I realize it's a long-shot, as there weren't really any user-made mac utilities for sims 2 either, but if anyone out there is awesometastic and is working on/will work on a CTU or Pattern Packager-style program for mac I would love them forever. I have no real knowledge of programming and such myself (beyond high school level computer sciene ), but I will gladly be a guinea pig!

Also, if there are any other OS X friendly modding programs already developed or in development that I (or others reading this) don't know about then please post them up here! Thanks =)

I suppose you don't want to cough up the money for a windows parallel, huh?

I know having everything for Windows must suck...I hope you find something though.

And I did some googling for you...didn't find anything, but I tried =/

There isn't, aside from one tool that hasn't been updated in a long time and was still in very early development.

Boot Camp or a virtual machine is your only option, at this point. You could try running programs through Mono, but I'm not sure which ones, if any, work (I tried running Delphy's CTU through it, but either I did something wrong or it won't run through Mono).

Thanks to the previous posters who took the time to look into the issue, much appreciated as it seems there are few out there who'd go up to bat for team OSX when they're on team PC. So, it's nice to see someone looking into mac needs than ignoring the issue altogether (which is the usual response, sadly). So, again, hats off to you.

There are several problems with running through bootcamp for peeps (such as myself) who are native OSX users.

1)Need HD space to partition the disk.

I have an older model imac and I share it with my husband who does film editing. We just can't spare the HD space to partition space for PC just to play one game. No, I don't have to use the 32gb default partition size-I can adjust how much space to partition. But any space taken away from my husband's work (an important thing) so I can play a video game (a (fun but) unimportant thing) won't do. Yeah, I'm nickle and dime-ing HD space, but until we can afford a more spacious computer, I have ration HD space.

2)Computer sharing

I'm sure other people share the computer they play/create CC on. My husband, as aforementioned, does film editing. Compressing a film file can take quite a loooooong time. As a film is quietly compressing in the background, I can hop on to play Sims, create CC, online shop, watch porn... whatever. However, I can't hop on over to the PC side while his films are compressing unless I want to have a very frustrated hubby. While my situation is unique to me, I'm sure others out there share their computers with people who may sigh and kvetch because our leisure activity is inconveniencing "hop on real quick" work they have to do on a program that's run on OSX.

3) My graphic editing programs are for mac

I have the Adobe CS4 suite installed on my mac. It's boofitful and faboolous and I love it. I'd love to create CC with it. In order to make CC for my PC game, I have to create my cc, reboot to PC, test it, reboot to OSX to make changes, reboot to PC to test again... etc. It's such an inconvenient pain that I don't even really want to bother. Of course, I could pirate imaging programs for PC, but I don't want to be a dirty thief. I could also download one of the free image editing programs available, but then I have to deal with a learning curve in order to do my "fun in my spare time" thing. Meh. It's just pointless to bother with it at all at this point.

4) The principle of the thing

Hey, us OSX users spend a lot of money on these machines for a reason, especially if that reason is our work. Every time I have to traverse to the PC dark side, I feel like... well... it's like buying an electric car but having to take the sputtering smoke belching jalopy to the store because no one wants to put an outlet in the parking lot.

While playing sims and creating CC via bootcamp or parallels or whatever may be the simplest solution, it's not necessarily more convenient. I'd love to create and share cc, but at this point I really don't want to bother right now with the status quo as it is. And I'm sure I'm not the only potential cc contributor who is being alienated by the lack of mac support.

My $.02, for what it's worth.

Well put!

Also, now that the windows and mac versions are being packaged together...it should be easier for windowsy programmers to peek inside the mac code, right? I was always disappointed by the lack of mac-friendly tools for Sims 2, now that both versions are being shipped together for Sims 3 hopefully it will change things.

I know that custom content tools for windows are still mostly "in development" and everything's fairly new...but I don't see my mac tools can't be developed alongside windows tools...

I understand that boot camp can be bothersome because of the inability to multitask between mac and windows program. But why not install virtual machine and the oldest windows that will support the software you want to run? For example Windows 98SE? So it will be smaller on the hard disk and also cheaper to buy. Of course you have to verify that it will work with the software you want to use. Using VMware for example you can have the windows in a window. And no need of partitioning...

That's the solution my mac loving guy use. Of course it is not good for newer games, but for antique games it is fine, and for software applications.

I've tried that in the past using parallels, I don't know how it would work with Sims 3 but with Sims 2 it was a huge hassle because I needed to copy all of the resource files over to the virtual windows. Granted, with Sims 3 I can just install a windows copy, but that'll mean a WHOLE lot of disc space because I'd need to keep my mac version to actually play the game without laggyness.

Also, I was using Windows 2000 which was pretty speedy but Windows XP or Vista will certainly lag when using something like Parallels.

I have been searching and searching for a solution to this problem. I have a Mac also and want to create CC. If I had any inkling of programing I would be willing to try and make a program but I have no clues.

I solved the nonexistant OS X support issue for myself simply by getting a cheap, old Windows laptop that can run stuff like SimPE, LotAdjuster, and now S3PE -- I need some sort of Windows environment for work anyway (having to reboot into a different OS would be very inconvenient in that context too), and since that laptop is technically outdated I got it for far less than a Windows license alone would have cost. If I hadn't specifically wanted a laptop, I would easily have been able to get a crappy old desktop for free, as well.

Fortunately, connecting FROM a mac TO a pc has become very simple (I never figured out how to get it to work in the other direction), you can basically just mount it like an external drive - so the overhead is minimal, at least for me. Files I'm working on need to go *some*where, and to me it hardly makes a difference whether they're on the mac or on the windows box.

Of course this depends on where you live and how many Windows people you know, but getting an old, used Windows machine may cost less than you think, perhaps even nothing at all, and I know of no sims modding tool that has particularly high system requirements. Perhaps that would be worth looking into?

Plasticbox, that's what I do too, except I have two laptops. So instead of connecting one to the other, I docked them both and hooked them up to one monitor allowing me to easily switch from computer to computer without having to reboot. For any file transfers I just use a really big jump drive

Over at SexySims, Echo has a couple Java utilities to get you started. You have to have upgraded to JavaSE 6 though. I use them on my MacBook and they run OK. Now I just have to study and learn about what goes into creating CC.

jcarent

I work completely on a Mac (my shiny new BEAUTIFULOMGILOVEIT iMac named Edgar) and it's pretty frustrating especially since I spend most of my day in Photoshop anyway and could be making awesome clothing.

I have Parallels but the problem is that DDS files are killing me. Converting them through Graphic Converter to PNG to work in my (Mac) Photoshop and them RE-converting them back to DDS seems to not work. I'm thinking I will have to install a Windows version PS on Parallels to avoid the whole converting issue (and to do away with the platform crossing) but I'm still too fed up to bother. Plus, making my tablet work in the Windows PS seems hassle-ish too. ARGH. ME WANT TO MAKE PRETTY THIIIINGS.

And I just realized that I actually don't know anyone with a PC anymore...which is probably because all my friends are art students/graphic designers. So I can't beg them either!

I've been using VMWare Fusion on my mac to create Sims 3 stuff. Unfortunately I needed to install a windows copy of Sims 3 in order to get everything working, so it's not ideal. But until I get myself a windows (which will probably be never) it's the best-case scenario. I've already been messing around with creating CAS parts, it's very satisfying!

I had to install the Sims under Windows as well.

Also, trying to work in Windows (2000) just reminds me how much I HAAAAATE their file system. Why is everything so complicated? Why can't I find my files? I JUST WANT MY FILES. And the beige, oh, the beige. Is there a more depressing color? I might go find XP just so I don't have to deal with the beige.

The interface is beige? Beige, as in "my dentist's office" beige? Bleeegh....

I wonder if there's any chance that modding tools will ever be made for OSX. I'm not sure I fully understand all of this switching-over-then-switching-back...thing.

Well, Postal supposedly works on Mac although I haven't tested it out yet. But I think you need more than that to actually create stuff, your best bet is still to get Parallels or Fusion.

Postal works fine here, in OS X 10.5.7.

Also, TigerM's Neighbourhood editor supposedly works in mono for OS X http://mono-project.com/ -- that's very simple to install.

I've experimented a bit with getting the CTU to run in mono/OSX, in CrossOver, and in wine with mono/Windows, but currently it relies on Windows-y drawing procedures so it's not useable in practice (although an experimental build does run in mono/OSX).

Other .NET applications (SimPE, LotAdjuster etc) are throwing similar errors so I guess the wine way would not really be a viable solution, and it's far too much trouble anyway if you'd only set it all up for that one purpose. I couldn't get the actual .NET frameworks to install though (only mono/Windows, which is what wine prompted me for), so perhaps with that they would all work.

wine, in case anyone's interested: http://www.winehq.org/ -- the caveats/warnings about X11 are partly outdated, the latest unstable build works perfectly fine with Apple's X11 under 10.5.7. I'm using the XTools that came with 10.5.6.


(All of the stuff I mentioned is free/open source. I don't know the price tag of a commercial emulator.)

I just posted an overview on how to get things to run for/in/next to OS X – it's currently stickied in TS3 Mac Help:

"TS2/TS3 Tools and Utilities: Solutions for OS X users"

I got quite a bit of stuff to run. All of Mootilda's tools seem to be working in mono, and a newer build of the CTU is running as well.

I honestly don't believe it. It ACTUALLY worked. Idk what changed...but it worked. I am stunned. I can't even breathe right. I was getting so fed up with it. I am so happy right now. <3