How to add new College, Downtown, Shopping District templates

[Marvin Kosh]

I was thinking that it would be nice to make customised versions of the default add-in neighbourhoods, minus the extra Sims that come with them, so that I don't a) wind up adding more Sims to a neighbourhood than I actually need to, and b) I don't wind up playing the same Sims in two different neighbourhoods unless I really want to.

So what I was wondering was, is it possible to make these new templates with the in-game tools and a little copy-paste action, or are there more steps that need to be taken?

[maxon]

Well, the original maps of Pleasantview, Strangetown and Veronaville - also Downtown and Bluewater though I'm not sure about the Universities - are in the terrains folder and you can easily make a new neighbourhood using those.  Do you mean you also want to import the families as well?

[Lythdan]

I think he may also be talking about decorations and lots...

[vaughje]

can't you just add the sub-hood you want and deleteallcharacters?  it will regen townies and such as needed unless you have the hack to provent that, but it will delete everyone once.

[maxon]

can't you just add the sub-hood you want and deleteallcharacters?  it will regen townies and such as needed unless you have the hack to provent that, but it will delete everyone once.

deleteallcharacters will do just that - EVERYONE from the whole neighbourhood including all playable sims.  You can use it anywhere in the main neighbourhood or sub-neighbourhoods and it deletes everyone from the main neighbourhoods and sub-neighbourhoods.

Actually, if the OP wants to create just add-on sub-neighbourhoods modelled on the original ones, perhaps it's possible just to delete the extra characters (from the characters folder) before you run the neighbourhood.  This would be a matter of working out which files were added with the add on.  As the sims haven't been played, they won't have developed any interlinked memories/relationships with the existing resident sims.  You'd probably need to evict any sims that are on lots before you delete.  Personally, I do this with a test neighbourhood first.  I do wonder whether it would cause issues with a University sub-neighbourhood.

[vaughje]

Oh ha, that would have sucked if s/he tried it then and didn't want to loose the other hoods.  I never used it so I thought it would be specific to which hood/sub-hood you were in.  That blows.

But I guess if you don't mind the townies that come with the hood, what's wrong with just deleting the playables that come with the game in-game?  Of course if you do mind the townies then, what maxon said.  I guess I just don't get what's so wrong with townies.  I know people say they're oogly, but I think they're better looking then the girl-guys with super shiney skin and lipstick I see other people make.  To each their own hmm.

[Entgleichen]

Under \EA GAMES\Die Sims 2 Open For Business\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate', for instance, you'll find the folder B001. Just add your own neighborhood folder and name it B002. Then in game, when you want to create a new shopping district, you can choose between Bluewater Village and your self-made hood. In your case, you could make a copy of B001, name it B002 and take all character files out.
Or, you could just create a normal subhood, then leave the game and remove all new characterfiles.

[maxon]

But I guess if you don't mind the townies that come with the hood, what's wrong with just deleting the playables that come with the game in-game?  Of course if you do mind the townies then, what maxon said.  I guess I just don't get what's so wrong with townies.  I know people say they're oogly, but I think they're better looking then the girl-guys with super shiney skin and lipstick I see other people make.  To each their own hmm.

If you delete the playables in game, they actually don't go away.  At least you don't see them in game anymore but their character files are still lurking in the characters folder (albeit in a ripped state with most of the information taken out).  This can make sorting things out with SimPE a bit awkward if you don't know exactly who is who and also, in the long run, too many character files can cause problems (less so since Nightlife).  You might say, why not just delete them manually - however, this can cause much worse problems in that you need a sim file if other playable sims have memories or a previous relationship with them.  This is because the game connects the memories/relationships of sim to these non-deleted ripped files.  If you delete a connected sim, this can lead down the long and very slippery slope to GAME CORRUPTION (draws in breath sharply).  Not a good idea.

Oh - and I completely agree about the plastic sims I see all over the place (I have the same reaction to plastic people but that's an issue for another day)

[Marvin Kosh]

What I'm actually trying to achieve is depopulated versions of the existing sub-hoods.  I might customise them a little too (for example, get rid of or mend some of the awfully-designed houses) but since they're only a template for a new sub-hood there's no need to go wild.  It might save a little time when bringing old neighbourhoods up to speed with those I have been using to test the water, and avoid increasing the number of Sims.

It's safe enough to create a blank new neighbourhood, create the desired sub-hood, and then use DeleteAllCharacters on that to get the result.  However, the lots in the template folders are named diffferently to 'live' lots in functioning neighbourhoods, so merely copying the folder probably will result in TS2 barfing when it tries to use the new template, or it just won't recognise it.  Of course I could be wrong about that, but I've become accustomed to disappointment when trying things the easy way

If you delete a connected sim, this can lead down the long and very slippery slope to GAME CORRUPTION (draws in breath sharply).  Not a good idea.

This is exactly why I'm after a sub-hood that doesn't bring any unwanted Sims to the neighbourhood

[Marvin Kosh]

So I went ahead anyway and tried this out with an empty sub-hood, to get an idea of the feasibility.

At this stage there's a tiny little thing (the ID number) that can be altered in SimPE, which may make a difference or not.

The problem is that, although I can get my vacant new sub-hood to appear on the list of templates when creating a new business district, I can't actually select it because of the honking great 'Bluewater Village' button which like to be pushed instead.  So until I can figure a way to make it vanish, it's going to be impossible to try any custom sub-hoods except if they're college campuses, thankfully with the College chooser there is no big button in sight.

[maxon]

What I'm actually trying to achieve is depopulated versions of the existing sub-hoods.  I might customise them a little too (for example, get rid of or mend some of the awfully-designed houses) but since they're only a template for a new sub-hood there's no need to go wild.  It might save a little time when bringing old neighbourhoods up to speed with those I have been using to test the water, and avoid increasing the number of Sims.

It's safe enough to create a blank new neighbourhood, create the desired sub-hood, and then use DeleteAllCharacters on that to get the result.  However, the lots in the template folders are named diffferently to 'live' lots in functioning neighbourhoods, so merely copying the folder probably will result in TS2 barfing when it tries to use the new template, or it just won't recognise it.  Of course I could be wrong about that, but I've become accustomed to disappointment when trying things the easy way

I'm not sure what you're saying here - if you have no resident sims, then deleteallcharacters would be the way to go.  Easy. Peasy. Lemon. Squeasy.

What sub-hoods do you want to attach?

[maxon]

So I went ahead anyway and tried this out with an empty sub-hood, to get an idea of the feasibility.

At this stage there's a tiny little thing (the ID number) that can be altered in SimPE, which may make a difference or not.

The problem is that, although I can get my vacant new sub-hood to appear on the list of templates when creating a new business district, I can't actually select it because of the honking great 'Bluewater Village' button which like to be pushed instead

I'll let you know if I actually manage to resolve this

Oh, yes, there's a little link JUST BELOW THE HONKING GREAT BLUEWATER VILLAGE BUTTON.  It says something like 'Advanced neighbourhood creation'

[maxon]

Just checked - it's 'Create a Custom Shopping District'. Here's a quick screenie - is that what you meant?

Sorry it's in a zip - the board doesn't allow jpgs

[Marvin Kosh]

Sorry, that's not it.  As you can see here, I've create a new business district template, but the list is obscured by the button - so I've cloned the new district to make the list longer and that means I can actually click the third item on the list.

It isn't pretty, but it works up to this point.  However, attempting to create from the template causes Sims 2 to crash, so evidently there's something still to be done to make it work.

Small update: Okay, Sims 2 did crash while creating the new sub-hood, but it was created anyway.  I don't know for sure why, it could be that more work in SimPE is needed to make the new template match the format of the old.  This is as much as I can do on an empty stomach

[maxon]

Well, there's definitely something wrong with that.  Let's try this again. 

You want to make a sub-hood with the lots and decorations as they are in the Maxis originals but without the sim families.

Why not just create the sub-hood and use deleteallcharacters as vaughje originally suggested?  If you want townies back, I'm pretty sure there's a work around to recreate them or you can just regenerate them.

Or are you trying to create a template that you can add on to any Neighbourhood, like Bluewater or a uni sub-hood is added on?

[Marvin Kosh]

Yeah, that's right.  I have existing neighbourhoods which don't have a University/Downtown/Shopping District associated with them, and using deleteallcharacters would be problematic.  Being able to use ones created from template to fill in the gaps, even if it is just a blank-slate version of a Maxis sub-hood, has a definite appeal.

I'm going to try 'cleaning' one of the existing universities and see if that works.

Update: Well, that actually went without any problems.  Perhaps the crash with the previous experiment was because Sims 2 expects a new sub-hood that has lots and things on it, which this new one does.  I'm going to test out the university (loading up the lots) before I declare victory

[maxon]

Yeah, that's right.  I have existing neighbourhoods which don't have a University/Downtown/Shopping District associated with them, and using deleteallcharacters would be problematic.  Being able to use ones created from template to fill in the gaps, even if it is just a blank-slate version of a Maxis sub-hood, has a definite appeal.

I'm going to try 'cleaning' one of the existing universities and see if that works.

Update: Well, that actually went without any problems.  Perhaps the crash with the previous experiment was because Sims 2 expects a new sub-hood that has lots and things on it, which this new one does.  I'm going to test out the university (loading up the lots) before I declare victory

Well, no, it wouldn't because the game is quite happy to generate completely empty sub-neighbourhoods by using the terrains in the terrains folder.  I was wondering whether you could make a test neighbourhood (empty) and attach, say, a university to it - Sim State or whatever it was.  Then evict everyone and delete all characters.  What you should have is a neighbourhood folder (in My Documents) with a series of lots in the Lots sub-folder - these files contain information about their placement in the neighbourhood as well as size and what's built there.  I wonder whether you could then add an empty version of the sub-neighbourhood to your working (main) neighbourhood.  This will still generate all the NPCs though not Maxis residents - at least for every university, you'd get a set of professors and students and so on - Downtown doesn't add any new NPCs after the first one though it will add the Downtown NPCs for the first Downtown a neighbourhood has, while adding an empty shopping sub-neighbourhood doesn't generate any extra NPCs at all as far as I can see).  And then you could try copying across all the lots from the test neighbourhood plus the N00*_University001.package from the test neighbourhood folder.  However, I'm thinking that there must have to be a reference in the main neighbourhood package file to the sub-hood and in that case the GUIDs wouldn't match.  However, you might be able to poke about in the files and work out how the referencing works.  I don't think there's been much work done on that though there might be something at the SimPE site.  I've had a quick look at some of these files in my own game and I can't find the information for the neighbourhood decorations anywhere though the lots are clear enough.

[Marvin Kosh]

Well, I've not found any obvious problems so far.  That said, exercise caution when trying this at home - don't inflict a custom University on your favourite neighbourhood unless you've checked it out.

You will most likely need SimPE or some other means of editing package files.

• Enter The Sims 2 and create a new neighbourhood.  Don't use an existing neighbourhood and don't place any lots in the new neighbourhood.
• From there, create your new university.  Or Downtown.  Or Shopping District.  But only make one of the aforementioned.
• Now use deleteallcharacters at the console (press Ctrl-Shift-C) to eliminate all Sims but leave the lots standing.  You can amend the lots as needed.  You should also attend to the name and description of the college so you know that this is the one that has been cleaned.
• Exit The Sims 2 and navigate to \My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N00x\ where x is the last-numbered neighbourhood you have created to date (the newest one).  Select the files and folders there like in this screenie:

• Copy those files and folders and navigate to \The Sims 2 University\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\ where you should find the existing three university templates (or the existing one Downtown or Shopping District) in folders named consecutively e.g. U001, U002, U003.  Create a new folder that continues the sequence, and paste the files you copied in the last step, into the new folder.
• Now for some file renaming, and the more lots that were on the college campus, the more fun this will be    First, in the root of the folder, you want to rename N00x_University001.* to U004_Neighbourhood.* like in this screenie:

• In the Thumbnails folder, rename the package file (which is empty because there are no families to thumbnail) U004_FamilyThumbnails.package, and in the Lots folder, rename all lots so that they have a U004 prefix instead of N00x (see screenie).  Do not change the lot numbers, The Sims 2 will renumber them when creating a new college anyway.

• The Characters folder should be empty.  The Storytelling folder contains thumbnails and screenshots from the college you've cloned, you can choose which to keep and which to bin when you use it.  If nothing else, it gives the place some history.
• It's time to fire up SimPE.  You want to open the U004_Neighborhood.package file (in the new U004 folder you made as a template college) for editing.  The first thing you will notice is that although all characters have been deleted, some records still remain.  Click the Family Information filter on the left to view all the families still present.  If you click on each one for more information you will see that all its members are 'Unknown' which is the result of wiping all characters in that family.  You can safely get rid of all the families, but I chose to leave 'Default' alone, since it references no Sims anyway:

• You can also update the Catalog Description for different localisations:

• Finally, you need to change the information stored against IDNO:

• Save your edited package file where it is right now.  Remember that SimPE will make a backup of the file, so if this all goes wrong, you can go back to that and try again.
• Enter The Sims 2 and attempt to create your new university in a testing neighbourhood.  If all is well you can try moving Sims onto a dorm lot.  When you do this, NPCs will be regenerated after a short time, unless you have hacks specifically preventing their respawning.

As you can see above, it's a lot of poking around, but it only needs to be done once, after each expansion pack if I'm guessing right, so that's not so bad.

[Marvin Kosh]

However, I'm thinking that there must have to be a reference in the main neighbourhood package file to the sub-hood and in that case the GUIDs wouldn't match.  However, you might be able to poke about in the files and work out how the referencing works.  I don't think there's been much work done on that though there might be something at the SimPE site.  I've had a quick look at some of these files in my own game and I can't find the information for the neighbourhood decorations anywhere though the lots are clear enough.

Simply put, each neighbourhood is self-contained, but they all reference a common set of data - Characters, and Lots.  This is why I say to only create the one sub-hood after creating a blank base neighbourhood.  In this way you only have one set of Lot files, which are for the University, and the package file for the university references these lots without difficulty even when you haul it all out, tranpose it to the templates folder, and then create a new university based on that.  Or so it would seem

The actual decorations for a neighbourhood are stored within the package file, using some of the arrays.  After all, it's just 'this decoration' at a certain XYZ.

[maxon]

Simply put, each neighbourhood is self-contained, but they all reference a common set of data - Characters, and Lots.  This is why I say to only create the one sub-hood after creating a blank base neighbourhood.  In this way you only have one set of Lot files, which are for the University, and the package file for the university references these lots without difficulty even when you haul it all out, tranpose it to the templates folder, and then create a new university based on that.  Or so it would seem

The actual decorations for a neighbourhood are stored within the package file, using some of the arrays.  After all, it's just 'this decoration' at a certain XYZ.

Uh-huh - yes, that makes sense.  I think I'll have another look.  I like your method and might give it a try myself - thanks for posting. 

The only thing that might give cause for concern is if Maxis adds on new default sub-hoods of existing types but that doesn't seem very likely - they seem keener to create endless other sub-hoods for the sims to visit rather than a new University for them to attend.  Which is all well and good - I wouldn't have a use for another university.

On a slightly different note, unless you actually want Bluewater, I can't see any particular reason for adding a shopping sub-hood at all.

[Marvin Kosh]

Well Bluewater does contain a whole range of ready-made community lots to use in building a business empire.

More importantly if I can clean it to use as a new template, then it's also possible to clone a shopping district I built myself.

Finally, if builders ever wanted to share an entire district instead of individual lots, this would be proof it can be done

[starrling]

Marvin, this has been very helpful, since I just created a whole bunch (14+) of custom Uni buildings, I wanted my own template.  I do have a question though:  I've never used SimPe before this but I was able to do everything you stated, except:  when I went to delete my families in SimPe there weren't any.  Do you think this is unusual?  Or did my DAC just get lucky maybe LOL. 

[Roux]

If you're looking for clean templates of the Maxis default 'hoods, downtown, unis and shopping district, I suggest you check out SaraMK's thread in the Peasantry: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4306.0

You can take your pick from templates that have had all characters removed, or templates that only contain playable characters.  They definitely came in handy when I followed her tutorial on merging the Maxis 'hoods!

[starrling]

Thank you but I made my own Uni hood - now I'm trying to make it a template and having a little trouble.  It's in the list of Uni's to choose from but when I select it my game crashes ("program will now terminate" or something).

[SaraMK]

Thank you but I made my own Uni hood - now I'm trying to make it a template and having a little trouble.  It's in the list of Uni's to choose from but when I select it my game crashes ("program will now terminate" or something).

That's the same problem I ran into, which is why I finally came up with a better idea - rip files out of a working template. SimPE simply doesn't show you all the numbers that need to changed in ID Number, so you can't create a working template that way.

Here's what you need to do, if you want to make your template work the easy way. Choose a Maxis Uni that you are willing to give up. Then follow my "Merging The Maxis Neighborhoods" tutorial that's in the Peasantry. Just the part that explains how to fool the game into thinking a custom 'hood is a template. You will lose one of the Maxis templates, but yours should work fine.