The Sims 2 Tutorials

This How-To can help with editing in game Pets or PetBreeds to change their face/body, adding fur accessories, adding heterochromia, or to blend genetics to mimic the pacifier*. Be sure to edit appearance in mirror to see any changes.

I will do my best to make this as clear and easy to understand as possible, but in all honesty there is A LOT of information. Some of it will only make sense if you already are familiar with editing CC and game files due to the jargon and syntax. Some things I also just frankly don't know, or I may have forgotten. As such, if you discover something about pets that I haven't mentioned, please share it here for others as well. Please refer to this spreadsheet for all pet genetic codes.

This is a very easy method to make new collar recolors.

[Download]

It's very easy to do. Just place the items into you Downloads folder and follow these steps:

Step 1: Open BodyShop

Step 2: Create an accessory recolor using the Custom Collar Template. Make sure to replace both of the NylonBlue images.

Step 3: Open the newly imported package and replace all XMOLs with the correct xmol.xmol file in the template (everything has been labeled, so it should be easy to tell which one is needed).

Step 4: Generate a new Family (dtsring) value and replace the old one. All of them can share the same family.

That's it. You can now delete the kit if you want. I included the meshes for custom mesh creators as well, but they aren't even required for this kit since they're already in the game (well, except the puppy and kitten collar mesh). These are very simplified steps because I assume that you already know how to make accessories for human sims. The process is nearly the exact same, with the only difference being the XMOLs are pet enabled.

???? THIS IS SO AMAZING I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S FINALLY POSSIBLE 😭😭❤️

???? THIS IS SO AMAZING I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S FINALLY POSSIBLE 😭😭❤️

I promised this tutorial a while ago and just started making my harbour for my current hood. I figured I may as well kill two birds with one stone, so here it is! This technique is completely modular, allowing you to create harbours of any length. As you can see, I've already done one of the lots, just to show you how they fit together. You will find yourself saving and exiting quite a lot with this method!

Requirements

LotAdjuster

A neighbourhood with accessible shoreline

Possibly some understanding of the 'boolprop constrainfloorelevation false' cheat

Important: I do not use beach lots for this method. I find this method gives me more control.

Step 1: Place Your Lot

Start with a lot that is 20 tiles deep. This gives enough room to create a stone harbour wall and dock area. This is preference, but I find any bigger looks dumb.

The lot should be 10 tiles wider than the harbour segment you ultimately want. For example, if you want a final harbour segment that is 40 tiles wide, start with a 50 tile wide lot. That is what I've done here.

Bring the water as close to the lot edge as possible. If necessary, use the cheat 'modifyNeighborhoodTerrain on'

The terrain should slope down naturally towards the water.

Step 2: Mark the Tiles to Remove

Measure 5 tiles in from each end of the lot.

These tiles will be removed later with LotAdjuster.

For a centre segment, mark 5 tiles on both ends.

For a left-end segment, mark 6 tiles on the left side.

For a right-end segment, mark 6 tiles on the right side.

Step 3: Build the Stone Harbour

Create a foundation within the remaining space. This can be as big as you want.

The foundation walls should extend flush (but not connect along the length) to any edge that will connect seamlessly to another lot.

I use Numenor's custom foundation walls, but you can achieve the same effect using standard walls with the cheat 'constrainFloorElevation false'. Just flatten the walls after placing them.

Cover the foundation with floor tiles of your choice, filling in that gap.

Important: Do not place walls along any edge that will connect to another harbour segment.

Step 4: Add the End Cap

At the opposite end of the harbour wall, add a small "cap" section. It will not stretch out as far as you want, but that's okay. Again, make it as big as you want.

This creates a natural transition point where stairs can lead down to the wooden docks.

Step 5: Build the Dock

Lay out the wooden dock below the stone harbour. Mine was a full story (16 steps) lower than the stone.

As before, don't place foundations flush against the lot edge. Use floor tiles to create the seamless connection instead. You will know it's correct if there's no stilt on the 6th tile from the edge.

Again, at this stage, don't worry if the dock isn't the exact width you want.

Save and exit the game.

Step 6: Extend the Lot

Open LotAdjuster and add 20 tiles to the back of the lot.

Do not change any other settings.

Step 7: Finish the Waterfront

Load the game, and then the lot again.

You now have what is effectively a custom beach lot. I usually add terrain paint to match my shoreline, otherwise the extended area remains grassy.

You can now adjust the dock to its final width. In my example, I created a dock that was 5 tiles wide.

Step 8: Plan the Dock and Bay Pattern

Decide how many docks and bays you want. Bays should be big enough to fit ships.

The harbour should always end on half a bay, so that adjoining lots complete the bay when placed together.

Do this before shrinking the lot. Once the lot has been reduced, you won't be able to place floor tiles on the very edge.

For my example:

Dock width: 5 tiles

Bay width: 10 tiles

This creates the pattern: 5 (half bay) - 5 (dock) - 10 (bay) - 5 (dock) - 5 (half bay)

I also made them 15 tiles long. You can do literally whatever size you want.

Save and exit once the layout is complete.

Step 9: Trim the Lot

Open LotAdjuster again and remove 5 tiles from both the left and right sides.

This is the step where you're most likely to run into problems. I certainly did while creating this tutorial!

If LotAdjuster throws an error, reload the lot and make sure there are no walls, fences, or foundations crossing the line where the new lot boundary will be.

When you reload the lot:

End pieces should have one side flush with the lot edge.

Centre pieces should be flush on both sides.

These flush edges allow the harbour sections to connect seamlessly.

Step 10: Repeat

Repeat the process for as many harbour segments as you need. If they don't line up, you can't just pick up the lot and move it. You have to use LotAdjuster to either move it left or right. I had to do so in this very tutorial.

The good thing is, you can use the original dock as a visual guide for widths! Also, make sure the wooden dock is on the same elevation across both lots.

For this example, I created a left and right segment and mirrored them, but you can continue adding centre sections indefinitely. I tend to add stairs in the very middle if I do that. You need a flight of stairs to get down to the harbour.

Finishing Touches

Once your harbour is assembled, decorate it however you like.

I usually place lots like warehouses, taverns, fishmongers, market stalls, or more on the stone harbour, and use neighbourhood deco ships (or this refurbished version of the Bon Voyage ship) in the bays. I also decorate the docks with crates, barrels, dead fish, etc. For some extra fun, add invisible fishing spots to the end of the docks!

The result is a fully modular harbour that can be expanded to fit any waterfront.

Sims 2 Sim to Blender : Let’s Create

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Sim created by @foreverloudx

Today I walk you through ripping a Sims 2 sim from Body Shop and importing the meshes into Blender. I also show you some very very basic rigging, I didn’t do ARP justice in showing all the plugin can do. I very much recommend purchasing it and exploring it yourself. 

This video is pretty much in real-time, so if it’s too slow crank up the speed baby. 

Read more about this process and get useful links @ Simeo 

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➡️ (Totally optional!) Support my future creations through my Patreon :)

I hope you don't mind @psychic-phone-pal that I answer your question in a post :) I feel like it maybe would be useful for more people and deserves to not be buried in the replies of one mod :3

Yes you are correct I make my restaurants more expensive via a mod, and I also add custom food varieties like caviar tartlets via the same method. Restaurant podiums pull their food options and prices from BCON's and Fway was kind enough to provide a template that adds some additional missing maxis foods, and also contains a tutorial.

You'll find the template and a PDF tutorial on how to add more in the download of "Mod Your Restaurant Podium".

It is super easy, if all you want to do is tweak prices of maxis food then Fway's file is clearly labelled and it's just a matter of tweaking numbers in a list :) Adding custom foods is also very easy, you just need to stay organized and do a bunch of copy-pasting.

In The Sims 2, Sim faces contain hidden morphs that can be extracted in different ways. For a long time, only two morphs were known, but there are actually more.

1. Extracting Morphs via SimPE

What You Need:

SimPE (enable "Advanced Mode" in the settings).

Sims2Pack Clean Installer (if no ready-made files are available).

MilkShape 3D 1.8.5

Steps:

Get the Face File:

If you have a SavedSims folder, choose any file from it.

If not, extract any Sim using Sims2Pack Clean Installer and locate the Face Preset file.

Open the File in SimPE:

Open the file in SimPE.

Find the Geometric Data Container (GMDC) resource.

Select the Sim's age group.

Export the Model with Morphs:

Click Export..., save the file in SMD format.

When prompted "Do you want to export Morph Meshes??", select Yes.

View Morphs in MilkShape 3D:

Import via File → Import → Half-Life SMD....

Select a morph and uncheck Rename Bones.

What Do the Morphs Contain?

One morph shows a smiling expression.

Another shows an angry or displeased expression.

2. Extracting All Morphs via 5gd File

What You Need:

SimPE.

Blender 2.80+.

GMDC Importer/Exporter (Blender plugin).

Steps:

Export the Face Model as a 5gd File:

In SimPE, open GMDC.

Right-click → Extract....

Save the file as 5gd.

Import into Blender:

Install the GMDC Importer/Exporter plugin.

Open Blender 2.80+ (Blender 2.79 only shows 4 morphs).

Import the 5gd file.

What Do the Morphs Contain?

Importing into Blender 2.80+ reveals all hidden morphs.

Additional Information

You can replace the default face model with one of the morphs to create a new default preset.

It works correctly in BodyShop and CAS.

There may be even more hidden morphs in the game that have yet to be discovered.

If you have any additional information about these hidden morphs, feel free to share!

Source (RU):

I'm glad someone was able to export all of them correctly, if they could be imported back in the game we could make changes to sim's faces, and there could possibly even be a rig made that allows for facial animation controls! (albeit importing animations of that type would need some research, possibly extensive one) I do think someone in this community must know about this way more than I do tho :D Keep reading for a rant on these and why they're still a big deal:

The Gigantic Baby updated project (as cursed as it is) is the first thing I shared with a fully animated “custom face mesh”, which actually is a hair mesh with all the face morphs added. Not the first one I made, but this one is downloadable, so if anyone wants to poke at it a little bit, welp, there’s that. At the end of the day, it’s actually a really similar mesh to the regular Maxis faces, so there's not that much new to see.

Yet another big ramble under the cut (sorry about the long, long reblog chain):

Many of you asked for this tutorial so I'll do my best to explain how to add new recipes to my food cart, stand, machines, toaster, rice cooker etc. English is not my first language so I apologize for the eventual mistakes.

The first thing you have to do is open the food stand with Simpe. In this tutorial I'm using the Toaster Bree. Find the BHAV section (fig.1) and click on "Instance" (fig.2) to order them numerically, then click on the last bhav (the avocado one in this case, fig.3) and clone it (fig.4).

Now click on the cloned bhav, the one with the "crooked" name (fig.1) and change its name (fig.2), then commit (fig.3) I called it "New Recipe".

Then click on Resource (fig.1) and change the Instance number. As you can see, the last instance number in this case was 0x00001087 (fig.2a), so you have to add one and write 0x00001088 (fig.2b), then click commit (fig.3) If there is not a number but a letter you have to write the letter that comes after, unless it's an F. In sims 2 programming language after the F there is not a G but a number. I won't explain why in this tutorial. If you find an F write a casual number and check that no other string has the same instance number.

Now come back to the plugin view (fig.1) and search for a string called "Create New Object Instance". There are two usually; one for the food and one for the plate so you have to recognize which is which by checking the Guid in the recipe file. In this case the last bhav was the avocado one so I had to check in the avocado toast file for the guid and see if they were the same. Where can you find the guid? I will tell you in a moment but first let me return to the main tutorial.

So... click on the "Create New Object Instance" food string (fig.2) and change the first 8 operands with the guid of the new recipe you want to add (fig.3). You have to write it backwards in the first 4 squares. For example if the guid is 0x00123456 you have to write 56-34-12-00, then commit (fig.4) and save. Remember to use recipes that share the same plate or you'll have to change the plate guid too.

To find the recipes Guid, open the recipe you want with simpe and search for the Object Data (fig.1), then click on the string without "menu" in it (fig.2) In this case there is only one but usually there are two. The guid is there (fig.3). Take note of it and use it as I explained before.

Now you have to go to Pie Menu String (fig.1) and click on the string (fig.2). Then click on add (fig.3), then on the last string (fig.4) and change its name as shown in fig.5. Commit (fig.6). These are the strings shown when you click on the object in game.

Now go to Pie Menu Functions (fig.1) click on the string (fig.2) and click on Add (fig.3). Now click on the arrow as shown in fig.4 and choose the new recipe name (the one you added in pie menu string).

Then click on the first "play button" as shown in fig.1. A window will appear. Click on "This Package" (fig.2) and choose the bhav you cloned in the first place (fig.3). Then click Okay (fig.4), commit (fig.5) and save.

You're done! Replace the old stand with the new one and add the new recipe package to the Downloads folder too.

If you want to add something new, creating it yourself, you have to clone an existing food and change it. For example cloning an ice roll recipe to change the textures and create a new taste. There are already tutorials about that so I won't explain how to do it. I'm linking one of them tough, HERE. Hope it helps!

PicknMix Sims made an instruction wizard for “Create New Object Instance.”

HI! I am ultra sorry for the late reply (a full month late!) but I have been a busy bee, plus I wanted to give you a good thoughtful reply to this

and I am a perfectionist when it comes to helping people so I took some time to reply to this ༼凸 ◉_◔༽凸

You can alpha edit hairs that have accessories so that the accessories won't be visible anymore - but you cannot do this with all hairs.

Elsimer asked me about this and I said I’d make this tutorial in English as well. Here it is!