Making my own townies/downtownies

[Magwitch]

I'm planning on starting a brand new neighbourhood, attaching a university and a downtown, deleting all characters and creating my own townies/downtownies, so I can be spared the horror of having to gaze upon the hideous visages of the Maxis-made folk.  I've done a search here, read a good few threads and have gathered that I need  the notownieregen and nodormieregen hacks, plus Inge's teleporter shrub.

Could someone please clarify a couple of things for me?  Say I go into the neighbourhood itself, make a handful of sims and send them out to be townies, will they also be my downtownies?  Or do I need to go into the downtown area and set up the teleporter shrub in a house there to create another set of sims that will serve as downtownies?

Also, when I create these townies, will they have a random set of skills and jobs assigned to them?  Or do I need to do that myself with the multi-mirror and other hacks? And what about money?  Do I need to give them an amount, or does the game generate this randomly should they ever move in with a playable character?

Is there anything else I should do/download?

I'd really appreciate some help!

[Renatus]

I'm not sure on how to put sims into the downtownie pool. It might work if you make them Downtown and put them in there, but you may have to generate 1 downtownie with the NPC maker so it creates the pool, then put your chosen sims into the pool with SimPE. I haven't had a chance to test it myself.

When you create the townies and then put them into the townie pool, they keep their names, memories, and relationships, but you don't have toa ssign them jobs or skills because the game will do that automatically. It should also automatically work out however much they should bring when you move them in via the "Move In" command.

That's pretty much it! It's very simple with Inge's teleporter shrub. Make up to 8 sims in CAS, setting their looks, clothing, and personality however you want as well as their relations to other sims in that household. Move them into an empty lot with the teleporter shrub, change appearance as needed in a mirror (for example, they have brown hair for genetic purposes but you want them to have custom hair when they wander around on their own), then choose the option on the shrub 'Make me a townie'. When they are all made into townies choose the option on the shrub to 'Clear off all non-residents', then save and exit to the neighborhood. Presto! Townies.

If you want to get fancy with their personality points (total points less than or more than 25), that can be done in SimPE, or on the initial lot with Merola's MultiPainting.

[Magwitch]

That's a great help, and speedy too!  Thanks!  No more ugly townies - what joy!

Now if somebody could help out with the downtownie issue that would be great.  I don't know what the NPC maker is, but will do a search for it now.  Only thing is that I don't have SIMPE - I'm too much of a wimp to mess around with that.

[radiophonic]

It depends where you "release" them as townies.
Thus, townies you create and release downtown will become downtownies and likewise for uni (ya only, of course) and your main hub.

[Renatus]

You're quite welcome!

The NPC maker is actually built into the game. For some reason I have it accessible through my buy mode collections folder, but I don't know if I should. Anyhow, I know it is accessible by turning on the testing cheats (boolprop testingcheatsenabled true) in the cheat box, then shift+clicking a sim and selecting "Spawn..." then the NPC maker (may have a slightly different name, I don't have the game up at the moment to check). The maker makes townies by default, you have to click through some menus to make it make downtownies. Once you have, the only thing you actually have control over is setting age and gender, otherwise it picks whatever it pleases. Make sure to only make one, unless you plan on exiting to the neighborhood without saving, because even if you discard them they still make a character file. They won't ever be seen, but they'll be there clogging up your character files, and that's bad.

Hm, I should be doing other stuff, but I'm awfully curious about the making downtownies issue now - even though the templates used for them are a bit better than the in-game defaults, I still don't like them, especially as I use more realistic default replacement templates so the downtownies STILL look bug-eyed in comparison, and the teens don't grow up to look anything like they should. I think I'll fire up the game and check... my ankle hurts too much to go and do laundry. Yeah, yeah, that's it.  (radiophonic, I hope you're right! )

[Magwitch]

Well, I tried it out last night and it worked a treat.  It seems that Radiophonic was right and it really is that simple.

I now have a normal neighbourhood which is on its way to being populated by normal people rather than rejects from the Planet of the Apes. 

[jrd]

On Inge's forums there's a modified version of the shrub which also allows Sims to be put in the downtownie pool. Downtownies are just another "family" like townies and NPCs are.

[Renatus]

Well, I tried it out last night and it worked a treat.  It seems that Radiophonic was right and it really is that simple.

! Yay! Wonderful! I didn't have a chance to give it a go after all, housework and friends drama ate up all my time. Glad to hear it does actually work!

[Magwitch]

On Inge's forums there's a modified version of the shrub which also allows Sims to be put in the downtownie pool. Downtownies are just another "family" like townies and NPCs are.

Hmm.  Ok, I've been to the forum and saw the thread you meant.  There's no actual modified shrub as the person who made it made it for his own use only. But it would seem that there are different 'pools' of Sims, as you say, and my method would only add sims to the townie pool, not the downtownie pool. Both townies and downtownies I created were showing up in community and downtown lots, but that's always been the case in my game so I didn't think anything of it.

Does it matter that I'm adding sims to just one pool? Is it going to mess up my game?

[Inge]

Why doesn't the person release it to share?  I don't remember this.   Or was this something I promised to do ages ago?

Downtownies is a different family number I think.  It's not just a case of where you "release them".  It's easiest just to make a whole load and put them in the Garth family in SimPe.

[nectere]

The one problem I have encountered using the shrub or the townie maker, at least in my game, is that it doesnt assign them to a house and therefore they do not have a phone.

[Magwitch]

Why doesn't the person release it to share?  I don't remember this.   Or was this something I promised to do ages ago?

Yeah, it's quite an old thread (from November).  You said you'd update your shrub and credit him/her.

I'm not bothered about it, though, as long as I'm not going to mess up my game.  I've had no problem with phoning them. The playable sim I made to test all this yesterday met a bunch of my new townies and phoned one or two of them for a date. 

[nectere]

I think its just my game thats messed up (or PC), there are quite a few things that seem to happen to mine that doesnt in anyone elses. I think installing a new graphics card has fubarred it as well since now I am starting to get random crashes. Last night my pc started wailing in morse code as it crashed and burned. Its the damnedest thing since my monitor flashes up "No Input" and shuts off and then my pc goes loopy...oh well, it was sorta fun while it lasted.

[jrd]

Inge: I have the updated shrub, if you need it. It's apparently now gone from the forums.

[Inge]

Can you upload it here to peasantry?

[jrd]

Done: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2757.0

I included the painting which I fixed.

[Magwitch]

Fantastic!  Thank you so much!

[Torkle]

Why doesn't the person release it to share?  I don't remember this.   Or was this something I promised to do ages ago?

"This person" left it up to you to put it on Ingelogical, which you never got around to doing.   
I didn't feel comfortable posting a re-hacked Inge shrub when it was just a cut-and-paste followed by a one line change.

But all is good now - Let the masses enjoy.

[Darkstormyeve]

So if the family "Garth" is downtownies then, what are the other maxis families? One has the NPC's from memory but I can't recall its name. Can someone briefly sumarise?

[Inge]

Trouble is, I'm not set up for other people's contributions at simlogical, so apart from PJSE releases every other file in a thread over a certain age is regarded as something uploaded to support a bug report or of temporary interest and gets deleted after a while.  I remember it all now, but my RL is so much more complicated than it was about a year ago that a) it takes me longer to find time to do things and b) I have less space in my brain to remember sims-related plans.

[MutantBunny]

Remaking NPCS and Townies: The latest chat said with OFB, build a salon and the NPCs and townies will come--tada we can Redo them in game.

[Magwitch]

You can do that now with the mind-control mirror.  Problem is there's only so much some make-up and a new hairdo can do!

[Renatus]

You can do that now with the mind-control mirror.  Problem is there's only so much some make-up and a new hairdo can do!

Gah, too true. I've found that the default face template replacements I have help somewhat, but if I want to go for anything based very strictly on this reality I find that I have to make my own townies. While some of the skin/hair/eye combinations the game puts together aren't impossible, they look silly when one is trying for real-world ethnic groups. At least the templates improve matters with NPCs.

[Kristalrose]

I find it annoying that there are only about three default faces in the game that I find attractive, and one of them is the elf/vulcan.    I always have to use the plastic surgery machine with the mind control mirror, but even that is not as satisfying to me as Body Shop.  If I could open all the Maxis Townies in Body Shop and do a little fixin' up, I'd be much happier. 

[vilia]

I find it annoying that there are only about three default faces in the game that I find attractive, and one of them is the elf/vulcan.    I always have to use the plastic surgery machine with the mind control mirror, but even that is not as satisfying to me as Body Shop.  If I could open all the Maxis Townies in Body Shop and do a little fixin' up, I'd be much happier. 

You could try & mod the default face templates - Motoki has posted a tutorial under peasantry & AllenABQ has put up the base templates here http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=864943#post864943