This is a tangent to the problem you're describing,  but I thought this information might be helpful to you. While working on a "redneck" tanline (or farmers tan or whatever you'd call it) I discovered that naked fat adult male Sims display the lower half of the texture for normal males.  It's only noticeable if you're using something like Crammyboy's nudist hack, since otherwise you'll only see it when they bathe or if they're outgoing and get naked in the hottub. Fat adult males still use the correct texture file top-to-bottom with clothing (briefs, boxers, swim trunks, bermuda shorts etc.) I was able to tell the difference because the fat guy's legs were just lightly tanned between the bottom of his bermuda shorts and the tops of his socks, while the normal guy's legs were tan from the bottom of his trunks (higher up the thigh than bermuda's) to the tops of his sandal straps. My tan normal guy also had a slight tan down to the waist of the trunks, too, so the fat guy displayed a tan "belt" around his pastey waist, between his midline to where the Maxis adult male swim trunks fit on the hips. I removed the nudist hack and the Quaxi blur remover to make sure it wasn't a side-effect, but I could still see the difference in their legs. I only modified the adult male textures so I don't know whether this is evident for other age groups or female Sims, and I am reporting on what I saw using one skin project on three Sims in the same neighborhood. So in other words, even if you're getting your project's images to import into the game, the game seems to have funny rules about when it displays the image. At least that's my generally non-technical observation.

Hi, thank you for this file, it's working mostly good for me.  I've noticed in the main family that I'm playing, that the adults have an "Ask to get naked" interaction with infants.  I tried clicking it and the baby wouldn't undress and the icon for the interaction stayed in the adult's queue (I cancelled it after a little bit.)  I'm really okay with infants and toddlers not going naked as diaper-optional society seems like it would be third-worldish and messy. It's also okay that there's no "Ask to get dressed" interaction on the aquarium (those fish are NAKED! AHH!)

Hi, nice work! Am I too late? Is the other Star Trek alien species you mention in the text file as possibly-mispelled "Merengui" the "Ferengi?"  They were the short guys with the huge ear things and the predatory capitalism society.  Maybe there were some aliens with a name similar to "Merengui" also that I wouldn't know about, since my post-Kirk Trekkyism is deficient. Here on Earth there's a type of ballroom dancing called "merengue."  Did you feel like dancing?

I guess I'll try SimPE out and try to find this out myself in an extra unoccupied neighborhood.  I'm not so much a programmer, although I've read some java and did a little BASIC stuff on my VIC-20 and an Atari 600XL a long time ago (wrote some stuff to generate planetary systems based on the rules in "GURPS: Space" pen & paper RPG.)  It'll probably be a few days before I get to doing this, though, because during the weekends I'm actually able to unstick myself from my keyboard for many hours.  Also my heroes are Dr. Zachary Smith and Uncle Joe, so it's my policy to not rush into doing anything that someone else might get done.  I haven't seen my topic anywhere, so I guess I'm giving up on hope of someone having a Boolprop shortcut or something to that effect. I think I will try to use SimPE to extract a My Documents/EA GEmes/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods/N006/Lots/N006_Lot1.package file, does that sound right? Here's hopin'!

I hope the reference to Ann Elk didn't spook anybody; it's from a Monty Python skit.  Probably I'm more older than you (52)!

Hello. Sometimes when I design a Sim's house, it makes a difference which way the shadows fall or which sides of the house get sunlight. For instance, if I have a walk-in basement in back, I'd like the sun on the back side that has the big windows, but if I'm designing a portrait painting studio I'd like like indirect light. I know that from the inside, a window's illumination is the same no matter which way it faces. Is there a fix for changing the sunlight's angle on a lot just to satisfy esthetic sensibilities?  I've found a work-around solution but I'm asking anyway.  The link to my work-around approach is here:
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=71844&searchPage=exch&search=1&asset_type=story&key=solar&order=UPDATE_DATE+desc&nrows=5&storyCat=&locality=&country=&view=new

To summarize what I've done: I did some experimenting with some neighborhoods to see if the sun's predominant angle would be the same on all new empty lots, and I got mixed results.  One neighborhood I did several months ago (I didn't study it too hard then) had adjacent lots with different angles, but a more recent one (since Nightlife and its "see-the-neighbor's house" feature) had consistent sunlight angles in the 6 empty lots I placed.  Lots placed in the bin seem to save the angle of sunlight saved with them! For instance, the Maxis cheapest ranch house is always lit from the front, although its thumbnail shows the reverse (tested, all the houses in the bin will have shadows opposite of their thumbnails, at least in daylight view.) I used this "feature" (sunlight angle being saved) to find an empty lot with the sun in the angle I want, move it to the bin, and then clone it to where I want it (like right across the street).  No problem if the yards are both flat but disruptive if the source and target have different terrain.  I've never tried SimPE but I'm imagining perhaps the lot information has something with one of four values to describe the sun angle.  At night the moonlight angle is opposite of the sunlight angle.

This has been my theory, and here I'd like to quote part of Anne B. Elk's theory of brontosauruses (which is hers): "Ahem!" I thought this place might be a good place to ask about it, but I'm not asking any resources be diverted from life support to engineering...