Any Decent Custom Hair?

[SciBirg]

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.

[ZephyrZodiac]

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

[skandelouslala]

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.

[ZephyrZodiac]

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!

[skandelouslala]

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.

[rohina]

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.

[ZephyrZodiac]

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.

[Motoki]

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.

[ZephyrZodiac]

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!

[Hairfish]

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. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

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

[speedreader]

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.

[Motoki]

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.

[ZephyrZodiac]

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!

[BlueSoup]

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.

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?

[ZephyrZodiac]

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!

[Brynne]

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... 

[Motoki]

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 ) 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.

[Brynne]

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.

[Ness]

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.

[ZephyrZodiac]

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.

[Ness]

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!

[ZephyrZodiac]

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.....)

[idtaminger]

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.

[MokeyHokey]

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.

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.   Anyway, the (plagiarized) tutorial is here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1204.msg42615#msg42615