More Awesome Than You!

Only an hour or so ago I was whining to my husband that alien abductions NEVER happened on my computer. At the very same time I whinged that twins were all too common. I have a very nice PowerMac that seems to buck the twin odds and always has.
Anyway in mid-moan the other half says "What is that?" I look back at the screen and am buggered if an abduction cutscene isn't playing right there and then!
The resounding crash was my jaw hitting the desk.
Naturally the machine presented me with hideous alien twins.
I should just learn to keep my big mouth shut!

Moral of the story: careful what you wish, you just might get it  ;)

Quite so. Who needs hideous alien twins?

I do!  ;D :P

Then again, I had twins occur twice in a row, one of mothers happened to be an alien.  So now I have 2 homely looking girls, one that's green.   ::)

Remember ladies, if you keep on having twins and no alien abductions blame your husband. :P

Ahem... there are some nice alien replacement skin and eyes out there, most are retro-active. Meaning they replace skin and eyes of aliens already born. Although it might not fix other facial issues, it could be a start. In my game, all aliens have Dylans replacement skin and eyes. Dylan's web-home for the sims is Laverwinkle, by the way. I'm pretty sure you can replace the bug-eyes only, if you want to keep the green skin.

There are other sites, such as the InSim site, that feature replacement skins, the same goes with MTS2. I just use Dylan's because he does wonderful work, and I trust him completely. However, always read the rtfm :D

Yes, you can -- I had Dylan's alien eyes in my game long before I settled on also using his alien skin. 

Veilchen, do you know if there's a way to use Dylan's alien *in addition* to other alien skins? I'm currently using Trey-Nutz's Junior Pollinator which I like, but I want more variety than just that. I'd love to be able to throw in some purple aliens too.

I don't know for sure, but here's a link to Laverwinkle. If there's no explanation in the actual "Dylan's Creations" forum, it can't hurt to ask. Although he might not be there all the time, he usually tries to help people as much as he can.

http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php

Christ on a frickin bike! Aren't green bug-eyed aliens ugly enough without variations on the theme of ugly? Never will I understand folk who want purple-skinned ugly aberrations cluttering up their game. There again I cannot bear zombies or vampires in my game so most like it is just a carpet-chewing personal repulsion.

If you get the right pollination tech replacement(s), then your aliens aren't quite so freaking ugly.

Are you having a laugh? Mine (all TWO count them) have no nose, huge bulging bug eyes and chins that could cut friggin cheese.
Replacement Pollination Technicians? I wish, The wretched machine is a mac and I on;y trust MATY hacks.

There's no way on earth I'll use the maxis pollination tech.  But Dylan's pollination tech is quite nice, but I can't stand the thought of having just one (I like my aliens to be pollinated as well, some times), so I use a fwiffo multi-PT version from MTS2.

I'm sure it's quite safe, even for macs.

Dylan's stuff should be considered just as trustworthy as MATY hacks. http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?topic=17.0 Take a look, his default alien replacement is a vast improvement over no nose, bulging eyes and sharp chins. Treynutz2's Junior Pollination replacement is also equally trustworthy. You can find his hack over at the Simposieum- http://www.simposieum.net/content/view/52/2/ .

Fixed the link so it will hopefully work.

I'll go take a look at those.
Thanks to you both.

You're quite welcome.

Now why would I suggest that you replace one bug-eyed, no-nose, no-mouth version for just a different hue? It always pays to check before reacting. Dylan's replacements are quite handsome, and so are Trey's. They are also fine for Mac users, by the way, and if you have difficulties with the skins, both are very good at supporting their creations. I put the laverwinkle link up right before you posted. One click would've gotten you there, and then all you had to do was find Dylan's forum, which is clearly marked as such, click and find his alien replacement thread. Pictures and everything. Of very nice looking aliens.

Veilchen, have you tried combining the replacement technicians with a multi-technician mod (like fwiffo's or anyone else's)?

I'm using fwiffo's multi-PT hack and dylan's laverwinkle skin...  it's a little odd having green aliens in the family tree with purple offspring, but I have no idea how to go about changing the thumbnails.

Elfie, if you're talking adding your own aliens instead of fwiffo's into that mod...  It's certainly something I'd be interested in trying out!  I do like Dylan's replacement alien, but once aliens were returned to the family tree I didn't like that aliens couldn't be pollinated themselves...  I like to breed my aliens!  Of course, then I get the situation where I have more aliens in my hood than humans   ::)

sorry gotta do it...
/me kewian points and laughs

It always happens that way..

As do I: *ElfPuddle points and laughs at both kewians!!*

ness, what I'd like to see seems similiar to what you're doing...but without the odd green tech/purple kid. ;)
Fwiffo, what are the odds you could easily do a multi-tech mod that let the user insert their own custom aliens (Dylan's for example, or the dark blue ones at Wood for Sims, or...). I say easily, because it isn't worth it to me to cause headaches to others...my game's chancy enough at the moment that I don't play enough to put anyone else in pain.

Even just a way to update those thumbnails would be enough.

In CAS, the aliens appear with the default purple replacement skins...  but the family tree thumbnails are still green.

Any ideas?

Fwiffo put directions for doing it in one of his threads, I went looking and found it for you - post #22
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=70256&c=1

I never could get my brain working enough to understand how to do it  :( 

Thanks, sleepycat...  bookmarked, I'll try to get my head around it some other time when I'm a bit less tired and hungry.

your welcome, if you manage to figure it out and put Dylan's pollitech in it and some other decent looking ones (with smaller eyes like Dylans) then I'd be awfully happy if you tossed it my way  ;)

If the other decent looking PTs include halfway decent noses & jawlines, then I wouldn't mind it being tossed my way either.

Thank you for posting Fwiffo's thread. I KNEW that there a multiple pollination tech mod, I just couldn't find it when I did a search for it.

I think we are stuck with  the green thumbnails, Ness. That only changes if the alien looks into a mirror, or better said, changes appearance. I had to do that with all the aliens in Strangetown after the change-over. It's highly possible that you could manipulate them in Photoshop, but I'm not good enough to do that on my own, and I don't have the patience to fiddle with it right now :D

I do love Dylan's replacement, but I wouldn't mind a little variety either. Blue colored you say, Elfie? That would be nice if the aliens could have different skin-tones. Heck, I don't even mind the green one, even though from all the greens in all the whole wide world, they had to pick a pea-puke green. NOTE: If you are fond of that shade of green, more power to ya. But I don't like it. Purely personal taste.

I'm with Elfie though. If it's too much work, and too much headache, I won't bother --me or anyone else. I play the game for relaxation and fun, not to get headaches and be frustrated.

I would love a set of PT with Enayla's Pixie Skintones, I think the red and blue jewelled skined aliens would be pretty.

as far as I know you can only use one alien skintone at a time, no matter how many pollitechs you have with Fwiffo's mod.


Oddysey did an expanded version of Fwiffo's hack, one that uses 8 instead of 4
http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=79039
not sure how it works as I never tried that version, the pollitechs were too scary looking.


Fwiffo's other version wasn't bad except I've gotten really sick of big eyes :(
http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=71852

Oh, well that sucks. But still, the Royal Skintone and the black jewel one are very pretty.

Veilchen, the blue one is at Wood For Sims. Nofrena has four sets of custom skins, each with a custom eye color and one hair color per gender (which means that boys wouldn't get mom's hair color, but oh well). I'll find a link for you when I get home, in case anybody would like a look. (Yes, it's a pay site, but I'm sure we could make your donation somehow.)

Heh.  You're all just jealous because my aliens are hotter than your aliens.

(http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/chipmc/snapshot_f0d1dd6f_913b78c3.jpg)

But, hey, they're decended from sim-Trepie genetics.  And those have been proven to make anything hot.

Why, yes, I *am* extremely jealous. How did you know?

Here's the link to the Wood For Sims skins. They're free downloads. (http://www.woodforsims.de/html/skins.html)

I thought both the mirror and the Lot Debugger's "Regenerate Portraiture" option would fix the portraits?

It does for playable aliens.

I can't find any way that such a thing can be done for the pollination technician(s)

Summon the PT, make selectable, "fix portraiture"? The risks of such a procedure are unknown, and you may corrupt your objects.package. Or perhaps not, as Fixing Portraitures seems to act a little strangely on the system.

I assumed that would be a very bad thing to do?

Could you edit the character picture in Simpe?

Any instructions on how to find the PTs in simpe? I've had a little poke around and couldn't find them...  and I really don't want to blow things up, which is why I'm NOT going to summon any of my PTs!

well I got what I deserved....I did NOT even see that.. damn! >:(  ;D

Open up the neighborhood, and when it's finished loading, find the 'Sim Descriptions' item in the left-hand tree and click on it.  A list of all the sims in that hood will appear on the right.  Click on the title of the name column, and they're sort by name.  Then just scroll down to the Ps.

I did that...  didn't see any pollination techs.  :(

Make sure you have NPCs and Townies checked when you're doing the search.   :)

I decided to take a risk...  I summoned the PTs using Inge's teleporter shrub, made them selectable and regenerated portraiture.  The thumbnails updated to now have pretty purple skin like the rest of the aliens.

After the first one, I did notice that it's best to do it with the game paused - errors will be produced, but if you pause you don't get so many.

It remains to be seen during play whether things will still work.  The important thing at this stage is that my pollination techs haven't disappeared from the family trees...  I'll just have to wait and see what happens if a sim gets abducted.