh utilizing the same texture, and in general the higher poly meshes seem to be larger file sizes, but mainly what takes up the most space in the package files are the textures. So a very low poly mesh with a large and detailed texture file will be a large package file, conversely a high poly mesh with a small or single colored texture could be a smallish file size.

In short, no it's not a good way to tell. :(

Not as far as I know. Meshes that come without a texture packaged up in the same file are usually very small in size. Since some meshes come with a texture and some don't, you can't rely on size. You could have a mesh that is 300kb by itself and a mesh that is 50kb but is packaged with a 500kb texture.

I just wondered.  It's annoying though, how big some files are.  I have some beddings from GLTS which I really like, but they're three times the siz of even the largest of other bedding sets!  So, since there are, I think, 4 of them, I could have at least twelve other beddings taking up just the same amount of space!

Textures are by far the biggest culprit when it comes to large file size. There are various compression techniques, but a lot of people really don't know how to use them. Also people tend to go overkill on file size. A smallish painting doesn't need a 1024x1024 texture and imo those rug textures are too huge too.

Though it's by no means an indication of the polycount, I do take file size into account when choosing a download. And with the exception skins which I'm very selective about anyway, I generally don't download anything these days if it's over 500k unless I absolutely cannot live without it and for smaller stuff like paintings I usually won't go over 200k.

Yes, I've noticed that some files which are absolutely enormous go very small when you compress them, which I do for the copies I save, as I don't like keeping zips and rars, which are difficult to search if you are looking for something!

The only advantage to a larger texture file is that you retain more detail in far zooms. That doesn't do any good without a top-of-the-line graphics card, which many ~ maybe most ~ of us don't have. It does just as much good to use .dss and sharpen the smaller zooms by hand before importing to the .package file.

Some skin files are a hell of a lot larger than they need to be, due to the bump map...which is another thing that most of us have no use for with our "good-enough" graphics cards. I've noticed that the majority of new skins that came with University and Nightlife have no bump map, which is fine with me! I've tried enabling bump maps, and my game c r a w l e d, even after I upgraded my graphics card. So, when I recolor, I generally gray out the entire bump map, so it's just a useless extra 100k or so in the finished texture file.  :(

Yeah, this is way off topic, since hair and objects don't have bump maps. I'm just rambling.

What's a bump map?  Does it do anything important?

If your video card supports it, it gives the illusion of depth. Also, apparently from what I hear a lot of Nvidia cards do support it but for some reason the game doesn't enable it for them by default unless you go through some process to remedy that. I don't recall how because I have an ATI card so I didn't pay too much attention.

Here is an easy way to see the difference.  Open up Body Shop and start a new project, then click on the Change Mannequin button.  Select a mannequin, then press F8 to zoom in.  Note the textured appearance of the bra.  If what you see on your PC looks "flatter", less textured, than this picture, you don't have bump maps enabled (or your video card can't support them).

Karen

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I think that problem was fixed with Nightlife. I always thought I'd seen bump maps, until I actually saw them in game after installing Nightlife  :D. But, in return, I lost object specularity (upon installation, with the same graphics card as before).

Well, I can't get Bodyshop to run properly in my game, so I never use it.  However, I do have an Invidia 5200 (I think) but I don't know if bump maps are enabled or not.  I'm just not technically up in these things.

neither am I and bump maps to me dont matter one way or the other

I have a 5200 and did the fix to get the bump maps to show.  Somewhere I found a male underwear outfit that has "bump mapping is enabled" on the front that shows when it works.  After installing NL, I had to do the fix again.  It was pretty easy, I can post it if anyone would like it.

Have you tried the 6.1.7.7 driver? 
I swore by the 77.77 until I rolled back to this one..thanks to my husband and his fascination with W.O.W.  ::)

No, thanks for the tip! Would you happen to know where I can find that version? Can't seem to find it at the Nvidia page.

I upgraded to an NVIDIA 5500/256MB and enabled bump maps by editing one of the core game files (I don't remember which one). That's when my game slowed down so badly. There's also a boolprop cheat you can enter to acitvate both bump maps and the brighter, more animate pool water, but you get the same slow-down on the lower-end cards.

Properly done bump maps look good. Unfortunately, among the usermade content that I have, there are very very few properly done bump maps. Contrarty to what some tutorials suggest, it's more than a matter of clicking a couple of filters. I found otherwise beautiful skins suddenly looking like they were embedded several inches into the Sim's body (light and dark backwards on the bump map), or what was supposed to be sheer, filmy fabric appearing two inches thick (too much contrast on the bump map). To me, it's simply not worth the trouble and expense to enable the damn things. GOOD textures don't need them, anyway.  ;)

I do think bump maps do improve the look of some clothing. Having a print on a shirt appear elevated looks pretty cool, for example, and some sweaters look better with it. Not all skins need it, though.

Assuming you have XP, I think this is the correct link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_61.77.html (http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_61.77.html).  Lemme know if that driver works for you; I'd like a second opinion before I advise people to roll back.  ;D

Thanks for the link, I'll have to try that report back to you how it works out :). It would be awesome to have the object specularity back, because after I'd had it for a while, everything looked so plain without it.

Nope, didn't change anything compared to the 77.77 I had before. Objects like the Maxis piano used to be very shiny, but it's not. Has anyone tried the newest version of the drivers, 81.94? Does it make any difference with TS2?

Edited to add: I tried the latest drivers, but they made my cow plants turn light green in color. Someone else had a similar problem with their bed pillows turning green. I went back to 77.77, and everything is working fine, except for the missing specularity, of course.