Please Help!

[Carlynn]

Ok.  I have a problem.  I have posted about this at several other forums, including contacting EA about it and NO ONE seems to be able to help me.  I did a search that somehow brought me here so I am hoping someone can help me!  Here's the deal!

I have NO custom content in my Sims game other than the ones made by Maxis.  I have all of the Sims2 games (EPs & SPs). In CAS when you use boolProp and choose the alien, zombie or mannequin skin there are suppose to be heads (with the alien it is a specific set of facial features as well) that go with those. When you choose to change the head there should only be one head in there. In my game there are NONE. They are gone. Also, the werewolf full face paint is gone. The alien black eyes are still there though. I have had a bunch of people tell me that these files don't exist or that they are custom content.  THEY ARE NOT!  These files were also in my daughter's game and I could have copied them to my flash drive and transferred them to my PC & game but since my son got a virus in her PC and I had to reformat it, she lost the files and we haven't put the game back in yet.

I did have to reformat my PC lately and I was hoping that the files would be there when I reinstalled.  But no.

I know these files are on the discs somewhere but I don't know where or how to get them off of there and back in my game.

These are the numbers of the files that used to be in my game.  I checked with a friend of mine for the numbers:

0x0c560f39-0x4f184229-0x71c77514

0x6c4f359d-0x4f184229-0xb1720b1f

0x2c1fd821-0x2c176742-0x11c77514

affacelycan_s1

I installed an old neighborhood I had created with families using each head and those are showing up as they should.  I am told that this means the files are still in my PC somewhere or their heads would go back to something else. 

Also, no one can tell me why this is happening.  I use these files all the time to make strange families.  I wish someone could just find and zip them up and send them to me because this is really giving me a migraine now. 

Any help would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!  Many thanks in advance!

[Marhis]

Yup, they are not custom content: that stuff is entirely contained in game files (those installed by default). Just for the love of details, they should be in c://Programs/The Sims 2/TSData/Res/SimsD/Sim006.package or similar (one of those Simsxx numbered packages).

Try to reinstall the game, maybe somehow those files got borked; they are not related to your hoods, or saved games, only to base installation

[SaraMK]

Where exactly did you used to have these files? I mean, were they individual files in your Downloads folder, or are you saying you figured out that these files are missing from inside the big archives in the Program Files directory?

[Argon]

I'm a little lost, unless someone made a hack that I wasn't aware of I didn't think the alien face archtype was available in CAS? The closest I can come up with is the 2 button in CAS that shows you saved Sim faces with that particular skintone, the game doesn't have one for the alien skin by default (though if you want to brave the ts2 site's Exchange, it's not hard to find the Pollination Technician).

Those look like instance numbers, but what they're for I haven't a clue.

[SaraMK]

I'm a little lost, unless someone made a hack that I wasn't aware of I didn't think the alien face archtype was available in CAS? The closest I can come up with is the 2 button in CAS that shows you saved Sim faces with that particular skintone, the game doesn't have one for the alien skin by default (though if you want to brave the ts2 site's Exchange, it's not hard to find the Pollination Technician).

Those look like instance numbers, but what they're for I haven't a clue.

Yeah, you know, I almost posted about that, but I wasn't 100% sure. So I checked. There is NO alien, zombie, or manequin head in CAS, in debug mode or otherwise.

There is a werewolf full-face makeup, however. It's just a face from the light skintone. There is no thumbnail for it, so it looks like a regular face, but when you click it the sim gets the werewolf face.

I'd say the original poster had downloade something weird. Maybe a house with lots of crap. That's why I asked where he or she had seen the files. If they were in the Downloads folder, that would be an indication that they had been downloaded, since the game doesn't even have a Downloads folder until you download and install something. Also, those long crazy strings of letters and numbers are often files that come with downloaded lots.

In any case, those files, as individual files, are NOT part of a normal game installation. For example, the werewolf face should be part of one of the Sims0# archives in Program Files. It should never be an individual file. So, again, I really want to know where the original poster recalls seeing these files.

[Liss]

That confused me, too.  I've never had the alien archetype head....there is one that is elfish with pointed ears, though, maybe you are thinking of that one?

[Tamha]

Sometimes Maxis-made downloadable sims include facial templates. If you download all Maxis CC, it's possible that these were attached to sims you downloaded.

[SaraMK]

There are currently five known downloadable sims who are facial templates. None of them look like the prototype alien... although they are ugly enough to pass for zombies.

[kuronue]

If you somehow made an alien sim in bodyshop they'd have a face in CAS step 2, right? If you did the export-to-bodyshop trick for a BIG sim?

[SaraMK]

If you somehow made an alien sim in bodyshop they'd have a face in CAS step 2, right? If you did the export-to-bodyshop trick for a BIG sim?

The alien skintone doesn't show up in Bodyshop, so this wouldn't work. You would have to create a sim in the game, export with SimPE's surgery, and then import into the game. If someone went through all that, you'd think they'd remember doing it. Alternately there may be hacks that enable the alien skin in Bodyshop, but the OP claims not to have downloaded hacks.

[kuronue]

..you can hack bodyshop? 

[SaraMK]

..you can hack bodyshop? 

No, but you can hack skins that normally don't show up in Bodyshop so that they will show up. I think. I personally haven't used... or seen, actually, any.

[Carlynn]

Yup, they are not custom content: that stuff is entirely contained in game files (those installed by default). Just for the love of details, they should be in c://Programs/The Sims 2/TSData/Res/SimsD/Sim006.package or similar (one of those Simsxx numbered packages).

Try to reinstall the game, maybe somehow those files got borked; they are not related to your hoods, or saved games, only to base installation

First of all, thank you!  Someone else has (or in my case HAD) these files and everyone else here is WRONG!  I can even post a link to thesims2.com about this very thing. 

There IS SUPPOSE TO BE (IN DEBUG MODE) an alien, mannequin, and zombie skin tone.  This is even mentioned in Prima's official Cheats guide, as well as several places on the internet.  Just as there are big black alien eyes.  The second step should in fact be to choose a head and that is where my files are NOT showing up.  So if someone else is missing these heads, or the skin tones - there is something wrong in your game too. 

I am beginning to think it has to do with a Windows XP update because mine is completely up to date.  My daughter also has TS2 but no internet connection at all and guess what.  She has them in hers.  That is the only difference.  That and she doesn't have Pets or Seasons.  However, I just did a reinstall and these files were STILL missing BEFORE I put Pets or Seasons in there.  So that isn't it either.

I've done the uninstall and reinstall.  Nothing. 

I made alien, zombie and mannequin families all the time in CAS.  I even have them in my game.  I just can't make them anymore cause the heads are gone.  I'll go to the file spot and find them.  I just want to know how I get them back to where they go.

[Tamha]

Look, just because you had faces for these skintones doesn't mean they are supposed to be there. Before I even knew there was downloadable content for the Sims 2, when all I had was up to NL, I found the debug cheat and created myself an alien family. They did not have any facial templates. Also, I'm surprised that you aren't also complaining about your mannequin sims not being able to give birth, because unless you've downloaded something non-Maxis hacked CC, they have no baby skintone. Could one of your kids possibly have downloaded CC for the Sims onto your computer?

[Venusy]

I've never seen the zombie and mannequin facial archetypes, either on Windows XP or Vista. I have seen alien archetypes though, but they aren't the EA ones (due to a Multi-PT hack I guess).

Also:

I made alien, zombie and mannequin families all the time in CAS.  I even have them in my game.  I just can't make them anymore cause the heads are gone.  I'll go to the file spot and find them.  I just want to know how I get them back to where they go.

POTENTIAL BFBVFS DETECTED.
(just don't let the mannequins breed and your game should be fine.)

And can't you just go into the face options panel and choose a new face that way (yes, it might not be the same, but you can still create alien and zombie faces that way, can't you?)

[SaraMK]

I can even post a link to thesims2.com about this very thing. 

That would be a good idea.

There IS SUPPOSE TO BE (IN DEBUG MODE) an alien, mannequin, and zombie skin tone.

No one is disagreeing with this. Everyone can access the skintones. But, no one besides you seems to think there are any HEADS associated with these skintones.

[Carlynn]

About 3/4 of the way down is a post from a gal named Dixielandsh who also has the same files as me (the ones I have missing), which proves they should be there.

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=item.2,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23&threadID=60f06538559170c526e77f06b2760d75&directoryID=21&startRow=1

For the record, when I wrote this I had some custom content hair files.  But as the other gal writes, she has NO CC, hacks or the like.  And, if you read the VERY FIRST RESPONSE that I got here, that person also says that yes, they ARE there and goes as far as telling where they are.

I just want them showing back up.  I'm trying to figure out WHY they are still in my daughter's PC who has NO internet connection and no CC (other than the same ones I have from pre-orders) STILL has these.

At MTS2, they have a replacement for the default alien face IN CAS.  http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=209816
It shows in the preview a photo of the original CAS default and of the replacement one as well.  I am also looking to see if anyone has redone the zombie or mannequin. 

So see, they SHOULD be there.

[SaraMK]

That's not evidence that an alien head should be in CAS. It's just as likely that the creator imported the default alien into CAS in order to take comparison pictures.

Did you ever install the Bodyshop Welcome Package, or whatever it was called? It came out before the game did, and was supposed to contain some extra skins. Since it was a Maxis download, and you say you've downloaded Maxis items, maybe you downloaded that. Who knows what was inside that thing.

[notveryawesome]

Carlynn, are you aware that CAPITAL LETTERS are the internet equivalent of SHOUTING? I understand that you are frustrated with your game, but YELLING isn't necessarily the BEST WAY to get people to help you. Just an idea...

[purplehaze]

Dixielandish is usually wrong. Just because the sheep give her bene's doesn't mean she isn't full of it.  I recently *shudders* got bored and wandered into the sheep pen. I laughed my head off at some of the stuff she/he/it came up with. 

*edited for unclarity

[nocomment]

Carlynn - you got some info from a friend's computer.  Can you use that computer again?  Can you tell us the actual file names you're looking at?  And where they're located?  If you do, we can look for them on our computers.

Here is what I remember from way back when the game was new.

There was no way to get to the alien skin.  Maxis locked this away because they wanted it to be special.  Using debug mode didn't work, the skin simply couldn't be accessed by Bodyshop or CAS.

Someone extracted the polination tech and put him up for download.  By downloading him you got the skin, the eyes, his head, and the mad scientist outfit.

Does anyone else remember this?

[notveryawesome]

Yes, I have the extracted Pollination Technician, which I downloaded from the Exchange. Just do a search there for 'pollination' or 'alien' or some such.

[Marhis]

Actually, you can create sims with mannequin, zombie or alien skin, but you need first to enter CAS in debug mode, and you can't do the same thing in BodyShop.

If you put boolprop testingcheatsenabled true in your userStartup.cheat file, AND do shift-N as soon as CAS loads, then you'll find alien, zombie and mannequin skins in the skin area, and the werewolf mask in the costume makeup area.
Alien, zombie and mannequin "faces" are part of the skin itself, which also contains the alien eyes. No 3D face archetype is shown, though, only the skin part: is that what you meant for "faces"?

You can't put e.g. an alien face skin on another skin: they're connected, and when you choose an alien skin for that sim, automatically it will have also the alien skin face. Alien eyes are a different matter, 'cause they need an empty "eye color selection", and you can't do it in CAS. Aliens in game have an automatic empty (or transparent) eye color, so the default black alien eye is shown. But that kind of "transparent eyecolor" is linked to alien skintone, and can't be used with different skintones.

Anyway, the only skintone safe to use in game is the alien one, because it's built for that, and it works genetically just like any other custom skintone (genetically dominant, i.e. with genetic value = 0). The other skintones are not intended for use in gameplay, and they lack of some parts, e.g. as Venusy said, the baby one.
I'm not sure about the BFBVFS, but I'm pretty sure about huge and dangerous crashes when a sim give birth to a baby which has inherited a mannequin skintone (and that skintone is genetically dominant).
The game will crash whenever it will not find a correct skintone for the baby: some Strangetown characters are genetically borked, and have an empty skintone string in their DNA; the result, if they pass that empty string to their spawn, is a huge crash. And no, Maxis said centuries ago that they would fix the issue, but never did.
In short, be very careful with those experiments.

[ElfPuddle]

First of all, thank you!  Someone else has (or in my case HAD) these files and everyone else here is WRONG!  I can even post a link to thesims2.com about this very thing. 

I think it's awfully amusing that you came here for help/advice and are now yelling about how wrong we are...not to mention a quote from the BBS as "proof" when most BBS advice is either off-the-wall or will break a game faster than you can say OMGBELLA!!!111oneoneone .

[purplehaze]

First of all, thank you!  Someone else has (or in my case HAD) these files and everyone else here is WRONG!  I can even post a link to thesims2.com about this very thing. 

I think it's awfully amusing that you came here for help/advice and are now yelling about how wrong we are...not to mention a quote from the BBS as "proof" when most BBS advice is either off-the-wall or will break a game faster than you can say OMGBELLA!!!111oneoneone .

Thanks for that. The amount of misinformation and plain bad advice is rampant on the BBS. Oh...and a big wave from a fellow NoDak.