Recently, I have been creating hair for my sims again. I've created hair to fit all ages. However, due to the largest original game toddler hair only consisting of 3 parts (and therefore only one editable 512pixel texture), I find my detail in certain styles can be a little restricted.

I stated one texture mainly because the second generated is the underside (which I like to darken, and therefore will not be used for another image) and the other is used for skull/hair base.

Anyways, I fixed my problem with increasing my hair texture size from 512 to a body texture size of 1024. This way I can map many separate parts and alphas into one texture image with the same detail as mapping the parts to 4 different textures. (Back before I learned to all age convert, I used to simply chose adult styles that generated 7-8 textures due to their large amount of parts. Of course, these don't work on Toddler hair....)

Now, my question is? Could increasing the texture size cause a problem?

I have not encountered any issues. My hair is working beautifully. And bodyshop generates my textures for recolour in the size I set them at... so I really don't see issues yet. (Of course I'd not make anything larger than 1024x1024), that would be pointless and silly

I also thought about the hairstyles with more textures. The package files for those hair styles would be of equal or greater size than mine, simply because 3 double sized textures would take the same amount of loading time and space as 7-8 of the normal size (which you can find with the maxis long female hair with it's many mesh parts).

I COULD be wrong though. So if anyone does know of any concerns or issues that my larger textures could cause, let me know. This way I can think of a different approach.

If not, I'll continue my slight increase in all age hair textures for more detailed cuts. It is really working nicely so far for me, so I personally hope there are no problems with this.

I'm mostly thinking that the larger images may cause lag or longer loading with less powerful computers as I do hope to share my creations... but 3 textures increased to 1024 isn't THAT huge of a deal considering what I stated above with some maxis hair having 7-8 textures. I've just not seen this technique done here yet before (or on any other CC hair I've seen), so I'm just wondering if there was a specific BAD reason why not, or if it was because creators did not think of it/or simply did not find a need to do it.

Thanks so much.

-Actually, I've seen texture size increase on earrings/accessories before, just not hair.. I suppose that is quite nessessary for larger accessories, seeing as the glasses generate a painfully small texture image for anything much bigger than a headpiece or earrings.

That works just fine - just try to repeat textures as much as you can, similar to how Maxis hair does (at most, they have a scalp/hair group texture plus one more that is shared by all alpha groups). I've never had issue with it... main thing is just to make sure you do it from Body Shop - not in SimPE, as Body Shop will compress your textures better and give you smaller file sizes (which is going to be important with those big textures).

"...but 3 textures increased to 1024 isn't THAT huge of a deal considering what I stated above with some maxis hair having 7-8 textures." ... Maxis hair may have quite a few textures but they're *shared* textures for the most part, unless you have a completely different mesh for younger ages (but in those cases the game is using existing textures rather than new ones for each new adult mesh that may use, for instance, the basic bob hairstyle for toddler so there is much more economy there than is obvious).

Even not being too economic - as my New Roman hair is, with, well, still a bit of a noobish understanding of shared textures and texture sizes (I think I have three alpha group textures, plus scalp, plus 1024x1024), I've never had anyone report that mesh causing problems.

I'm gonna shift this to BS Meshing as R&D is a little more for answers than questions and I think that's the most appropriate place for this.

Awesome. Thank you very much for the reply, HP!

Yes.. I see what you mean by "shared" as only different files appear in simpe, even when bodyshop generates a new one for separate parts.. so the long hair only shows 2-3 textures instead of double that.........

I was wondering about that actually... I'm actually impressed by how smart computers are.. aha.. gee, I'm easily amused.

I just finished some hair. It's a simple one based on the OFB rose hair. (That short cut with the rose on the side). Only I extended the back and added a few wisps at the front and gave it a new texture of my own. But I made it for both genders too, all in the same mesh file... because I know how irritating it can be to love a hair style, but want it for the opposite gender it was made for.. ^^ I should have chosen something less time consuming though... since that hair has to be perfectly "fitted" to each individual skull shape and cannot be draped over the base hair/skull more conveniently like loose styles can... ergh...

Hmm, actually, I recently created skintones, but BS compressed them too much and caused an ugly effect with the compression. (Making my dark skin appear very red when the original textures were not at all red...)

So I went into SimPE and rebuilt the DXT in level 3 instead or 1 for each image.
It made the files quite a lot larger, but they look way better... I personally do not like huge files, they scare me. But I really did not see a better way around it. (My lighter skintones were rather unaffected by the compression.. it was just the darker tones that looked bad..) >_<
I did warn people who wanted them about file size though...

...OMG...HP... off topic. I went took take a look at the hair you mentioned and side track. You did NOT create Martin Gore of Depeche mode!

rofl. Shoot... that is crazy. I love Depeche mode, and Gore is my personal fave. Dave too, but omg.. Martin Gore... I painted a portrait of him in highschool and everything.. I made him for Sims 1 way back too.. you did a terribly AWESOME job as well. Sorry.. off topic, but I just spazzed.

Body Shop's compression is usually a lot harder on skintones than it is on hair - I've had to do some work adding noise and fiddling a bit like that with skin, but haven't ever noticed a degraded texture that was too bad on hair. It seems to happen more with hair in the light ranges for some reason (when it's often the opposite on skin as you've noticed) but it's usually so slight that it's worth taking the degrade for the improvement in file size. SimPE can compress too but it never quite does as much as Body Shop.

Your project sounds like a fun challenge. Piiiics? :D

Oh dear, another Gore girl. Isn't he dreamy? :lovestruc I'll admit it's not the first thing I've done of him... there was a portrait way back when too... He's just got such an interesting face... I love interesting faces... and masochistic projects with pixel dollies. Ehehe.

Yes, finally. I had to actually go into the game and take pictures because I had none yet. I still need to fix some stuff though with the mesh here and there, but it's just little things I noticed in-game. Plus, I need more colours. I only did that silver colour right now.





I actually had trouble with the mesh. The hair I exported does not handle textures that well... even when I messed with the texture coordinates for ages. The male shape was extra fussy, seeing as I needed to warp it slightly to fit right. Basically I had to create a new texture that would work properly... yeesh. It's all hand painted photoshop stuff.



Rofl! Indeed! I think what first attracted me to him (after his voice of course) was probably his interesting attire. Then the fact that he's adorable added to that... XD

I never got bored just looking up pictures of him and checking out his outfits. ^^
You could never get bored of a sim of him if you were a crazy outfit creating person... XD