EDIT (by Numenor): Atavera has retired from modding; all his creations and tutorials are therefore NO LONGER SUPPORTED by the author. We'll do our best to answer to the questions, if possible; but the entire production of objects/hacks/tutorials by Atavera is nevertheless to be considered DISCONTINUED.

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This tutorial will allow the creation of custom musical instruments.

This tutorial assumes that you know the basics of cloning an object, and enabling color options, so if you don't, read those tutorials first

Why you need this:
The instruments in the University EP were scripted (Behavior Functions) in a way that simple clones will not function. If cloned, they will either not have a working "Perform" option (as with piano), or as severe with the guitars and drumset, will immediately start giving errors when you buy it

The cloning process itself is quite simple. Simply install the CusomInstrumentHackV4.0 (available HERE) in your downloads folder, and adjust SimPE's settings as explained below, and the cloned instruments will have a working "Perform" interaction.
The guitars will work this way too, but since a guitar is a complex object that is made from 2 seperate objects (like the phones), special instructions are provided for them (read below).

Settings in SimPE:
In order to use the Custom Instrument Hack for cloning, you need to tell SimPE to use your Downloads folder with Object Workshop. To do this, Click Extra > Preferences:
1. Go to the "File Table" tab
2. Click "Add Downloads Folder"
3. Make sure that the Downloads folder is checked.
4. Un-tick ALL the EPs (Pets, Glamour, FamilyFun, Business, Nightlife) EXCEPT University (or your instrument will require them); only the BaseGame, UNI and possibly the CEP must be ticked.
5. Reload Filetables.
6. Restart SimPE.





Cloning a Guitar:
1. Download and clone one of my existing guitars (choose one of the "V.4" guitars)
2. Register a GUID for *each* Object Data in the clone. Write down the GUID you registered for the Object Data with "Accessory" in it's name (should be instance 0x41AD).
3. Open the Behavior Function 0x1033 (named "Check Accessory GUID")
4. Enter the GUID (the one you have written down in step 2) in the first line in the following way:

ex. GUID= 0x12345678
The first 4 hex boxes will be:
78 56 34 12

5. Repeat step 4 on Behavior 0x1034 (named "Create Accessory by GUID")
6. Now continue like any other object.

Cloning an electric bass guitar is the same way, only use a V4 electric bass guitar.

Important Things To Remember:
People that download your instruments must also have the Custom Instrument Hack V4.0 installed, so make sure to mention it on your post, and provide a link to http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=138221.

Last edited by Numenor : 8th Dec 2006 at 10:54 PM.

Just a question,but are all of Atavera's creations offline? (ecxept the windows hack)

All of Atavera's creations are now stored HERE

Hi, where should i look for help about this tutorial?

Ask, and if I can answer your questions, I'll do

ok, i have followed this tutorial and have put the package in my "Downloads" folder. When I started the game, I could see my guitar in the icon (Look at the pic), but when I purchased it, It looked like the original. Can someone help me?

The picture: http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k...dshoot/help.jpg

Sorry if my English is bad, I'm from Sweden.

Do you HAVE to have SIMS 2 University in order to use this instrument download or is Pets good enough?

MRObloodshoot - I think that you have overlooked something about the GUID adjustments required in the "Cloning a guitar" section of the tutorial. Double check to have written the right GUIDs in the right BHAVs.

davealmighty35 - You definitely must have University.

I havent tried this yet but it looks exiting!, so i will have a go! :D

This is quite ambitious but is it possible to change the audio parts that each instrument plays (guitar, bass, drums, piano), either to modify one of the genre functions (rock, jazz, country) or create a new one so that you can ultimatley (providing you have a seperate file for each part of the song) get your Sims to play one of your favourite choons as a band?

I'm aware Avatera recorded some audio for his acoustic guitar (I think this is what he did anyway) which gave me the idea. What files should I be looking for in the instrument packages? What format must my own audio files be in if I were to use them as replacements?

In theory, it should be doable, though very difficult. The sound files are not in the instruments, they are in the game system folders, I think they are the "Sfx1.package" and "Sfx2.package" located in (Programs)\EA Games\The Sims 2 University\TSData\Res\Sound.

The first difficulty as to actually find out which ones of the several audio files included are the ones related to the musical instruments. In fact, the game calls the audio files by name (the names are visible in the ANIM files used to perform the animations), then converts the names into a "instance number" (8+8 hexadecimal number) and looks for those instances in the SFX package.

The second difficulty that I can think of, is that there are a lot of files to edit: each instrument has 10 skill levels, and 10 related audio effects; and each one of these effects is carefully coordinated with the other instruments' ones (so that you can have, for example, a skilled sim playing the piano in unison with a beginner guitar player).

The format is not a problem: MP3's should work fine.

I've had a go opening the SFX package using SimPE and a list of 'mp3 or xa Sound File's came up. I tried extracting one as an mp3 file but nothing would play it. I'm no expert and really don't know where to start with it, but it was a nice idea (and maybe something Maxis should consider with the next Sims) Thanks anyway

Most of the files listed by SimPE as "MP3 or XA files" are actually in XA format, i.e. a format that has been never completely decoded; there are some players around the net, but as far as I know there is no software that can actually compress a sound file in XA format.

Hi, I've got many Keyboards that are not compatible with Atavera custom instrument hack and don't have a working perform option. How can I make them compatible with the Atavera mod ?

Thanks for all the work done.

The safest way to "convert" a custom instrument, so to make it compatible with Atavera's hack is to create a new custom instrument following this tutorial, and then replacing the mesh, description and GUID with the ones taken from the non-compatible instrument.

Thank for the answer. I'll try to do this.

I'm wondering if anyone is willing to help me create these guitars http://www.mansonguitars.co.uk/Muse%20gallery/index.htm

I'm a big Muse fan and to have my Sims playing these guitars would be awesome - I know some other fans who would like to see this happen too

I've read through the tutorials and have gotten as far as knowing how to edit a mesh to make up the guitar shape and how to but I'm having problems with the files inside the package file - I'm unsure of which files to pick out for the guitar package, it's slightly different from the dress tutorial - I've also had problems with getting the file to duplicate as a separate object so that it has its own icon in the catalogue, all that I've been able to do is get an existing guitar (including some CC guitars) to change their body shape (which has produced some weird and wonderful UVMap results)
I've also seen the guitar totally cock up as an item and do weird stuff in-game like become unselectable, disappear or other weird stuff :s
I'm also not entirely sure how to edit or make up a UV map, which tutorial do I need to look at for that?

I'm also willing to make a Telecaster to replace that one that I and a few others have been looking for but seems to have gone missing (?) This whole process is a tad too much for me to understand but I'm really interested in it!

In response to my above post I've actually gone ahead to try starting this myself and have gotten thus far:






And a recolour of that same mesh:






They work absolutely fine but I'm still having isses getting them as seperate objects. I've tried using the cloning wizard in SimPE to make these and all they have done is overwrite Atavera's Stratocaster guitar in the catalogue (the file I used to clone)- I presume that this particular thread is part of the answer to my problem, I'm just really not sure which other tuts I need to read in order to complete what I'm out to acheive, could anyone point me in the right direction?
I'm looking for a tut on how to:
a) create a seperate guitar in the catalogue
b) how to create a mesh from scratch and do UV maps properly (i.e. create one rather than edit an existing mesh and texture map. For the guitars above I extracted the Stratocaster mesh and re-shaped it to look like a Manson, I then had to fiddle around with the texture map to re-align the grid, which I've not done perfectly. I'd also be happy to find out how to make a new texture map for an existing mesh, as modifying the Strat body worked well for me (it was a good guideline for size and general body shape.) If I do this then I'd need to know how to add on parts to the mesh and then create a texture map for these extra bits)
c) get the guitar to function properly (guessing that this thread covers that)


afterthought lol: What would I need to take into consideration if I were to try adding straps to these guitars? At the mo Sims are just playing floating things, either that or their arms are very very strong!

p.s. really sorry if this is posted in the wrong section, I was unaware there was an entire forum where I could have posted this until about 30 mins ago, this thread seemed the most relevant! And yes I'm the same person as posted before (Sairy-fairy) is just I had problems logging into that account for some reason ???

Last edited by SairyFairy : 21st Apr 2008 at 03:00 AM.

If your guitar is overriding the one it was cloned from, you most likely haven't changed the GUIDs. Can you check that, and if that's not the case, post a copy so someone can take a look at what's gone wrong?

I think I'm fairly sure what I've done wrong now, :\ I'll read through the tutorial again and let you know

(I have no idea what GUIDs are lol)

This is not a request forum.

Where I can find request forum?

MTS2 does not have a request forum (any more).

Is it possible to add new genres to the musical instruments, for example: metal, punk…and others?

Have such mods been made yet?

does anybody know what i'm doing wrong if the guitar i made shows up with the new mesh in the catalog preview but has the old mesh if i buy it?
thank you

edit: forgot to change the hex numbers in the little boxes too... maybe that helps someone as forgetful as me

Last edited by Herzblut : 28th Jul 2008 at 05:55 PM.