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

[jsalemi]

So, okay...in order for me to have a totally clean hood when I start a new one, I would still have to overwrite all the templates with clean ones though, right?

Right.  It would probably be wise to make backups of the original templates somewhere first, in case you ever want to restore the original hood.

[pseudonymph]

"Original" as in Pleasantview and such with those hideous Maxis townies and such? I'll pass , but it is good to have backups just in case I bump my head and want it back one day. Thanks for your help!

[gynarchy]

Backups are also necessary in case "oops I fucked up and I have to start over" happens.

[pseudonymph]

OKay, I tried this tut and apparently did something wrong. No prob....off to try again.

Do these instructions apply to Free Time the same way as well?

BTW, for those that don't know, the FT patch is finally back up again, nice and shiny (hopefully).

[gynarchy]

Berney updated the tutorial for BV here, but the process is essentially the same even in FT.

[pseudonymph]

Berney updated the tutorial for BV here, but the process is essentially the same even in FT.

Okay, thanks. However, I do recall reading somewhere not to delete the /Lots folder in FT.

[mdankoski]

I have a question, Jordi. Let's say I follow your instructions, and I actually like the results and want to keep my townies for future hoods. Can I take all the SDNA and DNA and Characters from my hood I like, I'll call it N004, copy it back over into N001, then put N001 back, and in this way have it spawn my "cool" townies from now on in any new future hood?

[seelindarun]

I'm not Jordi, but no.  Don't do this.  It will screw up both your 'hoods.  There is information inside each of those character files that pertains specifically to the hood you took them from.  Making a new 'hood template is not as simple as copy-pasting.  If it were, we'd have a lot more of them, and they'd be a lot better than the borkedness EA ships.

[valentinegirl]

Does anyone here know if these instructions still work okay if you have all expansion packs installed up to Mansions and Gardens?

I followed the instructions to the letter right now, and it completely stopped my game from working. I got an error message saying that the game was corrupt or had been uninstalled.

Any tips?

[lunaskye]

Hello everyone newbie here. Please forgive me for being ignorant but in the first step do i have to rename the N001 FOLDER? or the actual N001.package FILE inside? Also I read somewhere that the game loads all files in A-Z order. Do my hacks need to be in a specific order for it to work? Thanks in advance. 

[katalina]

I have also apparently failed at this as well... when I created a new neighborhood, it didn't quite work the way it should have. At least, it didn't work the way it *sounded like* it should have.

I renamed the N001 folder, then opened the game. It didn't show Pleasantview, which I assume was correct. I clicked 'create new neighborhood' and got a warning that it was going to make a neighborhood with no townies/NPCs. Okay, fine, that's what I wanted. Click. New neigbhorhood. I went to check in my Neighborhoods folder, but instead of creating N004, it created a second N001. Not only that, it had characters in the Character folder even though it *told* me that it wasn't generating any. I didn't select a downtown or a university, so it shouldn't have spawned those characters. (I only have UNI+NL.) I didn't even create a lot, so there shouldn't have been NPCs.

So, figuring that it did not work, I quit everything and dumped the duplicate N001 folder, then restored the name of the original N001.

When I reopened the game, I still had no Pleasantview, and the slot for it was still named for my custom hood, with the custom map and all -- even though I deleted that entire folder. Like, it is wiped from my hard drive and yet the game still thinks it's there. And I can't get Pleasantview back, which isn't a massive crisis, but I had been using that hood exclusively for building and I had a few houses I'd really like to keep.

Any way to fix this without reinstalling the game? I have a Mac, so most of the useful applications are not an option.

[miros]

Try removing NeighborhoodManager.package from your game and let it regenerate.

[katalina]

That worked, thanks!

And a random, related question: Is there a safe way to move a household from one neighborhood to another without CleanInstaller or something similar? I want to move my legacy family into my custom 'hood where the townies don't look ridiculously out of place (now that I've got it working) but I know it will drag all their memories and such with them even though it wipes their relationship histories clean when you put the occupied lot into the housing bin.

[Tarlia]

katalina, what you did wrong was that you renamed your playable Pleasantview/N001 instead of the template N001. The folder you should rename will be at the install location, not in your "saved games" location. The location of the template N001 should be (install location)\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods, as stated in the first post. I would assume this folder structure is the same on a Mac.

Also, I think the only safe way to "move" a played family from one 'hood to another is to clone and recreate them all, and I don't think that can be done without SimPE.

[katalina]

ahh, okay, I see where I went wrong. The folder structure is basically the same, but the wording led me astray as there is no "program files" folder. I assumed that was the equivalent of the EA Games folder in Documents that houses the user data, but it's actually the one in the Applications folder. Makes much more sense now. Thank you!

And I figured as much on the moving Sims around... oh well. I might just back up my stuff and reinstall to get rid of all the fragmented Sim bits.

[Tarlia]

You don't need to reinstall for that, just make a new neighbourhood. Good luck.

[Callista]

This says it's "updated for Seasons"; do these work for Apartment Life? I'm assuming so, but would like confirmation. Are there any changes I should be making to the procedure?

ETA: What would happen if I didn't add the recommended hacks? Would the game just spawn townies and such on its own?

[Tarlia]

This says it's "updated for Seasons"; do these work for Apartment Life? I'm assuming so, but would like confirmation. Are there any changes I should be making to the procedure?

Updated for Seasons just means that the tutorial's been updated to include Seasons-hood-specific instructions (G002, etc).

ETA: What would happen if I didn't add the recommended hacks? Would the game just spawn townies and such on its own?

Yup.

[Callista]

Okay, it's mostly working. I still have Apartment Life social-group townies, though. Any way to get rid of them (beyond just summoning them and having a massacre?)

[Tarlia]

Okay, it's mostly working. I still have Apartment Life social-group townies, though. Any way to get rid of them (beyond just summoning them and having a massacre?)

Yes. Find an empty template for the AL stealth hood somewhere in this thread. To avoid new ones spawning, you'll need the notownierespawn hack, but you'll still get them if you make apartments (although Cyjon has a mod to make regular townies live in empty apartments instead of social group townies).

[Aphrodite]

I followed all these instructions to a T, and all went great until I decided to batch create a set of downtownies for my new hood. I ended up with 30, which wasn't bad, but 15 of them were duplicates, I had 5 sets of 3 sims with the same look just different name. 

Anyone have any clues as to why this might have happened? It's sure a first for me. As I was creating a new hood I emptied out my downloads folder save for the 3 hacks that were mentioned in the first thread. (The hood was initially completely empty of sims, clean templates yadda yadda).

It doesn't look like any harm has been done, and those 15 sims now are in my latest cemetery- still, be nice to know for future reference.

[Jeebus]

I followed all these instructions to a T, and all went great until I decided to batch create a set of downtownies for my new hood. I ended up with 30, which wasn't bad, but 15 of them were duplicates, I had 5 sets of 3 sims with the same look just different name. 

Anyone have any clues as to why this might have happened? It's sure a first for me. As I was creating a new hood I emptied out my downloads folder save for the 3 hacks that were mentioned in the first thread. (The hood was initially completely empty of sims, clean templates yadda yadda).

It doesn't look like any harm has been done, and those 15 sims now are in my latest cemetery- still, be nice to know for future reference.

That happens a lot with me too.  I would assume it's because downtownies are based on premade templates.

[Tarlia]

That happens a lot with me too.  I would assume it's because downtownies are based on premade templates.

It is. The game doesn't check to see if it's already used a template, so if you're unlucky you can end up with quite a lot of duplicates (or even triplicates or more). I always used the townie tree/gun instead and made them one by one, saving between each and exiting the lot without saving if I got a duplicate (DON'T just discard them, as the game will leave a stub file in your neighbourhood). Tedious, but I think it's the only way to avoid doubles.

Also, quite a few of the downtownie templates are based on the broken face templates 21 and 25, and having Argon's fix in won't help that. Be especially wary of Face 1 looking teens.

[socks]

-Replace P001_Neighborhood.package with an empty version. This prevents the standard Pets and Pet NPCs from being added to every 'hood. It also prevents the two families from magically appearing in your new 'hood's family bin.

Where do I get, or how do I make an 'empty version' of it?

Sorry if it's been asked before.

[Tarlia]

Where do I get, or how do I make an 'empty version' of it?

Sorry if it's been asked before.

Have you tried, you know, looking around a little bit? Like say... stickied threads... very close by...