I posted this in a different forum, but it's been almost a week and I haven't received any responses. It's very possible that forum is just dead, as there are pretty much no replies to any of the threads there. So this may not be the right section, but there isn't much use posting something in the right section if no one's going to see it

Here's the thing: I want llamas in my game. I've experimented on horses and dogs, but to unsatisfactory results. I was wondering if it was possible to create a new category of pet, with its own interactions (possibly borrowing animations from other animals). It would be a huge undertaking for sure, but I want to know that it's possible first. I've looked around but I haven't found anyone who's done anything like this. I did find a video where somebody took a deer and used witchcraft to make it part of the household, but I don't know how I would, if I could, apply that to my situation. Though deer are closer to being llama-esque than either dogs or horses. Maybe I could use the mesh of a deer as a template? I don't know that much about modding, but I'm very interested in it. If anyone else also has an interest in making llamas a virtual reality, I would love your help.

I think the easiest but not-so-perfect solution is to mesh a llama clothing for horse just like a deer (a deer is actually a horse ingame).

Do you know if it's possible to create a whole other category of pet?

In game modding I can't say something is impossible, to be precise, but, the feasibility is nearing impossibility. The reason why there is never an attempt / a successfully made new category of pet, is, you'll really need to code up a lot of things, some of which are still not understood to modders. Modders aren't like game developers. We do chunks of that here and there, but never a totally new, big stuff like pets in expansion packs. The road to making it is difficult (and, sadly, regardless of your determination), because when you see from the perspective of reality, no one is going to help you in such an unfamiliar realm, and when you are lost, you probably just won't get through it because we don't understand much about the game in fact.

If I sound terrible I must apologize, sometimes I just don't know how to put things in the harsh reality in a better way, but this is the truth. Whatever goes, all the best to you!!

That makes sense. Thanks for being honest. I'm still interested, but considering that I don't even know the most rudimentary thing about coding it'll be a long road for sure. If only more people were interested in this, but even then it would take a great deal of work. Honestly the prospect of something being near impossible makes me want to do it even more. I mean I don't want to sink months into this project fruitlessly just because I couldn't listen to reason, but I've already become so mentally invested in this that it's hard to consider giving up before I've started.
*cue o fortuna*


edit: What about a new sub-category (like you can have large and small dogs)? Will it still be about the same difficulty? What about creating a new wild animal, like a deer? I thought I may as well ask.

I'm afraid it's just like the same difficulty. More often than not, whether you are willing to put the time into the project is not the most important thing, but rather, if you can actually solve the problem in the end. As far as I probably know, wild animals require manager classes to spawn them at certain time, you will have to code certain behaviours for them, and I'm afraid the support for them is next to none.

As I said before, meshing a llama clothing like a wild animal one's deer clothing for horses is probably the easiest and most feasible thing to do. And if you really want to make llamas stand out from horses (similar to how deers are different from horses in game, despite the fact that a deer is considered a horse by coding), you can add interactions for llamas that check whether the "horse" is wearing the llama outfit (ie in a gamer's perspective, to check if the animal is a llama). This approach sounds indeed realistic, I'm willing to offer help on the interaction part (for simple ones, that is, not involving too much animation stuff, I'm not helpful with them, but you can always seek help here )

I think your situation is similar to mine a long time ago, when I want to do a sterilization mod for horses, I wanted to add a "flag" (think of it as a property) for horses, but custom flags cause game to be unsavable and are totally impossible to make, I used to think that flags are the best approach despite, now-found-to-be-useful advice from modders. I'm not saying I'm very proficient or useful, just want to let you know that the "stuck" feeling is experienced by every one of us!

I could do that. Thanks for all your support! I'll be sure to seek your help when I come to that road. It'll probably have to wait until I get my new computer, though. This machine is knocking at death's door. It can barely run the sims as it is.