buying clothes for non-playables, is there a better way?

[jennydeenyc]

So, the current family I'm playing (the Somersets) have a home business. Mostly it sells vases and candles, but it also has a makeover chair. Once my family stylist (Tianna Somerset, shown in my avatar during her teen years) completes a successful makeover on a customer, I like to give them new Everyday clothes and regenerate their portrait. I've tried selecting the non-playable sim using Merola's Mind Control Mirror, and then using the FFS Clothing Tool to pick new outfits, but even after new clothes are "purchased" by the character, the clothing selector (or their "closet") shows no clothes at all to choose from, not even their Maxis default outfits. The only thing I can actually change in this manner is their hair/makeup.

I've fallen back on moving madeover sims into the lot using the teleporter bush, buying & selecting new clothes via the clothing tool, then making them a townie or downtownie and clearing them off the lot. However, this method is quickly clogging up my family's closet with tons of ugly Maxis outfits these nonplayables leave behind, as well as all the outfits I've purchased for them to actually wear with their new faces. The fact that the Somerset family ends up paying for these new outfits is also annoying, but a minor inconvenience because of their wealth.

I'm wondering if there's either:

1) a way to purchase clothing/select clothing for a nonplayable character on a lot without moving them in and gaining all their default outfits & purchased outfits, or

2) a way to clear unwanted outfits out of the family "closet", which would also be useful for any unwanted Maxis outfits gained during age transitions.

Also, the ability to buy/select JUST a character's Everyday outfit, without having to go through Swimwear, Formal, Workout, Pajamas & Underwear would be a nice option.

On a side note, I've also had an annoying issue crop up when using my current move in/choose clothing/make townie method with teenage Sims. The newly moved-in teen will run away from home, sometimes before I even get to choose their new outfits. One time, this happened while the lot's business was open and full of nonplayables, 3 of which gained negative memories of the temporary family member's running away. Also, for the next sim day, adult and elder family members will have a Report $Local Name$ Missing option in their pie menus. Not really critical, but an annoyance, like I said.

Your suggestions are much appreciated! Thanks!

[witch]

I use Christianlov's clothing rack. You can summon townies, purchase whichever type of clothing you want - except outerwear - give them plastic surgery and a makeover. They then hang round as visitors for a while. I use one particular family called StyleMaven for this, they are motherloded and their wardrobes just get enormous, but they're not really playables.

[toad in the hole]

Via SimPe:

Open neighbourhood and select your townie, then go to 'More' and choose 'Clothing'.

http://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh234/ahagen33/?action=view&current=spe.jpg

1. Click on the property set you like to change.
2. Use the 'u' tab to open a popup window that lists the property sets of other Maxis outfits. Your choice is limited here, but hey, better than nothing!
Choose the file you want to use, close the popup window.
3. Press 'commit', the map of the less fugly should show up in the bottom window now.
4. Save and repeat for every townie in question.

The next time you play, edit their appearance.

I know that this is no ideal solution, but at least your playables' closet will stay clean!

[Lord Darcy]

even after new clothes are "purchased" by the character, the clothing selector (or their "closet") shows no clothes at all to choose from, not even their Maxis default outfits.

Townies have no family wardrobe. They own only the outfit on their back. If you're running an owned business, you can manually "Suggest Outfit" to actually change townies' clothes. They change to newly suggested outfit after they check out at register. When townies are purchasing clothing on their own without being suggested by playables, they are not buying real outfit. They're buying "fake token" for outfits.

Or you can use SimPE to manually change townies' clothing. It's rather complicated though, and can make the game crash if you don't exactly know what you're doing.
Use Scan Folders in SimPE to find out the custom outfit file you want to assign to a townie. Only check Thumbnail Scanner and Clothing Scanner in Scanner Setting.
Scan Downloads folder, select the outfit you want to use, and open the outfit file (you can open it from the Folder Scanner). Copy/paste Group and Instance of Property Set into notepad.
Open townies' character file with SimPE, and find the line for everyday clothes in 3IDR. (In case there are multiple lines for everyday outfit, choose the last one.) Change the Group/Instance to those of custom outfit.

2) a way to clear unwanted outfits out of the family "closet", which would also be useful for any unwanted Maxis outfits gained during age transitions.

Wardrobe Cleaner

[twink]

I follow Witch's instructions exactly..except I use the Simlogical teleporter to get rid of the townie and speed up the process. Just remember when you are giving them a makeover that the original color of their hair will stay the same as a personality trait. I tried giving some townies blond hair but it turned out that even though they looked blond, their personal trait stayed the original color of black.

Twink

[witch]

I recently read here how to make their genetics the same as the plastic surgery, I know you can fix the eyes in SimPE. I'm willing to bet it's the same for the hair colour.

[Berg]

Witch, does your version of the clothing rack allow to buy outerwear?

[Count Four]

Not totally off topic...

I usually put a "maintenance" sim in each neighborhood. That will be the lot I use when I want to edit townies, adjust the family funds on a new CAS sim, check out new CC, etc. 

Otherwise, Mr. Maintenance never gets played. Not an earthshaking tip, but it comes in handy sometimes.

[toad in the hole]

I very often shanghai random townies by making them selectable, and then force them to e.g. clean the house.
As a small compensation, I let them use the mirror to change their looks before sending them back to the street.

[notveryawesome]

I use a hack (by dolphin, I think) that allows my sims to change the appearance of any other sim via a mirror, and it even works when the sim is merely on the phone with another sim. I use Numenor's hacked coatrack to acquire the clothing for free, and then I have my sim change the other sim's appearance. This allows changes to the hair, makeup, and all types of clothing.

Edited because I used a wrong word.

[Count Four]

I very often shanghai random townies by making them selectable, and then force them to e.g. clean the house.
As a small compensation, I let them use the mirror to change their looks before sending them back to the street.

LOL
Of course, I would be tempted to make them moar hideous.

"Come here and scrub my toilet. And wear this ugly hair, too, because you're townie scum!"

[gynarchy]

I've been using Inge's teleporter to move in Townies, give them a new set of clothes with Numenor's hacked coat rack, use TJ's SimBlender for makeovers and facelifts, then sending them back to the Townie pool with the teleporter. I had my Sims buy a clothing store and was using that to change everyone's clothing but I was having trouble keeping track of whom I'd already sold clothing to so I gave up on doing it that way.

[toad in the hole]

I very often shanghai random townies by making them selectable, and then force them to e.g. clean the house.
As a small compensation, I let them use the mirror to change their looks before sending them back to the street.

LOL
Of course, I would be tempted to make them moar hideous.

"Come here and scrub my toilet. And wear this ugly hair, too, because you're townie scum!"

Of course, can-kicking idiots like Komei Tellerman get NO makeover after picking up the mess they made and some extra gardening macro:
their reward is one or two lightning strikes, straight into the skullcap.

On-topic: Running a clothing business or a makeover salon for the purpose of changing your townies' appearance is really frustrating IMO. It's just not worth the effort.

[notveryawesome]

If the townies are ugly enough, I think it's well worth the effort.

[toad in the hole]

But you have to be polite to them! *shudders*

[Kazzandra]

This is starting to sound like the "Where has all the help gone?" thread in Retardo Land.

They might actually *talk* to your Sims, too, while your Sims take their monies!

[Ellatrue]

If you have Open For Business, you can have your sims "suggest outfit for..." when you sell clothing as part of a community lot business (I haven't found a way to get the clothing rack for a home business, for some reason).

Then when the sims decide to make the purchase, it will bring up the purchase clothing menu for that sim, and you can pick the outfit for them. However, it's very inefficient.

Where does Christianlov hang out these days? I thought he/she disappeared forever?

[toad in the hole]

This is starting to sound like the "Where has all the help gone?" thread in Retardo Land.

They might actually *talk* to your Sims, too, while your Sims take their monies!

No, there is no townieism in my game, some of my sims' best friends are townies.
It's just so much more convenient to not change their looks the OFB way (makeover business), and use any useful hack there is instead to do it.

[notovny]

If you have Open For Business, you can have your sims "suggest outfit for..." when you sell clothing as part of a community lot business (I haven't found a way to get the clothing rack for a home business, for some reason).

It was easy to do after Pets, and until Bon Voyage. All you had to do was make a collection that contained the clothing rack on a community lot, and set that collection to be available on Residential and Community lots.

Post-BV, you're back to the "use the changeLotZoning cheat to add them before moving Sims into the lot" trick.

Then when the sims decide to make the purchase, it will bring up the purchase clothing menu for that sim, and you can pick the outfit for them. However, it's very inefficient.

If you're using BRY, you can efficient this up a bit. Make the Customer Bugger Off immediately after selling the outfit. If setting an Everyday Outfit, I'll make them selectable immediately after they pay and twirl, so I can use the Clothing Tool to regenerate their portraits.

The Customer Selector's nice for  setting a dress code, so if you want to go through every Townie's PJ's or Formal Wear and put them all in customs. They won't automatically spin into their new non-Everyday-Clothing, but it will let you know who you've already changed if they come back later.

[Zazazu]

Not totally off topic...

I usually put a "maintenance" sim in each neighborhood. That will be the lot I use when I want to edit townies, adjust the family funds on a new CAS sim, check out new CC, etc. 

Otherwise, Mr. Maintenance never gets played. Not an earthshaking tip, but it comes in handy sometimes.

Mine is named Builder Babe, regardless of whether it is male or female. My current 'hood doesn't have one, but Builder Babe carries a photo album of houseplans and summons for makeovers as well as orchestrated townie aging in Prospect Beach. Houses in Teardrop Isle are built as needed and aging is done on the Mayor's lot, so I don't need him/her there.

Anyways, I use Christianlov's clothing rack. Handles all categories.

[witch]

Witch, does your version of the clothing rack allow to buy outerwear?

I use Christianlov's clothing rack. You can summon townies, purchase whichever type of clothing you want - except outerwear ...

Anyways, I use Christianlov's clothing rack. Handles all categories.

Do you have a later version than mine? Do you wanna share?

I've been using Inge's teleporter to move in Townies, give them a new set of clothes with Numenor's hacked coat rack, use TJ's SimBlender for makeovers and facelifts, then sending them back to the Townie pool with the teleporter. ...

TJ's blender - does that make the permanent genetic changes?

[jennydeenyc]

Does Christianlov's clothing rack prevent new clothing from clogging up the household closet? Do I need to move townies into the household to have it work for them, or do they just have to be controllable? I'm still unclear on these points regarding this hack.

The way I'm doing it now works (move townie in, purchase/choose outfits, make townie again), but my problem as stated in my original post is the amount of crap that gets left behind in the family's clothing selector. I don't want to have to leave my family's lot just to have a "clean" place to teleport these townie sims to for the purpose of clothing selection, nor do I want to mess around in SimPE and risk uncertain doom. What I'm looking for is something that can be accomplished in-game, and on my family's home lot without gaining a ton of useless (and usually hideously ugly) clothing choices. Anything that would allow me to delete extraneous clothing options from the family stash would be fine as well. In fact, it might even be preferable.

As far as I can tell, I can't sell clothes on a home-business lot, nor have I found any hacks that allow that. I play one family for weeks (and even months) on end, and basically never leave the home lot during a play session, so the "suggest outfit" option is worthless to me if it can't be done in a home-based business. I've just purchased Seasons today (not installed yet, have to track down updates of all my hacks first), and have no intention of getting Pets or BV, so I'm not sure if the "making a collection (containing the clothing rack) available on residential lots" solution will function for me, or even how to go about it if it is a possibility. Anyone care to elaborate?

[gynarchy]

TJ's blender - does that make the permanent genetic changes?

Unfortunately no, making the changes genetic still requires SimPE.

jennydee, I don't know if this would suit your needs but you could use Theo's wardrobe cleaner plug-in for Wizards of SimPE. I use it after every age-up to get rid of the hideous clothes my Sims always get stuck in (the last one was the chicken suit). You can find it here.

[J. M. Pescado]

If you're using BRY, you can efficient this up a bit. Make the Customer Bugger Off immediately after selling the outfit. If setting an Everyday Outfit, I'll make them selectable immediately after they pay and twirl, so I can use the Clothing Tool to regenerate their portraits.

If you want to regenerate their portrait afterwards, you can just choose "Fix Flashing Blue" for that sim, no need to make selectable.

[Zazazu]

Anyways, I use Christianlov's clothing rack. Handles all categories.

Do you have a later version than mine? Do you wanna share?

No. I tend to forget about outerwear. There are so few choices (and really so few custom options that aren't simple recolors) that I ignore choosing outerwear even for my playables. What's the point? They all apparently shopped for their coats from the same store.