Surrender to Infinity

Basically, these are our main findings so far:

The game cannot create neighborhoods based on medium-sized/large-sized SC4 maps on its own. This pop-up appears:

So, basically we tried the following: copy/pasting one of the default small-sized SC4 maps and renaming it to match with the name of the medium-/large-sized SC4 map and create the neighborhood as usual... but right after the game entered loading screen, we minimized the game and swapped the small-sized SC4 map with the medium-/large-sized one. It did work and didn't crash the game!

But after creation, the game couldn't display the textures properly... it created a glitchy terrain texture but the terrain is there, you can at least place decorations on it...

For medium-sized maps you can use Mootilda's HoodReplace to fix the glitchy terrain, it will look somewhat OK without the roads but some texture mismatch (in terrain and sky) is visible

But if you try to place down roads using newest version of SimPE and all, it creates weird shadows... but at least you can change the terrain too and this should allow us to create custom maps

The game is OK with using Sims Castaway stories' hood maps but custom medium/large SC4 maps don't work... it will keep creating the glitchy terrain, even if it was perfectly fine before (see screenshot below which happened after importing from SC4 map using HoodReplace)

So, if you "fix" the map using HoodReplace by copying the Sims Castaway map over and later try to use HoodReplace again to import from .sc4 map in order to create your custom town with different terrain and roads and all, it will break the terrain texture again... so this does not come from the somewhat controversial creation process (mind you, if you use the exact same method and swap a small-sized SC4 map with another small-sized one, it will create the neighborhood just fine without any terrain texture issues)

If you try to change the terrain type to something other than lush, it doesn't work great for desert and dirt terrain types... weird black squares appear but the concrete terrain seems to be somewhat OK

(These are all medium-sized maps btww.. and also nevermind the first one since I didn't know how to use the road tool properly, so that's why the roads are all weird in that one).

One good thing though, even if the neighborhood terrain is broken in neighborhood view, in lot view it works just fine and you can see the entire neighborhood in lot view if you increase the lot skirt.

If you're interested and want to have a look into this, here's the folder including all the experimental maps above (+ a mini tutorial on how to create neighborhoods based on medium-sized/larged-sized SC4 maps) : Download!

Basically we have:

N001 is the medium-sized lush map after it was fixed using Hood Replace using Sims Castaway map (it's technically the same map as in Sims CS lol)

N002 is a medium-sized concrete map after it was fixed using Hood Replace and modified in SimPE using the built-in terrain sculpting and road rool

N003 is the unfixed medium-sized desert map (with the glitchy terrain still intact)

N004 is the unfixed large-sized lush map (also with the glitchy terrain since we don't have any pre-made large-sized neighborhoods to copy from)

Again, we'd greatly appreciate your efforts if you ever decide to have a look into this and can possibly come up with a solution. But either way, just know you're amazing and your contributions to the sims community are already incredible and greatly appreciated! <3

Hello jawusa!

I have literally never tried to import SC4 maps into TS2, so I didn't know this restriction existed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's a function called IsSmallCity() which needs to return true for a map to be considered valid to import:

If we look at the same function from Castaway Stories, we can see that this check was completely removed:

Patching this check out in TS2 allows for medium/large maps to be imported without the game complaining, but it creates the glitchy terrain you and yolkema observed. Presumably, the code that reads the terrain data from the maps only processes things up to the maximum bounds of a small map, leaving everything else uninitialised.

It will be interesting to see what changes Aspyr made to allow Castaway Stories to support these maps - as long as they didn't add a load of new functionality, it should be feasible to backport this to TS2.

I’m about to go set up a beta-testing page for my newer mod(s), but someone requested this of me and since it’s a small edit of an existing mod and it looks like it works in my game I’ll just put it here.

It’s TwoJeff’s visitor controller, now set up to allow sims to wear togas (or PJs) to toga parties!

UPDATE 12/15/18: Replaced it with @crispsandkerosene​‘s version with added options to ban sims based on personality, since that was requested and I figured there wasn’t a need to keep both versions.

UPDATE 12/16/18: Now with less lag when toga party attendees arrive.

UPDATE 12/16/18 2: Applied the same fix to TwoJeff’s Seasons/BV/Ft version, for those without Apartment Life.

UPDATE 1/12/19: The version compatible with AL has been updated so as to not conflict with Squinge’s “watch kids enabled” (previously, if you had both and got a sim to nanny for you on a residential lot the nanny might try and leave, causing an error). Have visitor controller load last.

UPDATE 1/14/19: Fixed a typo from the last update that was sometimes causing errors.

UPDATE 2/9/19: Now doesn’t force sims out of their work uniform, doesn’t ban the matchmaker NPC/gardening club members/Crumplebottom by default, and text strings have been edited to call the matchmaker NPC a matchmaker instead of using a slur.

There is a BCON named “Annoying NPC Group”. If you change the “# in group” to a value larger than 0 and add that many values following it, you can make the VC ban certain NPCs by default. The values (in hexadecimal) for different NPCs are:

1 = garden club member

2 = matchmaker

3 = crumplebottom

4 = newspaper delivery

5 = mail delivery

6 = professors

7 = cheerleaders

8 = cow mascots

9 = llama mascots

a = coaches

b = streakers

c = grand vampires

d = charlatan

e = head witches

UPDATE 2/17/19: There was some talk at MTS about the visitor controller making sims arrive at community lots dressed in their casual wear even if they left wearing something else, which led me to discover even more places where the visitor controller tried to change people’s clothing than I’d known about. Now I think I truly have them all, and if you don’t set a clothing preference for a lot sims’ clothing choices should be left alone by the Visitor Controller. You can go ahead and redownload, your VC settings will stay intact.

UPDATE 11/18/19: For whatever reason TwoJeffs didn’t add any room flags to the FT/BV version meaning it didn’t appear in the catalog on residential lots. This has now been fixed.

UPDATE 2/10/20: The visitor controller’s adjuster now is properly linked to its catalog description, and fixed how community lot tokens are set up so that all NPCs in the ‘annoying NPC group’ BCON will be properly banned from community lots by default as they are in residential lots, instead of sometimes just the last one in the list being banned.

UPDATE 4/25/21: Reworked how the mod checks for Inge’s colored keys. Should perform a lil better and hopefully fix issues with the visitor controller not recognizing key colors properly.

UPDATE 5/2/21: Fixed an issue with the check hobby flags BHAV that caused OTH-less sims to cause errors.

A way to die from a fight 💀

I've had this in my game for a while, but for you guys, I added traits and made every little detail BCON configurable, because I know many of you would like to set everything just how you want it. Enjoy!

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