More Awesome Than You!

Well, we've managed to replace eveything else from bed sheets to lipstick, so why not?  Has anybody looked into the possibility of replacing the default walls and floors?  Maybe not all of them, but at least some of the mind-bendingly horrible ones that no one (surely!) ever uses?

Should work just the same as any other replacement.  Find the original textures in the game files, replace them with your own.

I had a quick look; the original wall textures (for the base game) are in %Program Files%\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Sims3D\Objects06.package

& if you do, feel free to share. I just cleaned my floor tiles and most of my wall ones. The majority of Maxis defaults are butt ugly.

Wouldn't it be easier/faster/better if there was a way to hide crappy walls and floors in the catalog?

And just so I won't be accused of being annoying by doing a drive-by "my way is better than your way," here is how I think you can hide walls and floors. Warning: I tested this method on a single wall, which came with FFStuffit, so more testing is necessary to see if it really works.

The files that determine whether walls and floors show up appear to be contained inside something called catpatterns.bundle.package

For example, the ones for FFStuffit are at C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff\TSData\Res\Catalog\Patterns\

What I did was zip up the catpatterns.bundle.package file, so that I would have a backup in case I screwed up, and then I modified the catpatterns.bundle.package right where it was. This is, of course, a bad, bad thing to do. If you want to play it safe, you should extract the files you want, and put them in their own file which can then go into Downloads. But whatever....

So, you open the file, and on the left side of SimPE's screen is something called Object XML. That's the one you want. Look through that section to find the ugly walls and floors you hate so much and want gone. Once you find one, click on it and some stuff will show up on the bottom of the SimPE screen.

On the left side are a bunch of labels, one of which is called showincatalog (dtUInteger) and once you click on this you will find out that this will usually have a value of 0x00000001. I changed this to 0x00000002 and the wall vanished from the catalog and from the FFStuffit collection.

Cool beans.  My only reservation is that I found when I made overrides to hide objects from the Buy and Build Mode catalogs, any house I then tried to load which contained any of those hidden objects would crash.  I wonder if the same thing will happen with the walls.

/me will have to try that.

Yeah, like I said, it needs testing.

I don't mind the Maxis walls/floors myself, so I'm not really interested in doing anything with this.

That's why I was thinking default replacements would be a better option. While most of my lots are custom content, and 80% are my design, I do have a couple Maxis community lots in use. Wouldn't want to accidentally bork one. Accidentally making a color clash I can get over.

Okay, since I had a lot with the wall in it, I tested it.

The lot did not crash. When it loaded, the wall was still there, but could no longer be selected with the eyedropper, and was still not in the catalog. It could be replaced with a different wall.

Awesome, thanks for trying that out!  :D

Fantastic! No more looking at those crappy polka-dot carpets and weird papers that came with Nightlife!
*Nope, no Thank You post here. Not at all.

Hmmmm....

Perhaps this is something I need to add to the WTF Editor when I upgrade it to Version 2: Electric Boogaloo!

*jfade ponders...

Ooooooh, that would be absolutely wonderful!  :D

*offers jfade an easy chair and a mug of coffee

Please do ponder away...

Sorry if this borders on necromancy...  I've been following up on Amber's project for my own use (I'm probably a lot more picky than most).
I've hidden most walls and a lot of floors, for all EPs and some SPs (didn't bother with glamour, since I actually like those walls), stripped sets down to the basics (I for once don't need 12 versions of the same wall with different kinds and shades of kickmolding).
However, I can't track down the stupid Holiday Walls; and there is so many of them and they are all hidious!  I'm not in a mood to go through all game files manually, so I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.
Anyone know where to look?

They're in here:

C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Catalog\Bins

Depending on which Holiday pack you mean (2005 or 2006), choose the correct file.

*baah*
Thanks.  Looks like I have both packs installed.  Will stompinate everything.

could anyone post a link to the default bedding? i googled it and couldnt find it anywhere or on mts2 or on here either

Reply #10 on this thread:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7714.0.html

The creator recommends replacing the textures in the file with your own.  :)

thank you   my search phrase must have sucked   lol  now to see if i can swap out hers with mine =p im such a noob

Here's a copy of my own defaults, based on SaraMK's originals.  I left a few of the Maxis originals that I do like alone and added recolors of them and (if I recall correctly) recolors of bedding from a few other creators, plus one or two I made myself.  Also, I added replacements for the Seasons bedding.  Note that some of the textures are a bit hard to work with and seem to want to show up blurry in the game--I think Seasons uses some kind of new texture scheme.  I'm reasonably happy with how they turned out, though.

http://www.rogepost.com/n/4711561394 (http://www.rogepost.com/n/4711561394)

great..cant wait to see them in game ;D