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Top Secret Researcher
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#1 Old 29th Feb 2012 at 9:08 PM Last edited by billielith : 29th Feb 2012 at 9:36 PM.
Default How to manually remove unwanted ages from facial hair in SimPE?
Hi,

CatOfEvilGenius' awesome program for binning brows doesn't work for me.

I've binned my brows and stubble manually but now I'm stuck with many-many greys, all identical. I'd like to keep one grey linked to the black, and remove the other greys.

Is there any manual way to remove unwanted ages from eyebrows and stubble?

I tried reading SimplyStella's tutorial for removing unwanted ages from hair but the brows and stubble doesn't have the Property Set item. I'm not sure what to edit/delete and I would rather not risk ruining my files.

Thanks!

I know I can't do it, but I'm still going to do it. - M. C. Escher
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Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#2 Old 3rd Mar 2012 at 8:58 AM
Try looking at some of these tutorials, and as for not risking it, make yourself backups of the good ones, and then try stuff out! That's the only way we discover things around here. Lots and lots of files must be broken - for science!

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=127096
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=150742
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?c=1&p=1283102
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=307555
Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#3 Old 3rd Mar 2012 at 3:16 PM
LOL for science!! Thanks Phaenoh! I'm glad someone finally tried a reply and I'm so happy that it's you! You're so knowledgeable. Thanks for the reference links, I'll check them all.

I know I can't do it, but I'm still going to do it. - M. C. Escher
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#4 Old 3rd Mar 2012 at 4:52 PM
If/when that doesn't work. Guess and check, trial and error will eventually work and you'll learn something in the process. That's how I learned!
Top Secret Researcher
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#5 Old 3rd Mar 2012 at 8:51 PM Last edited by billielith : 5th Mar 2012 at 8:42 PM.
This is encouraging! You certainly learned a lot!!

I know I can't do it, but I'm still going to do it. - M. C. Escher
Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#6 Old 5th Mar 2012 at 8:42 PM
Edit:
Ok so I found out how to remove ages. I looked inside some binned files with just one grey and compared with my binned files with all the greys to see what was different, and I found differences in 3 items: Material Definition (TXMT), Texture Image (TXTR) and Texture Overlay XML (XTOL). So I tried to edit these items and see if it would be enough - it's been fine! In case this could be useful to someone else, here's what I did:

Under Material Definition, all ages are there, this normally contains 10 files (12 if you have UNI?), one for each age and each gender, easily recognizable by a part in the string of their name. Elder files have ef~ and em~ in the middle. I opened my binned brows then tried removing the two elder's files in all my colors except the black - right-click 'delete', then save.

Then I went onto Texture Image, and removed the grey texture in each of the colors except the black.

Then in Texture Overlay, I found the ages and genders again, this time identifiable by the 4 last digits of their Instance number. The two first are for age, and the two last are for gender. Like this:

0x00000101 - Toddler, female
0x00000102 - Toddler, male
0x00000201 - Child, female
0x00000202 - Child, male
0x00000401 - Teen, female
0x00000402 - Teen, male
0x00000801 - Adult, female
0x00000802 - Adult, male
0x00001001 - Elder, female
0x00001002 - Elder, male

With these informations I could spot the extra Elder Texture Overlays and remove them for all colors except the black - again by right-click 'delete', then save. I did all this in Bodyshop Legacy so I am not sure where the Young Adults fit here, but if I remember well it should be 4001 and 4002.



So I tried this and saved my files while keeping backups. I tested them and it works! :D
With this method I could manually remove the extra greys! And I didn't break my files nor my game, lol. And this could probably work for other unwanted ages too.



But I thought of something else. For a same set of brows, both genders use the same textures, but get mentioned separately in Texture Overlays. I don't know if this matters but wouldn't it simplify the file if instead of having separate lines for both genders, one gender got removed and the other gender was put as unisex? It's possible to do it with children and toddler clothing, I was thinking it could be possible here too?

Another thing. I'm working on 5 different sets at the moment. With 8 colors each: 1 black, 2 browns, 3 blonds and 2 reds. If I got one file for each color I'll end up with 40 files. Isn't that a lot? I was wondering if it's possible to regroup all the colors in one file instead of 8? And can we familify 8 colors?

.

I know I can't do it, but I'm still going to do it. - M. C. Escher
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#7 Old 6th Mar 2012 at 11:05 AM
Make sure you link the other colors back to the black's grey otherwise when they grow up they might have problems keeping their bows. This should be already done, through the Family number, but check to be sure. As long as the female and the male textures are identical you could either use your method of deletion (which I'm not sure how the game will handle it, you will just need to test) or use the texture referencing method that age conversion creators use on clothes to make their file sizes smaller.

As for the colors, no, you can only have 1 color per family. After this was discovered it was generally put into practice to have a light family and a dark family. Maybe you could loose one of the blonds and add a black? Also, don't stick them all into one file, for people who like to pick and choose colors to make their own family (there are family binning tools available to us now) it makes it nearly impossible to do that when the files have been combined.
Top Secret Researcher
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#8 Old 7th Mar 2012 at 2:02 AM
Hmm ok. Link the greys. It makes sense. I was thinking since I keep the black's greys and was thinking of familifying colors according to the black's family the grey would have the proper number too, but you're right I'll check to be sure. Grouping textures in a unisex gender seems to work. It works in Bodyshop and Create-a-sim.

1 color per family, yes, lol. I tried familifying all 8 and Bodyshop wanted to put blond1, blond2 and blond3 altogether on my sim, all 3 blonds selected and I couldn't pick one in particular, lol, not good. Maybe I can familfy a group of the 4 "Maxis like" colors and just bin the others without familifying them?

I understand what you mean, I could keep an unbinned/unfamilified/ungrouped version for people who like to make their own custom sets. I've read somewhere some people like to mismatch brows with different hair colors; when brows are binned there's little room for that. But I like the idea of everything grouped together too, lol. The people who play Maxis premade neighborhoods and families will probably prefer everything done for them, ready to play. I was thinking maybe I could upload both versions, binned/regrouped, and unbinned/all loose/customizable for people who like things binned/familified their own way.

I know I can't do it, but I'm still going to do it. - M. C. Escher
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#9 Old 7th Mar 2012 at 8:43 PM
Hey now, I play the premades, but I've pretty much customized every other bit of my game. Don't judge my game by my sims!

The Dark/Light families is kinda the newish standard (since familifying was discovered), but you are the creator, do it how you like. I'd do a set of regular binned main 4 and then upload 'loose' binned ones. I hate having things incorrectly binned. But then again, I'd actually either do 2 sets of 4, or only 4 to start with - no extras. That's my two cents.
Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#10 Old 8th Mar 2012 at 11:30 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Phaenoh
Hey now, I play the premades, but I've pretty much customized every other bit of my game. Don't judge my game by my sims!

The Dark/Light families is kinda the newish standard (since familifying was discovered), but you are the creator, do it how you like. I'd do a set of regular binned main 4 and then upload 'loose' binned ones. I hate having things incorrectly binned. But then again, I'd actually either do 2 sets of 4, or only 4 to start with - no extras. That's my two cents.

Haha, ok. Sorry, I didn't mean to judge your game by your use of the premades. I just really never felt attracted by them. Even my very first game got played in a blank neighborhood, lol. And of course I failed the kids as I took a while before understanding the 'hide the homework near the computer' system, lol.

I understand what you are saying. I have to admit I like all 8 of my colors and don't really know what 'light black' I could use for a light family of brows. I remember seeing Peggy and XmSims use bluish black as an alternative to standard black but I don't really imagine that for brows.

I still got my 'loose' binned files. I could de-familify them and upload them in sets of 8 files as alternative to the merged ones. People could pick and choose if they don't want all 8 and they would still be binned. Then the unbinned pack could be another option if some people need unbinned black brows, for example, for their custom colors. Or if they want grey custom brows for non-elder sims. Or if they have a lot of unbinned hair and need all the colors of unbinned brows.

I am really glad we are having this conversation. You help me a lot to make this set something different kinds of simmers might like to use.

I know I can't do it, but I'm still going to do it. - M. C. Escher
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#11 Old 8th Mar 2012 at 12:27 PM
The two black colors I see are basically Asian black and Caucasian or African black. The Asian black is silky and shinier and a little bit blueish. Make sure your brows work for all the different hair textures. I see a lot of Asian sims.
Top Secret Researcher
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#12 Old 8th Mar 2012 at 5:08 PM
lol, if I do that, I would have to edit all my previous hair palettes and include an "asian" black for them as well. My 8 eyebrows colors have been derived from there and will be usable with them.

I'll certainly consider the idea.

I know I can't do it, but I'm still going to do it. - M. C. Escher
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