Binned hair sharing

[Motoki]

I did start a thread http://ambertation.de/simpeforum/viewtopic.php?t=2875

And Dewshine is a girl, not a guy.

[Jysudo]

Opps, gender mistake again lol

Ok, I shall go and bug him when I finally register.

ETA: Motoki, I presume you are female, right? 

[BlueSoup]

Jysudo - Motoki is a male. 

[Motoki]

lol Yup I am male last time I checked.

[Jysudo]

OMG!!! Motoki is male! 
Jeez! I am sooo baad at guessing genders!

[DrBeast]

OMG!!! Motoki is male! 
Jeez! I am sooo baad at guessing genders!

Yah, happens to the best of us!
Oh, and Brynne is a GIRL! 

[pinhead]

since i don't have good arguments to convice you guys that is not good deleting things in a package  ,
i think that i can give a little tip about deleting textures without remove the functionally of the hair:

when you open the hair package, using SimPE go to "Material Definition" resource list, and go selecting the ages that
you like to change the texture to point into a maxis texture. When you select a txmt resource, go to
filelist tab and there will be stored a name of the base maxis texture that was used to create the recolor. Copy
this name (ctrl+c or select the name and right click/copy). Now in Properties Tab, find this line: "stdMatBaseTextureName" and
paste the name that you copy in "filelist" tab into the "VALUE" field of this line(replacing the name of the texture used in this package) and now the hair will use
the maxis texture for this age. Repeat this to all ages that you like to change.

Important:

*some creators use a same exported hair to change colors and if you notice that the name in filelist is using "-black"
and you know that the hair that you are editing is from other color, just change the color name to the one that you are editing.(maxis use
these names to color textures: -black / -brown/ -blond / -red / -gray. This way you will not get wrong colors in the textures.

*is good to take a note of the textures names listed at "stdMatBaseTextureName" that you are editing. Is important to know what texture was used and you will be able
to delete from the package. But you need to look in other ages that you didn't changed to see if this texture isn't used anymore by other txmt, to delete the texture safety.
 
*make sure to make a backup of the original file first, of course. If you make a mistake you will not lose the file.

*is important keep the 3IDR files and Property Sets. If you delete them, this little tip is useless.

after i saw so many hairs out there with the functionaly broken, i stopped downloading hairs since months now. too much work to correct them.

[twistingsims]

Pinhead, I really appreciate that infomation about textures and deleting.  Wow that sure is a tedious task !!!  I thought just binning the hair in the appropriate colors was bad.   Okay so I downloaded a custom hair set in four colors, not maxis colors of course, and although the style is only changed for female adults and the rest just use the original maxis style and the creator has the whole six property sets included in the package and I want to delete any of the rest of the property sets, that could break the funtionality of the hair?

*is good to take a note of the textures names listed at "stdMatBaseTextureName" that you are editing. Is important to know what texture was used and you will be able to delete from the package. But you need to look in other ages that you didn't change to see if this texture isn't used anymore by other txmt, to delete the texture safely.

I looked at this particular hair in SimPE and the line at "stdMatBaseTextureName" for all textures in the Material Definition resource list goes like this:  pu = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0xe3f45a02]  cf = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0xb829564a],  tf = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0x50ee3d3f],  af = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0x50ee3d3f]  ef = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0xf69aa5b]  and:  yf = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0x50ee3d3f] . . .

So going by your quote there, the texture** can't be deleted for the yf and tf because it is the same as the af in regard to the Base Texture Name. But I can safely delete the pu, cf and ef because they have different Base Texture Names. Am I understanding that correctly?

**PS   And by texture do you mean just changing the BaseTextureName or deleting the PropertySets?


Thank you 

[idtaminger]

after i saw so many hairs out there with the functionaly broken, i stopped downloading hairs since months now. too much work to correct them.

I dunno. I've been deleting textures for a while and none of my hairs have acted up so far. I just never delete unless I'm 100% sure that the texture is not needed. Afterwards I generally just hide the age in the property sets, as opposed to outright deleting them. No issues that I know of have resulted from this.

There have been certain hairs where it's been hard to figure out which textures are which, though. The Material Def. info should be very helpful in this.

[Motoki]

Deleting the textures does seem to work okay for me as long as I delete the property set along with it. Deleting 3D ID References and Binary Indexes seems to cause things to act up though.

Getting hairs to use Maxis textures can be done, but it's really tedious and a pain in the ass to be honest. Though in cases where a creator changed a mesh without changing the texture at all it really should be done as it's much more efficient. For extra ages like toddler etc though, it's easier IMO just to delete the textures.

[Theo]

Deleting 3D ID References and Binary Indexes seems to cause things to act up though.

I'd hope to understand what these resources are really for, but their logic still eludes me.

Just one more pointer on the 3D ID Reference quirkiness, this one witnessed by myself:
http://ambertation.de/simpeforum/viewtopic.php?t=2883

[pinhead]

Pinhead, I really appreciate that infomation about textures and deleting.  Wow that sure is a tedious task !!!  I thought just binning the hair in the appropriate colors was bad.   Okay so I downloaded a custom hair set in four colors, not maxis colors of course, and although the style is only changed for female adults and the rest just use the original maxis style and the creator has the whole six property sets included in the package and I want to delete any of the rest of the property sets, that could break the funtionality of the hair?

if you delete property sets, will broke the functionality.

I looked at this particular hair in SimPE and the line at "stdMatBaseTextureName" for all textures in the Material Definition resource list goes like this:  pu = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0xe3f45a02]  cf = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0xb829564a],  tf = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0x50ee3d3f],  af = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0x50ee3d3f]  ef = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0xf69aa5b]  and:  yf = [##0x5f9ffd6c!0x50ee3d3f] . . .

So going by your quote there, the texture** can't be deleted for the yf and tf because it is the same as the af in regard to the Base Texture Name. But I can safely delete the pu, cf and ef because they have different Base Texture Names. Am I understanding that correctly?

yes. Those ##groupID!hash  is the name of a TXTR (texture Image) that is inside your package. If you change like i said to use the name stored at Material Definition's Filelist tab, you can
delete those for pu (toddler unisex), cf (child female) and ef (elder female) TXTRs (Texture Images) stored at this package.

**PS   And by texture do you mean just changing the BaseTextureName or deleting the PropertySets?

that is the TXTR (Texture Image). isn't the property set. Like i said, you must need to keep the property sets in the package.
If you like to hide the age that you changed pointing to a maxis texture, in the property set
look at "flags (dtUInteger)" and change there to 0x00000009. This way will not show in the bin, the thumbnail will be hidden.

Thank you 

thank you! i'm glad that someone is interested.

[pinhead]

I dunno. I've been deleting textures for a while and none of my hairs have acted up so far. I just never delete unless I'm 100% sure that the texture is not needed. Afterwards I generally just hide the age in the property sets, as opposed to outright deleting them. No issues that I know of have resulted from this.

There have been certain hairs where it's been hard to figure out which textures are which, though. The Material Def. info should be very helpful in this.

Like i said, after people starting to delete property sets and 3IDR, is not possible anymore to just hide the ages in the property set. The last ones that i got
came with just 3 PSETs (adult, ya and elder). Sincerally, i can't enjoy something made incorrectly just to make the package small.

anyway, since you said that you are not getting weird things deleting the texture, maybe that filelist name in Material Definition is something like a Fallback. If
the texture setted at "StdMatBaseTextureName" field is not found, then the game will use that filelist to call a texture.. but i'm not sure about this.

[pinhead]

I'd hope to understand what these resources are really for, but their logic still eludes me.

the instance ID is the key that link property set to the specific 3IDR and BINX.

to be more especific:

property set has information and limitation to ages, skins, genders,... but also has information about the mesh
and the groups that is been used in the mesh. Also, with those informations, is stored the position of the
line that the Material Definition will be found in the linked 3IDR (by Instance ID).

BINX looks like a resource that inform how to render and store the thumbnail in the catalog. i'm not 100% sure.
anyway, there will be stored the lines of the mesh resource found in the 3IDR. I don't know exactly the functions
of each property of BINX but i know some and how to make it work correctly if i add a group to a mesh. what i
can say is:
sortindex = is the position of the thumbnail in the catalog.
stringindex = is the line of the TEXT resource that will be show when you mouse over a thumbnail.
iconidx = i'm not sure but i think that is the number of lines that the mesh resource will be rendered in the thumbnail. (a mesh
with just one Material Definition has a value 3 in this field (line one CRES, line 2 SHP and line 3 TXMT).
stringsetidx = not sure, but is the next line of 3IDR after all mesh resources are setted in iconidx (UIDATA?)
binidx = not sure also, but is the next line of 3IDR after stringsetidx (TxtList?)
objectidx = not sure again, but is the next line of 3IDR after binidx (Collection?)

those are the only thing that i know about those resources.

[Motoki]

Does it really matter if you delete a child property set for an adult hair though? No sim will age back to a child unless you use a cheat. And if the hair is set up with the proper Maxis genetic colors then no baby sims will be born with the hair because they will get the girl 'Meg' hair or the boy short afro hair. Basically, you will only get the hair by using the mirror on an adult and then the adult can age to elder and that's it.

[pinhead]

hmm.. well i got a sim with custom hair (binned to use maxis genetics) when changed to toddler. but in the last times that i played i didn't had new childrens
in my neighborhood. So, i don't know how is now.

anyway, you made me think... to a hair that isn't binned with maxis colors, for sure you will get something strange in the game, since the hair is
custom and is stored at the sim DNA (custom and unique "hairtone" number).

But a sim will get a maxis hairtone that will be random from that
hairtone ( a lot of different meshes) if the hair is binned. So, will be random at the family string to that hairtone and only to the toddler ages that are found..
and no problems (i think). just never a sim will born with this hair style.

but now i'm curious if my suspicious about the not binned hair and deleting resources with a sim that is using the custom hairtone in his DNA... not sure what will cause..
maybe a fallback to push to a maxis hairtone? anyway, how the game knows what color was used? it's a unique hairtone... maybe a wrong fallback with a mother with black hair, the father with red hair and their kid with brown or blond hair... lol

[Motoki]

You had a kid born with custom hair that was put in the proper Maxis bins? That's odd. All I ever get with a sim with binned hair Maxis or otherwise is the Meg hair for girls and short afro for boys. Always have. Now un-binned custom hair when they have kids the kids seem to get the custom hair and I agree deleting the property sets could cause problems there. Or maybe Maxis built in a fall back? Like a lot of custom hairs don't have a male version but if a boy child gets that hair from the mother it falls back to a Maxis hair.

[pinhead]

yeah. i think that you are right. maybe will call the DNA from the other parent
hmm.. well, when i had a custom hair binned to a child was when i
played university (before NL came out) and was studing the categorizing thing..

and looks like that maxis changed something with DNA in OFB ( i think that was OFB that they changed, since the last time that i tried edit DNA was before NL came out also). If you change any properties in the dna will reflect directly when you enter
the lot with that sim. Never happened this to me before  after tried to edit the DNA fields. This is new to me.
Even the portrait will be refreshed!! that's good to change skintones

[RainbowTigress]

I think they may have changed this in NL, because I still haven't installed OFB yet, but I had to go through and correct all my sims recessive genetics because of what happened as discussed in the thread about sims being reset to CAS default DNA.  I had set one of my sims with a custom medium-dark skin to the second lightest tone by mistake.  When playing the game and my sim called him to visit, I did not recognize him!  He had the S2 skintone!  I didn't know it would automatically change their appearance.  I thought it would just alter the genetics that they passed on when reproducing.  Since then I have tried this with other sims, changing their eye and skin color by editing their DNA, and the results were immediately reflected in their appearance when loading the game.  This was a very interesting discovery for me.

I am finding this discussion of editing custom hair in SimPE very interesting but a little confusing.  Like some others here, I followed the tutorial on MTS2 for getting rid of unwanted ages in custom hair packages.  I also edited the hairtone so it would show up in the correct hair color bins.  I did this for several hairstyles, deleting the 3D thingie, Binary, Property, and Texture Image.  Like Motoki said, deleting the unwanted texture files greatly reduces the size of the file.  I am just very picky about having things neat and tidy (although you wouldn't know it to see my room ), and I wanted the extra unwanted stuff gone.  When I loaded up Body Shop, everything looked fine, and it looks fine in the game as well.  So I am still a bit confused about what problems could be caused by deleting unused property sets.  I don't really care about what style sims transition with, because I always use JM's clothing tool to change them on age transition anyway.  My male toddlers always get that kinky curly hair, and my female toddlers always get the short straight hair.  I use Melodie9's toddler hair, so I always change it to something different, and they grow up with that.  Before I started using her hairs, though, my toddlers always grew up to that horrible Meg hair, or the boys grew up wtih the same kinky curly hair.  I am so glad to have some variety in toddler hair now, but that's a different rant.  Basically, I am just wondering why some people have trouble after deleting property sets and others do not.

[Motoki]

I also had sims whose names I changed revert back to their original names after installing OFB. Kenny became Komei again etc. I don't even understand how it happened. I can't remember if I changed their names with the Insimenator in game or in SimPE but somehow the game must have retained their original names.

[Simsbaby]

Could someone please fix these hair styles?

Old textures for the pixie hair that female children grow into.
http://www.filegone.com/v5sn

Old textures for Ajay Loner's hair.
http://www.filegone.com/dl1s

[jrd]

Motoki: sounds like an issue I ran into with NL.

I play in the en_uk locale but for some reason the game decided that as of NL I'd be Yankified (en_us). This means that name strings were altered.

Easily registry fixed, but evidently a bug in the TS2 installer(s).

[twistingsims]

I hope u don't mind but I have another question, I was reading buffysmg81 from N99 who posted a tutorial from leave_me_anonymous at MTS2 with pictures to help with custom binning hair.  Now in that tutorial they also said this:

3. Click on each Property Set and find the line that says "Family". Change the value to "b52b9d28-7b62-4f41-bd88-fb382721db82" (no quotes) - just highlight what's already there and paste that over it. There will be about 5 or 6 Property Sets for each hairstyle and you need to do this for all of them.

So is number value for the Family value line a common number for every hair as this seems to say and is it necessary to change this too?  aaaahhhh!

[liegenschonheit]

Yes, you got it. Every colour/age of your binned hair has to have the same family value if you want them associated with one another. What this means is when you click from black to brown with that hairstyle selected, the style will stay the same but change to the brown colour. Make sense? It isn't precisely a necessary step to take if you don't want to, but it is if you want to remove duplicate grays or whatever.

What I usually do is load up the black colour and copy the family value, then paste it into every other colour. The whole process is faster and easier if you use cut and paste.

[twistingsims]

What I usually do is load up the black colour and copy the family value, then paste it into every other colour. The whole process is faster and easier if you use cut and paste.

. . . . .Cut and Paste is my friend  . . . . .