Sims 2 Tutorials

Your rating: None Average: 8.3 (12 votes)

Various tutorials I've written for your edification!
Many of my tutorials are loosely based on other tutorials on various sites.  I've consolidated information from various sources in my own words to solve various problems I've encountered with the game.
Some of my tutorials suggest that you visit other sites aimed at people over the age of 18 for downloads or other tutorials or information.  These tutorials will have a Warning at the bottom to indicate the limitations of these sites.

Adding EP and Mod Functions to Custom Content

No votes yet

Some fixes and mods for Maxis items aren't carried over into CC cloned from them, or the CC predates the fix or mod.  Now you can bring them up to date!

CC Fridges:

Children can get bottles for toddlers: Mod Includes instructions

CC Potties and Changing Tables (to AL)

CC Food:

Dinner for 8: Fix  Mod

Updating CC TVs and Stereos to AL

Updating CC to FT

Custom Musical Instruments (Argon's replacement for Atavera's hack)

 

 

 

Back Up -- Protecting Your Sims and Custom Content

Your rating: None Average: 10 (1 vote)

How would you feel if your Sims suddenly vanished?  What if you really did have to reinstall your game?  You need a back up!

  1. Go to My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2
  2. Right click the Neighborhoods folder and zip it (exact wording in the context menu depends on which zip program you're using)
  3. Right click on the Downloads folder and zip it
  4. If you create custom content with BodyShop, right click and zip SavedSims and Projects too.
  5. Change the file names to have the date in them (such as 2010-06-01 Neighborhoods.zip)
  6. Use the right mouse button to drag the zips somewhere safe, such as another hard drive or partition or an external drive or burn them to a CD or DVD

If you have custom lights installed, you also need a back up of Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Lights. 
If you have custom walls, fences, arches, arches, modular stairs, or fireplaces, also back up Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Catalog\Scripts\

BodyShapes and Other Custom Meshes

No votes yet

I had multiple BodyShape tutorials, I thought I'd group them together.

BodyShapes and You

Your rating: None Average: 10 (4 votes)

This is my version of "getting started with Warlokk's BodyShapes."  It was originally posted at InSimAdult (and I suspect lost in the transition), but I thought I'd put it here and post links to it.

First, look through Warlokk's site, specifically the BodyShape Catalog.  Pick one or two.

Next decision: Do you want the XHi-Res meshes with toes and better curves to the thighs and butt, or Hi-Res meshes with Maxis-style blockfeet?  The XHi-Res have higher poly counts, which may cause some systems to lag.  If your computer is a little laggy already, go with the Hi-Res.  The female nipples are also in a slightly different location on the XHi-Res mesh, so you might want to poke around and see what skintones are available for your chosen shape.

Third decision: Do you want anatomically correct (AC) or Barbie nudes?  I believe the XHi-Res is only available as an AC mesh, so the two decisions are interrelated.

Now you need to find the nude meshes. In general, the AC nudes are located in Warlokk's Tower on InSimAdult, and you'll choose the correct files for XHi-Res or Hi-Res.  The other nudes are best located using TMO's page,The Mystical One's BodyShapes by Size with Links.  You must have the top and bottom separates for your chosen size. 

I also recommend getting the full body nudes (including the underwear and swimsuit meshes if available) because you'll need them to convert your favorite skins to fit the newly installed BodyShapes.  Basically, if you try to convert swimsuits or casual clothing using an XHi-Res nude mesh, you'll have very visible camel-toe, butt-crack, and pointy nipples.  The swimsuit mesh will minimize this while the underwear mesh has an intermediate amount, to represent covered by lightweight tight fitting clothing.

The next step is the skintone.  I recommend JWilson5's conversions, either in her section on ISA or under her user name on Insimenator.  Again, you need to make sure you have the desired BodyShape and variant (AC/Barbie, XHi/Hi-Res).  You can also make a favorite skintone "showerproof" using the tutorials below.  Verify that the skintone lines up with details in the mesh, such as nipples, sexyfeet, penis, etc. using Chris Hatch's True Nude in BodyShop or True Nude in CAS.

The last step, where you need to exercise some restraint, is to download some clothes for your chosen BodyShape.  The place to start is Warlokk's Tower on both Insimenator and ISA.  You'll probably want to get all the conversions of Maxis meshes.  These meshes will allow you to convert many outfits to the new size quickly and easily.

Warning! InSimAdult and Back Alley Sims are adult sites and require visitors to be over 18!

Helpful Links and Tutorials

Complete Nude Collection for Dummies by a Dummy, a beginners guide by AnalogKid

The Mystical One's BodyShapes by Size with Links

Gothplague's BodyShape Conversion Tutorial

Warlokk's BodyShape Guide

Warlokk's Tutorial: Converting standard outfits to BodyShape Meshes

How to link a specific mesh to a genetic skintone using only SimPE.  If you only want to replace one of Warlokk's teen meshes with one of PierreNC's Princess meshes, this is probably what you want.

However, since the above tutorial modifies an existing skintone, you may want to copy your favorite skintones using Yakov's Pixel Perfect Skintones tutorial first or use the tutorial below. 

How to link a genetic skintone to a specific not default nude mesh

Clothes for a Specific Skintone

Your rating: None Average: 10 (2 votes)

For people who have only a couple Sims using one of Warlokk's BodyShapes or another custom mesh -- you can assign their clothes to their skintone!  No Sim with any other skintone can purchase or wear clothing that has been assigned this way.

Warning: This is not a complete fix for the problem of dozens of outfits for different custom meshes appearing in your wardrobe or clothing rack -- it only works for Sims with the exact same skintone.

Example: An outfit can be assigned to the "Dark Tan -- 36DDDx40," not to a more general "36DDDx40," making them unavailable for a Sim wearing "Light -- 36DDDx40". Separates assigned this way are worse -- they're not available for any other 36DDD top or 40 bottom skintone.

Warning: This tutorial is for advanced users.  I'm assuming you know the basics of using SimPE and a small amount about the internals of a skintone and clothing file.

  1. Open the skintone package file with SimPE.
  2. Copy the "family" value from the Skintone XML resource.
    Copy1
    or copy the "skintone" value from any Property Set resource. Do not use the "family" value!
    Copy2
  3. Open the outfit with SimPE.
  4. Set the "skintone" value in the Property Set resource.
    Paste
  5. Commit.
  6. Save.
  7. Repeat steps 3-6 for any other outfits intended for this Sim.

Batch processing tip: As you finish each outfit, you can open the next by dragging the package file to the Resource List window! If you've forgotten to commit and save, SimPE will ask if you want to do this before opening the next.

Example: The clothes I made for Angelita and Lucia only show up for Sims with their skintone in CAS, at clothing racks at community lots, and in the ingame wardrobe.

Getting Started with Warlokk's Meshes, the Miros Version

No votes yet

I found this tutorial on PearlSims while looking for something else!

  1. Pick body type you like. I picked 34Denh36 for my Sim, Angelita, so we'll use her for an example. It could be Rio, or Pinup, or RenGal, or 36DDnat40, or any of Warlokk's gazillion other meshes.
    The mesh I need is in Warlokk's huge Nude Meshes archive. If it's one of the cup size/hip size meshes, you'll have to extract the whole ugly thing and just install the pieces you need. The named meshes are much more friendly -- You can just unzip and assume all the decompressed files get installed.
  2. Poke around and see if you can find a skin tone you like for that body type. Jwilson5 has a ton of beautifully converted skintones by various makers.
    I'm actually using the textures from a different artist with the mesh setup for 34Denh36 with Marvine's Slim Body Builder meshes for the guys. This means I need the Slim BB stuff as well as the 34Denh36 stuff. It works just the same, except that you'll need the corresponding files for that body type in addition to everything else listed in step 4.
  3. Also get Warlokk or TheMysticalOne's Maxis clothing conversions in the appropriate sizes from the main Insimenator site. (This was one thing I couldn't figure out!)
  4. Installing all the pieces: a) nude top mesh, b) nude top recolor, c) nude bottom mesh, d) nude bottom recolor, e) full body nude mesh, f) full body nude recolor, d) the nude skintone, e) your choice of clothing from step 3.
  5. Make a Sim: Start up the game or BodyShop. Make your Sim as normal except for the following:
    1. When choosing the skintone, you must make sure you've got your custom sized skintone, not one of the Maxis ones. In BodyShop, all the skintones are displayed side by side. In CAS, you have to click the asterisk (*) to see the custom skintones.
    2. When dressing your Sim, first choose either the nude full body or the nude top and bottom to see how your Sim will look in the nude. Make sure the nipples are where you expect them to be (over the nipples on the mesh, not wandering off to the side) and the other details are acceptable.
      If you've got multiple "sizes" installed, make sure you've got the one you intended. Warlokk requested that artists include the size in the icon for the skintone and in the tooltip text; most people seem to abide by that.
    3. Now dress your Sim in the desired clothing. Again, Warlokk asked that people make their stuff clearly identifiable, so it should be fairly easy.
    4. Save your work.
    5. If you were working in BodyShop (better controls for fine details), you'll have to import your Sim into the CAS screen in the game. You use the icon that looks like 6 stylized Sims to do this.

Enjoy!

To use Warlokk's meshes as nude defaults: (so your Maxis-sized Sims will have nipple and labia outlines, and look very realistic with custom skintones when they get naked), copy MESH_AFtopNaked_Hi_default.package and MESH_afBottomNaked_HiDetail_Default.package into your download folder.

MESH_afBody_34Bd-34_Naked_Hi.package and Warlokk_afBody_34Bd-34_NakedHi.package are also good things to put in there so you can check how your nude skins look. Many custom tones don't have their nipples in quite the right place to work nicely with Warlokk's work. It's easy to fix, but tedious!

Notes:

The exact filenames will be different if you're using XHiRes or sexyfeet.  I'll try to sort out the various files and sources soon.

Chris Hatch's True Nude hacks help you verify that you have all the meshes for your skintone, and that the AC skintone details line up correctly with the mesh.

TheTigerKing83 suggested I host his BodyShape Organization Kit.  Finally, clothing for each BodyShapes will have its own icon and be grouped together in Body Shop and the game! Especially handy since Maxis helpfully broke the Tooltip Text!

BodyShop Tricks, Hacks, and Other Neat Things

Your rating: None Average: 10 (2 votes)

Helpful tricks and hacks for BodyShop -- I hope it makes your creating experience more enjoyable!

Brighter BodyShop

Allows you to better see custom content, including easier test fitting of your creations, and make better screen shots.

Note: Light colors, like the pale blue and ivory sweaters need the least bright hack to prevent "washout;" dark colors, like the witch outfit, may need the brightest to bring out the details.

True Nude in BodyShop

True Nude in CAS

Allows you to check your skintones on their assigned nude meshes. Also allows downloaders to ensure that they have all the required meshes for a skintone.

Warning! Back Alley Sims is an adult site and requires visitors to be over 18!

Maxis Premade Sim Templates Hider

Hides the Maxis Sim Templates in BodyShop and CAS. Hallelujah!

Greg Bennett's suggestion for skinners (and people attempting to install missing meshes): "Every time I make new or install new clothes, I delete the CASthumbnails.package from My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Thumbnails so that the game will regenerate the preview pictures of the clothing."

All polo shirts, from child to elder, can use the same texture.  Recolor once, import into up to seven projects!

Face Sculpting Hints from Garden of Shadows members

Custom icons for accessories

All ages versions of Cper and Csla face templates -- finishing up where Maxis left off!

Color Actions

No votes yet

Color actions have become popular in the Simming  community because they provide a quasi-standard to allow creators to color match their downloads. 

Popular sets of color actions are listed below.

Tutorials:

Converting Clothing to Other Body Shapes

Your rating: None Average: 10 (2 votes)

My version of "how to convert clothing to other body shapes." 

  1. Open BodyShop.
  2. Make two projects, one based on the outfit you like (put "Donor" in the name, so you know you can get rid of it later), and one based on the custom sized mesh with the most similar silhouette. Give that one a more generic name so you can use it over and over, like Garment-Size.  "Garment" should describe the mesh, such as "TShirt" or "Swimsuit." "Size" should describe the custom size of your mesh.  Examples:
    • "PinUp" or "CPU" for Warlokk's Classic Pin Up
    • "34Cenh36" for one of Warlokk's numbered BodyShapes.
    • "MiAna" for Gothplague's anorexic meshes
    • "Bear" for Montoto's Bear Body Builder
    • "SBB" for Marvine and BeosBoxBoy's Slim Body Builder.
  3. Using Windows Explorer, drag the bitmap files from the Donor project to the CustomSize project. There will be two or three. I usually copy, rather than move.  To do this, use the right mouse button to drag.  When you let up, you'll get a context menu with the choices of "Move" or "Copy."
  4. Test fit (but don't click the Import button to bring the resized outfit into the game yet).
  5. Check the seams, especially under the arms and inside the thighs.  Use a paint program to smudge areas with gaps.  If you don't have one, there's an open source free proggie named Gimp from gimp.org.  Use the circular arrow button in BodyShop to reload your changes.  Warning: sometimes you just pick the wrong mesh to convert.  In that case, you just need to pick a different mesh in your desired size, make a new project if necessary, and drag the donor textures in.
  6. When you're happy with it, fill in the Tooltip text with something descriptive like "NickName-Creator-Garment-Size." You want to put your name as "NickName," so people know where it came from.  You want to put the original creator's nickname in place of "Creator."  It's just perlite!  "Garment" should provide enough info about the clothing that it's fairly easy to identify it.  Duplicating part of the original file name or description is recommended.  "Size" is as described in step 2.
  7. Choose your catagory or catagories.  BodyShop does misbehave when  you reload a project with multiple catagories, but you can most likely get used to it.
  8. Import it into your game! Admire your hard work.
  9. Delete the Donor project.
  10. Make more!
  11. Close BodyShop.
  12. Open your game.
  13. Dress your favorite custom-sized Sims in their new clothes.

If you just want to play the game with your new clothes, quit here and play!  However, almost everyone wants to share their creations/conversions.

Please, please, please, if you want to share your conversions on the Internet, get permission from the original artist!  Many artists state their policies in a readme file or on their site.  Please respect their policy.

  1. Take screen shots.
  2. Close your game.
  3. Optionally rename your files with SimText.  SimText will help you construct a new filename based on the tooltip text and the random hex produced by BodyShop.
    Note: TSR requires you to leave the random hex on submitted clothing files.
  4. Zip the clothes files, located in SavedSims, not Projects.
  5. Upload screen shots and zip files. 
  6. It's also a good idea to put a link to the mesh you're using, and maybe the skintone, hair, or make up if you think people will want to duplicate your Sim's appearance.

Copying a Sim without SimPE

Your rating: None Average: 1 (1 vote)

Someone at Back Alley Sims asked if there was any way to get a Sim into the SimBin without SimPE.  Although you can't make a Sim into a template without SimPE, you can copy a Sim to another neighborhood with this method.

 

  1. Back up the original neighborhood(s). MOST IMPORTANT STEP! Tutorial
  2. Start the game.
  3. Move the Sim out (via telephone) and into an empty lot.  This will screw up your original 'hood, so make sure you've done step 1 first!!!!!!!!
  4. Go to the Neighborhood screen and package the lot. 
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each Sim, or move several to the same lot and package them together.  You may want to take notes about which Sims are in which file and where you intend to place them.
  6. Quit the game.
  7. Use Clean Installer to remove custom content or bits of Sims that aren't included in the packaged lot(s) and save. I recommend saving with a new file name because some versions of Clean Installer would produce empty files if you tried to save with the same name.
  8. ALSO VERY IMPORTANT: Delete the N### folder for any neighborhoods modified or drag them out of your game if you're paranoid. Unzip the backup file from step 1, and place that N### folder in the Neighborhoods folder.
  9. Use Clean Installer to install the lot(s) into the game.
  10. Run the game.
  11. Switch to the neighborhood where you want the copy(ies). Do not do the following steps on the neighborhood where the original Sim lives!
  12. Choose the populated lot(s) from the custom lot bin and place them in an out of the way location.
  13. Add a phone to the lot and move the Sims out, singly or in groups.
  14. Add the Sims to existing families or cheat them some money to buy their own houses.
  15. Repeat steps 11-14 as needed.

Essential Downloads

Your rating: None Average: 10 (2 votes)

These are hacks that I consider essential -- they fix known bugs and stupid things in the game!

TwoJeffs at Simbology

Various Bug Fixes

Various Annoyance Fixes -- I recommend most of them!

Various No Autonomy Mods -- Kill your pet peeve autonomous actions!

Various Baby/Toddler Fixes -- At least get the Potty Fix so the maid can clean the potty and the toddler can pee in a dirty potty!  No Smart Milk Drag is also great -- you can put all the Smart Milk in the toddler's inventory for later consumption.

Various Want Hacks -- Prevent the want that annoys you most.

Various Food Hacks -- I recommend all of them!

Various University Hacks -- I recommend most of them, especially the College Adjuster (another general fix it tool) and the Stinky Dormie Fix (best assignment litter fixer yet).

Always Flush Toilet -- Just what it says.

Baby Wants Fix -- Adoption and birth satisfy either want.

Caged Pet Fixes --  Fixes a bug where parrots and womrats would virtually consume food while the game was paused or in build/buy mode.  The result was often no food left when play resumed and the pet would die before you could feed it! 

Crystal Ball -- Skip the gypsy, just buy her crystal ball!  Same price, but reusable.  I like to put it on a community lot, so they can start a date immediately.

No Pet Code Unlock Spam -- Stops the huge lag when a pet gets promoted and unlocks all the special items.

No Pet Obsession -- Keeps Sims from autonomously playing with pets that they do not own and are not friends with.

School Bus/Bring Friend From School/Homework Hacks -- Reduces school bus spam.  Better friend choosing and new dialog. Less homework for kids with good grades.

SimBlender -- A workhorse!  Includes many features previously only adjustable through SimPE, as well as a general fix-it tool.

Smart Beds -- Finishes a half implemented Maxis idea to get Sims to sleep in the same bed every night!  Has several plug-ins and a stand alone Community Sleep hack.

Teens Keep Loves -- Teen sweethearts keep their crushes into college or adulthood.

Visitor Controller -- Prevents undesirable visitors (configurable).

Welcome Wagon Hacks -- Welcome Wagon asks permission before they show up.

Lord Darcy at MTS

I can wholeheartedly recommend all of Lord Darcy's fixes!

Stuff Pack Objects Fix Collection for Apartment Life -- Giant Maxis repair/update pack!  If you don't have AL, there are links to previous versions of many of the repairs in this collection.

TV2TiledRepairAnimFix -- Keeps the Sim from holding the screwdriver backward.

MotiveFix_Shower_Tub -- Gives all showers and tubs the maxium Hygiene and Comfort boosts.

MotiveFix_Bed -- Gives all beds the maximum Energy and Comfort boosts.

More Decorative Slots -- Allows more objects to be placed on and in Maxis objects.

PieMenuTextStringFix -- Repairs some minor typos in the US/UK English menus and several more in other languages.

Celebration & Custom Cakes can be placed in OFB Decra-Chill Food Display -- Just like it says.

Pet Interactions Enabler for Forgotten Objects -- Just like it says.

Stuff Pack Objects Fix Collection -- Fixes a lot of SP stuff.

FreeTime Wall Phone Ring FX Fix -- Visual portion of sound effect like the base game phone.

Maxis Modular Stairs Passage Fix -- Lets Sims walk under modular stairs.

Maxis Centerpiece as Centerpiece -- Allows Sims to place their plates on a table with a centerpiece.

Targa SupaFridge -- Gives all fridge functions to the mini-fridge.

Lord Darcy at MATY

Decustomized and Updated Maxis Official Objects/Clothing -- All the preorder items, now appearing with the other items from that EP, with added functions from newer EPs.

Lord Darcy at DJS Sims

Newer EP-ready versions of JFade's Community Lot Stove At Home and Exercise Only TV which also use all installed recolors of the original Maxis items.

Numenor at MTS

Smarter-Lights -- More sensible light behaviors.

Diploma-Hides-With-Walls -- Prevents your diploma from hanging in mid-air.

SlotEnablePackage_Counters -- Allows small appliances and cash registers to be placed diagonally on otherwise unusable inside corners.

Mary Lou at MTS

Counter-Friendly Appliances -- Allows the sides of the cabinets to hide the appliance "installed" inside them.

TheMysticalOne at InSimenator

Full set of Maxis adult female meshes with Fat and Preg morphs.

Warning: May conflict with Sexyfeet or Warlokk's XHi-Res meshes.

Fanseelamb at MTS

Maxis everyday coats as outerwear.

Inge Jones at MTS

The gizmo that makes portals visible will allow you to move the mailbox without moving the portal under it.  No more carpool driving across the lawn!  Tip by dark_author at Simbology.

Inge Jones at Simlogical

Nanny Detection, Musical Crib Fix,  CribGetOutAll, NoAutonomousReadTo -- Inge has several other baby and childcare hacks, but these are the ones I use.

PushedGreetPatch, NoSetUnlockedPatch -- Sims autoanswer the doorbell; improves the whining about stuff behind locked doors.  Many other neat doors and locking systems.

Apartment Fixes -- Makes the other tenants act more sensibly.

ShinyTimeNPCEverywhere -- Spawns a cafeteria worker on residential/apartment lots.

NoAutonomyFridge -- Prevents snacking unless starving.

Treeag at MTS

Hide the ugly Sims in the SimBin!

JFade @ DJS Sims

Tan Overlay Fix for Oddly Shaped Meshes -- Sims using BodyBuilder meshes (or any other mesh using a non-Maxis UVMap) would have untanned patches -- but JFade has fixed this!

Leesester at MTS

Use any door on your apartments!

Chris Hatch at Back Alley Sims

Genetic and gender specific baby hair!

True Nude for BodyShop

True Nude for CAS

Goggalor at MATY

Shiftable signs, paintings and photos (AL)

Argon at MATY

Zombie/Alien Fitness Fix

Repaired Cper and Csla Archtypes

Instruments by proxy GUID -- Makes musical instruments perform together.  Replaces Atavera's hack.

Niol at MTS

Roof Mod -- Causes roofs to appear in their true colors

Warning: Causes the Maxis roofs to appear too bright/light

CuriousB at Garden of Shadows

Maxis roof recolors and replacements -- Recolors and replacements for the Maxis roofs compatible with Niol's mod.

MogHughson at MTS

Dress Me Correctly -- Sims will dress for work, school, or bed after their showers.

Dress toddlers correctly too! -- Toddlers get their jammies or normal clothes on after getting cleaned up.

Fixed Rat Race Magazine -- FT broke it; MogHughson fixed it!

Pets and Children Share Bed -- Ok, it's just cute!  But you gotta have cuteness...

Apartment Lot Incoming Calls -- Fixes error from incoming calls to apartments.

Si'Down with Your Drink -- What it says.

One-Tile Job Notice Board and Two-Tile Job Notice Board -- Lets your Sims get a job in any career.

The Thirstiest Bath Mats -- No more puddles to mop  up!

Maxis bathmats made thirsty -- Replacements for the Maxis bathmat and kitchen rug.

Worf_84 at MTS

Close Bird Cage When Done -- Recommended by BoilingOil, this hack makes the Sim close the cage door after playing with the parrot.

Cyjon at Cyjon's Sims 2 Mods 'n' Stuff

Practice Perform Changes -- Recommended by BoilingOil, it complements his Music & Dance fixes.

Better Roach Stomp -- Stomping really kills the buggers!

Relationship Decay Fix -- Fixes Maxis bug calculating relationship decay for members of large families.

BoilingOil at Leefish.nl

Squinge/Chaavik at InSim

Casual Dress For Work -- Sends Sims to work in their Casual clothes.

Pregnant Sims Wear Any Outfit -- Pregnant Sims wear their normal clothes.  Make sure they have something with a pregnant morph to wear before knocking them up!

Tunaisafish at MTS

Attraction Traits Fix (V1.06) -- Repairs the most obviously borked parts of the Maxis attraction system.

SmartDoor v0.108 --  BoilingOil recommends this over the SimLogical doors!  Doors can be used to keep customers and/or employees out of the household portion of a home business as well as the obvious uses.

Simsfreq at Simbology

Co-Sleeper -- Allows babies and toddlers to sleep with their parents.

plasticbox at MTS

More sensible lights for Maxis lamps – Base Game

More sensible lights for Maxis lamps – Pets/OfB/Seasons

Door/light fixes  -- Doors will let in appropriate amounts of light.

dizzy at MTS

NPCs Wear Casual Outfits -- for people who can't get NPC Replacer to work.

MsBarrows at TSR

Nursery Fixes -- Fixes UVMap error on Maxis crib and the changing table uses the crib recolors.

Value Counter Fix  -- Fixes UVMap error on corner counters.

Formula Fridges -- Countertop fridge for formula only.

Free Time Nursery - Bedding Match Set -- Freetime cribs and changing table use base game crib bedding.

Free Range Cereal Bowl -- Rechannels the toddlers' urge to eat dogfood!

Essential Utilities

No votes yet

Various utilities for modifying and repairing The Sims 2.

Quaxi

SimPE -- the ultimate Sims 2 tool

Theo

Plugins for SimPE -- Bin hair, scan for orphan meshes, copy or replace a Sim's appearance, change a Sim's clothes, or safely delete a Sim.

Theo at More Awesome Than You

Wardrobe Cleaner -- removes all outfits from the household wardrobe.

CatOfEvilGenius at ModTheSims

Quick Easy Hair Binner -- stand alone hair binning utility

Zirconia Wolf's tutorial

Maxis

Homecrafter -- make your own walls and floors

JFade @ DJS Sims

Wardrobe Wrangler -- multi-purpose utility -- change shoe sounds, age ranges, clothing catagories, and more!

Compressorizer -- reduces the size of your custom content files.  Especially nice for skintones!

Wall-Terrain-Floor Editor -- tidies up files created by Homecrafter.

Collection Creator -- Group your favorite sets together for easy location in your bulging Downloads folder.

SimWardrobe

HCDU -- Hack Conflict Detection Utility -- finds potentially incompatible hacks in your Downloads folder.

NPC Replacer -- Allows you to choose different clothing for the NPCs.

Sims 2 Catagorizer -- Allows  you to change the catagory for custom content objects.

Delphy at ModTheSims

Clean Installer version 1.6.16.0 -- see Mootilda's section below

Delphy's Download Organizer

Multi-Sims2Pack Installer

Mootilda at ModTheSims

Clean Installer version 1.6.16 -- Mootilda has taken over maintenance

Hood Checker -- tidies up several known bad things in your hood

Lot Compressor -- reduces the size of packaged lots

Lot Adjuster -- expand or reduce a lot.  Even helps make rowhouses!

Grid Adjuster -- modifies the height of the terrain

ConvertiWall -- changes all walls to another type

Hood Replacer -- replaces the neighborhood terrain

UVMapper -- allows you to render the UV Map to help retexture clothing and objects

SimPose2 -- pose Sims and objects outside the game for screenshots

Fixed Maxis Objects

Your rating: None Average: 10 (1 vote)

Maxis simply didn't plan ahead when making some of their objects, so other artists made better versions!

Category Object Creator Description
Stairs Holy Smoke modular stairs Numenor Recolorable
  Wooden modular stairs Numenor Recolorable
  Wrought Iron modular stairs Numenor Recolorable
Rugs Maxis bathmats made thirsty MogHughson Kitchen and bath mats really soak up puddles
Lights More sensible lights for Maxis lamps – Base Game plasticbox at MTS  
  More sensible lights for Maxis lamps – Pets/OfB/Seasons plasticbox at MTS
Doors Door/light fixes plasticbox at MTS Doors will let in appropriate amounts of light.

Hair Binning -- The Definitive Tutorial

Your rating: None Average: 10 (5 votes)

Many custom hair styles appear in the Custom hair color bin.  You may think the creator placed colors in one bin that would be better in another.  How do you fix this:  Learn to bin!  It's easy!  I won't say it's fun; it's tedious and nit-picky and no other tutorial tells you all the steps I had to work out for myself.

Note: Comments particular to my setup or the style I'm binning as I write this tutorial are in italics.

A definition: A context menu is the menu that pops up when you right click on certain things, such as hypertext links or some controls in dialogs.

Why do you want to do this?

There are two parts to binning...

1) Make the hair show up under its correct color. The Sim in the picture has brown hair from PeggySims2, which I binned a while ago. As you can see, binned hair retains its "custom" icon.

This process allows the children of a Sim with custom hair to inherit the color and a randomly selected style instead of being the child version of the parent's hair. The best way to illustrate is via the in-game CAS.

Give two Sims non-binned custom hair. Click the pacifier. Randomly generate children. The boys will have the child version of dad's hair. The girls will have the child version of mom's hair. Every time, exactly like the same sex parent.

Remember, the Storm sisters will pass on their cloud white hair to their daughters, but not their sons?

Now modify mom and dad to have custom hair that's already binned. Click the pacifier. The children will have hair color that's determined by Maxian genetics (black dominant over brown dominant over blond dominant over red) and a randomly determined style which may include binned custom styles in that color.

The Sim in the screenshot would have genetically "brown" hair. Her children would have genetically "brown" hair, not genetically "that-style-brown" hair.

In addition, the game adds binned hair to its list of "choices" available to it when creating a randomly generated Sim. This includes townies, downtownies, dormies, adopted toddlers/kids, etc.

My newly minted teen in my almost newly minted 'hood went to a community lot because he'd spun up the 3 "personal electronics wants" that most kids get when they have their teen birthday. The game helpfully generated a couple new teens for him to meet, and one of them had the same binned custom hair as his mom! :rofl: Ms. Custom Hair didn't hit it off too well with the playable teen; he's going steady with a girl named Betty with the Maxis wavy hair. I kind of wish he'd picked the girl with custom hair... I wanted red haired grand children!

You also don't get recessives in the kids if you've got 2 parents with hair from the custom bin. The kids end up homozygous with the same sex parent's hair. I love recessives! I wish the game created Sims had them.

I even create 2 temporary Sims in CAS, have them produce an offspring, and delete the temporaries, just so my CAS Sims will have a little surprise for the next generation.

2) Set the "family." If I were to click the Black or Blond button, the Sim would retain the style, but change to the black or blond version of the hair style.

Even hair which will remain in the Custom bin should be "binned" to set the family!

Points of interest: If you start SimPE first, BodyShop will run fine if you don't have any files open in the main SimPE window or in the color binning tool. SimPE will not run correctly if you try to run it with BodyShop already running. However, don't try saving any files from SimPE while BodyShop is running!

 

Set Up:

1) Download the latest versions of SimPE and Theo's hair binning plugin.

2) Install both using the instructions provided on those sites.

3) Create a text file on your desktop.

a) Right click the desktop.

b) Choose New, then Text File.

c) Give it a meaningful name, like "Custom Hair GUIDs.txt"

Personally, I use a CSV file, since it can be loaded into a spreadsheet or database, and I've got an "Edit" menu item set up to open them in WordPad, but it's up to you.

d) Open the file with WordPad or NotePad.

4) Download and install some custom hair, if you don't have any. You should keep the zip file as a backup if possible, or quickly zip the files for one hair style (without BodyShop running) together, just incase something goes wonky.

Being somewhat obsessive compulsive, I actually have mine installed in folders by creator/site and style. See screenshot below.

5) Have a piece of paper and writing implement handy. You can use WordPad if you'd like, but when I say "write it down," I mean "write it down." You will forget details and drive yourself nuts if you don't. I'm having great difficulty typing in this jacket with the extra long sleeves, so save yourself the experience and write it down.

Configuring the Color Binning Tool:

1) Open SimPE.

2) Choose Color Binning Tool from the Tools menu.

Let it load! The Color Binning Tool opens in its own window, and it is not a modal dialog. This means you can use the SimPE window to do other things while the Color Binning Tool is open. If you "lose track" of the window, just click on its button in the Windows Task Bar.

3) Choose Options... from the Package menu in the Tool window.

4) Click the Output tab.

5) This is the set of options I like best.

a) "Rename Files" adds the bin name to the file name. I don't like this because I tend to download duplicates. Retaining the original file name helps me know when I've got a duplicate.

b) "Make Backup" is not compatible with "Rename Files" turned off. Theo knows about it. He's not going to fix it, other than to disable this check box when "Rename" is unchecked.

c) "Remove Unchecked Recolors" is turned on to help reduce the size of my binned files.

d) "Make Single Package" is also turned off because of the duplicate download thing.

e) "Compress Textures" is turned off because I've heard that sometimes it's flaky.

6) Click OK.

7) Close the Color Binning Tool window if desired.

8) Close SimPE if desired.

For each style:

1) Open up the folder where the hair is installed. Right click in an empty area and choose View from the context menu, then Detail. This lets you see the whole file name. You may need to drag the end of the "Name" bar to the right.

This particular creator decided to number her hair colors instead of naming them. ARGH! But we can work around this.

2) With your paper and writing implement, write down a list of the numbers in the filenames of the recolors, or the color names if your creator was nice.

3) Choose one recolor and double click it to open SimPE (or drag it to the upper left window in an open SimPE window). Leave the folder window open.

I just happened to choose #10.

4) In the left hand column, click "Texture Image." You'll have 1 to 6 items in the right hand column.

5) Click on each item in the right hand column to get an idea of what's in there.

6) If your creator numbered the recolors or you disagree with the creator's designation, write down the main color (black/brown/blond/red) next to the number for the file. You may want some hair, such as pink or blue, to remain in the custom bin. Write that down too.

7) Whether the recolors are named or numbered, write down a note if the file includes a gray recolor that you like. Also write down a note if you think the toddler or child recolor looks like a standard Maxis hair. You'll quickly learn to recognize the styles that your favorite creators use as "placeholder" hairs for their child and toddler recolors.

My file has blond hair and a gray recolor, and nothing I recognize as a placeholder child or toddler hair

8) Go back to the Explorer window and drag the next file to the upper left window and drop it.

9) Repeat steps 4) to 8) for each file.

I found that my other files did not have a real gray recolor, so it's very important that I know which file or files have the gray recolor in them.

10) Choose File, then Close, or the close icon on the SimPE tool bar to close the last file, but leave SimPE running.

You now have a list of file colors or numbers followed by the color that you think it is and notes about gray, toddler, and child recolors.

My list looks like this:
1 blond
2 brown
3 brown
4 brown
5 brown
6 blond
7 blond
8 custom
9 black
10 blond/gray

You may notice that there's no red on my list. That's because #8, which the creator meant to be red, is sort of a pinky/purply/magenta color, not a real red. I prefer those stay in the custom bin. Someday, I'll make a real red for the styles that don't have one. My files also seem to include custom meshes for the child and toddler versions, so I'll want to keep the child and toddler recolors in all my files.

Choose one hair from each color group. If only one recolor has a gray recolor, make sure you include that one.

My choices are black 9, brown 2, blond 10 (because it has the gray recolor), red none, gray none (because the gray is in the blond file), and custom 8.

11) Optional Steps

a) If you have no gray, you can easily fix it with BodyShop. Simply create a recolor of the hair (probably using a pale blond as a base) using BodyShop, desaturate the elder hair, and import it back into BodyShop. Quit back out of Body Shop, name the file something clever like "Elder Hair Only for <style>" and drag the file from SavedSims into your open folder window. The unmodified non-elder hair in that file doesn't matter, since the binning tool will drop it later.

b) You may also make your own red while doing a). Simply colorize the child, teen and adult hairs to the red you desire and name the file appropriately.

c) Recolors which will remain custom and use the adult color as the elder color can also be fixed up with SimPE if you wish (export the real gray from the appropriate hair file as png, import into the custom recolor) or fixed with BodyShop as above. You'll want to disable or delete the original custom recolor if you run it through BodyShop.

d) Custom white/gray hair for all ages that you want to keep in the custom bin and use as the gray hair for all elders with that style is also a special case. You'll probably want to treat it as in a), but simply export and import the files without modification. Again, give it a clever name like "Elder Hair Only for <style>" and drag it into your open folder window.

You may leave SimPE running while using BodyShop. See Points of Interest at the top.

12) Go back to the SimPE window. Choose Color Binning Tool from the Tools menu.

Let it load! The Color Binning Tool opens in its own window, and it is not a modal dialog. This means you can use the SimPE window to do other things while the Color Binning Tool is open. I don't recommend doing anything other than looking at files with the Tool open, however. If you "lose track" of the window, just click on its button in the Windows Task Bar.

Take this opportunity to get comfortable. Get a drink, go potty, wiggle around in your chair. You're gonna be here a while, especially the first time you do this. You need to do steps 13 through 20 in one fell swoop. Don't say I didn't warn you!

13) Binning the black recolor:

a) The Black tab will be automatically selected when the tool window opens. If you are doing several styles in batch mode or your style includes several browns or blonds, you may have to click the Black tab.

b) Choose Open from the Package Menu, and select the appropriate file. Check off the file on your list.

c) Click the Materials tab in the lower part of the window if not already selected. Verify that the hair is indeed Black. This is a sanity check.

d) By default, the Elder hair will not be checked. If and only if the Black recolor has the gray you like, check the check box next to the Elder skin.

e) You may also uncheck child and toddler hair if they are standard Maxis styles and the recolor doesn't vary too much from the Maxis basic colors.

This hair style did include custom meshes for those ages, so I am leaving them in.

f) You should also click the Properties tab in the lower part of the window to verify that the hair will be available with all clothing styles and while pregnant.

Note: Make sure the Pregnant checkbox is checked! Otherwise, your Sim will change to a random hairstyle when she gets pregnant!

Remember the Storm sisters, whose custom hair may turn black during pregnancy?

 

14) Binning the brown recolor:

a) Click the Brown tab.

b) Choose Open from the Package Menu and select the appropriate file. Check off the file on your list.

c) Click the Materials tab in the lower part of the window if not already selected. Verify that the hair is indeed Brown. This is a sanity check.

d) By default, the Elder hair will not be checked. If and only if the Brown recolor has the gray you like, check the check box next to the Elder skin.

e) You may also uncheck child and toddler hair if they are standard Maxis styles and the recolor doesn't vary too much from the Maxis basic colors.

f) You should also click the Properties tab in the lower part of the window to verify that the hair will be available with all clothing styles and while pregnant.

15) Binning the blond recolor:

a) Click the Blond tab.

b) Choose Open from the Package Menu and select the appropriate file. Check off the file on your list.

c) Click the Materials tab in the lower part of the window if not already selected. Verify that the hair is indeed Blond. This is a sanity check.

d) By default, the Elder hair will not be checked. If and only if the Blond recolor has the gray you like, check the check box next to the Elder skin.

For my particular hair, that's the gray I want all the colors to use, so I checked it.

e) You may also uncheck child and toddler hair if they are standard Maxis styles and the recolor doesn't vary too much from the Maxis basic colors.

Again, this hair style does include custom meshes for those ages, so I am leaving them in.

f) You should also click the Properties tab in the lower part of the window to verify that the hair will be available with all clothing styles and while pregnant.

16) Binning the red recolor:

I skipped this step, since there wasn't a red recolor I liked.

a) Click the Red tab.

b) Choose Open from the Package Menu and select the appropriate file. Check off the file on your list.

c) Click the Materials tab in the lower part of the window if not already selected. Verify that the hair is indeed Red. This is a sanity check.

d) By default, the Elder hair will not be checked. If and only if the Red recolor has the gray you like, check the check box next to the Elder skin.

e) You may also uncheck child and toddler hair if they are standard Maxis styles and the recolor doesn't vary too much from the Maxis basic colors.

f) You should also click the Properties tab in the lower part of the window to verify that the hair will be available with all clothing styles and while pregnant.

17) Binning the gray recolor, if the gray hair is in a separate file, not included in one of the four basic colors:

I skipped this step, since the gray is in the Blond file.

Whatever you do, do not reopen a file under this tab if you've already chosen that file for one of the basic colors.

a) Click the Gray tab.

b) Choose Open from the Package Menu and select the appropriate file. Check off the file on your list.

c) Click the line for Elder in the upper area, then the Materials tab in the lower part of the window if not already selected. Verify that the hair is indeed Gray. This is a sanity check.

d) By default, only Elder hair will be checked. It's actually pointless to check the other ages, since they'll never show in the game.

e) You should also click the Properties tab in the lower part of the window to verify that the hair will be available with all clothing styles and while pregnant.

18) Binning a custom color:

Although this sounds pointless, it actually does have a purpose. In the next step, we will set the "family" based on the GUID from the Black file. This allows the hair style to remain the same as you switch from color to color in BodyShop, in-game CAS, or the Change Appearance screen from the mirror.

a) Click the Custom tab.

b) Choose Open from the Package Menu and select the appropriate file. Check off the file on your list.

c) Click the Materials tab in the lower part of the window if not already selected. Verify that the hair is the color you think it is. This is a sanity check.

d) By default, all ages will be checked. You want all the ages included, even if they are just recolors of the Maxis hair for the children and toddlers. This allows the custom hair to be passed to the Sim's same sex children.

e) You should also click the Properties tab in the lower part of the window to verify that the hair will be available with all clothing styles and while pregnant.

If you should make a mistake opening a file, you can fix it! Just right click on the upper part of the window to see this context menu.

a) Open will do the same thing as Open from the Package menu.

b) Move will send the file to a different color bin.

c) Clear will empty the current bin.

d) I believe that Load Mesh is used to help insert recolors of Maxis meshes for missing child and toddler hair in the Custom bin. I will update this when I learn more.

19) Setting the family and tool tip text.

a) Click on the Black tab. Probably not necessary, but I'm a little paranoid.

b) Choose Options from the Package menu. Be very careful not to select "Save As..." yet, although I'm sure you're impatient to be done with this! Click the Package tab if necessary.

c) Modify the text in the box to suit your needs. I like to add the style name or number to whatever text the creator put in there. This is the tool tip text that you see in Body Shop or CAS, so make it meaningful!

d) Drag across the long hexadecimal number in the GUID box. Copy this number to your clipboard with Ctrl-C, Ctrl-Insert, or right click and choose Copy from the context menu.

e) Click Ok.

f) Open up that text file you made so many steps ago if it's not still open.

g) Add a line to the text file that identifies this hair style and paste in the GUID.

Mine looks like this:

peggy,0001,c231a1bf-4a42-f9c7-7b74-6c8b473a7f57

peggy,0002,a0f9e911-47c2-7d0f-9eb2-a6972e1e9502

peggy,0003,163bfbd7-4a10-b28c-c53f-f49d5d325a84

peggy,0004,52bb6667-4e4a-f38d-b5aa-33b0f0999d77

peggy,0005,cc909da8-4a14-a9c3-d378-6eabe4bf9e35

peggy,0006,48c5cfb7-42e7-7db1-5fbf-44880725dddd

peggy,0007,c5a8cb36-4959-3b97-6899-0db5ff4e0448

peggy,0008,d6c31cac-46a6-50a5-b706-2488548c06f1

peggy,0009,fb72a763-4b4e-bc76-3f74-4cacadd09b7e

peggy,0010,b0d62002-4011-2df8-f56f-0d8a801c66f5

peggy,0011,25fe5359-46ba-9a76-759a-f19ba9979d6a

peggy,0012,0c9fddcd-481f-ce05-ad31-bba33ca9bee1

peggy,0013,9f09a2be-4360-c0e0-43e3-96a3d105333e

Exactly what you put on each line is up to you, but you want to be able to identify the style later on. I use the creator or site and the "style number" or name. You might want to include a note like "no red" if a family is missing a color.

h) Save the text file and switch back to SimPE.

20) Save the files! Choose Save As from the Package menu.

If your options are set the same as mine, your existing files will be renamed with the .bak suffix and new package files will be created. They should be slightly smaller than the originals, especially if you removed toddler, child or elder recolors.

21) Go get a drink, walk around, go potty... you deserve a break! If you only have the 4 basic colors plus optional gray plus one optional custom, you're done binning and can skip to step 24.

22) Next batch!

a) Repeat steps 13 to 19c for the next batch of recolors, skipping the steps for the colors you don't need. Don't rebin the hair you've already done and checked off!

I will only have brown and blond colors in my remaining batches, since the one black and the one custom recolor were dealt with in the first batch.

b) In step 19d, you'll paste the GUID from the previous batch into the GUID field. If you've somehow lost it from your clipboard, you can simply copy it from the text file. Yep, that whole file is mostly just a sanity check. I spent too much time reopening files with SimPE to get that GUID for the next batch! There's another use for it, which we'll talk about later.

c) Click Ok (step 19e), then skip steps 19f through h.

d) Perform step 20.

23) Repeat step 22 until all recolors for that style have been binned.

24) Sanity check: Run BodyShop to test your binning. You may leave SimPE running if you like. You should see the style in the correct color bin. Select the style and change to another color, and your Sim should keep the same style, just switched to the new color. Also check the age transitions to make sure the child and toddler versions really are new meshes, not just Maxis recolors stuffed into the package for completeness sake. Also verify that the elder hair is what you expect.

I still have to track down and repair a peggy 0008 blond file that I mistakenly binned as brown.

Now for the other use of that text file with the GUIDs. Say you download another artist's recolor of a mesh you've already binned. You can use the GUID from the text file when you bin those recolors (see step 22b), and the recolors will behave just like they were created by the original artist (except the tooltip text will have the recoloring artist's information). If you don't like that behavior, you can use whatever GUID was in the new artist's Black recolor as in the original step 19d or generate a new one by clicking on the word "GUID" in the Options dialog.

Hair Texture Resources

No votes yet

The first time I tried to retexture a hair mesh was the last, because I couldn't find good starting textures.  I'm accumulating resources here to attempt to inspire myself and assist other retexture efforts.

Nymphy's curly textures

Homecrafter Making Tips and Tricks

No votes yet

Information I collected here so I don't have to go digging through ancient fora!

Walls that don't look stretched:

  1. Create your art at 256 wide (or a multiple and slice it vertically), 768 high
  2. Scale it to 256x512 so it looks kind of squashed

When you run it through HomeCrafter and put it in the game, it will look like it did before it was squashed.

Floors and terrains are 256 x 256 or the same multiple in both directions.

Lot Building Resources

Your rating: None Average: 2 (1 vote)

There are a million building tutorials; these are ones I think were helpful or that I want to try out.

Swimmable lakes

Make Your Own Default Townies, Downtownies, Dormies, and Adoptable Pets!

Your rating: None Average: 9 (9 votes)

After tidying your game so you don't get the ugly Maxis Townies anymore, wouldn't it be nice to have a pool of attractive premade Townies and Dormies which automatically appears in each new hood?  Wouldn't you like a puppy or kitten for each Sim that really wants one?  Yes, you can have this!

I used to nuke my new hoods with deleteallcharacters. However, I started a new 'hood for experiments in growing up Dormies, and discovered it is actually kind of nice to have a good supply of preexisting Townies and Dormies to interact with, instead of waiting for them to slowly generate (reference Greg's Legacy hood where the poor guy almost died of aspiration failure before anything female showed up). I also found out the neutron bomb tends to leave crap behind which causes problems down the line, especially if you reset the "first Sim" index to 1...

Needed resources:

Recommended Resources:

Definitions: "Drag" means place the mouse cursor over an icon, hold down the left mouse button, move the mouse to the new location of the file, such as a different folder window, and release the mouse button.  Personally, I prefer to "right drag" using the right mouse button, so I can choose "Move" or "Copy" from the context menu, but that's my preference.  A "context menu" is the menu that appears when you right click on icons or links.

Instructions:

  1. Open up My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods and drag your N001 folder to a safe place, like your Desktop or the top of your My Documents folder. Leave the Neighborhoods folder open.
  2. Start the game and create a new neighborhood.
  3. Alt-Tab to the Neighborhoods folder to make sure the new 'hood is N001. Leave the Neighborhoods folder open and switch back to the game.
  4. Make at least one Sim and move them onto a lot which contains the Teleporter and the Baby Pet Creator.   You can also spawn random Sims this way:
    1. Use boolprop testingcheatsenabled true.
    2. Shift-click the mailbox to mass produce random Sims. 
    3. Save after each good batch; leave the lot without saving to discard the ugly ones.
  5. Make some adoptable pets: (with help from Zirconia Wolf)
    1. If necessary, make a couple adult dogs and cats in CAS or shift-click the mailbox to make your first batch of puppies or kittens. 
    2. Use the Baby Pet Creator to make some  puppies and kittens.  I prefer the the Baby Pet Creator, because it lets you choose "parents" for your new adoptables.  Personally, I like recessives and family ties.
    3. Use the teleporter to put them all in the adoption pool or give the Sim a phone or cell phone to call the Pet Adoption Service.  If you use the Pet Adoption Service, that exact animal control officer will appear in all your 'hoods. 
  6. Use the teleporter to make the Sims either Townies or Downtownies.
  7. Add a campus. Make some YA Sims and move them onto a rental lot containing a teleporter. Use the teleporter to make them Townies.  Remember, a Dormie is a YA Townie. 
  8. You may repeat steps 4 through 7, but be sure there are no Sims living on the lots when you are finished.
  9. Quit the game.
  10. Open up Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods.  Yes, that's Program Files, not My Documents.  If you have not yet zipped up the N001 folder, do it now. You should also have the Neighborhoods folder from step 1 still open.
  11. Delete the Storytelling and Thumbnails folders from the new N001 folder.
  12. Drag the new N001 folder from My Documents/.../Neighborhoods to Program Files/.../Neighborhoods.
  13. Drag your original N001 folder back to My Documents/.../Neighborhoods.
  14. If you preserved the puppy and kitten portion of the Maxis adoption pool, you probably want to delete them from the Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Pets/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/P001/Characters folder to prevent duplicates in future neighborhoods.  I assume they're already zipped up against future needs.

This will not affect your current neighborhoods, as long as steps 1 and 13 are performed.

Note: You may use steps 4 through 7 individually to add Townies, Downtownies, Dormies, or Adoptable Pets to an existing neighborhood.

Note: You may also use SimSurgery to copy some of your favorite Sims onto the randomly generated Sims.

Note: Since I've adopted Cyjon's Townie Apartment Residents hack, I won't be exploring hand creation of Social Group members.

Note: If you'd like some of your Townies to be related to some of your Dormies, create the family including the prospective Dormies as teens in the main neighborhood.  Move them onto the lot, send the teens to college using the phone or the button on the Neighborhood screen, then make the rest of the family into Townies.  Dont forget to make the YAs created this way into Dormies in step 7!

Making Face Templates

No votes yet

Links to tutorials and resources for making your own facial templates.

AllenABQ's extracted templates,  which will save you a step.

Motoki's tutorial: Replacing the default Maxis facial templates

Argon's tutorial: Creating non-replacement archetypes

Dominiquex's expansion of Argon's tutorial: Face Template Greediness - Creating Additional (Non-Default, >27) Face Templates

Katu's tutorial: How To Make Your Own Default Face Templates!

Marry the Cow? Why?

Your rating: None Average: 10 (2 votes)

Because she's cute without her cow head on!  Seriously, one of my Sims married the cow mascot.  She insisted on wearing her cow costume to visit the neighbors....

 

A friend of mine had one of his Sims marry the carpool driver.  Although autonomous interactions worked fine, he was not able to direct his CAS Sim to interact with his wife except for a very limited menu....

There have been reports of various other mischief performed by ex-NPCs.  This is a quick and dirty explanation of how to fix them:

  1. BACKUP the entire neighborhood folder.
  2. Open the neighborhood browser to find out what User_xxx.package file the Sim is in. Write this down, especially if working on multiple Sims. Also write down the filename of a playable Sim.
  3. Close the hood, although you can open the Sim from the neighborhood screen. We're doing this S/W-Engineer-way.
  4. BACKUP the Sim's file (User_xxx.package).
  5. Open the playable's file with SimPE.
  6. Extract the 3 BHAVs, Main, Init, and Load.
  7. Close the file.
  8. Open the NPC's file.
  9. Delete all BHAVs.
  10. Import the BHAVs from #6.
  11. You backed up, didn't you? If not, this is your last chance.
  12. If the Sim has not been moved in, change Sim Description > Other > NPC Type to 0x0000.
  13. Click Commit if necessary, then Save.
  14. Repeat steps 8 to 13 for any other NPC Sims you have moved in or wish to move in.

Moving Day -- Moving Houses from 'Hood to 'Hood

Your rating: None Average: 10 (2 votes)

One of the posters at Simbology is in the process of cloning her Sims and moving them and their houses to another neighborhood.  In the process of helping her, we've come up with some techniques.  This tutorial helps you safely move houses from neighborhood to neighborhood.

If you want to keep their furniture, try this instead of putting the houses in the bin:

  1. Click the house still in the old neighborhood (still inhabited is ok)
  2. Package the lot from the Neighborhood Screen. Warning: Do not move to the Lot Bin!
  3. Repeat 1 and 2 for all houses
  4. Close the game
  5. Load a packaged house into Clean Installer
  6. Uncheck everything but lotsegmentforupload, especially anything that looks like any part of the Sim family or their friends and all custom content to prevent duplication
  7. Install to Teleports folder
  8. Repeat 5-7 for all packaged houses
  9. Start the game and move the houses from the Unoccupied Houses bin to the new 'hood

Warning: If you've already moved unoccupied houses to the bin, put them back in the original neighborhood first.  If you've moved occupied houses to the bin, put them into an empty "work" neighborhood first.

No More Opening Movie

No votes yet

Thanks to astopor at Back Alley Sims for this info:

Open C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Movies and look for a file called intro_eng_audio.movie. Rename this file to some thing else (I've renamed mine to intro_eng_audio.movie.old so I can still see the original name on it but anything else will do) and that should stop it from showing

or just delete intro_eng_audio.movie!

No More Ugly Maxis Created NPCs

Your rating: None Average: 9.2 (6 votes)

Do you think Maxis made butt-ugly Townies on purpose? Or are there just too many for your taste? This is your fix!

I used to nuke my new hoods with deleteallcharacters. However, I found out the neutron bomb tends to leave crap behind which causes problems down the line, especially if you reset the "first Sim" index to 1... I found that it's much nicer to hotwire your game to simply not create those Sims.

Note: The sections marked "scorched earth approach" will remove (at least temporarily) all Maxis created neighborhoods, lots, and Sims. Examples:

  1. If you should delete your entire My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2 folder, the base 3 neighborhoods and Riverblossom Hills will not regenerate.
  2. Downtown, Bluewater Village, and the 3 college campuses will not be available when adding subhoods.

You might want to package all the lots from all neighborhoods and subhoods before performing the "scorched earth" steps. Do use CleanInstaller to remove the original inhabitants from populated lots and save them with new names, like "Tinker house - unpopulated." You shouldn't need anything except "lotsegmentforupload" or the file named with the "name" of the lot.

Recommended downloads:

If you have Apartment Life and want your Townies to live in your extra apartments instead of Social Group members, you need Cyjon's Townie Apartment Residents hack.

Instructions:

  1. No Ugly Townies:
    • Just prevent the Townies: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods/N001. Zip up the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders (just in case you ever need them), then delete them.
    • Scorched earth approach: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods. Zip and delete the N001, N002, and N003 folders.
  2. No Moronic Dormies:
    • Just prevent the stupid college students: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 University/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/U001. Zip up the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders, then delete them. Repeat for U002 and U003.
    • Scorched earth approach: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 University/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate. Zip and delete the U001, U002, and U003 folders.
    • Note: Secret Society members are either drafted from available Dormies or created as new Dormies who are immediately flagged as Secret Society members.
  3. No Annoying Downtownies:
    • Warning! Sleepycat sez that the Downtownies are generated from hard coded templates cleverly hidden in some inaccessible place in the game. You might want to keep the Downtownies, who are not nearly as ugly as most Maxis Sims, since you will probably get duplicates when new Downtownies are generated from these templates. However, you can get rid of the service NPCs without ill effects.
    • Prevent all the Downtownies: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Nightlife/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/D001. Zip up the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders, then delete them.
    • Just skip the Downtown NPCs: Do not delete Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Nightlife/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/D001/Characters. Instead, you will keep the following files: (TBD)
    • Scorched earth approach: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Nightlife/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate. Zip and delete the D001 folder.
  4. No Weird Bluewater Village Inhabitants:
    • Just prevent the inhabitants: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Open for Business/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/B001. Zip up the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders, then delete them.
    • Scorched earth approach: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Open for Business/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/. Zip up the B001 folder, then delete it.
  5. No Stupid Pets Families and Strays:
    • Just prevent the families and strays: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Pets/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/P001. Zip up the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders, then delete them. Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Pets/TSData/Res/UserData/LotCatalog. Zip together all files starting with cx_Character_, then delete them.
    • Prevent the families and strays, but leave the pet adoption pool: Perform the steps above, except for deleting the Characters folder. Open the Characters folder, and delete everything except P001_User00069.package, P001_User00070.package, P001_User00072.package, P001_User00073.package, P001_User00074.package, and P001_User00075.package.
    • Scorched earth approach: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Pets/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate. Zip and delete the P001 folder. Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Pets/TSData/Res/UserData. Zip the LotCatalog folder, open it, and delete the contents.
    • Scorched earth, retaining pet adoption pool: Perform steps above, except for deleting the P001 folder. Open the P001 folder, and delete everything except P001_Neighborhood.png, P001_Neighborhood.package, and the Characters folder. Open the Characters folder, and delete everything except P001_User00069.package, P001_User00070.package, P001_User00072.package, P001_User00073.package, P001_User00074.package, and P001_User00075.package.
    • Note: Even if you prevent the poorly trained Maxis animals, by default, your game will create 15 strays in your new hoods. There are hacks to prevent this, such as "nostrayregen."
  6. Prevent the Plant people families:
    • Just prevent the Seasons families: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Seasons/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods/G001. Zip up the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders, then delete them. Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Seasons/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/G002. Zip up the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders, then delete them.
    • Scorched earth approach: Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Seasons/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods. Zip and delete the G001 folder. Open up Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Seasons/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate. Zip and delete the G002 folder.
  7. No Annoying Tourists:
    • Just prevent the tourists: Open up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Bon Voyage/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/. Zip up the V001 folder, then delete it. Zip up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Bon Voyage/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/A001, then delete the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders. Zip up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Bon Voyage/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/M001, then delete the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders. Zip up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Bon Voyage/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/T001, then delete the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders.
    • Scorched earth approach: Open up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Bon Voyage/TSData/Res. Zip and delete the NeighborhoodTemplate folder.
    • Note: Apparently, there is no way to add the special BV lot to a custom vacation 'hood, so you might not want to use the Scorched Earth approach with this EP.
    • Note: The game will spawn replacement families, so there will be a lot of lag the first time your Sim(s) go on vacation. 
  8. No Free Time residents:
    • Just prevent the new stupid ugly people: Open up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Free Time/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/F002. Zip up the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders, then delete them. Open up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 FreeTime/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods/F001. Zip up and delete the Characters, Storytelling and Thumbnails folders.
    • Scorched earth approach: Open up /Program Files/The Sims 2 Free Time/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate. Zip the F002 folder and delete it. Open up /Program Files/The Sims 2 Free Time/TSData/Res/User Data/Neighborhoods/. Zip and delete the F001 folder.
    • Note: One of the rewards for each hobby is a pass to use a secret lot to practice that hobby. Apparently, you need the lots in the F002 folder, so don't "scorch earth" on that folder.
  9. No Apartment Life Social Group Members:
    • Just prevent the new stupid ugly prospective tenants: Open up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Apartment Life/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods/E001 and zip up and delete the Thumbnails, Characters, and Storytelling folders. Open up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Apartment Life/TSData/Res/UserData/NeighborhoodTemplate/E002 and zip up the Characters folder.
    • Scorched earth approach: Open up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Apartment Life/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods and zip up and delete the E001 folder. Open up /Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Apartment Life/TSData/Res/UserData/NeighborhoodTemplate and zip up and delete the E002 folder.
    • Note: Apparently, witches go to a "secret lot" just for them, so you might not want to delete the E002 folder.
    • Note: Scuttlebutt says prospective tenants are generated from hidden templates in a manner similar to Downtownies. However, you can use Cyjon's Townie Apartment Residents hack to avoid the existence of social group members completely once you've done the zip-and-delete procedure.

Run the game and create a new neighborhood.

Without no-regen hacks, the game will create:

If you want more Sims at the beginning, especially Townies or Downtownies, refer to the creation portion of my Custom Default Sims tutorial.

Note: Vista users: Vista won't let you create the zip files inside Program Files. Just save the zip file to My Documents and drag the zip file back by hand.

Pink is for Girls, Blue is for Boys

Your rating: None Average: 10 (4 votes)

Chris Hatch kindly split infant clothing into Boys and Girls.  I guess if people say it can't be done enough, someone will eventually get around to doing it!

http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,110261.0.html

In addition, he's made skintones with separate textures for boy and girl children and toddlers:

http://www.backalleysims.com/adult_forums/showthread.php?t=1453

Warning:  Back Alley Sims is an adult site.

Check out my baby clothes!

Protecting Your Game From Itself

Your rating: None Average: 10 (3 votes)

Under certain circumstances, the game can clobber its own data files, for example killing or vampirizing Mrs. Crumplebottom. Certain modding tools can be misused to produce the same effect, such as modifying resources in situ rather than cloning them. Apparently, BodyShop itself can be used to delete the ugly Maxis clothes, destroying the data files containing them in the process.
To prevent this:

  1. Navigate to Program Files/EA Games/. That's Program Files, not My Documents.
  2. Start a Search based on this folder by any method you prefer. I like Ctrl-F.
  3. Click "All Files and Folders."
  4. Type *.package in the Filename box.
  5. Make sure that the box to include subfolders is checked (under Advanced Options).
  6. Click the "Search" button.
  7. Wait a while.
  8. When the search is done, select all the files in one big batch. I use Ctrl-A.
  9. Right click on one file and pick "Properties" from the context menu.
  10. In the Properties dialog, click the box next to "Read Only" until a check mark appears.
  11. Click "Ok."
  12. Wait a while.

Your files are now safe from the game, yourself, and BodyShop!
Zirconia Wolf also suggests doing this procedure on your Downloads folder. That's My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Downloads, not any other file or folder associated with the game, and definitely not the Neighborhoods folder, or your game won't be able to Save!
When to reverse this: Remember to unprotect the files before applying a Maxis patch or uninstalling the game.

Reinstall? Why? Rose/Miros's Thoughts on the Subject (and other Musings)

Your rating: None Average: 7 (6 votes)

IMHO, reinstalling is pointless! Yeah, it'll get your game running... then you'll put your backup back in... and the game won't work again, because the problem was in the My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/ folder. Or you've lost all your neighborhoods and downloads and get to start over, because you didn't make a backup. If we wanted a game that you have to start over, we'd play a First Person Shooter, not The Sims! 

Errors hardly ever affect the files in Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 (etc.), with very few preventable exceptions.  Follow my tutorial on preventing file corruption, and you should never need to reinstall again, since the game cannot corrupt its own files after this.

First diagnostic method: Go to My Documents/EA Games and rename your The Sims 2 folder to something obvious, like The Sims 2 Safe Place.  Reboot  your computer.  Run your game.  If the game runs, it's something in your neighborhoods or custom content; keep following this tutorial.  If the game crashes, you need to reinstall, but your 'hoods and custom content are mostly in a safe place.  Only your Scriptorum files need to be backed up.

Most likely really corrupt files: accessory.cache, groups.cache, and cigen.package Suggested fix: go to My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2 and rename groups.cache to groups.cache.bak, and similar file names. Run the game. You'll be surprised at the number of times this fixes your game! And you've got your old file on the odd chance that it was something else.

Next most likely corrupt file: NeighborhoodManager.package This file can be deleted without harming your game in any way. Apparently the game ignores it except to crash if it's corrupt.

Third most likely corrupt file(s): Thumbnails folder  If you delete or rename the whole folder, the game will copy the thumbnails from the game files, then add the thumbnails for your custom content.

Fourth most likely corrupt file: Exported Sims in SavedSims   Maxis premade Sims are notorious for this.  If BodyShop will still run (a sure sign that this is the problem), resave exported Sims and delete the original exports.  If BodyShop crashes or hangs as well, drag the exported Sims out of SavedSims and run the game or BodyShop again.

Fifth most likely corrupt file: Something in Downloads  This is a little tedious to track down, but here's a tutorial from the MTS Wiki for the 50-50 Method.

Beyond that, if your computer crashed during a save, it might manage to corrupt real files in My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2. You can simply rename that folder and let the game create a new one. You can even attempt to salvage your old 'hoods and Downloads if you like once you have a functional game again.

Miros' #1 Rule: Don't delete! Just drag custom content out of your game!
Reasons:
1) It's probably perfectly good, so why delete it?
2) You might not be able to get another copy of it, so it could be gone for good...

Now for my recommendations on what to do:

Do make backups.

Do write protect your files!

(Written so I don't need to keep retyping the darn thing every time someone says why do you tell people reinstalling is pointless?)

Sexyfeet and Your Sims!

Your rating: None Average: 6.9 (10 votes)

My Sims all seem to have sexyfeet with the following files installed. Except toddlers -- somehow I missed BlooM's sexyfeet for them!

Warlokk's XHi-Res meshes for adult females (bottoms and full body in default sizes): BlooM's sexyfeet for adult females: (I don't use these) BlooM's sexyfeet for everyone else: The files at the bottom are the fixes for the "tootsies sticking out of the painted on shoes" problem.

Skinners' Resources

No votes yet

Several handy resources for skinners.

Garment outlines:

Underwear Athleticwear

Definitions

Photoshop plugins for Texture Making

Lace edgings

Although the Dividers font is no longer available, many floral fonts work very well.  You can use multiple rows to make lace fabrics for robes, undies, stockings, etc.

Aquilegia's Linen Texture

Unisex Kids' Clothes

Your rating: None Average: 10 (1 vote)

Why have two copies of an outfit to fit toddler boys and girls or children?  Just open the file in SimPE and follow the steps!

Unisex

Change the number to 0x3 in the entry field to the right, click Commit, then click Save in the tool bar at the top.

Easy-peasy!

Bit Flag Summary

No votes yet

Chris Hatch kindly posted these bit flag lists, and I swiped them!  I'll be adding other lists as I find them, with attribution.

ALL of the following are in hexidecimal
The ages can be added so 48 = both adult and young adult
20= baby
1 = toddler
2 = child
4 = teen
40= young adult
8 = adult
10= elder

category, values can also be added to be available in more.
1 = Casual1
2 = Casual2
4 = Casual3
Note casual invariably adds all three to be 7
8 = Swim
10 = PJs
20 = Formal
40 = Undys
80 = Naked *(not normally used)
100 = Maternity
200 = Gym
400 = TryOn? *(not normally used)
800 = Overlay *(not normally used)
1000 = Outerwear

AlmightyHat figured out that the 0x04 allows an outfit to be worn while test fitting an accesory or hair style!

Winterizing Existing Lots

No votes yet

Does your favorite house have "Seasons" in the attic?  You can fix it!

  1. Remove all objects (doors, windows, wall lights, deco, etc.) from the gable ends.  You can either delete it or drag it to a lower floor for storage.
  2. Using the wall tool and control key, carefully delete only the wall sections that are taller than a normal wall section.  If the gable end is a full triangle, make sure you leave the smaller sections outside the room.  If you accidentally delete any, click the "Undo" button before continuing.
  3. Again, using the wall tool, replace the wall sections with normal wall sections.
  4. Make sure the room is completely enclosed by normal walls or greenhouse walls.
  5. Place floor tiles above the rooms in the "attic."  Make sure the rooms are completely covered.  Your building will suddenly have another level, but this area is probably too shallow to use, and probably suceptible to bad weather to boot! 
  6. Also place floor tiles  in any "under eave" areas to prevent snow from falling down to the next lower floor.
  7. Click the "display roof" icon.  Your house will probably have small triangular openings at the very peak of the gables.  Do not delete the old roof!
  8. Using the appropriate roof tool, drag a new peak for each section with this gap.
  9. Replace any objects removed in step 1.

Loosely based on CycloneSue's tutorial on gable windows at TSR.  Warnings are based on problems I had winterizing Craftsman's Pride.

Other Helpful Sims Tutorials!

Your rating: None Average: 10 (1 vote)

I'm posting some links to some helpful tutorials -- because I think I might need them later and be unable to find them in my humongous Bookmarks folder!

Installing Downloads

The Last Ever 'How Do I Install Downloads?' Tutorial by BeosBoxBoy. He says it all better than I ever could!

Running Sims 2 on a Widescreen Monitor

Increasing Resolution for Win 7 For Windowed Mode

Avoiding Hood Corruption

UV Map Tutorial

The version for Custom Meshes allows you to extract a mesh and view its UV Map.  The UV Map can then be used as a layer in a PhotoShop file to help skin or recolor a mesh.

Note: The newest version of UVMapper won't save the UV maps because they want people to buy their proggie. If you click on the UV map and press Ctrl-A to select the entire map, you can Copy it and paste it into your favorite paint proggie.

Gothplague's UV Map Tutorial

Skintones:

Zirconia Wolf's Tutorial to Make Skintones Use the Adult Mesh For Elders

Tired of droopy boobs and saddlebag thighs?  Upgrade your favorite skintones to use the adult meshes for elders!

A more general skintone/custom mesh linking tutorial

Theo's tutorial

Save file size by reusing the default skintones (or any custom skintone): thetigerking's Skinless Skins Project 2.0 and Chris Hatch's Skinset Templates

Pixel Perfect Skintones, another BeosBoxBoy tutorial, to maintain the image quality when importing textures.  Helps with blurred objects too!

Making Your Own Maxis Clothing Hiders/Unhiders/Recatagorizers

Zirconia Wolf's Version

Phaenoh's Version

Maxis BlockFoot meshes to fix your ruined outfits

Tutorial is on the last page, or you can use Gothplague's tutorial and these meshes.  Also helps fix bare-toed XHi-Res Warlokk meshes.

Fixing Blue Flashing Accessories

Inge's method for how to move the produce of puppy-kitten mills to other 'hoods which is also a sensible way to deal with the zillions of Maxis produced strays!

50-50 Method for Finding Bad Downloads

Although it sounds laborious and picky, once you do it,  you'll never be afraid again!

Using the PhotoShop DDS Plugin for better image quality

Categorizing and Townifying Your Clothes

Wall bump mapping -- yes, your walls can have real texture to them!

Zirconia Wolf's tutorial for Binning Hair with CatOfEvilGenius' Binning program.

Organizing your Lots Bin -- so easy, just renumber your files!

Final Still In Progress Fix -- when your Sims get stuck at their finals, zephyrzodiac (with help from Trif et al.) tells you how to fix them!

Custom Icons for Accessories

MilkShape:

Previewing object recolours using Milkshape 3D

Age converting clothing meshes -- Fixing the neck

Creating clutter from game meshes

Sim Modification (outside the Game):

Permanently Changing a Sim's Height

A tutorial on how to change an adult Sim's gender!
A combination of SimSurgery and BodyShop to tidy up the mismatched clothes and such...
Warning: Gay Sims Club 2 is for persons over 18 only.
Giving your in-game sims a permanent make-over by Wirelessguy
A similar tutorial on a non-adult site.

Object making:

Adding a subset to an object (and making it recolorable)

Making Wall Objects Shiftable

Fixing oversize clickable area

Object recoloring tutorials:

The tutorial I learned to recolor from, start to finish
One with more emphasis on manipulating the textures

Recoloring Seasons-Compatible Trees

Other Tutorials

Your rating: None Average: 10 (1 vote)

Animated Avatars

Use PSP Tubes in PhotoShop

Moving Your Documents Folder on Vista or Win7

Moving Your Documents Folder with Win XP (or earlier)