This side blog is to just help me with cataloguing the CC I use for my game. This isn’t meant to be an organized CC finds blogs. But maybe you’ll find this useful regardless!
Since it’s pretty much not spring on any part of the planet at the moment… Have some recolors of spring flowers. :)
These are recolors of Nengi65’s low-poly tulips and Wood For Sims’s daffodils. I use both of these a lot when I go on one of my my-God-how-many-plants-can-I-put-on-a-lot-before-my-computer-explodes binges. So, I wanted more colors of each; thought I’d share. There are 8 colors of the tulips, mostly in muted colors because Nengi’s original colors are all bright/saturated. There’s a purple-y black, though, for all your goth/cemetery lot needs. ;) Then there are 12 recolors of the daffodils, with different combinations of colors on the “trumpet” part and the rest of the flower, in white, orange, and yellow.
The files are all compressed and clearly-named. Meshes are included if you don’t already have them. There are also copies of the collages above in the appropriate zip file.
From the family bin to Pleasantview! Saw this awesome build by Darikosims and had to build it in TS2 for the Traveller family and their new dog, Charlie. Tell me why, someone knocked down their trashcan already?
Local casino + Pub for my Bluewater Village makeover
CC-free | §66,796
💾DL: SFS | MF, cleared and compressed 💥
Welp, it's time to bring out some wacky builds. For my makeover I imagine Bluewater Village to be an industrial port town, so for this lot I thought about those random stand-alone bars you can spot in harbors. Tbh I kinda like the result, it looks poor and I want poor, the tropical theme is my necessary kitsch. It's a rainy town!
Here is a short summary of my notes and findings on the Object Limit after struggling with this beast for years.
See @spockthewok's post for the explanation on what this is and what the limit is (32,767 Objects).
By the count on @picknmixsims's Maxis GUIDs spreadsheet, the game has just shy of 14,000 objects in it. I do not believe that all of these contribute to the limit (cos the maths doesn't check out) but just keep that in mind as you're calculating how much room you've got in your folder.
Sims count. If you've got a hood with a tonne of character files (you can find these in Documents / EA Games / The Sims 2 / Neighborhoods / [HOOD] / Characters) you're gonna have less room for CC
Reducing GUIDs can create way more space in your folder. Tutorial I use to do this is here by HugeLunatic - I reduce all CC rugs to 1 GUID, for example.
CAS Content doesn't count
Fences and hood deco don't count
Custom foods count. This can be an unexpected one
Same goes for custom careers, and Uni majors.
To easily check how many OBJDs you've got in your Downloads folder, use HCDU+ by PickNMix. Scan the entire folder for the "OBJD" resource only, go to the info tab, and the program will tell you how many files it scanned.
I don't have all the answers on how some people seem to have more OBJDs in their folders and not hit the limit while others with less do hit it, but that's what I can tell you from much testing and experience.
I also don't know if default replacing Maxis GUIDs still only counts as 1 object, but I'd assume it would.
Sad day for us CC addicts... Maybe if EA would actually do something about this and follow Will's instructions to properly patch Legacy Edition to remove the limit, I'd actually consider switching to that version of the game LOL.
These questions were asked by @divagirl76 in a reply to my post about load times, and I thought it should be it's own separate post:
Do you recommend merging the mesh with the recolours into one file OR merge recolours only and leave the mesh separate?
Answer: I will answer this with examples 😊
a) Let's say I download a set which has a bunch of individual objects each with their own recolours. For each item, I merge the item together with it's recolours. In times gone by I'd just merge the entire set into 1-2 big files, and sometimes I still do, but these days I like to have more control over it and still be able to delete a CC object from within the game if I decide I don't want it anymore, and be sure the object + recolours all disappear at once. I sacrifice a little bit of load time speed for this, but I'm okay with it.
b) Let's say I download a big CC set like Honeywell's Bespoke windows and doors set. This set has some key master objects, then a bunch of recolours and repo meshes. Here's what I'd do with it or how I'd merge it.
First, I look through the set in a test game and see if there's any meshes I don't particularly want or need. I make a note of them in a notepad file, then outside of the game, delete anything I don't want.
Once I'm happy, leave the master meshes out on their own, then I merge:
All recolours together
All repo meshes together.
c) Let's say I download CAS stuff - I handle this slightly differently. With CAS stuff, all of the meshes (whether hair or clothing) I
Only remove special characters
Do not merge
I put all of these into a folder called
CAS_Meshes_Hair or CAS_Meshes_Clothing
Why? Because otherwise I accidentally end up with 20 copies of the same hair mesh, lol. If I stick to this system, I get a prompt if the file is already in there. Handy! Then the recolours, I vet first and then merge.
2. Do the file names (or length of file names with or without spaces or weird characters) BEFORE merging matter? I know you will rename them when you do merge, so if they don't matter, I can save myself alot of time now and just bundle the recolours (or mesh and recolours) and rename them when I do merge.
Answer: nope, you can leave them as they are and then just give your merged package a nice neat name 😊
3. Do you merge recolours by creator?
Answer: Yes 😊 Let's say it's a Maxis mesh. I'll name it something like
DECO_CivicIdolPoster_xmathyxRCs_merged
If it's recolours of a cc set, I'll go something like SET_Bespoke_ShastaRCs_merged
4. Is there a limit to how many recolour files you should merge?
I've never run into any issues with it, but there's possibly some issues with merging a lot of large textures together - @picknmixsims might be able to weigh in here, as we were helping @lamare-sims with a broken merged file just yesterday, and William worked out that it was unhappy about texture files I think? In general, I would say I don't worry too much about it.
5. Is there some cc you shouldn't merge?
Yes, anything that when you merge it, you go in game and try to look at it, it's invisible 😄 This doesn't happen to me much anymore, but it can happen. In particular I remember trying to merge some old couches from HolySimoly that would throw a tanty every time, lol.
You also cannot* merge:
Hood Deco
Fences
Columns
*You can merge these I think, definitely fences, but you need to go into SimPE afterwards and tweak some stuff. See this tutorial by @hugelunatic
6. Can you merge repository meshes or should they be kept separate?
Answer: As in my answer to your first question, you sure can. I just like to keep the master objects out on their own or things can start to complain. I also like to leave master meshes out in case I decide I want to make recolours 👀
General tips:
The thing with merging is that it can be tedious and time consuming, so attack it in small chunks. Like "this week I will merge all my painting recolours".
It's ultimately up to you where and how much you want to merge your content together. Some people will do huge merges and throw a bunch of content in together (looking at you, Lamare lol), others prefer to do smaller merges. These days I tend to prefer smaller merges, which as I mentioned above does sacrifice some load time speed, but gives me better control of my catalogue in game.
I also recommend everyone check out the latest update to object relocator by PickNMix, and for CAS stuff the Outfit Organizer, as we can now merge files with these and it's SUPER streamlined and simple. I merged a crap tonne of windows together with their diagonal meshes earlier this week and it was 10x faster with Object Relocator than it would have been otherwise.
While you're learning to merge, test in game regularly, keep an un-merged backup, or just keep a link to what you downloaded in case you need to try the merge again.
It late a bit but here’s 500+ follower gifts.
Thank you always <3
31 new mesh separated from “Top Shelf Bar Shelving”, TS3 LN.
Original mesh have no bottom faces, so I added them.
- DOWNLOAD -
Back when I started my channel in 2023 I had this idea that it would be fun to mix real life art and The Sims 2 for my channel's art. I'm Brazilian and so the first arts were recreations of famous paintings from my land, the first one being the "Workers" by Tarsila do Amaral in 1933.
The real piece carries a lot of meaning, mine is only the premades of Sims 2, but they do mean a lot to me, so there's that.
I've successfully scraped all of the available Custom Content that was linked on GOS from Mediafire, Box, and SimFileShare. (Mirrors on 4shared not included)
Of course, I can't go back in time to retrieve things that are already long gone but here's a .zip of 49 GBs of content. This is everything from the beginning of GOS to September 2023.
This is the entire site's worth of custom content scraped. There are a few things that you need to know.- This is not checked to see if depe
Spiced Carrot Cake and Norwegian Apple Cake - Food for The Sims 2
These are 4to2 conversions from Littlbowbub and Icemunmun, low poly. Availbale anytime, same layer cake cooking skills required. For the Apple Cake I also added a default replacement that will replace the Layer Cake if you want (it won't require the invisible plate).
DOWNLOAD HERE
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If you want to support my creations, you can send me a donation with Paypal or Ko-fi ☕ If you want to ask for a Paid Commission, HERE you can find more details. Thank you ❤️
Well it wasn’t just me, to be fair. I would have never been able to without @fireflowersims help and HugeLunatics trust in both of us. Thank you to both of them for their work and thank you @teaaddictyt for reaching out and doing the more public communication.
I’m super happy I got the chance to work to fix it. It wasn’t an easy undertaking. It seemed like every little thing would cause more errors, I fixed one and another thing broke. But now it seems stable, finally.
A lot of technical stuff below the cut, beware.
Fixing such an old forum is not easy. Documentation is rather sparse because the framework it runs on is old. There is however a more modern version, but updating is difficult. Here was the issue for the forum - upgrading failed.
A website (usually) consists of two different parts: 1 - The files. They contain the code, scripts, designs, images, attachment, profile pictures etc. 2 - The database. The database connects all the different parts and tells the website where to find something. Everything gets stored in tables, assigned IDs and given values. Everything written, each post and topic is also stored in the database. So without the database the whole page would be useless.
It was clear from the beginning that the database was the culprit for the failed upgrades. I got an earlier backup from HL and started working.
I set up a local environment with two versions of XAMPP. One running on php 7.4 (the last version having compatibility for the forum framework version and the upgrade script to the recent version) and the other on a modern 8.3, which was the same as the version the server @fireflowersims set up for GOS.
I ran the upgrade script (which consists of 4 separate parts) on the old backup and ran into errors right away. The script would just outright crash on me, most often without a log or message. The (local) server would just stop responding. My original plan had been to upgrade to version 2.0 first, then 2.1, since it was the recommended order. However the database backup had already been partly upgraded to 2.1. That was the reason my upgrade script failed. Reversing those changes could have been a possibility but extremely time intensive.
(This is the frontpage of the upgrader. I stared at it so much. Like you can see it has a ton of steps)
Instead I asked for the current database and HL provided it to me. This one was already further along on the upgrade and I could see the error HL had run into before handing over. I had to look at the upgrade scripts and source php files to diagnose what the framework was expecting - and failing - to find in the database.
That’s where I found the main culprit for *most* of the errors: Time tables. The framework saves every action that a user does in a log, a long table with the action, an id and a date. This was where everything had gotten wrong. The upgrader expected to see one column for the date, named *day*, while the current table had a different column for day, month and year. I tried fixing the table at first but that didn’t seem to work, so I completely deleted the table and created a new empty one myself. (By now I think the issue stems from forgetting to uninstall certain packages before upgrading, more on that later)
That was possible because the log actually doesn’t hold relevant information for the forum to work. It just records each step, probably for moderation purposes. Once I had done that step the upgrade script was finally able to proceed.
There were a few more errors where I had to look at what the script was doing, find the corresponding code in the sources and edit the database myself. Thankfully the code is relatively well commented and named, so I was able to find what I needed.
Finally I got the upgrade script to run to the end and I was actually able to open the forums (local) page. I hadn’t been able to for now so it was a first. But a lot of stuff was still missing, like all the topics. I could see that the posts were back, but not sorted correctly.
The fix was simple but annoying. The forum framework comes with a repair_setting.php file which I had run several times to fix all the paths, but apparently it didn’t fix *all* of them. So back to the database I went, ran some queries and fixed them myself.
Then the forum finally worked again!
(This is what the forum looked like when I first opened it. It ONLY had recent posts)
(The working local forum, no files yet with the default theme. Seems wrong to look at GOS without the dark theme, right?)
There were still a few things I needed to fix but the database seemed to work fine now. I had never done so many queries in my life. I know SQL, and had to fix databases before but not this intensely. So I guessed I learned something new haha.
Next was the exciting step to upload my clean install to the server. @fireflowersims and I had some directory issues, but I was able to fix them manually once again.
Then I had to take a look at the files which mostly consist of avatars and attachments. They didn’t work at all once moved to the clean install. Once again I took a look at the code and realized that the upgrade script would have changed those files as well, but because I ran it on a clean install it didn’t actually do this step.
I didn’t want to run the upgrade script again, worried that it would mess up a now working database. Instead I wrote a script myself that sorted through all the attachments, looked for the IDs of the avatars from the database so it could move and rename them.
Last were the attachments. This was an easier fix. They just had to be given the ending .dat. @fireflowersims ran a command through the console and then the attachments worked too!
We were getting closer!
Next was the theme. The old theme didn’t work on the modern framework anymore so @fireflowersims looked for a new one which I customized with CSS, trying to get it closer to the way the forum looked before. I think it turned out quite alright, hope you guys think so too!
(Trying to find out what CSS class addresses what? Make everything red and green!)
(All the spider webs)
Next was packages, or mods, to the framework. Fire and I encountered some hiccups here too, since there were some leftovers in the database. The packages hadn’t been properly deinstalled before running the upgrade script, which was another source of the errors. I tried fixing them manually but one of the packages would continue to just break the site no matter what I tried, so we settled for an alternative.
Some more work was put into SSL and making the forum secure. Once again some settings seemed to just break the page and each time I had to go back in the database and manually fix what had gone wrong. It was tedious but by now I knew my way around quite well.
@fireflowersims handled a lot of the server administrative work and DNS settings. I know very little about that part so having @fireflowersims there was great and they made sure the page is reachable at the correct address.
So yeah, I hope the site stays online for a long time now. It’s such a big part of our community and communities history. I used to download so much from there when I was younger. I wanted to give back to the community I love so much. That was the reason I spent many many hours digging through code and old forum threads.
Some of my SFS links got broken, therefore I re-uploaded some content with new links:
Contempto Good Livin’ chair-bed
Satinistics sofa-bed
pc_sims’ surgical station revamped
vampire sunblock
PSR Santana
lukz_gz’ guitars with Argon’s hack
swimmable lounger
TS4 RoM mop as a broom
Klyntar mod
symbiote fight and symbiote scare
symbiotes howl
custom cellphone mod
poison other Sims
spy crafting station
Bigfoot mod
diving mod
I left old SFS links with a note they are currently not working, in case they'll be fixed. I encourage you to reblog these posts with new SFS links if you have reblogged them earlier.
It's very likely there are more broken links that I have missed.
It is also likely that more links will be affected in the future - it seems that links tend to get broken during updating an upload, and I update my cc quite often. :(
Hello Creesims! Would you happen to know if anyone has made Rugged Llama frame recolors? I haven't been able to come across any.
There's a CEP that repo's it to the frame of the BG Lady on Red but I don't remember who it's by and Sims2Artists is down so I can't check the Tweaky Fixy Masterpost. But if you can track down the CEP, I fixed Michelle's frame recolors here
jbbartram-illu
vaporwave
prguitarman
ellievsbear
blakekathryn
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
janainaart
