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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 4th Jun 2022 at 4:02 PM
Default Changing hair flags
This seems like such a simple thing to do so the fact that I can't seem to make it work is making me go mad

I wanted to changeplatinumaspiration's Adriana hair so that my male sims could use it as well. It seems simple enough, I just need to make a copy of the hair and change the gender flags in SimPE, which is what I think I did, but clearly I missed something since it's not showing up in bodyshop.

I changed the gender property from 0x00000001 to 0x00000002 for all four package files (one for each colour), although I didn't change anything in the mesh package since it has a different 'composition' than the other files when opened in SimPE and I have no idea where I'm supposed to put my hands

I already tried looking around for a tutorial for this, but I couldn't find anything for converting hair between genders
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 4th Jun 2022 at 4:19 PM
First of all, making a copy of the file (?) won't work. You'll have to make a new recolor in Bodyshop for it to count as a new file.

If you instead set the original files to 3 (unisex), they'll show up for both genders, and you don't have to make new files (at least if the male version looks fine, but it might not).

Second, you need to change ALL the gender flags for them to change, so (in SimPE) all the PropertySet and HairTone XML resources need a gender swap, for each color.

Third, hairs may not show up properly just by changing the gender flags. Like clothes have gendered body shapes from teen and up, hairs do too, so a lot of hairs will have neck gaps, possibly forehead gaps, size differences, and various other annoying issues. Most hairs, especially shorter ones that don't cover the "scalp" enough for it to look good, will need a mesh conversion. Child and toddler hairs will look fine, though (they don't have gendered meshes).

(Gender tag: 1=female, 2=male, 3=unisex)
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 4th Jun 2022 at 5:35 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
First of all, making a copy of the file (?) won't work. You'll have to make a new recolor in Bodyshop for it to count as a new file.

If you instead set the original files to 3 (unisex), they'll show up for both genders, and you don't have to make new files (at least if the male version looks fine, but it might not).

Second, you need to change ALL the gender flags for them to change, so (in SimPE) all the PropertySet and HairTone XML resources need a gender swap, for each color.

Third, hairs may not show up properly just by changing the gender flags. Like clothes have gendered body shapes from teen and up, hairs do too, so a lot of hairs will have neck gaps, possibly forehead gaps, size differences, and various other annoying issues. Most hairs, especially shorter ones that don't cover the "scalp" enough for it to look good, will need a mesh conversion. Child and toddler hairs will look fine, though (they don't have gendered meshes).

(Gender tag: 1=female, 2=male, 3=unisex)


Yes yes, my bad, I was too vague; I did export the the package files via bodyshop. I only modified PropertySet (all ages all colours) tho, I didn't know HairTone XML had to be modified as well. As I said I couldn't find any resource about this so I'm stuck with just messing around and see what works

As for the mesh possibly not showing up correctly I figured something like that may happen, but I've edited 3D meshes before so I shouldn't have problems
Thanks for the help
Mad Poster
#4 Old 4th Jun 2022 at 5:52 PM
When you make a new recolor, it shows up under custom colors. Did you check there?

Also, did you modify the SavedSims file or the file in Projects? You always have to edit/use the SavedSims files after importing to game, because the Project files are just templates, and won't work ingame (or show up anywhere else than in the project view).

If it doesn't look good for males, you'll have to make a new mesh and new recolor for males, link those together, and make a new set of recolors with those. Hairs don't work with double genders for the recoloring process (or at least it's a bit tricky and requires a lot of SimPE afterwork), so the easiest is to have two sets.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 7th Jun 2022 at 4:05 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
Also, did you modify the SavedSims file or the file in Projects? You always have to edit/use the SavedSims files after importing to game, because the Project files are just templates, and won't work ingame (or show up anywhere else than in the project view).

Aaand here's another thing I was doing wrong
Gave it another try. New project, export/import for all colours, took the real package from SavedSims, edited all values both in PropertySet and Hair Tone XML, commit and save, aaaannd... still nothing; checked custom colors too but nothing
Looked around for more tutorials here on MTS, as far as recategorizing stuff this seems to be the process, so I'm a bit puzzled as to what I could still be doing wrong :/
Mad Poster
#6 Old 7th Jun 2022 at 5:43 PM
Can you upload a couple of the files - both the unedited and edited ones, so I can have a look at what you've done?
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 7th Jun 2022 at 6:43 PM
This feels like submitting an assignment I didn't study for
Anyway here's both platasp's original conversion and the whatever I did. Just the black colour since having you check all four of them just seems redundant
Thanks for the help
Attached files:
File Type: zip  adriana.zip (430.3 KB, 1 downloads)
Mad Poster
#8 Old 7th Jun 2022 at 7:53 PM
Can't see anything weird.
Have you checked in the custom bin, since the recolor isn't color binned.

Have you tried changing the original to gender 3?
(this would allow it to show up for both genders, but if so, don't use the edited files for recoloring since they'll most likely screw up the resources).
Test Subject
Original Poster
#9 Old 7th Jun 2022 at 9:04 PM
I don't know what I did but it finally showed up. I binned the hair to see if that was the issue but still nothing, then I tried placing the package files in the SavedSims folder instead of just Downloads, and finally it showed. The scalp is a bit off but now that I've managed to get the hair to show up modifying the mesh shouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately I also found out that the sim I planned to use this hair for doesn't look all that good with it; but whatever, at least I got some practice with SimPE Thanks again for the help, don't think I could have done it otherwise
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