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!
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 20th Jun 2015 at 11:27 PM
Default How do I know which material definition is which hair colour...?
I'm trying to default replace hair following this tutorial: http://le-plat-du-jour.livejournal.com/56464.html

I'm at the point where you extract all the files under TXMT and TXTR (not sure what those are called anymore) from the hair that you want as your replacement. The difference is, that in the tutorial it's one package for each colour, so they save it in a folder with the proper name and know what belongs to which hair colour. I have it all in one package and can't tell which texture and which material definition belong to each other, so how do I find out...? On the texture images you can just see the colour in plugin view, but the material definitions confuse me.

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this thread, sorry if I'm spamming around in the wrong category or so... xD
Advertisement
Lab Assistant
#2 Old 20th Jun 2015 at 11:36 PM
I follow the same tutorial. You need to find proper color (ie find the blond by checking the texture), select that texture (TXTR) and then sort all resources by Instance. TXMT (one or more) will have the very same instance as the single TXTR resource you just selected. With CTRL Click you select all the resources of that same instance and export them into one specific folder.
Then you repeat same for other colors, exporting each color resources into some specific folder.
Hope that helps.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#3 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 12:49 AM
But they don't. However I sort, textures stay together and nothing has the same instance.

Maybe the file I'm working with is just weird...
Oh well I'm gonna have another look at it tomorrow.
Lab Assistant
#4 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 10:51 AM
Then try sorting them by name. As you can see in this shot (http://i.imgur.com/hvalS.png) under selected TXTR there are only 3 TXMT that refer to adult hair. So those are to be exported 1 TXTR and 2 TXMT (she excludes hair3 and explains why).
Perhaps you chose too dificult item to replace and/or file to replace with. For first try is best to choose replacement that has same number of groups in the mesh as original file you want replaced, and same ages, with each color in separate file, clearly named.
.
It seems that this tutorial has few flaws - it does make the replacement but leaves the Delete button available, which if used can cause big damage to the game core. If you make that default only for your own use, and you know you won't be deleting maxis stuff, it's not a problem, but it would be if such file would be given to others to download.
(see comment underneath tutorial made by notaverb on Feb. 3rd, 2013)
When I compared a file that I made following this tutorial and some other default replacements I downloaded (that work and DISABLE delete button), only difference I noticed was in Propetry set in Flags. Mine had 0x00000009 and theirs 0x00000000. So I changed ALL PropertySets Flags to 0x00000000, and delete button dessapeared.
I don't know if that is sufficient to make the file safe to use, but it worked for me.
.
There is another thing that's not clear. The tutorial tells to insert Product=1 and Version=2, while according to PHAENOH here it would make the replacement compatible for Holiday2005??
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#5 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 1:43 PM
Hm yeah I think I chose quite a difficult thing.
I'm extracting things from another default replacement because I couldn't find the hair anywhere, and thought everything that I need to extract and put in my replacement, must be in that one too. Just that it's thrown in one file now and I can't find what's what... so my problem actually lies at the point where you extracted all the files you need already and use this package button to put the TXMT into the right 3D ID referencing file. The tutorial just says like "take the files from one colour and put them into the 3IDR file of the same colour" because they extracted them from a clearly name package and have it all in this nice "black/brown/..." folders now

What confuses me, though, is that there are also custom hairs where the recolours for the 5 hair colours share one file and aren't clearly named. So there must be some way to find out. (And I'd like to just take an easier file, but I really want this certain hair. ;_; )
The groups weren't the problem, but I gotta say it's all quite hard to follow. I had to open another tutorial next to it because this one assumes that things are just clear pretty often. Thanks for the tip with the delete button lol, knowing me I'd hit that at some point anyway.

First of all I'm gonna open a WCIF thread for the hair and try again with the "normal" file, maybe I find out what's the problem then. If there's a way to find out, I'd still like to know, though. I just thought maybe there's some number in the TXMT resource that tells me which hair colour.
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#6 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 4:30 PM
Can you link to the hair you are trying to use? That way we can download it and look at the package ourselves to give you better advice.

TXTR stands for Texture, and TXMT stands for (Texture) Material Definition, also abbreviated Mat. Def.

The TXMT links to the TXTR by name (even if the name is a weird string of numbers/letters) inside the resource in one of the lines, stdMatBaseTextureName. Every group has it's own TXMT, so you might have 3+ TXMT for each TXTR. You first figure out which TXTRs you need to keep by looking at the picture, and then match the TXMTs to the names of those.

If it is too confusing to have them all in the same file to start with, make 4 copies of the file, and rename them to each hair color, then delete out the rest of the colors in each. This isn't exactly how you divide up a combined package properly, but it should be enough to help you keep track of what you are doing.

Be sure to zero out the Creator line, as my tutorial mentioned. The Flags line is just marking whether it is a hat, or a hidden hair, 0 is normal hair. As for the Product/Version flags, Holiday pack didn't come with little icons for their Bodyshop stuff, but if they did, you'd see them because you put in as 1/2. It is better to tag your replacement as which EP or SP the thing actually needs. If it relys on an NL mesh, tag it as NL. If it's a total mesh and texture replacement, tag it as BG.

Hope that helps!
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#7 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 5:01 PM
http://sims2defaults.dreamwidth.org/278107.html

I'm actually using both the long brown (middle left) and the short blonde (middle) one the blue background there, or the female custom version of that that I found. The long one replaces the adult version of the hair, and the blonde one was supposed to replace the young adult version but it's gone. (So is the custom version of the long one.) Now I have the adult replacement with textures that I made of its original ones and the female custom ones and no mesh at all, which I ignored for now because I have the adult replacement which has the same mesh in my game too... and try to make a replacement for the young adult hair... basically I'm fiddling around on the off chance with no clue at all and just hope the file is gonna do SOMETHING in my game ;_;

I made 4 recolours of the long adult hair in bodyshop now and named them properly and the plan is to just import the short textures when I'm done. Please someone stop me when I'm making like 10 stupid mistakes here
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#8 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 5:06 PM
Okay, it's there but it's long. Could it be I should just have made the recolours short in body shop already or am I just doing stupid things that won't work and I really need to find this damn custom male hair that seems to be wiped off the internet? I'm pretty sure I confused something at SOME point.
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 5:16 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Skae2.0
http://sims2defaults.dreamwidth.org/278107.html
Now I have the adult replacement with textures that I made of its original ones and the female custom ones and no mesh at all, which I ignored for now because I have the adult replacement which has the same mesh in my game too... and try to make a replacement for the young adult hair... basically I'm fiddling around on the off chance with no clue at all and just hope the file is gonna do SOMETHING in my game ;_;
I made 4 recolours of the long adult hair in bodyshop now and named them properly and the plan is to just import the short textures when I'm done. Please someone stop me when I'm making like 10 stupid mistakes here


Do I understand you correctly? You have adult replacement all done and working and you want to make it work for young adults too??
If that's the problem, solution couldn't be easier - all you need to change is AGE in Propertysets from 0x00000008 (adult only) to 0x00000048 (adult and young adult). Naturally that has to be done in all propertysets that refer to adult.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#10 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 5:31 PM
No - I'm trying to replace hairlongsimple. That one is actually 3 hairs, it's amhairlongsimple_clone, amhairlongsimple_ep7 and ymhairlongsimple.

The link shows the three replacements I want, the ones on the blue background. The left (_clone) and middle one (young adult) have the same mesh, but the middle one isn't available anywhere - when you click it, there's another hair replacing that one because the creator didn't like it anymore.

So I'm trying to do that myself now, but both the long original and the short edit of this hair are actually female and all the download links for the male conversions won't work. I made a short edit myself now but of the amhairlongsimple_clone replacement, which I'm using to extract what I need for my replacement. That makes it hard to follow the tutorial because there all the recolours and the mesh each have their own files, and I don't know if that'll work anyway...

What I did now is to load that short edited replacement for the adult hair into my game, and make four recolours of that to use those in my replacement so I can tell what's what. I also didn't have a mesh (must be somewhere in the replacement file, too, right? But I'm confused.) I thought maybe since they have the same mesh anyway, it works without. So I put the normal long replacement for the adult hair back in my game and my new young adult replacement and checked in body shop, but they both are long and I don't know why.
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#11 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 9:19 PM
I'm pretty lost here, but I don't think you need to replace all those hairs, I think you can just replace one and hide the others. As Curls said, just adjust the age field.

Additionally, you can't use the mesh from a female hair and make it work, the scalps are different and you will have holes. It doesn't matter at all that there is a female version, if you can't get a male one, you can't make this work.

It sounds like you could be missing a mesh or two. Look in the replacement packages for a GMDC. If you don't have that, you don't have a mesh. Start with making sure you have male meshes for everything.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#12 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 9:25 PM
I know, that's why I'm using the other default replacement to extract things for my replacement - it has the male conversion which I don't get anywhere else.
I put in that GMDC but still not working. Oh well. I guess I'm waiting for one of those download links to work and give it another try some time.
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#13 Old 21st Jun 2015 at 11:19 PM
For the mesh you do actually need more than just the GMDC, there are the GMND the SHPE and the CRES. I wrote a hair tutorial, that might help explain some of these concepts better.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#14 Old 22nd Jun 2015 at 11:31 PM
The shpe and cres files I put in there as the tutorial said right at the start.

But I gave up now anyway - I'm waiting for this damn custom hair to pop up somewhere.
Back to top