More Awesome Than You!

To make a long story short; this week I learned about the FT novel writing system. It fell short of my expectations, so I bring you a MATY themed novel plotline replacement. It requires FT, goes in downloads, not a global hack but an image override.

Edit: been updated, posted images are of the updated version.
Updates: replaced a couple of things, sorted it better by topic.
2.1: still uncompressed but fixed. Thanks, Tunasiafish.

I intend on making several others of these I can share them if there is interest. I will probably update this one if I can sort out the icons by topic better.
Thank you to Jesslla who assured me this wasn't creepy.

(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/sm_Jmnovel.jpg)
"Once upon a time there was much kermitflailing. Through clever Macrotastics the Overlord got the attention of the peasants; and there was much dancing and singing of the pirate song. Dance my puppets dance!"

(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/1-20.jpg)

(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/2-20.jpg)

(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/3-20.jpg)

Nice soup! Here I thought you were doing a story. Now it all becomes clear.

I thought to clarify myself but then it was done so I posted instead. ;D
I've been poking around replacing things that I don't like, when I did the report card of Retard-oh.

Are you planning on replacing the book covers as well? I guess there's no way to add to them.

I'm not sure what the replacement of the book covers would do. I intend on finding out though, so I can shoot you a pm when I find out?
Sadly, I am not a modder I just hold the blowtorch to things and make them better; I am not afraid to try things though.

Sweet - I have been wanting more/more relevant novel plotline images ever since I installed AL and discovered that they carried over from FT.  However, I really just want to add (or replace) a few icons rather than get a whole completely new set.  So, what did you have to edit to do this?  I did some poking around, but was not awesome enough to figure out what one has to do.  Also, will installing a hack like this change the plotlines of existing novels?

*Deep Breath*
I'm explaining all of it in one post so there will be no questions  :D
This works for all things that has these entries, I modified macrotastics and that is how I learned this. (I thought the macro>eat was a death alert, I use the eat out Icon with a red arrow) http://s101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/ (http://s101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/)

The icons come from the (Gamedir/EPuwant/) Tsdata/res/UI/Ui.package - an assload of unlabeled PNG files.
(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/demo2.jpg)
However Sara MK extracted all of them from all EPs to pets found on her geocities http://www.geocities.com/saramkirk/ (http://www.geocities.com/saramkirk/) and has also done Seasons, the link here in peasantry is broken.
It is easier if you like mine and just want to replace a few to download mine and blowtorch it. *Fold spindle mutilate Hurrah!*
(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/demo.jpg)

Rufio: Start object workshop in SimPE, go down to the "unknown" section of the maxis catalog, Select Book - Novel - Icon Helper
Clone it with regular settings, edit your clone, drop in downloads.

Yes, it changes other plotlines because its just images not "hard code".

So it's just a matter of replacing the jpg/tga/png images?  Good times.  Can you add moar?  Actually nevermind, I will experiment and discover that myself.

If you can add more I want to know immediately. I'm not usually an "Immediately" kind of girl but the longest part of this was agonizing over weather or not I wanted "talk shit about you" or "Shall we dance, Whale?" ; Shall we dance won.

Feel free to indicate which icon you used and I may officialize that modification.

The photo bucket link has everything you need to DIY skin its exterior to a black anti-flail device with the icon. (http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/image3_4.png)

Actually, I meant adding more icon choices, but adding more plot points per novel would be fun too, though I have no idea how one would do that.

Thanks for tracking these down CandyToast :)
I was looking all over the place for that alien icon and ended up getting my murdered wife to make a new one.

Your package file is wierd though.  You've used a private group but actually made a global hack. (The NREF points to the actual global group)
Remove all the resources that are not IMG files, and change the group to 0x7F9959BA.  That will do the same thing and with less files.
It also won't confuse other programs into thinking it's a standalone object.
Then use the compressorisor!  Those targa's compress down very well.

Nice work on the images :)

 :D I also meant add more icons, "happy talk" "Fight talk" have a related "enemy talk" icon I had in the first version.

I believe you can add more! I just added one experimentally, added a new instance at the end. Sort by instance, clone one, paste below. Then go into the resource tab and made it the next instance # which will be in this case 0x0000002D.

Tuna: Funny enough I made the alien icon to replace yours, it made my head hurt.

My package file is weird because I don't know what I'm doing  ;D. Literally I did exactly what I said above. I don't know how to change the group ...need pictures.
The images are all maxis or MATY. I edited the gossip one, the soap to be pink sim soap, blue soup, green alien.

Like this?
(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/blahmos/likethis.jpg)

lol, I'll pass on the info about the image :)

To change the group numbers, select the IMG file, then click on the 'Resouce' tab at the bottom of SimPE.
Paste the group over the top of the 0xFFFFFFFF, then press commit.
Rinse and repeat.

'shift-delete' is the key-combo you'll need to remove the non-IMG files.

Awesome.  Did it show up in-game?  I would test, but I am in a coffee shop and don't really want to start the game up right now.

You can change the group number by clicking on "Resource" down at the bottom where "Object Workshop" is.  Ninja'd by tuna.

CandyToast.  Yes, like that.
Although you need to delete that NREF file too.  Your package will contain nothing but IMG files when you're done.
After you compressorize you'll see a new 'list of compressed files' resource added - Don't delete that one.

It appears that icons after 2D do not show up on the dialog.  Damn.  :(

Edit: Nevermind what I wrote earlier.
Yay, I managed to exchange all my topics! I couldn't open the original thumbnails in SimPe but I downloaded your package and used those to exchange the pics. Turned out good:

(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8716/novel1.jpg) (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=novel1.jpg)

(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7332/novel2.jpg) (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=novel2.jpg)

(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/4256/novel3.jpg) (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=novel3.jpg)

Some pictures were a little too small so they got kinda stretched out, but I will fix that in time!

Let me get this straight. I can just drop this package in my downloads and I'll have all new MATY appropriate icons for Notovny's novels? :D SCHWEET.

That should be true. I'm still testing this; my RL exploded horribly not long after I posted. If it turns out to not override the speech bubbles I will be making it so that it does. The kicker will be that there may be MATY conversations as well as novels; not that I consider that a bad thing.

*LMAO* butt hurt? Nice.

STOP IT.