Withered Lilies

So I absolutely adore these stair meshes by Raynuss. They look awesome, have amazing recolours, and are super versatile. The only problem I had with them, was that these were made before the Sims 2 even had spiral stairs in the game, which meant they used custom scripting from the talented Marvine, who uploaded their first set of spiral stairs in 2007.

This meant they had some quirks, one of the most annoying for me personally being that multiple sims could not use the stairs at the same time, leading to many route failures (even with stair fix mods). When Apartment Life introduced official spiral stairs to the game, they made it so multiple sims could use them at the same time, and I wanted the same for Raynuss's stairs. So, TLDR, I have re-created these stairs so that multiple sims will be able to walk up and down them. They are all fully & correctly animated, using the talented AnoeskaB's mirrored stairs as a template. Most importantly, all existing recolours for these stairs still work 🥳

To use these, just replace Raynuss's original mesh files with mine.

With DXVK and S3SS living their high days, older Sims 3 installment guides are rapidly starting to become outdated. So here's a brand new and up-to-date step-by-step guide to go through when you do a fresh install of your game that will help you get the best performance you could possibly imagine for this old and laggy gem of a game.

Have Sims 3 installed, but is it performing abhorrently? I highly recommend a fresh install. You don't have to delete your saves or mods. Just get yourself a fresh bin to work with by uninstalling, going into your program files The Sims 3 folder and deleting any remnant files still in there. Then follow my guide!

All of the steps to follow are below the line ->

Maxis Infant Face Templates 1-28

Yes those are babies not toddlers.

After many weeks of nearly smashing my computer they are finally complete.

If you don’t want to hear my ramble about how it works, skip down to the bottom for the disclaimers (PLEASE READ THEM VERY IMPORTANT) and links lol 

Ramble:

After Marticore mentioned in her video about Aliens in TS2, that the infant alien face had it’s own template that could mix, I had the sudden realisation that infants were defaulting to face 2 (base). Just like how the broken face templates did before Argon made their fix.

 With some reverse enginering of the 2 non default face template tutorials (Argon’s arch fix and templates were also extremly helpful and supplied the BINX file I needed) and cloning the infant face 2 files, I finally figured out how to add the files back for each template. I then needed to figure out how to modify the facial structures.

  DeeDee had managed to add infant faces to their non default template but used Milkshape to edit the faces. But I didn’t have the attention span or reflexes to do that so I wanted to see if I could do it in bodyshop. After 5 days of fighting with my pc and game files I worked out that if you replace the toddler face and scalp mesh with the infant one, it shrinks the head down and sliders work perfectly. Then I discovered if you saved the facial structure you wanted to shrink down as a toddler, then exited and added the toddler to infant face files, it shrunk those down with minimal distortion. 

Many disclaimers:

1. What these can do: Add infant faces to new sims. Face templates can mix by right clicking or using the face section buttons (nose eyes eyebrows etc). Babies will actually look like their other age groups.

You can however add them to existing sims (somewhat). This works well on maxis townies as they use full face templates with no changes. (You can have all the Komei Tellerman babies you want) Tutorial here

2. What these can’t do: These will not add faces to existing sims (Same as broken face template fix or default face replacements). Sliders do not work on them. Any changes made will not be reflected on children. They will only show the base templates you used. 

I am currently working on sliders for infants, however I am taking a day break so I don’t lose my mind 

3. How to make your own: If you want to make faces to match your own custom templates, the simpe part is the same as this tutorial just substitute the template files with mine. To make the infant faces, I explained this in my non default post here and just use the default tutorial instead of the non default ones linked there.

4. Final note: These are techcially still in testing. I have played with them in my game and made cute babies but only one generation. If you have any issues using them or trouble creating your own, feel free to leave a comment or send a dm :D

5. Wait no 1 more note: You might notice the alien face isn’t the default face, this is the aged down version of the toddler which resembles the rest of the ages. If you want the original ones, you can leave out the alien one

Download /Alternate

Recommended: Argon Arch fix for faces 21&25

Credits: Argon: For their original tutorial on non default faces and and files

Dominiquex: For their later tutorial with added photos and infomation

Want to merge your fences? You can! New tutorial showing you how to merge fences. Especially handy if you have any repo'd fences, either by GMDC or TXTR.

Rabbit pen - a default replacement (yet another collab with @episims​ ❤)

Put your hand up if you ever used this toy dog pen! 🙋‍♀️ No one? Yeah, thought so XD

Originally I wanted to make this a custom pen, but then we decided that the toy dog pen wouldn’t be missed, so we made a default! And also, because the animations needed to be edited, and it was easier this way! (we’re not going to create a custom verison)

The bunny comes from sims 4 (many thanks to @tvickiesims​ for extracting it!), but it got adjusted to the pen. It has all the original 8 color variations (4 as defaults, and 4 recolors)! The animations are not accurate (that’s not how bunnies move!), and there’s also some clipping as well, but that was the best we could do. The weirdest animations got removed though, so the bunnies don’t bark at least. The sounds also got removed, bunbun is a silent creature!

The bunny has its own pet treat, and its own food box texture. The pen also got a little facelift, featuring some hay, a chewing stick, and a wooden bunny house! (that they never use, but whatever, it’s part of the ~aesthetic~) Despite this, all the existing recolors should work fine with this default!

The toy dog-related wants (and fears) also got adjusted, so now sims roll wants and fears about the bunnies instead of the dogs! Important! The Wants file in the download shouldn’t be renamed, because it’ll stop working!

The description and interaction texts were changed and got translated to Finnish and Hungarian as well. If you wish to provide a translation to other languages, please contact Epi!

Update 08/12/22: Polish translation by @jellymeduza​ added!

Update 08/17/22: More translations added! Russian by @summer-choi-simblr​, French by @tvickiesims​, and Brazilian Portuguese by @itsyuna​! Thank you all!

Update 08/18/22: Even more translations added, woo! Spanish by @nevernerdenough, and Swedish by @namelessperson98! Thank you so much!

Mesh, texture, and font credits go to Eaxis, Freepik, Julsfels, Veranka, Eddysims, Franzillasims

Oh and it’s advisable to delete your thumbnails to see the changes in the pet selection window!

Have fun, and tell us if you find any problems! 🐇

Mini-tutorial: How to change light settings / light colour for custom TS2 lamp using SimPe.

It’s very easy. You replace the name inside Light Names and cLightRefNode with another TS2 light name. You’ll find the light names inside custom lamps you have in your game (those that work properly, ofc) OR you can clone a TS2 lamp and inspect the light name. Use the light name found in CRES / cLightRefNode, NOT in STR Light Names.

In most cases replacing the name inside CRES / cLightRefNode is enough to make it work - that’s the most important bit. Buuut.. it’s good practice to fill out the STR# Light Names as well.

More info, Light names and sample pics below the cut! 

(by the way, has anyone else noticed that it actually says unnammed, not unnamed?)

So, here’s an issue that you might have, at least if you have an edited version of WantTuning.package that is not updated for your latest EP/SP. Usually, that is M&G and the specific numbers you see are 10112 and 10113.

The way to fix this, which I want to credit someone else with but I don’t remember who and the reason I’m making this tutorial is because I keep forgetting how to fix this and I want to be able to explain it when people ask and, is to simply add the text strings for those categories.

Open up your edited copy of WantTuning.package in SimPE and open UI Data. If you scroll down a little less than a third of the way, you will find a categories section, and at the bottom of that you will probably see a line saying 10111 and Playground Equipment. You need to add two lines after that:

<category id=“10112” name=“Ceiling Fan” primaryIcon=“0xff179002” secondaryIcon=“0x00000000”/> <category id=“10113” name=“Green Energy Source” primaryIcon=“0xff179002” secondaryIcon=“0x00000000”/>

First I did this as usual :https://gardenofshadows.org.uk/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=21931.0

Then the last part of @anibats​​ tutorial (the part about the dxvk file) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac1PyUxKoNU except that I wrote 16384 instead of 8192 in the file she talks about and in the Graphic Rules Maker as I now have 32Gb of RAM.

And I learned something important here to complete Anibats tutorial : https://docs.google.com/document/d/19JMr-FQSU3AlF7Kyvcrr7awTiHBDQSUNLG6qfaI6rOs/edit

Grant “Everyone” full control to the TSBin Folder before copying. Otherwise, Windows may lie (🤥) about copying the  d3d9.dll file to the folder. You’ll know you haven’t done this if the d3d9.dll file looks like it is there but no log file or cache files are generated.

If “Everyone” doesn’t appear, press “Edit” and then “Add” then type in “Everyone”, press OK, and “Everyone” should appear as an option you can edit the permissions on.

If you did not grant “Everyone” access, DXVK really might not work and/or crash.

⚠️If you had launched the game before granting “Everyone” access and after copying the DLL, you will be in a ditch. Get out of the ditch by deleting the “%localappdata%\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES” folder. You can get there by putting that path into Windows File Explorer’s address bar.

That was the only part that was useful to me, but it worth reading it all just in case.

My Graphic Rules settings are exactly these if it helps :

Just wanted to share a tip I know about how to make the Quarter Tile Placement Cheat on all the time so you just have to press Ctrl + F when you want to use it without having to type in a cheat each time.

Many of you may know that adding “setquartertileplacement on” to your userStartup.cheat doesn’t work, so I’m going to tell you where you can put it that does work, in case you didn’t already know!

So, head to Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\Config and open up the file called “globalProps.xml” with a text editor, I recommend Notepad++. You should probably make a backup of this file first before making any changes, just in case.

In this file, scroll to the bottom and you should see a line that says:

<AnyBoolean key=“quarterTilePlacementEnabled” type=“0xcba908e1”>false</AnyBoolean>

Simply change the false to true and save the file and that’s it! The Quarter Tile Placement cheat will always be on without you having to type it in ever again! Simply toggle it on and off with Ctrl + F!

Hope that helps at least someone! I was telling my friend @morepopcorn​ about this trick and I couldn’t find the website where I initially read about how to do this anymore so she suggested I should make this post as it might not be common knowledge.

If you’ve stumbled upon a mediafire link recently which gives you a white page and “File5“ (or just a white page) message, then this is a mini-tutorial on how to fix that :-) I’ll be using simlishcreations’ “Trapping’s Short Spike TS3 to TS2′s download link as an example.

The mediafire link should look something like this: 

https://www.mediafire.com/?cw4cdfjozodd3et

Notice how there’s a ? between / and cw4cdfjozodd3et? Delete that questionmark and write download/ or file/ (don’t forget to add the / after! Otherwise it won’t work). Now your link should look like this:

https://www.mediafire.com/download/cw4cdfjozodd3et

or this:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/cw4cdfjozodd3et

And you’re done! Click enter, and the link will automatically update to the “newest version”. For this link, it will update itself to this:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/vb1cbbik32fkh88/Trapping_Small_Spike_Simgaroop.rar/file

I’m not sure why mediafire can’t seem to re-direct/update old mediafire links like this? I’m also not sure if this is a temporarily thing or not, but oh well. Now you know how to fix it if you ever need to! :-)

I can’t believe it myself, but I’m happy to say that Feverfew is now available! It would be crazy to put all the information directly here, so I’ve made a dedicated page accessible directly from my simblr top menu.

TAKE ME TO FEVERFEW

— The train is departing. Don’t forget your ticket!

TS:CS SEASONAL PINES as base game nhood pines default replacement

Not so long ago @shastakiss reminded me about defaulted version of pines from The Sims Castaway Stories, that I made once upon a time, when we worked on the seasoned maxis flora together. Shasta make her custom version of seasoned CS pines and upload it while I was prepearing the default replacement version with another texture, rendered in maxis-like way. I don’t remember, why I don’t publish it in that blog, but now I should fill this gap.

So, how is the default replacement version different from the custom one? 

1. First of all, the default replacement is more optimized: the DR version not only saves the game memory by replacing game resources, but also takes up less space (1.6 MB vs 642.1 kB). The earlier versions uses separate butch of textures for each pine from the set (there are three shapes of pine, each in three colorations). My DR version uses repository technique. To be honest, this set should be named “semi-default replacements”, because I defaulted only three basegame pines - the textures and other 6 pines is custom itself (basegame neighborhood pine texture isn’t replaced for some reasons), but all of the models uses the 9 texture resources, not 27.

2. In addition, the default replacement allows you not to replace Maxis trees manually in neighborhoods such as Riverblossom Hills or the Three Lakes: the DR version will be placed automatically, and therefore the neighborhood view will immediately transform to this look:

3. Finally, I used seasonal maxis’ lot pine textures for rendering in 3d-max, so the snowy versions of neighborhood pines matched in style with lot pines.

DOWNLOAD THE DR NHOOD PINES PACK

So, if the lot pine has matched now with the nhood pines, how about the pines on another, not played lots, or lot pines from neighborhood view? They uses the simplifed imposter known as lod90, that still… ugly. So, there is a

TS:CS SEASONAL PINES as base game lot pines imposter (LOD90) default replacement

As I remember I try to include the CEP-addon for a lot pine with recolors that match CS coloration, and add the own lod90 textures for each color, but at this moment I have no idea where that version is, sooo there is only default color for imposter of lot pine.

DOWNLOAD THE DR IMPOSTER OF THE LOT PINE

Well, there is another maxis pine for lot in Happy Holliday SP, and it still have the perfect imposter ever:

…what the hell, Maxis? Oh, I shouldn’t be surprised after so many years. But now we have

FIX of HHSP outdoor christmas lot pine imposter (LOD90)

It uses the parts of model and textures of maxis’ small decorated christmas tree. It isn’t so funny to render the spirals into the planes, or maybe I was too lazy for it, but I think now it looks pretty… Anyway much better than the cringy slices of notex LOL

DOWNLOAD FIX of HHSP outdoor christmas lot pine imposter (LOD90)

IMHO there is no sense to separate default replacements above because my new imposters are repositored to common textures. But maybe some of simmers aren’t have HHSP, and optionality always iz gud mmmokay? But you can

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PACK OF LOWEDEUS’ TS:CS SEASONAL PINES

MIRROR LINK (yandex disk)

Important!!!

For the secret lots to funtion like secret lots, there’s some special requirements that need to be fullfilled. (Taken from this tutorial)

Far East Secret Lot: Has to have a Tea Time Table

Tropical Secret Lot: Has to have a microwave, cheap dishwasher and Feel the Breeze Hammock

Mountain: Has to be built on a medium sized lot, have a residential mailbox and the cheap stereo.

Let’s begin!

Step 1: In Game

1. Create a community lot (residential lot for the Mountain lot) and place it in a throwaway vacation hood.

2. Make the changes you want to make, don’t forget to save.

3. Open cheat bar and type “changelotzoning secretvacationlot” without the “”. If you’re making a Mountain lot, before making it a secret lot first type “changelotzoning community” and buy a community phone.

4. The save button should now be greyed out. Exit to the vacation hood (if you just exit to the desktop right away the lot zoning might revert back to community).

5. I would place the lot in the lot catalogue and then place it down again, so that I have a copy.

5. Exit the game and open SimPe.

Step 2: SimPe

I’m unsure if SimPe looks different to people depending on what version of SimPe they have, but this is how it looks for me.

1. Open SimPe, select Tools -> Neighborhood

2. Select Neighborhood Browser…

3. In Neighborhood Browser select the Main hood that has the vacation hood attached to it it.

4. In the Options box scroll through the list and select the vacation hood. Click Open.

5. In the Resource Tree to the left you’ll find the Lot Description. Click on it.

6. Select your secret lot from the Resource List. This opens the Lot Description Editor.

7. Make sure that the Hidden box is checked. This will make your lot invisible in hood view.

8. Make sure the Lot Type is set to SecretHoliday. If you didn’t change the lot type while in game you can change it now in SimPe.

9. Save.

10. Go back into game. Have a sim visit the secret lot to make sure it spawns it’s unique NPC character.