Hi! I'm receiving an error when creating a clone using S3OC (picture included) and was wondering if anyone could help me out. When making the clone, I chose the options "Create clone package," "Find missing resources," and "Renumber/rename internally." I don't really have any experience with custom content (besides some basic recategorizing), so I'm super lost.

The reason why I'm even cloning to begin with is because I've downloaded some default hairs, but I want the thumbnails in CAS to be the normal game-generated ones. After doing some digging, I've found I can do this by (1) cloning the default hairs with s3oc, (2) launching the game and opening CAS so the basic thumbnails are generated for the cloned hair, (3) opening CASThumbnails.package with S3PE and exporting the thumbnails from the cloned hair, and (4) importing the thumbnails to the default hair. I may be over-complicating things, but this is the only way I've figured out how to do this.

Thank you so much!

This is usually from 'Find Missing Resources' when a piece of CC has some strange/leftover resource IDs, but you generally don't need this option ticked unless you're trying to dig up an EA file not included in the package.

As for removing thumbnails, it does sound like a roundabout way to do so. The custom thumbnails are in the CC package, with the tag THUM, and you can simply open in S3PE and delete them. New ones will generate as you've seen and simply be left in the thumbnail cache, as they'll load from there from that point on.

Thank you for your reply! :D

I've tried deleting the thumbnails in s3pe, but when I go into CAS, it always shows the EA hair that is getting replaced instead of the hair that is doing the replacing. I assume this is because it is a default replacement.

In the picture I've included, the hair labeled 1 is a default hair that I haven't messed with yet, 2 is a default hair that I deleted the thumbnails for in s3pe, and 3 is a default hair that I went through the process described in my original post. Ideally, I would want all three hairs to display like number 3 where it shows the replacement hair, but it's just a plain jane thumbnail.

I also tried not selecting the "Find missing resources" option in s3oc, but I end up with a package that is 1 kb and the hair does not show up in CAS. Is there something else I have to do?

have you deleted your casthumbnails.package to regenerate thumbnails?

Just tried this as well as deleting the custom thumbnails in S3PE for a default hair, and the thumbnail in CAS still shows up as the EA hair. I also deleted my 5 cache files in my main Sims 3 folder hoping that might help.

Ahh, them being default replacements makes more sense.
In that case yes, you do basically need new thumbnails as EA's base game and expansion thumbs are included in the game files (not generated).

I'd recommend either cloning the original hair if the creator provided the mesh name (ie afHairBun, so on), importing the CC into that package, then cloning that.
OR
Try opening the CC in TSRW and export it out through Edit > Project Contents > Export. Depending on how the hairs were made TSRW may also give an error, but if not it should have a similar result as cloning.

OR
To skip some of that tedium, but with extra care because it involves the game files-
Temporarily move the CasThumbnails.package from the install location Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Thumbnails onto your desktop or another safe location.
Delete the THUM included in the CC (keep unedited copies), clear the caches. Load the game. CAS will likely be slower and generate all hair thumbnails when the tab is opened.
On the unedited CC, replace the THUMs with those that generated.
Make sure to move the install location thumbnail package back when you're done.

I used your last method, and it worked! Thank you for the help!

I do have one small issue though. For some reason, the same thumbnail is appearing for both adults and elders when they should be different. Is there some reference that is getting jumbled up within the package?

Elder hairs need to have the grey hair tone set in the preset itself for the thumbnail to use it, which is why even some Store content uses the brown hair where EA got lazy and used one CASP for all ages.
The creator of these hair defaults likely reused the same CASP for adult and elder.

I use a very old, yet reliable, tool to fix presets: CAS Texture Unitool. S3PE is a little fiddly to directly edit presets with, and defaults shouldn't be opened in TSRW. CTU has a lighter touch in being able to edit them directly without affecting anything else.

If the ages are merged into one package, you can export and temporarily delete the adult CASP to import back when you've fixed the other.

Open the package in CTU, click on the Designs tab, then Textures, and scroll down to Hair Details.
Right click > Edit on each Color and paste the elder colour keys. Which I luckily have on hand:
Root 0.7333,0.7333,0.7333,1.0000
Diffuse 0.8157,0.8157,0.8157,1.0000
Highlight 0.8784,0.8784,0.8784,1.0000
Tip 0.7020,0.7020,0.7020,1.0000
Then click Commit, then File > Save.

If they've been completely consolidated into one CASP that is enabled for all ages, this won't be possible.

Unfortunately I can't get the CAS Texture Unitool to open. I've followed the download instructions as far as extracting everything to the same folder, and I made sure .NET Framework 3.5 (which includes 2.0) is turned on. Is it pretty complicated to do through s3pe?

Ah that's a shame, I'm sure I likely ran into the same issue but it was too long ago to recall what fixed it

The S3PE way is just a little tedious, as the XML itself basically isn't formatted for humans, but not difficult.
In S3PE, click on the CASP that is enabled for elder and then click the Grid button on the bottom panel.
In the window that opens, click the dropdown arrow for Presets, again, then select the XmlFile and the dropdown arrow (this time on the right), then click Edit. This will open Notepad or any other text editor you've specified like Notepad++, so make sure that program is closed beforehand.
Use Find (Ctrl F) to search for Root Color, as the entire preset is crammed into the first line of text.

When you've located that part, very carefully select everything starting from <value key="Root Color" until the final /> after the colour code for Tip Color. Paste over it with this:


The start and end brackets have to be carefully preserved, as accidentally cutting them off will make things look very strange.
Save, close the program. In S3PE, Commit then Save.

For some reason, the thumbnail for the elder hair is still showing up as the adult hair. It doesn't bother me too much though!

Thank you so much for your help! I greatly appreciate you taking the time to explain everything to me in detail.

So I know I said I was done messing around with this hair, but I did notice something that might point to why the thumbnail won't cooperate. Both of the CASP are enabled for elders. I tried removing the elder category from the adult CASP as well as editing the root color, etc., for the elder CASP, but then no thumbnail showed up for elders in game. I also noticed that the creator included a custom thumbnail for elders, so they had every intention for them to have a separate thumbnail.

The hair I'm messing around with in S3PE is a default replacement for afHairBeanie. It can be found here: https://maryjanesims3.tumblr.com/po...lt-replacements. I'm not too concerned about having separate thumbnails at this point. I'm more interested in what the heck is going on with this package.

"What the heck is going on with this package" is the story of my life when it comes to looking at default hair replacers.
They're actually the topic I have the most experience with (I have an entire unreleased set of them I made by hand) and the existing methods to make them are like medieval torture on my eyes It's why I started writing hair tutorials, but I haven't gotten to writing up my preferred method for defaults yet and so this way of making them is the only one in circulation. I probably stall writing it precisely because I struggle so much to hide that distaste and may step on a few toes in the process, but honestly... these packages stripped down to just the GEOM and textures are like looking at a Frankenstein's monster.

For a reason I cannot discern, MaryJane has marked the efHair CASP as HiddenInCAS so that part isn't ingame at all- making her own custom thumbnail redundant.
To fix it, remove Elder from the age groups of the adult CASP and remove the HiddenInCAS flag from the elder one.

Maybe worth noting this is the least of their issues- these replacers have no morphs and many are ridiculous polycounts to have on townies. Innovative concept, poor execution.

That's super interesting! I have very little knowledge about custom content, but I would love to learn.

I hope you release your default hairs and tutorial at some point! I would love to see them.