It's kinda been a month since we posted about this issue and I'm a little curious to know what's the result of your looking into implementing Alpha shaders for hair into TS4. You did say about 2 weeks ago you'd look into it but I haven't heard anything back or anything more on it :/
Also to others, Please Please stop bumping. EA got the point and is looking at it. I need this seen to get a actual answer.
Bumping!!! TS3 hair would just put TS4 over the top. Ea you have done a wonderful job with the clarity in this game it's amazing, but for all of us users who really like for a natural and realistic Sim this sure would help the cause! Please give the Modder's what they need and all of us players what we want. ;-)
Ain't gonna happen. You can't stop this steamroller now... That's why I stick my please don't bump/derail etc in my very first post if I think it might be a bump-magnet.
@Levini I asked them on twitter again but only one responded. This was her answer http: // i.imgur. com/ALVt4Xz.png (Couldn't post the picture for some reason, just remove the spaces and you'll see the screenshot
Looks to me like they will just ignore it lol, I wanted to start a petition so they know we in this thread are not the only people that are getting impatient and really want it, but I have no idea if I should :/
I sent a tweet and tbh I think the fact we're getting two answers in two different places is annoying.
I personally don't give care if EA doesn't want to implement it but at most I would like to know what shaders they didn't gut out of the TS3 files and if it would be a possibility to make the shader setup moddable. I say gut because it doesn't seem that EA made a new shader list for TS4, otherwise we wouldn't be able to conveniently change the shaders because we would have no idea what shader's what if they built a new one. I also say gut because I know the hair alpha shader's in the files but it's incomplete.
Tbh @SimGuruModSquad, I would rather a complete answer of whether or not we're gonna see this come to fruition any time soon. You have a community of players where the most important item CC wise as it looks is hair. It's a large influence in how players see their sims. not having alpha editable hair is turning a lot of potential customers off from the game because we're so used to seeing pretty hairs with loose flowing strands and being able to "cut" them by changing the texture and not the mesh. You not giving a solid answer or giving two answers or just not doing this is really hurting only yourselves.
As far as petitioning EA, there's 21 pages of people who want this to happen, who put their name down with a "useless" bump post. So, if you want to create a petition, I give a full on blessing and will even help to organize it. Tbh though, There's people whose buying decision hangs on this and with enough people not giving in to EA not giving this item to us, I believe that it will affect EA in a way that they're hurt by not listening to customer demands.
@SimGuruModSquad If your Devs don't want to do it, would there be any possible way to at most open up the Shaders to modding so that modders can make a custom shader as needed? I don't care about the difficulty in modding it and would take the time to actually learn to code a shader if it meant having alpha editable hairs that work in TS4 without using the Simglass shader.
Hey, sorry if you feel you are getting different answers on this. SimGuruLyndsay's recent tweet is the most up to date status of where we are at on alpha hair support.
As for shader modding: the shader format is not all that different from Sims 3, so modding of shaders should be doable. The precomp file can even potentially be loaded out of the Mods dir which was not possible on Sims 3, which would make mods easier to mange. Anyhow, all the shader names and parameter names are embedded in the Shaders_Win32.precomp file and shaders can be disassembled to inspect them more closely. A raw dump of shader and param names are attached, hope that helps.
Sorry for double post but I feel the need to just give a nudge up.
@SimGuruModSquad, I thank you again for passing a compiled list of all Available shaders in TS4. That information is very useful to modders. Now another roadblock though is figuring out how to open it up and actually get it modded. Is there any way you can release a further documentation on how we can get that file open and moddable along with a guide on how to possibly best get the game to read the custom shader? From what we looked at the .Precomp file seems to not be openable in any way.
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⌠ Team Holy Hêll ⌡ [Currently playing TS4]
It's kinda been a month since we posted about this issue and I'm a little curious to know what's the result of your looking into implementing Alpha shaders for hair into TS4. You did say about 2 weeks ago you'd look into it but I haven't heard anything back or anything more on it :/
Also to others, Please Please stop bumping. EA got the point and is looking at it. I need this seen to get a actual answer.
Ain't gonna happen. You can't stop this steamroller now... That's why I stick my please don't bump/derail etc in my very first post if I think it might be a bump-magnet.
(Couldn't post the picture for some reason, just remove the spaces and you'll see the screenshot
I personally don't give care if EA doesn't want to implement it but at most I would like to know what shaders they didn't gut out of the TS3 files and if it would be a possibility to make the shader setup moddable. I say gut because it doesn't seem that EA made a new shader list for TS4, otherwise we wouldn't be able to conveniently change the shaders because we would have no idea what shader's what if they built a new one. I also say gut because I know the hair alpha shader's in the files but it's incomplete.
Tbh @SimGuruModSquad, I would rather a complete answer of whether or not we're gonna see this come to fruition any time soon. You have a community of players where the most important item CC wise as it looks is hair. It's a large influence in how players see their sims. not having alpha editable hair is turning a lot of potential customers off from the game because we're so used to seeing pretty hairs with loose flowing strands and being able to "cut" them by changing the texture and not the mesh. You not giving a solid answer or giving two answers or just not doing this is really hurting only yourselves.
As far as petitioning EA, there's 21 pages of people who want this to happen, who put their name down with a "useless" bump post. So, if you want to create a petition, I give a full on blessing and will even help to organize it. Tbh though, There's people whose buying decision hangs on this and with enough people not giving in to EA not giving this item to us, I believe that it will affect EA in a way that they're hurt by not listening to customer demands.
@SimGuruModSquad If your Devs don't want to do it, would there be any possible way to at most open up the Shaders to modding so that modders can make a custom shader as needed? I don't care about the difficulty in modding it and would take the time to actually learn to code a shader if it meant having alpha editable hairs that work in TS4 without using the Simglass shader.
As for shader modding: the shader format is not all that different from Sims 3, so modding of shaders should be doable. The precomp file can even potentially be loaded out of the Mods dir which was not possible on Sims 3, which would make mods easier to mange. Anyhow, all the shader names and parameter names are embedded in the Shaders_Win32.precomp file and shaders can be disassembled to inspect them more closely. A raw dump of shader and param names are attached, hope that helps.
@SimGuruModSquad, I thank you again for passing a compiled list of all Available shaders in TS4. That information is very useful to modders. Now another roadblock though is figuring out how to open it up and actually get it modded. Is there any way you can release a further documentation on how we can get that file open and moddable along with a guide on how to possibly best get the game to read the custom shader? From what we looked at the .Precomp file seems to not be openable in any way.
Re the precomp file, it has it's own unique package format. I will give you some more info on its format, but may take me a few days - stay tuned.