Strangetown: Looking for a hair mesh recommendation

[strangetomato]

I've been searching for a male ponytail to use on Ripp, but I haven't been able to find something that is the right length and matches the Maxis colour and texture. I was hoping that someone who reads this might have a suggestion. Otherwise, I will keep hunting. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I'll just have to drop the idea, or settle for an unexplainable lengthening of his hair when it is in a ponytail (which would bother me).

Ripp: Why would my hair get a whole foot longer when I put it up? It just doesn't make sense.


This looks exactly right to me, but I just want to snip off about half (maybe 3/4) of the tail. I really appreciate any suggestions you might be able to offer.

Comments

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

I was doing a little bit of searching on google and I found this: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=59174
It has some problems with the coloring so you might not want to use this one, but I liked how it sorta looks messy.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! But I've already looked at that exact one. It looks exactly right in the photo on that page, but it looked different in-game. There is a really weird thing happening at the hairline (I guess that's where the "imperfect" in the title comes from), and it is quite a bit darker.

I don't mind the messiness so much. A couple of strands hanging down would be okay, but his hair really is long enough to go back neatly. I'm probably being to precise about it.

I really wish I just knew how to edit that uni mesh. There is a version of it converted to all ages on MTS2, and for the child and teen, the tail is shorter. There's probably a way to convert that to adult, and it may not even be that hard, if one was handy with such things...

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

You're not being too precise about it; that ponytail that came with University is way too long and I would get irritated that it didn't look right either. It's funny, I thought that a shorter version of that hair would be easier to find.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. If someone was good with mesh editing, it seems like it would be easy enough to do. I am not all that surprised, though, since creators usually neglect male hair, especially the really normal, everyday styles.

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

I know! Same with male clothes as well. When I had the sims installed on my (now dead) computer, I would always be searching for clothes that I had in mind for my sims, like the simplist things, and it would take me forever to find them! People just seem to want over-the-top creative things and they tend to overlook the simple things.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

That is so true. There is still a need for some nice basics for male sims, and elders too. Even just recolours. I know that there is that whole untuckable thing, and they are nice and basic, but what if you don't want the shirt painted on? I think that those usually look better on the female sims. Not to say that men wouldn't wear something like that, but most of them generally do wear looser fitting shirts.

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

\I really like those low waisted male pants, but there's not enough longer shirts to go with them! Well, there are those sweaters, the t-shirts with the stripe across the chest and that strange raver vest, but you can't use those for all of your sims! Another thing that really bugged me about the maxis made clothes were that if you look at the full body outfits that came with the sims 2 originally, they're mostly sandals! I think they look stupid on a lot of people, even though the sweatshirts that came with them (I believe one has flames down the arms or something) looked pretty cool. But of course, Maxis had to add the sandals for extra dorkiness.

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

I think the back of the neck gap is caused by converting between ages and genders. So it might not be so simple to convert up the teen version.

Yeah, I was just looking on MTS2 :) I had a little time to kill. Did you see and reject this one?

http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=249271

It's hard to tell on this monitor, but the chestnut brown *might* be close in color. However, it's a lot messier and the texture isn't maxis-like.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I think I did reject that one. I dislike the shiny texture of Peggy hair, especially for males. For this story, there would be too much of a contrast between that and the Maxis hair, I think. It does look right in a lot of ways, though (the length is perfect), and I definitely considered it. I could always try it out anyway, to be sure.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

I figured. The shininess doesn't match your aesthetic.

On the other hand, it might be a lot easier to re-texture that mesh than create a new one... hmm. Recoloring hair is more involved than recoloring clothes, since there are more texture files. But it's still not very hard for someone with Photoshop. :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I use GIMP, but I know that it has some of the same features. My SO is a pretty good with Photoshop, and he uses it at work. Maybe I can get him to help me with something like that.

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen anything, but I'll definitely keep my eyes open for you! :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

You've also done some mesh editing, haven't you? How hard would it be to "cut" that hair myself?

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

Oh no, you must be thinking of someone else. I haven't delved into mesh editing yet (though I want to). I just do recolors. I didn't even make my own eyes into defaults, someone else did that for me. :)

That said, since the basic mesh already exists, it might not be that hard to alter it. It wouldn't be like creating it from scratch. You'd need MilkShape or whatever it's called. There are tutorials on MTS2 about meshing.

If I didn't have Kirk moving this weekend, and a big Flash project due next week (and I suck at Flash) then I'd look into it myself... but you can do it! You're smart and creative! *cheers you on* :D

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about your Engineer Boots w/Simple Black Top for Adult Females. I thought that would have required more than just a recolour, but now that I went to see it again, it does say that you recoloured it.

Thanks for the pat on the back. :) Well, I am home sick today, so maybe I should do some research into to it, if I feel up to it.

Good luck with the move and the Flash Project!

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're sick! I hope it's not serious?

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

No, nothing too serious. Just a rotten headache and possibly a cold (hopefully not the flu). This is more of a preemptive sick day, to try to keep from getting any worse. I really need to be at work tomorrow, so I took this day to try to get better.

Considering that this is one of the first times that I have been ill all Winter, I feel pretty lucky.

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

I had a rotten headache myself, yesterday.

*tea and sympathy* I hope you feel better soon!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Sorry to hear that you had a headache too. It's no fun, is it?

I'm going to go get myself some of that wonderful tea right now... it eases the pain.

[simpathology.livejournal.com]

I'd love to find something like that myself. I did, however, find a remesh of that lovely OFB hair that was edited to have the hair tucked back on both sides; I'm going to test it in my game and see how it looks in action (apparently there was an animation oopsie but the creator fixed it) but if you wanna check it out too, it's located here

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I hadn't seen that one. That might make a good compromise for what I wanted it for, since it would at least show that he tried to neaten up a little bit (though not a whole lot).

[simpathology.livejournal.com]

I honestly just stumbled across it. Popped over to MTS2, opened the male hair section and started browsing. It's somewhere around page 10 and I almost skipped over it.

It does seem very Ripp still, doesn't it?

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I was browsing through like that too, but I must have overlooked that one.

It does seem very Ripp, since it is essentially the same hair, just more tucked back. I really like it as another option.

[simpathology.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, no joy on finding a decent shorter ponytail. I did a quick peek through the Sims2 Wiki hair gallery and didn't have much more luck there (I don't count Peggy hairs, and I'm planning to cull a good bit of my custom content when I prep for Free Time installation) so I'm gonna try hitting InSim when I get home from work. (And I did a quick peek and started laughing, because that hair I linked you to was also up there on the first page of Genetics/Male Hair downloads - that creator is fast, I tell ya!)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I never thought to check InSIM. It's not one of my usual haunts, but I should check it out.

[simpathology.livejournal.com]

I just finished a third go-through of InSim's forums with no luck. The only thing I spotted was the tucked-back hair I found yesterday (and tested in CAS last night, it looks pretty damned good IMO) and a recolour of that long Nouk ponytail, which is even longer than the Maxis version. Sorry I couldn't be more help :-(

[music-simbol.livejournal.com]

I've used this before when I used to have a medieval neighborhood. The only issue is that the texture of the hair is a bit harsh when compared to EA hair. You might be able to recolor it to make it look more like you want though. :)

[music-simbol.livejournal.com]

If that's one you want to use, I've figured out how to get it to look exactly like the long EA ponytail. You just have to use bodyshop, export each of the hair's textures, and then copy all the picture files from the long ponytail to the short one. When you do this, toddler-teen looks weird, but since Ripp is a YA, that doesn't matter. Hope this helps :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but I have been asleep ever since I posted this. I'm not feeling all that well...

Well, that sounds like a plan, since that hair is about the right shape. I'll have to really force myself to sit down and figure it out.

Why didn't they just include a normal length ponytail for male hair? How many guys have hair that long? It makes no sense to me...

[ikichi.livejournal.com]

The only other one I've found so far is a peggy hair. There are better pics at this MTS2 recolour. I'll keep an eye out for others.

(edit) Aaaaand Pixel had already linked that one. nvrmnd.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Heheh. Thanks anyway! It was a good suggestion.

[saunasims.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I know you'd already rejected the imperfect short ponytail, but I did find a recolour someone did for an Orlando Bloom Sim. Maybe they fixed the stuff that's wrong with the original?

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=194627

[saunasims.livejournal.com]

Oh, and someone did recolours of peggy hair that look a BIT less shiny and more natural:

http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=249271

Hair today?

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

Sorry to interrupt. But I'd not seen the Orlando sim. I am reminded that Orlando is definitely a looker. *cleans up drool* Thanks for posting that.


To strange_tomato, I'm not certain that there is a proper mesh to look for at this forum, but you might want to check out Wicked Sims, if you haven't yet. Him666 does a ton of female to male meshes, of all lengths, and there are plenty that lack the Peggy shine.

Wicked Sims is part of the Wicked Nouk group, if you haven't visited there before.

Re: Hair today?

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Heheh. Yes, Orlando is not too hard on the eyes, is he? *grin*

Thanks for that suggestion. I haven't looked at that site before. I'll check it out. I have looked at the Wicked Nouk group before, but maybe not fully, and I didn't have something in mind at the time. I really like Nouk's hair, but her straight, male hair is a little on the shiny side for me. Beautiful stuff, though.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll check it out. It's seems like they probably just photo-skinned it though (like his face), so it might be too realistic.

[imsothenetgirl.livejournal.com]

You don't really need to change the shape - you could just edit the alpha so that part of it, ie. the end of the ponytail, doesn't show up. I've done this with a few hairstyles, where I haven't liked that there was a fringe or stray hairs and I used only Bodyshop and Photoshop.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Well, that sounds like it might be a good solution. Would it be possible to make the end still seem tapered like that? I also wouldn't mind "snipping" off that little stray hair in the pompadour hair mesh.

I looks like I'm going to have to get over my hesitation to mess around with these things and try to make something myself.

[imsothenetgirl.livejournal.com]

The stray hair in the pompadour mesh would be super-easy to remove. Even for me.

You could probably make the ponytail still look tapered. It's beyond my abilities but I am a Photoshop moron with very little patience.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Okay, well that's encouraging. I'll have to give it a try.

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... unfortunately, I've only seen the hairstyles already mentioned.

Maybe we could ask at one of those "Request" forums? I've been planning to do a request there, since I've been looking for a child/teen conversion of the Night Life goggles for a long time. I know that Garden of Shadows and Insim have those sections.

OK, let me give it a try!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

My experience with those request forums haven't been great. I'm not sure which one I posted on before (it was a while back), but I was look for a quiff for Mr. Doe. I had no luck, so I used the Maxis pompadour, which was acceptable, but not exactly what I wanted.

It's worth a try, but it really seems to me like people are uninterested in making male hair, especially short styles (which would be easier than complicated anime hair, but if you're heart is not into it, I guess it would be harder).

[silentsteel.livejournal.com]

Rip is going to have a dork knob? O.o

*pffghtsnicker*



Gaaah, I'm going to go read the rest of the comments and think about all my downloads for a bit to see if I can't think of something.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Hey now! Ripp would so NOT appreciate that comment. *snicker* He has a reason for doing this with his hair, and it isn't really for style.