TUTORIAL: Neighborhood Terrain Surgery

[Kralore]

Mootilda, if it's just a case of wanting a proper template for pleasantview, I have a template that was made by Melly_Sim over at MTS2 quite along time ago.  She has since pulled all her files from there, but I still have the file if you want a copy of it.

Kyna, I'll take a look at the families etc for that hood, but it sounds like it might be more work then it's worth.

[Mootilda]

Mootilda, if it's just a case of wanting a proper template for pleasantview, I have a template that was made by Melly_Sim over at MTS2 quite along time ago.  She has since pulled all her files from there, but I still have the file if you want a copy of it.

Thanks, I'd appreciate it.

However, I was speaking more generally.  EA has shipped a number of neighborhoods without matching SC4 files, so I just wondered whether anyone had a technique for creating an SC4 file from a Sims 2 package.  This would be especially helpful for adding roads to the existing maxis-made neighborhoods.  It's too bad that EA decided not to include adding roads with their new neighborhood terrain modification tools.

[Kralore]

Here is the sc4 file for the Pleasantview template.

http://rapidshare.com/files/100168794/OriginalPleasantview.rar.html

[Mootilda]

Here is the sc4 file for the Pleasantview template.

http://rapidshare.com/files/100168794/OriginalPleasantview.rar.html

Thanks, it looks great.  Did your friend just edit the incorrect Pleasantview.SC4 to make it right?

[Kralore]

I don't know the person, personally. Melly_Sim over at MTS2 did a recreation of all the sims 1 lots for sims 2. He/She also did that template as a request by someone.  I can't point you to the original post because all of Melly_Sim's files have been pulled with no explanation.  I would guess it was probably the pleasantview.sc4 that came with Sims 2 run through SimCity4 to put the roads in the right place.

[Digital Femme]

Question: Is there any way to alter just the roads, while leaving the neighborhood decorations intact?

[Mootilda]

Question: Is there any way to alter just the roads, while leaving the neighborhood decorations intact?

Update:
I have written a small program to replace the roads in one neighborhood with the roads from a second neighborhood.  It is available at:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=279992

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Thoughts leading up to this utility:

It would seem that the roads and decorations are stored together in the same record, but in different arrays within that record:
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=NHTR

SimPE extracts the entire record, so it can't be used to separate the roads from the decorations.  I can think of a couple of things that might work:
1) Use a proper hex editor to add roads to the road array, while leaving the decorations intact.
2) Write a program for the same.  It's probably not too difficult if you know how to program, except for the UI on how to specify where you want the roads.

It's really a shame that EA left out road editing when they added the ability to edit the neighborhood terrain.

Update: I just thought of an easier solution...

Instead of trying to write a program which has a special UI for specifying modifications to the road structure, you could use the existing "adding roads to a neighborhood" technique to add roads using SiimCity 4.  Then, instead of merging the new neighborhood terrain into the old neighborhood using SimPE, it would be fairly simple to write a program which would take the two neighborhood packages (old neighborhood with decorations and new neighborhood with roads) and perform a merge on the individual "roads" array within the NHTR record.

Of course, this still doesn't resolve the problem of how to get the original SC4 file for the neighborhood, if EA didn't ship it with the game.  But, it would work for all neighborhoods with a corresponding SC4 file.

Oh, and the wiki is wrong.  Tree entries are 38 bytes each, not 37.  Road entries are 124 bytes each, instead of 123.  Update: the wiki has been fixed, but I suspect that the other structures may also have incorrect sizes.

[Digital Femme]

I have written a small program to replace the roads in one neighborhood with the roads from a second neighborhood.

Well, that's just brilliant and right on time. I'm off to test it out.

ETA: Works perfectly. I just had to move a few stop signs around.

[Mootilda]

Alright, I thought I was clever so I moved all my sims from my neighborhood into one lot so I could move them all together to another neighborhood w/o losing their ties to each other.  I got a little bit in over my head and I have 107 sims on a lot now (woops) and obviously can't get it to load.  Any ideas on how to separate sims out of the lot using simPE or something?

If you can load the neighborhood, but not the lot, then you could try having other sims in the neighborhood invite them to move in, then move them out on their own.  Of course, that's assuming that you still have some sims in your neighborhood that don't live on the overfull lot.

[jolrei]

Alright, I thought I was clever so I moved all my sims from my neighborhood into one lot so I could move them all together to another neighborhood w/o losing their ties to each other.  I got a little bit in over my head and I have 107 sims on a lot now (woops) and obviously can't get it to load.  Any ideas on how to separate sims out of the lot using simPE or something?

If you can load the neighborhood, but not the lot, then you could try having other sims in the neighborhood invite them to move in, then move them out on their own.  Of course, that's assuming that you still have some sims in your neighborhood that don't live on the overfull lot.

Build a new lot - don't need to furnish it, just build a "bus stop" and put a new sim on it.  Get the teleporter cat/shrub or some other teleporter/summoner and summon your sims to the new lot.  Insim's "family tree" will allow you to get them to "join household".  You can then move groups of sims out to new lots in the normal manner or townify them.

[hylakisweetheart]

Oh, good.
I'm bookmarking this.  I've got an old neighborhood that's a lumpy eyesore and in need of replacing.

[Mootilda]

I just updated the HoodReplace program so that it will adjust the elevation of lots, trees, and decorations; they will now touch the new terrain rather than appearing at their previous elevation.