Edit by Tiggerypum:

Solutions to this problem:

Pets Bodyshop is not compatible with older EPs

If you create something with Pets Bodyshop, even a base game mesh recolor or custom mesh recolor, your recolor will not work in games without pets. Recolors made with older bodyshop WILL work in all games, including Pets.

Creators can use Numenor's Legacy Bodyshop to build packages compatible with all games. There's also a link at the end for instructions on how to modify your bodyshop recolors if you already made some with pets and want to make them all-game compatible by Beosboxboy and Marvine.

Legacy Bodyshop: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=201322

Fixing Your Already Made Recolors: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1466927


Pets Bodyshop Packages MESHES with Packaged Sims

Custom hair and body meshes will usually package WITH your sims if you package a whole sim with pets bodyshop.

How to fix this problem: http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=202512


Now back to the original thread:
---------------

Ok, i've been having a problem with 3 hairs that I have. They aren't showing up in bodyshop at all. They don't even show up as a hair without the mesh, just nothing. So I loaded up the game and where the hair icons should have been in CAS, there were full body sim pics. This happened before, but I thought it was just that one particular hair which was actually a recolor. I'm not sure what other information to give, but if anyone has any idea on how to fix this i'd greatly appreciate it. Here's a picture to show what it looks like.

Try deleting the CAS thumbnail:
http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?p=1110082

I did that, and it didn't work. Thanks though simsample.

Did you delete cigen and groups.cache too? They hold thumbnail information as well. Delete them at the same time as the CAS thumb to ensure effectiveness.

Simsample I did delete those as well, all at the same time, and it still didn't fix the problem.

That hair is a PeggySims mesh isn't it? Do they show up in bodyshop okay?

That hair isn't a peggy hair. It's from coris.byus.net. Another hair that i've had a problem with was a recolor that a friend did. She had pets installed and i'm wondering if that could be part of the problem. So i'm having problems with the recolor that a friend did, but not the original, the hair from coris, and recolors of an xmsims hair mesh. The xmhair shows up fine in bodyshop with the recolors from that site, but recolors that ellu from insim did, do not show up on bodyshop at all. They only show up in CAS, and with the full body thumbnails. I'm going to go over to insiminator and pm her to find out if she has pets installed. Because I just can't see anything else being the problem, and maybe the fact that I don't is what's causing it.

Hi,
I do have the same problem but with a recolor made by Ellu for a Kavar mesh (Although the Kavar recolors are ok) and also with two hairs I downloaded here by Helga86...
Oh! I also don't have the pets expansion...

i have the same problem only that A. i don't have pets(yet) and B. it shows up under tops not hair and only the blond does, in this case it shows up as a maxis outfit or sometimes another outfit i downloaded and didn't show up by melclaro(sp?) at mts2 or maxis outfits or a maxis top and the bottom was invisible or just a floating head with the hair and the current sellected hairstyle sticking out of it...
when i deleted these only blond was missing... i tried redownloading but no use

Ok, so one hair down 2 to go. I downloaded the Coris hair yesterday when it first came out. Today I saw that it was reuploaded, and now it shows up fine. Hopefully I can email him/her, and find out what was wrong with the hair in the first place. I still think it has to do with pets because this is NOT the only hair that shows up this way.

Could well be- there is the problem with the Accessories, so it's quite feasible that the custom hairstyles could be affected. Please let us know if you find out any information!

I pm'd coris so I will simsample. Thanks for all your help.

I hate to bump this thread and I should've asked sooner, but simsample what is the problem with accessories that people are having?
Also a friend made some clothes the other day, with pets installed, and they show up the same way as these hairs. So i'm really trying to get more info on what is going on. Thanks for your help.

well if its anything like mine some of my accessories (like louis' elf ears ) are showing up as blue flashing thingys in game...i hope theres a way to fix em..though not all accessories are like that for me the goats horns and such i have work fine weird
oh and ps thx simsample now i can delete my thread about the preview pics not showing right (i searched the help forums i wonder why i didnt get this thread to show up )

Dragon's correct- all custom accessories show up okay until you exit the game, then they are blue flashy things. You can easily fix it if you have a controllable sim by changing appearance again (this corrects the blue flash) but it means that any townies, NPCs or walkbys you have with custom accessories will appear on your lot flashing at you... so to speak!

Additional screen captures showing the range of the problem:









Below are the property sets of 4 sample files:

A misbehaving file by Pickpock at MTS2 made with Pets



A misbehaving file by Innocent at InSIMenator made with Pets



A properly behaving file by myself made with OfB



A properly behaving file by myself made with NL



The hairtone= tag in all of these is all zeroes (0s) so should clearly indicate
to the game that these are NOT hair files.

This would not be a problen except that by clicking these items they are added
to the body under the existing clothing and the scalp & hair go missing. Sorry that
I did not think to grab a screen capture of that particular horror. Additionally, once
selected there is no undoing it.

What is discernible with SimPE is that the outfit= tag is missing and there are new
tags priority= and parts= -- the relevence of these I can't guess.
I do notice that when it occurs the parts= tag generally has the same value as would
have formerly been carried by the outfit= tag in packages made before
installing the Pets EP.

Marvine tried adding an outfit= tag and tested them on her system and
this corrected nothing. Other efforts at reviewing the data with SimPE have not
shown what mechanism is responsible for these errors. I hope that something comes
to light soon.

So there is something fundamentally missing or changed in the portions of the file
not readable by SimPE or in a placement that has heretofore had no relevence
to clothing files.

In truth, it was Hot Date EP that did a similar disservice to the custom content
community for original The Sims; then later EPs added to the mess, so it can't be
said that they didn't give us ample warning with their nasty tricks in original The Sims.
It was about time for Maxis/EA to heave a sizable spanner at us with the methods
of the game. So let us hope they will correct this flaw if for no other reason than
enlightened self-interest to avoid getting dragged into another "hot coffee" field-day.

So be certain to specify to your downloaders that you made your CC with Pets EP
and that Pets EP is required to use those files.

I have made a warning banner that we are using at InSIM to tag items made after
installing the Pets EP.



I only recently discovered that custom genetic skintones (two made by SynapticSim)
are misbehaving on the male side. The Maxis default light is displaying instead
of his blue furry or brown furry textures that should be visible.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention that the version of BodyShop installed by the Family Fun Stuff
and Glamor Life Stuff packs do not suffer this flaw. In my experimentation so far,
using the older versions of BodyShop from the base install or earlier EPs has not
shown any benefit once the Pets EP has been installed, and in most instances
doesn't work quite right.

I am still tearing it all apart trying to discover what causes the issue.

Thanks for this information, Yakov- this is very interesting! So this means that the content will show up normally if the user also has Pets installed? Thankyou for taking the time to explain this- I'm sure our creators will be glad of this explanation.

First off, let me state that I know almost nothing about clothings and property set.

But from what I've read, either it's a bug in the creation of the property sets in the Pets Bodyshop (and in this cae, let's hope for a patch), or it was made purposely. In this last case, I can also think that Maxis, while implementing the new "priority" and "parts" parameters (which I guess can be related to layers), they might have forgotten to include also the "outfit", needed at least for backward compatibility.

In any case, we know that bodyshop items created with older EPs *do work* in Pets, so I might create an extension of the BaseGameStarter that would allow to start the GLS, FFS, OFB... BodyShop basically ignoring the existance of Pets.
Of course, the "Pets-only" meshes won't be available nor clonable in this legacy version of Bodyshop, but at least anything created with this system will work in any game...

Beosboxboy thank you for explaining the problem. I just read it over at insim and was coming to post the link.

Numenor I so hope you do get that extension created.
Thank you guys for all your help and effort in helping to determine the problem.

zizismommy, no need to thank me, but you are welcome all the same. This problem
affects us all. I am motivated by a selfish desire to avoid making two versions of
every clothing and skin tone as well as wanting to help the community.

Thank you Numenor, the changes to the layers are the direction of my thinking as well.
I have by, by comparing items made with the various iterations of Body Shop, discovered
nothing that is readable by SimPE that points to a clear reason.

I, for one, have absolutely no use whatsoever for the Pets EP. And would greatly appreciate
any effort you choose to direct towards a solution this issue. As a possible direction you
might consider, I offer that extracting the unpatched versions of Body Shop from the
installation media may offer some hope. I have not tried this as yet as I do not have all
of the various CDs and DVDs with me.

I am attaching below additional image files and comments in hopes that it may eliminate
the need for repeating my research by other persons.

Here are screen captures of two ways the clothing files may misbehave; one clearly
demonstrates a visible incongruity that will alert the user:

Figure 1. - Screen capture courtesy of Ozzucay


However this example demonstrates a situation where the user may not notice the
problem and think it is only a thumbnail package issue.

Figure 2. - Screen capture courtesy of Ozzucay



Additional information gained from viewing the binary index:
It appears that the sort order of the information in the Binary Index has no relevance
on behaviour in the game.

Figure 3. - Binary Index info from a no-EPs clothing by SimderZ (Xianah)



Figure 4. - Binary Index infor from a Pets EP clothing by BlackFairy



Figure 5. - Binary Index info from a OFB EP skin tone by Enayla


Figure 6. - Binary Index ifor from a Pets EP skin tone by SynapticSim


Additional information on genetic skin tones:
Looking at the Property Set information and the Skin Tone XML information, I discovered
that the addition of the priority= and parts= tags is included in skin tones made with
the Pets EP Body Shop.

Figure 7. - Skin Tone XML information from a non-Pets skin tone by Enayla


Figure 8. - Skin Tone XML information from a Pets skin tone by SynapticSim


Figure 9. - Property Set information from a non-Pets skin tone by Enayla


Figure 10. - Property Set information from a Pets skin tone by SynapticSim


The prioty and parts information is present in both the Skin Tone XML and the Property Sets
of any skin tone made with the Pets EP.

The changes are of such a nature as to have no demonstable data other than the
priority= and parts= tags. The latest release of SimPE (version 0.58.2.21002) at
at the time of this writing may alert a user that an item is a potential problem;
by using the scan folders option of SimPE one can detect Pets EP and other potential
problem files -- these files will be marked "Unknown version". The fix/repair function does
not correct these files for use.

I hope this information is of use to someone, I am quite certain I have seen the
insides of far too many files the past 4 days.

Oh my goodness. Meanwhile, we've been doing battle with accessories (including maxis!) having display issues - bleeding through when they shouldn't. Had no idea there were other bodyshop issues that were reaching even further beyond this... anyway, for more of a headache, go look at this thread:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=200624

Numenor,it would be wonderful if you could make an extension of the Basegamestarter. My only solution was to uninstall Pets and remake all the meshes I made with pets installed from scratch and that was hard,frustrating work.

Same problem with my new mesh

Here you can see screenshots from somebody who tested my new mesh without the pets ep:
pic 1
pic 2
pic 3

And for the record, this problem does not only affect new meshes. I used Pets' BodyShop to make a simple recolour of a base-game outfit and even that doesn't display right without Pets installed. It's uploaded here if anyone wants to use it for testing.

Tiggerypum - I have seen the thread and think it clearly indicates that Electronic Arts ran this dog to market with inadequate testing to be sure. *pun very much intended* This layering issue lays at the root of both the clipping issue in Pets EP and also the manifold problems for persons attempting the use of Pets-made content in a non-Pets install.

I am hesitant to say that SimPE will be unable to correct this in the absence of a proper Pets compatible version of SimPE. I know Quaxi is working as hard and as diligently as can be hoped; but with the manifold changes in the underlying code of the game after installing Pets EP, I am more inclined to think of it this way: Pets EP installs a completely different game architecture that supports Sims 2 files from the original Sims 2. It is not however The Sims 2, but more akin to some intermediary version of The Sims that lays somewhere between The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. If you will, a beta of The Sims 3.

Whatever Electronic Arts was hoping to achieve in this re-working of the layering it has patently failed. Electronic Arts has no excuse for the release of the Pets EP with this level of bugs. I will not give vent to my full ire and choler here, but this really steams me more than you can imagine. It has very much the look and feel of forcing us to purchase their buggy EP just so we can use new content, whereas a priori it mattered little which version of Body Shop was used to make content so long as the custom content creator was mindful to clone only base game items. Yes, I am bitter, more than 96 hours of my life was just wasted testing over 2000 files under each EP and then examining them in SimPE.

This should have done by Electronic Arts before releasing the EP. Sadly, it was and it obviously matter nothing to them.