Wanting to Re-Generate my Townies.

[neriana]

You can use SimPE to do that.  It's not push-a-button easy, but it's not difficult either. 

Yes, but going through all the townies and doing that is a severe pain and takes a ton of time.

[angelyne]

What I used to do in my old game, was simply nab customers.  They got a little more they bargained for when they dropped by my shop!

Adds a little interest to running a business.  Although the DMA doesn't seem to work to change clothing on community lots.

Eventually you'll go through all  your sims.

You can keep a list of names and fix their genetics in SimPE once you finished playing.  Although fixing genetics is not all that necessary, unless you intend to breed them

And yes Sara. Step one, make a backup should be our sig line.  JM should put it on the front page.  Something like...Warning ...Failure to make a backup will automatically result in you getting pointed and laughed at.

[myskaal]

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=56241


Probably would be better for you to write one up for here on MATY, since this one is old and only really findable if you do a specific search at MTS2.

Look for sim descriptions with 'Unknown', and delete them before committing your changes.

Er... I thought it wasn't exactly safe to go around deleting all the unknowns as some of them are things like.. Oh the wormrat and the bird. eh?

[Simgoose]

Ok... first off let me start by saying, i feel the pain for Solowren, I didnt crash my hood... but i had the HDD die on me, and I had to start again. (Which now i have done again, after fresh install)

Secondly, angelyne, yes a tutorial would be awesome for us n00bs that are not quite sure what the heck they are doing.

After reading the topic from top to bottom im still a little lost.
I too want to "make-over" my townies etc, (as this seems to be the best way).

Starting a stop and having them come in to buy things and get that face reco they always wanted is an awesome idea, then i could set a goal of 10 townies a night to change, until they are all done.

Ok, now for my question(s)
 - If I use either the "Shop Idea" or the "Shrub Idea" and DMA's Tool, to make the townies better looking with the new tempates.
what do i then have to change in SimPE so that if i was to multiply with them, their babies will look pretty as well?
(I'll have to wait till SimPE for Seasons comes out before I can do this)

 - If I'm using the new Face Templates, and CAS Templates, any new townies that are made will both have better faces, and this will be copied to SimPE, hence thier faces will carry onto new borns? (Also any new townies that are made from this moment on, will be good looking too? No over sized noses or chins?)

 - Is their anything else that I will need to make my townies good looking, and stay that way?

 - And just another question I thought of after previewing this... NPC's... is their away I can make them look better? (Using the same way as above?)

Sorry for all the question, but I'm just trying to understand the best way of doing this, before I do it.
Any help would be awesome, not more awesome than you though.

[myskaal]

what do i then have to change in SimPE so that if i was to multiply with them, their babies will look pretty as well?

This is what angelyne was talking about writing the tut on and what is explained in the link I posted above but since MTS2 is apparently down for maintenance, here's the short version:
Open up the hood in SimPE, locate the sim's description, open the character file, select Facial Structure from the resource tree, highlight and extract the 2nd instance, then highlight and replace the 1st instance with the .simpe file you just extracted. Save and you're done.

If I'm using the new Face Templates, and CAS Templates, any new townies that are made will both have better faces, and this will be copied to SimPE, hence thier faces will carry onto new borns? (Also any new townies that are made from this moment on, will be good looking too? No over sized noses or chins?)

Yes.

Is their anything else that I will need to make my townies good looking, and stay that way?

Nope. Of course your best guarantee for good looking townies is to make them yourself in CAS and turn them into townies afterwards. Using templates, unless every template is completely unuglified, may still get you a few here and there that don't meet your personal ideal.

- And just another question I thought of after previewing this... NPC's... is their away I can make them look better? (Using the same way as above?)

I believe so.
I've never tried facial reconstruction on NPC's myself so can not say absolutely yes without a doubt. I have noticed that, many times, trying to simply change hair style doesn't actually work on some NPCs (i.e. the female maid) so there may be some sort of weirdness that prevents their genetics from being altered but that's about all I can say for that.

[Simgoose]

Thanks heaps for your quick reply.
Do you think that SimPE Pets ed. would work for this if I have seasons... or should I wait for Seasons ed. to come out?

Again another question I thought of... NPC's is their away I can kill them off... so that they generate with the new faces?
Or is that a whole you basket of cucumbers?

[Solowren]

I did realize it would be silly to delete them just because I wanted new ones, so I had decided I just wanted to get rid of them. The bloat sucked, and I never used Townies anyway. 

Right now I'm following some completely custom neighborhood tutorials, so if what Theo suggested doesn't work I will just start anew.

[Stitches]

Thanks heaps for your quick reply.
Do you think that SimPE Pets ed. would work for this if I have seasons... or should I wait for Seasons ed. to come out?

Again another question I thought of... NPC's is their away I can kill them off... so that they generate with the new faces?
Or is that a whole you basket of cucumbers?

That last line sounds like an insult for some reason.

[myskaal]

Dunno if pets SimPE would work or not. Me personally myself I'd wait but I'm ultraparanoid, too.
You could always make a backup and try it with the pets version.

Yes, you can kill off NPCs but how you do so, how often, and where (in-game or out) matters to the size of the cucumbers. Do some research on neighborhood bloat, BFBVFS, and VBTs.

[Simgoose]

That last line sounds like an insult for some reason.

Ment in that way that... whould that be in another post or topic?
No insult intended apon anyone.

And for myskaal thankyou for your help... ill look into that.

Regards.

[Sleepycat]

default face replacements + SaraMKs "empty templates" + new custom hood = a empty hood that will end up with better looking NPCs/townies/dormies

[angelyne]

I've been using SimPe and it seems to be working fine, for what I am doing, which is just changing small things like character attributes and name. 

Starting a brand new neighbourhood is always an option. That's what I am doing now.  But some people are attached to their old neigbourhood.  I can understand wanting to keep it.

Deleting townies is always an option.  Except that the game will regenerate more, unless you have the notownieregen mod.  And even with new templates, you still might not be happy with the results.  But the reason I think it's a bad idea, is that it adds to the file bloat of your neighbourhood.  All your dead characters are taking a file "slot".  The new ones will use more slots.  There is a finite (albeit large) number that can be used.  At least that's my understanding.  That's the reason for the character deletion tool. But as you have seen from this thread, it's not to be used carelessly.

So apart from the fluglyness, your townies are perfectly acceptable characters.  They have a range of personalities, attributes, skills, badges, ect.  Some of them have relationships with your characters. Some of them are your customers. So instead of bumping the whole lot off, it seems more efficient to simply make them over.

That's my take on things anyway.

[Simgoose]

default face replacements + SaraMKs "empty templates" + new custom hood = a empty hood that will end up with better looking NPCs/townies/dormies

And alot of Family's in the Bin and Houses in the Bin, Community Lots in the bin, Dorms in the Bin... and 5hrs of setting up... and bam!
no more premade n/hood!

[Simgoose]

If i was to create a new hood with the empty templates...
when creating Downtown and Uni hoods... if i choose one of the pre made ones, eg Blue Water...
will that create new townies and NPC with new genetics...
or will it use the already existing ones from the Pleasantview Blue Water Towines?

[Sleepycat]

from what I have read it isn't worth it to use the empty template for Downtown (you'll just get the same downtownies apparently)

if you use the empty dorm template then any new dormies that spawn will use whatever default face replacements you have in, assuming you have them (made dormies so much better in my game that I allow my sims to marry them)

I believe there is a empty template for bluewater village also but I never attach that sub-hood to any of my hoods, so I don't know anything about it...


use the N001 empty template and you won't get the default townies, after making my last new hood I spawned a batch of new townies using testingcheats enabled & shift-clicking on the mailbox etc... got some really nice looking new townies that way (they also use the default face replacements)


if you have Pets, I suggest using the empty template for that also.


the empty templates (incase you didn't find them)  -
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4306.0.html


she has instructions to get rid of the binned Pets maxis premades (and maybe the Seasons ones also)

[Simgoose]

Open up the hood in SimPE, locate the sim's description, open the character file, select Facial Structure from the resource tree, highlight and extract the 2nd instance, then highlight and replace the 1st instance with the .simpe file you just extracted. Save and you're done.

Just to ask another question to add to my long list in this Thread already... but is there doco on how to do this correctly?
So I dont end up screwing all my townies up.
Thanks

[angelyne]

Yes Myskaal posted the link.  Here it is again : http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=56241

This is something you do after performing surgery on a sim in order to insure that his new face will be passed on to his simkids, instead of his old face.

[Kyna]

from what I have read it isn't worth it to use the empty template for Downtown (you'll just get the same downtownies apparently)

I use the empty template for Downtown so that I don't get the graves.  I don't see the point in adding character files that I won't be using again.

[notveryawesome]

I like the graves, because my knowledge sims are constantly rolling wants to see ghosts. That doesn't stop them, of course, from immediately running off to play poker or watch television as soon as they get to the cemetery.

[STLBailey]

As so beautifully put by SaraMK:

Now let us all sit back and wait for STLBailey, with her bright red font, to come crying about her neighborhood exploding. If she doesn't, we can assume she gets a "passing" on the common sense test. However, the fact that she neither knows who Inge is or what a "teleporter bush" is  (perhaps one of the most commonly and widely used hacks), does not bode well as far as her ability to successfully use a complicated tool that shreds critical neighborhood files....

1. It had a newbie who at first glance appeared to be of above-average intelligence (note the lack of horrific mangling of the English language in the first post), and yet turned out to be a BBS escapee after all.

2. It had another newbie, who definitely had a BBS aura around her, and who was apparently suicidal... that's really the only reason someone who doesn't seem to have ever downloaded a hack for the game before would want to go poking into the game files with one of Pescado's advanced tools.

3. At least one of the newbies was twirled around and given a shove in the general direction of a cliff.

4. It had high drama, punctuated by frequent use of multiple exclamation and question marks ("You didn't backup?!?") and CAPS LOCK freaking out.

5. It was the middle of the night, and I was hopped up on coffee and feeling very mean for some reason.

And of course Pescado pointing and laughing is always funny.

With all of your infinite knowledge of the Sims and all of its hack, it seems to me that you would use it for the good of mankind (or simkind) and not sit and tear down newbies at all hours of the night.  Being "hopped up on coffee and feeling very mean for some reason" is no excuse.  All that energy you put in being mean could have went to helped us learn how to delete our townies correctly instead of losing neighborhoods.  What a waste of good knowledge.

Thank you very much, Angelyne, for your help.  I will try the program that you attached.  I have been playing around with SimPE, but I still haven't gotten the hang of it.  There needs to be a better tutorial or manual for it.  Maybe you should write one.     (hint, hint)

I understand that you have to have a thick skin in this place, however, I just wish that after all the harsh words have been said,...answer the persons question. Don't just talk shit just because you know more.  At one point and time, you were a newbie too.

[jsalemi]

At one point and time, you were a newbie too.

Yup, and we all went through the same initiation here -- some survive, many don't.  Deal with it....

[angelyne]

Don't be hard on Sara.   She's done a lot for "simkind", including providing us with empty and cleaned up templates for starting with a clean neighbourdhood, and giving us endless advice.

What she said wasn't directed at you, rather at us to be cautious about what advice we provide to people whose level of competency is unknown.  As Alexander Pope said "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing".

SimPE is a complex, very powerful program that manipulates your game data.  It can trash your game in the blink of an eye, with practically no warning, as it's meant for the advanced users.  I've only used a tiny fraction of it to manipulate my character files.  It does so much more.  There are lots of tutorials on how to use it.  The trick is to focus on what you want to do, and search for tutorials on that.

You might want to use Sim Enhancer http://www.sims2programs.com/.  It's a program to manipulate your character data, but with a more user friendly interface.  Some people swear by it. It's like Mac vs Microsoft.  The only problem is that it's not free and some people have complained that the guy who wrote it provides you with piss-poor service.  But anyway.

I am considering writing a tutorial on how to "beautify" an existing neighbourhood, by making over your townies and NPC's.  Starting over is a good option, but not everyone is ready to do that.

[STLBailey]

At one point and time, you were a newbie too.

Yup, and we all went through the same initiation here -- some survive, many don't.  Deal with it....

Hey...I can deal with it....put up with it....and maybe even dish it sometimes.  But when it is all said and done, answer the question and not just be mean.

[STLBailey]

Don't be hard on Sara.   She's done a lot for "simkind", including providing us with empty and cleaned up templates for starting with a clean neighbourdhood, and giving us endless advice.

What she said wasn't directed at you, rather at us to be cautious about what advice we provide to people whose level of competency is unknown.  As Alexander Pope said "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing".

SimPE is a complex, very powerful program that manipulates your game data.  It can trash your game in the blink of an eye, with practically no warning, as it's meant for the advanced users.  I've only used a tiny fraction of it to manipulate my character files.  It does so much more.  There are lots of tutorials on how to use it.  The trick is to focus on what you want to do, and search for tutorials on that.

You might want to use Sim Enhancer http://www.sims2programs.com/.  It's a program to manipulate your character data, but with a more user friendly interface.  Some people swear by it. It's like Mac vs Microsoft.  The only problem is that it's not free and some people have complained that the guy who wrote it provides you with piss-poor service.  But anyway.

I am considering writing a tutorial on how to "beautify" an existing neighbourhood, by making over your townies and NPC's.  Starting over is a good option, but not everyone is ready to do that.

I have TS2Enhancer.  Heck I even have the current upgrade!  LOL  But it won't let me change the clothes or faces of the townies.  Will SimPE let me do all that?

[miros]

Clothes:  Make the Townie controllable using various hacks and change their clothes with the DMA gadget.

Faces:  Make the Townie controllable and use the plastic surgery station or the DMA gadget.

If you don't know what you're doing, don't monkey with SimPE.