Be a little more polite if you can, please. Sorry if i missunderstood something. Anyway, i think you need to understand what exactly you said here: "Shut the heck up if you don't have anything to contribute".
This quote don't apply just to me. I will shut up for sure, don't worry. I was just thinking that non gratitude people have to learn how to thank and don't start brag about how much they know. So, that's exactly why i replied here, jordi.

thanks for your attention.

That's the worst comment i ever seen.
Theo's tool is the only one that make everything right. Even Datgen have problems with gray hair.
I must say that you are brag about how much you know about properly bin hairs and nothing that you are saying is helpping.
So, please, if you know something usefull (that i doubt), try at least help the tool developers and stop with this type of attitude.

maxis didn't update the code relative to this interaction after nightlife and the new inventory feature. Plus the play handheld wants wasn't updated also and i notice some problems with portable wants. I made for my personal use (without any intention to share) a fix to it and is working fine so far. I'm using it since a month, when i first notice some weird behaviours of handheld wants. Still has something that i didn't catched yet since sometimes is duplicating the handheld in the inventory after sims were socializing playing it. Anyway, it isn't hapening all the time. If you are interested, i can send to you.

that's weird.
i'm not sure about this, but i had an old hair file made before UNI came out and was replacing the bald hair texture of cloned skintones in bodyshop.
i notice that now only Skin tones use the group ID 0x7F... and hair and clothes are using now 0x5F... This hair overriding the bald texture of Skintones was using the group ID 0x7F...
maybe if you find the hair causing this, try to clone it and delete the old file. probably will fix this.

to test if is exactly the problem that i had before, try to create a skintone in bodyshop and look at the textures named as ~hair
if it's showing a hair texture and not a bald texture, it's exactly the problem that i had.

I notice that cheek problem, and i think that this made maxis not include the hair.
but sincerally, i don't notice too much in the game. And some of maxis hats have problems
like this also, but not in cheeks. I notice a hair under the hat that clip the forehead of my sim.

and just to explain something, i didn't change anything in the mesh. It's exactly the same that maxis
left shipped with OFB. I only linked everything to show up in the catalog. This is why the package is so
small. And of course that if you don't have OFB will not show it.

I'm curious if you make her playable using a hack (like "make selectable") or proposing to move in with your sim.

I don't know how to fix this problem, but did you tried change in "Other" Tab (Sim Description) the NPC field to be 0x0000?
I'm not sure if this will help you. And i think that making this she will lost the ability to have a "special" menu in the wardrobe.

It happens when creators (almost all of them) use the same bodyshop project to create all colors. Will use one color to start the project and after finished they reload the projet to change the colors. All references were based in one color. Anyway, the names there doesn't matter by the game. 
This is why Theo made the texture preview. You can know what color is related to that package and not to care about the names that most of the time are wrong.
What are really important, Theo made with the tool can change properly everything to make the hair work fine in the game.
 

Theo made an option to compress the resources. It will use the SimPE Compress code in the textures resources inside the package.
However, since SimPE isn't Bodyshop, sometimes it can't compress all..

and to clarify, compressing resources is not related to image compression.

you can select the option to compress the textures resources at menu "Package/Options" in the Output Tab.
make sure that you are using at least version 0.2.8.1

i know that the game has a cheat to turn off vsync using the cheat box, but i never tried since I'm forcing this
in the driver config.

the cheat is:

vsync off
vsync on

description by maxis: "vsync [on|off] Enables/disables vertical sync - can improve performance, but will sometimes cause visual artifacts if off"

but i don't know if has the same effect since i never tried.

anyway, the cheat will take effect only if the driver property of vertical sync is setted as "controlled by application", of course.

vsync is the Vertical Syncronization of your monitor.
I'm not an expert in this part, but if i turn it off will not be too slow when moving around
the camera in the game or zooming.

You can adjust this property here:
right click in your desktop
select Nvidia/"Monitor Model Name" (mine is Samsung Syncmaster)
When a NVIDIA window open up, select "Performance and Quality Configurations" (sorry, my version is in portuguese)
In the box at the middle (Driver Global Configurations) has some options of quality and performance. Highlight the Vertical Syncronization and uncheck
the box setted as "Controlled by Application". Move the slider to "Off" and click "apply" and "ok".

anyway, is just a small improvement, but make my game less slow when moving the camera.
I don't recommend changing and forcing other properties there, since the game already have some good
performance adjustments and may forcing 2 times the same option (like smoothing edges/anti-aliasing and such..)
will make the game really slow.
let the other options as it is when you install the driver.

I use Fx5200 as well and i have no problems at all with the 71.84 drivers.
I just turn off vsync in the video card properties and the performance is great.

my processor is an athlon XP 2400+ and i have 768 Mb of RAM

I forgot completely. lol
the hairtone ID 6 is hidden in Bodyshop. Will only be avaliable in the game (doesn't matter if the thumbnail is hidden or not).
so, is better not using this if you are planning to select in bodyshop.
if you do like i said in the last post that i edited:

will be placed there, but will not be changed smoothly between bins like normaly is (only the elder).
are you doing like this when you say that is working?

you just changed in the elders PSETs, right?
if isn't show up, just change again to 5 instead of 6.

i can't imagine why isn't working using as 6.
i will try here to see

yes. you are right. Well, i never tried make a set like you are doing, so, i was guessing.
but if you copy the family GUID and paste to the elders PSET (i tried here) hairtone field, will place in
the custom bin. But, if you are selecting an adult hair in the black bin and change the age
to be an elder, the bin will change to the grey bin (the bodyshop expects that the correct bin is
this one), but if you click in the custom bin, the elder thumbnail is there (not selected).
i don't know why isn't selected, but if you select this thumbnail and change to adult, will go to
the black bin again (so, is corrected linked by family ID).
in the game will not be broken, i guess. But is something unusual that you are trying to do.

hun?
why are you placing the elder hair as custom?
well, anyway, i think that what i said to theo fix with custom tab colors is making your life hard. sorry about this, but what you are making is not a "classic" way. lol

ok, you can try open the package and change the PSETs of elders to use:
hairtone (dtString) = 00000006-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 (maxis multicolored bin)
instead of 00000005 (grey bin).
let me know if this helped

EDITED:
idtaminger, i read again your post and i'm not sure yet what you are trying to explain. lol
sorry. But if you are keeping a hair set (all ages) in custom bin and just the elder is been categorized as grey bin (was a bug), you may try
the new version that Theo fixed this problem.
are you using Color Binning Tool version 0.2.8.1?

lol
those ages ago. We can start call those times as "b.t.p." (before Theo's Plugin) and now a new Era came up.

Theo, i think it is better if you talk to quaxi about the compression resources using a code. Like i said before
this type of compression is not a image compression, but a resource compression. The DDS tools don't have any relation to
what we are seeking. I wish i have more knowledge and a better english vocabulary to explain better this situation. sorry guys

idtaminger:
just right click in the materials and use the "use base texture". But like motoki said, if the creator changed UV Maps in the mesh, the texture may
be messed. Make sure to do this in all materials that is showing. You can select multiple Materials and apply to all with just one click.

EDITED:
Theo, i found why was not compressing the textures. When chosing the option to merge the packages (create single package)
is not compressing the textures, but if this option is unchecked (by default) the textures will be compressed.
I think that your code is already working, but was not used by "create single package" option
and this option is what i'm using always.

Motoki, i think that you are understanding wrong.
the compression is for resources (package compression). Not BMP or PNG textures to DDS.(image compression)
what the tool does isn't relating to recreating textures.
Is the same thing if you export a resource to *.simpe and reimporting. Will export/import as a binary file.
what that will be lost when importing again is the package compression, not the image compression.

yes. If other ages PSETs are using the same hairtone GUID (same as the family GUID), the elder must use it as well, since all custom hairs unbinned are using like this.
man, you are fast!

i tested redoing those packages and all is fine now. Plus, i tested other hairstyle with all colors properly binned and no problems were found.
this version is the best so far.
bravo!

But looks like the compress code for textures is not working. at least, not here.
and just a very small request, with low priority of course. When you have a time, if is doable.. could you please make the tool save the option checkboxes
as a preference or something? when i was testing, everytime that i create a new session the options checkboxes are changing to default.

now i will go back to work and stop bothering Theo with requests and small problems. lol

just another small mistake in the "Custom" color tab is that the elder hair is the only one using another hairtone value at the PSET. It's
using the maxis 0000005 hairtone. You may need to exclude this change to only "Custom" color tab to keep the same hairtone value as
the other ages (to not broke the DNA if a sim has it). Looks like all the other ages aren't been changed in the hairtone field of PSETs.
 
I don't know if is possible isolate the changes that you are making to color tabs.

oh! i see.
that's new to me. I never saw a hair using bump textures. Now i know that the maxis dreads are using it.

good that you are working on this issue.
thanks for the info, theo. great job

EDITED:

Theo, i found something wrong with a package that i was working with your tool.
I downloaded some multi colored tinted hairs and i was categorizing those as "Custom".
If i try to use a base texture in a Material, your tool is changing the color name of Filelist to
"-custom" when pasting to stdMatBaseTextureName.
for example, the hair was cloned from a black hair. toddler, child, teen and elder texture was not changed
to be multi colored as adult texture. So, i was copying the base texture to the Materials. In file list, for example,
i have "puhairsimple-straight-black" and your tool is changing to "puhairsimple-straight-custom.
The texture will not be found, of course 

i hope that you can fix this later
i'm trying the version 0.2.7.1 btw.

that will be cool, theo!
if the tool make the output textures compressed is less manually work that we have.
thanks a lot!

about the normal maps, i was thinking that bump map textures are only used by clothes..i never saw a hair using normal maps.
i'm curious. why you are worried about it?

I'm glad that you solve your problem
I have a theory about old stuffs been messing because of how the game handles clothings and stuff now.

I had problems with old custom contents after UNI and NL. Looks like maxis changed the way
that skin tones and clothings use the group IDs in the package.
For example, if you create now a skin tone the group ID that will use start with 0x7F000000. Clothes
and hairs are using now 0x5F000000.
Since the group of the clothes giving problem to you were using 0x7F, probably the game is thinking
that is a skin tone and not a cloth (i'm not saying that will show the thumbnail in skin tone sector).
I had a problem with a hair (when UNI was realeased) that was using this 0x7F group and everytime that i was trying to clone
a skintone, the texture of that hair is pulled by bodyshop in the project folder... was driving me insane. And this faulty hair wasn't showing in
the catalog.

Hi!

No! the problem with the size of the packages is just a matter of uncompressed resources.
SimPE, by default, when importing or creating resources never compress them (security reason).

You just need to open the package after completed and select some resources to
compress. But be very careful on this! some things can't be compressed.
And i never use the compression in 3IDR files because i got corrupted.

This information i'm a little worried. I'm not responsible of anything if something got corrupted
and people don't know what they are doing... So, if you are worried about using this, use just to TXTRs
and will decrease a lot of the package size. The other resources are all small ones and will not change
too much. But remember that i said, some can't be compressed. So, if it not compressed one or two,
forget it.

to do this, just select one or multiple resources (draggin a box around the resources with your mouse
or shift+click or shift+ctrl ... whatever) and select the Resource Dock (where
is showing the Group ID and Instances and where you can edit the IDs). There is a little box called compression.
Select "Yes" and go to File/Save (don't need to hit commit). Will make all selections compressed. Make sure to not hit commit!

note that simPE will freeze a little time, sometimes it takes more than 2 or 3 minutes if a lot of resources are selected.
i suggest select the resource by type first. This way is more fast.
And be patient! don't close the simPE task using task manager if hang up for too much time. lol
go take a bath, play dices or poker with your dog... PATIENCE!

make sure to make a little backup of the package. if something gots corrupt you can't use it.

i agree!
and back in those days that i was trying to figure it out how to make a set in one package (using the jeannete hair package), i was affraid to use different groups IDs in the same package.
Looks like is completely fine merge all color packages without changing groups and names in TXMTs (to not conflict).
i'm glad that this tool can do this. Once gain, Thanks a lot to Theo!

maybe because you are using a very old version of SimPE..
version 50 is really outdated.

and i'm not sure if this plugin can be running with such old version.
correct me if i'm wrong, please.

anyway, looks like SimPE site is down.

hi twistingsims!
sorry take some time to answer you. I just didn't notice your post before.


isn't required change there (in Filelist). The game will read the stdMatBaseTextureName of TXMTs to render the texture.


sorry. In fact you need to point the exact name of the texture. You are saying "afhairlonglayer - brown" but must be "afhairlonglayer-brown" (without spaces)
and sorry that i said a wrong name. I didn't touched the TXMTs of those hidden meshes and i didn't know what is the exact name of those textures.
elder textures generally is afhair..-grey (when is maxis textures, not cloned). So, if is grey is for elder. Doesn't matter if is using af or ef in the name.


sometimes you can't. If the creator changes UV Maps you may find the texture messed in the mesh. So, sometimes is required to use the same
texture that the creator included. In fact, that tip to copy the Filelist name to stdMatBaseTextureName is to call a maxis texture for ages that were not created
a mesh. Those ages are using the maxis mesh and the texture is included by bodyshop in the package. So, is wasting space and making the package bigger.


yes. i can send to you. no problem.
in fact, the size of the package is just 19kb.
wild animation??? i didn't saw wrong animations with that hair yet.
the male hair is using the same size of the female (19kb). if you like, i can send both and then you see that isn't exist wild animation.
at least some townies of my neighborhood are using and i didn't notice anything wrong with that hair...