Sure about that?

AM Build 6/12 8:39PM - Test hood with no other hacks or game mods.  One single living sim.

- Multiple outfits per category is working now.  Not sure when this was fixed or if it was ever broken, some people were complaining.

- Game lags to hell again, previous AM build was quite smooth running, with this there is literally no difference between 2x and 3x speed, and only a slight increase over 1x speed.

- Schools cannot be placed (game breaker).

- Venues and Interior design career, no changes, still broken.

- Some random lots have their lot names and information scrambled with each load, fixing them again seems to make them stay for the next load.  I haven't found the pattern for what gets scrambled yet, effected all my beach lots (3), a few other community lots (fire station, museum, large park), and regular houses (4).  On the scrambled lots, lot type did not properly show in map view, but their function was fine when visited.  Again, fixing the info and setting the lot type made them work and load fine after they were saved again.

- Outfit categories seem a bit scrambled (related to the fix above?), I found some everyday and athletic clothing in the swimwear category, for example.  Sleepwear also has a few random odds and ends from other categories.

I haven't been able to place a school, same deal as before.  Venues and interior designer are tested and still borked.

I have noticed a lot of definite stability improvements in the just-posted build of AM, the game doesn't lag to hell any more.

I did get nasty crash when moving lots around with the new tool, but I think that's Eaxian and not AM related, I was getting the same crashes randomly without AM.

My guess would be that it checks if the item is legitimately installed, which would make it nicely self-contained.

For example, shifting around the .dbc files results in them dynamically losing their "tag" in the buy or CAS menus.  Perhaps the game simply checks in the file is where it should be (is tagged as a "Sims Store" item) and maybe also does a hash check on itself to determine if it has been tampered with (decrapified).  If anything about the file is changed, then it will no longer match a fixed internal value.  If the file is not changed, then it simply won't install in an unregistered game.  The fix in the future would require a bit of programming ability beyond me, basically getting Decrapify to seek and destroy the hash check.

This is all just theoretical guesswork though, without having to look at the files.  As far as I know though, there is no legitimate way for a package to tell the difference between a cracked game or a legitimate installed one, just too many variables.  If some supplemental file or change to a file in the game directory took place upon registration, I'm sure it would have been posted somewhere.

If this was some kind of final draft, the writing is a complete joke.  In just one page (37) detailing the cooking skill, I found they omitted two additional ways to learn cooking skill (maybe more), the tip had an incorrect recipe for Ambrosia (what's a Death Fruit?), and they neglected 3 additional ways to learn recipes.  Oh, and no actual hard numbers to be found in the data area to boot (forgivable).

Why do they never hire someone to write the guides that actually plays the game?  I'm sure of 10 million simmers there's at least one decent author among them.

So if you don't do this with each game session or you choose to have the "store" unchecked and unavailable, then you would not have access to the downloaded content, at least for that game session?

It just seems that tricking the game into thinking you're registered with a single mod, hack, or copied file would be a better tactic than individually cleaning each download or releasing a supplemental patch for each future download package.

Perhaps a silly question, but how does the game know if it is registered or not?  Is there another file that gets downloaded or a change to an existing file which would let the game know if the user has registered his EP or not?

This is an AM issue.

Interior design missions are borked until further notice.

Upgrading properties is having a similar bug.  Properties you buy are set at some kind of default minimum value, and don't recognize any objects on the lot or the actual value of the lot for the lot to become open or upgraded.

Venues seem to work just fine though (buying them, renaming, and collecting cash), although it was noted somewhere that multiple families could "own" a single venue, which would be a non-fatal bug.

Taking out AM solves the problem, but for now I'm sticking to just building lots until this all gets fixed.

My new issue is that after playing a bit, the game slows to a crawl and the scrolling becomes very choppy.  It acts like my graphics card is overheating, but when I check the temp its not the case.

Very simple bug with AM (latest version).

Property levels and values:

All properties that can be purchased are reset to level 0 and cannot be upgraded or officially "opened".  The true property value is not reflected, it seems to be buyable at the default minimum value.  No upgrades to the property are recognized.

Removing AM and reloading the save results in all properties going back to normal costs and true "levels" for the property are reflected.  Property upgrades also go off without a hitch.

Can be easily reproduced.

Totally worth it.  In the middle of torrenting I got a call from my provider saying that I was on notice for pirating some lame kids movie I'd never heard about 2 months ago, and the missus made me can my uTorrent.  $8 to Hotfile and I got the game in about 40 minutes.

2 days ago I found this shelved at my local hick-town Target store.  They refused my purchase at the register, now they lose a sale.  Anyone else finding this marketing strategy not making sense?

Check your family tree for mystery offspring.  I had the same issue...

New bug!

In an attempt to get Riverview to work and fix a hard-lock whenever I visited China, I completely re-installed and re-patched the game.

Now NOTHING installs in the launcher.  It says success, but then it shows that it is not installed, and doesn't show up in the game.  Total BS, this all was working before...did they update the launcher to sniff out arr'd content or did I somehow bork my re-installation?

Also note that I can no longer do the .dbc switch method because the .dbc files no longer build when I try to install the items.  Anyone else having this issue?  All my .sims3pack files were working fine until the re-install except for Riverview items, now nothing works properly.

Road tools are a horrible mess, especially when you're trying to line up bridge sections on watery maps.  I also haven't figured out a way to delete a road once it has been laid down.  Pretty much everything else works as well as I expected, though it looks about 30-40 hours of work to get a nice and good-sized playable world.

Note:  I have a completely fresh and patched install of TS3 and WA.  The ONLY hack I have (and it is working) is AM.  This may be a maxis bug or related to AM, not sure, but I have some theories.

I sent my single femme fatale to France for her second vacation.  Somehow, during the loading, someone "close to her" died, as she had the -50 Mourning moodlet upon arrival.  Thinking "small wierd glitch", I played through, even though she never did have any relationships really with anyone.  During the trip, she romanced someone named Jon Luc Pivet, who owns a rich house in the middle of nowhere.  With maxed relationship, nobody could propose or marry.  She returned home broken-hearted.

When she got home, she invited Jon Luc for a visit, and he accepted a move-in attempt and a successful "Try for Baby".  Still no romantic options for marriage/engagement.  After the child was born, I checked the fambly tree.

Apparently, she had married the "special stuff dealer" in France (who now had her last name), had a child (also with her last name), and the special stuff dealer died...all in the time of one game loading.  The child was living with her half-sister in France near the town square.  Further, his photo is not blacked out so the game still believes she is married.

Anyone else have this odd bug?  I'm thinking she had a duplicate ID with someone else in the France location.  The original chick was obliterated, and replaced with this one.  It doesn't explain how everyone's last name got changed to hers though.  It could also be the AM story-mode driver run amok during the long loading time, with my active sim unflagged, the game decided to do a lot of stuff to her.

All of that was pulled from the XML tables, not from the Prima guide.  I guess I should have tested the low-level stuff myself as well as the high level stuff.

Reminds me of a RL situation that happened back in my Army days in Germany.

I hauled a smoking hot blond home from the club on a Friday night.  We proceed to not really leave the bedroom for more than 24 hours except to grab snacks and such (I just got home from back to back field rotations totalling 2 months - I had a lot to take care of).

Sunday morning I notice she had left 50 euro cents on my breakfast table.  I asked what for...and she informed me that it was for the water usage in the shower she took.

Germans are so fucking wierd sometimes.

It allows you to choose a house or empty lot for the sims moving out...in fact, it requires that you do this unless you check the "kick out" or "make active" check-boxes.  They just won't take any cash with them.  If you want the sims you move out to have a little cash, just have them pawn off some of the crap from their newly furnished lot you just bought them.

Basic stuff.

NPC's are "non-player characters"...maids, firemen, grim reaper, etc.  You can kill them with "destroyallnpcs" (check the help command for exact wording) and the game will simply regenerate fresh ones as needed.

Was the sprinkler on, in use, or already upgraded?

MTS2 has a macro hotkey maker for console commands, I think it stores up to 10 that can be hotkeyed to your F1-10 buttons.

The .dds effect masks are in FullBuild2.package  (Painting01_*** through Painting11_***), but I have no idea where the controller is for them.  I'm assuming its in the hardcode script somewheres, or maybe in the easel object file which I haven't gotten around to beating with a hammer yet.  The info above I had to get through thorough testing, my test painter sim did almost 600 paintings and had about 20 trait changes and was put through the wringer on his moods.

This is "Large Masterpiece #2 (No Trait)" from the catalogue, if I remember correctly.  This painting, or a traited variation, has about a 1 in 20 chance of occuring when a level 9 or 10 painter paints a large painting.  Just get your easels lined up and after 2 sim-minutes you will be able to tell if this is the painting forthcoming.  If it isn't, scrap it and paint another.  If you have artistic, genius, neurotic, insane, or computer whiz traits, there's a chance it may be completely trashed with a wierd effect.  For my taste, Virtuoso makes the best variations, then maybe evil, grumpy, and hates art.


You could make an override for the dds files in the gamedata02, just make sure you do all 10 variations and get the sizes right.  I think you could also add fresh ones to the catalogue, by fixing an addendum to the xml similar to how Pez did with the new "traits" in the latest awesomemod.

First off, there is no hidden photography skill in the game yet.  It was cut'n'pasted based off the painting skill originally, and absolutely no support was added for it.  The trash hack you posted does not enable any photography skill.

Second, as I said, there is no object for the different photo sizes.  You can switch them on all you want in the .xml, but without menu support on the phone or camera size toggles and an actual object for the wall, the different size photos will not appear in the game.  The recolors work though, but only useful if you're taking pictures of nipples close up.  Another trash hack.

1. INTRODUCTION
This is my little project I've put together over the last few days which started with the question "Why the fuck are half my paintings looking like trash?".  Hope you enjoy.

2. SKILLING YOUR PAINTING SKILL
To get started, just grab an easel and start painting.  6's will max out their skill at level 5, they gotta become a teen to get higher.

Basic List - This is the basic list of unlocks available at each level of painting skill.
Level 1 - "Dabble" interaction with the easel.  Dabbling takes 50% longer to paint any given picture.
Level 2 - "Practice" instead of dabble.
Level 3 -
Level 4 - "Paint" instead of practice.
Level 5 - Still-Life becomes available to paint.  All paintings created from this skill level on up will begin to appreciate in value over time.
Level 6 - Brilliant paintings can be painted.  Additional Still-Life styles become unlocked so you may choose them (depending on traits).
Level 7 - Portraits now become available to paint.
Level 8 - Still-Life pictures may now be recorded in your cell phone and painted later with "Memorize Scene" and "Paint from Memory".
Level 9 - Masterpiece paintings can be painted. "Somber" style becomes unlocked regardless of traits.

Artistic trait - Skilling in painting is 25% faster if the sim possesses the artistic trait.  

Other notes
- Your sim's mood, Fast-learner trait, and logic skill also play a factor - as with any skill.
- Recommend that you only skill up off small paintings, this puts you in a better position later in regards to your skill achievements and painting values.
- The "Artistic" trait is not nearly as vital as you think, and may be counter-productive if you want a certain aesthetic to your results.  However, this trait is still necessary if you want any of the lifetime achievements to roll up that are associated with painting.

3. PAINTING SPEED
Each item you paint is painted in 5 stages.  The first stage appears after 1 minute of painting.  The second and subsequent stages are revealed depending on the size of the painting being procured and just a few other factors. Raw skill level has no effect on painting times, nor is there any scaling regarding the number of paintings already made (as in the writing skill).
 
Small     - 180 minutes (3 hours)
Medium - 300 minutes (5 hours)
Large    - 480 minutes (8 hours)

"Dabbling" - At skill level zero, your paintings will take 50% longer to complete.

Portraits - 50% longer time to complete.

Perfectionist trait - Theoretically adds 1 hour to the total painting time regardless of painting size (flat 15 minutes/stage, stages 2 to 5), in practice only adds 15 minutes to total painting time (bug? feature?).  This penalty seems very miniscule compared to the benefit.

Brushmaster Acheivement - Extremely OP, cuts all base painting times in half.  Gotten by painting at least 30 paintings.

4. BRILLIANT AND MASTERPIECE TAGS
Any painting has a chance to be classified as a "brilliant" or "masterpiece" painting, regardless of the coding for a pre-made painting or the skill level of the painter involved - provided the painter has "unlocked" the ability to do so.

Brilliant paintings - Unlocked at Painting Skill 6
20% - Base chance
+20% - Proficient Painter achievement
+20% - Perfectionist trait
+25% - Extra-Creative trait

Masterpiece paintings - Can be painted starting Painting Skill 9.
10% - Base chance
+25% - Proficient Painter achievement
+15% - Perfectionist trait
+15% - Extra-Creative trait

Theoretically you should be able to push "regular" paintings off the table by stacking enough traits, but in my tests I've always hit normal paintings about 25% of the time regardless of the traits I stacked from the list above.  I'm assuming there's a cap, but I can't find it.


5. SELLING OR KEEPING YOUR WORK

Painting Base Sale Price - The following variables are tabulated into the final sale price of your painting.

Previous Paintings created - You get a flat bonus value per previous painting made (N).
                                       Small -  N x 2
                                       Medium - N x 4
                                       Large -  N x 6

Skill Level/Size of painting - This is an additional flat amount taken from a painting size/skill matrix.
                                      Large  - 30, 50, 80, 110, 150, 220, 300, 425, 600, 750, 1000
                                      Medium - 10, 15, 25,  40,  75, 110, 150, 225, 310, 400,  525
                                      Small  -  1,  3,  8,  12,  21,  30,  55, 100, 145, 200,  280

Random multiplier - The above two numbers are added and then multiplied by the X factor, a random number between 0.75 and 1.25.

Brilliant and Masterpiece - The number is then again multiplied by 1.25 for a Brilliant painting and 1.50 for a Masterpiece painting.

Portraits - Portrait values are again multiplied by 1.4.

Master Painter Achievement - Flatly doubles the price of all paintings.  Paintings still appreciate at normal rate.


Appreciation - Starting at skill level 5, every painting created by a painter will appreciate in value over time.  The rates and system are different than the store-bought art speculation rates.  Created paintings will always increase in value over time via this system.

Basic Rate - Skill Level (at time of painting) x (S = .5, M = .75, L = 1) $/day.

Dead Artist - Upon the ORIGINAL death of the artist, the value is immediately increased by a flat 930$ and the above rate of appreciation doubles for the remainder of the life of the painting.  Paintings created by ghost sims appreciate at the normal rate and never get the death bonus.

Art Museum - 20% chance of your painting going into the local art gallery when sold off the easel.  Your painting will REPLACE an existing piece of wall art in a random art gallery in your town.  Unknown if it can overwrite your other paintings.  The painting also loses its ability to be viewed when it is in the museum, but it can still be framed by visiting sims. (bug? feature?)

Klepto-immunity - Custom paintings cannot be klepto'd, but can be stolen by visiting burglers.

Decoration Value - Paintings placed on a wall (or left on the easel) in a room will contribute to a decorated room score.  Decorated moodlet values are as follows -
                          Small  - +4 at 30$ to max +10 at 300$.
                          Medium - +3 at 40$ to max +30 at 400$.
                          Large  - +2 at 50$ to max +40 at 700$.

Framing - Frames are assigned randomly from about 5 different very crappy basic solid colors. Sorry.

Viewing - The space from between 2 tiles and 3 tiles must be free for a sim to "View" the painting successfully.


6. PAINTING BASIC PICTURES
Catalogue - The game has basically 140+ paintings pre-rendered in a catalogue awaiting your sims to paint.  However, this list is broken down into subsets based on skill level (about 10-12 per skill point) and 2 special categories unlocked when your sim can paint brilliant and masterpiece paintings.  The issue is that the skill level subsets in the catalogue have a tolerance of just 1 or 2 skill points, ie some level 8 paintings can be made by a level 10 painter, some cannot.  This means that your painting level 10 sim is limited to a pool of only 15 or so paintings per size level.  This also means that if you skill up too fast, you'll miss painting some pretty cool shit in the level 5 to 8 range.

Trait Involvement - Every pre-made painting in the game has a list of variations that will randomly happen based on your sim's trait list.  For each trait the sim possesses from the list below, the game will randomly determine which pre-made version of the portrait your sim will paint.  It seems to be equally weighted from your list of traits.

No Trait           (Basic Painting) - If your sim has no other traits, he will always paint the basic version of the painting.  Having another trait will simply put this on the random list.
Artistic             (Artistic Painting) - Gives a water-color effect to the painting, though with highlighted border effects on the object of the painting.
Can't Stand Art (CantStand Painting) - Darkens the painting with higher contrast and heavier, thicker brush strokes.
Computer Whiz (ComputerW Painting) - Gives the painting a square-tiled effect, obliterating any detail.  Useful for decorating bathrooms.
Evil                  (Evil Painting) - Tints the picture heavily towards red, most details are left intact.
Grumpy            (Gloomy Painting) - Tints the picture heavily towards blue, most details are left intact.
Genius             (Genius Painting) - Tiles the picture into small white-bordered hexagons/pentagons.
Insane             (Insane Painting) - Obliterates detail, makes colors more flat and contrasting, shapes become jagged.
Neurotic          (Neurotic Painting) - Turns the painting into a bright neon mess.
Virtuoso          (Virtuoso Painting) - Adds a white flair effect to the painting, most details are left intact.


7. PAINTING STILL-LIFE
Basic Still-Life Portraits - When painting any Still-Life painting, one of the following basic effects will be applied to the painting at random.  There is no way to influence this that I can determine.  Some layered effects, applied later, can obliterate any way to distinguish between the 2 basic effects and the coloration effect.

Paint Portrait - Other than locking the camera at an annoying angle, there is no aesthetic reason to "paint portrait", better results can almost always be achieved with regular "Paint Still-Life".  However, a valuation bonus is applied to the painting, so it can be usefull once your sim starts rolling wishes to "Paint a painting with a value of 5000$ +".

Paint from Memory - Almost useful, except that the effects and styles are set permanently the moment you snap the picture, so no aspiring Warhols, sorry.

Still-Life Basic Effect - This is applied to each and every custom painting you make, seemingly at random.
Stroked - This seems to be the vanilla default.  Your painting will have a long-brush/dotted effect applied to the basic picture. (36 of 50 for me, your mileage may vary)
Bubble Blotch Borked (BBB) - Your painting will have a water-color bubble effect applied to the basic picture. (14 of 50 for me, your mileage may vary). I consider this scrappable failure, you may consider this art.

Sombered! - Even with no other mitigating factors, your painting may pick up the somber style for no reason whatsoever (see below).  Seems to be about a 20% chance.

Still-Life Style Categories - Each "style" is actually a category containing a few different random effects.  Inside each style, a random effect will overlay the basic effect from above.

Somber - Green, purple, red, or blue palette shift.
Insane  - Picks a random color pallete from "Somber" and then gives either a) Jagged Abstract effect or b) a Rounded Abstract effect.  Picture is unrecognizable either way, but each effect is applied the same to each size of painting.
Genius  - Micro-tile Effect, Fat Tile Effect, Jagged Tile Effect

Still-Life Effect Influences - Basically, you may choose a style or the game can pick one for you...or not.  Its all pretty fucking random anyways.

Choosing (Forced) - You may choose one of the above categories, and the game will randomly pick one of the effects in your chosen category to apply to your painting.  This seems to override any of the below influences.
Artistic Trait -  Gives you access to all styles level 6.
Insane Trait -  Gives you access to the Insane Style at level 6.
Grumpy Trait - Gives you access to the Somber Style at level 6.
Genius Trait -  Gives you access to the Genius Style at level 6.
Painting Skill -  Somber Style unlocks at level 9 regardless of other pre-requisites.

Moods and Traits (Random) - In the .xml, "forced" apparently actually means "thrown into the random list".  Having any of the following moodlets or traits on your sim at the time the painting is started may randomly give an effect from the Style list.

    Somber
Moodlets:  Desolate, Disappointed, HeartBroken, LostAFriend, Mourning, Bored, Embarrassed, Feeling Unlucky, Humiliated, Lonely, Rejected Proposal, Upset, Buzz Crashed.  
Traits:       Can't Stand Art, Grumpy

     Insane
Moodlets:  None listed.  
Traits:       Over-Emotional, Insane, Neurotic, Never Nude

     Genius
Moodlets:  Buzzed, Divine Meal, Intrigued, HonorStudent, Learning Quickly, Tranquil
Traits:       Genius

Camera Control Notes - The camera is actually quite controllable once you get the hang of it, however, floor switching hotkeys are disabled while in camera mode, making it necessary to queue the command, pause, switch to the target floor, unpause, then wait for the camera to pop up.  Thankfully, speed control hotkeys (1 through 4 and P) for the game are still fully enabled when snapping a picture.

8. SIDE NOTES
Photography - It seems that the code fully supports your painting sim taking pictures of 4 different sizes and applying effects to the photos at different skill levels.  However, there is no "camera object" to be found, nor is there an object for the resulting photos.

GameData02 - About half the file is devoted to files of the various pre-made paintings you may paint.  If you want to preview the possibilities, you may simply browse through.

Traits Involvement - Just remember that even though some traits overlap between painting still-life and painting pre-made pictures, the systems are mutually exclusive in character.  One has nothing to do with the other.  Some traits effect both, but in different ways, and sometimes 2 different traits do similar things in their respective systems.  I'll make a traits index here when time permits.

It may grant the wish, but it doesn't up your permanent stat, just checked.  Under your writing skill tab you will see the stat for the amount of "unique" books you have read.  The good news is that every unique book read makes your reading that much fast for the next one.  Also, short books and articles count just fine, my sim can read a children's book in about 30 game minutes or less.  Fiction, non-fiction, and sci-fi novels go down very easy also.

New question...for everyone.

I parsed the heck out of the xmls and found no bonus to writing for having the "Artistic" trait.  The trait's description mentions that they become better writers, but nothing in the xml code backs that up.

Does the "Artistic" Trait have any global effect on writing, or does it just help one or two genres maybe like other traits?