State of the Basegame Hair Retextures

[aquilegia]

I have 35 (!!) of the basegame hairstyles retextured (many thanks go to Hat for the retextures of hers I could borrow). After a lot of fussing, snarling, and not touching the project for days at a time, I've decided on a few things:

1. I'll use the colors Ja chose for her default replacements for mine. They really aren't the colors I prefer, but just the thought of doing all of those other styles is a deeply unhappy one, as is making default packages twice over. I can live with non-optimal-for-me shades.
2. I'm doing defaults instead of nice sets of recolors because I really, really, really hate the Bodyshop project dance. I did two styles and... no.
3. Instead I'll offer a base volatile texture (bmp+alpha bmp, or png?) of every hair that anyone is likely to want, like the curly/wavy retextures. I'll keep base textures of the others kicking around too just in case someone decides they really, REALLY want the combover in bright orange.
4. I'm offering each style in individual packages. I'm not grouping them together because I find that really annoying, and if you have something replaced that you like you wouldn't want mine coming in and bungling things up, now would you? You might also think that I have WAY TOO MANY WAVY TEXTURES (there are never too many) and not want them all. It also allows me to release them faster, since if anyone else is like me, there are a few basegame styles you use even when you hide most everything else.
5. I'm also not doing all of the hairstyles. There are a few I absolutely and utterly loathe and never use -- the flypigtails (Cassandra Goth's hair), the high ponytail, and the mullet I can say for sure won't make it in. Some of the hats also might not make it in unless I can texture the hair under them to actually look like another game hair (hip hat, I am looking at you).
6. Other hairstyles may not make it in because of Maxis failmapping. Some things I can correct for acceptably, others... (bowltwist and frenchbraid, argh)
7. I'll also include a few mesh tweaks and fixed age conversion meshes.

I may redo some of the styles Ja already tackled (like the liberty spikes, which I realphaed so they look good without those fucking stupid bangs), which is kind of unfortunate given how she bundled hers in all-in-one packages, so I'll have to cut them apart and offer them individually for people who don't have SimPE to tweak things themselves and who might not want everything I redo in an EP set.

Also, I have plans for a couple of gender conversions -- closecrop for women (has anyone done that yet?) because the ladies need a nice short afro, and the shaved underneath ponytail for women.




Unless otherwise stated assume I'm using Pooklet's v.2 or 3 textures, probably blended with Maxis textures.

Barrette (Pleasant twins' hair) -- Nouk wavy textures
Braidsup -- Hat's retexture
Bun (Chopsticks bun)
Closecrop -- Nouk afro textures
Crownbun (low bun) -- Hat's retexture blended with mine
Dreadlocks M&F -- Nouk dread textures
Messy F -- Nouk Valentine textures
Messy M -- Nouk wavy textures
Fuzzylong -- Nouk wavy textures
Getfabulous (the high bun that's all tiny braids) (Maxis texture, just recolored for consistency)
Halo -- Hat's retexture
LongPonytail
Longsimple -- Hat's retexture (will have a mesh tweak so it doesn't have corners and poofhead)
Meg -- Hat's retexture (and the inspiration for this whole insane project)
Mob (toddler bob) (Not really entirely finished, I need to figure out something I like for the bangs)
Mohawk
PagePunk (bob with heavy bangs also realphaed to at least sort of live up to its stupid name, will have a mesh tweak)
Peak (the receeding hairline hair)
PGchoppy (short asymmetric bob)
PGskater (the sort-of devil's lock hair with Monoblue's alpha to make it more like an actual devil's lock)
Poofs (cute mouse buns) -- Hat's retexture
Punkflip (the hideous not punk at all bad hair day bob which was a total bitch to retexture) -- Biobong on MTS's alpha inspiration
Rocker -- Hat's retexture
Rosettes (teeny tiny buns all over the head) -- Nouk afro texture
AMPonytail (the ponytail with the undercut) -- Bosie's alpha
Short -- Hat's recolor
Shortcombed
Shortecute (I've figured out that Maxis was probably trying for Amelié's hair and failing) -- Nouk wavy texture
Shortmop -- Hat's recolor of Alkaloid's textures (which I may redo if I'm feeling picky)
Shortslick -- Hat's retexture blended with mine
Shortspikey -- Nouk afro texture
Shorttuckin
Sixty -- Hat's retexture
Will (the quintessential nerd hairstyle!)

Comments

[curiousb]

Whatever the details of how you go about this this, I will love you for it anyway - begone, Maxis textures! Can't wait! :D

[ghanima_atreides]

Even though you said Ja's colours aren't your favourites, I squee'd because they are mine :D And this sounds awesome, I'm looking forward to the day all the Maxis hair textures have been burninated.

[hat_plays_sims]

1. Hey, if Ja's colors aren't your favorites, you can still take those out of any recolor sets and thus have variety!

2. I am both flattered and looking forward to this!

3. Basegame hairs require you to find the LIFO files for them, not the TXTR files. I've been kinda getting a start on this as part of a content swap thing-- my swap partner wants Family Four, though, so I was kinda doing Ja's colors for my own self-- which means hairs where I increased the texture size, like Halo or Longsimple, are going to crunch slightly. (If I knew how to increase the size of a LIFO without breaking it, I'd fix that.)

Deleted and reposted because bbs =|= html.

[aquilegia]

1. I must have consistency. XD I'm actually only really going to use the replacements for another variety of Maxis match game -- everything else I'll have recolor sets of my favorite eight colors. Which is fine, really, it'll take more space but I have plenty.

2. \o/

3. I'm puzzled -- LIFOs are useful for recoloring/texturing purposes, but they're not necessary for building packages, and those can take any texture size so long as it's square. I know it works, I have a bunch of replacements already done using 1024x1024 textures that show up just fine.

In other news, I have made a mesh and texture with the mullet that makes it into an almost tolerable slicked back hair yet still works with the Castaways hair. The mapping up top could still use some work and there's no helping the ugly, blunt end, but. http://i51.tinypic.com/2ainc6w.jpg

[hat_plays_sims]

Seriously? Because mine done using the TXTRs didn't work at all, and what textures I do have that should be crisp clear 1024x1024 textures are the slightly-crunched (but still better than Maxis) 512 texturs. I'll try changing the size on the LIFOs, though-- it's possible the last time I tried it went screwy because I was also changing the Build DXT level.

That is miles and miles of improvement on the mullet! (I was going to try and turn the flattop bit into a hat or something, I don't know.) The blunt ends are problematic, yeah, but a) works with the hat and b) more tolerable to look at on the DJ. I call it a net win. It's a one-group hair, right?

[aquilegia]

Seriously! I don't know why your textures would be shrinking when mine don't. Maybe you could toss me a package that has this problem and I can poke it with a stick and see if I can figure out what's going on?

Sadly, the mullet is indeed a one group hair, hence the hideous chunky ends. It's one of a handful of inexplicably sims 1-esque styles in the base game, but that's (even more inexplicably) the one they decided to finish. Even the textures are as poorly done as the other, hidden styles.

[hat_plays_sims]

The one I made with Family Four. Although that's the one using just TXTRs instead of LIFOs. My theory was that the game is only reading the largest LIFO instead of the largest image in the TXTR. Do the TXTR ones work for you or do you need the LIFOs in?

Apparently they thought they REALLY NEEDED a mullet. The clunky ends don't bother me too much (although it's tempting to suggest replacing it with the male cornrows), but it could've been better done as a solid-piece low ponytail or something, like how the base game and Uni ponytails come down to a single point instead of being loose and flowy.

[aquilegia]

That is so weird! The package isn't built any differently than how I build mine AFAICT (other than being everything in a bundle) and the textures look fine in SimPE, yet the textures in bodyshop are ouch. Mine don't crunch at all. O_o

Let's see... For some reason you end up with 11 mipmap levels and I only have 10 (no 1x1 image), but I have no idea how that would change anything.

I wonder if we do anything different on importing... I open up the texture, right-click the image and select build DXT, import as normal, click commit, save when they're all done, and everything is fine. I don't touch anything aside from importing that new image via build DXT.

Agreed that the mullet would have been a lot better as something else sensibly one piece, or something they had bothered to make proper layers for. I'll see if I can maybe curve the ends of the mesh under more so it's a little less obvious the hair is one big wodge of mesh.

[aquilegia]

Also, bluh, forgot to answer your other question -- TXTR packages work fine for me. I wonder if I should write a step-by-step thing to make sure we're on the same page (because I'm also extracting the TXTR resources and reimporting them into new packages myself).

[hat_plays_sims]

Blah, sorry about the slow getting back to you. I wandered afk for lunch and then forgot to check my email.

I haven't been extracting the TXTRs manually-- I just used Ja's. For objects, adding a mipmap level doesn't seem to cause a problem, so I assumed it didn't for hair (in fact, not having the 1x1 has caused me problems when trying to default the kind of prop objects I usually make). And yes, right click, Build DXT5, update all sizes (which just reduces the crunch a little bit more), commit, save.

Did my textures in Body Shop go crunchy-but-Pooklet'd for you, or just show the Maxis textures? Because all I got was Maxis.

[aquilegia]

No worries, it was getting late enough for me I wasn't terribly coherent at that point!

Your textures went crunchy-but-Pooklet'd and definitely showed up. I don't know what could be happening other than you maybe having another copy of Ja's package in your downloads folder, labeled/placed such so that it loads after and overrides the one you've been working on.

I'll try importing some textures in myself and see what happens as well.

[hat_plays_sims]

*narrows eyes at game* Bizzare. I admit I think I did leave Ja's package in, but it was subfoldered 'below' mine. I haven't shut down my game in a while (I've been checking and testing and going through the catalog to see what I can cull-- every time I do that, I seem to find a shitload of things to get rid of), but I guess it's time to do that and putz around with the danged things some more. *hasn't wanted to do anyting the past couple of days since the weather went from high 50s and rainy to high 70s if breezy* It's not hot, but I'm not acclimated yet.

[hat_plays_sims]

So I tried again, and no go-- the basegame hairs are basegame-textured unless I use the LIFOs as well as the textures. And for some reason, my LIFOs turn into fuzzy static when I try to enlarge them. I have two more tricks up my sleeve (reducing the Z-level my LIFOs are supposed to show at for the overlarge textures, and replacing the TXTR instead of the texture itself). Bodyshop is loading with the Z-level thing engaged as I type.

Seriously, personally I'm probably going to end up using your defaults, but I promised Jacci I'd do Family 4 for her, so I gotta find a way to make this work.

[hat_plays_sims]

Woohoo! Changing the Z-levels did it-- makes sense, right? If the game thinks it's supposed to zoom in on the 512 LIFO at 2048, it's gonna get crunchy. Now to go do that for things besides the black Halo recolor.

[aquilegia]

I never would have thought of that -- I've always been able to snaffle TXTRs, bang 'em into a package, replace the images, and bam, good to go. But yeah, that does make sense; I'll have to remember that because it's bound to come up again somehow.

[hat_plays_sims]

I gotta start checking email after I go fix lunch.

This is the first time the snaffle-and-replace hasn't worked for me, but every little trick is good to know, yes?

I can't figure out why it works differently for you than for me.

[digitaldollies]

Short Afro, yay! Seriously I need more ethnic hairs.

[aquilegia]

There really aren't enough, are there? This is why I used Nouk's afro textures on a couple of other likely looking candidates (I just can't see a straight haired girl making those rosettes work XD).

[digitaldollies]

Oh wow, the rosettes too!?!

I try to not feel slighted but being black sometime I want to see representations of what I look like and see around me sometimes. Nouk has a couple of really awesome ethnic meshes she's working on. I'm waiting anxiously for her to finish them.

[aquilegia]

I must say I think the rosettes turned out super cute with the afro texture. :D

I try to not feel slighted but being black sometime I want to see representations of what I look like and see around me sometimes.

That's perfectly reasonable! It's sad that that representation is so lacking in a game that has so much capacity for diversity as TS2. Maxis could have done a lot better, in my opinion (which is why I'm busily applying curls and afro textures to every hair mesh of theirs that looks like they might work with them).

I'm really looking forward to Nouk's ethnic meshes, too. :D She does amazing work.

[digitaldollies]

I can't wait to see them all. Hat is working on some base game defaults for me as well, I'd better give her a heads up on these. Nvm I just realized that she's in tha thread to. I'm going to have such fun when I can play again.

[quinctia]

This is kind of exciting. A few of Hat's retextures already made me think a good set of replacements might make Maxis hairs worth un-hiding. I use the cornrows and the mohawks, and that's it.

Also excited for the afro conversion, if you do it. More hair texture variety!

Yay on including base textures in the project, too. I have this inexplicable adoration for the Molotov red that I think I'd have to use it for personal replacements if I went that route. Almost every sim I've had born a redhead since the v3 Pooklet stuff came out has ended up specifically in a Molotov hair.

[aquilegia]

I will definitely do the closecropped conversion. :D I already made the adult mesh while just noodling around -- most of the effort comes in making the texture-linked, Maxis blended packages.