I want to bin brows by gender. For packages that contain all the colors instead of separate color files, I'm trying out the Color Binning plugin. However, I stumbled upon a few things:
* Why is the output file size more than 1 MB, even though I checked "Compress Textures"?
* When saving the file into a different name, I get an error message, but for some reason, it thinks I have Vista instead of Win 10. Nevertheless, a new file with a bigger size is created. The error message is shown within the spoiler tag:


The creator hasn't been online here for more than 6 months, hence this standalone thread.

Can you add a link to the plugin, just so we're sure which one you're talking about? The only one I can find is this one: https://modthesims.info/d/152943/te...l-0-2-30-1.html (and it may be outdated, but not sure).

Personally I use Cat's binner from here: https://modthesims.info/d/434016

---

Compression of textures depends on how many textures there are and how big they are. Hair files are often larger than 1 MB.

I use the SimPE plugin from the Download page, but I don't know if an update is posted in one of the replies.
For standalone brow color files, I also use Cat's binner, but I don't know how it works if I want to bin a single file that already includes all the colors (see also my recent comment in their thread).

The eyebrows are below 100 kb, but when I save the edits on SimPE, they suddenly become >1 MB. This doesn't happen when I use Cat's binner.

I meant the binning plugin.
If it's already a part of SimPE I've never used it...

If you want an eyebrow to show up just for one gender, or switch/add genders, you can do that manually in SimPE - change the "Gender" tag in the Face Texture Overlays (EDIT: I'll never remember the name of that one... It's essentially the same as a PropertySet resource, but for anything that overlays the face) for all the ages to 1 for female, 2 for male or 3 for both. It's a bit more work, but at least it works.

I meant that I've downloaded this plugin indeed.

EDIT: what should I click in the Resource Tree?

Texture Overlay XML

The Instances with consecutive numbers have each 1 and 2 instead of 3. If I rename them all to 1, won't that lead to duplicates?

How do you want them binned? For just female, just male or for both? (Right now they should be showing up for both).

Method #1 is to zero out the "age" and "gender" for the gender you don't want to show (put "0" in the age and gender values)
- If necessary this one can be reset by changing the age and genders back to what they were.

Method #2 is to delete the "Texture Overlay" files for the gender you don't want (1 is female, 2 is male). Don't delete anything else.
- Not as easy to reset, but you can change them to "3" for the gender (a bit unsure if this works fine for all types of eyebrows, especially if any are cloned from the bushy BV variant, but I don't think there are a lot of those around).

Can be a good idea to backup the files you're editing, just in case mistakes are made (it's easy to accidentally delete the wrong resource files, and once you've deleted those it's a full process getting them back).

I want to bin them into just one gender.

You can try one of the methods above. What method is the best depends if you want it to be reversible, I guess (but the easiest there is to use method #2 and have a backup of the originals). If you don't ever see yourself using the originals, keep them until you've tested the edited ones ingame, just so you're sure you kept the correct ages/genders.

The Instances with consecutive numbers have each 1 and 2 instead of 3. If I rename them all to 1, won't that lead to duplicates?

Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/6tBhB8s

See post #8

Thank you, it worked for me!

However, I have a file where multiple shapes of brows are bundled together in one file, of which I only want one of them make them gender-specific. Which parameters should I look for in the Texture Image files so I can pick the right Texture Overlay files?

You'd have to figure out which "Texture Overlay" set belong to the ones you want to edit.

The "Group" number is different for each set (kind of but not quite like a unique CAS GUID assigned by Bodyshop), while the "Instance" has the different ages (it's always the same ages for the same numbers unless they've been edited *). You can see these in the Resource List, sometimes they're a bit hidden to the right. They're also in the "Resource" tab at the bottom.

(*101/2 = pf/pm, 201/2 = cf/cm, 401/2=tf/tm, 801/2=af/am, 1001/2=ef/em, 4001/2=yaf/m - female =1, male =2)

There is an "Instance (high)" also, but you can ignore that one.

The texture image should have the same "Group" number as the "Texture Overlay" it belongs to.