More Awesome Than You!

Hello everyone! :)

I've been working on it for only a short time compared to my other programs, but I believe this is finally ready for testing by the masses! :)

Here's a screenshot: http://images.djssims.com/djspetsccupdater.JPG

It's a relatively simple process: First, load a directory with the directory box on the left, and click the "Pick Selected Directory" button. After it's finished sorting through and leaving only objects in the list, you can then double click an item in the list to see it's description and name and such.

If you decide that it is an object you want to edit and make compatible, click the button that looks like a hand with a pencil next to the Step 4 label.

Then, choose what type of object it is from the list, and save! That's it! That piece of custom content will now work with pets.

NOTE: Please back up your custom content before editing it with this tool! While this tool was very thoroughly tested, it would be best for you to have a backup as a precaution. Feel free to delete the backups after you verify that the edited files are working fine.

WARNING: Objects updated with this tool will NOT work with previous versions of the game. (If you use an updated object in a previous version of the game, it will cause the game to CRASH.) Objects that you update with the wrong category will also likely cause strange behaviors or crashes as well, so use at your own risk! As a rule of thumb, however, you should only use this on objects that you know you'll pick the right category for.

Download: http://www.djssims.com/index.php?id=346

guess I'll be a womrat and test this out.  Backed up all my stuff and away we go. One question though when editing an object, what difference does it make when selecting cheap/moderate/expensive? Is it really important in how the object is interacted with or something?

Perhaps it effects how durable it is, ie how much chewing/scratching it can withstandbefore it is ruined.

Oh and Jfade thanks so much for this! :) Definitely going to try it out.

That was my thought, but wasn't sure. Now to figure out what classifies as each price range... ah well a job for tomorrow I guess.

Cheap/Moderate/Expensive tends to mean that there is a standard Maxis "cheap/moderate/expensive" item. There may not be any difference, but that's probably where it will pull the TTAB from, which can affect how the item will be advertised.

Exactly, it's really just about advertising, since a more expensive item should be more comfortable, it should advertise higher than something that is cheap. It's really up to you to decide what's cheap, moderate, and expensive, but if you want to go by Maxis standards, just see what's most expensive and what's cheapest in any given category and judge from there. :)

Ok, thanks for clearing that up for me.



Edit: Just a note, were bathtubs forgotten? Am I blind and just can't see them in the list or is it possible they can't be fixed? I'm really hoping I can use my custom tubs to wash dogs cause the maxis ones aren't really that good.

Okay I finally got to try this. Used it on the GLS Best Buy bonus pre-order TV. It didn't seem to work though because the pets still can't watch tv on it. When I turn the controlpets cheat on they get no options still. The only option I can get them to do on it is force error in debug mode.

Hmm, I have that same TV, I'll try it out on it when I get home. You know though, I'm wondering if the package is compressed? I can't remember if I made it handle compressed packages or not, since custom object meshes are rarely, if ever, compressed. Though now that I think about it, most Maxis CC from the official site is compressed..

I'll check and see what I did when I get home, and fix whatever's broken. :)

Very cool jffade. This will ease the pain once I do decide to go for Pets.

I was wondering what would be involved in this sort of project... thanks for this utility!

It might be. Also there are two files. One is the actual object and I forget what the other one is and now I'm at work and can't look, but your program only detected the one with the actual object. It didn't seem to find the price either if that makes any difference. Not sure if I should have manually entered it or not, but the price was still there in the game when I ran it with the modified tv. It worked just fine, only the pets couldn't watch.

Does the file save the unmodified object in a .bak file?  That would help protect people from themselves.

It currently doesn't so make sure you make backups of your files before you run the program on it.

Shiny new version in the first post! This one supports any objects that are compressed. This includes, most notably, preorder bonus items, stuff from the official site, as well as any other custom objects that are compressed (though the GREAT majority are not.)

So, provided that the new version goes well, I'll probably release this publicly tomorrow. :)

Shiny! But is it me or do bathtubs not need to be updated? I feel stupid if I'm going on about this and they don't.  :(

Oh, sorry about that, I forgot to reply! Yes, they do need updated, but since they added new joints and stuff for pet animations and the like, Tubs need recloned to be fixed. :)

Sorry for missing it, I totally spaced and thought I answered here, but that must've been at the other forum where this is being tested that I replied to that. :)

Well it worked on the Maxis Nikko Lounge chair by MaxoidMonkey and it worked on a custom chair (Windkeeper's single tile Merrokan chair) but I still can't seem to get it to work for the GLS tv. :(

Next bright idea...

Could you add the ability to "OFB-ize" refrigerators and stoves?

And computers! but I'm content with what I have right now. (unless someone can tell me how to do this myself in simPE?)

I couldn't get it working on the tv either. I tried to use it in my sims house and there were no options for it at all. My sims couldn't watch it never mind the pets.

 ??? I might suggest to update both packages for it to work I guess?

The second file doesn't really look like much though. Just a bunch of material overrides for the various recolors of the tv.

 ::) well u might still need to update them. try that and see if it works?

Have you managed to update the GLS furniture yet, Motoki? I'm not sure where to go to do that, don't really feel like buggering up my game more than it already is...  :-\

I haven't tried yet but I'm thinking maybe I can clone them, run them through this and then just yank out the extra stuff? I'll try it.  :o

Hmm, my TV is all in one package though, but I got it from a house on the exchange. Can you upload your TV (both files) in a zip and let me see what's up with it?
I'll add support for this in the next version. :)
If you update computers for Pets, they'll also have the OfB options.
I've made a hack for this that should pet-enable them, I'm in the middle of a multiplayer game though, so I'll upload it later tonight, along with a new (hopefully) final beta version of the program. :)

 ;D yaysies!

I got the TV here http://www.nectere.net/smf/index.php?topic=455.0

Yay it works!!!!
I've fixed the glamour TV!
yaysies!
I'm going to try the TV from where motiki got it from.
Oh heres a pic of what setting I've got it in
(http://i14.tinypic.com/2je2sdw.jpg)

You got it to work? Maybe I messed something up. I'll try again.

look at the pic above to see the settings I've put in.
Edit: the TV where you got it from should work and the sims must have the TV on inorder for it to play it. you must save it before you play it otherwise it won't work and the CC setting must be "2 tile TV" before you save it

Is it a cool game? Should I get it and go smite some Jfades?

I think he doesn't want to say incase you go and blow his head off. lol

awesome, thanks

It's Civ 4 Warlords, and you're welcome to play if you want to. :)

Glad to see that it's (kind of) working now for some of you. :)

*Runs back to game*

 :( Ok bug report:
when I tell my sims to watch TV then make the dog watch it both the sim and the dog would jump out of place.
I think we got a jump bug encoded in the TV.
I'll see whats the damage is in debug mode.
Edit:
It seams that something is wrong with the code. I just don't understand why there would be a jump bug with the TV?!
anyway here is that error report. The program needs to be updated inorder for the TV to work. I've got the option but yeah something is definately wrong with the code.
Glad you got the file before a mod removed it *Grumbles*

OK, out of the game now. It appears that Pets added a slot to the TV. I'll have to see if it's able to be fixed easily, or if they made it difficult by adding new joints and stuff to the mesh like they did with tubs. I'll get back to you in a bit.

 :) thanks, I hope it isn't a huge problem like the tubs?!

Hmm, okay.

They really don't do any special animations with the TV, unlike the tub. They sort of just sit there and their current queued action says watch tv, so I wouldn't imagine it would be as complicated as the tub but who knows with Maxis EA?

Good news! Just replacing the SLOT file will fix it. I'm adding the code to the program for it now, and will post a new version in (hopefully) an hour or so. :)

 ;D horay! I can finally use the TV soon and thanks for the fix for the glamour objects
can't wait

Shiny new version in the first post adds support for aquariums and one tile wall TVs. It also fixes the problem with saving TVs so that they will no longer cause errors. :)

Thanks, and sorry for taking so long on this! :)

Ohhhhh shiny! gonna test out now to see if it works

The TV finally works. Thanks so much!

 :o it works now! I'm going to say that its fully ready for release! bring it to the webpage!

woohoo! can't wait to check the shiny new version out. Thanks!

English is not my first language : what are exactly the differences between lounger and recliner ?? Thanks a lot. Pioupiou

Well a lounger is a chair with a long seat while a recliner is a chair that acts as a lounger.

A recliner is like an armchair that transforms into a lounger.

so lounger and recliner are both under the same category in the game ? I'm a little lost....
Thanks for your answers. Pioupiou

Both lounger and recliner appear in the Miscellaneous category in the game. The recliners, for example, look like regular living chairs until they sit in them, then it leans back and piece from beneath comes out to let the Sim stretch his legs out.

A lounger is a chair that's like that all the time, the sim can lay out on it and nap and such. Here are some pictures:

http://www.djssims.com/index.php?id=186 - That's a lounger
http://www.djssims.com/index.php?id=92 - That's a recliner, despite what the category says. :P

Glad to hear it's finally working on TVs! :) I'm going to probably add a mini help system to the program under the about page (so I won't have to deal with all the "OMG Where are the tubs!!111oneoneone" questions. :P

Thanks again everyone! :D

Just updated the first post with the links to the final program. :)

Thanks again for testing everyone, I really appreciate it. :D

 :D Wow, great update. even for n00bs they would easily use the program and I see that its full release. good!

Love the program, but I have a quick question -- I don't see a setting for love seats, so I assume they should be set as sofas?

Yes, that's where they show up in the game.

I wonder if it makes a difference though, if they are two or 3 tiled. And then there's the modular sofas which start out 1 tile but can be any size. I know the program differentiates between 1 and 2 tiled TVs.

Loveseats should be the same as sofas. I'm pretty sure when gathering things that I looked and they were the same, but I'll double check to be sure. Now that you mention it, I think sectional sofas are different though and I don't know why I didn't think to include them.

I'll check some things and be sure to add/update anything if need be later on tonight. :)

Speaking of sectionals, I don't think those NL restaurant booth sectionals are pets enabled either. Duh MaxisEA.  :P

The NL plastic looking sofa sectional is though, so you can look at that one if you need to check if it's different.

I see on the Downloads page there are 2 people who mentioned problems with having numbers in the resource tree and objects not showing up in the game.  I'm definitely getting both of those symptoms.  So what did we do wrong?  How are you all getting this to work?   ???

jfade,

I did a bunch of updating with this today, and it apparently corrupted a couple of files that it was updating.  I found this out because my game crashed on loading, and when I ran the Clean Installer to check out the files, it said it couldn't load about 5 of them.  All 5 were files I updated.  Replacing them with backups solved the crash problem.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to save one of the corrupted files to send to you to see what was happening.  I'll do so if it happens again, though.

Qwiggles: I didn't do anything special, it just worked except for the TV which jfade eventually fixed to get working. I didn't try as many items as jsalemi did though.

jsalemi: For these objects that got corrupted did you try re-running it again and to see if it worked on a second try? I wonder if it's something specific about those objects or they just randomly got corrupted.

No, I didn't, since I was really concentrating on tracking down another problem. But they were pretty random -- a couple were from 4ESF (a lounge chair, an outdoor chair, and an outdoor lounge), and the others were just various furniture items from different modders.

Though come to think of it now, I think they were all living chairs or lounges of some type.  I don't recall having corruption problems with beds, sofas, dining chairs, or bookcases. Maybe that helps...

I want this program to work!

Me too. I had some issues with it. Here's what I saw:

I edited a chair. It was smooth and easy. BUT afterwards i wanted to compare the start and end product so I opend them both. The edited version was all numbers Ox975844 type while, we all know, I should have seen object data and GMDC and text lists and Catalogue string and names like that in the resource window. I have no idea what I did wrong or how I could have possibly done ANYTHING wrong. but maybe?

I did not try this file out in game. It might have worked ok. But, I have no interest in converting all my files to ...things I can't read cuz I edit mine a lot--chaning price and catalogue location and text etc.

Motoki, have you opened a file that you've edited and you know works? Can you tell us what yours looked like?

The ones I did, which worked, looked almost identical except for some pie menu stuff.

Identical as in it didn't change everything to numbers? I wonder if the chair I did was 'overpriced' and when I selected Expensive chair it was really a cheap chair and there was something in that that made the change...?


Side note: have you messed with pet heights yet? I'm on a quest to make a Great Dane :). I have changed two cats heights, one with collar one without, but both changes resulted in slight weirdness: a thing liking almost like a leash extending for their necks (with or without collar) and some chin deformity. So, simple chang ein the stretch value won't work, damn it. :(  and it seriously warps out animations, much more so than the stretchskeleton on a sim. I think a whole mesh will have to be made, like for the muscle man and jsut live with the weird animations. Way to go Maxis, I mean EA.

Well one of the ones I tried was the Maxis chair by MaxoidMonkey and the other was the 1 tile Merrokan by Windkeeper (I believe it's on MTS2) if you want to try them. I set them both moderate.

I tried a chair and a loveseat (as sofa) and set them for moderate.  The program said change was a success and then when I went in the game, couldn't find them.  I used SW's Object Categorizer and they weren't showing up either.  I've since replaced the files with my backups but I'm hesitant to do any more objects.

Hope we can figure it out...

What version are you guys using?

It doesn't hurt to run it on other objects as long as you make backups. The most you waste is time, but if you yank all your other downloads out the game should load really fast if you're just testing. Also, you can check out the contents of the package file in SimPE and if it looks funky you might be able to tell (ie missing resources).

I just discovered a jump bug in my game with a custom TV I updated. When a sim is watching tv and the dog goes to join both dog and sim jump and watch tv drops out of cue. Error log is attatched.

Known slottage issue, I recall. I think it was corrected in an update.

Okay, I just figured out why you guys were having issues and I wasn't. I was using his test version 1.4 that was previously attached to this thread, but he put up a different version on the website and I think something's wrong with it. Maybe he put up the wrong version?

My thoughts too, but wasn't sure. I'll try updating it again with the new version and see if that fixes it. Thanks

I'm looking into this now to see what I broke, and I should have a fix for this tomorrow! :)

Thanks for the reports and being so patient. :)

No No No, Thank YOU for making it and sharing it! (*drools on self while bowing and scraping in thankfulness*)

FYI, I went in and checked and the same thing happened in my game -- none of the items I categorized showed up in the game anymore. I know jfade is working on a fix, but I wanted to add that you're not the only one to have this problem.

The prior version definitely did work, and worked pretty well at that. I'm sure he'll have a fixed version up soon.

All fixed! Please RESTORE YOUR BACKUP COPIES of your files, redownload the program, and then you can update your files again and it'll work properly! :)

Get the new version from here:

http://www.djssims.com/index.php?category=21

Thanks. :)

Thanks!

Thank you for all your hard work, but can you tell me what will happen if I update for example a 2-tile TV as a 1-tile TV? I have so many downloads and don't really know how many tiles they are...

i used it , but when i used the sims to clean installer, a pop-up appered saying thatthe file i updated with teh pets updater could not be read.

That was a problem with the first release version -- it was corrupting some files.  Make sure you have the latest version.

I have 2 issuies

1. Still cannot update counters and bathtubes - no category to choose when updating resourses.

2. Updated mirrors dont keep queued commands to change pet appearance.


Thank you!

Maxis changed the bathtub mesh in a way that's not easily updatable.

Re: bathtubs - I know JFade's updater doesn't work with bathtubs, but I've seen that Around the Sims has managed to update some of her bathtubs for Pets. I understand it has something to do with having cloned the tubs from one of the cheap bathtubs, but still - there's been some updating done. Would anyone know what she's done to update the tubs, and if there's a program that enables me to do that myself?

If not, I'll live. :P  Thought I'd ask anyway.

I have not been able to succesfully update aquaria.
A cat gets the option to "watch", then an error comes up that an animation is undefined. The cat gets a jump bug, and the fish are gone.

Basically, you have to export the mesh and texture.  Then  you have to clone the Pets tub and do all the steps involved in making a clone with the exception that you use the mesh and texture that you exported from the custom tub.  You should probably use the GUID as well so that the new tub will seamlessly replace the outdated one.

Jordi's problem sounds like another "added joint" so you'd have to do the same thing.

Thanks miros. That sounds entirely too over-my-head for me and sounds like something that only people who know what they're doing in SimPE should attempt. :D I guess I can just wait to see if CC creators will follow Sandy in updating their bathtubs.

Mirrors updated with the program now use the pie menu from the semi-globals, so if it doesn't work then it's probably broken Maxis code. I'll try something with my updated mirrors to be sure, but I don't see how it could be anything but that.

I'll double check this, miros may be right, it may be another added joint but I was pretty sure I checked that and found that it wasn't that...

Don't know if it will help : but I noticed in my game that the cat needs to sit down in order for the view menu to appear on the aquarium (Maxis).
Pioupiou

Post Pets, I've noticed that far too many commands are dependent on "can I do it right now" rather than letting you queue them up and dropping out the invalid ones when you get to that point. 

Like it would have strained some programmer's finger to add the logic "if not sitting, sit" to the code for the cat watching the aquarium?

If I didn't have Pets already, I don't think I'd buy it.

Be patient. It takes a while to decompress all resources.

Silly request... check the base GUID (offset cc in the OBJD resource) and make that the default choice for which object to import from.

That is a very good idea actually, I'll try to get it in there. Right now though, all I'm really concerned about is working on a new method for all the file I/O and decompression and such that should be much faster, and that's taking all the time ATM. Fortunately though, once that's done, it shouldn't take long to update all of my programs to use it, as well as fixing whatever bugs have cropped up since first release. (I know of only one with this particular program, and it's not a big one, just an annoying one. IE sometimes it will crash when trying to load an object if the object is categorized in more than one category.)

But anyhow, whenever I start updating this to use the new I/O code, I'll try to get that implemented. :)

Has anyone been able to get mirrors and aquaria to work with this?

I still have no problem updating mirrors to work with this (See pic: http://temp.djssims.com/petsandmirrors.JPG )

I'm still looking into aquariums though, but last time I tried I couldn't get the problem to happen. Is it consistent with all aquariums you have or just a few? If it's consistent, I need to download and test more aquariums, heh. :)

J: true, Pets can look in them, but I get a jump reset when I try to change a pets' appearance using any updated custom mirror. Much like the aquarium jump: the Pet (if cat or small dog) sinks in the floor. Of course with the mirror the Sim is also reset.

Heh, turns out it was a slottage issue with the mirrors, which I thought I'd fixed but apparently not. :P

http://temp.djssims.com/mirrorslottageissuefixed.JPG

For a quick, temporary fix, download this zip: http://temp.djssims.com/CCUpdaterResources.zip

Then extract it over the existing resources folder in the same directory as the program, and that will solve the mirror problem.

I found the solution for the aquarium problem as well, but it will require me to change the code for the program itself and update it that way, so I'll try to get that in along with an update of the Collection Creator for this Thursday. :)

Thanks for your patience! :)

Thou rockesth.

Where can I found the CCUpdaterResources for mirrors now?

Thanks in advance!

HOLY NECROMANCY BATMAN.

You're lucky the files are still in basically the same place. New link: http://jfade.com/temp/CCUpdaterResources.zip

Thank you very much, jfade!!! :D