I've never done this before, and I'm pretty confused. I'm not even sure how to begin.

I want to convert a Maxis base game hair/hat for kids and toddlers. This one:



(If you know of anyone who's done this already, please let me know. I've searched, but I can't find a conversion.)

First of all, since all ages are included in a hair, do I need to make a new package for kid hair and another for toddler hair... or can I just override the meshes in the package for the teen hair (as shown here)?

Second, how do I make it so that kids will grow up into this hair that already exists for the older age groups?

Third, once I've gotten the hats for kids and toddlers, how do I set "pajama hair" (hatless, as shown in the picture for the other age groups)?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions as I go along. But can anyone answer these questions for me? How do I start?

I believe all these questions are answered in the hair tutorials.
I'm not a hair creator, so double check anything I say, but here's what I recall:
Kids will grow up into teen and adult hair if its in the same family, so be sure you set the family attribute correctly.
I'm sure I saw a tutorial specifically about hats or hat/hair somewhere on MTS2, don't have the link on me...

These I'm sure you've seen, right? If not, read them all first.
http://www.modthesims2.com/wiki.php..._Hair_Tutorials

Searched "all tutorials" for hair, found this one about hats,
may or may not be what you're looking for:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=197098

Searched the mesh forum for "hat", found this, same question you had.
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...8&highlight=hat

and here
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...8&highlight=hat

Finally, take a look at melodie9's hair. She makes all ages hair, so check how she does it.

I had a look at melodie9's hair, and that particular package had two meshes (one for toddlers, one for girls) and four recolours (black, red, blond, brown). How do you combine the recolours into one package so that you can have toddler and child hair meshes that use the same recolour files? At the moment, I'm going to end up with eight recolour files instead of just four...

You want to do dependent textures? Remove the TXTRs for toddlers and change their TXMTs so they use the TXTRs for girls. For Maxis textures, copying the name of the texture works fine. Haven't tried that with custom textures, you'd need to ask someone who has, or just try it and see if it works.

Well, the girls' mesh already uses the texture from the adult mesh I converted from. I just want to know how to end up with one recolour package that works for both toddler and child.

Since you're doing an age conversion, you might as well link all the recolours to the Maxis textures. Here's a tutorial that explains how (it's written for clothing but the same technique can be used for hair): http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=300954

Oh. But you were asking how you put the toddler and child hairs in the same .package. To do that, just extract everything from the toddler (or child) hair - like, right-click on the property set & extract it to a folder on your desktop, do the same with the material definitions and everything else in the package (basically everything in the top right SimPE window) - then open the child (or toddler) package and right-click and *add* all those files into this one. That'll combine them into 1 package. You can do the same with the mesh packages too.

I was googling just now, and found this hair tutorial which you might also find helpful: http://www.the-isz.com/theisz/index.php?showtopic=679

Yep. That's what I meant. Thanks.

I've got all the child versions working and colour-binned. I think I might need to fiddle with the mesh a bit more, though. The hat is coming through the hair on the inside... This is a fiddly one.

Welcome to hair meshing.

Just don't pull out your hair. If you need someone to help test it, just post here or PM me.

Here's what I've got so far:

I don't see anything poking out anywhere, looks fine to me. Cute as a button too. If there's poky bits, can you make a picture of them?

On a totally off topic note, is the flower on the dress from girls jeans?

LOL... yes. Nice catch.

Here's where I'm at. I've made all the recolour packages (for both child and toddler) and binned them all so they show up in the right colour bins. I also tried to get rid of the custom content star and set the family value in SimPE so the toddlers would grow into the kids' hats and the kids would grow into the teens' hats.

For some reason, though, the child packages will not take my changes. They still have the CC star and they are not recognized as being in the same family as all the other hats. The result is that, if I play around in CAS or Body Shop, I can switch from toddler to teen (or adult, or elder) and the hat will remain... but if I try to switch to and from the child hat, I get a different hairstyle altogether.

HP said this may be due to the fact that my toddler and child recolours are separate (one for each age group). I have 40 files here, though, and I really don't want to try condensing them into 20 if it's likely that it still won't work.

Have any hair meshers had this happen? Is this fixable? I've already spent so much time on these hats that I hate them.

Try it with just one hair/hat combo first. Combine the toddler / child recolor packages for just that one color, see if that fixes it. If it does, then hire some grad students to combine the other 19 colors for you.

Next time, try making just one recolor first, and test the hell out of it. Then when it works, make the other eleventy million. That's what I always do... Yes. That's the truth, I swear. I've *never* made lots recolors then found a problem and had to go back and fix them. Three times! After already taking pictures! Anyone who says different is a big, big liar and you'll never find their body...

This is the first hair I've ever made, so I didn't know. The packages work... they just don't link up properly. You can change the Sim's appearance in the game and the hat mesh and recolour will work just fine.

Know where I can find a grad student?

Not to state the obvious, but are you sure you deleted all the extra property sets from the toddler and child hairs? If the toddler hair has a child property set that's *not* the hair you want, it'll grow up into that wrong one. Did you remember to set the product number to 1 and the creator number to 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000? Does it have a version number of 1 or higher? (I think that should automatically be correct when you make recolours but it doesn't hurt to check.) Maybe the family number is conflicting with one used by a different Maxis hair?

Yes. I've checked and double checked. All the version and product numbers are set to 1. All the creator numbers are 000000000-etc. I did the same thing to all the child hairs that I did to all the toddler hairs. That's why I'm confused. I can't even get the CC star to disappear on the child hair! SimPE is messing with my mind.

I don't even know if I'll be releasing these, at this point. The girls have to sleep in their hats, and I'll get flack for that, too. The only way I can think of fixing it is to start fresh and make new packages that have all the ages in them. But I don't know of any hairs that have a casual and bedtime hair for all age groups... where the casual hairs also have the right number of mesh groups to start with. I know I could add them, but I get confused in SimPE and I probably wouldn't add the right thing.

I couldn't afford a grad student, so I did it myself. Now the packages all age properly and show up in the right places (except for the blue hat, but that's because it includes only the toddler and child versions... but they do age properly with each other).

Now to get this mesh tidied up. I'm still having the hat bleed through the hair on the toddler version... *fiddle, fiddle, fiddle*