Tutorial: Clean custom neighbourhoods + townie creation (updated for Seasons)

[jrd]

Good people of MATY: with the attached empty template you can now safely create Pet-free neighbourhoods without having to use the corrupting deleteallcharacters cheat.

Info on mass-stray spawning on demand will follow once it has been found.

[Scratch]

Thanks so much for awesomely excellent tutorial Jordi.... It worked great for me   

But, I do have one prob i think i should fix

When i created my townies i didn't give them proper names at the time.... the first group was "one" and the first simmie was "one".

I made 12 groups of townies, "one" to "twelve" and named the simmie in each group "one" to "eight".... Before i teleported the simmies into the hood, i opened Simpe and changed all the townie names....

but i've noticed now when i get an error log or an error pops up with debug on, it doesn't say the sims simpe name but the sims cas name.   

Is there a way to fix this??? Open up something else in simpe??

[jrd]

What language settings are you playing with?
I have run into this before myself.

I play with UK English (locale 2), so I set my SimPE to the same locale. It seems that a side-effect of this was that changing a Sim's name only took effect in that locale, not in all of them. And since some parts of the game seem to always use Locale 1 (US English) this caused issues.

To avoid this, make sure your SimPE default language remains at US English (Preferences - SimPE Settings - Default Language).

[Scratch]

Well.... I'm assuming that i'm using the default language on both    US english is the default on both??? how do i find out what the default language is on the sims 2.

Where would i fix it in sims 2???

ta

[jrd]

Not. The only time you can "choose" this is during install (there are registry tricks though).

If you play in English and have a 12-hour clock, you use the US English locale. If you have a normal clock, you have the UK English locale.

[miros]

There might also be an option in SimPE to globally change the strings (gets rid of all locale specific info).

[jrd]

Yeah, default language only. But that requires you to open the individual Sim package, not the nhood browser.

[jrd]

I want to get this in the same style as some of the tutorials at MTS2... anyone think this is worth the effort? I have no idea how many people really play with fully customized neighbourhoods.

I think a new version of this with screenshots, offered in MS Word or PDF format may be best.

[dizzy]

If people play the game for more than a few hours, they're going to want to customize their neighborhoods. I think it's worth it.

[LadyLiberty]

Jordi,  I would very much appreciate it if you would publish this.  What drew me to this site to begin with was the fact I needed and wanted help.  I spent months reading here, and very nearly put up the same tutorial as your first one on this subject.  I had the rough draft.  If I came here seeking such help, I would have been grateful to find an easily searchable document.  If you do publish, it will give me a souce I can send others to, directly.  *raises hand to vote 'Aye'*

[jrd]

Just to let you know I am working on a PDF version. I am giving it to someone to proofread now, and if the instructions are clear enough I'll run it through my PDF printer at work some time next week probably

It's just slightly rewritten from this thread's first post, and has a few screenshots.

[Sarimar]

I have an unawesome question about universities. If I do everything that's said in this tutorial and also have installed the "no dormie respawn" hack, does it mean my dorms will be half-empty with only the playable students living there? Or can I make custom YA townies and have them fill up the vacancies somehow?

Thanks for this tutorial, I'm so sick of the butt-ugly townies!

[jrd]

You can make your own dormies. Just make some young adults, and make them a townie (NOT downtownie) with the teleporter. Don't assign them rooms, instead just mark them as townie and remove them from the lot. They will reappear to claim the room.

[Sarimar]

Thanks Jordi! I'll give it a try this evening

[blubug]

A quick question: I made a custom hood following the tutorial, and I'm on step 3. I checked after creating the base hood, I had no character files. So I added a uni lot. And now I have 98 character files. Is this supposed to happen?
*I chose to delete the template folders where it says in the tutorial, rather than rename them, by the way.

[Sarimar]

Same thing happened to me. I renamed the template folders for UNI and NL but when I created the sub-hoods... a whole bunch of characters! I tried downloading the empty templates but it says the file cannot be found or something

[Jelenedra]

My issue was that there was no premade Maxis Neighborhood to use anymore. No buildings, no nothing. And I want all those lots, but I don't want the characters.

[jrd]

Did you also replace the Pets template?

On creation of new hood:
-all townies from the N001 template are imported
-all pets+sims from the P001 template are imported.
Creating subhoods simply calls the normal generator (no default imports), or uses pre-existing Sims in the templates.

With all-empty templates (including P001!) and a removed or renamed N001, I can create a new 'hood with 0 character files.

[blubug]

I did as instructed in the whole tutorial. But now I just read Pescado's response:

Depends greatly on installed subhood.
All University subhoods spawn a full set of sims. Empty templates do not help
Only the first Downtown spawns a set of sims. Using an empty-template will prevent this.
Only Bluewater OFBs spawn sims.

And now I'm okay with the young adults, if it's only them, I've accepted. I did everything else and now have a perfect neighborhood

[Jelenedra]

Having the empty P001 template and renamed N001 folder still made character files for me.

[Magicmoon]

I just followed the directions in the first post and everything worked perfectly. I have zero character files. Well, actually I made one change. I deleted all the uni folders instead of just the first one. That part confused me. Could you explain why only one uni folder needed to be deleted?

What I ended up with was a neighborhood, university, downtown, and shopping district but each was made from a blank template chosen in game, without a single building.

I don't mind the neighborhood as I just drop in houses from the lot bin, and businesses can be built to suit in the shopping district, but I really hate to think about recreating a downtown. It would be functional, but boring.

Is there no way to do this with buildings left in place? If not, then after I add buildings to each of my new subhoods, is there a way to save them or make them the default template so that I can reuse them whenever I create a new neighborhood in the future? I haven't added any Sims whatsoever at this point.

[jrd]

Mmoon: I have no clue what I was meaning with that paragraph. Unless you actually add one of those premade subneighbourhoods, they have no influence on the game. Edited!

I use the empty templates myself, so I get all the predecorated subneighbourhoods with houses, objects, etc. intact.

[Magicmoon]

I use the empty templates myself, so I get all the predecorated subneighbourhoods with houses, objects, etc. intact.

I started to do it that way, but I noticed that those "empty" templates came with quite a few character files. From what I understood from that thread, these are the "playable" Sims that came with those sub-hoods. I really didn't want those in my game. If it was just the special NPCs or characters (Grand Vamps, Death, etc) it would be ok, but that is not how I understood it. Since you used these templates, can you tell me if that is the case? If so, would deleting the character files from the folder before using the template be ok, or will it leave garbage behind?

How do I save a newly made subhood template after adding buildings so that I can use it in future new hoods?

[blubug]

Mmoon: I have no clue what I was meaning with that paragraph. Unless you actually add one of those premade subneighbourhoods, they have no influence on the game. Edited!

So if I understand correctly, I don't need to make any changes to the NL, OFB, UNI templates any more? Did you edit that part out? Or do I have to just replace them with the empty templates (I have to add, I never use Bluewater ar any other maxis-made neighborhood, I always create my own)

[jrd]

As mentioned in the empty templates thread you replace the template itself with the cleaned out version, and you delete the entire characters folder for that template.

If you do both you get just the empty neighbourhood with houses and decorations intact, and no premade characters at all.