Alms for the colourblind & SimPE colourbinning question

[donovan]

I really like Theo's plug-in for SimPE, and once you get the hang of it, it's very easy to use.  I also have everything colorbinned the way I like it and would be happy to share mine.
I'm a super-sorter, so all of my downloads ae sorted first by site, then by creator (in the case of MTS2), then by what it is according to CleanInstaller.  And all the hairtextures are named by the mesh they use.  I'm on break from school right now and I do have some time to help sort, so if you want to PM me, I can send you some, or even sort some other site's that I don't have.  Maybe I can help explain Theo's tool for you (but I'm not so with the explanations, especially over the internet)

[Amy]

All of the above except for the creator who use poser. Actually if they paid for it and have to change it for using with the game, I don't think it is stealing. And Poser hair are really nice (except for the high poly).
But I hate when black are not black and blond are yellow. If a mesh had a gap that I don't like, that means I don't like the hair and I delete it, but when the mesh is gorgeous and the colors ugly...it get me very frustrated. Like Raonsims with the brown being almost green...WTF!

[Lorelei]

:wink: I know, that's one of the reasons I offer. *winkwinknudgenudge*
Seriously though, I will do it for you. AND I'll teach you to colourbin simply. I never used a tut, I taught myself and it works perfectly; much simpler. Do you want me to write how to in here?

Sure! Thanks, guys! (you AND donovan being so nice to offer hand-holding...wow!)

I have SimPE 6.0 and the colourbinning tool. I think I'd have been fine if the packages were multi-colours, but that would imply that they were actually binned already. I wasn't sure when to save, etc.

[Tchannie]

No problem mate!

Well firstly you need to open the tool in SimPE, and to open the files. I'd suggest moving the files out of your downloads folder to make it easier to access them. Then you find the set of hairs with the same combination; be it four or fourteen. If they have colour names on them and you want to choose the right one, open the first in the black bin, the next in the brown, and so on until you've got all the colours in, and choose which ones are most realistic (same if you don't have colours, except the black and so on will be in the muddle too; I'd suggest writing down the numbers and colours if you have too many). Then when you've deleted all the non-realistic ones (which is easy to do, even keeping the colourbinning tool open), put your black in black, brown in brown, etc. Make sure only one grey is selected, or it will slow down your PC and create unnecessary greys. Then if you want, you can make sure the blacks are definitely black and so on, but save all four together. This means when you're in CAS/BS, if you click on the hair in black and then in red, you'll get the same hair but the correct colour. This saves time greatly, and is something several hair creators forget to do, even if they bin. Never save the hair separately; it works best if they're linked. Save in the downloads folder under the name you so choose, and start again. ^^

I hope that helped, even if only a little. ^^^^

[Lorelei]

No problem mate!

Well firstly you need to open the tool in SimPE, and to open the files. I'd suggest moving the files out of your downloads folder to make it easier to access them. Then you find the set of hairs with the same combination; be it four or fourteen. If they have colour names on them and you want to choose the right one, open the first in the black bin, the next in the brown, and so on until you've got all the colours in, and choose which ones are most realistic (same if you don't have colours, except the black and so on will be in the muddle too; I'd suggest writing down the numbers and colours if you have too many). Then when you've deleted all the non-realistic ones (which is easy to do, even keeping the colourbinning tool open), put your black in black, brown in brown, etc. Make sure only one grey is selected, or it will slow down your PC and create unnecessary greys. Then if you want, you can make sure the blacks are definitely black and so on, but save all four together. This means when you're in CAS/BS, if you click on the hair in black and then in red, you'll get the same hair but the correct colour. This saves time greatly, and is something several hair creators forget to do, even if they bin. Never save the hair separately; it works best if they're linked. Save in the downloads folder under the name you so choose, and start again. ^^

I hope that helped, even if only a little. ^^^^

Greatly!

So if I have hairblackmesha, hairbrownmesha, hairblondemesha, hairredmesha, hairgreenmesha, etc., then I open black in the black tab (do I set option/haircolour/black at this point?), then, without saving, click to the brown tab, open the brown colour, etc. for all but weird colours, pick a grey (I know this has a special procedure)...aaaand I get stuck here. :/

[donovan]

I could be wrong here, but I think that if you load any color into the grey tab, then it only saves the grey.  So, if your hairgreenmesha has a grey attached to it, you can load it into the grey tab and it will save the grey, and the green should go bye-bye.
When you are loading the colors into the tool, you can click on one of the ages that is check-marked to see if it's the right color, because sometimes you load them in there and it's a black recolor but the file name is red (wtf?), it'll show you the actual colors.  When you go into the grey tab, there should only be one age checkmarked, and when you click it, if it's grey, then you should keep it, but if, using our previous example, it's green, then you'd want to trash it.  
And just a hint, but if you're using XM colors, their "silver" color makes for an excellent grey for that tab.

wow that's a lot of commas.

[Tchannie]

To get a grey without putting it in the grey tab, all you need to do is make sure the "grey" button is ticked in only one colour. I usually do it in the black bar but it doesn't matter. Make sure only one is ticked.
If you want, you can click to make sure that the black is really black (option/haircolour/black etc) but I'd do as Donovan says and click so you get a picture, to make sure you really do have the right colour.

When you've four/five/six (one custom if you choose to and one grey, but you don't need to unless you truly do want purple/green hair, and the grey is simple enough to do without being in a tab) colours, you click the save button. Save it in the area you so choose. Then you have to delete the ones you used originally, as they will be dead files and no use to you at all.


(Thanks, Donovan, mate!)

[Ghanima Atreides]

Pinks in the red bin I hate the most. Being a redhead, I hate how my hair, the particular shade of my hair, is NEVER simmed...my hair isn't THAT ginger, and it DEFINITELY isn't fauxpink! Sometimes it isn't even pink; it's salmon-coloured...

I agree. As a redhead myself, I am so annoyed how there never is a truly natural red colour made...or very very rarely and definitely NOT found on sites like Peggy, XM, etc. I would settle for a maxis-y shade or something a little darker (or lighter) too but puhleeease, stop with the bloodreds, pinks, purples, freaking rainbow polka dotted shades in the red bin! They're fine as custom but they should never, ever be in the genetic category! Needless to say, I recolor most new hairs I get and re-bin.

I voted for gaps, but mostly everything on that list annoys me just as much, but also the one million shades of every colour (I really don't care to load my game with 5 shades of the same colour when I'm only gonna use one, and deleting them is a pain), and, of course the nicest blonds being binned as browns (of which XM sims and Raonsims are most guilty, so I always end up re-binning XM's Fawn shade into blonde).

Also, binning your hairs. I like a lot of Raonsims' hairs and I went on a bit of a download spree only to discover none of them were binned. Thankfully I had each set in a separate folder so I could do it myself; but it's just lazyness on their part. It really is very easy to do it, just takes time.

</rant>

[frivolous]

i went with the firetruck reds, etc.

it's funny because in my game, the brown hair category is overflowing but when i go to the black or red category it's only about 4-5 pages of custom and the rest is maxis. lol.