More Awesome Than You!

Ok, I had an idea for a project that I really wanted to do, but it is looking more and more like it is going to be very difficult at best or nearly impossible at worst. I have asked on two different sites about this, but no one has really been able to help me. As such, I am coming to you wise folks here, where I realize now I should have come in the first place.

My idea:
Since A given neighborhood can have more than one Downtown or Shopping District, and since Sims can live in these areas just the same as any other part of the neighborhood, wouldn't it be cool to import Strangetown and Veronaville into Pleasantville as one of these?

What I would like to do is to move the complete neighborhoods, complete with the houses, decorations, Sims, relationships, and neighborhood/family stories.

The closest I have been able to come is to create new shopping districts in my Pleasantville with the Veronaville and Strangetown terrain files and then move each of the houses and families to the lot bin and then into the new hoods, thereby destroying the relationships.

Is it possible to do what I want? Can someone tell me how? If you can't explain how, could someone do this and then provide a compressed "neighborhoods" folder that I can then drop into my Sims 2 Data folder?

I have The Sims 2 and all expansions, in case that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance, o wise ones. I await your wisdom.

Well, I don't know about that exact thing, but last night I did package up all the characters of Pleasantview and Strangetown and merge them into a third, custom hood, including townies and some NPCs.

I used this site as a guide to do it - http://www.lifeofasim.com/how/index.php

Perhaps you can do that with Veronaville and Strangetown, then do neighbourhood terrain surgery or something?

As it stands now, lotbinning houses with families in them and moving them to another hood is an excellent way of making that hood explode.

The only safe way I can think of doing this is to take a stock Pleasantview, Strangetown, or Veronaville and make one of them your base hood.  Then go and make copies of the sims in the other hoods with SimPE's Sim Surgery and create them through CAS.  (make sure you take note of their personality first so you can recreate them as they should be)  As for getting their orginal houses to the new hood you can just move the family out of the house, lot bin it, then set it down somewhere in your new hood.  Be sure to use something like Inge's Things Stay Shrub so you don't have to refurnish the whole house.

The sims from the other two hoods won't have all of the family relationships.  But that can easily be fixed in SimPE as well.

Blue's method involves stuffing the entire neighbourhood into one lot (including any known townies and NPCs) and then lot binning that one lot.

It's a bit of work, but is explained in detail on the site Blue linked.

Pescado did the same thing I did in his game, so what's good for him is good for me.  ;D

Thanks so much for the link. This won't necessarily make the process any easier, but at least it will make it work! Now I just gotta sit myself down and actually do it. After that, the only hard part will be moving the empty houses (package them in-game, then use Sims2Pack Clean Installer to strip out everything but the lot segment) and then laying everything back out. The decorating is gonna be a b*tch - Maybe I'll just say that a forest fire wiped out all the trees.  ;D

Ok, followed the tutorial and everything worked just right. Now I'm trying to get the storytelling copied over from the "real" strangetown and veronaville to my new strangetown and veronaville, but I am having no luck. I can copy the text of the stories over with no problem whatsoever, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the pictures to move over. Any of you folks have any suggestions?

Umm...the only way I can think of is to just copy the entire storytelling folder to the new neighbourhood, but I don't know if that would copy it to the right families or not.

You know, I think I'm gonna try this.  Not on my current three Maxis hoods though.  I'll just make copies of the three.

Gonna keep Pleasantview as the main hood.  Strangetown will become the Downtown.  And Veronaville can become the shopping district.

This is gonna be fun.

Hrm.... interesting. If I ever feel sadisticly bored, I might try this myself. :P

A quick question tho... can you package the empty houses that each household originally lived in? Like say the Spectre and Grunt houses, to keep their structures intact? And then install those into your new, consolidated neighborhood?

I mean package them separately, after you've done the whole 'move all neighborhood sims into one lot' deal. Empty houses should be safe to package, right? I don't know if there is a way to do this to keep all the furniture intact. Perhaps you could go back into the empty house, refurnish and redecorate and then package. You also might have to delete any tombstones or urns? I don't know about that either. But at least you could keep the original houses that each family lived in. This should be doable without bringing along all the extra characters, no?

Also... a question about this whole method. This procedure works because you are bringing along all the playable Maxis sims, as well as Kaylynn, and thus these are the only sims that have had any pre-built interactions or memories of each other. Because of this, each packaged lot won't bring along multiple duplicate character files and what not, right?

In other words... the problem with lotbinning individual families is that each member of the family will bring along dupes of characters that they interacted with. For example... if you packaged the Goth family, all 3 of them will probably bring memories of Don, Dina, and whomever else they may have interacted with. As a result, you may end up with 3 garbage dupes of Don, Dina, etc. But using this method, since you package Don, Dina, and everyone else... the game actually has a sim to refer to and doesn't create the garbage files. Right?

Ste

Empty lots are safe to package, yes. Doesn't matter if they were previously lived in, though I'm not sure about tombstones/urns. If you want to keep them furnished the way they were, get over to The Laden Swallow and pick up Inge's Stay-Things Shrub. (Just be aware that fridges will need to be replaced as they stop working properly after you stay-things them.)

And yes, the idea is that, by moving all of the playables onto the same lot, plus any townies they have met, you eliminate any references to outside Sims when you package them up, so no dummy character files come along.

By the way, Lazlo Curious has a crush on townie Crystal Vu at game's outset. I don't think he has any memories related to her, but she is in his relationship panel, so it's probably a good idea to include her with the rest of the Strangetown crowd. Can't remember if there are any others. Best to check relationship panels. (And of course, you essentially can't play in the neighborhood at ALL before doing this -- it has to be a clean one -- unless you are willing to include a LOT more townies when you move them.)

The real question is, what about memories of dead Sims? The Curious brothers, for example, have memories of being taught toddler skills by their dead parents.

Fridges should be OK if you pick up the stay-things shrub, and the shrub global fix, both are located in this thread (http://www.nectere.net/smf/index.php?topic=116.0).  Either way, it's just a fridge and can be easily replaced.

I've already done this once and it turned out mostly fine.  The only thing I found was that Pascal's birth happened immediate upon relocation to his new lot in the new neighbourhood and it was not an alien baby.  There is a way to fix this or to make it so the pregnancy doesn't get all screwed up, but I'm not sure what it is - Pescado didn't bother to tell me since I had already saved it. 

The website instructions I followed didn't take any of the graves into account, and I really want those, so I plan to do this all over again.  This time, I am going to move only the Strangetown Sims to Pleasantview, and then do terrain surgery on Pleasantview to get a different terrain.  The reason for this is simple:  Trepie told me he recalls graves only in one lot in Strangetown, so I can move all of the Strangetown Sims to that lot, whereas I can think of three in Pleasantview that have graves/urns.  I did add all of the townies to the lot too, before I moved them, just in case (except Bella, actually).  This time I am going to go to each house and make sure I don't miss anything with graves and relationships, and I will take only the Sims that have relationships with the playables.

My house may be going offline in the next day, so this is just a project for something to do. I'm so tired of having these fresh clean 'hoods with no one in them and no history, so I thought this might make for something interesting especially seeing as I've never played the pre-mades before.  I'm having a hard time thinking of what to do first lol!

syberspunk, before changing anything in the homes, I copied the houses in the neighborhoods and pasted them into the Lot Catalog folder. Then I changed the name of each home so that it matched the format of the houses already there. I made them all read only, and now I can have an entire neighborhood of Goth's house. All the furniture remains the same, but the characters, graves, and urns are gone. Just a thought :)

Hey... cuz I'm lazy and weary about toying with that kind of stuff in SimPE (modding BHAVs is so much easier... :P) would anyone, who completes this project successfully, be willing to archive their hood and characters files and upload it somewhere for the rest of us lazy folk to just download? Pwetty pwease?   :-*

Also...


Can you explain with a little more detail what you mean by 'copied the houses' and 'changed the name ... so that it matched the format' and what not? Sort of a how-to for dummies like me kinda thing? Or point me to a tutorial that may already exist on how to do this? Thanks. :)

Ste

Ste, when I complete this and if I'm happy with it, I'll be happy to upload it somewhere for you to download.  But I am prolly losing my Internet for the next couple of weeks so it will have to be after that.  Also, it will be only Pleasantview and Strangetown on a custom terrain (one I've downloaded from either MTS2 or TSR).  Sound OK?

Well, I won't be home to look for certain until much later tonight (like 7ish hours), but for now....

When you open the Lot folder inside your N001 folder, you'll see the files for each house in Pleasantville. Let's pretend they're called 1_58539 , 1_58540, 1_58541, etc. (Pretend! Those aren't the names and I can't see my game folder from here. :) )
Copy all of those files and paste them into your LotCatalog folder...highlight, right-click, hit copy...
All the files that originally came in the LotCatalog have names like (again, Pretend!) 000000x00000159 . I changed the names of the houses from Pleasantville from 1_58539 to 100000x00058539. The "1" at the front to remind me which neighborhood it came from and the "58539" to tell me which house in that neighborhood (not that I know which number is which house, but it can't hurt to be organized). Repeat the process for each neighborhood.

This could be done for any neighborhood at any time, and will save the house as you last adjusted it. When I get home (if I'm not dead tired by then), I'll post a better tutorial. Until then, I'll bask in the glory of being needed. Thanks. :D

You could always solve the problem with Pascal's baby by letting him give birth first -- accelerate the pregnancy, or just play the family CAREFULLY until he pops (take away the telescopes so Vidcund can't get abducted yet, and avoid letting anyone in the house interact with anyone you don't already plan to bring).

Hooray! I'm home early!!!!

As promised, the brief and simple tutorial on copying decorated/furnished houses.
Please note that I do not know how (because of the lack of SimPE skills, I'm sure) to tell one house from another. I do this for entire neighborhoods. If YOU know how to tell which lot is the particular one you want, feel free to do this for that one lot. :)

1)   WITHOUT STARTING THE GAME, open your "The Sims 2" Folder.
2)   Open the appropriate neighborhood folder (I'll be using Pleasantville-N001)
3)   Open the Lots folder. You'll notice that the files are named N001_Lot11, N001_Lot16, N001_Lot18, and so on. Select all the files, right-click, and copy.
4)   Close the Lots and Neighborhood folders and open the LotCatalog folder. You'll notice that the files are named cx_00000001, cx_00000002, cx_00000003, and so on.
5)   Right-click in the folder, and Paste the files you copied from Pleasantville into the LotCatalog folder.
6)   Now the tedious bit. Select the first lot from Pleasantville (N001_Lot11) and Rename it cx_10000011. The "1" at the front tells you that you've copied this lot from neighborhood 1, and the "11" at the back tells you that this was lot 11. Select the second and rename it cx_10000016 (neighborhood 1, lot 16),  and so on until you've renamed every copied lot.
7)   Repeat the process for every neighborhood whose lots you want to move easily. Remember to use the neighborhood number at the front and the lot number at the back. (Veronaville's lot 128 becomes cx_30000128.)

I don't really know if the numbers actually matter. Could you change the lot names to cx_0000000123456 ? I don't know. I know so very little about how the game reads things from my files that I wanted to keep my copy process simple and as similar to the original as possible.

If you change your LotCatalog folder to read-only, then when you place the Goth house into your custom neighborhood in-game, the Goth house remains in the catalog for future placement....so your entire neighborhood could be filled with identical homes.

Copying the lots directly from the neighborhood Lot folder will allow the houses to keep all furnishings (even fridges!) and decor. All character files and similar items (tombstones, urns, etc.) will not be copied (they're in a different folder).

I am NOT responsible IN ANY WAY for you totally f**king up your game. Attempt at your own risk!

So... I'm not sure I understand this.

I've been playing on a 4th neighborhood I made by binning every stock Maxis in the 3 default hoods and placing them in teh fresh one.  So if I am following this, the neighborhood fil;e sare now filled with a ton of dupe dummy files that got brought to preserv memories and things.  So, how bad is this? and is there anyway to repair this without nuking all my new custom chars relationships?

Yes, you've created a ton of duplicate files by doing it that way.  There may be a way to fix it, tediously, through SimPE, but I'm not totally sure how you'd go about doing that, especially without also going blind in the process.  ;)

So what is the consequence, if any , of this?

BFBVFS?  Eventually.  How many generations are you into the neighbourhood? 

Not even one... Hrm...


If I perform the moveout process on LOAS on my whole neighborhood and then bin all the empty lots, and put it all in a fresh neighborhood, will all the dupes be gone?

Probably not. Most likely, this may even further exacerbate the problem. Your sims have references to all these other dummy files. So... even if you stick them all into one house hold, they will most likely bring all the dupes, plus any new relationships that may have developed if you have played this consolidated 'hood at all.

For example... if you binned Don Lothario by himself and stuck him into this new 'hood, he probably brought copies of the Goths, the Calientes, and Kaylynn. The references that he has are in now way connected to the binned Goths and binned Calientes. They in turn will have brought dupes of Don that isn't connected the Don in your 'hood. If you had them interact with each other in this new consolidated 'hood, and then bin them all a second time, even if you move them all into an empty lot, you may prevent new dupes, but they most likely will still carry along with them the old dupes. You would have to clean up those references with SimPE first if you really wanted to salvage this. But I think it'd be much easier and less painful to just download Blue's 'hood Or going the route as described in the link she provided.

Ste

Hm, thank you.  How do I go about 'disinfecting' my custom sims if I wanted to move them to a cleaned up hood?

How serious is this really?  What is the risk level?  The neighborhood seems to load fairly quickly.  I don't really tend to have a lot of generations as I usually keep my sims adults perpetually.  Is this worth borking all their relationships to the Maxis chars to clean up ?

I would clone the custom Sims with SimPE if you want to have them in a clean neighbourhood.  You can reset their relationships with each other in SimPE as well. 

As for how serious it is, well, it's up to you really.  If you're not noticing a problem, then don't worry about it.  Just don't be too brokenhearted if it does blow up.

k, thanks Blue.  What would 'a problem' look like? for future reference that is. :)

Well, that was more work than I bargined for.  But I'm finally finished moving every sim for all three hoods to a new custom hood.

I had a few problems though.  And it seems to be centered around Inteen.  I don't want to say for certain that it was Inteen.  In the end it actually helped solve the problem I was having.  But it could have very well caused the problem to begin with as well.

We all know how buggy some of the Strangetown sims and almost all of the Veronaville sims are, right?  Well, when I was busy spliting up all of the families on the Strangetown lot I noticed that some of the adults didn't have the option to "Find Own Place" on the computer.  They did have "Move to College" however.  But that did work since they're adults and don't have grades.  This happened with almost all of the adult/elder sims from Veronaville as well.  None of the Pleasantview sims were affected however.

I tried almost everything I could think of until I got the bright idea to make the affected sims spawn their biological clock.  And that worked.  They now had the option to move out.

So I can't be certain that Inteen caused this to begin with.  I have my suspisions because Blue told me in chat that she had none of these problems.  And I know she doesn't use Inteen.

Also.  If you plan on making Kaylyn (can never remember how her name is spelled) the maid and the townies that Circe Beaker knows as townies with Inge's teleporter shrub you will need to take Inteen out.  Those two seem to conflict.  The shrub never gave me the option to make sims into townies.  But once I took Inteen out the options came back.

Now.  I shall sit and wait patiently for the beating and flogging I'm gonna get for admitting to using the Kitten Killer.   :P

Hmm, I use the kitten killer and never had a problem also using Inge's transporter shrub.  I just used it not long ago to turn some of the binned YAs that come with Uni into townies/dormies, and no problems at all.  And I've had the OFB version of InTeen installed since the day it came out.

I vaguely recall jase mentioning somewhere how Veronaville sims had some funky sim/person data which affected InTeen. I think it was using certain fields that were assumed to be empty/unused to begin with. However, the Veronaville sims actually unexpectedly had values in these fields, which caused unexpected behaviour when using InTeen. Now I don't know if this issue was ever resolved or if there was supposed to be some kind of work around. As jordi had mentioned, it's probably because these hoods were created using some pre/alpha version of the code, and only Pleasantville was 'fixed' while the other 'hoods sim data was still in an early state of disarray.

Were you able to fix all the DNA too? Any chance you'd be willing to archive and upload it somewhere? Thanks for all the hard work btw.  :-*
 
Ste

Pst, syberspunk, over here:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.net/smf/index.php?topic=1423.msg113880#msg113880 (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.net/smf/index.php?topic=1423.msg113880#msg113880)
*warning, I personally have not tested yet (no time to play)*

Yeah. I've been semi watching that thread. But I saw that the latest files where only the 'hood files and not the character files. I thought you needed both?  ???

Ste

lol! well i'll join ya, then.  i just downloaded inteen last night so a teen sim whose "real life" counterpart is pregnant- coulld be pregnant. so far-MY kittens are still alive (don't know if i killed anyone elses by this act of irresponsibility  ;) ), but the darn thing won't WORK. i spent half the night checking n re-checking files, n hunting down possible hack conflicts (which are MANY-sheeesh) having to take out hacks i consider to be "awesome" or at least "handy in a pinch", until all i had left were the baby controller n no baby harassment hacks that seemed might possibly be in conflict, n STILL it won't work(i REFUSE to play without those hacks) so God prob'ly doesn't kill kittens-that just doesn't seem like Him-prob'ly just lets it's quirkiness drive ya batty until you repent in sackcloth n ashes  :D

syberspunk  and others...

There IS a way to IMPORT Strangetown and Veronaville into Pleasantview (they will both be Downtowns). It requires none of the moving-sims-into-one-lot and other problems, since you are basically going to replace the entire Downtown TEMPLATE with one neighborhood at a time.

However, I have not tested this process enough, so I'm afraid of sharing it with others in case it causes severe problems that I haven't anticipated or seen yet. In particular, I'm worried that because it involves messing with files under C:\Program Files\ people will end up having to reinstall their whole game because they failed to make a backup or don't know how to properly put the backup back. The experiment is fairly harmless to anyone who knows how to use backups. The process does involve the use of SimPE, but it is just changing one line. The main issue is just moving the files around and not getting confused and putting one where it doesn't belong. If anyone has followed my tutorial for cleaning unwanted townies/NPCs out of the default templates, you already know what to do, with some minor changes, so if that tutorial was okay for you, this one would be okay too.

Using this method, I have created a Pleasantview with Strangetown attached. All sims are properly in their own houses, no relationships severed of course, still have all their jobs, the ones in the sim bin are still there, any scenarios (Mortimer walking by Caliente lot, Calientes being burglared, etc) will still happen exactly as intended, the neighborhood terrains and deco are untouched, and basically everything in each neighborhood is exactly the way it should be in a fresh neighborhood. So far, I have played this for about two weeks and nothing has blown up, but I fully admit that I have been editing and tweaking more than actually playing. For examplem, only one baby has been born to cross-neighborhood sims and only one marriage has taken place (same sims for both, General Buzz Grunt and Brandi Broke).

If anyone truly wants the info and is willing to take all of the risks involved (because I'm trying to make it very clear that I have NO IDEA if this will cause problems in the long run), then I can see if I can write a tutorial.

I would also be willing to create an All-in-One type of neighborhood (Pleasantview with Strangetown and Veronaville attached) and make it available for download. I could also fix DNA and other crap while at it. But it would take me a while... maybe two weeks or so, since I'm fairly busy right now. I think this option is safer, but realize that the file would be extraordinarily huge. I suspect it would approach 500MB. Anyone who wanted it would also need to have all the same expansion packs as I do (which is all of them except FFS).

So... any thoughts?

I would love to have you upload a fully merged hood with fixed DNA, etc. Hell, I'd even send you a blank CD and return postage if you'd just burn it on a disc for me. This is what I have wanted from day 1.

My only concern is that I have all the expansions including FFS... Would this make a difference? I noted that you said you had everything except FFS...

It wouldn't make a difference if you have an expansion pack that I don't have. You could still use my files without any problems as far as I know. It's the other way around that wouldn't work.

I'll see what I can throw together this weekend.

Do you want the neighborhoods cleaned up in any way? Like, do you want me to get rid of all the annoying townies and NPCs that just clutter things up? Or do you want them exactly as Maxis shipped them?

MAY THE POWERS OF YOUR CHOICE BLESS YOU IN THE MANNER OF YOUR CHOOSING!!!

I would also send you a CD & SASE. My dream would be just as Maxis built, but with the DNA cleaned up (I'm still scared of SimPE)

*hits bleating button a gazillion times*

I would absolutely love to have this as well.  I've been considering trying to combine the neighborhoods myself for awhile now, but have been a bit afraid of attempting it.  And I also would send a disk if needed for this.  Of course if it were possible (and free) to upload it somewhere that would probably be easier than burining a million CDs for people.  Perhaps the neighborhood folder could be split up for upload, and then the we could combine it into one folder after it has been downloaded?

I think I've found a problem.

Adding *one* neighborhood isn't a problem, but a second one refuses to work. The template can only be used once, and then it no longer appears on the list. I've managed to add another one, but once the neighborhood loads, there's two lots on top of each other.

I'll keep working on it.

Sorry about this. The Pleasantview-Strangetown combo worked so well that I was sure it was going to be simple to add Veronaville to it exactly the same way.

EDIT: I might be close to figuring this out. I'm pretty sure I know now what is going wrong. The idiotic templates get the same number, which makes them literally install one on top of the other. Let me see if I can figure out the numbering system, which currently makes zero sense to me.

Maybe you could add one as a downtown and one as a suburb (shopping district)? Just a thought...

But, if you can't get it to work with both, I'm not sure about others, but I know I could live with just a DNA-corrected Strangetown added to Pleasantview, if I had to.

Well, the problem is that it literally only works once when done as a template. So I think I *could* use both Downtown and Business, but then you would never be able to add another neighborhood of that type. Or, I guess you could add a custom one. Maybe. Unless that also causes the one-on-top-of-another problem. I think there must be a better way.

I'm making progress getting it done a different way. I have now attached a Downtown, Strangetown, and Veronaville to Pleasantview (and all three are Downtowns). All the houses and deco made it over properly, but because of the numbering (I think I'm missing some number that needs to be changed) the sims didn't get properly linked, so they're not showing up. I think if I keep looking at this I might figure it out.

This is what I have right now... sadly Strangetown and Veronaville are completely empty when loaded.

(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/saramkirk/merger.jpg)

Even if they are completely devoid of sims, it would be a help, since other methods can get all of the sims in one neighborhood, but not the terrain, decorations, and houses.  So if nothing else, we could always use another method to get the sims in there.  Unless I'm completely missing something, which is likely.  But having it all done in one swoop would definantly be easier.

I think I've done it. I'm currently fixing DNA, memories, etc., and then I will test it and hopefully it won't blow up spectacularly.

Does anyone mind minor inconsistencies such as two houses that had to be moved slightly and one that had to have the hills in the backyard flattened? I can't seem to fix that. I think Maxis did something dodgy to get them there in the first place, since: A) decorations can't go within lots, and B) lots can't hang beyond the end of roads. Here's what I'm talking about:

(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/saramkirk/misplaced.jpg)

All the other houses imported fine with the terrains.

What an exciting project  :D I'm really interested to see the results. I can only imagine how much work you are doing. It would be way beyond my limited skills, even with the excellent tutorial Blue linked to.
I'm sure no one will mind if those houses are a little 'off'......be pretty cheeky to complain when someone is all the hard work!

If you hadn't pointed them out, I most likely would not have EVER noticed those tiny little things. Ditto everything Annette said.

You SO completely ROCK! I agree with the others about the minor inconsistencies... I had already notivrfthe problems with the Beaker and Curious houses when I tried to place them manually, so I'm not surprised there. I look forward to the completed project. Have you got any ideas as far as where to post it online?

I haven't thought that far. I figure I'll be done editing tonight, test it out tomorrow, and if it seems okay I'll look for a place to post it. It's actually not as big as I thought... less than 190mb, and that's without zipping it up with 7zip. I'm sure that will shave at least 50mb off of it. But I need to see the final version before I can make any concrete decisions about how to share it. If anyone has ideas, that would be most welcome.

Sara, I have a place I can put it for sharing and downloading.  Let me know when you're done and I can sort that out.

Drat.  I don't have OFB, which means I won't be able to use the combined hood. 

Do you have NL? I have another computer that doesn't have OFB installed... in fact it just has TS2 right now. I could remake the basic neighborhood, minus all the DNA/memory/etc editing. You would have to do that yourself. It's just too much work to redo all that. NL would still be absolutely required, of course, but it would be compatible for anyone who has NL regardless of what else they have.

... unless the newest version of SimPE chokes when it doesn't find the other expansion packs that it expects. Does anyone know if you can use the latest SimPE if you don't have all the expansions? Because some of the stuff I had to do definitely is only available in the last two or three versions.

Of course if there is big demand for a NL-only version, I would be willing to do at least some of the DNA and other correction.

I do have NL - in fact, I was talking about doing something similar to what you're doing in another thread here (but your knowledge vastly outstrips mine.  My knowledge is a puddle to your ocean.  A molehill to your mountain.  A dogfish to your Megalodon.)

How involved is the editing for the DNA/Memory/Etc?  Are we talking rebuilding the sims from scratch?

Heh. I just love figuring out these problems. When the neighborhoods refused to work, it was a challenge I couldn't resist. Believe it or not, when I got Sims 2, I had never heard the words "hex," "binary," or any other modding terms. I learned it by doing exactly what you are doing, picking some project and figuring out how to make it work. And I'm no expert still. But I DO believe I'm the first to actually mess with the default templates. Or at least I never heard of anyone doing it before I did it myself... I searched all over for any sort of tutorial or even a point in the right direction, and there was absolutely nothing.


It's pretty simple, actually. You have all the information in front of you, you just plug it in. You certainly don't rebuild sims from scratch. Most have minor problems, like a missing line in their DNA. You just plug a line of code into that line and that's it. All the info is already available right here at MATY and there are many people who could help you along. There are also  picture tutorials around. I'd have to search to find them again (haven't needed them in a while), but they are there.

The DNA thing is something I've been doing anyway, so at least I'm familiar with that.  What kind of memory editing are we talking about?  I've started to dabble in this, since I've resurrected most of the ghost sims in Pleasantview, Strangetown, and Veronaville, and several of them don't have memories, so I'm about to embark on a memory-adding frenzy.

Some sims have corrupt death memories, memories of "unknown" sims, missing memories, and memories that make no sense. You generally don't *have* to edit memories other than to delete ones that can actually cause problems (corrupt and unknown). I do it to make sims a little more well-rounded. If you've already done some DNA editing you've done the hardest part and the rest is simple in comparison.

This is incredibly awesome, SaraMK.  I will be watching the thread to see when and where this will be availabe for download.  As for the minor difference in lot placement, who cares?  I agree with the others that I probably would not have even noticed it.  No big deal. 

No word from SaraMK for a couple of days... Hope her 'puter didn't blow up when she tried testing this...

ha. I hope so too. I'm so looking forward to this! I've been wanting this since the game was original released!

Sorry, I haven't had a chance to work on it because of too much crap from real life.

I did finish editing, so it's just sitting on my harddrive right now, waiting to be tested. I'll probably be finished tomorrow.

I understand about that real life stuff.  I am really looking forward to this as well, but I will wait patiently.  Whenever you get around to it.  If I had to try and do this on my own, it would take me forever, if I could do it at all.  So take your time.

And, thank you, for testing before releasing!

It seems to have passed testing.

The only glitch I found was Pascal's stupid baby, which gets an alien father on the family tree but is a gender-inverted clone of Pascal in terms of DNA. I'm going to fix that (or try to), and then upload the neighborhood.

Sara, you have to clear his pregnancy token in SimPE, then make him pregnant with aliens again on the tombstone and speed the pregnancy up (according to Pescado when I asked him this awhile ago).

I fixed it. :)

Awesome!  When can we expect it for upload?

I'm uploading right now to Megaupload and RapidShare. I'm also going to make it available through LimeWire (someone requested that).

BlueSoup also offered to host the file. It's 77MB, so it's not that bad at all.

*offers a full dumptruck-sized load of her favorite chocolate to SaraMK in honor of fast work*
(another load to be delivered after I install OFB and therefore have a reason to rejoice)

You are my hero! I can hardly wait to download it! I have been wanting this since TS2 first came out! *worship*

Yay!  I'm so excited.  Can't wait.

ETA: 11 minutes for RapidShare, MegaUpload, and LimeWire. A little longer if you want it from Blue's place.

Can't wait!

Okay, SaraMK's project has been moved to Peasantry, to this thread (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4274.new#new).  Sara, you can add any other info and change the title, etc. as you need to - I just picked something quickly.

Someone suggested that I would only need to upload the files that changed when I updated them and the neighborhood files are the only ones that changed.  You do have to go through individuals sim descriptions to get their individual DNA but it actually does nothing to the character file.