Binned hair - once again

[Bluescreen]

I've recently started to correctly bin my downloaded custom hair (Peggy, xmsims, seomi etc.) and thought about sharing it so that others don't have to do again what I have already done.

There was a thread some time ago discussing the possibility of sharing binned hair, but that thread is abandoned and had no visible result.

So I want to ask if anyone's interested in sharing binned hair!? Or maybe setting up a suitable forum or whatever.

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Bluescreen

[BlueSoup]

I'd be interested.

Set it up and I'll be there with bells on. I have too many projects to take on something like this myself.

[cwykes]

Any chance the original creators might host it on their sites?  they ought to be glad to have it....  On the other hand...... they might not like it if someone put another version of their hair up for download on another site - especially if any of it is "pay" hair.  I have some space on my site at the moment - I just hesitate to offer it, if I'm likely to be public enemy number 1 of all the Sims2 hair creators!  If you're serious about the project, I think you have to talk to the hair creators before you start.  Easier to get them onside in principle, before you start messing with their stuff and upsetting them.  The other way to handle it is to talk about it all here and swap files via e-mail so that it's never actually online. 

Anyway I couldn't run a forum - putting files up for download like the directors cut I could manage. 

PS I tried binning some hair and gave up - too slow and I didn't understand what I was doing, but I'd be glad to use other people's.

[Ness]

cwykes, have you tried using the hair binning tool for simpe?  It's dead easy and once you get the hang of things is also really, really quick.  Of course, I did mess a few up when I first started, but it's no hassle at all now.

[Bluescreen]

Of course I could wait until the holy creators start rebinning their hair, which maybe never happens... or I could just do it myself and share it with others who also don't wanna wait 'til the cows come home.

You know, many of us are already rebinning the stuff (OMG - even without permission from the creators!), wasting time by repeating what others have done already for themselves, so why not share it?

I would be glad if any creator steps by saying "don't waste your time, I have rebinned my hair!". Until then I do it my way...

[idtaminger]

I second the use of the binning tool. The thing w/ sharing binning is that pple have different ways they'd prefer to bin, and while I wanted things binned before, now I give an inward cheer if something's NOT binned b/c then I can do it myself w/ the binning tool. Binned things give me extra work b/c it's almost never binned the way I want.

And really, the binning tool's so very easy, and does everything the RIGHT way (although that does kinda work against me, at times).

[Gwill]

I also re-bin all hairs I download, to make sure they are binned the way I like.
I'm weird about hair downloads, and even if it seems like the original creator has done it exactly the way I want, I still do the job over just to make sure.
My current hair peeve is creators who don't do grey recolours of their hair.  I demand grey haired elders.  If they at least did a white recolour as custom hair it would take me a second to fix the problem, but if they don't I have to go about bodyshop, and that makes me really annoyed.

[miros]

My peeve with the binning tool is that you have to pick out all the hairs for a set at once, which causes problems with the creators that make blond and dirty blond and platinum or light brown and dark brown.  You have to go in and monkey with the file names by hand. 

I'd like an option to not tamper with the file names; just fix them up inside!

[jrd]

Don't forget, if you're binning hair, to also set hats as hats...
Flags = 0A.

And remove the toddler, child, teen hairs if the creator has neglected to use unique meshes. Nobody wants 20 quazillion identical hairstyles.

Don't know if Theo's tool can do this, it is nonfunctional in the current development version of SimPE.

[jrd]

Peggy hair 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 26 binned and hatted:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WA462X4X

7.35 MB. Not single-packaged.

[Gwill]

Don't forget, if you're binning hair, to also set hats as hats...
Flags = 0A.

And remove the toddler, child, teen hairs if the creator has neglected to use unique meshes. Nobody wants 20 quazillion identical hairstyles.

Don't know if Theo's tool can do this, it is nonfunctional in the current development version of SimPE.

Not to mention removing all unused textures!  Those toddler textures really pile up in your download folder, even if they are disabled.

[BlueSoup]

lol it sounds like I want Gwill's hairs - I've been too lazy to go any further than just putting them in the right bin.

[Bluescreen]

I also haven't removed any unused textures yet. I'm happy enough that the hair appears in the right color bin now.

@Jordi:
thanks for you files.

I have set up a small forum (see: http://zamara.funpic.de. There I will post links to my binned hair (mostly uploaded by rapidshare and/or megaupload). My board is "invitation only", i.e. anyone who wants to particpate has to PM me here or post in the appropriate public forum to get the registration code.  *being just a little paranoid*

[Daria]

If you've modified the file to be binned correctly, will it just overwrite the previous version or does it get a new filename?  Just wondering if I'd end up with double the hair.

[jrd]

With one exception, it should just overwrite previous versions. I did change the filename of one (the 15?) mesh, since it was named differently than all its hairtones and did not sort right.

[Daria]

Thanks heaps! 

[Bluescreen]

Some of my rebinned hair got new names when I used Theo's Color Binning Tool first. But I always kept the filenumber to identify the matching mesh (like changing peggy008_8765.package to peggy008_red.package, which belongs to the peggy008_mesh.package). So you better check your downloads before adding my hair.

[croiduire]

With one exception, it should just overwrite previous versions. I did change the filename of one (the 15?) mesh, since it was named differently than all its hairtones and did not sort right.

I installed your binned hair and it made one of the styles I was using disappear. Is there a way to find and reactivate the one that's gone missing?

[Theo]

Did it disappear from the catalog, or it was a sim that became bald?

When it disappears from the catalog, it can be a conflict with duplicate packages that have different file names.

[Gwill]

When you bin hairs together with the colour binning tool it changes the GUIDs, so they all belong to the same family (the game understands that the hairs different colours of the same hair), so ig you were using the styles already and re-binned them together sims will go bald.

[jrd]

I don't remember changing the GUID of any hairstyle, but I did flag them as hats where applicable. If your Sim was using one of the hat hairs before he'll become bald, as the game is not smart enough to realize hat hair with GUID foo is the same as hair with GUID foo.

Now that SimPE is final I plan to re-do them with theo's tool (if it works again) and merge them some, I edited by hand before.

[croiduire]

Actually, the game kindly gave her one of the base game hairdos (the longish, center part, smooth one), but when I went to the catalog to get her usual style, it was gone. It was a soft, wispy, mid-length style that showed up under the correct color, no hat. I figured something had to have overwritten. I was hoping there was a way to find the conflict and fix it, but I have no idea how.

[Gwill]

I don't remember changing the GUID of any hairstyle, but I did flag them as hats where applicable.

If you bin all 4 (or 5 with grey, 6 if you include custom) shades at once in Theo's tool it matches the guid automatically.  That's so that they can share one grey texture.

[Theo]

That's right, even when binning the packages manually one must also set the "family" property across the 4-6 packages.

A consistent "family" guid is what keeps the mesh selected when you change the color in the catalog.

The binning tool just picks the family guid from the first package to be loaded, and applies it to the remaining packages. The guid's of the other packages are then left unused.

Edit:
Btw, version 0.2.28.3 of the binning tool was a bit rotten, so you better get the new version

[jrd]

I know how to properly bin hair =p
At the time there was no proper tool that worked with SimPE though.

Also, Peggy (like most hair creators) has multiple recolours for hair, and Theo's tool only allows you to pick one package per colour.