Hello, as some of you may know I am sorting my defaults and CC so that I can cull some of my Downloads Folder.

This ended up turning into a massive project, with me replacing most of my defaults and tweaking my CC (which is a very slow process due to how little free time I have left, after overtime and a social life).

I have been trying to add extra colours to default replacements for clothing, so an item that has one colour in the Maxis catalogue has 3 or 4 colours, for example (similar to adding extra ages to hair defaults, but adding extra colours to clothes defaults).

I'm managing to botch this at the moment by creating the outfit at the same time in Bodyshop, then making a property set based default of one colour, adding the rest of the CC colours to the file, and editing Creator, Family, Product and Version in the Property Sets.

However, this only works around half the time, and I think Sortindex is my missing ingredient.

I've been trying to find out the Sortindex values for the Maxis outfits, but I don't know how to search for them in SimPE using the Finder (I don't know what Object Search, STR Search, TGI Search, NREF Search and Scenegraph search do, as I have only used the other 2 searches). So I can't extract anything to add to my defaults.

I found this post from Lord Darcy on MATY:
"You have to edit Collection in 3D ID Referencing File (3IDR) and sortindex in Binary Index (BINX) in outfits and hairs. Enable debug mode in CAS to find out Bin Key for Maxis clothing/hair bin into which you want to put your stuff, edit Collection in 3IDR to match the Bin Key.
Find out Frag Sort Idx in CAS debug mode, and adjust sortindex in BINX accordingly. For example, I edited OFB female chicken hat to appear between Ninja hair (Frag Sort Idx is around 130) and Gorilla hair (Frag Sort Idx is around 190). So I gave it a new Frag Sort Idx around 180 by editing sortindex in BINX. It's more complicated for hairs, as all five hair colors have different Frag Sort Idx numbers."

I tried this, but the Frag Sort Idx in CAS debug mode and the Sortindex in SimPE seem totally unrelated to me (I have attached screenshots from a custom outfit as an example of how the numbers don't match).

Can anyone advise please?
Thanks

= EDITED 06/08/23 - I know how to do this is now, if anyone else needs the information:
The Frag Sort Idx number is the Decimal version of the Sortindex number in SimPE. The Sortindex number in SimPE is in Hexadecimal.

So the easiest way to change the Sortindex number, so the outfit shows where you want it is:
1. Look up Frag Sort Idx number of the outfit you want your outfit next to, in CAS debug mode, and write it down/screenshot it.
2. Google the number, for example if the Frag Sort Idx number is 1234, Google "1234 in hexadecimal" (you could try working it out yourself, but Google is much quicker).
3. Copy the number from Google and paste it into SimPE as the Sortindex number, Commit and Save.

If anyone else needs to know, I have worked out how to move outfits added to defaults, by fumbling around in SimPE.

But to move clothes, edit Collection in 3IDR to match the Bin Key first (otherwise the clothes won't move).

Then change the Sortindex number to a number close to the Frag Sort Idx number, load the game and check how close you are to the Frag Sort Idx of the Maxis outfit you want yours to sit next to.

It takes a few goes but eventually you will hit the right one

I still don't know how to view the Sortindex for Maxis outfits though, and I'd love to move those if I can, some meshes aren't next to each other, which annoys my picky side!

Hey guys!

I'd like to move some CC clothing within the CAS catalogue. Concerning this matter I found this thread.

First of all I looked up the "BinKey" of the Maxis clothing where I want to put the CC piece (0x6c4f359d - 0x7f8a21f3 - 0x0cdc8dcc - 0x00000000). Using SimPE I then copied the "BinKey" into the "Collection" section of the 3D IDR file of the CC piece. Now the CC clothing has vanished completely from CAS. What did I do wrong? I don't know much about SimPE and clothing, furthermore English is not my first language. So help would be very much appreciated

Thank you!

Seems to me this is an awfully complicated way to go about something that may have a relatively simple solution - subfolders. I subfoldered the heck out of my Downloads folder (and subfolder Clothing has sub-subfolders). It helps, provided you keep up with what belongs in which subfolder.

For CC clothes, the only thing you have to do to change the sort order is to change the "sortindex" number in the "Binary Index (BINX)" resource. Don't mess with the 3DIR!
Low numbers = back of the catalog (closer to EA clothes)
High numbers = front of the catalog (first you see).

--


You can decustomize CC clothes (put it alongside EA clothes) by changing the version and product number (see hat's link here: https://hat-plays-sims.dreamwidth.org/34791.html - scroll to the heading "VERSION AND PRODUCT")

Don't mess around with the 3DIRs (unless you know what you're doing) - they just point to the place the information can be found in the file.

Also don't do edits directly in the game files, but extract the resources you want to work on, put them in a file, and then edit them. Otherwise you'll just create a big mess that's difficult to fix later (a package file can just be removed if it's not working properly). If you're only working with CC files, you can work on them directly, but it's a good idea to work on a copy of the files if you're not entirely sure what you're doing, or if there isn't an available copy somewhere you can download it.

Thank you for your advice!

Thanks to simmer22 for answering Rumpertumskin's question

My questions were specifically about:
a) adding extra outfits to a default replacement, which I have worked out now - I'll update the post.
b) moving Maxis outfits around in the catalogue - I've kind of abandoned this for now as I got distracted working on other things, but I'll update if I ever go back to it.

I forgot about this thread, as I've been less active over the past year and a half due to having to do lots of overtime at work! That has kind of finished now, but I'm moving house soon, so will probably disappear for a while again.

Hi there, thank you so much for the easy step by step solution Dizzy! I realize this thread is a little old but I'm just wondering if anyone knows what to do if the Frag Sort Idx number is negative? The H&M Perdita Dresses are -84 and -85 in CAS which my google conversion says should be -54 and -55 but I can't enter a negative value into the sortindex in SimPe. Entering this as a positive value doesn't accomplish what I'm looking for. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!

Negative numbers in hex are usually represented in two's complement, which certain converters like RapidTables provide alongside the standard conversion. Hopefully if that's how the game is reading them / SimPE is 'translating' from when it shows you a negative number, that will work for you?

Thank you so much for the reply! I tried what you said but unfortunately it didn't work. Maybe I just didn't do it correctly?

So the Maxis H&M dresses are showing Frag Sort Idx #'s of -85 & -84. Using the site you linked, it says the Hex signed 2's complement should be FFAB & FFAC. I tried to enter those in the BINX and neither of them moved the custom dress. Then I tried -83 (FFAD) and -86 (FFAA) and those also didn't work. While it was set to FFAA, I checked CAS debug mode and it's showing a Frag Sort Idx of 2040218638. I attached screenshots in case someone will maybe be able to see something I'm not seeing.

Rapid tables display negative numbers written in hex with four digits only, wheras SimPE displays hex numbers with eight digits, so instead of writing FFAD, try FFFFFFAD. I (think) I've found the sortindex for a maxis clothing that displayed a negative indx number in CAS, and SimPE shows that number as 0xFFFFFF5 for me (which is equivalent to FF5 in signed two's complement, i.e. -11 in decimal).

I know this is from one year ago but I had the exact same problem trying to move CC clothing and I finally figured out why it wasn't working, posting this for anyone who might have the same problem.

The Bin Key hex numbers are displayed in CAS in the order "File Type" - "Group" - "Instance" - "SubType/Class ID", not as "File Type", "SubType/Class ID", "Group", "Instance" like in SimPE.
So the reason your cc vanished is probably because you thought the order of the Collection lines in SimPE followed the same order as the Bin Key you see in debug mode and wrote 0x7f8a21f3 in "SubType/Class ID" while leaving "Instance" with 0x00000000 which is wrong.

In SimPE, editing the Collection lines with the Bin Key you want to use should look like this:

File Type: 0x6c4f359d
SubType/Class ID: 0x00000000
Group: 0x7f8a21f3
Instance: 0x0cdc8dcc

You also need to make sure that the clothing you want to appear next to each other is marked as belonging to the same EP/SP. This is easier than changing the Collection, thankfully.
I did it through the Outfit Organizer from Pick'N'Mix mods (https://www.picknmixmods.com/Sims2/...Organiser.html), you open the cc with the organizer and then choose the expansion pack or just base game under Product. This will change the little icon in the top right corner and 'decustomize' your cc so that it can appear among other clothing from a specific EP/SP or among base game clothing. I don't think you can move the cc around maxis clothing if you skip this step, since the game sorts clothing by EP/SP as well as Collection.

Then, proceed to edit the sortindex in Binary Index for a more exact positioning.

I was finally able to move some recolours of a default replacement that previously appeared among my cc clothing at the very beginning of the catalog to appear rigth next to where the default replacement was among the BonVoyage maxis clothing instead.