Neighborhood Templates with Playables?
sloppyhousewife:
You're right, I could have been more specific. What I wanted to do was to turn townies into playables and make a template out of that (because I make them playable anyway, and it gets pretty dull when you have to do this for every single new neighborhood). I should add that my base template only has the above mentioned (base game) townies, no NPCs or EAxis bin sims.
I made a CAS sim in order to move them in, created a lot, moved the first in, kicked the CAS sim out and deleted him (Deleted 2). I moved the second in, moved the first one out (sim bin), moved the third in, the second out etc. etc. until all 16 were in the sim bin.
The thus generated N001 folder went to TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods (without the stealth 'hoods).
After reading your reply, Mootilda, I initialized them using your empty-lot-method. Still, no sims in the sim bin. According to the My Documents/EA Games folder, this 'hood has no sims at all except for the paper boy and the driver (those were generated during the move-in-move-out progress).
Quote from: Tarlia on 2011 April 25, 17:34:02
To make a "template" of a regular 'hood, all you need to do is make your neighbourhood as you want it, and then take a copy of the whole neighbourhood folder and put it somewhere safe. If you want to start it over, delete the existing folder in your Neighborhood folder and copy over the backup folder. Not sure how it's possible to get that wrong.
I used this method before finding out about templates, but it has several disadvantages, like not being able to choose a terrain etc.
Tarlia:
Oh, I see. Instead of the regular Goopy & Company townies, you want playables copied over to every new neighbourhood.
I don't think you can do that with the regular N001 template. The game, by default, only copies over townies and NPCs. Otherwise, you'd also get the Pleasantview playables in every new 'hood in an unmodded game.
That's what the stealth hoods are for. Those DO copy over playables to every 'hood. I'm not quite sure how to go about making one (or safely editing one), though I could most likely find out, but I'm sure Mootilda knows?
Also, @Mootilda: Good point, I didn't think of the IDNOs... Now I want to test putting in any combination of N001/G001/F001/E001 manually. I wonder if the game will still autocorrect it at startup? The stealth hoods aren't generated before you load the neighbourhood for the first time ingame, though, so that's not related to how the 'hood is copied.
sloppyhousewife:
Quote from: Tarlia on 2011 April 26, 13:32:59
Oh, I see. Instead of the regular Goopy & Company townies, you want playables copied over to every new neighbourhood.
I don't think you can do that with the regular N001 template. The game, by default, only copies over townies and NPCs. Otherwise, you'd also get the Pleasantview playables in every new 'hood in an unmodded game.
That's what the stealth hoods are for. Those DO copy over playables to every 'hood. I'm not quite sure how to go about making one (or safely editing one), though I could most likely find out, but I'm sure Mootilda knows?
Very good point - I never thought of the PV bin sims and them not appearing in new NHs. I don't think it's that difficult to manipulate stealth 'hoods (although I might be wrong), but it won't take too long to find out. Or to repair the damage in case I screw it up. Thanks for the hint!
Mootilda:
Quote from: sloppyhousewife on 2011 April 26, 08:20:10
After reading your reply, Mootilda, I initialized them using your empty-lot-method. Still, no sims in the sim bin. According to the My Documents/EA Games folder, this 'hood has no sims at all except for the paper boy and the driver (those were generated during the move-in-move-out progress).
Your procedure would have already initialized them, so my technique wouldn't help.
Quote from: sloppyhousewife on 2011 April 26, 08:20:10
Quote from: Tarlia on 2011 April 25, 17:34:02
To make a "template" of a regular 'hood, all you need to do is make your neighbourhood as you want it, and then take a copy of the whole neighbourhood folder and put it somewhere safe.
I used this method before finding out about templates, but it has several disadvantages, like not being able to choose a terrain etc.
Exactly how are you trying to use the neighborhood template? Are you deleting the Neighborhoods subfolder for your save game and allowing the game to regenerate all of the neighborhoods? Or, are you creating a brand new neighborhood from a terrain? I assumed the former and sim-bin sims work in that situation. However, if you are using the latter technique, sim-bin sims will not work; you will definitely want a stealth subhood for that to work.
Here's my best guess as to how to create a stealth neighborhood (note that this isn't tested at all):
1) Create your neighborhood
2) Extract the IDNO record from an existing stealth neighborhood and replace your IDNO with that one.
3) Modify the UID and (parent) name in the IDNO. The UID should be unique and the (parent) name should match your neighborhood folder name.
4) Move your neighborhood into C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 <EP>\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate for any EP from Pets on.
Quote from: Tarlia on 2011 April 26, 13:32:59
That's what the stealth hoods are for. Those DO copy over playables to every 'hood. I'm not quite sure how to go about making one (or safely editing one), though I could most likely find out, but I'm sure Mootilda knows?
Thanks for the confidence. However, I'd have to do some research to figure out how to (correctly) make a stealth neighborhood. I've only made them accidentally, because of the SimPE IDNO bug.
Quote from: Tarlia on 2011 April 26, 13:32:59
Also, @Mootilda: Good point, I didn't think of the IDNOs... Now I want to test putting in any combination of N001/G001/F001/E001 manually. I wonder if the game will still autocorrect it at startup? The stealth hoods aren't generated before you load the neighbourhood for the first time ingame, though, so that's not related to how the 'hood is copied.
Good to know about the stealth subhoods. I tend to avoid them like the plague, so I'm not surprised that I was wrong about that. I've updated my post.
I'm not sure whether it happens for all EPs, but I've seen a lot of people who have "lost" neighborhoods that they restored from backup. This happened because the IDNO was not changed when they copied the neighborhood in, and it conflicted with an existing neighborhood. When I had them remove the conflicting neighborhoods, their restored neighborhood "magically" appeared again:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=180053
The solution to this problem is to make the IDNO unique. I never thought about using the in-game process to fix the problem, but I know that it works because of the conflict between the EA shipped neighborhoods. Unfortunately, that conflict is why you lose the neighborhood story on the base game neighborhoods when you have the later EPs. The game decides to let the neighborhoods associated with the later EPs "win" the IDNO, since they come earlier in the alphabet (E001, F001, G001). However, the early neighborhood stories (such as N001) rely on the IDNO. I've solved this on my own machine by changing the IDNO for the later EP neighborhoods, so that the base game hoods retain their IDNOs when a new save game is generated.
Tarlia:
Quote from: Mootilda on 2011 April 26, 16:17:38
I'm not sure whether it happens for all EPs, but I've seen a lot of people who have "lost" neighborhoods that they restored from backup. This happened because the IDNO was not changed when they copied the neighborhood in, and it conflicted with an existing neighborhood. When I had them remove the conflicting neighborhoods, their restored neighborhood "magically" appeared again:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=180053
The solution to this problem is to make the IDNO unique. I never thought about using the in-game process to fix the problem, but I know that it works because of the conflict between the EA shipped neighborhoods. Unfortunately, that conflict is why you lose the neighborhood story on the base game neighborhoods when you have the later EPs. The game decides to let the neighborhoods associated with the later EPs "win" the IDNO, since they come earlier in the alphabet (E001, F001, G001). However, the early neighborhood stories (such as N001) rely on the IDNO. I've solved this on my own machine by changing the IDNO for the later EP neighborhoods, so that the base game hoods retain their IDNOs when a new save game is generated.
Thanks for this info. I'll add it to my list of things to fix before I release my new clean premade 'hoods, so people don't end up putting in two conflicting ones.
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