^ Do you have it alongside Dreadpirate's lighting mod, or alone?
https://dreadpirate.tumblr.com/post...tem-25-now-with

I think with the lighting mod you can turn Hat's "Lit by Fire" on/off with a cheat (it's included in the mod). I think you can even go back to default lighting with a cheat. At least, that's what I'm hoping (I just installed the mod - haven't actually tried it out yet...)

My game seems to have hit my CC limit and is crashing. I downloaded the Compressorizer and was wondering if there's any tutorial / basic guidelines on how to use it? I may have to end up deleting some CC but it would nice to see if this works first. I just don't want to do anything to break my game. I got it from this thread and there was no readme or anything with it. Any help is appreciated I'm just wary of using it after using Hoodchecker messed with my game's resolution.

The compressorizer? I just put files in a folder, click the "add files to list", find that folder (add more if need be), and click "go". If you have a folder with subfolders, tick the "recursive?" box. Click "clear file list" when done.

Some people compress their entire Downloads folder. Would be careful with some mods/hacks (but unless they have meshes/textures, they don't really need compressing, becaus the files are tiny). Other than that, you can compress most items with meshes and textures. If you do compress files, make sure to delete cache files before going ingame or into Bodyshop, or your game can crash (it's just the cache files getting borked, the compressed files should be okay)

----

A few tips on spotting already compressed files or files that might need compressing:

If a large number of files from the same creator have the same date stamp down to the same 1-5 minutes (depending on how large the set is) and have different sizes, they're often already compressed, at least with object recolors. Uncompressed single 1024x1024 textures tend to be roughly 1 mb, 512x512 textures around 300-500 kb.

If a large amount of object recolor files have the exact same filesize but the minutes on the date stamps are a bit all over the place, they tend not to be compressed.

CAS files directly from Bodyshop are usually somewhat compressed already, but if they've had textures edited in SimPE they generally follow the same pattern as objects.

Does anyone know what it is that affects how the game adjusts the UID in the IDNO of a neighbourhood? For Pleasantview the UID should be 1; if it is different the storytelling will be broken and the scripted events will not work. Likewise Strangetown should have a UID of 2 and so on for the EA hoods. I'm playing Pleasantview and that one alone works okay, it has the correct UID and the scripted events worked, and so do the stories. But if I add another hood it goes wrong. I added a copy of Strangetown I had previously edited; the UID is 2 for that one. But when I add it to the Neighborhoods folder with my Pleasantview, and boot the game, the UID gets changed to 3 and my N001 is changed to UID 11. It doesn't matter if I remove all files in the Storytelling folders, use a clean set of userdata files etc, no matter what I do I can't have Strangetown as UID 2. I can have Pleasantview as UID 1 if I have it alone in the game, but Strangetown changes no matter what! Help?

Is it possible to visit another familys home business? I swear you could do it and I have clear memories with the mom and her child going shopping for groceries at another family's business (have the sims in my relationship panel, too) but now I can't find the business in the list when I try to go to a community lot. The only thing I changed was adding a grand child to the business owner family. Did I just create some kind of false memories or is it actually possible to visit another familys business? And if not, could I do it if I made the business family to townies, or would they lose their business then?

You can shop at another household's owned business, but not if it is a home business operated on their residential lot.

There is a mod for visiting neighbors in their homes which might have allowed shopping at home businesses from other households, and it is possible you had that in the past; or you might be remembering visiting an owned business that was a community lot, separate from the residence.

Ahh, I see. I guess it might've been the latter one then. Thanks for the reply!

@Jawusa do you have any thoughts on this?

I think explanation is here: https://modthesims.info/d/641841/fi...trangetown.html
Read about installation.

This happens in my game too, lol. That's because the game wants to allocate another neighborhood to the UID number 2 OR you recently installed a neighborhood that happens to have the same UID number as one of your neighborhoods. This is really annoying for the premade neighborhood, since the scripted events won't work if the UID number is not the same. What I usually do is just play the scenarios and all. THEN, once I believe that all the scripted events are done, I usually change the UID in SimPE to a high number, so that the game does not interfere anymore with any other number.

To fix the Storytelling entries, you'd just have to replace the suffix number (which should be the old UID number) with the new UID number. (Also remember to rename the .xml file and its content in notepad. Remember to convert the UID into a hex number first before renaming.
(For example if the UID is 11, the files should be like this snapshot_0000000b_0ecf5f17 since if you convert "11" from a decimal to a hexdecimal number, you'll get "B".

There are online converters, such as this one. https://www.rapidtables.com/convert...mal-to-hex.html

What's up with scriptorium and fences? The program makes a folder for it, but none of my CC fences need a file to make them show up in the game.

Thank you @Annaminna but I've tried that to no avail!


Yes, this was my understanding of it too. But, even if I have no other neighbourhoods installed at all, the game still changes the UIDs.

This is some more detail:
My neighbourhoods are N001 and N002, the basegame neighbourhoods, I've just loaded them up in game, made some changes to some of the community lots and moved in the bin sims (Oldies, Burbs, Loner, Singles). I had empty templates so that none of the later EP sims like Picaso generated, and I let the weather, hobby etc sub-hoods generate. I did not play any of the scripted lots, I didn't even enter those. I checked the UIDs- N001 was 1 and N002 was 2. Then I put these hoods on my backup server and forgot about them until this week, when I thought I'd get them out again.

So I put them into a fresh, clean, game generated userdata folder. Just N001 and N002, no others. Booted the game and it changed the UIDs.
I tried (as Annaminna suggested) the trick to substitute the game templates with my hoods. I have a pristine, unmodded set of gamedata for times like this- I just removed N001 and N002 from [install location]/EAGames/The Sims 2/TSData/ Res/ Userdata/Neighborhoods and put my modified hoods in there. Double checked- their UIDs are 1 and 2 respectively. Remove my old userdata, boot the game- it generates a new set of userdata, complete with EA hoods and my N001 and N002. Checked the UIDs- it's changed N001 to 9 and N002 to 6!
I installed my modified gamedata, which has all templates removed, and I put the two hoods into the Userdata/Neighborhoods folder on their own. Deleted userdata, booted the game so that it generated fresh userdata. Ah, this time N002 has a UID of 2! But for some reason N001 is at 6.
Earlier I managed to have N001 on its own stay at UID 1, so I managed to play the scripted events on that one. And if I generate completely vanilla hoods from my pristine set of game data, they work just fine- it's just the ones I made earlier that have the suburbs attached that don't work.
It's not really a big problem, I've managed to play N001 and I can get N002 to stay at UID 2 to play that if I like, it's just that I like to know why the game is doing these things, and how to make it do what I want. I was thinking that it was the attached suburbs that were messing things up, but then I managed to get N002 to stay at 2, so what do I know?

Thank you all for your help, if anyone has any other ideas I'll gladly try!

The folder is for cc Arch Fences, like that trellis one in game.  I think Numenor is the only one to actually have made any.

Oh, thanks.

Can items binned as BV jewelry be layerable? Like, can my sims wear two necklaces, or multiple piercings, etc.?

I'm trying to decide whether it's worth it downloading accessories bined in there and if I should recategorize the ones I already have. As much as I would like to make the jewelry bin useful, I don't think it's worth it items placed in there aren't layerable.

^ I think you can only have one for each category, but there's several categories so you have several options (you don't have to put rings in the ring categories, for instance - they still go by bone assignments. Thumbnails might be a bit iffy, though).

You can mix and match a bit, so you can for instance have one set with jewelry and a different one (separate mesh/recolors) as accessories. If they share meshes they can't be layered on top of each other. Other than that, you can experiment.

I think there's a little layering possible because you can bin things as left earring/right earring (same with rings and bracelets), so two different earrings binned in each one should be able to be worn at the same time. So you could bin all your dangly earrings in left ear, and cartilage piercings in the right and wear both at once. Won't work for necklaces though, there's only one bin for them.

So the issue may be the cookies (not baked in home and not served). I won't have time for testing. I'll try to remember this.

I recall I tried the Santa thing once a long time ago with success.
I'm not looking forward to winter in my game. I was so tired of the heavy snow and my sims building snowmen left and right that I mod out the autonomous "build snowman" interaction.

I think it's the baking that does it. And if you serve burned ones, Santa gets mad and leaves you coal IIRC.

The tree and cookies are needed for him to spawn from the tree, nothing else.

What time did you bake and serve the cookies? I think it has to be at least 7pm.

@joandsarah77
My sims bought the cookies at an owned business. They didn't bake them.
Good to know that nothing but the cookies and the christmas tree are needed.

Sorry, derailing the current subject...is there a tutorial or similar for how to make subhood-installable families like the ones by Meetme?

I'm wondering about creating BV locals that can be installed this way, so I only have to make them once. I already made the sim/face templates, but that still means creating new sims in CAS, and then setting them up in-game, for each neighbourhood.

I know how to make a standalone shopping district. Obviously you make some CAS sims in that subhood. What I don't know (I make very few sims, and very basic) is how they get the right memories, relationships etc and then are packaged up with the subhood. Is it all done in SimPE, or in-game? What memories do CAS sims even come with?

I'm p sure you can add memories in SimPE too, but you can also use the memory manipulator in-game if you want memories like getting a job, bc then it gives you a small window to choose the icon it gets, and then you don't have to mess with the code in SimPE to get the right icon for a job let's say.

The default memories for CAS sims are I believe meeting and kissing Mystery sim and graduating university, and then there are exceptions like married sims having marriage memories, parents having woohoo and child memories, teens not having the first kiss memories and stuff like that. Honestly I'd only worry about memories if there's some story you really want them to have, like kidnapping a child or something, since they get random jobs and relationship when the game begins

Buying them must break it somehow. I've always baked them and Santa has always shown up. Sometimes right away and sometimes not until later in the night.

Thanks, Sugoisama, sounds like I wouldn't need to fiddle with the memories. They shouldn't need jobs either, so prob no memories for that kind of thing.
Maybe it's just a matter of creating sims in the subhood, installing that in the real hood and then deleting the subhood again. Not sure whether they should be bin families or already tourist-ified...the latter maybe?

I might just give it a go.

Update:
I made a new subhood and three tropical local families, currently in the bin. To make them locals I have to move them into a lot, yes? (I'm sure there's a way to do it with SimPE, but I don't know what that is.)
Usually, I would have a placeholder sim on-lot to avoid "ghost family data" being created, but I don't want any more sims in this setup, and if I make one, corruption rules suggest they have to stay forever.
I can bulldoze the lot once I'm done, but will there be leftover data somewhere I should clean up before installing/sharing the suburb?
Or will everything be dandy after the lot is bulldozed?