Tutorial: How to Create a Custom Subhood Template

[Mootilda]

This tutorial will show you how to create a custom subhood that can be shared easily with other people, or between several different neighborhoods, without requiring a difficult installation procedure.

Note: If you want to convert an existing neighborhood to a subhood template, please see this tutorial instead:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=502306

This method has been used successfully for Universities, Downtowns, Suburbs (also known as Business or Shopping Districts), and Vacation Destinations.

The method is fairly simple and consists of the following steps:
1) Create a empty neighborhood with no lots, sims, or subhoods.
2) Give the new neighborhood folder a unique name and rename files in the folder.
3) Change the neighborhood to the appropriate subhood type and give the subhood a unique name internally.
4) Build the subhood using the standard tools.
5) Install and test your subhood.
6) Share the subhood with installation instructions.

As you can see, most of these steps are the same as those used to create any custom neighborhood. Steps 1 and 3 are special, since these are the steps which allow you create a standalone subhood. Each step will be explained in more detail in the following posts.

Although I recommend the use of the AnyGameStarter and SimPE, I have tried to provide workarounds for those people who are unable to use these utilities.

Be sure to backup important files before trying this technique.

Please let me know if you have any problems with this tutorial. Feel free to comment.

Some things to consider:

- If you have FreeTime installed, you will have to manually disable the FreeTime stealth neighborhood before creating your subhood; the AnyGameStarter will not do this for you correctly. See post #10 (http://www.modthesims.info/showpost.php?p=3322895&postcount=10) for detailed instructions.

- If you try to add multiple Downtowns to a neighborhood, only sims from the first Downtown added will actually appear in your neighborhood. The game will remove the sims from all additional Downtown subhoods before those subhoods are added to your neighborhood. If you want to add multiple occupied Downtowns to the same neighborhood, you may not be able to use more than one Downtown template.

- If you just want a generic subhood, then you will probably want a Suburb. As examples, all of the stealth neighborhoods from Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, FreeTime, and Apartment Life are Suburbs; most Mega-Hoods are also made with Suburbs.

- Do not add occupied apartments to a subhood template; occupied apartments will be corrupted when the subhood is added to a primary neighborhood. Unoccupied apartment buildings should have no problem.

- Sims in a subhood template will receive a new ID when the subhood is attached to a neighborhood. This can cause problems if the game doesn't properly update the ID everywhere it is used.

Most of the time, the game updates the ID correctly. However, you should be aware that this problem can occur and be careful with sim relationships in subhoods.

I suggest that you avoid having pregnant sims in a subhood template for this reason. If you decide to keep your pregnant sims, be sure to test whether the father is correct after the birth. [Update: Peni Griffin tested this and the game handles pregnancies in subhoods correctly for each EP.]

This same problem has been noticed with hired maids needing to be rehired. There may be other types of relationships which are also handled incorrectly. Be sure to test your subhood before sharing it.

[Mootilda]

Create an empty neighborhood:

This is the most crucial step in creating a subhood template. The ultimate goal is to create a standalone subhood which is not attached to any neighborhood. If you start with a completely empty neighborhood, then everything else is easy.

The simplest way to create an empty neighborhood is to use the AnyGameStarter:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=250555

Note: The AnyGameStarter will not work with Best of Business, University Life, or Fun with Pets collection packs. I believe that it also has problems with downloaded games. If you can't use the AGS, please use the manual approach documented in post #11 (http://www.modthesims.info/showpost.php?p=3322897&postcount=11) below, and skip the rest of this post.

1A) Run the AGS Installer (Standard) for AnyGameStarter 2.1.1.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1139343_1A_RunAGS.JPG
1B) Select the option to "CREATE an AnyGame" and check the EPs and SPs which you wish to use for your subhood. Be sure to include the EP which controls the type of subhood which you wish to add. In general, the less EPs that you use to create your subhood, the more people will be able to use it.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1139344_1B_SelectEPs.JPG
1C) Select the options to Create an AnyGame and "Create empty game (no Maxis default content)". Select any other options which you want.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1139345_1C_EmptyGame.JPG
1D) Verify that you are creating a new game, and that the game will be empty.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1139346_1D_VerifyOptions.JPG
1E) Once your AnyGame has been generated, run it. There should be no neighborhoods available. If there are neighborhoods displayed, something has gone wrong. Check that you have followed the steps exactly as described. If so, please let me know so that I can try to find a solution.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1139347_1E_NoHoods.JPG
(Continued in next post...)

[Mootilda]

(... Continued from previous post)

Now that we have ensured that our new neighborhood will be free of sims, lots, and subhoods, it is time to create the neighborhood:

1F) Create a new neighborhood with the terrain that you wish to use. If the game asks whether to add any new subhoods to your neighborhood, say no. Exit the game.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140233_1F_CreateHood.JPG
1G) Verify that the neighborhood is completely empty. Navigate to your neighborhood directory and ensure that there are no subhoods. You should only have two files in the main neighborhood folder: your neighborhood package and your neighborhood picture. If you have any other packages in this directory, something is wrong and you will not be able to use this neighborhood. Check that you have followed the steps exactly as described. If so, please let me know so that I can try to find a solution.

Your Characters, Lots, and Storytelling folders should be empty, and your Thumbnails folder will have one package. Again, if this is not true, something has gone wrong with your empty game procedure.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140234_1G_NoSubhoods.JPG

[Mootilda]

Give the new neighborhood a unique name:

If you give your neighborhood folder a unique name, there will be no possibility of it conflicting with any other neighborhood or subhood.

This is the perfect time to rename your neighborhood, since there are only a few files which need to be renamed. You will want to change the name of your neighborhood folder and the prefix of all files within that folder.

If you want to stick with the Maxis naming convention, be sure to choose something unique. For example, the shipped colleges are U001, U002, and U003, so you might want to choose U367. The shipped Downtown is D001, so you could pick D073 or D954.

Here is the standard naming convention:
University: U###
Downtown: D###
Suburbs (Open for Business): B###
Vacation (Far East): A###
Vacation (Mountain Lake): M###
Vacation (Island): T###

Even if you don't want to stick with the Maxis naming convention, you may want to stick to a 4 character folder name, since this will make your neighborhood compatible with most of the TS2 tools.

For example, it would make sense for me to ship all of my subhoods with the prefix MOO, followed by a unique character. I have decided to rename my neighborhood from N001 to MOOD (short for Mootilda's Downtown) and the file prefixes from N001_ to MOOD_. Don't forget to change the thumbnails package as well.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140231_2_Rename.JPG

[Mootilda]

Change the neighborhood to the appropriate subhood type:

This step will fool the game into believing that your neighborhood is actually a sub-neighborhood of the appropriate type. By doing this while your neighborhood is empty, all sims and lots that you create will have the appropriate type when this neighborhood is finally added as a subhood.

3A) Turn on debug mode by creating a text file named userStartup.cheat in your <Documents>\EA Games\The Sims 2\Config folder, containing the line:
boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true

Alternatively, extract the version that I've attached here into your Config folder.

3B) Run the game and open your new neighborhood. Type <ctrl><shift>C to bring up the cheat window. Type in the changeNeighborhoodType cheat with the type of subhood that you want. If you have attached subhoods, this cheat will fail. Here are the possible parameters:
changeNeighborhoodType [primary | university | downtown | suburb | asia | mountains | tropics]

For my downtown, I'll type in:
changeNeighborhoodType downtown

Exit your game once the cheat has finished running.

Note that you can change back to a primary neighborhood if required. For example, the vacation subhoods will not allow you to create sims, so you may need to change to a primary neighborhood temporarily to create your vacation locals, then back to the appropriate subhood type.

This is the old method of changing the subhood type. There is no reason to use this method, since it is more complicated than using the changeNeighborhoodType cheat.

You will need to use SimPE to change the neighborhood type. If you cannot run SimPE, you will have to temporarily transfer your neighborhood package to a computer which can run SimPE. If you don't have such a computer, someone else can easily make these changes for you.

3A) Run SimPE. Open your neighborhood package. Select ID Number (IDNO) in the left pane. There should only be one record in the right pane, select it. In the Plugin View, you should see the current neighborhood settings. Ensure that the Neighborhood Type is Normal.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140333_3A_ViewIDNO.JPG
3B) Unfortunately, because of a bug in SimPE, we cannot change the Neighborhood Type in the Plugin View; we will have to edit the field manually.

WARNING: If you change the Neighborhood Type in the Plugin View, SimPE will corrupt your IDNO. There are several problems associated with this corruption. For example, your neighborhood may accidentally become a stealth subhood, which means that it will automatically install itself into every neighborhood. For information about fixing a corrupted IDNO, please see post #17 (http://linna.modthesims.info/showpost.php?p=3353784&postcount=17).

To work around this bug, it's important to edit the Neighborhood Type in the Hex view. At the bottom of the window, select the Hex tab.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140334_3B_HexTab.JPG
3C) Select the first selectable number in the second white row of numbers, as shown below. The line will be prefaced with the number "00000010". The number that you select should be "01".

Click on the Byte field at the bottom of the window. The value should be either "1" or "0x01", depending upon how SimPE is set up to display numbers. If either value is not as stated, something is wrong; do not proceed. Take a screenshot and post it, so that I can try to determine what's wrong.

Note that there may be an additional line of numbers after the line that you want, depending upon which EPs and SPs were used to create your neighborhood. This is not a problem.

The number that we want will always be in the same location, if you've followed the tutorial.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140335_3C_SelectSecondLine.JPG
3D) The number that we have selected is the Neighborhood Type. Change the Byte field to the number corresponding to the type of your subhood.

Here is the list of valid Neighborhood Types:
1 - Main Neighborhood
2 - University (University)
3 - Downtown (Nightlife)
4 - Suburb (Open for Business)
5 - Village (Bon Voyage: Far East, Asia)
6 - Lakes (Bon Voyage: Mountain)
7 - Island (Bon Voyage: Island, Tropics)

If your Byte field has a "0x0" prefix, you can leave that in or remove it, as you like. SimPE will add the prefix back in, if it's necessary.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140336_3D_ChangeByteToType.JPG
3E) Press the Enter key. The number that you typed in the Byte field should now appear in the area selected in the second line; this shows that SimPE has accepted your change.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140337_3E_PressEnter.JPG
3F) Commit. If the Commit button is not visible, try scrolling to the right in the Hex tab.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140338_3F_Commit.JPG
3G) When SimPE asks you whether to reload, click Yes. If SimPE doesn't ask to reload, click commit again to try to get the reload message.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140339_3G_Reload.JPG
3H) Save. Save is available from the File menu. It is important to commit, reload, and save your changes before moving on to the next step.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140340_3H_Save.JPG


(Continued in next post...)

[Mootilda]

(... Continued from previous post.)

You will need to use SimPE to change the internal neighborhood name. If you cannot run SimPE, you will have to temporarily transfer your neighborhood package to a computer which can run SimPE. If you don't have such a computer, someone else can easily make these changes for you.

3I) Run SimPE. Open your neighborhood package. Select ID Number (IDNO) in the left pane. There should only be one record in the right pane, select it. In the Plugin View, you should see the current neighborhood settings. Ensure that your Neighborhood Type has been set correctly. If there is any problem, exit SimPE and try again.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140330_3I_CheckSettings.JPG
3J) Change the (parent) Name to something unique. A good choice is the name of your neighborhood folder.

As far as I can tell, there is no need to change the UID; the game will generate a unique ID when the subhood is added to a primary neighborhood. *

* Research question:
If we give the neighborhood a unique UID, will the neighborhood story stay intact when the subhood is added to a neighborhood?
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140331_3J_ChangeParentName.JPG
3K) Commit. If the Commit button is not visible, try scrolling down in the Plugin View.

3L) Save and Exit SimPE.

[Mootilda]

Build the subhood using the standard tools:

When you run the game again, your neighborhood should behave as a subhood of the type that you've chosen. You can build your subhood just as you would normally do. If you want to use custom content, you can add it to your AnyGame folder now. If you want to generate townies, the correct kind of townies should be generated. You can create lots and sims as usual. Basically, you have fooled the game into believing that your primary neighborhood is actually a standalone subhood.

Information about how to build lots, create sims, and decorate your neighborhood is beyond the scope of this tutorial. However, there are some excellent tutorials available if you need help.

Note: If you want to add sims created in CAS to a vacation destination, you will have to create the sims while the neighborhood is a normal neighborhood, since CAS is disabled in vacation subhoods. You can either create your sims before changing your neighborhood type the first time, or you can change back to a normal neighborhood at any time during the creation of the neighborhood to create your sims, then change the neighborhood back to a vacation subhood. There is no problem with changing the neighborhood type multiple times.

WARNING: Do not click on the button to return to your primary neighborhood, since you do not have a primary neighborhood.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140329_4_DoNotReturnToMainHood.JPG

[Mootilda]

Test your subhood:

Your subhood is now ready to be tested. I would recommend that you do not use the same AnyGame to do your testing that you used to create your subhood, because the subhood will conflict with your primary neighborhood. Instead, create a new (non-empty) AnyGame or test with a throw-away neighborhood in your main game.

DO NOT install your subhood into a neighborhood that you care about until you have tested that it works as expected.

5A) Copy your neighborhood folder into an appropriate NeighborhoodTemplate folder within your Program Files directory. In general, you might want to copy your neighborhood to the standard folder for the subhood type:

University:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 University\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate

Downtown:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate

Suburb (also known as Shopping District or Business District):
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Open For Business\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate

Vacation Destination:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate

However, if you used additional EPs or SPs to create your subhood, you should probably install it into the NeighborhoodTemplate folder for that EP / SP or a later one, so that the subhood will never be added to a game which can't handle it. If the NeighborhoodTemplate folder does not exist for a particular EP or SP, you can just create one.

5B) If your subhood is a university or vacation destination, then you should be able to see your subhood in the appropriate list when you run the game.
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1140328_5_ListOfUniversities.JPG
However, if you have created a Downtown or Suburb, you may run into a problem. The game displays a large button which completely covers the list of available subhoods:
http://thumbs2.modthesims.info/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_1138316_OFBShoppingDistrict.JPG
You have several options to resolve this issue:

- Download my mods which will remove the two buttons:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=420924

-OR-

- You can temporarily move the shipped D001 (Downtown) or B001 (Business District) folders somewhere else. Then, your new subhood should be available to be installed by clicking on the large button. Be sure to restore the original shipped neighborhoods after you've installed your new subhood.

-OR-

- I understand that if you have three or four Downtowns available, you can actually select the last one, even though the button is almost on top of it. This should also be true for Suburbs.

5C) If you can't see your new subhood in the appropriate list, there are a number of things that you can check:

- Make sure that you are testing with your full game, or in a non-empty AnyGame. The AnyGameStarter will hide all NeighborhoodTemplate folders while you are running an empty AnyGame.

- Make sure that no subhoods were accidentally added to your standalone subhood. If there are any subhood packages in your subhood folder, then something has gone wrong with your "Empty Game" setup.

- Open the neighborhood package in the NeighborhoodTemplate folder using SimPE, and check whether the neighborhood is still classified as the expected type of subhood. If not, then the game probably found a conflict between your subhood and another neighborhood and has attempted to "fix" the problem. Check that your subhood folder has a unique name and that the (parent) Name is also unique. Be sure that you are not running a game which can see your standalone subhood (the one being created) at the same time as the subhood is installed in a NeighborhoodTemplate folder.

5D) After installing and testing your subhood, you may decide that you want to make further changes. Be sure to remove your subhood from the NeighborhoodTemplate directory before attempting to run the AnyGame and edit your neighborhood again, since the two versions may conflict with each other.

5E) Once you are happy with your subhood:
If you have used any of the Special Procedures to disable neighborhoods temporarily, you should be able to restore those folders now by renaming them back to their original names. Be sure to test your subhood one last time with the standard configuration.

Always be sure to edit your standalone subhood in an empty-game configuration. If a subhood is ever added to your standalone subhood, it will no longer work as a subhood template.

[Mootilda]

Share and / or install the subhood:

When your neighborhood is complete, just zip or rar the entire subhood folder and share the compressed file. Anyone who wishes to use your subhood can unzip it into their NeighborhoodTemplate directory, just as you did while testing. Be sure to let people know where to install your subhood.

If you want to reduce the size of your neighborhood, there are several tools available which can significantly decrease its size. Be sure to backup before using these tools, and to test your neighborhood afterwards to ensure that everything is OK. The Lot Compressor (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=426409) will reduce the size of all of your lots. The Compressorizor (http://forum.jfade.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=170) can reduce the size of all packages in your neighborhood, and should be run after the Lot Compressor for best effect. Removing unnecessary files, such as .BKP, .BAK, thumbs.db, etc. can also reduce the size of the final compressed file.

Your compression method can also make a difference to the size of the shared file. 7Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) has the best compression ratio, followed by RAR. Zip has the worst compression ratio, so consider a different compression method if your ZIP file is still too large.

If you are shaing a Downtown or Suburb, be sure to mention the problem of the big button, along with the potential solutions.

[Mootilda]

Special Procedure for FreeTime only

If you do not have FreeTime installed, then you can ignore this post.

If you have FreeTime installed, there is a bug in the AnyGameStarter which will incorrectly handle the stealth neighborhood. You will need to do an initial step to disable the stealth neighborhood which is automatically installed when you create a new neighborhood. You must do this before creating your new neighborhood in the empty AnyGame. Basically, we rename the folder so that the game cannot find the neighborhood.

1) Find the location of the F002 folder in your installation directory. Usually, this is:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 FreeTime\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\F002
However, if you selected a custom installation, then you will have to find the location where you installed FreeTime and navigate to the NeighborhoodTemplate subfolder.

2) Rename NeighborhoodTemplate to NeighborhoodTemplate_Stealth.

Note: Be sure to restore the NeighborhoodTemplate folder after your empty AnyGame neighborhood has been created.

[Mootilda]

Special Procedure for people who cannot use the AnyGameStarter.

If you can use the AnyGameStarter, please ignore this post. The AnyGameStarter is a much simpler approach.

If you cannot use the AnyGameStarter, then you will have to disable the creation of sims and subhoods manually. The procedure is basically the same as in post #10 above; we just temporarily rename the folders so that the game cannot find them.

1) You must disable the base game neighborhoods by renaming
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods
to Neighborhoods_Original
This will prevent the game from adding the standard set of sims to your new neighborhood. If your game is not installed in the standard location, look for N001 in your installation directory and rename its parent directory.

2) You will have to disable all of your stealth neighborhoods by renaming NeighborhoodTemplate to NeighborhoodTemplate_Stealth for all of the EPs which have been installed. Here are the standard locations of the stealth neighborhoods. If your games are not installed in the standard locations, look for the names of the individual stealth hoods:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Pets\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\P001
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\G002
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 FreeTime\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\F002
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Apartment Life\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\E002

3) Bon Voyage is a special case, since the NeighborhoodTemplate folder contains both the shipped vacation destinations and a stealth neighborhood. You can either rename the entire NeighborhoodTemplate directory to NeighborhoodTemplate_Stealth, which will make your vacation destinations temporarily unavailable, or you can create a new NeighborhoodTemplate_Stealth folder and move the stealth neighborhood to that new folder temporarily. Here is the standard location of the stealth neighborhood:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\V001

4) Run the game.

5) At this point, you should be able to create your empty neighborhood using the standard tutorial, starting with step 1F) in post #3 (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=3321226#post3321226).

Note: Be sure to restore the folder names after your empty neighborhood has been created.

If you find that sims or subhoods are being automatically added when you create the empty neighborhood, please let me know and I'll try to find a solution.

[Mootilda]

Reserved for future use.

[Mootilda]

Another reserved post.

[Phaenoh]

This is SUPER useful! Thank you Mootilda for your continued research and modding in the neighborhood area of the game. This is definitely a very tricky and not widely understood aspect of the game to mod.

On a side note, do you think it would be possible to turn an existing played neighborhood, sims and all, and turn it into a template? I'm thinking along the lines of connecting some of my neighborhoods into a Mega-hood, but I don't want to loose my sims or their history. I understand this shouldn't/couldn't be shared but occasionally I like to do things just for myself. ;) Since Maxis templates include sims I'm sure something like this should be possible, but what types of problems would I run into?

[Mootilda]

Yes, it's very easy to take an existing neighborhood and turn it into a template. The process is almost the same for an existing neighborhood as it is when you start from scratch.

WARNING: You cannot change an existing neighborhood to a standalone subhood if the neighborhood already has an attached subhood. Further research needed: is there a way to remove attached subhoods?

Note that you need to be careful if you have occupied apartments in your neighborhood; occupied apartments will not work properly in a subhood template. Move everyone out of the apartments and into houses before you turn your neighborhood into a template. Unoccupied apartments should be fine.

I'd also be careful about pregnant sims as well, since the process of adding a subhood to a neighborhood can reset all of the sims. You might want to consider playing your neighborhood until your sims give birth before changing the neighborhood to a standalone subhood. [Update: Peni Griffin tested this and the game handles pregnancies in subhoods correctly for each EP.]

Backup your neighborhood somewhere safe.

1) Copy the entire neighborhood folder into a NeighborhoodTemplate folder under Program Files. Changes in subsequent steps should be made to this copy, rather than to the original neighborhood. Do not run the game until you have done the next few steps; these steps will ensure that your subhood template will not conflict with your original neighborhood.

2) Rename the neighborhood folder and all files to something unique - Step 2 in the tutorial. You'll probably want to use a bulk rename utility to do the renaming, such as this one: http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

3) Change the IDNO record by setting the Neighborhood Type to Suburb and the (parent) Name to the new folder name - Step 3 in the tutorial. (Please note: If you are trying to convert a base-game neighborhood, the IDNO record will be truncated and will not have the data that you need to change. In this case, you'll need to copy the IDNO record from a non-base-game neighborhood before making the changes. Please see post #17 for details.)

Because of the SimPE bug, I've been considering writing a program which will make Steps 2 and 3 in the tutorial simpler for the average user.

I've also been experimenting with mega-hoods as a part of this research and intend to write a simplified tutorial for mega-hoods, once I've got this tutorial working perfectly (and moved to the Build Mode Tutorials section). As long as you correctly follow Steps 2 and 3 in the tutorial, you can be reasonably sure that everything will be OK. In fact, these templates should be relatively safe to share, as long as you don't have too many townies / NPCs. I've mainly been working with cleaned neighborhoods for that reason; but cleaning an existing hood is a pretty painful process.

You shouldn't need to worry about having multiple NPCs, like the Grim Reaper; the game seems to properly handle this situation.

I believe that changing an existing neighborhood into a Downtown should also be fairly simple, but Universities and Vacation Destinations have special requirements which mean that the subhoods should really be built from scratch, or at least built with lots which were created in the correct kind of subhood.

If you decide that you want to edit one of these subhood templates, you can do that too. First, create a clean environment for your game with the minimal set of EPs that you need (steps 1A-1E above). Then, move (don't copy) your subhood template from Program Files to your clean EA Games\The Sims 2 game. Because you have a clean environment, the stealth neighborhoods will not be added to your standalone subhood as you play. When you're done making the changes to the hood, move it back to the appropriate location in Program Files.

[lechapeau]

I hope, now that we are able to, that it is OK to post here instead of in your group thread, my apologies if not!

Before I go any further with peacetreaty49's version of Beacon Falls, which was asked for in the WCIF thread (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?goto=lastpost&t=421643), where you said
I'd definitely be interested in Balloth and your two BV subhoods.
Also, I may be able to help you fix the installation problems (Balloth conflicts with B001, the two BV subhoods conflict with each other), if you'd like.
In your PM you advised that steps 2 and 3 of this tutorial were the ones most applicable to me and should "allow these standalone subhoods to exist". I have gone through and changed things according to your instructions here, and they are still each acting as they should do, hotels function properly, holidays are successful, all seems to be well!

However there are a couple of points I would like to check with you first:
For step 2 - I renumbered the files and folders from B001, T002 and M002 to B628, T609 and M409. I hoped it wasn't it the B, T and M which were the problem, because from what I've understood you to say in the tutorial, it doesn't seem as if they should be.
Edit: I mistakenly at first wrote B002, I had always intended to release it as that, but as at the time the original B001 had to come out in order to use mine, so I obviously hadn't actually done so! :faceslap:
I see now why you said they would conflict, I remain unsure whether the BV hoods are OK with what I've done though!
The the Neighborhood Type and (parent) Name in the IDNO record were already changed to match the existing folder/file numbers, but I have now of course changed them to match with the new parent name and numbers.
The only further change I could see that made sense was to 'turn' each hood back into a neighborhood (step 3a) by making it Normal and then committing and saving that change, then following the tutorial onwards from that point as if I were making all of the changes for the first time. I hope this was correct, otherwise, could you let me know what should have been done differently please?

For step 3 - The subhoods had already been showing as number 4 a business hood, number 7 as an island hood, and number 6 as a mountain hood in the Hex view section (step 3c). After changing each back to a Normal neighborhood, I then made the changes as you described.

You said my BV hoods conflict with each other, I hadn't picked up on that comment when I first asked for your advice, if what I've done hasn't already stopped the conflict, could you please advise me on that as well? Of course I would rather do these things myself so that I understand the process, but I do trust you to explain things! So if you think you will need to actually look at the files, as you have so kindly offered, then I would be happy to send them to you.
There is also a pregnancy in the business hood, it appears to work after being added to a main hood, the father shows correctly, if it's a really bad thing, I could look into editing it to make it safer.
I am also sorry it has taken me this long to do anything more about all of this, things came along that I couldn't ignore! I am also sorry for the wordy descriptions, I just want to make it clear where the differences were in my files before, and what they are now after the changes have been made!
My sincere thanks for all of your help with this!

[Mootilda]

I hope, now that we are able to, that it is OK to post here instead of in your group thread, my apologies if not!This is fine. I just set up the other thread because some people couldn't post in this thread. Hopefully, that's been solved now.

However there are a couple of points I would like to check with you first:

For step 2 - I renumbered the files and folders from B001, T002 and M002 to B628, T609 and M409. I hoped it wasn't it the B, T and M which were the problem, because from what I've understood you to say in the tutorial, it doesn't seem as if they should be.That's correct. It's not the B, T and M which matter, but the entire folder name.

The Neighborhood Type and (parent) Name in the IDNO record were already changed to match the existing folder/file numbers, but I have now of course changed them to match with the new parent name and numbers.

The only further change I could see that made sense was to 'turn' each hood back into a neighborhood (step 3a) by making it Normal and then committing and saving that change, then following the tutorial onwards from that point as if I were making all of the changes for the first time. I hope this was correct, otherwise, could you let me know what should have been done differently please?This should be fine as long as you made the changes in the Hex view. If you ever edited the Neighborhood Type in the Plugin View, then SimPE may have corrupted your IDNO by adding extra bytes into the center of the IDNO record, which can cause problems for the game.

If you are worried that your IDNO was corrupted by SimPE, you can just create a new one. Here's how:
1) Create a new (temporary) neighborhood in your AnyGame.
2) Run SimPE, open the new neighborhood and Extract the IDNO.
3) Open your subhood and Replace the IDNO with the extracted IDNO. Save.
4) Go through the steps in the tutorial to fix the IDNO correctly.
5) Delete your temporary neighborhood, since it's no longer needed.

You said my BV hoods conflict with each other, I hadn't picked up on that comment when I first asked for your advice, if what I've done hasn't already stopped the conflict, could you please advise me on that as well?I never downloaded the BV hoods, so I was just going by what it said on the website. It sounds like everything should be fine now. Having a unique folder name and (parent) name should ensure that the hoods do not conflict.

There is also a pregnancy in the business hood, it appears to work after being added to a main hood, the father shows correctly, if it's a really bad thing, I could look into editing it to make it safer.As long as the father shows up correctly, I wouldn't worry about it. This was a major problem with the mega-hoods, so I wanted to point it out as a potential problem. I'm glad to hear that the game is handling these subhoods properly.

I am also sorry it has taken me this long to do anything more about all of this, things came along that I couldn't ignore! I am also sorry for the wordy descriptions, I just want to make it clear where the differences were in my files before, and what they are now after the changes have been made!

My sincere thanks for all of your help with this!No need to apologize; we all have real lives which take priority. I'm happy to help whenever you have questions. I'd love to see more subhoods available for download.

[lechapeau]

This is a query for if I make other BV hoods or districts with sims again in the future, rather than anything I am stuck on now.
In part 4 of your tutorial, it says "You can create lots and sims as usual", where in a BV hood you wouldn't normally be able to create sims and this means the button for CAS is greyed out.

I came across this after I'd found glitches in both of my original BV versions once I'd edited the Hex. I then made a fresh version of my mountain hood following your tutorial, after which I made a new island hood as well. Everything in there had been tested and was working, but after cloning the original custom locals and tourist sims from a copy of my old original, I was now unable to put them together in this fresh version because the options weren't available.
Having got a working hood I was happy with, I was about to change the Hex back to make it a normal hood so the sims could be added, and then go through step 3 to change it again afterwards. I came here to check that I'd noted all of the steps correctly, and had not made some mistake with it, when I saw your edit about extracting the IDNO.
I decided to try that and see if it fixed my original version which already had the sims set correctly: that worked, and it also solved the other problems I'd encountered with them so hopefully everything is now good, with even more thanks to you!
I found a similar problem when editing my business district, the sims had also been 'set up' in there, making good or bad relationships or linking them as owning businesses etc, to have the theme/storyline of the hood make sense. With that, after editing the Hex, I noticed I couldn't *do* anything with the sims and they just stood there. This was fine and didn't matter much because I'd already finished most of the editing and was just checking up on something I was later able to use SimPE to confirm things in.
It left me wondering how things would work if I wanted to add sims to a new district in a similar way, then again this time when I couldn't add them to a fresh BV district.

So my question is, would making and/or editing sims in these situations be better done in the empty neighborhood, before moving on to step 2, and then carry on as you describe?
It seems less complicated to change the Hex after any sims have been added, and/or basic relationships or situations set up, but I don't know if I'm right in thinking that. I understand people don't usually want sims and that it may not be a good thing to encourage sharing them, as they do have to be cleanly made and carefully managed to avoid game problems. Especially not the same ones passed through several neighborhoods, which is probably the main reason for making custom hoods and districts where we add our own sims!
But for situations such as this, where a district is shared, or there's a purpose to having sims in the storyline and with it as a district the options aren't there, then these things would need changing and I'd appreciate your opinion on what's good and bad! If you don't already know or hadn't come across it before, I don't mind trying and setting up such situations if that would help clarify anything?
If I've done something stupid, I'd appreciate being pointed in the right direction! If it's only me wanting to know, then as mine has now worked I can easily follow the same process if I ever need to, I'd just rather know I'm not doing anything *wrong* if I do!
Thank you!

[Mootilda]

when I saw your edit about extracting the IDNO.
I decided to try that and see if it fixed my original version which already had the sims set correctly: that worked, and it also solved the other problems I'd encountered with them so hopefully everything is now good, with even more thanks to you!Sounds like SimPE has had the IDNO bug for quite a while and this bug affected your existing subhoods. Replacing your corrupt IDNO record with a valid IDNO record is probably the easiest solution to this problem.

I found a similar problem when editing my business district, the sims had also been 'set up' in there, making good or bad relationships or linking them as owning businesses etc, to have the theme/storyline of the hood make sense. With that, after editing the Hex, I noticed I couldn't *do* anything with the sims and they just stood there.I haven't been able to reproduce your issue with Open for Business. Were your sims unwilling to follow commands? Or, did they just refuse to do anything on their own?

Is there a possibility that the IDNO was corrupt? Did you try replacing the IDNO with a newly generated one, and then making the appropriate changes?

So my question is, would making and/or editing sims in these situations be better done in the empty neighborhood, before moving on to step 2, and then carry on as you describe?
It seems less complicated to change the Hex after any sims have been added, and/or basic relationships or situations set up, but I don't know if I'm right in thinking that.There is one primary benefit to changing the neighborhood type before creating your sims. Non-playable sims in subhoods are usually not standard "townies", but are instead a specific type of sim associated with the type of subhood. For example, it's impossible to create young adult "dormies" unless you are actually playing a university subhood. If you create your sims before changing the neighborhood to a standalone subhood, you'll have to do additional work to ensure that your subhood sims are properly categorized.

I still have to look into your issues with making sims in Bon Voyage. Are these sims that you intend to make into vacation "townies"?

[Update:] Yes, it looks like it makes sense to create your sims before changing the neighborhood type. After creating your sims, you'll need to ensure that they are added to the correct family.

[lechapeau]

I'm afraid I hadn't checked a business district in play mode since that first experience because I thought, in attempting it, that I'd messed something up! I deleted the folder after I quit and made my changes to a fresh version. I have now seen, as you've said, that there would be nothing to stop me editing or setting things up in such a game, and that it plays as you would expect it to. I mentioned it in case it was linked to the BV sims situation, I know now that it isn't but I don't know if the IDNO caused the errors or if it was something else that I did wrong.
I apologize for taking up your time in looking into it!

Thank you for checking on making BV sims, or those in subhoods where CAS wouldn't normally be available. It is useful to know they can be added at either stage, and that the Hex can be edited more than once if needed. I understand it is important to correctly add sims to the relevant family type, I followed instructions from MATY to set them.
I would have made one group of locals and another of tourists, but extracting a new IDNO for the original version fixed everything I'd had trouble with, meaning I didn't need to recreate them at all. Again, I appreciate your help and advice!

[Mootilda]

I'm always happy to help. The few things that you've asked from me are tiny in comparison to the work needed to create a really nice subhood.

[maybesomethingdunno]

So, let me see how much I understand of this correctly. :)

I've extracted your MooU folder (Brainania) into C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 University\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate. If I want to modify the template to use things from new EPs or to be a themed version (medieval or Post-Apocalyptic), I'd attach it to (let's say) Strangetown and edit the attached instance of Brainania as I'd wish.

1) Copy the entire neighborhood folder into a NeighborhoodTemplate folder under Program Files. Changes in subsequent steps should be made to this copy, rather than to the original neighborhood. Do not run the game until you have done the next few steps; these steps will ensure that your subhood template will not conflict with your original neighborhood. So, I wouldn't copy the MooU folder but the folder for Brainania in Strangetown's folder, correct?

2) Rename the neighborhood folder and all files to something unique So, the name folder for Brainania in Strangetown's folder becomes something like "msdU" and so forth will all the file prefixes...

3) Change the IDNO record by setting the Neighborhood Type to Suburb and the (parent) Name to the new folder name So, the parent name would be msdU.

When I load the game, msdU will be a new Uni template and I'd still have the original Brainania, correct?

[Mootilda]

No. Once you attach a subhood to a neighborhood, you cannot disconnect it again (without a lot of work). This means that you will not be able to use it as a subhood template in the future.

The best way to edit MooU would be to set up an empty AnyGame with just the EPs and SPs that you want (basically, steps #1A - 1E). Move MooU from Program Files to your AnyGame Neighborhoods folder and make the appropriate changes. Then, you can move MooU back to the Program Files directory. Be sure to move rather than copy, since the game will not be happy having a neighborhood (in Documents) and subhood template (in Program Files) which are the same.

If you wish to make a new subhood based on MooU, then copy MooU from Program Files to your AnyGame Neighborhoods folder and then make the copy into a unique standalone subhood before you run the game.

To make it unique, you will need to rename the folder and all files to "msdU" (step #2) and you will need to change the IDNO record (step #3). Since MooU is already a University, you can skip steps #3B - 3H (unless you wish to change to a different type of subhood). Change the (parent) Name of the IDNO record to "msdU".

If you have other neighborhoods in your AnyGame folder, you might also want to click on "make unique" in the Plugin View, to ensure that your new standalone subhood doesn't conflict with any of your existing neighborhoods.

Commit the changes to the IDNO record and save the neighborhood package. Now, you should be able to run the game and make your changes to the standalone subhood. Be sure to change the name from "Brainania", so that it will be identifiable when you are eventually ready to add the new subhood to a neighborhood.

I hope that makes things more clear. I think that I'm going to write a new tutorial on how to edit an existing subhood template. Hopefully, that will help even more.

[jeffallenroberts]

I've created a OFB test 'hood and everything went exactly as published in your tutorial. It had one housed sim and a family in the bin. The Anygame created ten sims during the build phase, nine NPCs and one townie. I attached it to Strangetown. When I played the lot, the sim had a want to hire a maid. He already had done that earlier in the day in Anygame playtesting. He hired the same maid, then I shut down the game and looked at the hoods in SimPE. When the game attaches a sub-hood it clones the sims to the main hood and gives them a new ID number. The original file becomes "Unknown" with the original sim ID intact in the sub-hood package. This includes service and social NPCs, but not Grimmie etc. To test whether this was a mistake in my work, I attached Bluewater to Veronaville and found this was the normal procedure. A lost maid is no big thing, but the scope for errors might not be limited to that and pregnancy issues. A caution might be in order to append to the Tutorial so that users will look for problems and not be surprised.

That said, I found the whole tutorial clear and easy to follow and understand. At no time did I encounter any problem, or have any reason to ask for clarification. Loading times for the programs took more time than the actual work of converting the hood. Nice job!

[Phaenoh]

So, I was considering taking this subhood that I've got and connecting it instead to a different hood, hopefully without losing my sims. Is that even possible?

[Mootilda]

Are both the primary neighborhood and the subhood occupied? Do you have multiple subhoods attached to your primary neighborhood? Do you have any stealth neighborhoods attached to your primary neighborhood? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes", then I would suggest the technique below. If the answer to all of these questions is "no", then I may have a much simpler technique.

Creating a new unoccupied subhood template which matches an existing attached subhood is probably relatively simple. Moving your sims is the difficult part. Here's what I'd try:

Backup your save game, just in case something goes wrong. Follow steps 1-3 above to set up your standalone subhood. Then:

1) Use HoodReplace to copy the terrain, roads, etc. from your attached subhood to your standalone subhood.

2) Use SimPE to extract all of the Lot Descriptions from your attached subhood package and Add them to your standalone subhood package. Copy the associated lot packages from your original Lots folder into the Lots folder for your standalone subhood. Run the game to ensure that the lots are there and working as expected. Note that I've been thinking about adding this functionality to HoodReplace; if you want to beta-test, let me know.

3) Use the Game_Help:Moving_Sims FAQ to copy all of the sims that you want into your new standalone subhood. Note that the "easy way" is much safer than the "hard way".

4) If you really want to delete those sims from your original neighborhood, try this. Personally, I doubt that it's worth the effort and risk to remove the existing occupied subhood from your neighborhood.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=6205.0

5) If you really want to delete the original subhood, now is the time to try removing it in-game.

If you have further questions about this, perhaps we should make a new thread to discuss this. It really is a separate issue from the one discussed in the tutorial, and I'd prefer to keep this thread relatively clear of distractions.

[lytefoot]

- Do not add occupied apartments to a subhood template; occupied apartments will be corrupted when the subhood is added to a primary neighborhood. Unoccupied apartment buildings should have no problem.

That "should" worries me. Does that mean "there's no theoretical reason for a problem" or "someone's tried it and there hasn't been a problem"?

[Mootilda]

There's no theoretical reason for a problem. Occupied apartments, on the other hand, have a very real reason why they fail.

[Amairani]

Mootilda, I need your help…

I’m usually pretty good with following instructions, even when I need to work with SimPe, but now I feel like an idiot…

My task is to turn two complete neighborhoods (with lots, no Sims, loaded in game once just to check how it looks like, but never played) into Downtown and Shopping district. I take it the instructions in post # 15 apply to my situation.

1. I moved the first neighborhood to my Desktop
2. I copied the entire neighborhood folder into a NeighborhoodTemplate folder - does it go to EA GAMES\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate, right?
3. I didn’t rename it, because the files already have unique names.
4. And now I’m stuck – if I start SimPe, I can’t figure out how to load the neighbourhood package, how to load it from NeighborhoodTemplate folder? I know only how to load the ‘hoods that are installed into a game, but if I move the ‘hood folder back to EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and load the ‘hood, then I will be changing it, not the copy in NeighborhoodTemplate folder…

Could you please help me out with this?

[Mootilda]

2) That's not a full path, so it's difficult to tell whether it's correct. Did you move the neighborhood to that subfolder under Program Files, in the Sims 2 installation directory for the latest EP required by the neighborhood? For example, if my neighborhood requires Bon Voyage, then I'd move it to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate

4) You can either navigate to your neighborhood in Windows Explorer and double click on the neighborhood package, or you can open SimPE and select Open from the File menu, then navigate to the neighborhood and select the neighborhood package.

[lazzybum]

Thank you for making an awesome tutorial. I am currently building a BV's island destination that I want to keep as future "premades", but I have a few questions.

1) I have already built some of the lots in game (since I work on this on and off) and I probably used objects from the varies EPs and SPs, and even some custom content. I then want to transfer the lots and copy the terrain using the same map. Will I be able to have these lots available while in AGS? Do I have to package out all the lots and place them in AGS's folder? When I first set up the initial empty neighborhood, should I select all the EPs because of the lots containing stuff from EPs? (I am only using this destination for personal use so I don't need to worry about sharing it)

2) When making sims for BV destination, do they replace the locals/tourists or does EA's locals still spawn once the subhood is created in the normal game and the sims I created are just extra? I'd like if my sims created were the replacement townies/locals for the destination. Do you know if there is a minimum number of locals needed for each BV destination or a requirement for them to classify as a local?

[Amairani]

It's amazing how easy it becomes once you get sent in the right direction :D

I followed your instructions and successfuly turned two neighbourhoods into Shopping Districts, thank you so much!!

I met an unexpected problem however: I also changed three neighbourhoods into Downtowns and another 'hood into Shopping District.
Only one Downtown (Port White) shows in Create a Downtown panel in game, and surprisinly only under two other neighbourhoods, Baskerville and Orville (I particularly wanted to add that Downtown to West Weasels, and it doesn't show up there...can't figure out what made Weast Weasels that different.) The third Shopping District doesn't show up either.
What I noticed among all six changed neighbourhoods, is that those two that work perfectly have only Neighbourhood package file in Neighbourhood folder, when other four have five Suburb packages each (Suburb001, Suburb002 etc). I didn't made them. For testing purposes, I removed those Suburb packages for Port White, and it showed up in Create a Downtown panel, but only for two neighbourhoods... I suspect those Suburb packages are the reason it doesn't work as it should be. Do you know what can be done about it?

[Mootilda]

1) I have already built some of the lots in game (since I work on this on and off) and I probably used objects from the varies EPs and SPs, and even some custom content. I then want to transfer the lots and copy the terrain using the same map. Will I be able to have these lots available while in AGS? Do I have to package out all the lots and place them in AGS's folder? When I first set up the initial empty neighborhood, should I select all the EPs because of the lots containing stuff from EPs?As long as your AnyGame has all of the required EPs, SPs, and custom content, then you should be able to access the lots in your AnyGame.

When you create your empty AnyGame, you should select all of the EPs and SPs that your existing lots require. You should also be aware that a lot can be dependent upon an EP, even if no objects from that EP were used when creating the lot. The mere existence of the EP during the creation of the lot can be enough to require the EP.

Packaging a lot and then installing it into your AnyGame is a reasonable way to transfer lots. Be aware that the Clean Installer requires you to change the ini file if you want the AnyGame to be your default installation location. I believe that you can also drag-and-drop a Sims2Pack into your AnyGame folder, although I've never tried that method.

2) When making sims for BV destination, do they replace the locals/tourists or does EA's locals still spawn once the subhood is created in the normal game and the sims I created are just extra? I'd like if my sims created were the replacement townies/locals for the destination. Do you know if there is a minimum number of locals needed for each BV destination or a requirement for them to classify as a local?There are a number of places where EA will generate locals and tourists, and generation of locals and tourists is also affected by your use of clean templates and no-regen mods. I don't have any additional knowledge in this area. Your best bet is to experiment with a throwaway neighborhood to see whether you get the results that you desire.

[Mootilda]

I met an unexpected problem however: [...] What I noticed among all six changed neighbourhoods, is that those two that work perfectly have only Neighbourhood package file in Neighbourhood folder, when other four have five Suburb packages each (Suburb001, Suburb002 etc).That's correct. As explained in post #15 and in the tutorial, neighborhoods which have subhoods cannot be used as subhood templates.

Are the subhoods included in the neighborhood downloads, or were they generated by your game when you initially tried loading them? If they aren't included in the download itself, then the obvious solution is to convert the downloaded versions.

If the subhoods are included with the downloaded versions, then you may have to create new neighborhoods which are clones of the downloaded neighborhoods, but which do not have the subhoods attached. I'll have to write up some instructions for this and I don't have the time right now (I'm expecting someone at the door any minute now).

A brief synopsis: Use HoodReplace to clone the neighborhood terrain, roads, trees, and deco. Then extract all of the Lot Descriptions from the original neighborhood package and add them to your new neighborhood package. Then copy all of the lots from the original neighborhood Lots subfolder into the new neighborhood Lots folder. If you need more info, let me know and I'll try to write something more detailed. Note that this will only work because there are no playables or townies in the neighborhoods.

[Amairani]

Ah, now I understand. Indeed, I read about that in your comment, but somehow I assumed it didn't apply to my situation, as I thought there shouldn't be any subhoods in never played neighbourhoods. Silly me.

I redownloaded one of the neighbourhoods and there were no suburb templates there, so I guess subhoods got added when I loaded the 'hoods to check them out. I will try to fix it.
Thank you :)

[Mootilda]

2) When making sims for BV destination, do they replace the locals/tourists or does EA's locals still spawn once the subhood is created in the normal game and the sims I created are just extra? I'd like if my sims created were the replacement townies/locals for the destination. Do you know if there is a minimum number of locals needed for each BV destination or a requirement for them to classify as a local?I decided to do a bit more research into this. The Exotic Destinations stealth subhood that ships with Bon Voyage contains 12 families (7FE5-7FF0) each containing 4 sims. I'm guessing that these are the tourists. This stealth subhood also contains the Traveller Sim Bin family, along with some townies and service NPCs (for example, three ninjas and three charlatans).

As well, each of the vacation destinations has an appropriate vacation locals family (7FF1, 7FF2, or 7FF3) which contains about a dozen locals, plus a large number of townies with no user data.

So my expectation is that you will get the tourist families unless you use an empty BV stealth neighborhood, but that your vacation locals will override any EA vacation locals. Of course, EA is likely to continue to generate new ones unless you have a no-regen hack.

[Amairani]

Mootilda, still no luck, I can't figure out what's wrong...

I redownloaded the neighbourhoods (Middleground and Elsewhere), un-zipped, copied the 'hoods folders to F:\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Apartment Life\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate, followed your instructions by turning the 'hoods into Downtowns, and still they don't show up in game.
I moved the folders to F:\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate, thinking maybe the Downtowns should be there, no luck. I checked through SimPe, both suburbs are classifies as Downtowns.

Also, after loading newly redownloaded Port White Water in SimPe, I noticed its value is shown as "0x03," instead of "1" or "0x01", while its type is Normal, not Downtown.

I'm thinking now could it be some cache thing involved, it stores my previous changes to these neighbourhoods (from the first attempt, when I didn't pay attention to attached suburb templates) and I should delete it before trying converting the 'hoods anew?

p.s. I have just started another game (I have currently two Sims 2 games with different themes, and switch between them). And both Downtowns show up perfectly there! The problem is I don't want these Downtowns in that other game...

[Mootilda]

I downloaded Port White Water and looked at the IDNO record in SimPE. You are incorrect that the value at location 0x10 is shown as 0x03. In fact, the IDNO record is truncated and doesn't have a value in position 0x10, because it is a base game neighborhood and the base game has no knowledge of subhoods. If you've been modifying the value in location 0x00 (which was 0x03), then you've corrupted the IDNO record. My suggestion is that you scrap everything that you've done so far and start again with the downloaded neighborhood.

Because the base game IDNO record doesn't have any knowledge of subhoods, you'll have to get a copy of an IDNO record which understands subhoods before you will be able to change the neighborhood type in the IDNO record. The instructions for replacing an IDNO record is in post # 17.

Hope that helps. Note that I've modified post #15 to reflect this information.

[Amairani]

But I already did, that's the problem - I re-downloaded everything, even the lots, haven't done anything to the files, just opened the Neighbourhood package and that 0x03 value was already there. But it was not like that when I attempted to change Port White for the very first time, I'd notice it. Initially, it should have been 0x01 I can't claim it for 100%, but it definetely wasn't 0x03. Then I changed Port White to Downtown, changing the value to 0x03, saved it. Then later turned out it already had suburb templates generated, so I deleted that first folder with Port White Water, redownloaded the neighbourhood, opened it up and it already had the 0x03 value there...

Right now I redownloaded it again, for the 3rd time, deleted the previous 'hood's folder, copied new and untouched Port White to EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Apartment Life\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate and again it's 0x03!

I have little understanding how it all works, but it looks to me like the first changes to those neighbourhoodsI did, were somehow saved somewhere else, like cookies in web browsers behave, and now, even after removing the edited 'hoods folders and putting freshly downloaded folders in NeighbourhoodTemplates, the latest changes just don't reflect in the game. But both Downtowns I converted shows up perfectly in other game.... This is so weird, I don't know how to explain this.

[Mootilda]

You don't understand. You're looking in the wrong place. You're supposed to change the first byte in the second line, but you're changing the first byte in the first line. In the tutorial, I give several different ways to make sure that you're in the correct location.Select the first selectable number in the second white row of numbers, as shown below. The line will be prefaced with the number "00000010". The number that you select should be "01". If you look again, I'm sure that you will see that none of these things are true. You are not looking at the second white row of numbers. The line is not prefixed with the number "00000010". And, the number that you selected is not "01".

There is no second line because this is a base-game neighborhood. Base game neighborhoods don't have a value for the neighborhood type, since there weren't any neighborhood types in the base game.

In order to change the neighborhood type, you need to have an IDNO record which contains a neighborhood type. This means that you need an IDNO record from a non-base-game neighborhood.

The reason that you didn't notice this problem the first time that you tried is that you had already converted the neighborhood to another EP (and attached several stealth subhoods in the process) by opening the neighborhood in the game. In the process, the game converted the IDNO record to a version which understands subhoods. Unfortunately, the game also attached subhoods, which meant that the neighborhood was no longer able to be converted into a subhood template.

You don't need to keep re-downloading the same file. Just keep the zip or rar file on your hard drive until you've got things working well.

[Amairani]

Bless you for your patience, now I see what was wrong with Port White. Thank you for your time and kind support :) *bows*

I followed the instructions in post #17, updated the IDNO record and changed Port White to Downtown. I wish it was the end at least for this subhood, but no... I have three neighbourhoods in my game, and Port White shows up in two of them as Downtown, but not in the third one (the one I actually want to add it!).
The mystery of converted to Downtowns Elsewhere and Simville not showing up in one game (the one I used to edit them), but appearing just fine in another is not solved yet . I will think more about it tomorrow, it's almost midnight here >_<

Thank you sincerely again :)

[lazzybum]

Thank you Mootilda for the detailed explanations. I will try to do a test run on this soon hopefully :)

[Mootilda]

Amairani, I'm glad that you understand now; sorry that I wasn't clearer with my first explanation. I'm also sorry that this has been a more difficult conversion than I led you to believe. Since this tutorial is about creating subhoods from scratch, I hadn't really thought through the problems with converting base-game neighborhoods. When I write up a full tutorial on converting existing neighborhoods, I'll be sure to add detailed instructions on handling base-game hoods.

If I have a few minutes today, I'll try to reproduce what you're doing and see whether I can figure out what your newest problem is. I know that Talia has been able to get this technique to work for her mega-hood with all of the shipped neighborhoods, but she used Business Districts rather than Downtowns. There may be some special problem with Downtowns that I'm not aware of.

[Update:]

No obvious problems, except for Baskerville (which has a subhood, so I ignored it). Here's what I did:

1) Copy Port White Water, Middleground, and Elsewhere to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate (since Seasons is the last required EP).

2) Open Elsewhere in SimPE and change the neighborhood type to Downtown in the hex view, commit and save. Extract the modified IDNO record.

3) Open Port White Water in SimPE. Since this is a base-game hood, replace the IDNO record with the extracted one from step 2. Change UID to 491 and (parent) name to N491. No need to convert to a Downtown, since the extracted IDNO has already been converted. Commit and save.

4) Open Middleground in SimPE. Since this is a base-game hood, replace the IDNO record with the extracted one from step 2. Change UID to 514 and (parent) name to N514. No need to convert to a Downtown, since the extracted IDNO has already been converted. Commit and save.

5) Exit SimPE, so that it doesn't conflict with the game.

6) Run my game and open Pleasantview. Attach each Downtown. Enter each Downtown in turn and note that it's nighttime, which implies that the game recognizes the neighborhood as a downtown.

Can you see anything that you did differently?

[Another Update:]

Just out of curiosity, I decided to remove the subhood from Baskerville using the technique that I outlined above and now Pleasantview has 4 downtowns.

[Amairani]

I have followed your above instructions to the letter. The results:

West Weasels - none of the Downtowns show up in Add a Downtown panel
Baskerville - only Port White Water show up
Orville - only Port White Water shows up

I switched The Sims 2 folders and loaded the other game to see if either of Downtowns appear there, and all three were available for adding to Riverblossom!

For testing purposes, I will now switch back to the first game and change 'hoods to Shopping Districts this time, instead of Downtowns. Let's see what happens..

I'm torn between giving up and finding out what's wrong.. But If the first game persists on not seeing my edited subhoods, then I will just move the West Weasels, Baskerville and Orville to other game where subhoods show up, and complete my plans there, because I don't feel comfortable with bothering you any longer.

[Mootilda]

It's not clear what you're doing. I can read your words, but they don't seem to make any sense in this context. We know that the technique works. There must be something that you're not telling us. Let me try to point out the areas that are confusing:

What are West Weasels, Baskerville, and Orville? The base neighborhoods? The base neighborhood should have no effect on which Downtown areas are available.

What do you mean by "switched the Sims 2 folders"? What do you mean by "move the West Weasels, Baskerville and Orville to other game where subhoods show up"?

Are you trying to say that you're using the AnyGameStarter? If so, then you obviously need to have the correct EPs and SPs in the AnyGame to be able to attach a Downtown. In my example, all of the neighborhoods will require Seasons, since I copied a Seasons IDNO record. If you want a neighborhood to be available with just Nightlife, then you'll need to copy an IDNO record from a Nightlife-only game; otherwise, the game won't be able to recognize the format.

Also, each downloaded neighborhood has a list of required EPs. If you don't have one of those EPs in your AnyGame, then you can expect problems. For example, Elsewhere requires Nightlife, Open for Business, and Seasons. This is why I decided to use a Seasons IDNO record.

Port White Water only requires the base game, but changing it to a Downtown means that it will require Nightlife and the fact that I used a Seasons IDNO means that it will need Seasons; I could reduce those requirements to Nightlife by using a Nightlife IDNO record, but there's no way to remove the Nightlife requirement.

In addition, if you move your subhood to the Seasons NeighborhoodTemplate folder, then it will only be available in an AnyGame which includes Seasons. Downtowns should go into an installation directory from Nightlife up to Mansion and Garden. Business Districts should go into an installation directory from Open for Business up to Mansion and Garden. I usually suggest that you use the NeighborhoodTemplate folder for the most recent EP used to create the subhood, so that you will not accidentally attempt to add it to a game which can't handle it.

Does this explain the strange behavior that you're seeing?

[Amairani]

I don't have AnyGameStarter, only the Sims 2, and I have all EPs and SPs.

West Weasels, Baskerville, and Orville are base neighbourhoods. I'm trying to add to each of them two subhoods. So far, by following your instructions, I succedeed with adding Pleasantiview v3.5 as Shopping District to West Weasels and Bonito as Shopping District to Baskerville.

I have several saved games, each with its own theme and I switch between them depending on what I wish to play - for example, currently In my EA Games folder I have two saved games - "The Sims 2" folder (with Strangetown, I will name it Game #1) and "The Sims 2 Riverblossom" folder (Game #2). When I wish to play Riverblossom, I rename the folder to The Sims 2 so that the game recognizes it and runs it, while the previously played The Sims 2 gets renamed to something else, so the game ignores it, as there can't be two The Sims 2 folders at the same time. To explain the reason for doing so, is to divide all my CC (like 15GBs of it), not to put it all in one Downloads folder, when I need only like 1/10 of it when playing a rural Riverblossom.

While trying to convert these neighbourhoods to subhoods, the Game #1 was active.

Somehow, the converted Downtowns don't show up in Game #1 when I load any of downloaded neighbourhood (except for Port White Waters that is listed as avaiable Downtown to add for Orville and Baskerville). All converted Downtowns can be added as subhoods to Riverblossom though...

To continue with my test, after converting the Port White Water, Middleground, Elsewhere and Simville to the Shopping Districts, neither showed up in Game #1. I copied West Weasels, Baskerville, and Orville to Game #2, loaded the game and only Port White Water was avaiable for adding as Shopping District, and only in Orville.

So I deleted the converted Shopping Districts from the NeighborhoodTemplate folder, put back the Downtowns, run Game #2, and this is what I have now:

-Maxis' Riverblossom have all converted subhoods available for adding to it
-West Weasels with previously added Pleasantview v3.5 as Shopping District - none of the rest subhoods are shown in Create a Downtown/Shopping District panel
-Baskerville with previously added Bonito as Shopping District - only Port White Water is listed under Downtowns (well, along with Maxis' Downtown)
-Orville (no subhoods attached) - also, only Port White Water is listed

Out of all this crazy mess I can conclude the following:

the downloaded neighbhourhoods were successfully converted to either Shopping Districts or Downtowns per your instructions, and can be added as subhoods to Maxis' Riverblossom and Strangetown, but per mysterious reasons they selectively show up as available subhoods with downloaded base neighbourhoods.
I also created a new neighbourhood in-game, using Create Custom Neighbourhood option, for testing purposes, and all six subhoods were available for adding.



I don't know how to explain it all that it will be more understandable, I'm sorry.

[Mootilda]

That answered my questions. However, I'm stumped about the behavior that you're seeing. If I have any other ideas, I'll let you know.

[Amairani]

I appreciated your help. Through this I gained valuable experience with SimPe and learned more :) Thank you!

[lytefoot]

So this should be fine, since it works in Bluewater, but... I just wanted to make sure resident sims in a subhood owning community lots wouldn't cause problems. It's a shopping district, so anything Bluewater can do should be fine, right?

Also, is it okay to have sims in the bin as part of a template neighborhood, or should they all live in lots? (I have some planned that really ought to be apartment dwellers, so I'd rather just leave them in the bin in the template than make houses for them all, too.)

(Amairani, this may be a stupid question... but does Game #1 have the anti-big-button mod installed? (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=420924) (I doubt this is the problem, but it it *might* cause what you're seeing, esp. if West Weasels already has a downtown installed.))

[Mootilda]

It's a shopping district, so anything Bluewater can do should be fine, right?That's right. If the game handles something properly with Bluewater, then the game should handle it properly with any suburb template.

Also, is it okay to have sims in the bin as part of a template neighborhood, or should they all live in lots?Yes, it's fine to have sims in the sim bin as a part of a subhood template. That's how many of the EPs add new sims to your sim bin, such as the Traveller family.

[cwykes]

There's nothing wrong with having sims in your sim bin, but it might not be a good long term decision. Think how annoying it is to find the Pet families and the Travellers in every single 'hood in your game! You can't just delete them out of the sim bin either, because it's not safe according to Pescado. So you need to play them and/or kill them in each 'hood and, if you ever re-install your game, you'll have to do it all over again.

How about putting them on an empty lot(s) instead, so you can move them to the sim bin once installed?

Re- the big button......Anyone who downloaded Sedona, got Marvin Kosh's 'big button hack' as part of the download. I put it in a folder called hacks so you could see what it was, but obviously you don't want that as well as Moothilda's.

[Mootilda]

There's a huge difference between the sim bin of a subhood and the sim bin of a stealth subhood. Since stealth subhoods are added to every single neighborhood, the sims will show up over and over again.

However, if you're trying to deal with something like Belladonna Cove as a subhood: 1) people are likely to only add this subhood to one neighborhood and 2) the sims are an integral part of that subhood and 3) putting apartment residents into the sim bin seems cleaner than placing them on another lot, when the intention is to place them back into their original apartment building.

There's no advantage to putting sims on a lot vs. putting them into the sim bin. In either case, they will be added to your neighborhood when the subhood is attached.

[cwykes]

So the Pets and Traveller families are part of stealth sub-hoods? I didn't think Pets created a sub-hood or that the Travellers were part of the Seasons sub-hood. Am I wrong here? Or maybe a stealth sub-hood is terminology for something that gets added to every 'hood be it sims, lots or.a sub-hood (visible or invisible).

So if I had put sims in the simbin of Sedona, they wouldn't have appeared in every 'hood, but only in 'hoods where you actually added the sub-hood to their game. I hadn't understood that, but of course it's true; we didn't get the Bluewater sims everywhere.. thanks!

[Mootilda]

That's right. The Traveler family comes with the Bon Voyage "Exotic Destinations" stealth subhood (V001)

The Pets families vary. Any family which comes with a house is installed into the LotCatalog folder and shows up in the lot bin. Examples are the Kat and Kim families Those families are safe to remove, as long as you haven't added them to a neighborhood.

The Roseland and Crittur families are a different matter. They are included with the Pets stealth subhood (P001) and are added to the sim bin of every single neighborhood. Because they are actually added to each neighborhood, they are unsafe to remove. If you don't want them, you have to install an empty Pets stealth subhood or remove the stealth subhood entirely, before your neighborhood is created or converted to Pets.

Sims that are an integral part of a subhood can safely be shared in the sim bin of the subhood template. They are functionally identical to sims in lots, except that they are not associated with a lot. If a subhood template is correctly created, the sims in the sim bin will only be added to a neighborhood when the subhood is attached to the neighborhood.

EA completely overuses both playable sims and townies in stealth neighborhoods and didn't consider the annoyance of having the same exact sims in every single neighborhood. Empty stealth hoods are definitely the way to go.

[cwykes]

Thank you for explaining! I actually went and looked at some 'hood data which now makes more sense.

I'm using empty templates in principle, but every time I re-install, I've missed one and ended up with one or more of the annoying sim bin families.

Pescado says it's not safe to delete sims out of the simbin because it leaves dangling data and dangling data is corruption in the making. I always felt it should be safe to delete them the first time you see them, before they have done walkby's on community lots and met people, but never sure enough actually to do it. I always place them in a lot and then feel obliged to play them. I'm not awesome, so I mostly do what Pescado says is safe.

I'm puzzling over album issues at the moment. I never got the sub-hood album for Sedona to transfer into the game when you add it to a 'hood. I'm not planning to make a new version of that either, so it's academic. The family albums transferred OK. Or maybe I just never heard about it if they overwrote existing albums!

[Mootilda]

I tend to agree with Pescado. When a family is added to the sim bin, a number of things may be added to the neighborhood package, including family ties, memories, relationships, etc. If you delete a family from the sim bin, the game doesn't clean those up. Therefore, you risk having invalid sim pointers which may come back to haunt you. It's always best to clean your families thoroughly before deleting them, especially because SimPE will not display family ties and memories for invalid sims so you won't be able to clean them up later.

The album is keyed on the hood ID (UID field in the IDNO record in the neighborhood package), which can change when the game re-generates your save game or attaches a subhood to a neighborhood. If the ID changes, the story can become disconnected. I believe that EA changed the way that this works with later EPs, by changing the way that the story is stored.

One of the things that annoys me is that EA named one of the neighborhoods from the later EPs (I think that it was Belladonna Cove) with the same ID as Pleasantview. Since the neighborhoods from the newer EPs are added first (based on their hood folder name), Pleasantview always loses its story in a newly generated save game. I've changed Belladonna Cove on my machine to have a different ID number, so that I get both stories. (Unfortunately, this means that the hood ID in the neighborhood Tombstone memories is now invalid, but that doesn't matter much since they mostly have invalid lot numbers anyway.)

[Alma70]

I'm having problem with my custom N-Hood and I'm hoping you could help me out.
I can't run Any Game Starter since I'm on Windows 2000 so I went with your Special Procedure at post # 11.

- I've disabled the base game neighborhoods by renaming
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods
to Neighborhoods_Original

- I've disabled all of my stealth neighborhoods by renaming NeighborhoodTemplate to NeighborhoodTemplate_Stealth for all of the EPs which have been installed:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Pets\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\P001
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\G002
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 FreeTime\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\F002
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Apartment Life\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\E002
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\V001

- I've started the game and made a brand new empty N-hood that I exited before I did anything to it.

- I've verified that my new N-hood is completely empty.

- I've given the N-hood an unique name and changed the name of my N-hood folder and the prefix of all files within that folder including the thumbnails package as well.

- I've made a backup of that N-hood just incase.

- I've opened up SimPE. Opened my neighborhood package. Selected ID Number (IDNO) in the left pane. And then nothing!!!! There's nothing in the right pane!!!!! =(

I can't see that I've done anything wrong but it just won't work. I've tried 3 times already but no change so far (I've had some trouble with SimPE before when I wanted to make my own face templates but most of the time it works just fine.) First I thought it was because I named the first hood to ALMA instead of N468 (just an example) but I got the same result anyway.

[Mootilda]

If there's an ID Number (IDNO) in the left pane, then there must be at least one IDNO record in the package.

How long did you wait? SimPE can be quite slow when it first loads a neighborhood and it won't respond if it's already busy. This is especially true for the latest version of SimPE. I seem to remember seeing an article about speeding it up. Let me see whether I can find it.

Also, ALMA is a perfectly good neighborhood prefix. That cannot be your problem.

[Update:] Try the localmode command line parameter:
http://simpeforum.ambertation.de/sims2/Why-is-SimPE-getting-slower-and-larger-in-memory

[Alma70]

I think I waited enough time, I usually hear when it's fully loaded and I removed everything from my downloads folder and any extra hoods to make both SimPE and the game load faster since I didn't really need any of it at this stage.
One thing I noticed though, all the little colorful icons you have in your recource tree are just grey blocks in my SimPE, like the icon for your Neighborhood Terrain Geometry in post # 5. Could that have something to do with it not working or does it even matter?
Uninstalling and reinstalling are probably pointless since it's an .exe file and those don't go bad, right?

[Mootilda]

Actually, EXEs can go bad. It might have been corrupted during download. A hard drive failure can change bits inside the EXE. As well, viruses will modify EXEs.

Perhaps you should zip and attach your neighborhood. I assume that it's tiny right now. I could at least see whether I am able to open it, which would suggest a problem with your SimPE installation. If I can't, then we know that your neighborhood is corrupt.

[Alma70]

Thank you so much for checking this out, here's a link: http://www.box.net/shared/q1xuaz779g1d2012iypg
It's in 7.z, hope that's ok?

[Mootilda]

I can see and edit your IDNO without any problem, so there must be a problem with your SimPE installation. Try re-downloading and re-installing.

[Alma70]

Thank you so much for your help Mootilda, uninstall and reinstall did the trick! YAY! =D

[zuriv]

hi! i hope you can help me. i want to make an uberhood using your technique and using all empty neighborhood templates (just lots w/ no sims).

i downloaded SaraMK's empty Pleasantview from here: http://www.box.net/public/q51a8g3pr9

thing is, when i open it in SimPe (newest one, ver.0.73.44, re-downloaded it in case it was corrupted), there is only one white row of numbers, prefaced with all zeros.

attached is my screenshot. :)

[Mootilda]

You are looking at the hex tab. You need to select the plugin tab at the very bottom of the screen.

[zuriv]

here is the screenshot of the plugin tab

following your tutorial, in step 3B) i click the hex tab, and what appears is the first screenshot, with just one yellow row and one white row. do i change the number on the only white row?

or is there something wrong with the empty Pleasantview template as it is, so that i cannot use it to make a subhood?

thanks for helping me. :)

[Mootilda]

Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding. I understand your problem now.

Pleasantview is a base game neighborhood. In the base game, there were no subhoods. Therefore, the IDNO record does not have the appropriate format for subhoods.

To change a base game neighborhood into a subhood, you need to get an IDNO with the correct format. The easiest way to do this is to just copy the IDNO record from a valid neighborhood which has the correct format.

Assuming you have already set up your game with the correct configuration for the type of subhood (empty neighborhood, no subhoods, correct selection of EPs and SPs), just create a new neighborhood and then exit the game. Open the new neighborhood in SimPE and extract the IDNO record (right click on the IDNO record in the right pane and select "Extract..." from the context menu). Then open Pleasantview in SimPE and replace the IDNO record with the extracted one (right click on the IDNO record in the right pane and select "Replace..." from the context menu).

Now, you should be able to adjust the IDNO record as per the tutorial. Your new Pleasantview subhood will require the latest EP used to create the new neighborhood.

You should be able to delete the new neighborhood that you made, since you no longer need it.

[MAB-2000]

Is possible to edit Downtown's terrain? Or any other subhood terrain? The terrains used for subhoods doesn't seem to be available.

Is it possible to "extract" the .sc4 file so it can be edited in SC4?
Sorry if this is beyond thread's aim.

[Mootilda]

You can use HoodReplace to reuse the terrain from an existing neighborhood. However, we do not have a way to extract the SC4 file from a neighborhood package so that it can be edited in SC4. It should be possible, but requires alternate access to the raw data, since the SimPE low-level routines do not fully support the SimCity 4 file formats; I have it on my to-do list for HoodReplace.

And yes, this is basically beyond the scope of this thread. Here is the HoodReplace research thread:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=328160

[miros1]

This probably isn't the place to ask, but how would you go about modifying the stealth subhoods?

Examples include:
Putting your own puppies and kittens into the adoption pool.
Modifying the Hobby and Witch subhoods and/or the lots inside them.

[Mootilda]

First, a caveat: Once a stealth subhood has been attached to a neighborhood, you will not be able to modify that subhood using this procedure. This will only affect neighborhoods which have not yet had the stealth neighborhood attached. Editing an attached stealth subhood is beyond the mandate of this thread. If that's what you want to do, start your own thread and we'll try to help you.

Off the top of my head, here's what I'd try:

- Create an empty environment, as described in the tutorial. If you accidentally attach a subhood to your stealth subhood, it will no longer work, so it's important that you're running in a completely empty environment.

- Backup the stealth subhood and your save game.

- Move the stealth subhood from Program Files into your save game. If you had to rename the stealth subhood to create the empty environment, be sure that it has the right (original) name in your Neighborhoods folder.

- Run the game and see whether the subhood is available as a neighborhood. If not, try removing all of your other neighborhoods and try again. (They're backed up, right?) If it still doesn't show up, let me know and I'll investigate further. Be sure to let me know which stealth subhood you're trying to edit.

- Once the stealth subhood is available as a standalone neighborhood in your game, you can play as usual to add puppies and kittens and modify lots. Note that you may have to use the LoadLot cheat to edit a hidden lot.

- When the neighborhood is set up the way that you want, move it back to the correct location in Program Files.

- Test the stealth subhood with a new neighborhood, or one that you don't care about. Be sure that it's working correctly before you allow it to attach to a neighborhood that you care about.

[miros1]

Thanks! I'll try it out and see what happens.

[just_jim]

There's no theoretical reason for a problem. Occupied apartments, on the other hand, have a very real reason why they fail.

OK, I am very confused... I made a Mega-hood about 2 months ago, and so far everything seems to be running fine. But I didn't use SimPE... I did it the "Wrong Way" as I'm seeing it called...
So why haven't I had any problems???

Here's what I did. I wanted a Mega-hood with all the original Sim families from all the games and expansions. Basically a neighborhood where someone like Cassandra Goth, from Pleasantview, could hang out at the same restaurant with Juliet Capp, from Veronaville. After some experimenting I thought the easiest way to do this was to make a new, original neighborhood, then make duplicate sub-neighborhoods, shopping districts to be exact, to match all the games original neighborhoods (Pleasantview, Veronaville, etc...). I decided to use Shopping districts when I was playing around and saw Florence Delarosa, who lives in a shopping district, stroll past a house in my main neighborhood... that's when I realized shopping district residents can interact with main neighborhood sims on their own.

Because this was going to be a big, new project, I wanted all the families pristine and unplayed. So I uninstalled my copy of the game and all the expansions, then reinstalled everything clean. I'm reading the biggest problems with importing families into mega-hoods is preexisting memories... maybe this is what's saved me... none of the families I moved had been played, so they maybe didn't have memories yet??? Oh, BTW... I was't terribly concerned with stuff like Cassandra and Don's wedding... which did NOT play out after I moved them both. I take this as a good thing, because hopefully it means they didn't have any pre-existing memories from prior to being moved..

So anyway, I made my mega-hood, and added all the standard sub-neighborhoods, vacation spots, universities... etc. Oh, FYI... I'm playing Double Deluxe with all of the expansions. I backed up everything and started building the duplicate sub-neighborhoods, starting with Pleasantview. I used a matching map, and dulicated the landscaping as best I could. Then I exited my mega-hood, entered the regular Pleasantview neighborhood, and snatched up all the houses, families and all, put them into the house bin, exited the Pleasantview neighborhood, loaded my mega-hood's Pleasantview sub-hood, and plunked all the houses where they belonged.
I did this with all 6 of the pre-made neighborhoods, from Pleasantview to Belladonna Cove, until I had a complete mega-hood. Every single house and family from all 6 neighborhoods. Again, I did NOT play any of the families prior to doing this... I just snatched them from their neighborhood and plunked them into the matching sub-hood of my mega-hood. Oh, I also did not bother to add any of the sub-neighborhoods to the other pre-made neighborhoods... I knew I'd be deleting them after I moved the house, so why bother??? And like I said, after I had moved everything I deleted all the other neighborhoods except my mega-hood.

Now here's the thing... it's been over 2 months, I play almost every evening, and so far it's working fine. Oh, after I got everything up and running I found homes for the remaining pre-made families, matching them as best possible with the appropriate sub-neighborhood. Everyone now lives somewhere, and a couple families are in appartments. I just played Vivian Cho the other day, who now resides in an apartment in my Belladonna Cove sub-neighborhood... and I didn't encounter any problems. If an apartment in a sub-hood is supposed to fail I don't see how.

Right now I have sims in my main hood going steady with sims from sub-hoods... sims from different sub-hoods interacting fine on their own... and I'm getting ready to send a bunch off to college... this will be a mix of hood and sub-hood family teens.
Oh, and one of my main neighborhood family also runs a restaurant/gift shop, and is employing sims from my sub-hoods with no glitches.

So again I'm confused... as well as a little terrified now...lol. I'm reading about all these glitches and problems with making a mega-hood... is mine doomed to eventually crash???

[Mootilda]

I'm confused... as well as a little terrified now...lol. I'm reading about all these glitches and problems with making a mega-hood... is mine doomed to eventually crash???Short answer: Yes, your neighborhood is doomed.

As I explained in the other thread: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=3717365#post3717365, this thread is a discussion about how to create valid subhood templates, which is a necessary step in the creation of a valid mega-hood. If you want to learn how to make a mega-hood correctly, this is the place.

However, your post is not on topic for this thread. Start by reading the thread about "non-intuitive things NOT to do in a Sims game". It's a long thread, but contains a wealth of useful information which can help you to avoid destroying your next neighborhood. As I explained before, your current megahood is unfixable. This thread explains why:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=394352

That thread should also contain the answers to your questions. If you are still confused about the corruption in your existing mega-hood after reading the entire thread, ask questions in that thread.

[MAB-2000]

OK, I'll get to the point quickly. For one more time, I have a problem.

Until yesterday, everything worked fined ( AnyGame1 with BV installed, a proper subhood to get started). I was building as usual, saved my work and quited the game. Today, when I opened AnyGame, there wasn't any neighborhood.

In the startup screen, there wasn't any neighborhood to choose (my only option was to create one). But, in "MyDocuments/EA Games/.../Neighborhoods" my subhood folder exists.

Any advice?

[Mootilda]

Today, when I opened AnyGame, there wasn't any neighborhood. [...] Any advice?This is off-topic for this thread. You probably want the "Disappearing Neighborhoods" thread:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=180053

[MAB-2000]

Thought it was associated with the subhood itself

[Mootilda]

This tutorial doesn't cause your subhoods to disappear overnight. You have some other problem which is unrelated to this tutorial.

Since the thread is already fairly long, I'd prefer not to confuse the question of subhood template creation with your own personal problems with a disappearing neighborhood. I'm just thinking about the other people who have to read through this entire thread to understand how to create a subhood template.

[soft.princess]

Hopefully, this won't be considered necromancy... I'm trying to create a vacation subhood template using this tutorial, and so far everything seems to work fine, except that I've noticed that, despite the fact that I followed all the steps to have a clean hood (I can't use AGS, unfortunately, so I had to use the steps in post #11), the game has generated 15 stray pets in my neighbourhood (when I was building the lots).

Can I share the neighbourhood as a vacation spot with the 15 stray pets? Should I just delete them? Should I scrap the 'hood and start again? I'm totally unsure how to proceed at this point. I have a bit of a time constraint on this, so I really hope it's an easy fix or not a problem at all....

[Mootilda]

It would be better to fix the problem, which means that you'll need to determine where the stray pets are coming from. There are two likely options:
- The Pets stealth neighborhood, usually found under C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Pets\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate
- You are missing the no-regen mod for strays, available here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6027.0.html

Once you are able to create the empty environment, you can use this tutorial to clean your neighborhood:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=468987

Do not attempt to delete the strays in-game. That will corrupt your neighborhood.

[soft.princess]

Ah! It's the no-regen for strays that I didn't have. I'll install the mod and clean up the strays using the tutorial. Thank you so much for the quick response!

[Ivy Copur]

I completed the tutorial using the non-AnyGameStarter method for my existing neighborhoods. Then I renamed all the folders back to their original names before loading. Yet the game seems to be stuck on step 1E. Clearly I missed a step. I am new to this but I did make a backup if it comes to that.

[Mootilda]

The neighborhood templates must be unavailable while the game is generating the initial save game. After the initial save game has been generated with no neighborhoods at all, then you can rename the primary neighborhood templates back if you wish. However, the stealth neighborhoods should remain unavailable until you've completed your neighborhood and moved it to Program Files.

If this doesn't answer your question, then you'll need to give me more information about your problem. Step 1E is generating the initial save game. Exactly what problem are you having with step 1E?

[Ivy Copur]

The neighborhood templates must be unavailable while the game is generating the initial save game. After the initial save game has been generated with no neighborhoods at all, then you can rename the primary neighborhood templates back if you wish. However, the stealth neighborhoods should remain unavailable until you've completed your neighborhood and moved it to Program Files.

The folders weren't renamed until I exited the game because I thought it was a wrap. I only generated a custom hood for the IDNO for my base hoods. I did however move the neighborhood to Program Files. This is very new to me so sorry if I'm not wording things right.

If this doesn't answer your question, then you'll need to give me more information about your problem. Step 1E is generating the initial save game. Exactly what problem are you having with step 1E?

My problem is essentially that I can't seem to move past Step 1E. I did the other steps in the tutorial, thought I completed it, but my screen is identical to the screenshot in 1E. The only options the game is giving me is to create a custom hood. I've already done that so why won't my original screen come back?

Also, my expansions for Open For Business and University are missing. The game keeps on asking for my Apartment Life CD.

[Mootilda]

I'm sorry, but I'm still having problems understanding your problem.

As I understand it, you create a custom neighborhood. Then it just disappears? You say that you've completed the tutorial. At which step does the custom neighborhood disappear? Does everything work well until that point?

[Update:] I just thought of something. Are you saying that the neighborhood is no longer available for editing, once you've moved it to a NeighborhoodTemplate folder under Program Files? That's to be expected. At that point, you want to test your new subhood template by trying to attach it to another neighborhood.

[Ivy Copur]

My goal was to make my pre-played neighborhoods into subhoods. I didn't want a new custom neighborhood. I only created one because the base games don't have the proper IDNO to change it from 1 to 4. After completing the tutorial and loading the game only the custom neighborhood appears. I wish the custom neighborhood would disappear. I only needed it for extraction in SimPE. I think the issue is my game not recognizing Open For Business and University anymore. But I have no idea how to rectify this.

[Mootilda]

I'm sorry that I'm being so dense. It helps to know that you are trying to convert an existing base-game custom neighborhood into a subhood template.

So, you have a base-game custom neighborhood that you want to convert into a subhood template, and you have a machine which has (at least) University, Open for Business, and Apartment Life. You generated an empty neighborhood just to get an IDNO record with the correct format. You then replaced the base-game custom neighborhood IDNO record with the newly generated IDNO record. This will automatically make your custom neighborhood require (at least) Apartment Life.

Did you modify the IDNO record for the custom neighborhood in any way? Specifically, did you modify either the UID or (parent) Name? Is this the point at which your custom neighborhood disappears? That may be because of a conflict between the IDNO records for the custom neighborhood and the empty neighborhood, especially if you did not modify both the UID and (parent) Name fields. Try deleting the now-unnecessary empty neighborhood and see whether your custom neighborhood shows up again. I'd like to suggest that you delete the neighborhood by deleting the appropriate neighborhood folder, rather than deleting it in-game. That's because we already believe that the game is confused about having two neighborhoods with the same IDNO record; we don't want to confuse it further.

Can you tell me whether the custom neighborhood folder is still in your save game Neighborhoods folder?

I agree that it's important to get your University and Open for Business to be recognized again, since OFB subhoods will not work without Open for Business.

I know of one main reason why EPs can automatically uninstall on a computer: if you are using the Launcher. For some reason, the Launcher likes to uninstall EPs. If this is the case, then you should do the following:
1) Backup your save game, just in case.
2) Bypass the launcher: http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Bypassing_Launcher
3) Reinstall any missing EPs.

The only other time that I've seen EPs automatically uninstall is when someone tried to use the AnyGameStarter with unsupported collection packs or downloaded games. If that is your problem, you'll probably have to reinstall the missing EPs and avoid using the AnyGames, at least until you get them fixed.

Just to be clear, the more that you can tell me about what you've done and when problems started to appear, the easier it will be to help you. At this point, I'm really still guessing about your problem.

[Ivy Copur]

You are so not being dense. I wasn't sure the proper terminologies for the things so I'm sure I was vague. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me. I looked into it and unfortunately AnyGameStarter was used at some point. And--oh boy--I use the launcher all the time. Well that explains everything now. Thankfully I did backup my game. Now I have to see if I still have my old disks.

[Mootilda]

The AnyGameStarter is great, as long as you only have supported packs. Numenor left the community after Mansion and Gardens was released, so the latest packs aren't supported. Do you have any of the later collection packs, or did you download any of your games (rather than having them on DVD)?

[Ivy Copur]

I downloaded Freetime. The rest were on disc. Based on what I read I'm guessing some of the horsemen of my Sim apocalypse were Double Deluxe, Best of Business and University Life. I don't know if I still have all of these discs. Is there a way to copy the install files to another location and reinstall using these files?

[Mootilda]

The AnyGameStarter doesn't work with Best of Business or University Life and I believe that it doesn't work with any downloaded games. If you pirated these collection packs, you'll need to buy them to reinstall.

[Ivy Copur]

The AnyGameStarter doesn't work with Best of Business or University Life and I believe that it doesn't work with any downloaded games. If you pirated these collection packs, you'll need to buy them to reinstall.

I downloaded Freetime from Amazon or something like it. I didn't download any of these illegally. (Edit:Don't want to advocate anything against site policy.) I guess I could try to get their game on my USB port. I'm also trying to do a system restore. I'm sure not going to buy three games again.

[Mootilda]

A system restore from before you installed the AnyGameStarter should fix the problem.

Sharing games with friends is still piracy (to say nothing of risky - when they lose your disks). You can't install a game by just copying the game folder from Program Files; you need the installation disk.

[Ivy Copur]

Honestly I remember now flat out giving the game to my friend's granddaughters. Some things were loaned like DVDs but I actually got those back. At the time I had no interest in playing. I also gave them some books. You're not going to call Harper Collins on me, are you?

System Restore is not working for me. I had a tech friend look into it and my computer's corrupted. So either I break into the granddaughters' house and steal their game or go shopping. There are some expansions I don't have so maybe there's a package deal somewhere out there.

[Mootilda]

Of course not. I'm just trying to point out that you need the installation disks; copying the files from the hard drive isn't enough. If grabbing the disk from your friend's granddaughter is the solution, then I say "go for it!".

Sorry that the system restore didn't solve your problem.

Can you think of a better way to word the warning on the AnyGameStarter? I know that one of the moderators tried to make the warning more forceful, but it's obvious that it's still not clear enough.

[Ivy Copur]

I think the warning with Any Game Starter was clear. It's just my eyes aren't as young as they used to be and I hadn't played in while. I have been able to play by manually uninstalling and reinstalling Best of Business. Once I load the lots playing the characters is fine but the towns take forever to load. I know having Double Deluxe means everything is supposed to be uninstalled. This is just temporary because we're supposed to be transitioning away from Windows XP. I do like your tutorial and would like to play it once my computer is less wonky.

[Mootilda]

Good news! Changing the subhood type just got a lot easier. Steps 3A - 3H have been replaced with one step. No more need to deal with that pesky SimPE bug.

[Peni Griffin]

All right, I'm trying to make a subhood version of Widespot, to be called Widespot RFD. I have not so far been able to make the changeLotZoning cheat to work. When I attempt I get the following error:
ERROR TSCheatSystem: ERROR IN CHEAT: Unknown command
in command 'changeNeighborhoodType suburb'
with command changeNeighborhoodType suburb
.\source\TSCheatSystem.cpp(68)

Which means squat to me. It's possible that it just won't work with an inhabited neighborhood.

Yesterday I tried changing it with SimPE, and realized after I'd attached it to a disposable Belladonna Cove and playtested for awhile that I had done it wrong, so I started fresh today and the cheat still doesn't work. However, when out of curiosity I looked in that Belladonna Cove with SimPE and checked to make sure I knew how to read the pregnancy controller, I found that all the pregnancies had the correct father NID. So this is encouraging as far as it goes.

So far all the file names have been changed from PGWS to BGWS and the name of the hood has been changed to Widespot RFD, and that's all I've got. If anyone can suggest a way to make the cheat work I'll try it again; otherwise, I get to do it the Long Way and have my first excursion into Hex Code.

[Mootilda]

Looks like you need to be in debug mode. Try creating a text file named userStartup.cheat in your Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Config folder and adding the line:
boolprop testingCheatsEnabled true

I've updated the post about using the changeNeighborhoodType cheat. You can download a copy of my userStartup.cheat file from that post.

[Peni Griffin]

Yes, hooray, it is a suburb!

I tried just typing in the testingcheats, and it didn't fly. I don't know what was different about having it in the UserStartup file, but once I did that, it worked, and since it's better to have the testingcheats enabled for testing anyway I need to copy that file into all my AnyGames made for this project. Of which there will be many by the time I'm done testing this. Let the tedious testing begin!