1. DOWNLOADING EMPTY & CLEAN LOTS
Alright, first of all, let’s find a good copy of the lot you want to work on. Some premade maxis lots contain families/gravestones/sim references. We don’t want to work on a lot that contains those things!
I recommend downloading clean maxis lots from:
TS2 Lot Database here on tumblr
@jawusa‘s clean & empty hood templates at MTS.
I prefer Jawusa’s templates as I don’t need to download every individual lot separately. If you don’t use Jawusa’s templates I recommend putting your downloaded lots into a test hood and work on your makeovers there.
Always use clean installer when downloading lots. When downloading a CC-free lot, the file should only contain the packaged lot. If the file contains cc or hacks, make sure to untick those boxes with clean installer.
It should look like this:
Main street Mobile Homes (glitchy & will crash if made over)
Download the replica made by @meetmetotheriver here.
Cozy Kitten Condo & Nuclear Nest (occupied bin lots)
@sunradersimblr shared empty versions of these lots here.
Of course, you could recreate the maxis lots from scratch. This is how @frottana-sims made some of her amazing lot makeovers.
You’ve downloaded the lot you want to make over, placed it in a test hood and you’ve made the changes you wanted. What now?
Before packaging the lot we want to clean it up first. You’ll need the LotCompressor & LotCleaner by Chris Hatch.
Download both tools. The LotCompressor is an external tool and the LotCleaner is an object that you’ll find in the game’s buy catalog.
Use the LotCleaner first. Enter the lot you want to clean and locate the LotCleaner in the misc/misc category in the buy catalog. The LotCleaner will look like this:
You don’t need to place the object, just pulling it out from the catalog is enough. In fact, I’ve noticed that when I place the LotCleaner on a lot and then delete it, the lot disappears in SimPe, as if it’s invisible. I also can’t find the lot with the LotCompressor later on. So just click on the LotCleaner but don’t place it down.
The LotCleaner supposedly removes SDHB from an infected lot but I’m not sure if this is true. Still, it’s a good tool to remove tokens and other stuff. Never use the LotCleaner on an occupied lot though as this can cause issues.
Use The LotCompressor while the game is closed. I have the tool as a shortcut on my desktop.
If you have SimPe, put the LotCompressor file into the SimPe folder. The folder should be in your program files.
If you don’t have SimPe, download Mootilda’s version that has the required SimPe files and replace her LotCompressor file with Chris Hatch’s.
As you open the compressor it will look like this:
Choose Start > and you’ll get a list of your neighboorhoods. Choose the hood you have your makeover in and proceed.
You can choose to compress one of the lots or all the lots in the hood. I usually just compress all of them. Tick all three boxes at the bottom and press Next >:
All the lots in your hood should now be free of sim references. You can also remove sim references manually with SimPe but The LotCompressor is simpler.
3. PACKAGING CC-FREE LOTS
Once you’re done cleaning your lot, enter the hood and package your lot. Click on the Package Lot icon and tick the box to Package Lot to a file.
Your packaged lot is now located in \Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\PackagedLots
Exit the game and find your packaged lot and open it. Even if you’ve made your lot makeover without CC there’s a chance that hacks/mods have been packaged with your lot.
In this example, my packaged lot contains some road overlays and the rug fix mod:
Untick every box except the packaged lot or click the Select lot file only icon:
We want a new lot package that only contains the lot file so we’re going to click Save as…
Name your lot and save it to your desktop. Delete the old file in the PackagedLots folder.
Open the package you just saved to your desktop and make sure it only contains a lot file.
Now, I like to double check in SimPe that the LotCompressor worked and that there’s no sim references with my lot.
Open SimPe > Tools > Package Tools > Open Sims2Pack
Locate your packaged lot on your desktop and open it.
If you find stuff like Sim Relations and Sim: Scores in the Resource Tree then the lot is not cleaned properly. Clean the lot with the LotCompressor and package it again.
The Sim Information is okay though and won’t be removed by the LotCompressor.
If the lot is free of Sim Relations and Sim: Scores you’ve successfully cleaned the lot.
You can either share the lot as a Sims2Pack or put it in an archive. I like to share my downloads as archives. I use Winrar for this.
Right-click on your packaged lot and choose Add to archive…
I choose Best under Compression method and click OK.
I now have my finished product:
4. PACKAGING LOTS WITH CC
Packaging lots with CC can be a bit tricky. I’ve seen many people simply package their lots without caring what’s being packaged. Some packaged lots contain hacks/mods or a bunch of recolors that are unnecessary.
Sometimes the master meshes don’t get packaged with the lot and that’s when you get objects flashing blue.
Always make sure not to package hacks or mods with your lots and make sure that all the required meshes are packaged.
Let’s say I share a lot with a custom mirror. The mirror is slaved to a counter. If I just package the mirror and not the counter it’s slaved to, the mirror will be missing textures (flash blue). So I need to package the counter, even If I didn’t use the counter in my makeover.
Let’s use one of my Twikkii Island makeovers as an example. I decided to package one of the lots that has some custom content.
I find my packaged lot in the PackagedLots folder and open the package. I don’t need the hacks so I untick those boxes:
Next, I click on Install. The CC that I didn’t remove will end up in my downloads folder. To make sure that nothing’s missing, I’m going to remove every other piece of custom content from my downloads folder. I want to start up the game with only the CC I just installed.
In this case, the palm trees show up fine in lot view. No missing meshes then, right?
However, hood view is a different story:
This isn’t a nice view so I need to find the missing textures. If I don’t know which file is missing I will try adding different files into the downloads folder and check the hood again.
I do this until the lot looks normal in hood view. In this case I need to package these additional files with my lot.
I prefer to package my lots without CC and drop the required CC into a seperate folder. As you have all the files you need in your downloads folder now, create a folder for them. I named mine Custom Content. Move the folder to your desktop.
Package your lot and remove all custom content/hacks/mods from the package as described further up and save the new package to your desktop.
Now you have both your CC-folder and the packaged lot on your desktop:
Highlight both the CC-folder and the Sims2pack, right-click and choose Add to archive…
Give a name to the archive and save it to your desktop. And now you have the finished product:
The archive will look like this:
5. WHERE TO HOST YOUR FILES
There’s some alternatives when it comes to hosting your lot makeovers. I honestly don’t know which one is the best but I would recommend using two different sites.
I always upload my lots to both SFS and MediaFire so if one site is down people can still access my download link from the other option.
Other popular options are box, dropbox, MEGA & MTS.
