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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 19th Aug 2020 at 2:57 PM
Default Can a change be made?
Greets!

I wrote a Tut a couple of days ago showing a better way to Default clothes (should carry over to hair as well). In it I stated you might see the 3DIR in the compressed file folder. So you would need to extract both the 3DIR and the Property Set as they were getting corrupted. I defaulted all my women folk in 2003 (mostly from CH's Taa taa stuff pack....;-) so I wasn't up to speed on the details. Since then I've pulled over 60 outfits getting ready to bring all my defaults up to date with the newer content that's now available. In so doing I've found out that the 3DIR is never compressed (at least in the 30 I checked). This makes me believe that they were aware they had an issue, but didn't have a good handle on it as it will only occur if the Guide or Instance is changed.

So Chris, what's happening is the Directory of Compressed Files is being corrupted when I change the Guide or Instance. Can you, upon saving the package do added house cleaning and recalculate the Compressed File Table? Or remove the Property Set from being compressed? In my method I tried deleting the Binx (which is compressed) "after" I made the changes to Guide and Instance but this does NOT force a recalculation. The only way I can force a refresh is to extract and import, I can then delete what I just imported and the package will then work. Blew my mind the first time I did that, but then I was never looking at what was happening in the compressed folder!

Well I'll need to update my Tut a little. All being said, now that you are aware that any package can be turned into a default just using info from the Property Set and SimPe. How about a Default Wizard? Please. please,please!...;-)
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 19th Aug 2020 at 4:09 PM
You can recompress files, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem to do just that. I think the DoCF file gets overwritten and/or fixed, but there can occasionally be a problem with the cache files (if you get a crashing game, delete the cache files)

Compressing mostly has an impact on textures and meshes. For most other resources, you don't compress a whole lot of KBs.
Forum Resident
#3 Old 20th Aug 2020 at 1:08 PM
As far as I know, @Savagegrace, the Directory of Compressed Files should be regenerated when you save. If you're not sure whether it is, delete it, and see whether it reappears when you save.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#4 Old 20th Aug 2020 at 1:47 PM
Greets dharden, I'm sure it is NOT.

This just gets better and better, I simply would not have thought to delete the Directory of Compressed Files itself. So I simply delete it and save, it doesn't disappear like a normal delete should (So it refused to delete it?). I close the file and re-open, no change. Then I change the Instance, the File Table is corrupted, I delete the Directory of Compressed Files and save, once again it doesn't disappear. However upon closing and re-opening the Table has regenerated to a Good state. How weird is that!? It appears there is a flag that gets toggled when the Guide or Instance is changed, but due to bad house-keeping the Table isn't regenerated. By deleting the Table (which appears NOT to happen) it does however check the flag and forces a regenerated Table.

Thanks for the input dharden, I'll test my method of Defaulting and make the final step deleting the compressed folder. Eliminating a couple of steps. Coool!

GS
Scholar
#5 Old 20th Aug 2020 at 2:33 PM
SimPE does not handle the Directory of Compressed Files (CLST) very well and if you need to change the Group or Instance of a compressed resource you will need to manually decompress the resource first or SimPE may not update the CLST with the new value(s) and file becomes corrupt. If the file has less than 1,000 resources you can decompress it in the Recourse Information plugin (same place as you set the Group and Instance values), after decompressing save the file before you make a change to be sure it is removed from the CLST.

I never compress 3DID Referencing Files (3IDR) because they don't compress well at all, in many cases the amount the 3IDR shrinks is less than the amount the CLST increases. For example if you use the Compressorizer to compress the globalcatbin.bundle.package from T&A or A&N it will increase in file size.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#6 Old 20th Aug 2020 at 6:21 PM
Thanks Chris! I was looking for the .NET validation tool to see if I was in the Outer Limits or something. This means dharden is doing something different that forces an update of the File Table.

Much appreciated!

GS
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