Replacing NPC's

[MadamKatarra]

I've just made a custom neighborhood and have decided to go through the long task of replacing all the townies and NPC's - or at least the ones that I can. I have one major and one minor question.

Major - Drivers: Can they be replaced? I know you can't interact with them, but it would be neat if they were custom. I've put CAF into Debugging mode countless times, and have yet to see the drivers uniform - have I just missed it?

Minor - Names: Can you change townies names? I haven't begun replacing yet. First, I want to make a list of all the sims I need to make. I'm just curious if I can change their names to suit my tastes a bit more.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Back to Sim PE. ^^

[Vagrant]

NPC uniforms can be changed through 2 ways, after the NPC is made, make a sim as how you want that NPC to look, then use SimPE "Sim surgery" to make the NPC look like that sim. Or if the NPC hasn't been created in that neighborhood, and you want to affect all neighborhoods, you can alter the 3d id file associated with that NPC uniform to point to your own custom clothing.

As for NPC names, there is a set of specific ones that gets automatically created whenever you make a new neighborhood. While it isn't entirely advisable, you could probably edit this set located in your Sims 2 game directory. Alternativly, you can create the neighborhood, and either; A) Delete everyone in that neighborhood before doing anything else, forcing the game to make fresh NPCs using random names from a list of names when an NPC of that type is needed. Or B) open the neighborhood in SimPE and edit the names of the sims manually.

It should be noted that if you go with the "A" route that you'll need to use boolprop objects or other cheat objects to create townies as these are not normally created new outside University dorms. But not having townies can be a good thing if you want to keep load times down and have some control of what populates your neighborhood since only player made sims that are in another house in that neighborhood will show up in community lots or as walk bys.

[HystericalParoxysm]

If you want an easy way to edit the list of names, you can use Jordi's mod... It's a list of more normal townie names (more Smith than Gilscarbo) and directions on how to edit the list to your liking are in the thread.

[MadamKatarra]

yeah, I looked at that briefly. But, I detest normal names so it may take me a while to make my own list lol

And, Vagrant, I can change non-interactive sims too? Like, drivers, social workers, repo men, excetera?

[PeterCScott]

Want random names the easy way?
1. Kurt Biros
2. Avis Hebel
3. Sharron Littles
4. Javier Giuffre
5. Annabelle Englund
6. Jessie Wee
7. Kenya Meinecke
8. Elnora Roberto
9. Julio Hoefle
10. Cody Teachout
11. Neil Bausch
12. Lance Huitt
13. Sharron Wasden
14. Allyson Chalker
15. Ericka Oliveros
16. Kathrine Preble
17. Neil Zeolla
18. Erik Lastrapes
19. Pearlie Riney
20. Neil Kaup
21. Allan Eppley
22. Milagros Quesenberry
23. Javier Allin
24. Carlene Row
25. Kelly Nolin
26. Earlene Bodie
27. Darryl Leber
28. Kelly Collman
29. Mathew Sobotka
30. Noemi Freda


Try http://www.kleimo.com/random/name.cfm it's a random name generator and will generate names with any level of obsurity you want.

[MadamKatarra]

I might check that out later. I have a name generator that I like.

And, I tried out replacing one of the NPC's, and, I think it worked, but when I started the game back up, the my sims (that I used to replace the maid) was still in the bin. Was she still suppose to be there? I haven't checked to see if she was still a maid, but I deleted her from the bin.

[Vagrant]

When using sim surgery to change an NPC, you'll end up with 2 sims that look exactly the same. To make things easy for yourself you might want to make a whole family based on what you want NPCs to look like, giving them easily identifiable names so that you don't get them confused for townies or the NPCs that are taking their looks. After making the family exit the game, start up SimPE, make the changes, then play the game without touching that family. While playing the game make one of those NPCs show up on a lot to see if the changes happened. Once all changes are seen, feel free to delete that family since the changes made are already done to the NPCs.

Sim Surgery doesn't replace the patient with the archetype, it simply copys the appearance, age, and gender of the archetype sim onto the patient. The NPC will still be an NPC and the sim you made will still be the sim you made.

As far as I know, the only NPCs that you can't change like this are the ones that are Object based, and not listed in your neighborhood folder. These NPCs are ones like Grim Reaper, Therapist, Mrs.Crumplebottom, and a few others. Editing these NPCs is a far more complicated process and to be honest I'm not clear on all the details at this time. And since I've done little else than pick apart the game searching for methods of overwriting everything and anything that held my interest for longer than a few hours, that's probably saying something.

[MadamKatarra]

^^ Alrighty, then. I'm sure I did everything right, and I still need to get around to checking it lol.

Hey, in sim surgery, what happens if you select the box that makes your sims a ghost?

[J. M. Pescado]

Hey, in sim surgery, what happens if you select the box that makes your sims a ghost?
It kills your sim?