TUTORIAL: Neighborhood Terrain Surgery

[J. M. Pescado]

Here's how to replace a neighborhood's terrain with a new custom terrain without losing your families. You will, however, lose all of your neighborhood decorational objects. No biggie, you were going to replace the terrain anyway, right?

You will need:
SimPE, as of this writing, 0.42, although older versions will work fine.
At least half a brain.

1. Backup your neighborhood, if you haven't already.
2. Create a new temp neighborhood, using your intended custom terrain. Don't put anything in it. Quit.
3. Open up temp neighborhood in SimPE.
4. Extract and save the following resources: 2D Array (0xABCB5DA4), TATT/UNK (0x54415454), UNK (0x2C310F46), UNK (0xABD0DC63), UNK (0xCC2A6A34), UNK (0xEC44BDDC).
5. Close and open up the neighborhood you wanted to change.
6. Replace the corresponding versions of the extracted resources with your extracted resources.
7. Start TS2 and open up your modified neighborhood. Rearrange all of the houses so they once again are on proper roads.
8. Delete your temp neighborhood.
9. Reinstall any neighborhood deco you wanted.

WARNING:
Side effects include dry mouth, nausea, vomiting, water retention, painful rectal itch, hallucinations, dementia, psychosis, coma, death, and halitosis. Terrain replacement is not for everyone. Consult your doctor before use.

[veilchen]

Well, that doesn't sound as bad (or difficult) as I thought it would be. I might even manage that with only a few tries. But I better copy and paste this into word and print it. I don't even want to take chances of me writing something down wrong.

G.

[Katze]

Have to try it when I have a lot of time on my hands work usally interferes with me playing a lot of sims.

[reggikko]

Reggikko thanks J. M. Pescado for this useful post. 

<HAR-DE-HAR>

[lakota]

I may have to try this.

mmmm on second thought, maybe go see doctor first...side affects are a little scary

[jrd]

Bloody brilliant. This works.

[daysies]

7. Start TS2 and open up your modified neighborhood. Rearrange all of the houses so they once again are on proper roads.

Are all these houses in the Lot Bin?  If so, if they were occupied, will this muck up the families/memories that you are so adamant in not doing (i.e. moving occupied houses to the Lot Bin)?

[J. M. Pescado]

No, the lots will still be on your neighborhood screen, but since you changed all of the roads, they will no longer be situated properly on roads, instead being haphazardly scattered about. Pick them up with the hand(or is it the 4-arrow) tool and move them back to appropriate roads. Do not put them in the lot bin.

[dawnkeeper]

This is very useful. Thank you. 

[witch]

Oh yeah, this ROCKS!
Will experiment ASAP.

[DuckSpeak]

Very nice, I always wanted to change the extremely hilly terrain that was torturing my building skills.
Muchas gracias.

I didn't know you could even move the houses... heh. 

[witch]

Very nice, I always wanted to change the extremely hilly terrain that was torturing my building skills.

You can put new lots on quite hilly terrain too. Someone called 'boatnana' worked out how to change the 'max slope value'. The game default is about 15 degrees. If you search modthesims2 for the keywords you might find out how. I can't remember, I think I downloaded a file.

[Lerf]

Why did you have to post this the day after I moved an entire neighborhood?   

[Brynne]

Thanks so much for this. Pleasantville is now a large volcanic island!
It was kind of funny seeing many of my lots floating out in the ocean at first.

[J. M. Pescado]

There's an idea for an expansion: The Sims At Sea: Pirates! meets TS2.

[Brynne]

There's an idea for an expansion: The Sims At Sea: Pirates! meets TS2.

There you go! The next logical ep after Nightlife. Can you imagine the possible bugs with that? Or "too many iterations" errors caused by parrots.

[J. M. Pescado]

That'd be funny: Give the people the pets they want in the pirate expansion pack, as parrots.

[Brynne]

And have those same people ask for the mods to get the parrots to shut up. I wonder if sim-parrots would speak in simlish. I wonder if real parrots could speak in simlish. Okay, I'm out to lunch, mentally.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, if you really want to baffle and confuse people, try holding an entire conversation with a fellow simmer...entirely in Simlish, while people watch.

[daysies]

Thanks so much for this. Pleasantville is now a large volcanic island!
It was kind of funny seeing many of my lots floating out in the ocean at first.

I wish you took a screenshot of this!

[witch]

If anyone would like to try a new custom designed n'hood, I have one available for download from here:
http://www.variousimmers.net/vsimforum/showthread.php?t=1726

Sorry about the large size of the image, it's sitting on my homepage directory and I can't change it from work.

[veilchen]

Did you make this witch? I know you are a prolific builder, so I'm guessing yes. I've SimCity (I don't offhand know what edition) somewhere around here, but I don't know whether you need a specific edition to try and make terrain.

Very nice, I'm getting tired of the standart templates. I'll go and try yours.

G.

[J. M. Pescado]

That looks rather like how I create terrains as well, except mine are somewhat less pretty and more about random orbital bombardment around the edges. That particular terrain looks a little un-uniform in the building surfaces.

[witch]

Veilchen, yes I made it. I think you would need simcity4 to make the terrains in this way. I thought the default terrains were quite ugly so I made one I liked. The square on the right was to be the commercial district, though I've ended up not playing community lots at all since JM's clothing outfitter.

JM, yes some of the surfaces are a little uneven, I like that for landscaping ideas. Not many areas are more than a 15 degree slope, I alter max slope value so I can build there anyway. I quite like sloping sections for basements with windows along one side and so on.
"and more about random orbital bombardment around the edges" ? You make it look like your n'hoods have been bombarded? 

[Brynne]

Thanks so much for this. Pleasantville is now a large volcanic island!
It was kind of funny seeing many of my lots floating out in the ocean at first.

I wish you took a screenshot of this!

I do, too, now that I think about it...I mean, the Goths were out to sea!