Removing or hiding lifestages from custom hairstyles

[ZephyrZodiac]

It was really those Maxis custom hairs that made me wonder - all my other custom hair when I've changed turn ons to include it have shown a difference, but not the Maxis ones.  (At least, not that I've been able to tell.)

But at least, if in other cases the game takes the current hair whether custom or not, then that's useful as I often forget when I've dished out the custom hair what the sim had originally!

[Swiftgold]

I've just been removing the property sets for the ones that don't have custom style for the other ages when I sort them, and removing any spare textures. Hopefully it hasn't broken anything, but it works just fine in-game. It's so nice to go through my toddler/child styles and not have any duplicates! I can't recolor anything I've done that to, but eh, if I really wanted to I could get a fresh copy and recolor that...

[Renatus]

I've just been removing the property sets for the ones that don't have custom style for the other ages when I sort them, and removing any spare textures. Hopefully it hasn't broken anything, but it works just fine in-game. It's so nice to go through my toddler/child styles and not have any duplicates! I can't recolor anything I've done that to, but eh, if I really wanted to I could get a fresh copy and recolor that...

I've found that doing that is only a problem if you want to upload a sim with that hair to the exchange. It absolutely will not take a hair changed in this manner.

Why couldn't you recolour it? I had a hair I did that to  that, because of the exchange problem, I had to export and re-import. It gave it the other textures back but otherwise didn't change anything or cause any problems that I could tell.

[jrd]

I suppose if you wanted to change the hair from custom to genetic, you would need all those toddler and grey hair files.

If you've correctly binned it, you don't need them. That's the point!

As far as I understand it there are six bins:
Genetics:
-0x00000001 black hair
-0x00000002 brown hair
-0x00000003 blond(e) hair
-0x00000004 red hair
-0x00000005 grey hair (elders only)
-0x00000006 custom (special)

Any hair sorted in bins 1-4 will behave like Maxis default hair: if a CAS Sim has the blonde Jeanette Biedermann hair for example this Sim will pass on the blonde hair gene, not the 'Jeanette Biedermann hair' gene. Thus if a haircolour lacks files for certain ages, a random other haircolour is chosen.

Nongenetic custom hair indeed does require styles for all ages. This hair does not pass on a haircolour gene, but a hairstyle gene.

The 0x00000006 bin appears to function slightly different than other custom (non-genetic) hair, but I'm not really certain yet *how*. Investigation is ongoing. Perhaps this bin only shows while changing appearance, not in CAS, and is thus never genetic?

One huge advantage of properly binning hair is that newly generated townies etc. will be able to use them.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Yes, it would have been a good move if the whole hairstyle thing had been coded so that, if you stuck to the original four colours, they would be genetic, but blue or purple recolours would be custom!  And the custom bin wouldn't get so enormous!

[RainbowTigress]

People aren't born with pink, blue, or purple hair, so they would have to be dyed later in life to get that color.  To me, that's what custom haircolor should be, any color that isn't "natural," which in Sims is black, brown, blonde, or red.  But with the new hair meshes, these are all showing up under Custom regardless of whether they are one of those four.  So I am happy to know now how to sort them so they show in the proper bins.  Then I don't have to change turn ons if I change hairstyles to a new mesh and I don't have to go hunting through the Custom bin.  If I take a little time to do it when I download a new one, I think it will be worth it.  It's just all those other ones I've already downloaded that are going to take some time to go through.   

[ZephyrZodiac]

I know!......What would be a real help would be a list of downloaded hair that had already been edited, but i suppose there's actually very little out there.  I know I've downloaded quite a lot of hari recently, and none of it has appeared as a default.

[Swiftgold]

I've just been removing the property sets for the ones that don't have custom style for the other ages when I sort them, and removing any spare textures. Hopefully it hasn't broken anything, but it works just fine in-game. It's so nice to go through my toddler/child styles and not have any duplicates! I can't recolor anything I've done that to, but eh, if I really wanted to I could get a fresh copy and recolor that...

I've found that doing that is only a problem if you want to upload a sim with that hair to the exchange. It absolutely will not take a hair changed in this manner.

Why couldn't you recolour it? I had a hair I did that to  that, because of the exchange problem, I had to export and re-import. It gave it the other textures back but otherwise didn't change anything or cause any problems that I could tell.

When I've tried recoloring anything, actually, if there was a hair showing in Bodyshop with some of the colors removed, even if it wasn't the one I was trying to recolor, it seemed to mess the whole thing up. Or at least I think that's the culprit - I haven't figured it out otherwise. I would try to export a hairstyle to recolor, and it would actually end up exporting a totally different one, usually the next one in the list with all the sets intact. It was screwing me up before I started fixing the hair myself because there are some custom styles that come with property sets already removed - SanMoo's Femininity and the one that is on the SimBrynne avatar, off the top of my head, are two.

I think it's because there aren't associated styles for all the age groups, so when it gets to where it shows you how it looks for all the ages and you can refresh to tweak, etc., it can't show those and so it barfs. I get around it by taking out all the other hairstyles when I want to recolor one that I haven't taken property sets out of, which has the added bonus of loading Bodyshop faster.

[RainbowTigress]

I know!......What would be a real help would be a list of downloaded hair that had already been edited, but i suppose there's actually very little out there.  I know I've downloaded quite a lot of hari recently, and none of it has appeared as a default.

Melodie9 at MTS2 has some toddler hair she's made that she updated so that it shows in the correct color bin.  She is the first one I've seen to do that.  I think the creators are just learning how to do this, so maybe more and more will start doing it now.

[Renatus]

Oh, okay, I didn't realize that you were recolouring custom mesh hair. I had recoloured hair that used a Maxis mesh; no wonder I didn't have any problems. I can see why Bodyshop would barf on a custom mesh, it wouldn't know what the hell to put in the missing age groups.

[cheriem]

The newer hair from WDS (Well Dressed Sims) is binned properly.  But it's only been that way for the past 3/4 months?  I don't remember it being binned properly before then.  So I guess my point is that it's catching on now that people (creators) know how to do this.  I can find hair styles listed as properly binned now, which makes me very happy.

[RainbowTigress]

I can find hair styles listed as properly binned now, which makes me very happy.

Me too! 

I downloaded some hair styles that I had not gotten the mesh to, although I didn't realize it.  It was showing up in BodyShop as the straight black hairstyle, and when I tried to click on it, I was confused at first before I realized it was kicking me back to the start of the black hair bin.  I realized I didn't have the right mesh, so I went and got it, and it showed up properly then.  Maybe the same thing was happening to Swiftgold when she said it would mess up on her?  I also noticed that after I got the correct mesh, the name shows up on mouseover, and the hair would show up properly when I'd click on them, but the preview pictures are still showing the straight black hair.  Any idea how to get it to update?

[pioupiou]

I also noticed that after I got the correct mesh, the name shows up on mouseover, and the hair would show up properly when I'd click on them, but the preview pictures are still showing the straight black hair.  Any idea how to get it to update?

crtl+right click on the picture : works in CAS and in the mirror, and for clothes as well.

[Swiftgold]

I also noticed that after I got the correct mesh, the name shows up on mouseover, and the hair would show up properly when I'd click on them, but the preview pictures are still showing the straight black hair.  Any idea how to get it to update?

crtl+right click on the picture : works in CAS and in the mirror, and for clothes as well.

Oooh, good to know. I had that happen with the last batch of hair - it was turning up straight and I was confused as to why even the adult style was "to be removed". *snort* I think my problem did have to do with missing custom hair property sets, though, but that's only a problem with recolors, and fixed easily enough by using an intact .package, if one exists...

[RainbowTigress]

I also noticed that after I got the correct mesh, the name shows up on mouseover, and the hair would show up properly when I'd click on them, but the preview pictures are still showing the straight black hair.  Any idea how to get it to update?

crtl+right click on the picture : works in CAS and in the mirror, and for clothes as well.

Thank you, it works perfectly!  I never knew that.  I'm going to be fixing all those clothes now that I downloaded that show up with the red top and white capri pants!

BTW, do you know if this works in BodyShop also, or just in the game?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, there are a lot of useful tips here!  I've got two Victorian dresses that are showing as the Capri pants so at least I now know what to do!  And I'd searched and searched to find an outfit by Biene that wasn't historical!

[pioupiou]

BTW, do you know if this works in BodyShop also, or just in the game?

I think it doesn't work in bodyshop but it's been a while since I try so I can be wrong.