Tutorial: Re-categorizing clothing using SimPE ver. 0.46

[Frumph]

I think after the last few times i've downloaded undies that are in all categories i've finally snapped into wanting to knife in the back the creators who think that when they make something it needs to be in more than one sub category.

There are 6 different categories for teen-young adult-adult and elder:

Everday, Formal, Undies, PJ's, Athletic and Swimsuit

The problem again, is with creators not taking the time to pick a single category and sticking with it, so we as players have to take our time and fix it (if its worth it). To something more specific.

We're going to use two tools, SimPE ver. 0.46 or higher, and Sims2pack Clean Installer ver. 1.5.1.4

A. Make sure your games not running and startup Clean Installer. What we're going to do now is seperate your clothing from the rest of your downloads "temporarily" so that the processes dont take forever and a day to complete while using SimPE's scan folder function.

1. Uncheck the box that says "Preview images"
2. Choose directory downloads.

Clean installer will than start scanning your downloads folder and subsequent subfolders for all of your custom content in that directory structure. You can tell when its completed when the word "downloads" is no longer grey and the choose directory is able to be clicked again, but dont do that, its finished and now we can move on.

3. Click the grey bar that says "Type" .. This will sort the files into their different types so that we can find all the files we're looking for.
4. Move the slider down until you find the first type of file that is 'Clothing'.
5. Click that first clothing type file so that it is now highlighted.
6. Hold the shift key down and find the 'last' file that is of the type 'clothing'. Then click it.

What you've just done was highlighted all of the clothing type and now its ready to do something with it? .. wait, what? we're still in clean installer, .. again we're just going to move the clothing to its own subdirectory to save ourself a little time with the simpe processes.

7. Right click one of the highlighted clothing and it will give you some options, Enable Package, Disable Package, Remove Package and Move to, we're concerned with the Move To.
8. Click on the Move ->, than it opens up a subpanel and you than want to click on "New"
9. It will than ask for a new subfolder name and we're going to name it "RECAT", just so that we're following on the same page.

It will now move all those clothing file type that you block selected and put them into that folder named RECAT.

Cool, we've now seperated the clothing from the rest of all the other downloads, lets move onto the SimPE portion.

B. Load up SimPE, SimPE is a very very very useful tool in doing all sorts of things and well, this is the one we're going to focus on, scanning the folder RECAT with all the clothing in it, check out the thumbnails and recatagorize that clothing to appropriate places.

1. The 2nd option at the top is is "Tools" click that than move down to "Scan Folders", it will now open the scan folders plugin, this is going to be what we're primarily going to work with.
2. At the top, you'll see the words in a drop down box labelled "Download Folder" well thats all good in fine, but we moved the clothing into a subdirectory, so what we're going to do is click the drop down box until you see a "..." The "..." means to actually pick which folder we want to use.
3. When a new window appears asking you which folder to choose, find the one in the sims 2/downloads called RECAT the one we created earliar, highlight it, than choose OK.

Now, it will still say ... above in that drop down list, but just remember you chose the directory RECAT so just have faith that it knows that its there, .. it knows.

4. In the lower half of the scan folders plugin are 3 tabs, Scanner Settings, Operatives and Cache. Make sure that the tab Scanner Settings is chosen.
5. Choose these options and uncheck all the rest, Choose "Thumbnail Scanner" and "Clothing Scanner" Everything else again should be unchecked.
6. At that point when your ready, go ahead and click that word "Scan" in the upper right corner, OR the scan button.

This is going to take awhile, what its doing is reading or creating thumbnail preview images for each and every file that you have in the RECAT directory, .. remember that reason we used clean installer? well this is it. Because its having to do all the work in creating thumbnails for us to view it would be 3x maybe 10x longer in time if we had it do your entire downloads.

Seriously, dependant on how many custom content clothing you have, you might as well go watch a movie for a little while. Play with your children who miss you cause your sitting at your computer all day, or that pet that requires some attention and/or husband or wife. For me, so far 30 minutes have elapsed and its not even half done.

OKAY! Once its completed your folder scanner will update and you will see 5 columns of information, Filename, Enabled, Type, Ages and Categories.

7. Sort the list that appears by Categories, that is, go to the column that says catagories and click the word catagories at the top of that column, it will now display the entire list by catagories.

Just to get you familiar with the operations tab, click on the Operations tab in the lower half of your Folder Scanner, than scroll down that box until you see the portion designed for the "Clothing Scanner" You will now see set Ages: and set: Categories: and options for that, thats what you will be using at this point.

8. With the operations panel open and ready to set Categories, find the first file in your folder scanner that has multiple categories, .. usually at least for me it was one that showed "Undies/Swimsuit" click that file and now we can do an 'operation' on it.

Look at the name of the file, does it have the word swimsuit, or bikini thats a real big topoff on what it actually is.., in the lower right hand corner you'll see a nicer view of the thumbnail. Sometimes creators will put the acronym SW or UND or EVR or ATH etc to denote what the clothing is so use your better judgement, the trick is to at least try to get as close as you can to where the clothing should actually fit in.

9. In the operations menu, choose a single, most appropriate category that that article of clothing should fit into. In my case, it had the word "swimsuit" in the filename, so I uncheckmarked the "undies" box.
10. Click the word "set" in the word "set Categories:"

What this does it actually create a .bak fie of that file so you have a backup, AND it makes the changes that you did. Big warning though, it does NOT update your current scan, so what happens after you click Set is that it reappears as if you didnt make any changes, .. ignore that. It made the change but you didnt do a re-scan and well heck it'll take forever to do another re-scan so just move on to the next file.

And at this point, you've got the basic idea, .. head through all of those files that have multiple categories and choose one.

WITH the exception of NUDE clear clothing. I have clothing that is in multiple categories for a purpose, thats the nude clear clothing, so that when I create a sim if I want a particular say undies for him to just be nude instead of wearing undies, it will stay there. You dont need to change that one, just move on to the next. (file usually has the word "nude" in it).

C. Cleanup and checking time.

Now what we want to do after we've made all of our changes is do a rescan of the folder, (this time without thumbnail checking) and verify what we've done is done.

1. Move the lower left hand tab in the folder scanner over to the left to Scanner Settings, and uncheck mark the Thumbnail scanner, so that the only thing it has checked is Clothing Scanner.
2. Click the Scan Button, .. you will notice this doesnt take as long as before, quite fast actually.
3. Verify that Categories tab, click it, it sorts them all again and notice that the files you've edited will only have that single category you have chosen.
4. Your done with SimPE, go ahead and just close that program.
5. Load up Sims2pack Clean Installer again, its time to move the changed clothing back to the downloads main folder.
6. Uncheck the box labelled preview images AND uncheck mark the word box labelled Recursive.
7. Move the dropdown box down to the word "RECAT" instead of Downloads. Now it will start scanning that particular directory and you will notice that its all clothes.
8. Click the first file on the list, hold the shift key down and than click the last file on the list, *marking* them all, highlighting them all.
9. Right click one of them than choose Move To.

At this point you will notice that the actual directory Downloads isnt available, so we're going to have to "browse" for that upper directory to move the files back to it.

10. Choose browse, than search for your downloads directory than double click it open click OK.

It will now move all of your clothing files, back into your root downloads directory where they should be. As a bonus, you also now have .bak files /backups/ of all that you have done still inside the RECAT directory.

Go ahead, start your game up and notice how things are looking alot cleaner in your clothing and categories, sure you'll have one or two in the wrong places, but now you know how to edit those with SimPE and fix it yourself where you want it to be.

.. If you use the boolprop testingcheatsenabled true, and shift-n while choosing clothing, if you move your mouse over a piece of clothing you can actually find the filename of which that is than move on from there.

[nancyw41]

I keep all of my clothing, genetics, make-up, etc, in my Saved Sims folder. When I ran the clean installer, I noticed quite a few packages without a type. Some have the name, but others are just a lot of numbers and letters. What is your advice for this? Many of us really appreciate you taking the time to help us all out, especially with the new ep coming out very soon. Thank you.

[Frumph]

Most often the ones without a type are one of the following:

Mesh's
Complete Sim makeups
Sims Heads (put together)
Hacks

You basically just leave those alone

[nancyw41]

Thanks.

[fcc2]

Hey, thanks! This is a lot easier than editing the category string in the Property Set. :blink:

[daysies]

Wow, so detailed! Thanks frumph for another lovely step-by-step, easy to understand tutorial. I've moved it to the tutorials section for now. :)

[newgamer6]

Hi, was going to try my hand at creating, but cannot get to SimPE site it appears to be suspended. Is there any other way to attain the Modding Tool?

[Frumph]

Quaxi is dealing with the issue's at his site, just be patient and information of it being back up/where its at will be posted i'm sure

[newgamer6]

thanks, i hope they resolve the issue soon.

[ConradThe2nd]

Frumph you might want to add is, to make sure all your files in your RECAT folder arn't read-only, otherwise you will come across painful errors like this:

http://server2.uploadit.org/files/Underfly-error.jpg

Anyway thanks for describing how recataloging can be done, as I didn't have the slightest clue before then.

EDIT: Also ive noticed a lot of clothing, avaliable for Young Adults and Adults, just asking is it safe to change that also ?

[mainegal32]

Can you go in and change the availibility of the clothes the same way, like can you make the ones that are available for adults available for young adults? And I also noticed the pregnant option. Can you check that to make some of the clothes available for pregnant sims? Thank you so much for these wonderful tutorials, I'm all new to this and I have been able to follow right along with you with no problems. Thank you!

[ConradThe2nd]

Well I don't where I when wrong, cause as soon I finished recatagising, I put my clothing packages back into downloads, then started the game up, and it was crashing on me, if I click on CAS or even a house, just loads for about 2 lights, then crash to desktop.

So looked through my downloads folder, removed my recent changes from the date and time, they were all the modified package files from changes I made re-catagloging in SimPE. Everything was ok again, but I lost a lot of clothing.

I just put about 3 or 4 back-in, then reloaded game, and its was crashing again, as usual, so removed them and its ok. So I seems Ive corrupted 124 package files, all changes I made.

Luckily SimPE makes backups, but the odd thing there is the old RECAP folder I used before has 225 .bak's (backups), and there were only 124 package files that is casuing the problem. Im sure if its just 1 or 3 or 5 or 20, or all 124 corrupted causing my game to crash even I just add 1.

Anyway SimPE can seem to read these modified files ok, but the game somehow can't, will just crash if I put them or some into downloads.

:down:

[Frumph]

Well I don't where I when wrong, cause as soon I finished recatagising, I put my clothing packages back into downloads, then started the game up, and it was crashing on me, if I click on CAS or even a house, just loads for about 2 lights, then crash to desktop.

So looked through my downloads folder, removed my recent changes from the date and time, they were all the modified package files from changes I made re-catagloging in SimPE. Everything was ok again, but I lost a lot of clothing.

I just put about 3 or 4 back-in, then reloaded game, and its was crashing again, as usual, so removed them and its ok. So I seems Ive corrupted 124 package files, all changes I made.

Luckily SimPE makes backups, but the odd thing there is the old RECAP folder I used before has 225 .bak's (backups), and there were only 124 package files that is casuing the problem. Im sure if its just 1 or 3 or 5 or 20, or all 124 corrupted causing my game to crash even I just add 1.

Anyway SimPE can seem to read these modified files ok, but the game somehow can't, will just crash if I put them or some into downloads.

:down:

Thats a pretty odd issue actually and not one i'm familiar with, which version of SimPE are you using? .044?

[ConradThe2nd]

Yeah I was using latest version, but used the SimPE Classic.exe file as there are 2 of them in the folder. (The new-style SIMPE has graphic glitches on my machine)

I guess I can just restore all back-ups, and try again I suppose with the normal 0.44 SimPE.

[Frumph]

well there's no difference in the actual working-code in classic and new gui, just really the interface .. i used 0.46 and didnt have those problems at all .. not sure what they could be and best would be to post a new thread concerning it so that someone simPE technically smart could answer in the simpe area

[mainegal32]

Can you go in and change the availibility of the clothes the same way, like can you make the ones that are available for adults available for young adults? And I also noticed the pregnant option. Can you check that to make some of the clothes available for pregnant sims? Thank you so much for these wonderful tutorials, I'm all new to this and I have been able to follow right along with you with no problems. Thank you!

Are there answers to these questions already and I'm just not finding them? Is that why I'm not being answered? Or am I just not posting right? :blink:

[Frumph]

I just havent gotten to it yet, .. the program Datgen has a great Adult-YA and YA-Adult clothing changer..

the problem you will find though is if the adult clothing is made for a custom mesh, having it switch to YA will cause problems with the midrift section where it doesnt connect straight and you will get overlaps

if your comfortable with that, go for it.

As for pregnant clothes, you really need to create clothes for the pregnant mesh itself, you shouldnt just label something as pregnancy clothing, the reason being that its 1) another mesh entirely 2) it stretchs the image/clothing around so it doesnt and wont look right

best to just have pregnancy clothing made for pregnancy clothing

[mainegal32]

Thank you, glad I asked before I went and started clicking. lol Thanks again.

[momicajack]

Thanks for the tutorials. They are all helpful. Just thought I should let everyone know a mistake I made while doing this that caused a problem, that I thankfully was able to figure out and solve, in case someone else does the same thing.

I went through the process step by step and was going along and clicking and making sure most of my clothes were set to one category only, when somewhere along the way, without realizing it at the time, I accidently clicked on the "skin" category for one of my types of nude clothings (you know, the ones that make your sims nude all the time.) I of course was keeping those in all the clothing categories, but along the way I accidently checked the "skin" box in that particular file and saved it that way. When all was said and done and I finished all the steps, I went back into my game and discovered that my teen girls had ALL GREEN SEMI-TRANSPARENT BODIES :blink: (except for the head), no matter what skin I clicked on, with the exception of one or two custom skins. The adult and elder women had red and back bodies with normal heads. What was even weirder is that when I clicked on an all nude clothing to see the full skin, the body was red and black, but showed the texture of a full bathing suit (a Maxis made one) on it. I was pretty flustered trying to figure this out.
:confused:
I went back through the process again to scan my clothes in SimPe again and went through each one until I discovered that none of the others had the "skin" checked except one particular file. I took a chance, seeing as that was inconsistent with the rest of the files, and unchecked the "skin" box and reset that clothing file, finishing up the process again in the same manner as before. When I went back in to my CAS, it had worked! My sims were all normal skinned again!
:anime:
So, if any of you go through this process and then discover a strange looking colored skin in CAS that won't change no matter what you click on, remember me and my mistake and rescan your clothes, looking to see if the "skin" category is checked anywhere.

And so, the moral of the story is - don't checkmark the "skin" category box when re-categorizing your clothes. :D

Hope this helps.

[ConradThe2nd]

Just to let you know, I got down to find out my problem. It wasn't all the packages files corrupted after all, after putting bit by bit back in, it just came down to 2 corrupt packages.

I only lost 2 pieces of clothing, or 2 corrupt package files, and I don't even miss them, because I wouldn't know what they were anyway.

Your turtorial works wonders Frumph, it my own fault what I did was terribly wrong, I was adjusting my computer clock while SimPE was running, and it caused 2 corrupt package files.

So never adjust your clock while SimPE is running.

Anyway all my clothing now, is now cleanly catalized, and all unwanted clothing has been deleted. Never had a more organised wardrobe than this before.

I also noticed quickier loading times, also it was well worth it. Now I guess its now comes to the objects, recolours, walls, and floors.

Looking forward to your Part 7 Frumph!

:up:

[Frumph]

Righteous Conrad, glad to hear its all lookin good for ya!

[Nebulosa]

Why not just use Bodyshop and create new clothing of the ones you want to change categories for? When you import it again, you always get the option to select the categories you want the clothing to be displayed in (formal, everyday, undies, swimwear, pjs etc). Then you can delete the old clothes if you wish. This "cloning" is a much easier and faster way I think, 30 seconds or so :). I use it alot myself if I want to change the categories of the clothing I've made or other's.

[Nebulosa]

Can you go in and change the availibility of the clothes the same way, like can you make the ones that are available for adults available for young adults? And I also noticed the pregnant option. Can you check that to make some of the clothes available for pregnant sims? Thank you so much for these wonderful tutorials, I'm all new to this and I have been able to follow right along with you with no problems. Thank you!

I've described before how to make adult clothes available for young adults or vice versa. Take a look in this thread :)

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=79238

[Frumph]

Again, I warn anyone against doing the converting the setting of YA and Adult clothing to work for multiple ages like both YA/Adult

You will find that alot of your clothing you set to both ages will have problems lining up with both the tops and the bottoms, they will look overlapped and out of place. Than, it will be harder to find that piece of clothing and reset it seperately. Your more likely just to get frustrated and delete it.

If you DO want to convert both YA and Adult to work for both, take the piece of clothing and clone it, than set its age seperately.

You shouldnt use multiple choices.

[ConradThe2nd]

Oddly everything I create for Adult in BS is always also avalible for YAs, bit of a pain, also just exporting then re-importing from BS just to change the categories is actually a lot slower, because BS is a very slow appication. Plus on my machine, if I make a clone, I lose detail and quality on the duplicate. (Video Card Problem I guess). Plus some creators don't want their creations exported in BS, and thats exactly what your doing even if to just change the category.

Ill rather just edit the originals with SimPE than make clones.

[Aristotle]

Thank you for going to the trouble of doing this. This is a very clear and well-thought out tutorial.

I hadn't even discovered that Simpe now has this facility! I used to open each file one at a time to change age/category data.

Much appreciated.

[Nebulosa]

Oddly everything I create for Adult in BS is always also avalible for YAs, bit of a pain, also just exporting then re-importing from BS just to change the categories is actually a lot slower, because BS is a very slow appication. Plus on my machine, if I make a clone, I lose detail and quality on the duplicate. (Video Card Problem I guess). Plus some creators don't want their creations exported in BS, and thats exactly what your doing even if to just change the category.

Ill rather just edit the originals with SimPE than make clones.

The exported clothing is exactly the same as the original as it's all digital.

When I make clothes I have often exported and reimported the clothing many times before I actually upload as there might be things I want to add after a while that I didn't think of when I was still working on the item, like a necklace or whatever. As long as you're working on your clothes you don't have to clone and export/import though as you use the function "load saved project instead" but sometimes you want to change something on a piece of clothes many weeks after you've made it. That process of exporting/importing it again does not change the quality of the duplicates at all and you also get the option of choosing the categories in which the clothes are going to be displayed.

So, when you just want to change the categories of the items it's much faster to do as I described than to go through the process of using SimPE as described in the tutorial above. You mention that some creators don't want their items to be changed. That's true and should be respected or course but whether the categories are changed in Bodyshop or SimPE doesn't make a difference here. The outcome is the same as the categories have been changed no matter which one of the two tools you used to do it. If you're not allowed to change the clothes, then you shouldn't do it. Neither with BS nor SimPE.

[Frumph]

If you wish to make a tutorial about doing it in Bodyshop Nebulosa go for it, this particular tutorial is about doing it in SimPE.

[Catsim]

Thank you so much for all these wonderful tutorials!!! :lovestruc
I can't wait to recategorize all my stuff back into place! ;)
I hate the maternity clothes, specially because I ALWAYS end up with the grey and purple one (eek... :P) and there are so many, eight right? Anyway, do you think clicking pregnant in the categories will work for, let's say, a simple dress mesh?

[Frumph]

Clothing is designed and made for specific mesh's, you could always 'try' it? I dont think it'll work to your liking.

[butterflykiss4u]

Thanks so much this is exactly what I needed. It is so much easier than using DatGen. Woohoooooo!!!!

[Godimis113]

Thanks so much for this guide. I only have about 1,500 downloads, but I just bought University and Nightlife, so I backed up my downloads and am starting with a fresh install. I installed, then patched, then installed, then patched, then installed, and finally patched. This, along with your guide to organizing the downloads folder have helped me greatly to get ready for reinserting my downloads. Keep up the great work and looking forward to the update of the downloads guide.

[bluemoonKIT]

i would just like to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. I WAS LOST WITHOUT A TUTORIAL. i was so scared i was going to crash my computer it took months before i even downloaded the program.

my computer is almost 5 years old. could take the chance. i am notthe richest nugget in the pot. can't afford a new one. :baloons: :salute:

[bluemoonKIT]

Help Me This Stupid Window Won't Open To Full Size I Can Only See The Tabs. And Someone Fix This Bug I Have Changed My Viewing Setings I Have Reinstalled The Program Twice And Still It Doesn't Work.

[dejema]

HELP PLEASE! I want to thank you so very much for your tutorial. But I have a problem; At the 2nd option at the top you said to go to Scan Folders, well,
it won't open, instaid it says (Unable to start toolplugin.) So, what do I do now? Why can't it open it?

Thank you for your respond? I appreciated everything you do! You are someone special!

[crazyburke1983]

Is there a way to change from male to female using the SimPE? I have female clothing showing up in the male clothing and visa versa. Any help is appreciated. Thanks so much!!!

[mil0tic]

Thank you sooo much!! You made my day,well it was day when I started, anyway, Thank you sooo much for making everything so clear and easy to follow!! I was a bit skeptical at the beginning because my scan folder thingie didn't work, but I fix it (thanks to you guys!!) and everything was clear as water!! You guys here at MTS are so good to us...anyway thank you!!!!

[butterflykiss4u]

Many thanks!!! This is exactly what I needed!!!! Woohooo!!!!

[alyssaboffo]

Wow, so detailed! Thanks frumph for another lovely step-by-step, easy to understand tutorial. I've moved it to the tutorials section for now. :)
i really like it

[rak72]

My scan folder screen does not have any tabs on the bottom - nothing scans????

[gotkaya]

So, this worked out great. Thanks for the great tutorial. One thing i did notice is that the second time i scanned my files (so i could check to see if i finished them all), I left the thumbnail scanner checked, and it re-scans the files, but doesnt have to re-create thumbnails. So you can leave this checked for you second scan, and it will scan just as fast as if you unchecked it. This was good for me cause i still wanted to be able to see the thumbnails.

[rhondalatte]

First I would like to thank you for this tutorial, this seems so complicated and fun at the same time.
(I'm using SimPe 0.56 for the first time and have a question). I read the part where it you said:

Just to get you familiar with the operations tab, click on the Operations tab in the lower half of your Folder Scanner, than scroll down that box until you see the portion designed for the "Clothing Scanner" You will now see set Ages: and set: Categories: and options for that, thats what you will be using at this point.

In that operations tab is the following and I'm not sure what to do with it:

Health Scanner

OFB Shelve scanner (by Numenor):

dimension

the window will not scroll within the operations box.

what do you suggest that I do to continue recatagorizing? thank you for any help
xo

[fishistix]

Frumph. I just wanted to pledge my undying love for you!!!! I've printed both your tutorials out and have been busy busy busy cleaning up the unorganized mess that is my downloads folder. You are my KING!!!!
Thanks a ton!!!!!

[fishistix]

[QUOTE=momicajack] Thanks so much for that little tidbit Momicajack . All my adult ladies suddenly turned green just like your teens. I'm so excited about going through my ridiculous amount of clothes to find that stupid tick mark. ARGH!!!! Better then reinstalling everything at least.

[Ossie]

I have found both tuts of great help as I have only just discovered them. Would it be possible to let me know how to find hidden hacks as I keep getting error messages before loading a lot and I cant find the athletics career it says to delete. Hope you can help me, thanks again for all the information you have taken the time to write. Ossie

[IgnorantBliss]

Would it be possible to let me know how to find hidden hacks as I keep getting error messages before loading a lot and I cant find the athletics career it says to delete. Hope you can help me, thanks again for all the information you have taken the time to write. Ossie

Please, do not hijack threads with unrelated posts. Look into the Help section, the FAQs first, and if you don't find your problem answered there, then post on the Help forum.

[gglibertine]

Thanks for the outstanding tutorial. It's great to be able to recategorize things the way I think they ought to be. Not only do I want to stab people who check every category for every clothing item, at least 25% of the 'everyday' things I download seem to me to belong in 'formal'.

And so, the moral of the story is - don't checkmark the "skin" category box when re-categorizing your clothes. :D

Thanks for this reply, momicajack -- I had the exact same problem. What I want to know is: what is the 'skin' category, and why does it break everything if even one clothing package has that checked? Can anyone shed some light on this?

[Kissamies]

A very useful tutorial for anyone who has downloaded more than one sets of clothes. Now I don't have to fly into murderous rage because all of the missclassified outfits.

[Tina G]

My scan folder screen does not have any tabs on the bottom - nothing scans????

You're not alone. I have this same problem. The scanner opens, but it's basically just an empty box without tabs. Go figure? lol

[Thayet]

Thank you so much for this tutorial! Here I was doing it the stupid long way through Bodyshop-exporting the file and then reimporting it and putting it in the right place. Stupid but it was the only way I knew how. lol. Thank you for this! :)

[Rincewiend]

Thanks for the tutorial...

2 things...

1. if you have a lot of files why not make asecond recat-map and recategorise the files per 50 orso files?
You need to quit and restart SimPe everytime to moce the files but it might go a bit faster overall...

2. About A/Ya, i think there shouldn't be too many problems with things like bikinis, bra/panty-sets?!?

[Ding318K]

Aweseome, your things are so helpful, I love the one that helps place items in the community category. Is there a way in which one more thing can be changed, that collections for residential lots can be made to exist on community lots as well.

[Ding318K]

For some reason I could not find the "the" category u spoke, any further instructions would be greatly appreciated

[jaxad0127]

Which category? In CI or SimPE? And if in SimPE, in the scan window or the opperations tab?

[Ding318K]

DUDE I figured out instead of "the" in the SIMPE categorie ( as stated in step B2) it says "...". Once I tried that I followed your directions to a T. THank you so much. You have no idea how much. Now I can have clothes in my pregnant section. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. And if I haven't said it enough, THANK YOU!!!!!!!

[jaxad0127]

Yes, SimPE's interface undergoes minor changes over the revisions.

[dyd_666_81]

I was wondering.... can you change the category of clothes to be the top-only or bottom-only in everyday?

I have some nice things categorized "swimwear" or "undies" and I would like to be able to use them also as bottoms and mix them with tops...

It would be fine even if I had to clone the object.

[IgnorantBliss]

That's not possible because the tops and bottoms are different meshes from whole outfits. So, just recategorizing won't work, it would require a mesh edit.

[dyd_666_81]

Thank you for your answer, IgnorantBliss.

What a pity! :(

[princ3ssali]

Thank you so much for this tutorial. I always get so frustrated when I find a bathing suit in my active wear. I really needed this. Thanks again.

[scretwitch]

Question: I did the changing in the PE, but now there isn't any files in the RECAT to scan! All the clothing packages now say (ie) "duo49.packagedisabled" and I can't move them back! HELP! I thought I followed the directions to the letter... but I've obviously screwed something up.

How do I fix this? :help:

[psikfreak]

OMG... you rock!!!! love u love u love u. Some of those multi cats had me wanting to do not nice things!!!

Just out of quriosity (sorry can't spell for doodly), is there some way to tell which mesh a skin uses? Cause I have a bunch of custom meshes downloaded and cloths i created on them and I don't know which goes with which when it's time to upload them!!! Grrrr....
Thankxxx

[scretwitch]

Okay, new question... Just downloaded the SIM PE for Seasons and now there is another listing under catagories: casual 1, casual 2, casual 3. Under the operations section (where changes can be set) only "everyday" is checked. Things are still appearing in multiple catagories in the game. What are these "casual" catagories?

Thanks!

[PegasusDiana]

Just wanted to say thank you, I just did this and it took less than an hour total. I also had a couple I forgot to change, and a couple I apparently unchecked from everything. lol When I went and did scan I saw those two in red so just switched over to categories. Noticed what I did and fixed it. Also fixed the two pairs of swimtrunks I forgot to fix. Then switched back over and scanned again. Opened the Sims and the CAS clothing opened MUCH MUCH quicker. Went through the pages and they went much quicker also. I had so much that was in active, swim, undies and pj's for both males and females. Plus a ton of clothing for females/males that was both in everyday and formal. Now everything is in one category, so thank you again :)

[petalstaken]

Thanks for this toutorial, I really needed it for a requested sim.

[LyssaKi]

Your tutorial worked great for me! Thanks so much!

One question. I downloaded some clothing that is available for adults and elders but I don't want the clothing to show up for elders. Can I use the same method as your tutorial but uncheck the elder option?

Thanks!

[Netjera]

Why not just use Bodyshop and create new clothing of the ones you want to change categories for? When you import it again, you always get the option to select the categories you want the clothing to be displayed in (formal, everyday, undies, swimwear, pjs etc). Then you can delete the old clothes if you wish. This "cloning" is a much easier and faster way I think, 30 seconds or so :). I use it alot myself if I want to change the categories of the clothing I've made or other's.

Actually - just to throw my two cents in here - I've used both methods. I have to be honest and say that I was looking for a way to do this in SimPE, when I found how to do it in BodyShop. What's annoying, though, is all the steps it takes in Bodyshop. Yes, you have to wait for everything to load in SimPE, but you can walk away and get a latte, or cuddle a loved-one, or read a book. Then it's bim-bam and they're all changed in about ten minutes. It took me several hours to change the same number of pieces in BodyShop.

I only wish there was a way to choose whether something shows in the "Shirt", "Pants" or "Sets" category. I have several sets that don't work properly when separated, and I'd love to get them out of the individual categories if I can. >.<

Oh - and a hearty "Thanks!" to Frumph (pardon the horrible memory for spelling) for posting this. This has made my life soooo much easier! :lovestruc

[Netjera]

First I would like to thank you for this tutorial, this seems so complicated and fun at the same time.
(I'm using SimPe 0.56 for the first time and have a question). I read the part where it you said:

Just to get you familiar with the operations tab, click on the Operations tab in the lower half of your Folder Scanner, than scroll down that box until you see the portion designed for the "Clothing Scanner" You will now see set Ages: and set: Categories: and options for that, thats what you will be using at this point.

In that operations tab is the following and I'm not sure what to do with it:

Health Scanner

OFB Shelve scanner (by Numenor):

dimension

the window will not scroll within the operations box.

what do you suggest that I do to continue recatagorizing? thank you for any help
xo

Just in case this hasn't been answered (I'm working my way through the whole thread), I'd just like to mention that I had this problem too, at first. You have to select a clothing file for the clothing options to become available. When they do, you'll get a side scrollbar allowing you to move down and see the "Age" and "Category" options under "Clothing". Hope this helps!

[lauraannq]

can i change clothes to from male to female or unisex? how?

[odemaris87]

I followed all the steps and I worked great but when I opened my game and tried the re categorized clothes I saw something unusual. The clothes that I had re-categorized from teens to young adults still had the shape of teens which created a see-through gap in the neck of the sim. Did this only happened to me? why?

[morriquende]

I was about to toss out most of my downloaded clothing which had like all the categories for no darned reason. I am trying this out now as we speak and hopefully things will turn out okay!

[xxbaby69]

Can you only put clothing in one category? I checked both Everyday and Outerwear and pressed set, and it went back to just one of them. Is there any way to categorise an outfit as both? My sims want to wear cardigans in winter rather than snowsuits.

[Madrigale]

Thank you so much! This really helped me a bunch. Finally no more formal wear in the undies category. Woohoo!

And a note on your walkthrough: kudos to you. It was my first time really using SimsPE (no wonder all my DLs are beyond good and evil) and your step by step instructions really made it easy to use. Even though it was my first time, I knew what to do when and how. Thank you once again! (If only the hair recolour sorting thing was as understandable...).

[Madrigale]

Can you only put clothing in one category? I checked both Everyday and Outerwear and pressed set, and it went back to just one of them. Is there any way to categorise an outfit as both? My sims want to wear cardigans in winter rather than snowsuits.

In case the question was not answered yet: After you click on "set" your changes are saved. The changes do not show in the list until you scan the second time (without the thumbnails selected) as instructed.

[oldenBuffy]

Think you.

[Massadar]

Frumph, you rock!! thanks for this Tutorial.... I'm a SimPE newbie, altho long-time Simming veteran (yes I was hesitant to use hacks and modding programs until recently). This really helped a LOT... and exactly for what I needed to use it for, to recategorize some clothing that were in NUMEROUS categories.

It drove me nuts that I had to load like 2 dozen "gym suits" as the first things to appear in Adult Everyday wear. And don't even get me started on some (hi-quality) sexy thong bikinis binned as "athletic wear"....

[Liza495]

Thanks for this tutorial. However I failed at putting in practice over three times and only when I logged in to simscave for an illustrated tutorial (a little shorter), I managed to understand and it worked fine. At simscave, Charlotte also said that it's important to check the Recursive button and that just opening BodyShop helps the changes to apply directly. Mmh, I'd like very much to have direct conversions of some outfits for teens to female adults. I rarely download clothes for Sims that are not YA or AF (or YM-AM).

Oh no ! doesn't work for teen to adult conversion as I thought. But it's to bookmark anyway.

[DarkDreamQueen]

Okay I know this is really late and I have no idea if I'll even get an answer but after following your step by step instructions, I started the game and I noticed that the npc's outfits and certain clothes would show denim or some sort of fabric where there is skin, whenever I have my sim in buying mode or just regular game play. But when I'm looking at the actual character, there's no sign of the discrepancy. What's going on? I don't have npc outfits in my download and I don't have nude clothes. I do know a lot of my custom content uses semi see-through skin but nothing that should remain when the sim turns nude.... how can I fix this? I went through Sim PE, Download Organizer, and the Clean Pack Installer to find any orphan files or missing meshes and that was not an issue. HELP!!!!

[LaurellKH]

Is this tutorial current with the last release of SimPE?

Answer my own question I know no one will come along after me is to long ago this was made. I am using the last SimPE (Vers 0.72.1.33855) to do this but I have so much clothing cc I cannot tell if working or not. But then I only went half way down my list and got tired of this project I maybe have over 700 clothes maybe even much more. What I notice is the SimPE I do not think is making the backup files (would they not say file extension .bak???). So everything I see says file extension .package. Perhaps this is the change to SimPE or I am missing something. If I can have the patience to do all I might see a difference when I play. I stopped also because I was thinking so much work would be a waste if something went wrong so I wanted to check at least at the half way point. I notice this as well because I organize my folders very very neatly. The Clean Installer did not take EVERYTHING that was clothing related. Yes, I followed instructions and really I already knew how to use Clean Installer this way so no saying I'm making stupid mistakes. I am only dealing with subject of categorizing clothes not to fit into more than just one (maybe two for coat-like outfits) category. I am not yet changing the elderly which is next project. I think to do everything at once would be a mistake because then you would not know what went wrong.

I tell you this much! I am in fear of nudes. I know I have them but I have yet to see them and instructions he said not to change nudes. This I got long ago so was not stored away so neatly. I have no idea where they might sneaky pop up and when you do over 400 click click click click your eyes blur. I might not see them in time.

What is good news is my game has not crashed for this effort.

It is common sense but I think he should have reminded everyone to back up before starting this project. Also probably good to clean cache.

I got a count on them. 1,528 clothing files for me. Whew.

.......................
Later I finally finished them all. A much improvement! Thank you for this. I see what it is that people make a mistake at but I did not make a mistake at. I never saw a nude not one but in game the nudes are just fine where they are suppose to be after I finished. But there is this box in SimPE right there next to what you do called "skin." I never clicked it but I can see how someone might accident because it is right in the middle of clickings. Thanks for warning. Thanks for this tut.

I did untic all elderly in a separate session (zipping up downloads and setting aside every session in case) that also was for youth. I do not like elderly wearing the same clothes as younger. It worked great.

I ran into some files SimPE did not like. They had no picture and the word "all" at the end of the file. I got a popup saying, "this cannot be saved." Nothing bad happened I just moved on to the next file.

Some things you do not want to change. Do not make an outfit preg or that university age between teen and adult. Do not put toddler/kid's clothes on a different age or the reverse. If clothes were not designed to shape that way they will look weird. But it is safe to make anything formal. I had nun and priest outfits that strangely did not include formal so I fixed. I took EVERYTHING else out of formal. That is where I will keep my wedding dresses and tux only. I cannot see what else custom formal would be used for! Now I can find my wedding clothes fast and easy.

If you do not know this you can get this mod to help with this kind of project: MaryLou & Numenor's "Shop-at-home" Hacked Coat Hook (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=225251).

I could not figure out how to get the cheat to work was trying it in game. Turns out you have to be in CAS: link (http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Testingcheatsenabled). You do not have to keep holding shift+n down. It is a switch that turns on tooltips you only need to do it once. It does NOT give you a file name so it's useless to help finding a single file when you have many. If you only have a few files it does tell you who made it and you have a chance of finding the file by guessing. ... New update on this thought: Delphy's Download Organiser (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=227925) shows Titles so it may not be so useless afterall.

If you sew your own custom clothes in game and keep track of where that is in your downloads (should have file name like SewnOutfits.package) it is maybe easier to separate those sewn files before you start this project. I am thinking they are the cause of the error popup in SimPE and I think maybe they are the ones called "all." Just to less the confusion set them aside. If you do not will not hurt anything. They cannot be altered by SimPE I think.

Just one last notation. If you made thumbnails with SimPE once you do not have to do it again. It remembers the thumbnails and shows them in an image box to the lower right corner on all later scans. Save yourself time and only do that once per scanned folder.

:gjob: