Hello everyone,

After several years of not playing the Sims 2, I’ve decided to give the game a final go. I’m currently building a huge residence for my main family. It’s a big project where a lot of ideas are to be realised. In order to do so, it is likely that I’ll have to modify the game's content.
I’m going to create the modifications on my own, but I’m pretty green when it comes to this. Therefore I wanted to hear if you - the experience modders – could comment on some of the things that I am planning to do. I would like to know if such modifications are viable at all and, if so, then how difficult it will be to achieve them. I don’t have much spare time, so if some of them are too time consuming or require advanced “modding skills”, then I will simply have to skip those ideas. As of now, I’ve only read a nice beginner’s guide available on this site. If you know of any guides that are useful for what I'm trying to create, then please notify me about them!

In some instances it is custom content (objects only) that has to be altered. I guess that means that I will need permission from the creators, to open their objects’ package-files in SimPe? I would of course use the modified objects for self-use only and not make them available for download.

Without further ado, here come the challenges that lie ahead:

Scaling objects – I would like to resize (both minimize and enlarge) some of the static objects available in Build Mode and Buy Mode. The amount of tiles used by the objects shall remain the same. I believe this should be fairly easy? Will it become more difficult if the object in question is animated? There’s a fountain which I eventually had in mind to decrease in size.

Edit the number tiles used by object – There’s a certain spot-light (see pictures below) that was introduced in Open for Business, which uses one tile only. Because of the layout of the house, I need the spot-light to use two tiles, so that it appears in-between them (again see the photoshoped screen dump that I’ve added). I would also like to edit the hot tube’s number of tiles from 3 x 3 to 3 x 4. Given all the interactions that the hot tube offers, I assume that editing its positioning will be a lot harder than the spot-light’s.



Creating a wall decoration out of an existing object - Macarossi has created a lovely set of large rocks mostly for outdoor placement. I would like to split them up, so that I can use “parts” of them as a wall decoration instead (see pictures below. The photoshoped one at the bottom illustrates what I'm trying to do).



Fake ladder – Using the Grid Editor I created an ascending walkway (see picture). However, since the walkway only connects to the terrain visually, I need a fake ladder which allows Sims to transcend from the foundation (level 1) to the terrain (level 0). I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen such a “ladder” available for download on here. I’m not sure what the correct search term would be (fake ladder didn’t net any good results), so if anyone knows of this object then could you provide me with a link?

This type of questions is better off in the "Creator Feedback Forum" http://modthesims.info/forumdisplay.php?f=611

Perhaps you want a ladder like this? http://modthesims.info/d/241795

Marka's right - once you start fiddling about with files, you should post in creator feedback but to address one or two points - answers below:


Nope - if it's for personal use, you can do what the hell ever you like. Even for release, most modders have generous terms (and no legal back up anyway - bear in mind it's just polite to let people know). If you had to ask anyone's permission to open package files, it would be EA (given they own all copyright on the format) but they gave their permission (implicitly at least) years ago.


Yes, Milkshape, the programme generally used for meshes, has a scaling feature which you can use on the whole thing. Should be ok to get a bigger size though you will have trouble with animations, I think, and also with mapping the texture (though this is easy enough to do too).


If that's all you want to do with the light, I'd use the cheat (boolProp snapObjectsToGrid false). It will let you place an object anywhere. It's not always effective to do with objects the sims can interact with though. Lights work fine.


This is more difficult. You might find it worthwhile to look around for cave walls though (there are some knocking about). Try the WCIF forum here - it's very active and people know the location of lots of stuff.


You'd be better just searching for 'ladder'.
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=241795
There's a nice set of rock steps about too - same creator:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=277829

This works, but requires some pretty fine control of your placement of objects. If you happen to have M&G installed, there's also the (setquartertileplacement on) cheat, which gives you 16X more spaces per tile to place things, while still allowing you to put them on enough of a grid that Sims (usually) won't have trouble interacting with them, nor objects interacting with one another (chairs pulling up to tables, that sort of thing)

You won't have to remap anything after scaling an object in Milkshape, but any sim-object animations will just ignore the change and the sim will treat the object like it was its original size.

Thanks for all of the helpful replies! The Grid cheat worked very well, even when it came to the Hot Tube. The tube's interactions still functioned as before. Also thanks for notifying me about the WCIF forum, I'm sure it will prove useful.
I've also begun scaling meshes with Blender. If I encounter any problems, I'll ensure myself that I post in the correct forum.