SIMply Schmoozin'

Aaron wrote:

A few hours later on the same lot and after the cat destroyed the snowman. A penguin came and talked to the remains of the snowman. I have seen them talk to a snowman before, But never a destroyed one.

Elle wrote:

@Aaron: I've never seen them talk to a destroyed one, either. I guess he empathized.

Oops! I am sorry I missed this, Aaron.  
I don't play with Seasons, so I haven't been able to observe much involving snow, snowmen or penguins.
Fun stuff!

I have a question about using added slots on furniture :) I like the Hansen bedroom set by Sim2Play and in my wanderings this morning I came across http://hafiseazale.livejournal.com/41268.html some repositoried items and recolors of it by Hafiseazale. In all of my years playing Sims2 I have never bothered with learning how to use them. I really want to install these new things but I need help Can anyone explain to me how you use them? Do you use move objects on, or just place the object in a space? Thanks for any help

Hi, Sandy!

If I am understanding what you are asking...

hafiseazale has added lots of slots to Sims2Play's sets.
If the slots have been added, my best guess is, you just place a decorative item on the object and it should rest on it.
NO OMSPs should be needed.
If the slots hadn't been added to the set and you wanted to place decor on the objects in question, you could use the moveObjects on/off, boolprop snapobjectstogrid true/false and OMSPs to place the items.
Is that what you're wanting to know?

And when a creator speaks of the "repository technique" that simply means that other items are slaved to a master object.
This is important for recolorists (like yours truly) to learn.
For example, if a creator says "everything is slaved to the sofa", we must recolor the sofa (which is the master mesh).
All of the objects in the set that are slaved to the sofa, will automatically be recolored, too.
Does this make sense? It saves recolorists a lot of trouble and work, actually, and works out nicely.

Let me know if I've covered your query, Sandy. If not, please let me know!

Sugah wrote:

hafiseazale has added lots of slots to Sims2Play's sets.
If the slots have been added, my best guess is, you just place a decorative item on the object and it should rest on it.

Yes, this is my question Sugah, thanks for your reply. So I would take out the original meshes and use the new repositoried ones that say master and slaved? And then I can just place deco items in the "slots" she added :) Correct? If you looked at the items in my link, you are sure to agree on their awesomeness

Oh, I absolutely DID look at the work hafiseazale put into the project and YES, she truly did a fine job.
I agree with you. It's a great effort on hafi's part on some really fine objects.

You'd asked about having to replace the original, older sets with hafi's new versions...

hafiseazale wrote:

I do believe that hokadk47 made their's with different GUIDs. So you actually could have both versions in your game.

If I am reading through the comments on her LJ & understanding them correctly, the new sets have a different guid from the old.
This means, you can have both in your downloads folder, if you wish.
What I would do, to keep away confusion, is get rid of the old sets if you like the new versions better.
In other words, delete the originals and replace with hafi's new meshes, NOT just any that have been repositoried.
You will want the complete new sets because of all the clutter she's removed from the shelves & add-on slots she's added, for example.
Make sense? Again, you can have the old Sims2Play sets AND Hafi's new versions, but that may just clutter up your downloads folder a bit!

Thanks Sugah!!!

And DO let me know how it goes and if you need any further assistance, Sandy.
I am happy to help.

Sugah wrote:

I agree with you. It's a great effort on hafi's part on some really fine objects.

I agree, too. I recently downloaded quite a few sets repositoried by hafi. Another benefit to the repositoried sets is that they take up a lot less room in your downloads folder, especially if you have a lot of recolors of that set.

Cher wrote:

Another benefit to the repositoried sets is that they take up a lot less room in your downloads folder, especially if you have a lot of recolors of that set.

Good to know, Lady C! Thank you for sharing!

This conversation took place in my SP Offspring thread, but I thought the topic might be of interest to others.
So, I am copying and pasting it and sharing it here, in our SIMply Schmoozin' section!

LilSister wrote:

I find that parents that have low nice points and are very serious produce mean children. However if Sim parents start early they can encourage niceness in their children. The higher the relationship between the parent and child, the more influence they will have and the faster the encourage action will change the personality of the child. It can be a bit time consuming but it works. The encourage action is especially necessary for me when there is sibling rivalry.

I use the bat box to randomize the Sim generator just before birth so that the new baby doesn't have the same personality of the other children. I also use the turn the face blending limits off while in the neighborhood view so that my Sim children have a proper blend of both their parents.

However if Sim parents start early they can encourage niceness in their children. The higher the relationship between the parent and child, the more influence they will have and the faster the encourage action will change the personality of the child.

Sandy wrote:

I try to do that too!  Recently though I tried to do it and the Encourage "niceness" do NOT come up!  
I guess it depends on the parents personality, was the only thing I could think of as to why it didn't appear.

Cher wrote:

Sandy, I think the person trying to encourage must have 6 points in the trait they're trying to encourage, otherwise it doesn't come up as an option.

LilSister, I recently learned about randomizing the sim generator, but I don't know what the face blending limits thing means.

Sandy wrote:

This has to be the reason!  Thank you!

LilSister wrote:

(Re: Face Blending Limits) This stops the game from making it's own corrections and allows a proper blending of features from both parents with more realistic and unique facial features. The corrections that the game will make are limited and the results can sometimes give us unusual looking Sims especially if the parents have very different features.

Cher wrote:

Oh, I may have to try that. Thank you for explaining it to me.

Em wrote:

I need to remember to try the face blending limits cheat again.  I used to know about it once upon a time, but later forgot if it needed to be on or off.  

If you don't want to use the bat box, you can also go into CAS generate some random sims with the dice/ randomizing option and then exit without creating a new family.  But you have to be sure to roll the dice a different number of times each time you load the game or you will end up with identical sims again (just different identical sims.)

LilSister wrote:

(Re: Face Blending Limits) This stops the game from making it's own corrections and allows a proper blending of features from both parents with more realistic and unique facial features.

Em wrote:

I need to remember to try the face blending limits cheat again.

I would like to know how to accomplish a more realistic, proper blending of features from both parents, ladies.
What is the procedure/trick/cheat?

Em wrote:

...you can also go into CAS generate some random sims with the dice/ randomizing option and then exit without creating a new family.  But you have to be sure to roll the dice a different number of times each time you load the game...

Em, just so I understand, I should do this before I start game play, especially if new Sim babes are about to be born?
And in CAS mode, all I have to do is generate several random Sims with a roll of the dice and then exit CAS & enter the 'hood?
That's it?

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Em, just so I understand, I should do this before I start game play, especially if new Sim babes are about to be born?
And in CAS mode, all I have to do is generate several random Sims with a roll of the dice and then exit CAS & enter the 'hood?
That's it?

You can do it anytime from when you start your game until the baby is born. Whatever is easiest for you. If you want to do it first thing, that's fine, or if you want to wait until right before a baby is born, then exit the house and go into CAS then, that works too.

All you have to do is go into CAS, roll the dice a random number of times and then exit. You don't have to save any of the sims or the families if you don't want to. You do want to make sure you are rolling the dice a different number of times each time you do this. When I was playing one of the large family challenges we participated in in the past, I actually counted based the number of times I rolled on the number of children I was on, to make sure it was a different number of rolls for each one and each child would be different. If my couple would have had more than one child in a round of game play (without me closing the game) I wouldn't have had to roll between pregnancies, because it was already set. I hope that makes sense.

Ok, thank you for explaining it more thoroughly to me, Em.
I appreciate you taking the time to do so.
I totally get it now.  

What I am curious about is WHY this method works to help Sim siblings personalities differ from one another?

And also, what of the face blending limits cheat for getting a nice balance of facial features of both parents?
I know nothing about that and am very interested.  



Added at 8:45am Thursday:

Okay, I have been doing some research on the subject Face Blending Limits.
If I am understanding the posts correctly, the cheat only applies to facial structure, NOT eye, skin or hair color:

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faceblendlimits is something that doesn't have to do with eye and hair colour; it deals with the facial structure blending of the actual sims. By default, that is ON, to prevent freakshow sims.

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The faceblendlimits cheat only applies to facial features.

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You don't want faceblend limits, but SimPE. You will need SimPE to change the genetic dominance of the facial characteristics of the two parents to have NO dominant facial features (that's the only way I can think of that can guarantee 50/50 chance).
faceblendlimits stops the game from letting sims have REALLY long chins and other freaky features.

And this is the very same thing Em recommended to me, so our Sims born in-game siblings are not clones of one another:

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There is a game glitch ('first-born syndrome') that causes all of the children to be clones, which there is a solution to:
Randomise a few sims in CAS before playing any lots.

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And also, what of the face blending limits cheat for getting a nice balance of facial features of both parents?
I know nothing about that and am very interested.  

Sorry.  I didn't answer that one because I don't know much about it, I'm afraid.  I was hoping someone who knew more would instead.  I believe you just type faceblendlimits on (or off) into the cheat box.  You are right that it only affects facial structure and not any other genetics.

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What I am curious about is WHY this method works to help Sim siblings personalities differ from one another?

When the game decides the looks and personality of a newly born sim, it doesn't combine the parents' looks and personality randomly, instead it picks what the sim will be like based on a predetermined order of combinations.    So if you were to play a sim couple continuously without exiting and reloading the game, the first child born to them would have a certain look and personality that corresponds to the first option on the list, the second child would take the characteristics of the second combination, and so on.  All of the children should be at least somewhat different from each other this way.

BUT the problem comes when you exit the game.  After you exit the game and have that couple have another kid, instead of the game picking a random offspring or going to the next choice on the list, it goes back to the first option.

For example, say you're playing a sim couple.  In your first round of gameplay they have two children.  Each of the children will be unique because the game is working its way down the list of options.  If you exit the game after the second child is born, the next time you go back to play them the choices will go back to the first option if that couple has another pregnancy.  That means their third child will be identical to their first child, because it's the first child they had during that gameplay session.

But say, before that third child is born (but during the SAME gameplay session), you generate a random sim in CAS or another sim couple has a child, the game would go to the second option for what our couple's third child could be like, because it's already picked an option 1 that game session.  If you randomized two sims in CAS (or two other babies were born) before the couple gave birth to their third child, the child would take the traits that were third in line (because it's already generated two new sims that session) and the couples third child should be different than their first two.

I think of it as if the game made a list ahead of time of all of the possible combinations offspring a sim couple could have and placed them in a certain order.  For the first pregnancy when you start the game (or randomly generated sim in CAS) the game always gives you the first option, then moves down it's list(s) for every subsequent pregnancy or randomly generated sim after that.  It keeps going down in order until you restart the game.  Once you restart the game, it goes back to the first option, because it's the first randomly/game generated sim for that session, regardless of whether or not it's already generated a sim just like that.  Does that make sense?

It should really seed the random selection every time the game is reloaded, or even oftener, but -

I'm still having trouble understanding the Face Blending Limits thing. If I read Sugah's research notes correctly, it sounds like setting them to Off means there's a risk of really exaggerated features happening, like a very long chin or nose. If that's the case, would it be better to leave them at the default setting of On (assuming I don't want any crazy features) and just use the Batbox to eliminate the "clone" sibling effect? Does the Batbox cause the game to move on to the next preset genetic combination formula, or somehow cause a random selection of the formula? Does the effect last if the game is exited and restarted?

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If I read Sugah's research notes correctly, it sounds like setting them to Off means there's a risk of really exaggerated features happening, like a very long chin or nose. If that's the case, would it be better to leave them at the default setting of On (assuming I don't want any crazy features)

I think that's right. Turning it off, might give you greater variety in how siblings look, but they might also look more exaggerated. I think I'm going to have to run an experiment with this . . .

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Does the Batbox cause the game to move on to the next preset genetic combination formula, or somehow cause a random selection of the formula? Does the effect last if the game is exited and restarted?

The batbox will got to a random selection. The effect doesn't last. You have to randomize every time you restart the game to get a random selection.

Turning the face blend limits off will not give you exaggerated looks - it does just the opposite. In my experience (I've been using it for years) it removes the chance of that happening by removing the games restriction on face blending. Years ago a creator made a male Sim that was really popular because he was so handsome, however when that Sims offspring were hideous. Their faces were contorted  - I mean crunched faces - noses bleeding into the space where their lips were supposed to be. The game without the cheat couldn't process the facial structure of the father. Everything was exaggerated; however, with the cheat the offspring faces were softened by the features of the mother and some if not all of the jagged edges for lack of a better term were softened. This was an extreme case but a perfect example.

Granted there are features of a family that are genetic traits passed down through the generations like eye color, the size of the ears, nose and mouth. I have a Sim who was born in-game, just like his father was born in-game, and I never noticed until yesterday how large his ears were. I went back to old pictures and those ears are a family trait - his grandfather had large ears - passed them on to his father - now he has them and I notice his son's have those ears too. Thankfully his daughters appear to have their mother's ears.

When you use the bat box to re-randomize the Sim generator it does it for the whole neighborhood not just the house you are in. Although it doesn't hurt to do it for each house during your game play it is not necessary.

Em and LilSister, thank you for your additional explanations. I actually think I understand now!
Em, I'm curious to see what happens if you run that experiment.
I tend to use the batbox immediately after a child is born; otherwise, I'd probably forget about it.

Em wrote:

For example, say you're playing a sim couple. In your first round of gameplay they have two children. Each of the children will be unique because the game is working its way down the list of options. If you exit the game after the second child is born, the next time you go back to play them the choices will go back to the first option if that couple has another pregnancy. That means their third child will be identical to their first child, because it's the first child they had during that gameplay session.

But say, before that third child is born (but during the SAME gameplay session), you generate a random sim in CAS or another sim couple has a child, the game would go to the second option for what our couple's third child could be like, because it's already picked an option 1 that game session. If you randomized two sims in CAS (or two other babies were born) before the couple gave birth to their third child, the child would take the traits that were third in line (because it's already generated two new sims that session) and the couples third child should be different than their first two.

I totally get it now, Em. Thank you for explaining it so well.
By giving an example, it helped me to understand randomizing Sims in CAS more completely.
Bravo!!!

LilSister wrote:

Years ago a creator made a male Sim that was really popular because he was so handsome, however when that Sims offspring were hideous. Their faces were contorted - I mean crunched faces - noses bleeding into the space where their lips were supposed to be. The game without the cheat couldn't process the facial structure of the father. Everything was exaggerated; however, with the cheat the offspring faces were softened by the features of the mother and some if not all of the jagged edges for lack of a better term were softened. This was an extreme case but a perfect example.

It was an excellent example, and I have definitely seen gorgeous custom Sims have frightening-looking children.
Thank you for sharing, LilSister.
And I agree with Cher ...
The additional information that both you and Em provided gave greater clarity on the subjects in question.

I was looking for the thread where we were discussing the CEP and making a new game via the Starting of a Sims folder. I said that I redownloaded the CEP when I did it, and someone said you don't need to do that once it is in your game. I still have questions about that. I just made a new Sims folder to experiment (I needed a new testing NH anyway). Anyway, some things show up; like my trampoline and hacked coat hook, but not recolors of a Maxis picture! So I was wondering and wanted to ask people that have done this-what works for them. I noticed that the Downloads folder has this file _EnableColorOptionsGMND.package after installing the CEP. But when you make a new NH this is not present. Do you copy and paste this file into your new Downloads folder?

I did copy and paste that file over to the Downloads folder. I also copied and pasted the folder zCEP-EXTRA into my The Sims 2 folder. I copied it because there were other CEP things I had added to it that had been created after the original CEP program. Hopefully that will fix your missing stuff.

Cher wrote:

I did copy and paste that file over to the Downloads folder. I also copied and pasted the folder zCEP-EXTRA into my The Sims 2 folder. I copied it because there were other CEP things I had added to it that had been created after the original CEP program. Hopefully that will fix your missing stuff.

That's what I did, too, Cher & Sandy, when I reinstalled Sims 2 and transferred some of my previous downloads to my new computer's Sims 2 folders.  

I copied & pasted the zCEP-EXTRA folder to: \Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2
And copied & pasted _EnableColorOptionsGMND into: \Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads

Then, like Cher said, your Maxis objects/recolors should show up in your game thereafter, Sandy.

~*~

Here's a question for any of you who may have experienced this problem before...

I had a Sim lot that was originally for one family (the Kavanaghs).
I moved one of the fam members (Eli) into the neighborhood bin.
The other (Evie), moved in with another Sim (Zen) & is currently raising a family in his abode.
Before I moved Evie out, I moved KimberLee Dellarosa (now Benedetto) onto the Kavanagh's lot.
After Evie moved out, the Benedetto family moved in with KimberLee.
I tried moving them all out and moving them back in so that the lot is no longer called the Kavanagh Family.
KimberLee married Anthony Benedetto and eventually the whole family got so big, I built them another house on a larger lot.
However, the new lot is STILL called the Kavanagh Family!
I, obviously, want it named after the Benedetto family but do not know how to fix this issue.



Anyone know the easiest way to do so (without having to build and decorate them a whole new house)?
Thank you, in advance!

Thank you Cher and Sugah!! I thought I would have to do this, the other way just sounded too simple.   and not workable

Sugah  I have had this problem before also and never looked into it.  I'll try to see what I can find out.

Sugah, I remember that happening to me at least once before. I didn't know how to change it, and I still don't. I've used SimPE to change things with Sims, including their names, LTWs, niceness, public/private school status (that was before I knew about things like Aaron's Sim Manipulator), but it never occurred to me to see if anything about lots could be changed.