To be honest, that seemed like money laundering.

Although if the project was really serious and they have really left them stranded, I feel very sorry.

Today I discovered that z_*.package will load after zz_*.package.



Use za_* instead:

I was today years old when I learned the vanilla game already has nose rings.

Just don't use the underscore. The underscore loads after all alphabetic characters.

For anyone else wondering, here's the ASCII table which lists all symbols in a computer-alphabet order. Ignore the first table; it's the second table where the letters and numbers begin.

For example, if you were to name your mod files IN ALL CAPS, then the ZZ_ would load before Z_, because 0 < 9 < A < Z < _ < a < z (by the symbols' numerical values that the computers use, as the computers work with 0s and 1s only).

Which I just now realized happens exactly with the HCDU report... writing posts before the morning coffee is dangerous.

Maybe HCDU ignores capitalization? In any case, kestrellyn's trick seems to be the best solution: simply drop the _ symbols and name your mods zzFirst and zSecond.

The thumbnails make it very difficult to figure out which is which, I always end up with a gold eyebrow ring when I wanted a silver nose stud!

Gah yes - there is a workaround for this, a mod which has several different poses for the thumbnails for accessories, so you can do an extremely laborious process of loading the game and marking (on paper) the order of every piece of jewellery, then putting in each mod in turn and forcing the game to regenerate the relevant thumbnail (e.g. when you have the mod that uses the "left eyebrow close up" pose you regenerate only the left eyebrow piercings), and then quitting, changing out the mod and regenerating the relevant ones, repeat until done.

But who can be bothered with that. I wish there was a way to just have a completely custom thumbnail!

This is no longer accurate, unfortunately. Files on Windows used to load and be listed using this ordering, but Windows has since changed the sort order to be more "natural", e.g. upper and lower case letters now have the same sort position, and names that contain numbers are also treated differently - before, "111" would be listed before "13" because the second character (1) in the first name comes before the second character (3) in the second, but now "13" loads first because 13 is a smaller number. This also applies to groups of numbers in a name that also contains letters, so "111something" will also load after "13something". Generally, I think if you sort your files by name in Windows Explorer, that should be the actual load order that the game will use. I would generally also avoid mixing different capitalization and numbers + letters so that load order is easier to predict.

I was surprised specifically because z_*.package loaded before zz_*.package in Explorer but HCDU Plus showed opposite results. whoward confirmed that HCDU was correct.

Puddles do this??

I did it in reverse order since sometimes people have custom stuff at the beginning. Also once you get the right/left/silver/gold pattern, it's a little easier

I recently created a folder on my desktop with reference pics of things like jewelry, nail polish and tattoo overlays because I realized I rarely use them since it's so tedious to click through, save the appearance and then discover that's not the one you wanted. Now I use them all the time!

Thank you for these images, will make things a lot easier!

I learned that toddlers can autonomously dance to music if the radio has been turned on

Taking photos in-game with the bon voyage camera creates an actual file for the photo, and for the longest time I thought that the career reward camera didn't, which was a shame. But yesterday I realized that taking photos with that camera does generate what I assume is a temporary file, which is immediately replaced with the next one you take. So, if I'm quick enough I CAN get an "original" copy of my sims' photos.

There's a bad outcome on a vacation chance card that brings sims very close to death! Maybe all of them can do this if the motives are low to begin with, I don't know. But I sent the Beeches on a tour, made the wrong choice (stayed by the bus when the tour guide disappeared), and they all came home redlining bladder, hunger, fun, and energy. I had to micromanage the lot of them (a total of five sims) as they tried to wander all over the hotel, which I am now going to have to reconfigure again. I thought I had its worst routing fails corrected but nope. One of them ordered room service while the others used the bathrooms and once they were outside of some food it was safe to sleep, but they kept trying to go to sleep in the furthest bed from where they were, refusing to eat till they finished complaining of hunger, blocking each other in doorways, etc. and it was just not a fun time. I don't know if sims can die on vacation but they sure were trying! I'm kind of proud of myself that none of them even had a bathroom accident (five sims, three bathrooms, it was a narrow squeak)

So that camera doesn't keep the pictures you take permanently? That sucks.



Wasn't that nice of them to test your routing problems for you. XD

The bon voyage camera creates a permanent file in the neighborhood's storytelling folder, just like the in-game base game camera. I believe this is important because the game will access that file any time you want to order a physical copy of the photo, and you can have as many copies of the same picture as the sims can afford.

With the university camera, the game creates a temporary file in the game's storytelling folder, not in the neighborhood's, and uses that file for the printing of the physical copy, which is printed immediately after being taken and sims don't have to pay for it. However, you can't ask for more copies of the photo as you can with the bon voyage camera. If you haven't taken another photo, the picture's file will remain in the game's storytelling folder, so if you want to keep that file, you can copy it somewhere else before you take another picture and gets deleted, and you'll get to keep it.

What I love about these cameras, other than having cute pictures of my sims obviously, is that you can replace the pictures' files with any other photo or image you want, and that's what will get printed when your sims buy a copy of it (with bon voyage) or right before the photo is printed with the university camera. I used to think it was only possible with the easel paintings, but having the cameras option gives a wider range of possibilities

The career reward camera takes a picture that you can retrieve and hang on the wall. Seems pretty permanent to me.

Isn't the picture file in the Storytelling folder only stored for a brief time, getting swapped out the next time you use the camera? I don't use the BV/Uni cameras a lot, but I think it just keeps reusing the same "screenshot" file, so you do have to copy and rename the file if you want to keep it. So in that way they're temporary. (And yes, if you're quick and do it at the exact moment, you can swap it with another picture)

I think the "saved" pictures that are hanged on walls are stored elsewhere - possibly in lot files? Can't check, because I don't have any at the moment.

I don't know about storytelling, but obviously the file is stored in a permanent manner, since it appears permanently in the game (unless you choose to the delete the photograph). I believe there are ways to extract the files for custom paintings on a lot if you want them.

Custom paintings and printed-out photographs (including photobooth photos) are tied to the lot, which is why they so often get wrecked with a move. It's possible to extract the picture from the lot but it's tedious.

I'm guessing that, unlike the other camera where you can buy multiple pictures, you can only have the one printed out picture and if you then want to get another one then you're screwed.

Yeah you only get one copy in game, and there's no saved file of the image like the BV camera pics. I have a sim who is a photographer and some of her pictures are really cool. The only way I can share it outside my game is to screenshot the picture on the wall. A presumably lengthy extraction process is not as convenient as just catching the temporary file to save as LauraPamplonaS shared.

Haven't tested it out, but my guess would be that they were saved to some sort of picture format in the lot they belong to, and you can use SimPE to extract (it's just a guess, mind). Finding the lot is a bit tedious (probably faster ways, I just open them up and look at the "floor" pictures, and/or the lot name, depending on whether I can remember the name or looks of the lot).

I think I have to test it out at some point...



While you're in the middle of taking the picture, the picture itself (Snapshot.bmp) saves to the "EA Games\The Sims 2\Storytelling" folder (NOT the ones in each Neighborhood folder!)

There's a tutorial here for how to change the picture (or how to copy it, or do anything with it, really).
https://chickadeelee.livejournal.com/13521.html

It's really not that hard to identify and copy pictures from the lot files. You just need SimPE. I did a blog entry about it a few years ago on another site. Here's a summary from that.

1) In the game, go to the lot. Save the lot. Then, in Windows Explorer go to
…\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\NXXX\Lots
or if you're running UC
...\EA Games\The Sims™ 2 Ultimate Collection\Neighborhoods\NXXX\Lots
where XXX is the number of the neighborhood you are playing. Sort the Lot list by date. The top entry will be the lot you just saved.

2) Copy that Lot file to your desktop and open it with SimPE. We do that because SimPE can't open the actual lot file with the game running but it can open a copy of it. You may get a couple of SimPE popups on opening the copy, but click "OK" to dismiss them.

3) In the Lot file in SimPE, click the "Texture Image" resource. Paintings, terrains, roof, floor and wall textures will be in the Resource List on the right.

4) Simply click on each of the files and see if the image that it displays is the one you want. When it is, click Export and save it somewhere. If it was an easel painting, it will save as 450 x 600 pixels and will look a little squished. In a graphics program (MS-Paint works fine), change the aspect from 450 x 600 pixels to 600 x 450 pixels and save. If it was a custom painting it should export okay without having to change the aspect ratio. This may or may not work with camera pictures, I haven't tried those.

Then you're done. You've got a copy of it.