Tutorial: Clean custom neighbourhoods + townie creation (updated for Seasons)

[Sarimar]

First of all I want to thank Jordi for this tutorial and SaraMK for the empty templates. You rock! I created my first custom hood after Pets and it was a success. No ugly townies or dormies, no annoying strays etc.

I have a Seasons related question. SimPE hasn't been updated for Seasons yet and according to some people you shouldn't fiddle with the memories and relationships with an outdated version of SimPE. So how can I create new townies if I can't wipe their memories and relationships in SimPE? I was thinking that I'll create all townies one by one in CAS. That way they would only have the memory of moving to the lot (before I turn them into a townie with the shrub) and no relationships. Would this mess up my game? I don't feel like waiting for a SimPE update before creating a new hood since there's no sign of it yet.

[jrd]

Apply for the QA program on the SimPE forum to get access to a Seasons-compatible version of SimPE. I think everyone gets in if they ask.

Creating your own townies by making them in CAS is perfectly safe. Just make them, use the shrub or painting to mark them as townies, and save. Because of how the game works, they will automagically get careers and skillpoints the first time they are called as a townie.

[Sarimar]

Thanks Jordi! Ok, I'm off to creating a new and improved hood

[Ellatrue]

The tutorial says that you don't need to use a clean template for adding a downtown if you use a blank terrain. I tried it and it isn't true- using a custom terrain instead of the default downtown will still give you all of the default downtownies (including the dead ones, based on my observations with the census tool). Just so everyone knows.

[miros]

I read elsewhere that the Downtownies are created from a very limited set of templates, so even if you don't get the original Downtownies, you'll get their close relatives.  At least with Jordi's name hack (baaah!  baaah!  baaah!  baaah!  Thank you very much for that!), they'll have different names.

[witch]

I had Nailati's face templates and Jordi's names, so I have a slightly different assortment of downtownies and townies for once. Some of them, I can still recognise who they are meant to be, but it's not nearly so bad as normal.

[miros]

Yep!  Gotta love those two!

[numaari]

I followed this tutorial scrupulously after doing a clean install, and still got all the original Pleasantview townies and 3 of every damn NPC...

[jrd]

You forgot to rename N001, and did not get no redundancy.

[numaari]

Thanks for the quick reply, Jordi.  I'm ripping my hair out right now.

Actually, I do have antiredundancy, and I even checked to make sure that custom content is enabled properly.  It is.

I renamed N001 to ".bak"  When that didn't seem to work, I zipped it altogether.  That also didn't work.

[jsalemi]

I renamed N001 to ".bak"  When that didn't seem to work, I zipped it altogether.  That also didn't work.

Maybe an obvious question, but did you rename the right one?  You want the one in C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate, not the one in your game directories in My Documents.

[numaari]

Back from work now.  Doublechecked.  Yup, the right one is renamed.

*sigh* Other things aren't working now.  Time to start over again.

[jsalemi]

My bad -- I meant C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods -- just not to confuse anyone else reading this thread.

[jolrei]

I'm new to the thread (and the game), but have been following this for a month or so, and just created my first clean/custom neighbourhood this week.  Thanks Jordi for the excellent tutorial. 

Unfortunately, I have the same problem as a couple of others here, that when I rename N0001 to N0001-bak (and delete the characters in the Characters folder, etc.), the game still generates all the Pleasantview townies in my new neighbourhood.  I tried deleting the N0001 'hood altogether, but that seems to simply make my new custom neighbourhood N0001 and gives me the same townies again (I have only the base and uni installed).  This happened about 4 times consistently.  Finally I built my neighbourhood and used "deleteallcharacters" (only once).  I don't use the townie tree for townies anyway, so hopefully nothing bad will happen.  If it does, hey ho - my favourite sims are all cloned anyway.

I'm wondering if I missed a step, like using empty template N0001 (just picked that up now).  I'll try that if I decide to start a new hood again (or if I'm forced to). 

It's a fair bit of work, building every single townie by hand (only 14 townies in the neighbourhood so far, but they're all ones that I'm happy with).  The noregen mods are fantastic for keeping indigents out.  Thanks MATY for those as well.

[jrd]

Did you rename the folder, or just the package? The entire N001 folder must somehow be displaced (renamed, deleted, moved) if you want to prevent the default townies. Renaming just the package will likely not work.

[numaari]

Ahhh, success.  Followed the same copied set of directions, but this time it worked perfectly.  Don't know what I mucked up, but it must have been something. 

[Matt J]

I am having a little trouble making my custom neighbourhood. All went well, and I imported my first 8 townies. I then generated NPCs. After that I creates more sims in CAS, and tried to turn them into townies. All seemed to go well, until I reloaded the hood. Only my first 8 townies were showing up as townies, the rest could be summoned by the inge shrub under the 'default' menu, but they were not in the Sim Bin. I can remake them into townies, but they always go back into the 'default' group upon a reload. I can't seem to commit ANY data to the hood now. A created sim will simply disappear and silently go into the 'default' group. Hood scenery will placed will also disappear after a reload. SimPe shows only the original 8 townies and NPCs. Is it Fubar, or savable? Could I put the sims I created into a fresh unbroken hood?

[EDIT]
I apologise, this is now occurring in all hoods, I guess it must be CC... any other ideas what it might be?

[jrd]

Some hack which does not work.

‘Default’ is not a valid group, it's only used for dead Sims and the like. You have some hack which destroys the townies.

[Matt J]

Found the problem! For some reason my Sims 2 folder had become read-only. Windows is weird.

[jolrei]

Did you rename the folder, or just the package? The entire N001 folder must somehow be displaced (renamed, deleted, moved) if you want to prevent the default townies. Renaming just the package will likely not work.

I renamed the entire folder in the "my documents\EA Games\Sims 2\Neighborhoods sub-folder as per instructions - rename N001 to N001-bak.  I also tried deleting the N001 folder altogether.  Nothing seemed to stop the Meadow Thayer, Tosha Go, Goopy etc. townies from generating. 

*sudden thought* Does it matter that my first custom (not cleaned) neighbourhood remained in the neighborhoods folder and had all those townies already in it?  I mean, the game must be getting the blighters from somewhere, and if not Pleasantview, then where?

Anyhow, in the end, I DACed the thing and deleted all relationships, memories, sim dna, and SWAFs with SimPE.  That cleaned it, and I populated the place with home-built Sims.  All seems to be good so far, with total playable/townie population at about 40 Sims (including dormies at the university).  I think more may be necessary if any romance types want the 20 loves at once LTW.  Very tough when everyone is on a lot at once (especially without a jealousy hack).

[Venusy]

Wrong N001 folder. Try C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N001 (or whichever folder it's actually stored in, can't be bothered turning on external drive to check).

[jolrei]

Wrong N001 folder. Try C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N001...

Alrighty then.  That explains that, and I learn something I didn't know about Windows as well.  Now, I just need to wait until either I get bored again, or my current neighborhood goes foom, and I can give it a try.

Cheers.

[spikesminx]

First of all, thank you for this awesome tutorial, I was getting sick of Goopy, Benjamin, Brandy etc 

I did everything right until step 4, my characters folder was empty and all. Then I created a sim and moved her in, wrote boolprop cheat code, but when I clicked on my sim, there was NO spawn menu  Should I have shift+clicked or something?

[Simsane]

Jordi (or anyone else reading this who knows  ) I want completely clean neighborhoods, but I am not sure I understand what you said in your first post.

I have Sims2, Uni, N/L, OFB and Seasons.  No Pets and no stuff packs.  Do I need to rename N001 to N001-bak and also do what you posted under the part where if you own Seasons -- the G001 things?  I mean I understand I must do what you posted under "If you have Seasons part, but should I first rename N001 to N001-bak?

I have just finished completely uninstalling and reinstalling all the games I have and I have not even gone in to play Seasons yet, so the game should not have generated anything yet.  Although I did open Seaons' version of bodyshop, just to make sure it works, then closed it up again.

I have downloaded 90% of JM's director's cut for Seasons along with a few of TwoJeff's mods.  I went and downloaded Inge's Teleporter Shrub (yea, the one that can make a sim into a townie or downtownie -- hope it still works with Seasons.) Other than that, I have absolutely no custom content in my game yet.   Oh yea, I have the SimPE for Seasons, got that yesterday I have never been very knowledgeable about SimPE but one step at a time.

Anyway, I want to thank you for this tutorial, I think it's great!  And thanks in advance for trying to help me.

[Zazazu]

Jordi (or anyone else reading this who knows  ) I want completely clean neighborhoods, but I am not sure I understand what you said in your first post.

I have Sims2, Uni, N/L, OFB and Seasons.  No Pets and no stuff packs.  Do I need to rename N001 to N001-bak and also do what you posted under the part where if you own Seasons -- the G001 things?  I mean I understand I must do what you posted under "If you have Seasons part, but should I first rename N001 to N001-bak?

Yes, you need to do both portions. Renaming and replacing N001 prevents the game from creating those same ol' Pleasantview townies into your new custom neighborhood. Renaming and replacing G001 doesn't prevent any specific townies, but it prevents these sim-bin families (one of which has majorly borked genetics) from being dumped on you.

Basically, if you have any of the files you are told to replace, do it.