Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Scholar
Original Poster
#1 Old 24th Apr 2021 at 5:51 PM
Default Questions about custom hairs
Hello everyone!
I'm still working on my default replacements, getting there, although it's slow progress, with working full time and friends/family etc.

I've chosen Pooklet textures, and I like it that they all match.

I'm also trying to replace my CC hairs to Pooklet textures, so that they match too, but I'm a bit confused.

I have the Hair Binner, and am planning to bin all my CC hairs. Is it better to have the grey for elders linked to the black, or keep it as a separate grey? I know I can do either using the Hair Binner, but I don't know which option is better? What do you prefer, and why?

If I change the Family string in SimPE for the hairs in the custom bin (unnatural colours), to match the one for the natural colours, will they then be linked to the natural colours in the same family?

Is there a good tutorial I can follow on removing the extra ages from the unnatural colour hairs (I don't think I can run them through the Hair Binner) please?

I also have a tootltip adder, is it better to add the tooltips first, or bin the hair first, or does it not matter?

Thanks for any advice you can give
Advertisement
Lab Assistant
#2 Old 24th Apr 2021 at 6:55 PM Last edited by ClaudetteCorleone : 25th Apr 2021 at 4:42 AM.
I'd say keep the gray for elders linked to black since it's convenient imo. I can't say much about unnaturals since I don't have them. And, about the tooltips, it doesn't matter when to add them

Edit: I use Simgaroop's system. I'm sorry if the elders linked to black doesn't apply to your system.

Mad Poster
#3 Old 24th Apr 2021 at 7:00 PM
If you've decided to keep all the Pooklet colors, you can link the greys whichever way you want.

If you don't want to keep all the Pooklet families (say you want to keep some but not all the colors, and maybe want to keep 3 blonde, 2 reds, 2 black and 4 browns) then it can be an idea to link the greys to the hair color you're 100% sure you want to keep all the hair colors from. You can also decide to keep the greys separate if you're not sure.

Removing extra ages can be done by deleting the PropertySet for that age. Look at the "AGE" line (1=toddler, 2=child, 4=teen, 40=YA, 8=adult, 10=elder) and delete the ones you don't want, but make sure to only delete at either end of the "age line", and not anything in the middle, because you'll "break" the hair if you do. You can delete TXMTs that belong to the ages too, but it's best to leave the 3DIRs alone.
Scholar
Original Poster
#4 Old 25th Apr 2021 at 11:56 AM
Thanks to you both for answering.

I only want one of each colour, so I use Pooklet Family 1 (Dynamite as black, Depth Charge as brown, Explosive as red and Incendiary as blonde), with Mailbomb as grey.

I like to have some unnatural colours just for fun, for making unusual sims or aliens, so I'll try your suggestions, thanks
Mad Poster
#5 Old 25th Apr 2021 at 1:49 PM
If you're keeping the hairs for yourself, do whatever's easiest for you. If you're sharing though, downloaders would probably prefer nothing more than the basic binning, so it's easier for them to make any adjustments to their own binning systems - as a downloader, I know I vastly prefer separate greys so I can link them to the family I want. As for removing extra ages, I like to use Theo's Hair Binner (it's a SimPE plugin) because it totally removes them rather than just hiding them, which is great for when you've got hair that was missing stages and spat out the EAxis Meg hair textures that just uselessly bloat files.
Scholar
Original Poster
#6 Old 1st May 2021 at 12:15 AM
Thanks, the custom hairs are just for me, they are ones by other people which I have downloaded. When I used to download hairs years ago, I just used to grab any old textures, as long as I liked the mesh, so I'm currently just replacing them with other versions of them I have downloaded, which are pookleted, in the colours I like.

The hair binner I have is the one by Cat of Evil Genius, I thnk I got it from MTS. It's great, I just can't really remember exactly what it does, but I want to bin all my newly downloaded hairs to get rid of extra ages etc., and have them neatly binned

As for the defaults I've been making, I would like to share those, however, I don't think they'd be accepted on MTS for 2 reasons:
1. I haven't got the University EP, and have no plans of ever installing it (I don't really want to play university campuses or have 'young adults'). So my defaults don't replace young adult hairs, because I simply don't have the property sets and 3IDRs to extract in the first place.
2. Many people recommend first cloning the texture files in Bodyshop, so that they don't conflict with custom versions of the hair people may have installed. I didn't bother doing that, for a couple of reasons:
a) To save time, when I first started defaulting hairs, I wasn't sure if it would work in the first place, but even now I'm more practiced and efficient, each one takes me a good couple of hours to do (especially if I have to add non-hat states and/or extra ages). I'm replacing all my old defaults, for almost all of the base game hairs including hats, which means I am making lots and lots of defaults - it has taken me months, and I'm still not finished.
b) I just really, really, really hate Bodyshop. I hate making projects (especially as I would need to do at least 4 colours for each age group, plus grey, so could potentially have to do this 13 times for each hair), I hate texture distortion, I hate importing, I hate it that it's really finicky and won't work if you change texture sizes, I hate that it bloats the file by adding useless ages....I could go on.

It does seem a shame, as I would like to give something back to the Sims community - but other than uploading here, the only other option would be to make my own Dreamwidth or Simblr or something, and I believe you have to pay to keep your uploads online, which I can't really afford.
Mad Poster
#7 Old 1st May 2021 at 4:45 AM Last edited by simmer22 : 1st May 2021 at 5:05 AM.
2: You can find most defaulted hairs as custom versions of you look around a bit. Most of them start out as custom hairs before they're defaulted (not always the texture, but the esh at the very least). Cloning the texture files in Bodyshop can sometimes get a bit messy if you use a default replacement as a base and later remove that replacement, so I do suggest using a custom mesh for custom recolors if you can, so it's possible to keep them separate - unless you're 100% sure you want to keep the default replacement "always and forever" (it's possible to fix later, but at the rate items are disappearing off the web these days, at the very least keep the original custom files).

2b) Personally, I've found a few methods to get around Bodyshop's annoying ways. If you make sure you use the same texture and alpha on all the texture maps, it won't generate extra textures where they aren't needed. It only generates extra maps when there are differences between the textures. So I make a set of textures (run them through the actions I want, copy to a separate layered document so they're in the correct order, rename if I'm not lazy) then open up all the BMP files so they're next to each other, and copy/pasta in the texture, using a whole heap of shortcuts. If I'm extra lazy (or have a ton of hairs to do) I'll make an action that automates a full set of copy/pasta for me.

I use the same project (I swear it's a time saver! I only have to open up the files once in Photoshop while I'm working, I can edit the same tooltip, all of the files get the same project name, and so on) because I can make the first hair, update and import to the game, then do the textures for the second project, check in the project folder that everything is updated, then import in the same project and the textures have already updated, click on the project, change the tooltip, and import to game, (rinse and repeat-->) update textures, check folder, import with textures already updated, etc. I rarely ever need to click the "update project" button for the hairs, except for with the first one and if I make a mistake somewhere (forgetting a texture or some such).

I find color distortion more of an issue with clothes. It doesn't seem to affect hair as much, at least if you use a good base.

One option is to "skip" Bodyshop in that you just open it up, make as many files as you need (I would still tooltip them with numbering so you don't lose track - it's annoying having to fix the sorting), and then make recolors in your program of choice, importing them in with SimPE (use PNG with DXT3 or 5 - some people prefer the RAW24 format, and it works ingame, but if you try making recolors of files using that format, Bodyshop throws an angry tantrum. It can also make the files between 2-4 times as large, so I'd be a bit careful with hairs).

I hate that people don't add the "useless ages". Toddlers, children and teens want pretty hairs too, and it's not like it's any more difficult to make hair meshes for them than the older ages - I mean, I can understand it for some hairs that obviously look too long or much too stylized on a toddler and sometimes even a child, but teens? Elders? YA? Come on! Anyway, it's easy enough to remove the ages, either with the hair binner or by deleting a few hair resources (all but the 3DIRs belonging to the age(s) - those can occasionally get a bit weirded out).
Scholar
Original Poster
#8 Old 1st May 2021 at 2:40 PM
Sorry, my post probably isn't very well written, what I meant in point 2 was, that I have seen people recommending this method for making defaults:
1. Download custom version of hair you want to replace the Maxis hair with
2. Make a project from it in Bodyshop and import it to game for all colours and ages (this is what I meant by 'cloning', not sure if I'm using the right term)
3. Use the files from Saved Sims to make your default with

This is my (lazy but faster) method for making defaults:
1. Download custom version of hair you want to replace the Maxis hair with
2. Use the downloaded files to make your default with

I tend to only want one version of each hair in my game, so it doesn't conflict for me, because I don't have default and non-default versions of the same hair. But maybe other people can't remove their custom hairs as they've already used them, whereas I'm starting my game again. If I have time I might go back and remake them one day, but it would probably take me ages. I probably should have started with that first method, but it's a bit too late now.

I think my defaults not having young adult ages means no-one else would want them anyway. I remember the Ultimate Collection being free for a while, so I imagine the majority of people play with all EPs and SPs nowadays.

It's a good point about keeping a backup of the custom hairs, but I've spent such a long time making my defaults, I think I probably will keep them forever. I might start backing up the downloaded Rar/Zip files somewhere on my computer though, as you're right about things disappearing off the internet.

Thanks for the Bodyshop tips, that's really helpful. I prefer to just use SimPE and Build DXT whenever I can, and skip Bodyshop altogether, as you've described.

If I do have to actually make hair projects in Bodyshop, I edit the textures using Gimp, and then it takes me forever to replace the textures, as I export each colour to each texture map, for each age (having to navigate to the right one in the Projects folder each time, it drives me crackers). I didn't know you could copy/pasta in the texture instead, how do you do that?

Also last time I tried, I'd resized the textures from 512x512 to 1024x1024, and then Bodyshop loaded the saved project as a bald head, so I was frustrated with that, as I had to start all over again.

I didn't know you could use the same project either, thanks.

I don't mind if a mesh I download is teen or adult only, I just don't like it when my CAS is filled up with Maxis hairs in the child section, so I do like removing those ages with the hair binner. I'm going to try doing it myself in SimPE for the unnatural hairs, just to neaten everything up a bit.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 1st May 2021 at 5:59 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 1st May 2021 at 6:55 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by Dizzy-noodles
I tend to only want one version of each hair in my game, so it doesn't conflict for me, because I don't have default and non-default versions of the same hair. But maybe other people can't remove their custom hairs as they've already used them, whereas I'm starting my game again. If I have time I might go back and remake them one day, but it would probably take me ages. I probably should have started with that first method, but it's a bit too late now.


If you wanted to upload these defaults, You'd have to warn people exactly which custom hairs you'd used, because they'd probably conflict in some way or another with the originals.

Quote: Originally posted by Dizzy-noodles
I think my defaults not having young adult ages means no-one else would want them anyway. I remember the Ultimate Collection being free for a while, so I imagine the majority of people play with all EPs and SPs nowadays.


I think it's possible to edit a few numbers and such in SimPE to make them YA compatible. YA is just a fancy adult with some extra information attached.

Quote: Originally posted by Dizzy-noodles
If I do have to actually make hair projects in Bodyshop, I edit the textures using Gimp, and then it takes me forever to replace the textures, as I export each colour to each texture map, for each age (having to navigate to the right one in the Projects folder each time, it drives me crackers). I didn't know you could copy/pasta in the texture instead, how do you do that?


Usually if I'm making hairs (custom ones) I make a lot of hair recolors in one go, so I use the same project for all of them. I open all the files, lay them out so all the files show together (in Photoshop - but I think this is possible in Gimp, too?) and either have a file I've pre-made, or recolor one of the files and then copy/paste it to all the other files (In Photoshop the shortcuts are like described, some will work in Gimp, others are a bit different, and a few probably need menus). First I either run an action on the texture, or drag in a file where I've already finished running the actions (Shift-drag to center. I collapse the layers with Ctrl+E before moving on). Ctrl+A to mark the full document or layer, Ctrl+C to copy, * select the next document, Ctrl+V to paste, Ctrl+E to collapse the layers, Ctrl+S to save, and repeat from the *. In Gimp, you of course have to save manually as BMP 24bit if you want to save over the files, as the Ctrl+S command will try to save as a different format.

I use Pooklet's (and a few other) hair actions, plus the belonging hair textures, and maybe the textures that came with the hair I'm recoloring, making either a mix or a new texture in the Volatile base color. With the base color done and saved as a single file, I can run the actions one by one and reset after each one, dragging the finished files over to a new document, then save the document with the named colors in layers - and it's this file I use as the copy/paste or drag-and-drop file. Instead of having to run the actions on every single BMP file, I can drag-and-drop, use shortcuts, and all in all do the recoloring process a whole lot faster. I also rarely if ever get the Bodyshop issue with sudden double textures that needs fixing.

Quote: Originally posted by Dizzy-noodles
Also last time I tried, I'd resized the textures from 512x512 to 1024x1024, and then Bodyshop loaded the saved project as a bald head, so I was frustrated with that, as I had to start all over again.


If you did it only in Bodyshop, did you also remember to resize the alpha textures? The alphas and textures need to be the same size to work. If you resize in SimPE it's not an issue because you import both textures at the same time (the PNG file has an alpha of the same size included when you import it).

Quote: Originally posted by Dizzy-noodles
I didn't know you could use the same project either, thanks.


You can use the same project as many times as you want/need as long as you're working with the same mesh or base item - the files end up in SavedSims with different numbers in front (mostly it's useful when you're making recolors for one particular outfit/accessory/hair or makeup/eyes/beard/etc., but you can also make things like base recolor files for meshing projects and such - I tend to make a heap of base files for accessory projects or infant outfits while I'm at it, because it saves me a few trips in and out of Bodyshop, as I mostly do the texture swapping for those in SimPE anyway). If you want to make a heap of recolors of the same file in one sitting, there's nothing more annoying than having to open and close a ton of files, especially for hair recolors (a full set of Pooklet hair recolors, 16++ individually named projects, 6+ BMP files for each of them? Nope... That's an eternity project if I ever saw one... )

The files can be renamed after you close down Bodyshop - I do suggest using the tooltips for keeping track of names, though.

(You can completely ignore the file in the Project folder - it's just the template file for that project, can't be used for much else than extracting textures from if someone has accidentally uploaded files from the Project folder, as happens from time to time, and you reeeeally want to fix the files).
Scholar
Original Poster
#10 Old 2nd May 2021 at 8:12 PM
That's really helpful, thanks.

Oh of course, you're right, I hadn't resized the alphas so that will be what the issue was, thanks.

Today I've actually been trying to make a grey for a custom hair I have which only has black, brown, red and blonde textures. I made a project in Bodyshop from a different blonde (one I won't keep in game), and imported it straight away. I used Build DXT to replace the blonde texture with grey. However, it doesn't show up for elders, only for adults, in the unnatural hair bin (if you change to elder it simply shows a Maxis hair).

How can I fix this please? Should I change the age in the property set for the adult age to elder, or is it better to replace the material definitions in the 3IDR for the elder age to match the adult age?
Mad Poster
#11 Old 2nd May 2021 at 9:18 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 2nd May 2021 at 9:32 PM.
It depends - if the original hair already was enabled for elders, you most likely didn't have the elder files in your game when you make the recolor. If it's a binned file with the elder files linked to a particular hair color, but you didn't put in that particular file, the elders become unlinked, and will show as a maxis hair instead.

I suggest you check up how the hair is binned and whether you had the correct hair files in (It's easiest to put in all of them to be safe, including any grey ones) and then make a new recolor. It's a bit easier and faster than going through the fixing process with re-linking the mesh and texture.

---

If the files aren't set up for elders at all, you can change the "age" in all the adult PropertySets (the ones saying "8") to "18" (adult + elder) before opening up Bodyshop and then make a new recolor of each file - but before you import each project, make sure to change the elder BMP texture(s) to grey. That way you get a grey texture in SimPE (Otherwise Bodyshop uses the same texture for the elders as for the rest of the ages. Fixing that if you want a grey one is a bit more work and needs a bit of a tutorial, and I'm all for simplicity...). You can fix the texture it in SimPE later, of course, but this way you at least know which is the elder one, and it creates a separate TXTR.
Scholar
Original Poster
#12 Old 3rd May 2021 at 2:56 AM
Thanks, that worked, I checked and there was a grey in each colour file (black, brown, red and blonde) instead of a separate one.

I started a new project in Bodyshop, but this time, I selected Elder (instead of Adult) before exporting the textures, then imported to game and used Build DXT in SimPE, and that file works fine, the grey is in the unnatural bin but it works and shows the correct mesh for both adult and elder (I replaced the adult texture too for simplicity).

Thanks for all your help and advice about custom hairs, you are really helping me to understand it all better
Back to top