It's a MIRACLE!

um.

My sim decided to go fishing on his own, and now I can order him to fish again. I'm happy it fixed itself, but slightly confused as to why it happened. Anyway.

Apparently, my game updated itself, and broke  my sim. He suddenly cannot fish, which is annoying. I searched for fixes to this, but am un-awesome, and didn't find one. Could someone moreawesomethanme point me in the correct direction? Thank you.

Thank you, Morriganrant. The rabbitholes by Melissamel, linked earlier, have an issue with me regarding placement and routing. She hasn't been active on MTS to answer the question I posted, but many of her signs won't place without being in a lot nearly as large as the original rabbithole object. I was going to strain my feeble brain and learn how to do the footprints and routing for objects to make my own set. You may have just saved me the work. *goes to test*

ETA: Yes! They work very well indeed. You do still have to be a tiny bit careful about placement, so that the sim can have a half dozen steps toward the arrows with no interference to access the rug, and one side needs to be open. But the stadium and the military base (the ones needing the biggest area in Melissamel's rabbithole objects) placed easily in small buildings.

Thank you, Goggalor. It figures it would be something like that. I have Photoshop Elements. I think I'll just check and see if that will do the job for me before I download yet another Image program.

ETA: Elements says, "16-bit Grayscale

A high-bit image mode that can contain thousands of shades of gray. Photoshop Elements supports only 8-bit grayscale, an image mode that can contain hundreds of shades of gray."

So, off to download RawTherapee I go. Thanks for the info.

It's not the height, LauraW, it's the  forward to rear dimension on the photo. The height on that is actually set to 300, because I wasn't sure how much room it needed. If you look at the picture, you'll see that the terrain is repeated. It's also distorted from the original. It's as if my 256 x 256 map is being read as 256 x 128.

It doesn't seem to matter how I import the map into CAW. I've tried saving it to the desktop, and selecting it when I create the new world. I've tried saving it directly into the Heightmaps folder, and I've tried creating the world with a flat map and then importing the terrain map via the button in the Terrain tab. If it makes a difference, I use the Gimp.

I've been trying to use a custom height map for a world, and it's squishing it to half dimensions one way and duplicating it. That is not what I had in mind. Does Anyone know what I'm doing wrong, and how I can fix it?

I've been using 2.6 for a considerable time. No, it doesn't save it in 24 bit format. It saves as 32 bit. After considerable search on Google, I reluctantly concluded that Gimp won't save as 24 bit png. Yes, I know how to type . p n g manually, or to choose it from the dropdown menu.

No one else has commented on the "only two worlds" issue I'm having. Thanks for the tip about renaming instead of trying to overwrite files I've made changes to, and the locations for deleting references to worlds I don't want installed any more. I was finding it frustrating to figure out where all to look. It seems I need to be moar 'puter savvy. <- dumdum dum...

Using this method it saves as a 32 bit image. I tried setting it as an indexed image and saving as .png and it saves as an 8 bit image.

Big thanks, Zazazu, for the reminder about the moveobjects cheat, though the first world I worked on the issue was more a matter of making the lots way huge, and then having tons of wasted space. I tried again with a tiny world, and I like the results much better. I did encounter one rather strange thing when I put it into the game. I don't know if this happened to any of the rest of you, but when I put the second world I built into the game, the first one I built disappeared. It wasn't a loss this time, as I wasn't very pleased with the results, and hadn't actually started playing it as a neighborhood, but it seems weird to me that the older custom hood would vanish when I added another. Also, I'd reinstalled Riverview before I put my custom hood in, though I hadn't checked to make sure it showed up. But Riverview also was not there.  So, we're only allowed 2 worlds at a time?

Another thing I'm having a small issue with is saving the image for the town as a 24-bit png. Gimp apparently isn't capable. I did manage in Photoshop Elements, but the second time I tried to do it, I couldn't find the website I'd used as a guide the first time, and I couldn't quite remember what I did the first time. Anyone have a reliable link to a guide for this? I managed this time, after more than an hour of frustration.

I haven't gotten as far as Zazazu on this, but in reading through the topic, people seem to have been having trouble knowing when and how the road sections snap to the intersections. In fiddling with this I noticed that it doesn't really matter how straight you have to piece to the intersection. What does matter is dragging the handle for the road to the center of the side you want to attach to. It then snaps the curve of the road to the intersection, and locks it. I've brought in pieces at as much as a 30 degree angle and they snapped in place just fine.

In trying to enter Edit in Game mode, I find mine stalls about 2 out of 3 tries. I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but the times it's been successful are the times I have a lot selected (blue lines) when I hit the Edit in Game button.

I really appreciate all the stuff people are posting here as they learn things. I've already gleaned a few helpful ideas, and the list of rabbithole minimum lots will save me a bunch of time.

YUM! Thanks for posting this. *runs off to try it out*

I don't know about the Sims2 Store stuff, since I don't have any, but portraits still regenerate, and yes, you have to run from the M&G disk. I don't have the patch thingy to try to stop portraits from regenerating, since that wasn't an issue for me.

I have it installed (at least... temporarily) It is called EP9 and the file size of the exe is 23,076.

Edited to add: and those other things you wanted to know FatD? Explain what they are and where to find them and I'll go look.

Thanks Roux. I tried what you suggested, and it didn't work. I posted the error over at simlogical, but also read others problems/solutions, and managed to fix the HCDU. The only conflicts it's showing are 4 versions of Monique's money computer (updated for AL over at Insim) using the same resources, and a conflict between Pescado's vampwere fix and the other one from here. I'll have to track that down and figure out which one to keep. However, while searching for possible old hacks I did find a newer update for one of the other hacks I had running, so that may have fixed it too. I haven't had a chance to try the lot with the butler and see yet.

The problem with running the hack conflict detector is that is gives an error every time I do. I've tried downloading a new copy of it, but it still won't work. I'm not too knowledgeable about reading error messages, so this helps me not at all. I've attached the error message it gives, if that helps anyone.

As for old hacks, that's entirely possible. I have a couple that haven't been updated. I assumed they were ok to use since they don't cause any error messages. I guess not. The particular ones that I'm thinking of are Monique's. I just found an update for her child support hack today, and have installed it, but I haven't tried it yet. I thought her auto-payer mod was reported as being compatible, but I could be wrong?

UGS stands for UniGraphics... something. I-DEAS is owned by UGS folks. They are professional CAD programs used to 3D model parts of things like cars. My daughter is a designer for some folks that build cupholders and stuff out of plastic for Toyota and Ford and others. She mostly doesn't use either anymore as they mostly design in CATIA now, but she's shared bits about both programs with me. She knows I like 3D modeling for Sims. The only way you're going to get your hands on I-DEAS is through someone's work, unless you've got about $20,000 lying around loose. I don't know if there are other programs out there that can open the files either. You might however try Google sketchup plugins. I know she can convert between TurboCAD and Sketchup. And there's a plugin to export and import .obj files for Sketchup that works very well.

Ok, I'm going to pose this as a question because, hey! it might just be me. Does anyone else's butler quit after two days, saying "It's been an honor to serve the household."? I hired him, he came, he served, he quit. I hired him again, ditto. I hired him again and he quit again. Is this a "feature?" Or am I doing something wrong? If I'm the messed up one, someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong. And if this is a "feature," is anyone more awesome than me planning to write a hack that keeps him from quitting all the time?

WANT! *drool*

Um, anyone else have the problem of the landlord picking up the old newspaper to dispose of it, then dropping it, then picking it up, then dropping it, over and over again? I use move objects on to delete it so he stops. It seems to be the only way he will.

Well, what do you know. I AM allowed to view the QA thread. Yay!

It certainly made a difference when I actually logged in. *blush* Ok, so one of those "senior moments" struck again. However, in my defense, I must say that at the time I applied that application said I'd receive an email. I'm sure things have changed a lot since BV.

However, the link to apply for QA status is broken. I applied back when we were waiting for the Bon Voyage version, but never received a reply, so I thought I'd apply again.

I don't really understand hackdiff, so I can't tell you exactly what the problem is, and I haven't put them back in the game, but I miss some of Smonaff's potions (from MTS2.) I used to use them with Syberspunk's risky woohoo mod.  I had to start taking them out with FT, because of errors, and tried various alternatives, such as ACR, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with those. I'm using Pescado's Director's Cut, so some of these couldn't go back anyway, but I do know they're abandonated, and borked for AL. 

Has anyone else tried out the helicopter? The take-it-for-a-spin animations are interesting but the second person sitting in vehicle is whacked.

See the amazing helicopter woman! Part blond, part machine.








edited to add the picture. Oops.

And, yes, that version of the no-CD works for US version. It's what I'm using successfully, anyway.

First, thanks tons for all this. Very helpful.

Second, I don't find anywhere to update custom stoves. I imagine it's not an easy and simple fix, but I have one I'd like to see updated. Actually, it's boblishman's ceramic hob. It hasn't been updated since base game. I don't feel competent to just dive in. Any suggestions/ideas/links that would be helpful?

This looks interesting, but I have a question. How does the shorter seasons affect plant growth and the maturation of vegetables and fruit? A lot of my sims grow their own fruits and veggies, and I still will need a reasonable growing season.