Sharable Custom set of townies?

[seelindarun]

Your first two criteria are easily met by many sites hosting sims.  The remaining two I admit are harder, but I've solved it in the past by getting most of my townie gene pool from just one or two creators.  I think it must be human nature to lean towards a certain facial geometry as appealing, and most creators don't stray too far from whatever their personal preference is.

I like LL30 Sims. Clear pictures, good variety.

[Mizz Rose Bud]

Honestly, I'd be happy if I just didn't have to make all of them myself in CAS.

I have 72 sims that you can have. See them here http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v157/Mizz_Rose_Bud/RoseBrook/Sims/

These are old pics and they are using Lyrans skintones, but they do not look very different with the EAxis skintone. If you are interested, I will fire up BS.

[Madame Mim]

I'm not worried too much about any wierd variations, but what I do do when creating new townies is use a combination of random generation (dice) for their personal characteristics and the in game breeding factor. I create 4 adult Sims, breed them together in CAS, breed their children together in CAS and my new townie is that third generation. Delete the previous and import the result. Means I don't have to think too hard in order to get that small amount of random into my game.

[gethane]

I've been trying to do this and have run into a snag. I made my 32 townies. And then moved/summoned (using inge's cat) them to a lot, and made them selectable, and then made them a townie. (I didn't know that the first townie you made became the last name group for all townies). The last CAS made sim I townify, however, then makes the lot stop and he doesn't leave.

Then I go into SimPE and (hopefully) remove the correct files (Sim Relations, Select all, right click and delete and save).

Then I place my (renamed) N001 in the Program Files (eagames, sims blah blah blah) spot and then enter the game and make a new neighborhood. When I check the number of character files, however, I only have31, probably  because that last guy doesn't leave the lot.

Solution?

[Marhis]

When I check the number of character files, however, I only have31, probably  because that last guy doesn't leave the lot.

Solution?

Bulldozing the lot should work.

[gethane]

Oops. should have mentioned that I'm pretty sure (90%) that I did bulldoze the lot before exiting the neighborhood and going into simpe to delete relationships.

Of course, after I posted, I realized that if it doesn't leave the sim in any form in the folder (hence generating only 31 instead of the 32) I can just make a throwaway sim for the last townie (that doesn't get townified). D'oh.

[witch]

I just use an option on Inge's teleporter to remove all non-residents. The sim leaves, the lot freezes and turns into a normal uninhabited lot, I save and exit to the hood. I can use the same lot over and over again, I leave all the customisation tools on it permanently.

[Madame Mim]

Yes. I usually do it that way. Then you can have a hood that either generates as N001 with playables or is used as a base for other new hoods.

[gethane]

I just use an option on Inge's teleporter to remove all non-residents. The sim leaves, the lot freezes and turns into a normal uninhabited lot, I save and exit to the hood. I can use the same lot over and over again, I leave all the customisation tools on it permanently.

I must be doing it wrong somehow. Because as soon as I tell the last resident "Make me a townie" and they turn to walk off the lot, I get the stopping red square around everything. So it never completes that leaving. Or something.

[witch]

Just save and exit the lot at that point then, because there are no longer any residents. All your townies will still be townies.

[gethane]

Not to be obtuse, but that is what I did. Twice. And both times when I then deleted relationships and substituted that neighborhood with townies into a template and then generated a new neighborhood, then did a character folder count, I got 31 instead of 32 (the number I had made). I'll try it again this weekend.

[Jelenedra]

Did you pause the game before you made all non-residents bugger off? Usually they'll just drop off the UI and disappear that way.

[gethane]

I did figure out my previous problem. Before telling the last actual resident to "make me a townie" I instead summoned someone already a townie, made that visitor selectable, then made the last resident a townie, then using the selectable visiter, zapped all visitors (all using inge's cat).

I made 32 townies. I designated one a garden club member, but the game generates a different one anyway.
I made 12 dormies
I made 6 each vacation locals
I made 1 downtownie (extra person)

All that adds up to 63. When I put those character files in the C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods\N001\Characters and the neighborhood package file in N001 and generate a new neighborhood, I get 44 character files in the new neighborhood.

So I'm confused. I can understand if the game doesn't generate the townies with no associated subhoods. But that would leave me with the 32 original townies I made, not 44. Anyone else working on this? Anyone else seeing something like this? Any ideas?

[talysman]

Do you have Freetime? How many hobby mavens are there?

ETA: there should be ten hobby mavens, it seems, so if you're just counting main hood sims, you would have 32 normal + 10 mavens = 42 sims. You said you have 44, so maybe the other two are Grimmy and some other NPC that's generated immediately. Or maybe not even Grimmy? Newspaper girl + postal carrier?

[gethane]

I think I am just missing some essential element of this. So unfortunately, after making 63 townies myself, I think I'm going to abandon this. I took my test person on vacation and none of my locals showed up.

[Jelenedra]

Did you make new vacation templates as well? If you just had them in the main hood and copied that as a template, it won't work that way. Once you zap a townie as a vacation local, they will be in that hood, and that hood only. That's why the dormies and the downtownies didn't work either.

Also, did you summon any NPCs or go to a community lot?

[gethane]

doh! The vacation templates. Thank you!

And hmmm I don't think I summoned any NPC's or went to a community lot in the hood I'm using to make the templates. The test hood I did. Should I in the creation hood?

[Jelenedra]

Well, when you ran the test hood, did you check the number of character files before or after testing? You could've gone to a lot with a barista or a bartender or a [insert npc here] and the game summoned one.

[gethane]

Oh, yes, I obsessively checked the number of character files so that I was sure I knew that I was creating each one. In the (hopefully) template creation hood, I went to a res lot, paused, sethour to 6 am, and then did the summoning and "make me a..." process, everytime it reached 6:45, I went back to 6 am.

So, for the now vacation local character files. In My Documents, they are in the main character folder. Do I figure out which locals are which using SimPE, and then move those files to the Programs Files .... [vacation neighborhood/characters] folder? And what to do about the Program Files/ .... A/M/T001 neighborhood.package files? Since in the playing hood in My Documents, those characters just get dumped into the all-in-one character folder, I didn't consider this.

As I suspected, I was missing an essential element of this.

[Jelenedra]

It could be that we can't make a new templates for the v. hoods, unless someone can figure out where the game is generating those from. I suspect it's just random townie generation, so there is not really a way to edit that. Other than using facial template hiders/replacements.

Could you go through the character files from your test hood and see what the two mystery files were from? It couldn't be the racecar or helicopter or something, right?

[gethane]

Ok, I've figured out, I think, the count inaccuracy.

I had 63 files
- 32 "townies"
- 12 "dormies"
- 18 "vacation locals"
- 1 "downtownie"

When I use that neighborhood as a template for N001, in my newly created neighborhood I get
- 44 files
probably:
- 32 townies
- 12 dormies

Because I didn't/don't know how make a new vacation or downtown template, those character files are just "poof" I'm guessing.

Well, at least I understand what's going on, even if I can't fix it.

None of the "NPC" family or default family is included in that character file count. I can see them in SimPE, but because the game hasn't run to generate them, they aren't actually character files yet. I think.

[J. M. Pescado]

I think it must be human nature to lean towards a certain facial geometry as appealing, and most creators don't stray too far from whatever their personal preference is.

Well, I suspect most people don't have a desire to create ugly sims, because if you WANT to make ugly sims, there's no reason not to simply let the built-in ugly sim generator do its thing.

[Jelenedra]

That would make sense, although I wonder why it would keep your dormies, but burninate the other subhood townies? Did you make a UNI hood right off the bat?

[gethane]

It's even weirder than that. It generated them one by one as the game needed them. But they were definitely my townies/dormies. I was thinking it would do the same thing when I went on vacation but it didn't.

[seelindarun]

I think it must be human nature to lean towards a certain facial geometry as appealing, and most creators don't stray too far from whatever their personal preference is.

Well, I suspect most people don't have a desire to create ugly sims, because if you WANT to make ugly sims, there's no reason not to simply let the built-in ugly sim generator do its thing.

Ever heard that thing about beauty and the beholder?  I meant that each creator's idea of what is not fugly tends to be narrower than what could be considered acceptably attractive.  I suspect that it's even somewhat narrower than the full range of what they themselves might find attractive in human faces.

Some creators tend to make sims with elongated, slender faces, others make rounder, shorter faces.  Separation of the eyes, width of noses, fullness of lips can all have a pretty big range and still be un-fugly.  Even so, faces which all come from one creator lean towards a certain uniformity that doesn't encompass the whole of what could be considered appealing.  I'm not certain whether it's truly human nature as I suggested above, a limitation in CAS, or the simple fact that TS2 creators are generally not professional portraitists.