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Forum Resident
Original Poster
#1 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 8:58 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default Moving a house
Hi: I'm curently playing Riverside neighborhood and in it's downtown, there's a house called House of Fallen Trees. I would like to move that house to riverside. What is the correct way of doing this. Is it okay if I move it to the bin and then put it in riverside neighborhood? The house is currently unoccuoied. Second question: If moving the house can be a problem, is it possible to move my family to downtown into that particular house without any problems? Thanks for your help.
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Née whiterider
retired moderator
#2 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 9:22 PM
If the house is unoccupied, and it hasn't had any sims living in it previously, then you can just place it in the lot bin and move it that way.

If it has been previously occupied, then things might get more tricky - I'll leave that one to people who know what they're doing.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Mad Poster
#3 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 9:29 PM
That house has the Tricou's graves, doesn't it? I don't know if moving the house would break the character data.
ETA: Wait, I suppose you could resurrect them and move them out, then you could move it to the lots bin like any other house.
Inventor
#4 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 9:33 PM
The House of Fallen Trees has a story behind it. There are graves in the garden, and two coffins in the basement. The lighting in the house has been set to be spooky; it is not reflected off the walls, and your sims are mostly black silhouettes. Yes, you can move it into the lots and houses bin, and thence anywhere you like; but do you want to? In the list of teenagers waiting to go to university there are six who are descendents of Jonathan Tricou. His grave is not in the garden, but in the nearby Gothier Green Lawns. I have not worked out what the private lot and community lot have in common, except many graves. I have played the students many times, and moved them into the House of Fallen Trees, but I found the lighting plain annoying. To change it, you have to type in the cheat line something like 'SetLotLightingFile clear'. I'm still baffled by the setup. Anyone know more?
Site Helper
#5 Old 20th Mar 2012 at 10:48 PM
If you move an occupied lot into the Lot Bin, you'll corrupt your neighborhood. I believe that this is true, even if the occupant is a ghost.

If you install an incorrectly-cleaned occupied lot from the Lot Bin, you'll corrupt your neighborhood. I believe that this is true, even if the occupant is a ghost.

If you delete a tombstone, you can corrupt your neighborhood. This is true even if you delete the tombstone indirectly by removing the house from the neighborhood by placing it into the Lot Bin.

Why risk it?

Options that should work:
- Resurrect the sims and move them out of the house. Then, move the unoccupied lot to the lot bin.
or
- Have a sim move into the lot and move the tombstones to a proper graveyard. Then, move the unoccupied lot to the lot bin.
or
- Package the lot and use the Clean Installer to remove all sims before installing a copy into your main neighborhood. Just ignore the downtown lot.
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#6 Old 21st Mar 2012 at 12:50 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Mootilda
If you move an occupied lot into the Lot Bin, you'll corrupt your neighborhood. I believe that this is true, even if the occupant is a ghost.

If you install an incorrectly-cleaned occupied lot from the Lot Bin, you'll corrupt your neighborhood. I believe that this is true, even if the occupant is a ghost.

If you delete a tombstone, you can corrupt your neighborhood. This is true even if you delete the tombstone indirectly by removing the house from the neighborhood by placing it into the Lot Bin.

Why risk it?

Options that should work:
- Resurrect the sims and move them out of the house. Then, move the unoccupied lot to the lot bin.
or
- Have a sim move into the lot and move the tombstones to a proper graveyard. Then, move the unoccupied lot to the lot bin.
or
- Package the lot and use the Clean Installer to remove all sims before installing a copy into your main neighborhood. Just ignore the downtown lot.
Hi: I tried packaging that lot twice with no luck. It says an error occured and was not able to be packaged. What I really wanna do is actually create something similar to the lighting of that house in a house in riverside but not as drastic and I have no clue as where or how to accomplish that. I did move the house of fallen trees to the bin and then to riverside and renovated it to be more modern but, when I opened the cheat console, i noticed several lines of errors of some sort repeating themself.

Ok Mootilda, when you say i should resurrect the dead, just How can I resurect them without any sims living in that house when I enter it from downtown neighborhood & how shall I move the tombstones to aproper graveyard. Are the any graveyards I'm not aware of? Can you explain a bit please?,and do you know how shall I go about adjusting the lighting in that house to not get rid of that light effect but deminish it a bit? I think sims look good in that light if it wasn't so drastic.
Site Helper
#7 Old 21st Mar 2012 at 2:27 AM
Resurrecting:
http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Tricou_f...e_Tricou_Family

To move the tombstones, you could always move someone onto the lot temporarily. The graveyard is right next door (Gothier Green Lawns) and the rest of the Tricou tombstones are on that lot.
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#8 Old 21st Mar 2012 at 2:44 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Mootilda
Resurrecting:
http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Tricou_f...e_Tricou_Family

To move the tombstones, you could always move someone onto the lot temporarily. The graveyard is right next door (Gothier Green Lawns) and the rest of the Tricou tombstones are on that lot.
Hi Mootilda: I read through that description and I understand the part about resurecting tthat family however, it did not say anything about how to move the tombstones. As I understood, firt I move a sim then get that cheat tombstone by clicking on that sim and spawn. then have them resurect that whole family. next I move them out but,how should I move the tomebstones to the graveyard? Thanks for helping
Site Helper
#9 Old 21st Mar 2012 at 4:01 PM
If I remember correctly, you select a playable sim, click on the tombstone and choose the option to move the tombstone (or all tombstones on the lot).

No need to ask questions of me directly. There are other people here who probably know the answer better than I do.
Site Helper
#10 Old 21st Mar 2012 at 4:42 PM
Quote: Originally posted by telefen
What I really wanna do is actually create something similar to the lighting of that house in a house in riverside but not as drastic and I have no clue as where or how to accomplish that.


So you aren't really interested in the lot; you are interested in the custom lighting file that comes with the lot?

I am Ghost. My husband is sidneydoj. I post, he downloads, and I wanted to keep my post count.
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Site Helper
#11 Old 21st Mar 2012 at 6:16 PM
Is there a way to find the lighting file that is associated with the Tricou lot? The setLotLightingFile cheat allows you to set the file, but I don't see any obvious way to find the lighting file used by a lot.
Quote:
Nightlife setLotLightingFile [filename] Change lighting by choosing an alternate lighting file. Original can be found in /nightlife/tsdata/res/lights
Out of curiosity, does the lighting package with the lot?
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#12 Old 21st Mar 2012 at 9:36 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Ghost sdoj
So you aren't really interested in the lot; you are interested in the custom lighting file that comes with the lot?
Yes,realizing how mush work it is just to solvage that house, I'll settle for the lighting effect but, I looked everywhere and can't find such. I also looked C/ my documents/EA games sims2/ nightslife/TSdata/res/lights but, there's no objects or files in the lights folder. The same goes for any other expansion packs. I looked in lighting there's just a jpeg blue image. So, I don't know if this is leading anywhere. Funny that there's no lighing file to be found anywhere right? I found that house and opened the file still there's no indication as to it's particular lighting. If I look at lighing of the nightlife, and found anything , it would apply to all the nightlife houses not true?
Site Helper
#13 Old 21st Mar 2012 at 9:46 PM Last edited by Mootilda : 21st Mar 2012 at 9:59 PM.
In that subfolder (within the Program Files folder), I found a number of text files. The text files had extensions of either TXT or NLO These text files define special lighting.

This thread contains some examples of modified lighting files:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...hp?topic=8076.5

It's not clear to me whether the setLotLightingFile cheat affects one lot, all lots in the current neighborhood or subhood, or what. My initial assumption was that the cheat affects only the current lot, but you'd have to do some research to figure that out.

The Lighting.TXT file for the base game seems to affect all neighborhoods and subhoods. I used plasticbox's suggestion (to change the lighting of the lot imposters to match the light direction on the lot) and it works for all EPs.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the subject of packaging the lot...

It would appear that the Downtown neighborhood has a number of errors. If you open and then expand the cheat window, you'll see all of the error messages. I wonder whether they have anything to do with the inability to package the lot? I was able to reproduce the packaging error, even after build-editing the lot, and even after resetting the lighting.

You can pseudo-package a lot by copying the lot package into the LotCatalog folder and renaming that package to match the naming conventions in that folder. At that point, the lot will appear in your Lot Bin. However, you still have to deal with the tombstones. It's probably better to deal with the tombstones before copying the lot package to the LotCatalog, since there's no way to remove the tombstones while the lot is in the Lot Bin.
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#14 Old 22nd Mar 2012 at 12:35 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Mootilda
In that subfolder (within the Program Files folder), I found a number of text files. The text files had extensions of either TXT or NLO These text files define special lighting.

This thread contains some examples of modified lighting files:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...hp?topic=8076.5

It's not clear to me whether the setLotLightingFile cheat affects one lot, all lots in the current neighborhood or subhood, or what. My initial assumption was that the cheat affects only the current lot, but you'd have to do some research to figure that out.

The Lighting.TXT file for the base game seems to affect all neighborhoods and subhoods. I used plasticbox's suggestion (to change the lighting of the lot imposters to match the light direction on the lot) and it works for all EPs.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the subject of packaging the lot...

It would appear that the Downtown neighborhood has a number of errors. If you open and then expand the cheat window, you'll see all of the error messages. I wonder whether they have anything to do with the inability to package the lot? I was able to reproduce the packaging error, even after build-editing the lot, and even after resetting the lighting.

You can pseudo-package a lot by copying the lot package into the LotCatalog folder and renaming that package to match the naming conventions in that folder. At that point, the lot will appear in your Lot Bin. However, you still have to deal with the tombstones. It's probably better to deal with the tombstones before copying the lot package to the LotCatalog, since there's no way to remove the tombstones while the lot is in the Lot Bin.
Thank you Mootilda and everybodyelse who tried helping me. I sort of rest my case. You know, I opened the lighting package not using SimPE but thru C/my document/sims2/nightlife/TsData/Res/lights and I see all kinds of texts and values pertaining to different objects, but when using simpe, the lights folder has nothing in it. I think this is more difficult than I thought. I thought by finding those values pertaining to that particular lot I can transfer them to my own lot in the Riverside neighborhood using the cheat console but, when I open the house of fallen trees in simpe, there's no lighing values present so,it's a dead end. I sort of like the lighing in that house but if it was possible to adjust it to not so drastic value. I guess someday someone will figure out maxis trick. Untill then I thank you and everybody else. Have a jolly day Mootilda.
Site Helper
#15 Old 22nd Mar 2012 at 2:15 AM
That's because SimPE opens package files, not text files. Text files can be opened with Notepad or your favorite text editor.

To figure out what to change, you could compare the base game and nightlife lighting files and see what's changed, then fool around with those parameters.

First, you'd want to backup your neighborhood and find the correct lighting file for the setLotLightingFile cheat on the Tricou lot by just trying likely candidates until you find the right one. That is, unless someone knows how to find the lighting file associated with a particular lot.

Let's assume that you've determined that downtown_lot.txt is the correct file. Then, you could just open a command prompt and type:
fc "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Lights\Lighting.txt" "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\Lights\downtown_lot.txt" >diff.txt

This will compare the two files listed and output the differences into a text file named diff.txt. By looking at the text file, you can see possible changes to the various parameters. When I compare those two files, several large chunks of code have been removed. I would just ignore those chunks and assume that they are unrelated to the lot lighting. Other than that, it's just finding a change, looking at the text around that change to see whether you can determine what is affected by the parameter change, and fooling around with parameters to see what changes they make on the lot when you use the setLotLightingFile cheat with your edited text file.

I understand that you may not want to investigate this further, but this information may be helpful to the next person.
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