More Awesome Than You!

Okay, this is a new one on me.  Last night, I went into CAS to make a new victim sim and found that, in CAS, all sims displayed with a funny blue-grey blotch on the right side of their foreheads (picture below).

This blotch did not appear on any previously existing sim on any lot during game play. Only in CAS.

No, I did not attempt to add a blotched CAS sim to the neighborhood. I thought it might be a good idea to get an opinion from someone who knows more about this kind of stuff than I do first. CAS seemed to work fine in all other respects--I tried out various hair, clothes and accessories on the blotchy sims and they changed like nothing was wrong. This blotch appeared on Maxis default skins. I didn't (damn it) think to look at sims in CC skins; I've only got a half-dozen or so CC skins. The only thing CC I've installed between previous use of CAS and last night were things from here, and those didn't include any skins.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/syzygy0112/CASBlotch2.jpg)

EDIT: For better image, more info.

I just checked (also a first, never run Sims 2 while online at the same time before  ;D).  It shows up on CC skins, all ages, always in the same spot.

At first glance it appears to be a mesh gap, but those are usually caused by badly made hair meshes...
Does it just happen in this preview, or in CAS in general?

It shows up with all skins, all hair, all everything...

I'm stumped. I don't know how a custom anything could do this to every sim displayed in CAS.

If it'll help, I'll do a backup and then try adding a blotched sim to a neighborhood, see what happens.

Edit again:  I'm going to go experiment. I'll try CAS with CC removed.  I'll also check to see if this appears in BodyShop and if nothing else, do the backup and add a blotched sim to a neighborhood. I'll report back later.

It is a mesh gap of some kind, but I can't understand which mesh, or how it's got messed up.
Let us know how it looks without CC.  Unless you've downloaded any mesh replacements lately, I'm guessing corrupt game files (possibly objects.package); but I seem to be chanting that a lot lately.

Of course you are, it is extremely common. Mine gets corrupted by itself it seems. Marking as readonly does not appear to help -- I've now taken away my account rights to write in the TS2 install folders in a hope that this will secure it.

Edit: removed CC before I did these checks.

Well, damn. 

I didn't have to add a blotchy sim to the neighborhood; on further examination, it's already on in-game sims. (I had been playing for awhile last night, decided to create a new sim and found the blotch in CAS. I decided to worry about it in the morning, closed the game and went to bed. If this started when I went to CAS, that's how I didn't see it in game, I suppose.)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/syzygy0112/LeprousGoths.jpg)


The effect is odd in BodyShop. It turns up on randomly generated sims, but only on some sims cloned out of the bin.  Also weird--one of the skins in the BodyShop bin appears in her thumbnail with a blue face from the base of the neck up--but when I selected her, her full body shot on the right appeared with normal face/skin tone and no blotch at all.

Corrupted game files is making sense. So I guess I'm looking at a re-install now? 

If I do re-install, will it be safe to use my saved games files again or should I kiss 'em good-bye?

your saved game files should be fine (make sure you save them somewhere else before uninstalling), it does appear to be a corrupt game file.



strange that my objects.package has never gotten corrupted and it isn't set to read only *knocks on wood*  I think it depends on how much and/or the type of custom content you use. most of my downloads are just recolors of maxis stuff.

I also <knocks wood along with you> haven't had any corruption of the objects.package and haven't touched it since installing so I guess it isn't 'read only'. I've been fairly lucky lately and haven't reinstalled since NL, so it's lived through OFB, Pets and Seasons all ok. I have lots of custom content of all kinds though. Meshes and stuff. Different folders for different neighborhoods and I'm alla time deleting and moving stuff around and changing my mind and occasionally deleting the whole thing and starting over.

My first re-install. *sigh*

Would it have to be the CC that leads to corruption or just some weird weakness of the game files? Just curious. I have very little CC because I'm impatient with downloading times on dial up. What CC I have is mostly objects, plus inSIM and a few Awesome hacks. I don't have much CC genetics.

Note From the Much Lesser Awesome:  Mightn't it be possible just to replace the objects.package rather than completely reinstall? Seems like that might be a first try anyway?

<lesser awesome people don't know the answers to the question asked>

How would I know which objects.package to replace? Taking a peek in Windows Explorer, there seems to be one for each EP/SP.

Sagana: sure, just grab objects.package out of compressed.zip. No need to reinstall unless you're a masochist.

The only one used is the last one (by game version).
If you have Celebrations, I'm not sure if you need to replace the Celebrations one or the Seasons one, though. EAMaxis did something weird with this SP.

Why don't you just go to the C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 (or the folder which contains all the EP/SP data in subfolders) directory, do a search for "*" (minus quotes), then sort by date modified? That should tell you exactly what you need to replace.

I don't think any of the objects.package files are the problem though. Isn't the bone structure for the face stored in one of the Sims3D packages?

I'd start with the Sims3D packages.  They can also be replaced with ones from the install CD without having to run a complete re-install.

Um. All things considered, I think I'm going to go ahead with the reinstall. *coward*  Microsquash Windoesnt has a history of getting persnickety when I try to replace things that should be easily replaceable from the discs the things came from in the first place.  And if I successfully wrestle Windoesnt to a standstill on the 3D files and it turns out to be the objects.package file and I have to replace that--and then, knowing the Microsquash track record, something else will go wrong-- I may break something cry.

But the big decider is that I only have two EPs, NL and OFB, so it won't take me nearly as long to reinstall as someone who has them all.

Yep. All disks, Daemon tools, copy over images, change game settings, realise I have to do SaraMK's empty template stuff again if I don't want dogs in my cyberhood. Yep. Over two hours it took yesterday.  >:( And that's just the sims.

My machine spat the dummy last week and I spent most of Sunday re-installing.

Fair enough.  Once you've re-installed and patched, I suggest setting all the game files as read-only.
Aside from when installing patches, there is absolutely nothing that should be changed in any way in the game files, so write protecting them is an easy way to prevent problems in the future.

It looks to me as though it's the corner of the shamen career hairstyle from university that's showing up on the corner of your Sims' heads.