Tutorial: Pre-populating worlds
 

Tutorial is in now up on the wiki: http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?t...ting_CAW_Worlds

If you make discoveries, put them on the discussion page or if you're confident of them, edit them in!

Wow. It's one of those "it's kinda obvious how come no one has tried it" things. Can't wait to hear more about this. You might be right about a possible downside, but even so, getting this far has to be a major step forward.

Okay. Here's the basic commands to get other people started. BE CAREFUL. I'll have a full, indepth tutorial up after my exam in June. Not before. In the meantime, explore carefully for yourselves.

What you need:

awesome mod
NRAAS Supercomputer

1) Type 'setconfig enabledebugcommands true' and 'setconfig enabledebuginteractions true' into the console. You should see an awesomemod dialogue telling you they're in effect.

2) Shift-ctrl-click on the lot you want to place a Sim in, and use the Make Sim command on the pie menu. Currently I can't see a way to use premade sims.

3) A random townie will appear on the lot. You'd be stuck with this fugly character, but you can use Awesome mod/Supercomputer's edit in CAS features to renovate the Sim to your liking.

4) All relationship data, starting skills, etc, can be set via either the debug commands, or the two mods. You can't make families or blend genetics. You have to make each Sim separately, one-by-one-by-one.

That's the basics for now. They'll most likely be plenty more to come.

BTW, these debug commands also allow you to add WA butterflies and the like to your worlds. I'm not sure if they respawn, or if you're just adding one instance of the butterfly/beetle/gem. I'll have to do some testing on that.

Right. 6.5mb file. Tiny island. I've prepopulated one lot with two Sims as a test. You should get the island, plus a household with a mummy named Wilson Wilson in it. He has 10 in Athletic and Martial Arts skills. He lives in the same household as an NPC Grim Reaper that presumably you can't control. Tell me if you see them too: Test over. Sims glitched to crazy, but there in the save file. Probably because of reaper being set to dead when he wasn't.

Edit: One major downside seems to be that you cannot kill Sims this way, they don't generate urns. So no ghosts.

Edit Seems this is a pretty glitchy method, and the Sims don't always come out with all their information. I'm not sure what more I can do, or how applicable this is to anything. I don't have the technical knowledge to take this experiment much further safely.

I downloaded the test and it's a really cute little island.

Anyway, Wilson has 10 in Athletic/Martial Arts and the Grim Reaper is there (but unselectable). The Traits and favorites were there, and there was one book in the inventory. However, when I filled in the 4 wish slots, saved, and then played the save-game the wish slots were empty, but when I went to assign new wishes it comes up and says the slots are full.

I don't have AwesomeMod installed, just Nraas. I understand (and maybe I'm wrong) but games saved with AM can be glitchy when AM is removed because it's looking for AM to run certain processes. You might have to check over on the AM forum to find out for sure. On the other hand, maybe mummies are glitchy and this has just brought out a pre-existing bug.

I then added 2 npc's to the household and their wishes are maintained after playing a saved game, but now the mummy is no longer selectable.

I would be interested in seeing what happens if the world is created with human sims instead of supernaturals.

I've had similarly glitchy human sims. Only chose the mummy because it's easy to tell from a townie. Or perhaps there are certain processes required for making non-glitched Sims that just don't run in CAW. The thing is, some of the Sims *seem* okay, but that might be a misleading 'seeming'. I'll post over at MATY and see what the experts in arcane and dark computer magic say.

Okay, findings so far:

What apparently works:

- Making Sims in the world and saving them.
- Editing Sims in CAS.
- Editing that Sim's relationships/family funds/family tree/career and career level using Super Computer
- Setting hidden traits using Super Computer.
- Adding portable objects like cameras and cars to Sim inventories using the stripped down Live Mode
- Setting Sims as Mummy using the Occult command in the EA debug pie menu (earlier glitched mummy was a one-off so far)
- Editing the default NPCs (maids, firemen, etc) using EA debugging
- Making Sims pregnant using Supercomputer or EA debugging
- Edit: Adding initial moodlets using EA debugging

So a basic toolbox for making Sim families.

- Setting single instances of WA gems, metals, butterflies and beetles. These do not respawn once collected, however this is useful because the spawners themselves don't work.

What clearly doesn't work:

- Killing Sims using Supercomputer appears to work, but corrupts in the save, leaving them all only half dead, and without urns.
- Anything at all involving urns. Moving them, editing them, creating them.
- Killing Sims using EA debug crashes Edit in Game Mode.
- Spawn Playable Reaper glitches all Sims on that lot.
- Make NPC commands cause Sims to glitch.
- Creating Sims on Townie lots makes the game undecided as to whether you should or shouldn't be controlling them. They'll start out selectable, but stop being selectable as soon as you change Sims. Don't do this. It's messy.

Things to Avoid
- Creating any excess Sims at all, then deleting. The game will remember them, usually as out-of-towners, but hopelessly corrupted ones who still "live" on lots. Supercomputer will recover these Sims to their respective lots, but just don't make them in the first place. EDIT: This is inaccurate. Total Annihilation in Super Computer rids these Sims cleanly.

I put the whole Ottomas family into a spare copy of my Riverblossom Hills world, and ran it at full speed through several generations. By all visible accounts these Sims live, breed and die normally, without glitches. This does not, of course, mean that prepopulated worlds like this are safe or sustainable to play in the longer term. I don't know what is going on - what might be going wrong - behind the scenes. Also, I haven't tried travelling in WA with any of these Sims yet.

In CAW, Sims render as objects and can be moved and rotated (I haven't tried this obviously, because I'm sure it's the fast track to glitchville). They repeat their last idle animation in a constant loop. I was quite surprised to see that they render at all.

Conclusion

There's good preliminary evidence that we can create stable, unglitched families in CAW worlds, but they cannot have dead Sims in their family trees, and we cannot premake ghosts. This is all preliminary until someone looks under the hood and checks to see if the Sims are saving in complete form, or if they are ticking timebombs waiting to hit generations down the line. Who that someone is, I don't know, but I'd be really keen to see someone trustworthy and technically proficient take a look.

This island is very basic. It contains two Sims on one empty lot, a husband and wife. The wife is pregnant: http://www.filefactory.com/file/b1bc994/n/Stranded.rar (5.89mb)

I've run it with and without mods, and I've run it on normal and fast speed. Obviously they need some basics like fridges and toilets and stuff at the beginning, sorry I didn't include those.

:O Fantastic!!!! This is a huge breakthrough!

Good job! :lovestruc

I downloaded your test world and I didn't see any glitches. The baby was born, aged up properly, and, well, nothing wierd is happening. It looks like your idea works. I saved the game, quit, and played the save game and it looked okay.

I'm hardly an expert on what happens "under the hood" of this process, but I'm pretty sure glitches can't be inherited. The code shouldn't allow for anything other than what it was programmed to do - which is create new sims with a certain set of predefined properties, including the selection of several options from predefined lists (like traits, favorite color, food, etc.) I would expect that if there is a problem it would only show itself in the first generation and anyone born from that generation should just be regular sims.

That said, though, the real test now is take a world and populate it with several families and see how that runs. Perhaps sticking in it Creator Feedback to get a handful of people to test. Just a suggestion... like I said, I'm not an expert.

I'm preparing a version of Riverblossom Hills with all the families in it from a back up, and I'm going to run exactly such a test. So far it's working fine. Unfortunately, there are real constraints with this method - like the inability to have dead Sims in family trees. CAW doesn't recognise ghosthood or death, so Sims don't stay attached to urns in the saving process. The urns just turn into 'Remains' objects, and the ghosts float around forever. Sims need to be basic, tangible and simple for this method to work.

Also, there's currently no method for accessing saved sims, so each Sims has be rebuilt individually for this. Which is fun. :p

Yeah that does kind of stink, Maybe it would be possible to talk to Nraas about possibly adding the ability to import sims? There might be a technical reason of why he didn't include this in the first place though

Just tested the premade Sims out travelling, and they work fine. So far, there's nothing they can't do. They seem very healthy. Anyone know of a modder/programmer who might be willing to poke around a little more thoroughly?

This is working safely, within the building constraints.

Twallan or maybe Inge Jones? Maybe send them a link to this thread and see if they have any suggestions...

It's good news that they can travel okay.

I haven't really got into script modding for Sims3 (not sure if I will some time) so that leaves Twallan out of the two names you mention.

Cheers Inge Jones. I'll PM twallan and see if he might spare some time from his already massive workload some day somehow.

I've had my first error with these Sims now, but I think it's being caused by the lot. One family has a jump bug, but it's in a lot that I moved and rotated, and when I move the lot back to it's original position the bug stops. Hopefully it's not caused by the Sims themselves.

Edit: That jump bug is resolved. I'd also forgotten to rebuild the routing data which might have contributed. I'm uploading a test work with many families now.

Well, you solved the only problem with using my mods: Attaining an Active Actor.

The "Make Sim" works great, so I've added the console command to DebugEnabler, for those who don't use Awesome.

The command will be unlocked once you have unpaused the game and let it run for a sim-minute.

----

As for importing from the Bin, that is already a function available in Porter. I have updated that mod to allow you to Unpack non-porter families.

Once you have spawned a generic actor, simply click on a lot (ie: the roof or wall of the house) and use the "Porter \ Unpack" interaction to import a family.

Cheers.

Kiwi, wonderful breakthrough! Shall I assume you no longer need the thread in the Help Forum since you seem to be making progress?

Werismyki

Yes, thanks, that thread can be deleted now, Werismyki. (Apparently I can't delete it myself).

Twallan

Fantastic! The Porter is working exactly as advertised and will save me rebuilding the entire population from scratch.

I'm glad that the Make Sim interaction has opened up more opportunities for those using DebugEnabler!

I thought you were saying that you could actually use a debug command to create a Sim right in Edit in Game (from Create-a-World). Is that right? Or do you have to have the mod in place first (I don't want to use the mod).

I'm frustrated. In EiG, I've typed in "testingcheatsenabled true" with the expected result that I can also type in "buydebug" to get the things I need for additional spawners, etc., for community lots.

But I've tried several debug commands, including "spawn" and "spawn 1" (not sure how that command is to be used, but in EiG, when I try to use any of the debug commands, nothing happens...I just get error messages.

What am I doing wrong, or am I misunderstanding that you can actually create a Sim in Edit in Game, without the use of a mod?

Sorry lindawing. The interactions are EA's, but they're locked from use without a mod to unlock them.

OK! Thanks! That's what I needed to know. A friend has recommended the mod you've talked about--says it hasn't given her any problems at all.

Before I "go there," I'm wanting to see what is happening with Ambitions, and if we really CAN move, add, and subtract lot placeholders from the worlds, during regular game play. If so, it's going to change how I make my worlds, anyway, because I would MUCH prefer to make them pretty much BLANK, and allow people to fill them in as they will. In that case, the few things that I would package WITH my worlds could just be packaged in archived, downloadable files, as compliments to the base worlds.

I love that you've investigated this, and added more scope to our current world-making efforts, though. Good job!!!

Tutorial is up so if anyone has been trialing this technique and feels they can contribute to our collective knowledge, don't be shy about correcting mistakes or adding important discoveries:

http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?t...ting_CAW_Worlds

Thanks, now I can populate my worlds

what about npcs

Are you asking how to add the service household, lightingspirit2?

You can find that info here: http://cawtool.wikia.com/wiki/CAW_P...ng_Service_NPCs