TESTERS WANTED! Customizable Color Palettes

# [Core Mod] Custom Color Palette Overhaul — Hair, Eyes, Makeup & CAST

**Category: Core Mod** — this replaces `ScriptCore.dll` in full rather than adding an additive script resource. See Compatibility below before combining with other core mods.

I gotta be real with y'all. This is a vibecoded mod. I used Claude. I can't code, but I had $20 and 6,283 days worth of hate for the default color palettes in this game.

## Overview

This mod replaces the default color choices in four of the game's color pickers with curated, hand-picked palettes:

- **Hair** — 42 colors, based on Pooklet's Overhaul hair color chart.
- **Eyes** — 42 colors, organized by category: natural blues, greens, browns, and grays, plus a row of unusual-but-plausible human eye colors and a row of fully saturated/fantasy tones.
- **Makeup** — 42 colors, organized by category: reds, nudes/browns, berries/plums, blush pinks, eyeshadow/liner neutrals, and a maximalist "go bold" row.
- **CAST** (Create A Style — clothing/pattern recoloring in CAS, and object/material recoloring in Build/Buy) — 81 colors, arranged as 9 rows of 9: white, gray, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, each sorted cool → neutral → warm. Every CAST color is a real, named paint color pulled from Farrow & Ball and PPG Paints — nothing invented, all traceable to an actual paint chip.

No more picking through the same washed-out EA defaults — every swatch in these four pickers is intentional.

## How it works (for the curious)

This isn't a recolor or a texture swap — it's a script-level override. The game routes every one of these color pickers through one shared internal function, so the mod patches that function's compiled bytecode directly (via IL manipulation, no source access needed) to serve a custom array of colors instead of the game's own. Hair, eyes, and makeup are each targeted individually; CAST is treated as "everything else," which is why the same 81-color palette shows up consistently whether you're recoloring a clothing pattern in CAS or a material in Build/Buy.

## ⚠️ Compatibility — This IS a Core Mod

This is a **core mod**: it fully replaces `ScriptCore.dll`, one of the game's compiled script assemblies, at its exact resource key — it's not an additive script mod, a tuning mod, or a recolor. That distinction matters for compatibility:

- **It will conflict with any other core mod that also replaces `ScriptCore.dll`.** Only one override of a given core DLL can be active — whichever package loads last silently wins, and you lose the other mod's changes entirely. There's no automatic merging.
- If you run other core mods, check what DLL(s) they override before combining. A core mod that touches a *different* core assembly (not `ScriptCore.dll`) won't conflict with this one.
- Like any core mod, a fresh `scriptCache.package` clear is required on install/update (see below) — the game caches compiled scripts and won't pick up changes otherwise.

**I have tested it with NRAAS mods, and found no incompatibility with it.**

## Installation

1. Delete any previous version of this mod from your `Mods/Packages` folder.
2. Drop the `.package` file into `Mods/Packages`.
3. Delete `scriptCache.package` (found in your Sims 3 user folder) so the game doesn't load a stale cached copy of the old scripts.
4. Launch and check Options > Game Options to confirm script mods are enabled.

## Customization — No Coding, No Rebuild

Want different colors instead of mine? You don't need to touch any code or recompile anything. Drop a plain text file into:

```
Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\CustomColorPalettes\
```

with the name `Hair.txt`, `Eyes.txt`, `Makeup.txt`, or `CAST.txt` — one 6-digit hex color per line (no `#`), first line is always a header/comment and gets ignored. Save, clear `scriptCache.package`, relaunch — that palette now uses your colors instead of mine. You can add as many or as few colors as you want; the grid just cycles through however many you give it. No file present for a given picker? It falls back to my defaults automatically, so nothing breaks if you only want to customize one of the four.

Starter files with my exact current palettes (ready to tweak) are attached — just edit and drop in. Full C# source is also available on request for anyone who wants to go deeper.

## Credits

- Hair palette based on **Pooklet's Overhaul** hair color chart.
- CAST palette built from real named colors by **Farrow & Ball** and **PPG Paints**.
- Hex references cross-checked via Encycolorpedia and Hextoral.

## Terms of Use

- Do whatever you want with it. You hate the default colors just as much as I do.