More Awesome Than You!

Probably the best female hair mesh is Open For Business, and they forget to display it in the catalog!
http://www.simsconnection.com/

WOW  :o that must be Maxis's best hair creation yet.
Thks for heads up.

The texture actually looks decent.

They've extracted it so you don't even have to have OFB installed to use it!  Yay!  *downloads*

Oh, that Epic hair looks beeyootiful.  *sighs*

Textures are not maxis. Morague (http://www.variousimmers.net/vsimforum/forumdisplay.php?f=123) is going to make a little package file so that people with OFB can use the textures and mesh that come with the game.

The download page at SimsConnection says "mesh and textures by Maxis". Are you sure they're not Maxis textures? ???

I am sure. The mesh looks maxis, but the textures are definitely Sim Connection.
I would love to be proved wrong! That would be a sign that maxis is getting better with textures

I am confused. :(  If they came with OFB, they must be made by Maxis, right?  And why can't OFB users use the package at SimsConnection?

They can, but Morague makes tiny files that only draw the the files that are included in the game and makes them show up.
The style of the texture looks very close to what they do on their own .

Nice hairstyle.

Awesome! So nice of Morague to make those "hidden" hairstyles available for us. Like Beau's hair for example. I can't wait to download that OFB one, it's very pretty. :)

What in the world?! Thats the most.......................beautiful hair mesh by Maxis in the history of The Sims 2 existence! They are a bunch of idiots.

Wow! That is a very pretty hair mesh.

I wouldn't call it the most beautiful (what IS the obsession with long hair?), but it is very nice. Really bizarre that they didn't include it.

I wouldn't say obsession. It's just that by having more of it, you naturally get more ways to mess with it. If you don't have any hair, you don't have a lot of hairstyle options available. Like me, I'm bald. I don't exactly get a large selection to pick from.

I'm pretty traditional on this. The longer a woman's hair the better!


I've seen some bald guys trying to hide the bald spots by letting what little hair they've got left grow long and combing it over the "patch". Looks outright ridiculous!
As for me, I've got almost waist-long hair, but I still have only two options: hair down or ponytail. I only revert to the second option when it's too hot or I don't want to accidentally mix my DNA with the dog DNA I'm working on!

I guess, if you like long strands of hair everywhere and taking half an hour just to wash it every day.

Of course, that could just be me. I have about twice as much hair on my head as the normal person (it's a thing with the females in my family, so gods help any future daughter I might have - getting my hair brushed when I was a child was an epic battle every morning) and it gets everywhere and takes forever to care for once it's as long as my chin, not to mention taking forever to dry.  Just recently got it mostly cut off, it looks like that cute side-parted style in OFB but short enough I can see out of both eyes... bliss. :)  Even if it is still -5C here and I now have to wrap my scarf up to my eyebrows to keep the sides of my face warm.  :D

Long hair can look interesting and have interesting things done to it but it's too impractical for my tastes.

Renatus is female???   :o

Yes, that long haired girl grew up to be Susan Powter...

(http://www.screenselect.co.uk/images/products/4/10844-large.jpg)

I wash it every couple of days, maybe three during winter, and it takes me less than 10 minutes. A quick drain with the towel, brush, and ready. No hairdrying device has ever come near my hair during the 7 years I've kept it long, it doesn't matter if it's freezing cold outside! The only hassle with long hair is a) if it's windy outside, b) you're headbanging like mad in a concert (haven't been in any since 1999! Damn!!), or c) you're engaged in...ehm...woohooing! Oh, and it's a real pain during summer, at least greek summer which lasts more than 3 damn months!

Edit to keep a semplance of on-topicness: that Maxis lost-and-found hair looks great! No wonder they left it out! It makes all their other hair look totally non-awesome!

More or less, yes. ;) Two X chromosomes and all the working parts.

'Fraid I don't look anything like that fitness maniac, sanmonroe. She looks kind of like a slightly deranged bald elf, and I, well... don't (http://pics.livejournal.com/renatus/pic/00028qg8). Too much heavy-boned peasant in my ancestry. :)

It's really odd that they didn't include it, unless there is something terribly wrong with the mesh that can't be seen from most angles. Maybe they felt they already had enough women's hair in the expansion or something. As nice as it is, I'd have to agree that the women are overgifted with good hair - the men constantly get jacked for cool hairstyles. They're obviously willing to make more 'alternative' hairstyles (like the liberty spikes included in Uni - but only for women!), so I don't understand why the hell everything for the guys is so tame. They obviously need to chat up some punks or people into FRUiTS - male people - and get some fresh ideas.

Well, the biological reason for this is that long hair depicts a pattern of extended health. In practicality, there's a point at which it becomes unwieldy and cumbersome.

I don't have ANY left. At one point it was patchy and looked even more ridiculous, but I didn't care. I am pretty ridiculous, after all. And the dumber they think you are, the funnier it is when you kill them.

I will go back to lurking in just a moment but I couldn't resist commenting.

I come from a family of conservative mennonites.  Some of my female relatives have never cut their hair.  In the mennonite tradition, a womans hair is her pride and glory.  To cut it is shameful and/or prideful.  Thair hair reaches the floor (though you wouldn't see this as they keep it up in a bun on their head).  I have one relative who got in trouble with her church because she cut her hair to her ankles because she was tired of tripping on it at night.  Talk about long hair becoming cumbersome!

very very nice hair! I'll be glad when Morague does the unlock file for us, apparently there is also a hidden male hair.

re: the long hair stuff - my hair is that length right now and I don't consider it to be long...probably because before I got it all chopped off (very very short) mine was down to my ass. I'm letting it grow again because I just don't "feel like me" without my long hair...besides it looks great long  ;)

Aw, Renatus, that's a great picture!

I know what you mean.  Have you ever had your hair turn into icicles?  I have.  Lately I've given in, and started partially drying my hair. It is more comfortable that way. 

But it's been 25 years and I'm getting  sick of it.  If I could only find a hairdresser that I trust not to butcher my hair and give me a good looking haircut, I'd have it cut in a flash.  I just don't want to sacrifice my hair for a bad hair cut.

You're worrying too much. Remember: It will grow back. A bad haircut is not the end of the world.

A bad haircut may grow back, but it will grow back much slower than a good one....

Why thank you! :D My amusing expressions + husband's steady hands on the camera = win!


Every winter during half of my teenager years, yes, since I walked to school. Hair being washed every day was and is non-negotiable; it turns into a greasy, horrible mess if I don't. I noticed that my locks of frozen hair rattling together sounded like sticks, and wondered (rather uneasily) if it would break off if I wasn't careful. It never did, but the frozenness extended the three hour natural drying time of my hair to four.

Then I wised up and cut it short. Never had the time or patience for hairdryers.


How does it grow back slower?  :D It may seem like forever, but one's hair doesn't grow any more slowly than usual just because one has had a bad haircut. Growing out back to where it was may be slower if the stylist really did a butcher job, but growing back to where it is fixable, not so much.

I very much recommend the "cut it all off and worry about it later" approach, but having dealt with way too many bad stylists I DO suggest getting recommendations from friends who have haircuts you like. It can't hurt to take a bit of time to talk to the stylist before you make a commitment, either.


And I'm happy to hear that there is a men's hair hiding in there. I just hope it's good... Huh, maybe the programmers hide these things intentionally because they know people in the community will be poking around for things like that.

I think long hair is completely different for some people than others because of the texture of their hair.  My niece has long hair--it's very fine hair, but she has a ton of it.  She's learning to take care of it herself (you know those early teen years) and it's working out quite well--that is WHEN she remembers to shower frequently enough.  I have another niece, almost 7, who has hair thick enough for three kids her age.

I've had long hair my entire life, anywhere from just below my shoulder blades to so long if I wasn't careful it would hang in the toilet (now that's a pain!).  From my teens, I've washed it every other day, except for the past few years when any more than every three days turns it into a straw patch (yes, as you get older your oil glands do finally slow down!).  It takes me no longer than 10 minutes in the shower, and like DrBeast I rarely, if ever, use a hair dryer (hair dryers and heated curlers are the worst thing a person can do to their hair if they want to keep it long).  The only time I dry it is if I'm sick and having a head full of wet hair isn't such a good idea.

There are short hairstyles I like but I think long hair is much, much prettier.

That Maxis mesh is indeed a nice one!  I think, though, I'll wait until I have OFB and then download the file that will make it show rather than go with the whole mesh and textures thing.  My poor game is already bogged to the hilt!

Some people like long hair. Some people like short. I don't get how that turned into this long discussion.  :-X But then again, this board has never been know to be very on topic.  :D


No way! Never? My hair dries straight by itself, but whenever I blowdry, it adds so much volume to my limp hair, and I get this soft glossyness that just isn't there when I air dry. I just love the effect. I don't do it all the time for the sake of my hair, but if you trim regularly split ends shouldn't be a problem, yes?

And the Maxis hair looks great w/ that texture, but I highly doubt Maxis textured it. The other Maxis meshes can also look great w/ the right textures. Janna made these soft waves w/ the Meadow Thayer hair a long time ago that to this day I still absolutely love. Maybe Maxis should hire new texturers then - it would really make a difference.

Might not be a sacrifice if it goes to Locks of Love:  http://www.locksoflove.org/

And could turn out to be the best cut ever  :)

I agree, my game is so darned bloated I don't want to add further to it, especially when a texture and the mesh come with the expansion anyhow, why load them twice?

Where is Morague hanging out these days? Is she still at that place?  ::)

Wow!  So OFB has brought us three nice women's hair meshes.  Great.

Renatus, I'm with you on the annoying nature of thick hair.  Everyone in my house has an abundance of it and my poor little sister's hair is uber curly on top of being dense.  I have a tendency to hack my hair off every couple of years.  I like it chin to shoulder length, but it grows so fast that upkeep starts to get a little pricey and it looks good long.  Right now it's about halfway down my back.  

Short hair is lovely, versatile and, according to my boyfriend's Zombie Survival Guide, those of you with short hair will be safer than the rest of us.  You know, when the zombies come.

Ah, so I guess I'm zombie food. ;) My hair is a little more than halfway down my back. Though I usually wear it pulled back with a clip or in a bun.

I like OTHER people's long hair. ;) On me... well, I'm growing it out for a costume right now (the style I need is too short to easily get a wig), which for me means "off the ears, off the eyebrows, off the back of the neck". Otherwise it'd be buzzed.

That's disgusting! Why would you want to wear SOMEBODY ELSE'S HAIR?!? EEEWWWW!

One possibility of why it's "hidden" might be because it's intended to be accessible only to the Gold Salon Badge. Has anyone tried it? I'm noticing not a lot of people are apparently intent on earning that badge.

Well, could you take a look? Maybe see if they hid anything for the guys? :)

Hmm, I know a couple of townies who have the badge. Actually one I moved in, an old bag vampire, so I will try it out with her since I never can get anyone to want a makeover from an employee assigned to the damned chair.

I know some of the stuff from that chair like the bad makeover hair and makeup are intentionally hidden so you're right, it could be that this is a hidden good makeover hair that you can only get with experience. Hopefully you can get it with a controllable sim with a gold badge and don't have to have an assigned employee do a random makeover to get it because, well, good luck getting that. :p

Oh, definitely. My husband used to have long hair and it wasn't much of a problem for him, since his hair is fine and doesn't get greasy easily. Unfortuantely he needed to cut it short because after years of benign neglect it was quite damaged and looking very ragged. He used a hairdryer fairly frequently, because going out in the Finnish winter with wet hair would have been really stupid. I kind of miss it, although I don't miss getting facefuls of hair when I'm trying to sleep. Like akatonbo, I'm fine with long hair... on other people!

Unfortunately, if my mother is any indication, I'm stuck being a grease factory until I'm at least 45. Well, it's less than 20 years to wait, at any rate...


I'd say 40 vol peroxide is probably a little worse.  :D My hair was incredibly coarse when I had it bleached white and no doubt would have been a tattered mess if I had let it get very long. It stood up into spikes with very little effort though (yes, on purpose)!  :D


Wah! I feel for her, mine was quite curly when I was 13. It was very damaged so I went to get it cut in what I thought would be a short bob... no. It curled profusely. I looked like a fat pixie and was not happy. It eventually straightened out to the point that it is just wavy enough to be completely uncooperative unless it is short. Mine also grows fast, but fortunately when I got married I also got a free stylist in form of my sister-in-law. :D Before that I cut it myself for years - usually with an electric razor. Good thing for me I'm into punk...


It'd be interesting if the hair was actually an award for the badges. Hm, I'm tempted to fire up the game and cheat myself one on a sim to test it out. Although I still don't think it's fair that male sims keep getting jacked for good hair, one hidden one or not.

Yes! It was really freeze-y where I grew up. I remember waiting for the bus as a kid and amusing my friends by making my hair stand straight up. And then it is sooo cold when it thaws.

I understand about the hairdresser thing. A few years ago it had been 15 years for me and I finally went to get something different, because every time I cut my hair I get the same layers, same bob, etc. The lady gave me layers with a "razor cut" and it made my hair so fuzzy! It sucked. I trust no one.

Maybe start with shoulder-length? Sometimes a little change can be really dramatic. Sometimes when I go from long to shorter I do that and then snip a few layers around my face. I have been cutting my own hair for 18 years now, and my boyfriend's, and my kids'. I probably have more experience than those supercuts girls who are straight out of the hair academy.  :P [/unsolicited advice]

Well I can report that a controlable sim with a gold cosmotology badge does not seem to have access to this hair among the ones you can choose from. It's still possible if I can ever get anyone to want a makeover from a non-controlable employee sim they could end up with this hair. It's possible they could get it by random chance where you don't get to pick, they just end up with it (like a bad makeover). And it's also possible Maxis intended for this to be only accessible to gold cosmotologists but screwed it up and never bothered to check if it was working like they did with the twins and cheesecake.

I must say, I rather like the idea that certain hairstyles would only be available to highly experienced cosmotologists.

Oh, wow. I just tried this hair ingame, and I have to say, right now it is my new favorite hair. The style is almost universally flattering, even on the slightly fug sims. It's gorgeous. Makes no sense why Maxis would hide such a great hairstyle. ???

The hairstyle looks good in photos, but it almost fails my "twirl" test.  When you rotate the sim, it sort of bulges out in the middle, but not at the point where the mesh hits the shoulders.  Very strange.

Simple, it does.  They're MAXIS.  .SIXAM er'yehT  .soed ti ,elpmiS

The same thing happened to me. It totally failed my "twirl" test. It just looked way too unnatural.

I think that is because they didn't export the mesh right, look at some of the other ones in the free area. A lot of them don't look right when they animate.

If that is true they might show up in cas with the testing cheats.

Yes way, N-E-V-E-R! I trim my hair every three or four months, and whenever I visit my hairdresser I hear praises about its condition (and an assorted mumbling from the old ladies waiting for their turn, like "now, that's a god-awful shame, a MAN with SUCH great hair!"). I wouldn't care a rat's portals about volume and looks and all that. I've never been a type who cares for looks, I'm with Pescado on this, the "I Look Ridiculous" club, hehe! Well, at least I can thank my old man for not carrying a baldness gene. I did get his "greying hair at your thirties" gene though. Even my beard shows traces of white!

Regarding the hair (the semblance of on-topicness, remember?). I think they left it out because, well, it looks unfinished. I checked it out in CAS, and whenever I rotated the sim a part of the hair seemed to vanish into the cheek. The left cheek to be more precise. Haven't noticed this with any other Maxis hair, but then again I didn't pay that much attention either.

Uh, yeah.  The last time I cut my hair was a couple of years ago, and at that point it was down to my knees.  I can definitely attest to issues with trying to use the loo, especially if it was unbraided.  Naturally, it's been growing back and is just about down to my thighs again.  (My husband threatens to divorce me if I cut it much above the middle of my back, you see....)  :)

The difference between a good hair cut and a bad one?


6 weeks.   :P

I'm with Dr Beast - I NEVER dry my hair...  it dries naturally and is in much better condition than that of my colleagues who torture their hair with dying and drying...  oh yeah, I'm a 30+ year old woman who has NEVER dyed her hair...  yes, I'm a freak!

I agree, a lot of their hairs look very fake, stiff and plasticy because of this. And really, they shouldn't have had to export the mesh unless they were going to change it or there was something unfinished about it. If it's among the package files they could have just extracted it and put it in a new package or even just made a reference to it in the package that comes with the game.

I'll try testing cheats, but I'm suspecting Maxis somehow dropped the ball on this hair and didn't enable it at all. If that's the case I may see if I can if I can get around to it, but I want time to play darn it, lol.

Download on that site doesn't seem to work. Does look like an interesting hairstyle though -- does it animate properly?

Once again, Maxis has put images of hair in ingame shots that are missing from the game (there's one on a toddler on the back of the OFB box), and the woman on the front has the missing long version of the lawnmower job. This really irks me. I'm still waiting for that hairstyle that's on female children in pictures all over the base game.

They show that toddler hair throughout the Prime Guide too.  ::) It looks like basically just a toddler version of one of the new adult hairs, I'm sure someone will make it available for toddlers sooner or later.

Do you know how long a foot of hair would take to regrow ? :)


I think you both got and then missed the joke there :)

You could try growing your facial hair long and combing that over your head.

I would like more short hair meshes. I don't know many adults with long hair.

Yeah, I noticed that too. But goodness, it totally redeems a couple of sims and makes them look great!


Ah! Heheh. That explains it.  :D Men...long hair...I just don't usually see them together.


I think they DID animate it, and that's why it animates so weirdly. The hair moves similarly to some of their other hairstyles that they've animated.

i downloaded that mesh a few days ago , but i dont really like it, it just looks to fake in the game .

and ive been the lab rat of my sisters for many years (she is 10 years older than me) and when she trainning to be a hairdresser i was lab rat ,so since i was 13 ive had my hair dyed and permed and generally messed with , and i wash , dry and straighten it every day , and its still in great condition the key is in the products you put on it , altho i have to admit it gets a bit wild once it gets much past my shoulders

At first I wasn't too sure about the hairstyle they imtorped, but when I saw a thread here dedicated to it, I went and downloaded it.  I love it so much, I couldn't save it.  If I find a great hairstyle, I'll save it for sims I realy love.  Jodie Go hooted and hallered when I chose it for her. 

I hope skining that are more awsome than I, find and edit more hidden meshes from the game. How come the folks at Sims Connections can retexure hair like a dream, and make meshes, but they don't recatorgize thier hair?  It's like a supermodle with a cussing zit.

I'm not the biggest fan of short hair in real life.  Most short hairstyle look corny and old to.  I also think most people woth short hair can't rock it that well.  I have a large head and practically no neck, so short hair is not an option for me.

The textures look crappy in my game bc of my videocard. 

The animations spoiled it for me. It just looks unrealistic, how it balloons up at the back.

Well, this is obviously complete nonsense!  Extended health - hah! - I had a brain tumour removed 7 years ago and my hair is long, thick and glossy and round my bum at the moment.  Mind you, they did shave it off when they did the operation. 

I can't stand long hair but I also hate hairdressers.  So I keep my in a plait all the time - perma-plait.

Nevertheless, those are apparently the biological reasons why men seem to like women with long hair.

Me, I'm not so much of a believer in this particular tidbit, but I've always thought about things differently anyway.

PMSL!!! :D

My Uncle Tony used to have a combover-looked totally stupid!

Yep, that's Janna's textures for you. When I got my new video card more of her hair looked okay enough to use, but before that a lot just looked so awful with my low-end card I couldn't stand to use it.

I agree with those ladies!  What a waste!  My fiance has the most gorgeous full, shiny, silky hair ever and he can't stand it.  He's 29, but when it is short he looks like he's 12 because it's so curly and cute, so he keeps it long and wears it in a low pony.  He puts a hat on as soon as he's out of the shower to smash the curls against his head to flatten them out, then once dry it gets pulled back.  Why he feels the need to hide that beautiful hair is beyond me.  I'd kill to have it instead of my super fine, limpy straight locks.  Urghh, you men don't deserve it!  ;)

Anyway, the hidden hair looks nice.  I'll try it, but if it doesn't animate right I won't use it.  I haven't found much custom hair that actually looks good in the game, so I don't use any. 

I dunno, maybe because looking like you're 12 is not something to aspire to.

Heh, thanx! But maybe if you think about it, we (men) don't abuse our hair with hairdryers and gels and lacques and god knows what other "cosmetic" stuff you (women) put on your hair! Keep all that crap away!


You won't. The animation SUCKS!

Is it all jerky, like it was done by a 2 years old boy?

The thing I am wondering though is did Maxis make it with screwy animations or did Simsconnection screw it up with they exported the mesh and reimported it? i wish someone would enable this hair in it's original state. I suppose I might have to get off my ass and try at some point if no one else does heh.

I'll gladly test-drive it for you when you're done Motoki. Not that I want to be pushy...or something...ahem

He doesn't when its long.  The curls get weighted down.  But his hair would have definantly been better spent on me!


You probably have a point there.  I never have used any products or heat on my hair because it is so fine and dry (I definantly don't have the oily problem), but most women I know abuse their hair so badly that it's no wonder it gets stringy.   

Too bad about the animation.  I'll wait to hear whether or not it is really bad or just that website, then I'll try it.

No, it animates smoothly, but it seems to be attached to the sim's shoulders at the bottom and the top of the head at the root. It balloons out in a huge lump in the mid-region when the sim turns quickly. It would look better if it didn't animate at all.

Plus, the animation in the middle results in the hair sinking into the cheeks. I agree, no animation would have been better. And Motoki, please go ahead and fix the darn thing. The hair is really great, but the whole animation screw-up renders it unusable (at least by my standards). Another small gripe, it's not properly binned, but that was just a couple of minutes of work to correct, and almost ALL hair meshers don't give a fly's droppings about proper binning. "It's custom. Deal with it!" seems to be their attitude (and I bet most of them don't even know how to properly bin!).

I must give credit to Melodie9 at MTS and seomi sims, who have learned about correct hair binning.  All of Melodie9's hairs are now correctly binned, and Seomi's newer hairs are as well.  Which saved me a TON of work!  I now check hair in the game before I go through all the trouble of editing it all in SimPE.  Some of it isn't even worth the trouble.  :P 

Some of them seem to think that it's wrong to put custom hair in the right bins because "OMG how will tehy no its custum hare!!1!oneone"

Well I updated my femfro a little while back to the correct bins but no one else seems to give a flying fig.  ::) Also, there's a couple of Simsconnection hairs that use the Maxis texture as far as I can tell (there's a poofier mens style on a reshaped version of that short slicked back mesh) and they duplicate the textures wasting a lot of space instead of just referencing the Maxis ones from the game files. Again, I fixed my fro' to do that. Why waste space including the same textures when they come with the game?

This is a bit of a tagent, but doesn't anyone have links to creators who make hair PROPERLY using the proper bins? Maybe we should start a thread about it. I'm so fed up with shuffling through pages in no decent order and all the duplicate elder, toddler, child, teen etc hairs that come with the custom hairs that I am about ready to chuck them all.

Well they are dumbasses then because that's what the asterix is for, to denote custom.  ::)

Amen to that, I havent put any of my cc back yet but I tell you, the longer I play without it the more I enjoy content that is created correctly. I have having several pages of toddler hair that is the same style because the creator didnt take the time or had the inclination to do anything with it. Same with elders.

Sussi as sussissogood.com (.net?) properly bins her hair. I love it. Hysterical Paraoxagasm (sp?) did a wonderful recolor of the "emo" hair at mts2 that is properly binned, I like her textures better than the maxis ones.

http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=137972

And it is a shame about the animation on that hair. I didn't have a problem with the "poofing" I just had issues with the clipping through the cheeks.

Oh does she? I wonder if she redid some of her old hairs that weren't set up in the bins because I have some of hers that isn't. Hmm, I'll have to go look.

Yeah I had to redownload her hairs when I reinstalled OFB. Her fancy ponytail and the uhm the one with the long braid are binned. I took a pass at all the other ones so I am not for sure on those, but the ones I got are binned properly.

Which reminds me, I have did a alpha-edit of one of Sanmoo's meshes (the feminity one, I hacked off the annoying bangs) and I was wondering how I would package those for upload without attaching a sim to them.

As far as I know, Sussis only is doing her new hair correctly binned.  And there are several advantages to having it properly binned, apart from making it easier to find.  It allows your newly created townies and NPC's to have custom hair and it makes the hair genetically correct.  But I am preaching to the choir here :)

Motoki.  Get off your ass and fix the hair.  If it's fixable.  It's really very fetching.  I hope someone does a better recolor than what they did at sims connection.  I rather their textures.

It's a great idea to start a thread for sourcing hair, since we have very exacting standards here.  I know this type of thread keeps coming back over and over,(I think I even started one) and that says a lot about how popular it is.  Good hair is the hardest thing to pull off it seems.

So far Sussi's "Old Fashioned" (the Scarlet O'hara look) and "Gibson Girl" haven't been updated to be correctly binned. :( I hope they will be updated soon.

Oh drat! And those are the ones of hers I like. I can do it myself but I think if I did it for every custom hair I had it would take me forever. :P

I think SleepyCat has done it for every hair that was ever created for Sims 2.  Maybe you should ask her :)

You know, that's another thing. If people in this community weren't so damned huffy about their stuff, someone else could do it if they didn't want to and post it. Hell, if anyone wants to fix or upgrade anything of mine be my guest, it saves me the trouble.

I have binned several hairstyles, and I agree that it's going to take forever to do all of them.  We should pool our work efforts and share our files we have completed so everyone doesn't have to do the same thing over and over.  I know it's hard to get creators to listen, but the good news is that more and more of them are.  I was using Natrobo's toddler hair, but I've quit using hers and started using Melodie9's not only because of the color binning, but also because she fixed several mesh problems that I saw in Natrobo's, such as a HUGE gaping hole in the temple on the curly hair style that came with Uni (the one my sim uses).  I'll check and see which ones I have done, and if others have done some, then we can save ourselves a ton of time and spend more time playing the game!  The ones I did also have the bonus of being smaller because I deleted the redundant textures, and I got rid of the references to the toddler and child hair that wasn't modified so it doesn't show up.  The only thing I haven't figured out is how to make only one of the gray styles to show up in the gray hair bin for elders since every color has a gray hair with it.

P.S.  So far I have done most of the styles from Seomi Sims, Sussi, and exnem, the ones I like and use.

I'd be up for a bunch of us working on different ones and sharing them privately, sounds like a good idea.

Properly binning things and adjusting genetic coding on custom eye/skin colors is going to be one of my projects once they update SimPe for OFB and I get it downloaded.

I am definately going to have to go through my eye colors though and eliminate the ones I never will use. I hate having to download a set of 20 eye shades when all I want is that pretty lavender one in the middle....

I assume the eyebrows can be properly binned too? It's kind of irritating that I can't really tell which color they are until I click on them because the thubnails really aren't much help.

I'm pretty sure they can, Motoki.  I think dewshine said that in one of those threads where she shared about binning hair.  You can bin facial hair too, but it seems that Maxis swapped the strings for blonde and red.   ::)  I'll have to find that thread...I think the bookmark is on my other PC.

Motoki, does that mean the SIMPE impaired miss out?  
Please do.

I have got very strict with myself about using custom hair, after realising how much it eats up memory space and increases loading time, so this time around with my lovely vanillaish TS2 I have restricted myself to lotbinned hair - unless its drop dead gorgeous.  Like Rainbow, this means only have Sussi's, Seomi's, and Melodie9s with a couple of exceptions.  

I would love to get in on that action as well.

Oh yeah, as an after thought: Sanmoo's femininity hair is properly binned. I know this for sure because I got all upset when I realized my alpha edit of her hairstyles were not binned anymore. =p

I don't mind sharing if everyone keeps their mouth shut about it lol. I just don't want people bitching at me for fix their halfassedness redistributing their unfinished product in a finished form.  ;D

I'm glad I'm  not the only person who's annoyed  by talanted people don't do the little things. I finaly knutted up and starting binning in late January.  I'm happy that I'm  not a slave to prebinned hair, but it takes hour long chunks of my time.(reeks havoc on my eyes too)

Motoki, you truly are Most Awesome. :-*

Woot! I just found out the OFB friendly SimPe is out, so I no longer have excuses.

Motoki, do you know where I can find some idiot friendly faqs that will help me accomplish my needs?

Sounds like now yall are going to need a place to store all this stuff to share.

*crosses fingers she gets a link to it one day

Well if anyone wants to share some custom hairs privately that they already binned I wouldn't complain. HINT HINT lol

I guess we would need a private board to coordinate the exchange, maybe Brynne's place?

Jelenedra: last time I checked, and it's bin a while mind you, Datgen was much easier to bin the hair in. There's some tutorials on http://www.datgen.info about it, or there were.

I have a website I never use we can store the stuff on if you want I don't know how good my bandwidth is on there though. I never, EVER use it.

Ugh my head is spinning after reading those tutorials. A lot of info I have no hope of ever understanding. O_o

Don't think that way. Some things just take me time than others, you just have to try and start one step at a time. Trust me, I never EVER thought I'd be able to use a 3D program. The first timeI loaded one it had more controls than a 747 and I thought my brain was going to explode.  :o I'm still by no means an expert, but I can at least use 3DS Max to some degree now which is something I never thought I'd be able to do.

If anyone want Seomi's (older) hair 1-5 properly binned, drop me a note.

32MB 7Zip file, but I'm sure we can figure out some transfer method. (IM?)

I'm sure I'll get it.  I just need to get away from work so I can focus on it and nothing else. It just seems uber different from SimPe. I've been reading up on Slyeye (sp, I know)

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2966.0 (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2966.0)
[/list]  faq for genetic-izing custom content. All of her faq instructions are for SimPe. O_o

I figured that one out by myself with some help from the good folks here.  First you decide which one of your hair file will be the host file for the gray hair.  I always pick black to be consistant.  Then you copy the family number of the black hair and paste it in all the other files, for all ages.  You probably already did that, as it makes the hair transition smoothly from color to color.  Then you delete the reference line that corresponds to the gray hair in all the colors except the black.  You can also delete the texture from the other colors as well.   Voila.  Only one gray hair left in the bin, but because of the family number, it works for all the other colors too.

You could try this Jordi. http://www.filefactory.com/

Ugh. captcha hell, no thanks.

I tried Datgen, but it crashes on me.  And it took forever scanning my folders.  So I just use SimPE.

Well, I have just over 1,200 hair files, all properly binned, without the toddler and child repeater styles. Most of them don't have the gray either, if anyone wants to include them.  And it really didn't take that long to do it, looking back on the finished project.

Yetyak - OMG :o

That just goes to show how truly unawesome I am.  Now I am resigned to being SIMPE impaired forever. 

Well, I definitely need the gray versions for my elders.  I don't know how you'd go about putting that back in.

I was planning on getting to the Louis hairstyles I downloaded this weekend.  Once I get those done, I could upload them.  (It might *take* forever since I have dialup, but it could be done.)

Metalkatt, your siggie is hilarious!  I have to show that to my younger son - he loves calling people L.o.o.o.ser!

Thanks, Sandilou.  It's more a statement of self-annoyance than anything, but I'm the first to admit that I'm totally nonawesome.   :P  I don't kill kittens, but I'm definitely nonawesome.

Hmm...I've got all my custom hair properly binned too (and they're only about a dozen or so), but I cannot for the life of me remember who created them!!! I only remember two made by

...

(black out follows)

Mimewhite! Got him! They're both very long (one straight, one curly), quite unbending, non-animating, but I kinda like them. Oh, uh...and I didn't bother with deleting the excess textures. Too bored! But I can still share if anyone's interested. Oh, for some strange reason the name BigBadShar popped up in my brain. I guess I'm using a couple of his meshes too (something called halfuphalfdown tries to grab my attention now). Only (?!?) drawback is, all these files are at home, and I have to remember somehow to load them into my flash stick and bring them to the Uni.

So, Motoki, am I reading the tutorial right on the datgen? To bin the hair clothes I can just click and drag the texture (which it gives previews for so that is awesome) to the approriate hairbin?

I forgot to mention that for most of the files, I also have the SimPE .bak file that includes the greys...  I didn't keep most of the grey ones because I figured that most of the styles were to "fussy" for elders.  I know that I sure no longer want to "fuss" with my hair...  :D

Yes, that's pretty much it. It's pretty easy. Technically, you're supposed to also do the whole family business, but the hair will still be binned and work without doing it.

Oh, I already did (some of) those.  I'd be up for sending them out if anyone wants them.  I lot-binned my entire hair collection about 8 months ago and also made sure all the ages matched in colour (i.e. blond toddler hair with blond adult hair).  However, I've been meaning to remove all the redundant bits for a while - in fact, I did it before I learned you could just just miss out some of the ages altogether.  But I did the same with all my skintones and eyes at the same time and I'm reluctant to start on a major new fiddle.

Yeah it's the family thing I don't get. Does that affect genetics? Not sure.

And can you add genetic information for eyes and skin on datgen, or is that just SimPe?

Not as far as I know - it just means when you decide to try the red style instead of the black, the sim is still wearing it when you switch bins.

Ooooh so instead of it flipping to some funky other mesh it keeps the same hairstyle?

So I just have to family the meshes once (does it matter what category?) and then drag the different textures to the proper hair bin?

Yup


Yup

at least I think you've got the right thing - mmm, let's see if I can remember.  I think you simply select all the hairs by putting a tick in their boxes and then do the family thing.  IIRC, you need to generate/change the mmm-whatsitcalled-code (GUID?) for each new family.  Though that might have been earlier versions of DatGen - I do it just to make sure.

Sweet. Now I just need to see if I can find the tutorial to add genetic info for skins and eye color. (If you can in datgen, otherwise, I'll still have to get SimPe  ::) )

I think DatGen was going to do geneticising for eyes and skins but the project stopped before that was done.  I use SimPE for that.

I confess to being lazy with my fro and not doing the family. I suppose I should someday. It works just fine though other than, as mentioned, when you change the haircolors by default it switches to another mesh instead of staying on the afro.

Mmkay so I need both. No biggie. SimPe gets a lil complicated.

*sighs* I still need to purge my custom content of eye colors I won't use. I like that people don't like wasting your time by only uploading one eye color, but sometimes I don't NEED another set of frakking blue!  :P

At least I don't have as many skintones as I used to.  :)

Which reminds me, I always wondered if deleting things in game deletes them from my pc as well or does it just disable it? I never bothered to test it. Because cleaninstaller takes to long to sipher through for big delete jobs.

Deleting stuff in-game deletes it totally. I don't think it's even in your recycle bin after that, it's *gone.*

I've always suspected it's one of the causes of empty package files (deleting stuff in game) but have never been able to prove it. But yep, it's gone as in really really gone when you delete it that way. I don't think it deletes meshes though IIRC. And unless they changed it, you can't delete from the mirror or clothing rack either.

Personally, I hate deleting in the CAS it's a real pain.  >:(

It doesn't delete meshes.  And the last time I tried deleting from CAS, it took way too long for it to do it's thing before I could delete the next one.  I decided to just make a note and delete all of them at once, including the mesh, from Windows.  The good thing was that I had saved each style in its own folder with the picture, so I knew which one. :)

I am interested in Louis' hair binned.  I was thinking about attacking his next, but I wasn't too eager to do it just yet.

See my problem is I have too much stuff  ::) So unless I can see what I am deleting I don't wanna mess with it.

Oh I agree 100%. I have too much junk that I don't want but it takes WAY too much time and hassle to get rid of it so I just put up with the long loading time to start the game and go grab a cup of coffee or start some wash or something.

I'm not a big fan of paying for custom content if you've read my posts ;) but I'd even pay for a decent program that makes managing custom content and organizing and deleting files easier to deal with.

I have simscleaninstaller, but it makes organizer your downloads into folders moot because it lists everything in the folders when you try to look at your "loose" stuff.

Oh well, my downloads folder is much better now since I got OFB. The 20 minute loading time made me get rid of everything and be a lil bit more discriminate when downloading. So I need to get on all these catagorizing before I get nuts with it again.  ::)

If you clear the "recursive" check box it won't show everything in subfolders :)

*face bumps*  :-[ Well, slap me like a red headed step child. I didn't know.

Bah stupid datgen keeps freezing on the last file to scan.  >:( *growls* Fifth time I've tried it too.

It did the same thing to me too.  I thought it was the file, and I deleted it.  But It kept freezing on the one before that, and before that...I finally gave up figuring it was a bug in Datgen.  :(

Oh well, I'll just start start on my skintones in SimPe.  :P

I forget but I thought I had to restart every time after I did one. Also, I think the beta version is newer than the last regular one.

It's buggy but still a lot more user friendly than SimPE so I just deal with it, but if SimPE works better for you guys then go for it.

I just couldn't get datgen to open the files if I tried to scan them. I don't know enough about the names of the hair files to manually open them. I am tew duhmB.  :(

I would use it if I could get it to work.  How are you getting it to work, Motoki?

Hmmm... I just got all my eye colors properly geneticized. Trying to do my skin tones as it's....not set up the way the faq on Syera's thread. So confused now... The faq on her thread says to select "Texture Overlay XML" and then alter the genetic line from 0 (I am assuming) to something between .05 to .90 but there is not an option to select texture overlay xml on the skintone files like there was for eye colors.

So I just want to make sure I am reading SimPe right, I think the OFB verison changed things up a bit. To alter genetics on skintone it looks like I have to do:

Open file > Skintone XML > Skintone XML > Change the genetic line of "0" to the new value I want

I just want to be sure before fubar'ing everything. So afraid of messing things up!




((cross-posted to Syera's thread in Peasantry))

Can I pls get a link too if its done? Thanks :D

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just make a backup copy of the file before you make changes to it and worst case scenario you can always delete the new file and go back to the original one.

Rainbow: I don't recall how I got datgen to work, I just sort of did. Haven't messed with it in a while. I think if I remember I could do one hair at a time but if I tried to do another without restarting datgen it would freeze or some such thing.

Yeah - I think it was to do with file size sometimes.  Some of those hair files are really big and DatGen seemed to choke on them.  Though this was not always the case - it did some large files without complaint but all the ones it wouldn't do (without a fiddle) were big files.  I ended up doing all the hairs/families it would do easily first and then doing the rest one by one - restarting the programme between each take.  A bit of a PITA but I got them all working eventually.  It is a lot more straightforward than the SimPE method though you could always fall back on that if you get stuck.  I used the most up-to-date debug version of DatGen too - not version 7.13 but the debug of that (I think).  It worked where the latest official version didn't.

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

I tried downloading the debug version last night and it managed to load all the files up, but when I went to the category editor nothing was in the list of files to edit and hitting "search" caused it to have a crictical error and shut down. *sighs*  ::) I'll try again tonight, but it looks like I'm stuck trying to figure out SimPe.

Jelendra -

If you know which files are your hair files, try moving everything else out of the download folder before running DatGen.  I think the critical error comes from it having to scan so many files - once I isolated the hair files as the ONLY thing to look at in the search, it ran for me.

As for the list of pre-binned....I have most of Lyran's hair binned as well as most of NeptuneSuzy's.  I'd be happy to put them up somewhere to download if we started a list.

I tried that when it was freezing on the official release. I haven't tried since getting the debug. That was actually how I genetic'ed all my eye colors. I created three new folders: Dom, Rec, Hyper and went through cleaninstaller (because it has thumbnails) and moved them into the apporiate folder. Then I went to SimPe and opened each folder and went through and added the genetic trait. Went much quicker than loading up the thumbnail in SimPe. Once I was done just moved everything back into it's original folder. Opened up the game and tested and it worked beautifully, my violet eyes are no longer dominant over brown.  8)

I just haven't gotten the skintones done yet because the new layout of SimPe doesn't match Syera's instructions. So I don't want to fiddle until I know I got it figured out.

It might work, then...mine froze on the official release too, but separating it out worked for the debug.  Of course, this might be because I have the slowest computer ever.

I will fiddle with it tonight, I got inspired to make a Revan Sim while fiddling with SimPe.

If y'all need a place to exchange files, feel free to use my place: http://klaatu.dyndns.org/Uploads/

Just upload what you want there, then tell others here the link to the file you uploaded so they can download it. Please keep it related to Sims2, if you don't mind. I can't do any modding myself, so this is about the only way I can contribute.

If we need more organization later, that can probably be accomplished without too much trouble.

HTH

I replied to your question about gene fixing skintones in the other thread

I finally got Datgen to work.

Sleepycat-

I had the debug version, and before I started up datgen- I used cleaninstaller and went through all my hair files and seperated them into new folders. Once I was done with that I took everything else out of my downloads folder and opened up datgen. Loaded up the files no problem and the hair category editor worked like a dream.

I got all my files binned and I only messed up one. I threw a blond in the brown bin on accident. Other than that, it was pazaak.  :D

Oh, that reminds me, I did that to one of the XMSims hair colours - thanks for reminding me!  :)  I've been waiting for the release of SimPE to fix it (although now I have to find the right place to do it all over again  :P)

My mess up was a Xmsims one too!  :o Was is the dark blonde hair version of the hair my avatar is wearing? Because if it was.... that's creepy.  :-X

Heh, no it was the platinum blonde version of the hair in your avatar. That is kinda weird.

Very, very weird. *listens for Twilight Zone Music* I think we're okay though. *looks under her desk for gremlins*

Heh, see I told you. Once you get the damned thing working it's a hell of alot easier than SimPE. Just drag and drop to the right color pretty much.

It's just temperamental as hell starting up.  ::) Just so much easier than editing lines and lines of code in SimPe.

I have a place you can store binned stuff...uh with permission of course...(its called Uploader - at the top but you have to be registered - sorry)

its in my profile - the limit is 1mb per upload though. I guess if that is too small I could fix it

Yay, nectere has a forum!  Whaddya want to bet there's no smilies at all?  :P

Definitely going to start uploading my sorted hair as soon as I remove the excess ages.  :)

Another mesh, glad they are making more curly hair but this looks like a fuzzy rat.  :P I think Motoki is right about them showing up for sims with the golden badge.

Wow! Those textures really are Maxis made... (I just compared them)

The lifo's can be found in The Sims Open For Business\TSData\Res\3D\Sims08.package

afhairlonglayer and amhaircurly are the names.

They don't show up with the golden badge, I just tried it.

Yes, I checked too. They don't even have a property set made for them just the meshes and textures so it looks like they were half finished. I'm not sure if they abandoned them due to some problems or maybe time constraints or what. Perhaps they were intended for the gold badge but it definitely isn't in the game to work that way.

I do wish Sims Connection would have set these up properly though. If these are Maxis hairs they need to be in the right color bin. And if they didn't alter the textures, and it doesn't look as though they did, then they need merely to reference the texture. Packaging the files with the textures makes it unnecessarily bloated and large and of course they also left the child and toddler ages in there and you get 4 copies of the grey hair for elders. What a sloppy mess!