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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 9th Oct 2014 at 1:35 AM
Default Tuning XML for Sims 4 : Where Do I Start?
I guess I'm just asking if the tutorials for Sims 3 will work for Sims 4 or if I need more direction than that?

What I want to do is tune it to turn off Autonomously Mourning Graves. My sim keeps stopping what he's doing (more often than not its cooking, is he trying to set my house on fire? I'm really starting to think so.) and runs out to my little legacy graveyard and just cries for an hour if I don't catch him in time to stop him from geting a pesky sad mood. :< I don't like it, I want to change it, but I don't know how to tweak XML for any game, let alone TS4. I've read a few tutorials on Sims 3 but ofc TS4 is a different game, so if someone could just point me in the right direction? I've been all over google, and all over these forums so I'm either blind or... blind?
Pettifogging Legalist!
retired moderator
#2 Old 9th Oct 2014 at 1:46 AM
First thing I'd recommend is to get velocitygrass XML Extractor from over in the Tools forum, and use that to extract the giant XML blob inside the game files into a directory of handy, human-readable pieces (directions/FAQ for that see the upload thread).

Then download the EA CC guide (link in sticky), it has a huge directory of .tdesc files (which are also XML, i.e. text files) which describe all of the tuning files in exorbitant detail.

Then just search the entire XML folder for stuff like "mourn" or "autonomous" I'd say -- should get you some file that has "allow for autonomous=true" in it somewhere with regard to mourning. XML isn't difficult to read (particularly when you export it with whitespace), it's a markup language much like HTML -- refer to the equivalent tdesc whenever you're unsure what any of it means.

Change that value to false, import into a package with S4PE (Link see tools forum sticky), dump it into your mods folder and test in game. That's basically it. For more complex things it will take longer to figure out how it's all interconnected but as far as I've seen making things non-autonomuous doesn't take more than changing one attribute (sometimes in more than one place though, to account for the various kinds of sims (active household vs walkbys etc)).

Stuff for TS2 · TS3 · TS4 | Please do not PM me with technical questions – we have Create forums for that.

In the kingdom of the blind, do as the Romans do.
Eminence Grise
#3 Old 9th Oct 2014 at 1:52 AM
Start here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=532317

In particular, the tools that relate to data files and XML resources (which are in data files), and the threads discussing them. You should also read the official custom content guide from EA, and the discussion thread.

XML ("Extended Markup Language") is the same language in TS4 as in TS3, but the role of XML in the program as a whole is not exactly the same. In particular, it appears that you can do MORE with XML in TS4 than in TS3. And what you need to make the game load an XML mod is different.

Edit: Ninjaed by pbox! Rest was redundant...
Pettifogging Legalist!
retired moderator
#4 Old 9th Oct 2014 at 5:03 PM
I also posted a small How-To in Tutorials now (which basically repeats what I said above) but you might want to check it out too.

Stuff for TS2 · TS3 · TS4 | Please do not PM me with technical questions – we have Create forums for that.

In the kingdom of the blind, do as the Romans do.
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