More Awesome Than You!

I'm so bloody tired of creators making their objects based on some insanely expensive vase and then not changing either the desciption or price of said vase-turned-pillow!

So, I know there is a way to change this in SimPE, but as a SimPE novice, I don't have the faintest idea how.  ???  I've been bugging Baddmark for a tutorial, but so far, no dice.  Anyone out there who could help me out would be much lubbed.  ;D

I'm not certain about the description, but to change the price, once you have opened the object in SimPE, you open the Object Data file and choose the RAW Data tab. From the three radio buttons toward the right end of the frame, choose "decimal," and then in the data table scroll down (or up) to the second section from the top, "Catalog Money." Set the Price to the value you want (I think the Sale Price is what you get if you sell the item). Then click the Commit link on the right side of the frame, and be sure to save the file from the toolbar or File menu.

That's it! Of course, you can only change the price of a game object, not a recolor. But you knew that.

[attachment deleted by admin]

Ok thanks for the help, Hegalian.  :)

I just changed the price of a set of pillows from §4000 to §100.

You're welcome. I share your frustration:  I had a §5000 towel warmer, and an §800 toilet-paper holder.  :)

heh, I used to have that toilet paper holder, I even told the person and they never changed it. I downloaded windkeepers instead, then I found the most awesome functional toilet paper holder - of course I didnt like the texture - but hey thats what Simpe is for!

Thanks be to nectere as well, since she helped walk me through it in SimPE.  :)

I also have all three, but so far I've only used the cheap stuff—just like RL!


It can be a little intimidating at first, since you can really mess up your game—or at least your object—if you're not careful. SimPE can do way more than I know how to do, but a lot of things are really easy once you know how (and what to leave alone); in some ways it's just a matter of getting comfortable with it (and working on copies of files in case you make a mistake).

For the descriptions:
1. Open the object's package file in SimPE.
2. Find the Catalog Description resource in the resource tree (upper left) and select it.
3. The first line in the Text String Editor (below) will have the object's name (which you can change).
4. The second line will have the object's catalog description (which you can change).
5. After making your changes, hit the Commit File button (on the far right).
6. Then save the package (From the menu: File/Save).

Actually, I never make back-ups...if I mess up something I'm not comfortable with, I just start over.  A little foolish perhaps, but I sorta like starting over.  So far the only things I've played around with in SimPE is this, and editing Sims (relationships and wants mostly).

Lol—I don't either. OTOH, I have all the original downloads stashed in an archive folder (in fact, last week I spent a couple days creating a brand-new Downloads folder, reorganized and sub-foldered, using "clean" installs of all my CC from their original Zips and RARs). And I have a PG-rated game set up on the Guest account on my desktop, and another (original only) on the laptop, so in reality I have several backup copies of everything, although it can take some time to find a file.

I did the exact same thing!  I have a separate folder for all of the original zip files, and everything in my Downloads folder is subcategorized into type of file, then creator.

I burn everything I download to a disc(s) for future reference, by creator so I can follow the updates etc

Functional as in they wipe their dirty bottoms?  If so, where can I get it?

LMAO!

uh no, as in they get the hell off the pot when they are done

Oh my.  This looks most awesome.  I could "make" my own Fortune Sims art collection to satisfy those high $ wants.

('kay, I can't actually make a blessed thing, but I do think I can handle typing a few numbers in and pressing save.  I have plenty of downloaded art objects that I could reprice to "make" my own collection. )

Appreciation/depreciation?  If I want a product to appreciate modestly, advice?

Woo hoo, my Fortune Sims will be discerning Art Collectors and not just run around sucking resources on a whim.

There may be a way to change the price of Maxis objects, but I don't know what it is. You can change the price of downloaded objects, but not of recolors of Maxis objects. To get 'round this you would clone the Maxis object and change the price of the cloned object, and then recolor it. (Hmm . . . I wonder if this is why I had a copy of the Lady in Red object in my Downloads folder?).

It isn't difficult to recolor a painting using the Photo Studio function in SimPE; you just need to do some very basic resizing and cut-and-paste in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro (or other image-editing app). The biggest problem I've encountered is that most paintings and posters are neither square or nor in the ratio of 1:2 (usually they are 2:3 or 3:4) so getting the image onto a game object without a lot of distortion can be a challenge. Sometimes you can do it with cropping, and sometimes with the addition of borders.

I made a few modern-art type recolors that I like. I'll stick them on a wall and add a pic to this post.   :)

UPDATE: Okay, in Pic 1 we have in the top row:  Braque, Robert Motherwell, Andreas Feininger, and Motherwell again.
In the bottom row we have Picasso, A. Feininger in a different size, and Joseph Stella.

Pic 2:  Top row is another Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 57 (different size). Bottom row is A. Feininger (yet another size), Jasper Johns, Lyonel Feininger, and Braque in a different size.

UPDATE No. 2:  Now available for download at http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?topic=409.0 !!   ::)

[attachment deleted by admin]

Wow, I want to be you.  You may say it's not hard, but the end result looks pretty impressive.

You're inspiring me.  I'm not incapable of using computer programs, even if I'm not a talented artist. I'll have time to play around this weekend.

I'd love to have some expensive "rare" classic rock albums for my Fortune Sims to collect.   How hard could it be?    8)

The BFBVS could be my head, trying to learn new things.

I adore those paintings, and I am definitely going to give this a try later.  My Sims can never have too much culture in their lives.  ;)

Windy Moon:  All I did was use Photoshop to make the images the right size, and the SimPE Photo Studio to create the recolor package files. The art I found on the Web by browsing poster-dealer and gallery Web sites. The tutorial for Photo Studio is pretty straight-forward and the interface is pretty easy also. At its most basic, it just involves pasting your new art over the existing image—the Lady on Red, for example. You can also mess with some of the frames since they are often part of the image on the game object (although sometimes it's a separate image), but it isn't necessary. I changed the silver frame to black on some of the Lady on Red recolors simply by selecting those parts of the image with the marquee tool (the tool that draws a box with a dashed border on the image) and then filling the box with black set to a transparency of about 60-70% so that the texture of the frame would remain visible. The more transparent, the more the frame looks gray; less transparent means it looks more black.

As for wanting to be me:  well, I think you probably don't. For one thing, I grew up in south Jersey myself so you wouldn't be gaining anything there. And I'm older than you.   :P


Anyway, you can get a zip file with all the art recolors shown in the pics I posted above [since deleted] at:
http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?topic=409.0

 :)

Last night, I actually saw a site that had barely more content than yours and half of it was pay content. I was so confused by that I didn't even download the free stuff. (Really now, you can't put up five skins and some recolors of Maxis hairs and expect me to PAY for it!)

Also, thanks for putting your paintings up. I always need more good paintings for my sims!

Yay!  Hegalian, thanks so much.  I was wondering how I was going to wrangle my way into getting my hands on the New York painting... ;)

You all are quite welcome.

In addition to the Andreas Feininger photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge and NYC skyline, the Joseph Stella painting (the one that looks like a stained-glass window) is also the Brooklyn Bridge.

http://www.gallerym.com/artist.cfm?ID=23
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Brooklyn-Bridge-Posters_i290838_.htm

Allposters.com is a good place to get jpegs for making your own art recolors. Another good source is museum and gallery online stores, like the one at the MoMA (http://momastore.org). The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a lot of stuff on its store Website, http://store.philamuseumstore.org/posters1.html. The Philly has two major collections of modern art, its Duchamp collection (including Nude Descending No. 2 and The Bride Stripped Bare), and the Arensberg Collection.

In all cases, just be sure to get the largest jpeg available at the site.

More Fun with Art

It occurs to me that I also made recolors of the default replacements for Sim paintings made by saramkirk at MTS2. These replace the paintings the sims paint in the game.

Edit for correction:  these are recolors of saramkirk's templates; there is no hack involved. You can find the templates and instructions on how to use them to make your own replacement art at: http://www5.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=82329. Thanks Sara!

It's been a few months since I made these, and since none of my sims are very accomplished painters, I've only seen a few in my game. I can tell you that the artists include Rothko, Mondrian, Picasso, Braque, Magritte, Cezanne, and Gris; there is also Milton Glaser's Dylan poster, and The Endless Summer. Twelve paintings in all.

You can get them at Laverwinklesims, http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?topic=410.0    ;D

[attachment deleted by admin]

These are really great, Hegelian.  I definitely will download these tonight.

Also, did you know there's a Sim-site devoted almost entirely to paintings?  It's www.casa-darte.de, and it's one of my favourite sites out there.

Consider yourself to be on the receiving end of a great big hug. I didn't even know you could replace those awful paintings in the game. I got everything, your wall-paper (I got both sizes, because I'm not too sure which one I need :D), your recolors that are very nice, and the replacements. Now let's see if I can do what Saramkirk tells me to do in SimPe.

Thank you so very much for putting those up. I think I'll put Hegelian-sim into the art career now, he more than deserves it :D.

Blue, I knew there was a reason I voted 'yea' :D

Edited: because I need to say "yay, in German too, how the heck did I miss that?"

Aww, thanks Gaby.  :)  I think you're right about the artist career for Hegelian.  I'll do that as well.

Actually, it's the opposite, people only need YOUR files, since you can only have one replacement file for each picture. :)

Hey, I completely forgot I did those. Shows how much I visit MTS2 lately... If anyone needs help with them, let me know.

Lol—it's been a long time since I did mine too, and I forgot that what you offered were templates and instructions, and not an actual hack. Thanks for the correction. And thanks for the instructions too—the replacements look great in the game, even if there is a Dylan poster in every room.   ;D

I use her walls and floors all the time. I struggle with them sometimes because my sense of interior design is not strong, and her aesthetic is not mine, so it's often not apparent to me how to use the surfaces in combination, especially when there's more than one version of a floor tile (for making patterns). Nonetheless, I really like what she's done and use it a lot. I sent a house to Simmiecal for the neighborhood that uses her walls and floors, and glass walls and doors from ModernSimObjects. I don't know that it will end up in the neighborhood though.

Aww . . .  :)

Did you see the reading list I left for you over at Laverwinklesims?   ;)

First of all, I am so tackling this thread this weekend.  It's either that or Christmas shopping (or laundry) and I know which one I'm going to pick.

Now, on to South Jersey.

get out! (apparently you did  ;D  )

I'm actually a Philly girl but have lived in South Jersey for nearly nine years now, so am in danger of being a Jersey Girl.  Not a bad thing if you love the Boss, just a transition from growing up Across the Bridge.

Moorestown/Cinnaminson/Riverton/Palymra area, you?

(I figure that is vague enough to stymie cyber stalkers if nobody knows my full name, not that I've had a ton of them.)

Yeah, as soon as I went away to college, although it was only as far as U of Del at first (I later transferred to Antioch in Ohio, and spent a winter in Phoenix trying, unsuccessfully, to quit school). I did end up back there a couple times when I was in my early 20s, and I had a job in Moorestown. BTW, in the category of what-I-know-now-that-I-didn't-know-then (but what my best friend, who now lives in Austin, apparently did know), is that my life would have been infinitely improved if my parents had been able to send me to Moorestown Friends instead of a public HS. In any case, I was out for good by '84.


Although some of the gigs that helped establish The Boss were at the Stone Balloon in Newark, DE, and Michael Tearson at WMMR broke him on the radio, the whole Asbury Park thing has more affinity with NYC than with Philly. Tom Waits's Jersey Girl is definitely a Girl of the North (Country)—the river he's going to cross is the Hudson.   :)  OTOH, for  a while I had a girlfriend right out of "Thunder Road"; she lived down by the river in Paulsboro. And, uh, she was married (but separated!) and living on AFDC. Anyway, you might enjoy this article:  http://www.citypaper.net/articles/112698/coverstory.shtml This is what I grew up with.  ;D


Medford. When it was a farming village. My family wouldn't be able to afford to live there today, now that it's become a trendy spot for yuppies fleeing the city. What is now the tea house was the home of one of my high school friends. Braddock's Tavern was a dive—respectable people didn't go in.

But later I worked in Philly for a couple years, on N. 9th near the intersection of Erie and Rising Sun until we relocated to Whitaker between Hunting Park and Wyoming. The 9th St. neighborhood was nasty, the sort of place where people would get shot while standing on their porch in the middle of the afternoon. For a year I lived near Penn, at 42nd & Pine. For a while when my car wasn't running, I took the subway-surface car from the subway portal on Baltimore Ave. to 30th St., then the Market St. subway/Frankford El to the Erie-Torresdale stop, and then another trolley to Erie and Whitaker,and then walked ten minutes. In the winter. I had to be at work at 7 am. It was a drag. It was the winter of Solidarity in Poland, so at least I had something to read about on the train.

Hey—I went to Phillies games at Connie Mack Stadium! Too bad they had to tear it down—it was way better than Fenway.  ;)

*jawdrop*

We're doing the internal debate right now on Moorestown Friends for the 11 year old.  I'd have to sell a kidney on eBay to pull it off but public school thinking is not working out for that one.  (After you sell a kidney for the first year, I wonder what other internal organs come in duplicate for $$$ in subsquent years?)

Appreciate your perspective.  I'll be sure to tell the hubby that a guy I met on a Sims 2 message board says Moorestown Friends would have changed his life.  The only thing the husband loves more than my bringing the Sims into a conversation is when I quote people I met online to prove my point in a discussion.


Grin.  I see I can't get away with the Jersey Girl joke with a man who understands the North/South, NYC/Philly divide.  Works with almost everyone else.  ;D  Yes, Jersey Girls aren't in the South (although South Philly girls are nearly the same animal, but I'm not one of those either).

I will beg to differ about any true claim to the Boss and Asbury Park going to NYC and the North, though.  Philly was so close behind, it doesn't even count from the wide angle lens view of looking back on history.  Personally, I didn't tune in until the Born to Run tour hit the Spectrum, but I was 13 (14?) and can be forgiven for not hanging out at the Stone Pony prior.  (That Bruce is not a South Jersey boy and doesn't write about South Jersey, that I acknowledge, of course, because I can't get away with that with you.  I will still stubbornly insist on claiming him with everybody else I meet, however.  NYC can have Billy Joel, I'm keeping the Boss.)


Husband and I are still mourning Sciaky.   :-\


Got married (2nd wedding) a few years back at Braddocks.  I'll send you a PDF of the bill for a 40 person dinner reception if you have any lingering doubts about the "dive" part.  ;) 

And yes, affording to live in Medford is not easily done nowadays.  Better than Moorestown though (which is not where I live, so there goes one town on my list).  Keeping up with those pesky Joneses, if you live in Moorestown, gets worse every year.  If I could afford the house, I couldn't afford the $100,000 landscaping and the $$ cars that have to go in the driveway (with pavers, of course).

I like the 'burbs that surround Moorestown much better (if one has to do 'burbs).  Our town is nice, but lacks the Joneses competition thankyouverymuch.  (There's a Starbucks on Main Street now, right near Peter Pan and the Happy Hippo, sigh.)

I work in Moorestown, which could be a funny story in itself.  We built, and dealing with Moorestown planning board was a zillion laughs.  Everywhere else in Jersey, people want to give you tax breaks for bringing jobs...no, Moorestown, they don't actually want commercial property (even tho already zoned "forever").  Environmental impact statements weren't enough (er, we have a building with people who work on computers, not toxic waste), we finally had to promise to paint the building green to "blend in with the trees" to satisfy some old codger on the board.  (Our property is NOT on Main Street, for pete's sake).  Planning board had us tied up for a year in meetings, hoping I think we'd just go away rather than build.




I never did Connie Mack, wish I had.  The new park is enjoyable, although it's not as good as Baltimore.  I thought I'd miss Veteran's more than I do....there really wasn't anything to miss, other than whatever memories you made there yourself.

Well, this was fun.   I imagine that loud sound I hear is the rest of the world snoring through my thread derail here.

Back to Sims art and repricing objects!!

A big thank you to Hegelian and windy_moon!!  For 30 years I've thought it strange that my husband always called Poulsbo Paulsboro; but I never asked him why.  He is one of those that says Jersey is a great place to be from.  He lived in Fort Lee and Sayerville and worked all over South Jersey.
I guess I'm glad that he moved to Washington all those years ago.

At first, I misread what you'd written, thinking that you were saying your huband had an odd pronunciation of Paulsboro; but now I see there's a Poulsbo near Seattle. Paulsboro in NJ is a small refinery town on the Delaware, directly across the river from the Philadelphia airport.

Since Ft. Lee and Sayresville are both within spitting distance of NYC, if your husband was raised in that area and has a regional accent, it's probably the standard North Jersey accent which is heavily influenced by NYC speech patterns; think Joe Piscopo or Lou Reed; or the former governor and 9/11 Commission co-chair, Tom Kean.

In the south the influence is Philadelphia, which is a whole different thing. I can't think of many celebrities from Philly who still have a Philly accent (at least not in public); the only one who comes to mind offhand is the comedian David Brenner, who has a fairly classic Philly accent.

The Philly accent is characterized by several distinctive features. Perhaps the most obvious is called the "glottal stop", which means that some sounds which are normally pronounced in the front of the mouth are produced in the throat instead. The classic example is the letter "t":  instead of pronouncing it with the tongue, the speaker uses a "stop" in the throat which is almost like a cough. It's difficult to explain but obvious when you hear it. For example, when pronouncing "basketball," the the "t" is not sounded with the tongue, in fact it's really not pronounced at all, but is indicated with a throat sound before the "b" in "ball" is pronounced.

There are other inflections that are nearly impossible to describe in writing, such as the odd nasal sound and flat inflection in the most pronounced accents, in which a lot of words are pronounced in the front of the mouth (the glottal stop notwithstanding). Then there is the swallowed "L", one of the few overtly Philly characteristics in my own speech; in this case certain "L" sounds are pronounced as something close to "w":  the baseball team is the "Phiwadewlphia Phiwies." There are also some peculiar pronunciations:  The football team is the Iggles; what comes out of the faucet is "wooder." And of course, in summer everyone goes "down the shore" (to the beach).

The "L"thing can be a real problem; there are three or four words I have great difficulty pronouncing properly, although I can't think of them at the moment (figures!); one is a woman's name. Ah! "Peculiarity" is a word I can barely get out in a recognizable form.   :)

I guess UHF TV as a distinct cultural entity is a thing of the past, but in the "old days" UHF in Philly was absolutely awash in the Philly accent. There was "the bawsez dawter for A'-lan'-ic transmissions," and "Jerry Green's Mirrow World."

Many years ago, Philadelphia Magazine published a terrific article on how to speak Philadelphian, but I'm not finding it on the Web. But go  here (http://www.phillymag.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/content.page/nodeID/37442B54-C186-4925-BDBA-43C5973A63C5) and listen to Tony Luke and Charlie Neill. However, the guy who wrote that article has a new one here (http://www.citypaper.net/articles/081497/article008.shtml). And let me just say I didn't find it until after I had written all the above—honest!

That was a great article!  Yes, I read the whole thing, and there were quite a few things that applied to hubby's speech back in the day.  Now that he's been in Washington longer than Jersey, he almost sounds like a native.  There are still a few quirks, especially when he is mad.  Most noticibly when he asks for soda, I bring him the box of Arm & Hammer not the can of pop he is after.  But I also think it is called soda in most of the country.  I've only ever lived here.

Hmm . . . you mean like going to a Giants-Eagles playoff game in a freezing drizzle, and watching the cops beat the crap out of a fan in the field-level boxes after he'd pushed one of them over the wall?

I've been to Camden Yards too, right after it opened. I thought it was very nice, although it's a drag that the ground-level seats facing the outfield aren't angled toward the infield. Modern construction techniques make these new old-style parks superior to the originals in almost every way—no sight-line-blocking pillars, modern plumbing—but of old parks, Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium was probably one of the best. Unlike Fenway, for example, it used state-of-the-art engineering techniques (for its day), and was more vertical than Fenway, so you were closer and had a better view. It was also essentially symmetrical. Fenway, built on a piece of ground too small for a baseball stadium, was obsolete the day it opened in 1912, three years after Shibe.

http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/american/shibep.htm

Sigh.  Yeah, and there was that pesky snowball/Santa episode.

The behavior pattern of Philadelphia Eagles fans is part reality and part myth, perpetuated (IMHO) because the stories sound so good on retelling (and retelling, and retelling). 

Married to one, with season tickets in the family since 1967.  They aren't quite the beasts as portrayed :D , although it would be silly for a Dallas fan to dress himself in full 'boys gear and sit near my husband & friends unaccompanied. 


I can't believe we spent an entire era with baseball being played in big, round bowl stadiums like the Vet.  What a disgrace, it's not really the same game.   I didn't "get" that until I started going to games at Camden Yards...before that I'd only ever been to the Vet.

Hockey is my first love (Philly girl! ), but baseball is right after that.  Of course, as you start getting rid of all of the horrid structures, steroid scandal comes along and you wonder what "game" it is we are paying to see.  I should probably stick to hockey.  (Not that a real person can afford to go to a game anymore.)

Yeah, "pop" is some weird northern aberration. In Texas, if you said you wanted a can of pop, we'd all just be confused. Of course, in Texas, if you say you want a coke, you'll be asked "what kind?" because "coke" is our catch-all term for sodas (other than "soda," which is understood, but rarely used). If you're after a Coca-Cola, you've got to repeat that you want a coke, after which your waiter will probably stare at you in confusion and ask if a Dr Pepper is okay. (Alright, so most chains have coke and DP, but quite a few smaller restaurants and such only have DP.)

That is weird, most places here (in my little town, anyway) don't have Dr. Pepper, and that is my favorite.  A lot of the stores with reader boards advertise "soda pop" to cover all bases I guess.

Well, Dr Pepper comes from Texas, so we're pretty much drowning in it. I don't know if you've ever had Dublin Dr Pepper (http://www.dublindrpepper.com/), but if you haven't, you should, because it's the best. You've got to order it online, and it's slightly more expensive than regular Dr Pepper, but it's totally worth it. Although, once you've had Dublin Dr Pepper, the normal stuff will taste really fake.

I prefer the diet version, so the normal stuff tastes fake already.  I will check out the link, thanks.