More Awesome Than You!

I figure if anyone in the world knows how to help me with what I'm trying to do here it will be you all.  (And if it can't be done, y'all will know that, too.)

I downloaded and installed the Hilary Duff sim from the official site (mainly because I wanted the hair.)  Now, when I go into CAS and roll random females, once in a while the random sim has the (awful) Hilary Duff face shape (or misshape, depending on how you look at it.) 

I have two (probably dumb) questions about this:
1. Does this mean that townies will sometimes spawn with that face shape as well?

2. Since the face shape only appears on randomly generated sims, but didn't add or replace a face in the usual list of CAS faces, does this mean that there is a way to add other new faces --without-- replacing the defaults?  That is, other faces that can be rolled randomly but can't be chosen manually? 

Updated and edited to add:
Since I had nothing better to do tonight (sad huh?) I did do two things to try and answer these questions for myself.

Question 1--will townies spawn with the Hilary face shape?  Yeah.  I made a new neighborhood, deleted all characters, forced new townies, and got a "hilary" on the first try.

Question 2-- Can other faces be added to the possible pool of random sims and townies? I still don't know, but I did open up the file "afarch_Hilary.package" in SimPe, and in the "Face Arch XML" section, changed the flag to "0x00000000", per advice from this thread: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,1250.100.html (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,1250.100.html).  The Hilary face now shows in Bodyshop but not CAS. (Disclaimer: It might have shown up in Bodyshop anyways--I never used it and hadn't checked before. I'm a bad tester. :()

So my real question remains basically the same: since installing Hilary Duff apparently installs all the files needed to generate a new random/townie sim, shouldn't it be possible to clone/modify her files to make other new (better!) random sims/townies?  And if so, how the heck do I do it?

Don't know for sure, just a thought: try to delete that head in CAS, it should be in the "Heads" section.

I'm not sure that's the point.

In any case, I'm interested in this myself, since the available number of templates isn't enough in my opinion.  So if there's a way to include more without having to replace existing default replacements, I'm all for it.

Marhis:  I'm not really concerned with the CAS head (unless there's some reason I should be?) I'm not trying to get rid of anything, but rather trying to find out how Hilary added herself to the game-generated random faces.

Shivani: Yes, I'm hoping there is a way--it seems like there ought to be a way. 

Also wondering if anyone else has noticed this happening after installing the Hilary Duff sim?  It has definitely happened in my own game, and believe me, at first I wondered if there was any way I could be imagining it--my eyes aren't what they used to be.  But generally, if I generate a random sim in CAS, and then go to make adjustments to the sim's faccial structure, the template face that the sim is using is highlighted in green unless/until I change something.  When the "hilary" face turns up, none of the faces are highlighted.

Honestly I figured when I posted this that someone would say "yes this is supposed to happen when you add a Maxis-made sim, and no, you can't add other faces yourself or modify the maxis one," and point and laugh at me.  Or something.  I'll poke into it more myself when I have some time when I know I won't be constantly interrupted, because the curiosity is killing me.

(I don't know if this matters or not, but I only have the base game.)

This also happens if you install Jeannette Biederman - there is a new face template added. I was looking into how this worked quite some time ago & then due to my huband's illness I got away from simming & modding. I've just recently picked up Pets & have started playing again, so I suspect I'll get back into modding shortly :)

Anyway, I am certain there is a way to add extra face templates because it was done with Jeannette & now you are saying that Dufff also adds one. It's just a matter of figuring out what needs to be done. I'll grab the hillary Duff package 7 take a look at that, too.

Could you (or someone) point me a link for this Jeannette Biederman download? I didn't find it.

stupid question, and i already tried the dictionary, what does afarch mean?

afarch is not a word, it's an abbrevation, "adult female archetype".

many thanks.  i dont suppose you could let me know who hilary duff is?  im slow on pop culture references.   it is still the 70s, yes?

I have the same problem you do, so I haven't the slightest clue. My only source of "pop culture" is the Internet. I do literally live under a rock, after all.

yeah, pop culture.  sigh.  so there is this new band called aerosmith,  what do you think rockman?   i dont have the same excuse but i am more or less blonde (my bottle of dye says so).

does going gray make me less blonde? or is that just a layer?

Fantastic, Morague.   :)  As much as anything else, I'm glad to get some confirmation from someone else that new faces ARE added with some Maxis-made sims. Just so I don't seem quite so off-my-rocker.

And that's what I figured, also--if the files to add a face are already in my downloads folder, it should be possible to make more of 'em.  I haven't really done any modding though, so I'm glad someone with some actual know-how is interested in tackling the mystery.

I was wondering last night if the Jeanette sim also brought a new face to the mix.  I had the sim installed a while back, but only for a very short time, and then lost her to a hard drive reformat.   Danton, I got the jeanette sim at Spiffy Sims--their search function should find her for you. I think the download link really just mentions the hair mesh, but it's the entire sim.

And I have no clue about Hilary Duff OR Jeanette Beiderman in "real life."  At least if someone made a Dan Tyminsky sim I'd know who that was.   ;D

I was thinking of the head because I was wondering if it may be a sort of "package" of facial features + hair. All the heads I have in CAS belong to sims I imported or cloned, and are all custom faces; deleting the heads does not affects the appereance of the original owner in the simsbin. But I concur that this is very different from the addition of new archetypes, so definitely there has to be a different approach.

Found it, thank you.
http://www.spiffysims.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=777

I reinstalled Jeanette Beiderman.  At first her face shape did NOT turn up in randomly generated sims, but this was easily fixed by changing the flag.  So if nothing else, I've at least now got townies spawning with Jeanette or Hilary face shapes.  In the case of Jeanette in particular, I'm not sure this is a good thing.   ;D

I had a quick look at Hillary & Jannette last night. It's very strange that the new faces are added as templates in BodyShop but not in CAS. I have not been able to figure out why that is happening.

So, apparently we can add new templates but they would only be available through Body Shop. I'll see if i can figure out exactly what files are required to make a new template over the weekend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Duff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Duff)  Despite what this says, she is not much of a singer IMHO!  What is it with these kids thinking they can do everything because they do one thing reasonably well?

Jeanette Biederman is a German singer/actress.  Young, sexy, at one time compared to that Spears chick for some unknown reason.  Most pages online are in German so not very helpful to link.

Well at least they are available in CAS if you've got the patience to sit there and click the random sim dice until they turn up.  That's better than nothing, I suppose. 

Even so, I still don't believe that the standard faces are hard-coded into the game UI :P

But at least, the Jeanette sim showed how to link the resources needed to make a new template, and the method is reproducible in SimPe, although the process is quite laborious.

No, they aren't.  I've seen replacements.

I was referring to the previously asserted fact that new faces (not replacements of existing) won't appear in CAS, although they can be seen in BodyShop. But I hope that can be fixed  ;)

Anyway, using the Jeanette sim package as guidance, I've prepared a sample face template (http://theos.chewbakkas.net/matm/custom-face-template.zip) with all the ages and genders.

The GMDC resources were extracted from existing sim templates (like you would do to make a replacement (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,1280.0.html)), while the related resources (CRES, SHPE, GMND) were extracted from the CASFace.package; They were all renamed, re-hashed and relinked in SimPe, while keeping the naming conventions.

The Face arch xml resources (and the supporting resources 3IDR, BINX, COLL) were cloned for each age and gender group, and assigned new group and instances.
In the resource table (3IDR), the reference to the SHPE of the corresponding age and gender was also updated. In this package, I normalized the 3IDR's so that you can use the PJSE body mesh tool to link an existing mesh package 8)

One thing I can't figure out are the LOD meshes - they are included in the packages, but there is no place to reference them. Does the game figure that out for itself?  ???

Theo, I'm clueless about stuff like this, or nearly so (plus I typed your name as "Thoe" three times before I got it right, so obviously cannot be trusted,) but I was just wondering--have you looked at the files included with the Hilary Duff sim? 

The Hilary Duff files are packed a little differently from the Jeanette files, and Hilary showed up in my CAS random faces with no editing, whereas I had to tweak Jeanette's face a bit to get it to show up  (and now having seen it, am thinking of un-tweaking lol.)

I was thinking that maybe the differences/similarities in how the two sims were packed might provide some sort of help.  If not, feel free to point and laugh.  :)

I want the Jeanette sim, but I can't enter the spiffy sims site. I get a page that says I have an invalid ip.

Hi Theo,

I've been trying to figure out why they show up in BodyShop but not in CAS. The only thing I can think of is that BosyShop includes (scans) the Downloads folder while CAS does not. It's the only thing that makes any sense to me.

I'm wondering if placing the new packages into the Program Files folders might work, although I doubt it - I think CAS is simply scanning a predefined list of files to access. If that is the case, then there should be a file somewhere with a text list of files that it accesses unless it is included in the exe :/

I also think the game just uses the LOD resources automatically depending on your graphics card/settings.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to investigate this further shortly! Thanks for doing the sample file!

Edited: Ok - I am fairly certain that CAS is only using the templates that are listed in the Program File\EA Games\The Sims2\Res\Sims 3D\CASface.package. To add the new face templates to CAS i think we'd have to replace this game file with a modified version or maybe place a modified version into the Downloads folder like Jordi's Live.package. BodyShop is obviously scanning the Downloads folder for additions but CAS is only looking for the CASface file.

Updated info: I've been fiddling around with the Jeanette packages today to see if I could construct a package with just the face stuff in it & for it to use the standard EA face textures. The reason being, so that new face templates are smaller - no texture files. It seems to be working fine :) I need to test it to see if it will pick up the zombie overlay as I added that into the package, as well. I still have not got it to show up in CAS yet - but i'll keep plgging away. Toorrow I'll see if I can add the other ages to Jeannette.

There's good news & bad news.

I have pinned down the problem of why the new faces do not show up in CAS. It has to do with how the sims are put together from the sim template & the globalcatbin.bundle.package - that's the good news :) The bad news is that I can't figure out how the game is actually putting the stuff together with the sim template & the above package. I can see definite relationships in that package but I can not figure out how it is connecting the actual archetypes to the specific files - maybe someone with more knowledge or patience than me will figure it out.

So, we are able to add new archetypes & they do show up just fine in bodyshop but CAS is going to have to wait for someone else to tackle the problem.

Once I get a complete example set I'll post it but probably not this weekend as it's already looking pretty jammed up :/

Will they behave the way the Hillary and Jeanette faces do--meaning, will they show up in randomly generate CAS sims and townies?  That's really all I'm hoping for, although it would be nice to be able to choose them specifically as well.

Yes - once i get a set created you'd be able to make your own set & they would show up in body shop & they are available to newly generated sims, you just can't choose them from CAS.