@gummilutt
I won't hit you up on Discord. After some sleep I finally understand this very tutorial.
The object has four textures (subsets? ) and SimPE just extracts one. I'm now wondering if making it invisible is a great idea. I think recolours should work better but I need to find relevant pictures. ;-)

Maybe some of you noticed that I have been away for a while, but now I’m back Did I miss something interesting?

I noticed. Glad to see you. Not much, I guess.

When you go to make an attic and the pictures for the tutorial are gone. Sim life...

Edit: I have to stop watching Hotel Hell. Now I want my sims to own an inn...

Yes I have missed you @Voeille, I think of you and me as something of kindred spirits in the TS2 community, and I haven't really noticed you around since you won Jo's contest. I've started acontinuity thread for it for people still playing those Sims or anything else arising out of the contest. I felt I really had to start the thread as I has built an "extra" house for one of Jo's characters (James Evans, the Olympic athlete), and had it ready just after the official contest thread closed.

When I say I think we're kindred spirits, I certainly don't mean in our building style: you're top of the Premier League, while I'm somewhere about Division 8! But I think we have something similar in our playstyle, in that we both try to look after our Sims well. I think our emphasis is slightly different in that you go for perfection, while I aim more for their happiness. But if your Sims got together with mine, I think they'd agree that they both live in "good" places, compared to some of the things that go on in other people's games. First I make sure my Sims are safe, and then I try to keep them happy. I can't be happy playing my Sims unless they are too. You might be interested in SIMelissa's How do you Play thread (one of the threads you may have missed).

Welcome back!

I recently went through the photo caption thread. It got photofucketed pretty badly on a few pages.

Also, welcome back @Voeille

Yeah I do think we have a similar playstyle with respect to sims happiness. I enjoy seeing them having perfect lives

I'd like to play my game but I have to set some things up first.

Same here. I want my game exactly as I want it..is it too much to ask? It takes time though...

And I just now realized, that I'll be able to play, with Murano's mirror floors now that I have a super-war-machine as a computer.
I liked building with these..then found out, it was unplayably too laggy once in live mode.
As an aside, weird how TSR does not require logging in anymore, to download anything...I downloaded a few of my own uploads there, without logging in. I even downloaded other people's stuff for testing or helping someone etc...works every time.

@Rosebine
Murano's mirror floors remind me of the time I was doing beauty contests back in the days.

Since I started a new hood, I wanted to try new things.
It's hard to deal with impatience and laziness but I try hard.

For now I replaced the neighbourhood picture by a new one. I'll enjoy it more when I'll launch the game.

This is totally me.

Wanting things to be just so before actually playing the game, really feels like a burden (albeit self-imposed) sometimes.

Well, it is the only place you have any hope of getting exactly how you want it, for most people.

Letting go of the idea of perfection is something a lot of people need to do. But life is chaotic and most of us can't control our circumstances, so why should you settle for not controlling your game? Maybe you have to take a shot at perfection before you can sit back and realize, "Good enough."

When he goes to university, Andrew says he wants to graduate Summa cum Laude. Indeed he expects to graduate Summa cum Laude. He doesn't see any point in going to university if he doesn't. Perfectionism does have its place.

(Clearly I'll have to know how to play university properly before he goes. I'd hate to let him down.)

Here's some tips:
Check your Sim student's career tab. It shows their class performance and what skills are needed to maximize it. Building skills in the teenage years helps quite a bit.
There's four main actions that improve class performance: doing assignments, writing term papers, going to class, and group research.

It's actually not that difficult to get a full dorm of summa cum laudes if you use the pause button.

Even without the pause button. I have sims who make dean's list without ever going to class. Once that grade bar is full, it's time to party.

Most of my Sims would argue it's the other way around. Party, then maybe on the last day think about the performance bar

I’m not a party type but I do tend to study 1-2 days before exams in real life, works fine and lets me spend time during the semester on nicer things, like playing sims

Uni in TS2 is indeed not too hard, and it’s a good time to max out skills. Knowledge sims might be useful with their teaching abilities, not only does it increase the skill level, but also relationships and social bar.

Actually, some of my sims who dean's listed without going to class did so by going to parties and visiting. I invite household and throw parties a lot, as well as going to on-campus community lots, and let them take care of themselves, which means that even the laziest Pleasure sim will occasionally sit down and do an assignment or get caught in a study session initiated by their Fortune or Knowledge buddies. If they happen to have all the necessary skill points, or only need the ones that can be done in fun ways and get them autonomously, by the time I play their households again, that bar looks like a test tube full of milk. As for aforesaid Knowledge and Fortune sims - I've often left them falling into bed with exhaustion after a final, with a "write term paper" want locked, and by the time I get back to them in the rotation, the bar's already full.

I'd also strongly suggest either getting some form of jealousy hack or something to deal with the cow mascot. Otherwise you might end up with a bunch of Sims slapping each other when the cow mascot gets into a flirtatous mood.

Well it's not really about perfection but having the right stuff in game.
I quit wanting perfection a long time ago. "Good enough" is good enough for me. ;-)

And now I have two houses to build. I'm not sure I want to.

What is the right stuff in the game? Everything is relative - and Sims are as happy with ugly green kitchen counters and toilets as with nicely recolored ones.

I like using cc myself, but enjoying the game should be the first priority.

Sims will be happy with anything, this is a fact. Me?..well I am not a sim...yet. I have ideas I want to see when I play. I have that cool scenery in my head, that I want to look at, from my sim's house when I play them.
That meant creating my very own SC4 map. That meant, working hard to have it just as I wanted it to look...and work! That also meant, creating my own Default Townies etc..and that takes time too.
I will be enjoying playing this 'Hood for generations to come.
Now, almost done, all I need is the perfect sky mod that will fit my lost at sea, donut Island.

Like Rosebine I have ideas I want to see when I play and when I really want to play, I play. Aging off for the win.

The Counsillor's daughter got natural twins who are now toddlers. She decided to move her boyfriend in. Said boyfriend also came with three dogs.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't picture the daughter still living with her elder parents so she had to move out. I'm expecting chaos when I'll play her family later. At least she'll have a proper house next time I'll launch the game.

It's not just about CC. ;-)

You can see Paul's Reaction Tester in the background of one of the TV shows!

As long as it's suitably expensive, otherwise you'll get the 'OMG this is the worst thing that could have happened to me' reaction. Slumped shoulders, sighing as if the world is about to end. XD Suck it up baby; I like it.