More Awesome Than You!

Blank templates in and the no regen hack so there are no locals appearing in vacation land.
At this point can I create some custom ones in game or would I need to use simPE - would prefer to not have to (mac)
I have default override skin/ face / names so how can I start generating process
and make sure they have the right skills?

I'm pretty sure there's a thread somewhere here but it's a simple process.  You either generate the locals randomly with the population gun thing (in Debug Mode) or make your locals yourself in CAS (my preferred method), move them onto a lot (use one that is populated by someone else because someone needs to be left behind at the end) and use Inge's cat to convert them to BV locals.  I use a lot populated by Jack Thompson for this.  I do the skills in SimPE but I think there's a hack for this either here or at MTS2.

I believe it was mentioned in an earlier thread (search here or in Oops) that Inge's cat doesn't give appropriate skills to BV locals when it moves them.  Specifically, Gwill saw in SimPE that they didn't have the right tokens, and it's a bitch to fix even if you have SimPE.  Use the townie gun or Argon's townie brick to convert your own CAS sims into locals.  They will be given the right dances and gestures for the destination you put them in.

Hypothetical approach: Can you not, say, send your sims on vacation, install them in a hotel, save, exit game, and then remove notownieregen, go back into the game to your "on vacation" sims, and let the game generate locals for a bit.  When you have enough for your taste, you can reinstall notownieregen.

1) Would this work?
2) If you have the default maxoid face templates, you may be stuck with fugly locals.

I never bothered with the clean templates for BV hoods, since I just wanted the locals for "colour" and have no intention of ever inviting them back to the main hood.  They can, therefore, be as ugly as they want, in my opinion.  Mostly my sims just pick fights with them anyway, for something to do.  One needs recreational options on holiday.

I am pretty sure locals don't automagically generate, you have to use the townie gun to generate them one by one, or you can use the Simlogical cat to turn CAS-made sims into locals. If I install empty M001, T001 and A001 templates and generate the vacation hoods, when I send my sims there there are no Locals whatsoever. Not even one generates.

Ah well.  Bang goes that idea then.  Just as well I didn't use the clean templates then.  I hate ugly townies everywhere else, but can't be bothered to actually "generate" BV locals.  I'll change my mind when one of my playables falls in love with one and I have to forbid him/her to marry the thing.

I'm not sure whether it would generate locals, but it will generate a buttload of tourists.

Yes main reason I use empty templates because wanted to make sure I had only the minimal amount of sims possible in each hood. This hood is having only playables but without locals the vacation my sims had was very boring (and could not learn the local's skills).

This sounds like the way to go then.  :)

But I am not sure what this townie gun is? I understand debug mode cheat, but does townie gun come with freetime expansion? Because I have never used and can not find it. I only have up to BV because there is no mac version for the others. Thanks for the replies!

The townie gun is a shiftclick spawnable. Shiftclick on your sim and find it in the spawn menu.