General Stuff

I usually like things with this username, but for my Simblrs, please see @ts2cambremon for medieval/fantasy, @janyasims2 for victorian, and @ts2mortalswar for MCC/zombie!

[evenfall-sims]

Tutorial: Multi-Lot Harbours

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.

I hope this tutorial helps! If anything is unclear, feel free to ask.

[fireflowersims]

Because my PC is currently out of commission thanks to filesystem and probably hard drive issues and to keep myself sane, I should probably just write out some random things about Sims 2 modding, eh?

If you're wondering about how to do anything Sims 2 modding, the answer will probably be found in an old MTS thread from 2008

If it can't be found on MTS, find a modder to ask. We're around and know stuff

Take naps, get some food. Modding is brain work, let it recover.

Most zoomed in thumbnails in deco are from people cloning the fruit bowl and it's easy to fix. Just go into the CRES, go to ThumbnailExtension and delete that entry you see in there. Commit, fix integrity, save and recompressorize

When modifying the footprint, you can also go up instead of just on the x and y axis.

You can make columns higher than 3 stories. I did it twice, then somehow forgot how. Anyways, just clone the ones from my Prince of Persia conversions if you want 4 or 5 story columns. They work as intended and all.

Just clone your NH deco from custom. Everybody does it bc NH deco is unfindable via Object Workshop

Don't give your NH deco a long name when cloning because it gets added in front of the name if the one you cloned it from. It can get out of control very fast.

NH deco doesn't usually need its GUID changed when you clone it

You can fiddle around with where your NH deco can and cannot be placed and how it behaves on/in water

The real description of NH deco is in the text lists

You can texture reference basically anything with a TXMT including objects and NH deco. You can even combine it with repository for Ultimate Space Savings

If your object texture is white and covered in text, your texture name in your txmt is misspelled or your txtr has gone missing.

The Sims 2 sometimes handles 3D coordinates reversed. (-1 is 1, 2 is -2). It's relevant for slots, bones and TXMT's

Pixelhate's wonderful TXMT pdf's are wrong about one thing and that is texture animations. It's all about the UV maps

Some BHAVs are 0-indexed, some aren't. 0 is either treated as the first number or non-existent oopsie error

Just screenshot your BHAV and annotate every node if you're not sure how it works

You can label your locals and params. There's a button in the BHAV editor to make labels. Use it to keep track of things

Don't check "university ready" when fixing integrity. It breaks custom animations for one.

Some of these deserve more explanation, but that requires energy and a file system that isn't malfunctioning. Enjoy!

EDIT: Bonus tip: don't be me. Make a regular backup. Once a month or smth. File systems can get messed up which will make things disappear including my Homecrafter

[spockthewok]

Sims 2 Object Limit Fix

Soooo... I didn't intend for two highly requested fixes for The Sims 2 to drop within the space of a week and a half, buuuut...

Here's where you can download an experimental patch to fix the so-called 'object limit'!

https://github.com/spockthewok/TS2ObjectLimitFix

(Ultimate Collection only at the moment, I'm afraid).

The good news is:

Both @lordcrumps and @teaaddictyt have tested it with stupidly large CC folders and report that it works.

There isn't a dissertation the length of Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' you need to read through to understand wtf is going on.

The crashing wasn't caused by some hardcoded object limit at all! (That I know of).

An explanation of the issue for programmers:

And for everyone else:

The code for the Build/Buy menu was missing basic checks to confirm that the data it was trying to do things with was actually valid. No, I'm not joking.

Basically, it appears that all of the objects you can buy in the game are stored in something you can think of as being like a big, long list, which grows in size with the more custom objects you have.

The only purpose of the code that this plugin patches is to sort the items in the list into some kind of order. This is done by assessing if the value of the previous item in the list is larger than that of the item currently being looked at, and swapping their position if this is true (also known as an insertion sort).

In short, the game wasn't asserting that the data it was about to compare for sorting was valid before accessing it, and then promptly blowing up when it tried to do so and discovered it wasn't.

I imagine that the odds of the game making an oopsie and dumping some funky data into the list increases with the number of objects it is having to process - this might be why this issue only presents itself to those using multiple GB of Build/Buy CC. It was much easier to patch the code encountering the bad data within the list than to try and hunt down the mysterious culprit putting the data in there to begin with, so this is all the information I have at the moment unfortunately.

Either way, one of the first things you're taught when learning to code is to ALWAYS check that the data you're operating on has been initialised (i.e. it holds some kind of value). I guess someone at Maxis must have skipped that lecture :D

Is the 255 objects per subcategory limit theory true?

The Downloads folder I was using for testing had ~672 objects in the Deco/Misc subcategory (Maxis objects included). With the patch, I can freely navigate throughout the entire subcategory with zero crashes, so I guess not?

What about the whole OBJD limit thing?

People have varying beliefs of what the limit on OBJDs might be, but HCDU reports my Downloads folder had an OBJD count of 20,787. Again, without the patch the game would crash when switching categories in the Build/Buy catalogue, with the patch, no crashing.

If you want to hear my opinion on whether such a limit exists, watch this video.

Do I even need this patch if I don't use much CC?

As it adds some fairly important crash-prevention checks to part of the Build/Buy menu's functionality, I'd probably recommend using it anyway, just to be safe - we all know how much this game loves to crash!

Aaaah! I'm still getting crashes with the patch!

I'm aware that a few of you CC addicts out there have Downloads folders larger than the total size of everything ever uploaded to the internet, so if you still experience crashing in Build/Buy mode with this patch, please take a look at the mod's GitHub page and send me over the information requested there. Fingers crossed that shouldn't happen, but if it does, I'll try my best to investigate :)

Anyway...

Will

(I wish I had looked at this for my dissertation, as it was literally only a day's work).

[darkestdawn]

You are the GOAT!!! Thank you for your service!!!!

[spockthewok]

Explaining the Pink Soup (In Layman's Terms)

Hi everyone!

First off, I just wanted to say thank you for all of the positive feedback I've received over the past few days — I'm really pleased to see that my mod seems to have been effective for so many of you!

I am aware that my dissertation/thesis is really rather technical, filled with lots of academic/flowery language, and probably quite overwhelming to try and understand if you're lucky enough to have not studied computer science, so I wanted to attempt to break the key parts of it down into the simplest terms possible, to hopefully help answer some of the questions I've seen people have.

What is the pink soup?

The pink/purple strobe lighting we all know and love is 1 of 4 uniquely coloured shaders the game uses to indicate a specific type of error has occurred when trying to display something on-screen. The 3 other colours it uses (you've likely seen at least one of them) are red, blue, and yellow.

These shaders serve two main purposes:

To let you know something has gone wrong in an obvious (albeit obnoxious) manner.

To allow the game to keep running in spite of whatever error has happened (otherwise it would just crash).

Internally, the error that the pink soup represents is known as a "material parsing failure", i.e. the game has failed to understand some piece of material data (textures, rendering properties etc.) about an object it is trying to render.

Part of the process the game goes through before rendering an object to the screen is checking that its data only contains specific characters (numbers, letters, and certain symbols) — an example of when this would fail and trigger the pink soup would be if the game came across a random emoji during these checks.

What does 32-bit/64-bit mean?

A 'bit' is just a single digit of a binary number. All you really need to know is that a 32-bit number is a binary number that is 32 digits (bits) long, with the largest binary number possible being 32 consecutive 1s (1111111…).

I'm not going to bore you to death and show you how to convert binary numbers to decimal, so you'll just have to believe me when I say that 32 consecutive 1s in binary is equivalent to 4,294,967,295 in decimal.

4.2 billion might seem like a pretty high value to be able to represent, but if I said this is roughly equal to 4GB, you might be able to start to see how 32-bit computers/software could be a bit (no pun intended) limited memory-wise. For comparison, the largest decimal value a 64-bit binary number can represent is 18,446,744,073,709,551,615, or just under 18.5 exabytes (EB)!

But what if I wanted to represent the number 5 billion in 32-bit binary? Here's the fun thing — you can't. If you tried, the binary number would 'wrap around'. As in, it would max out at 32 consecutive 1s before resetting back to 0 and continuing to count up until it reached the binary value of 705,032,705 (5,000,000,000 - 4,294,967,295 = 705,032,705).

This is what is meant when we say that The Sims 2 can only use up to 4GB of your computer's memory (RAM) — it is physically unable to access/store data in more than 4,294,967,296 different memory addresses (it's 4,294,967,296 because the range of possible addresses would be 0 to 4,294,967,295).

If you're not sure what I mean when I talk about 'memory addresses', you can think of the concept as being like your home address (your house number, street name, and postal/zip code). It's just the location a piece of data lives at in memory so the game knows where to find it if it needs to use it for something.

Once the game has run out of memory addresses to use to store things, it will crash. The only way this could be fixed would be if EA magically decided to rewrite the game's engine to be 64-bit, thus allowing it to use an exponentially larger number of addresses.

Why does the pink soup happen?

This is where things get interesting. While the game is loading, the material data for the objects in your neighbourhood/lot is stored at individual addresses in your computer's memory so it can be processed.

Part of this processing involves the game taking all of the shader code found in the Materials.package file and linking the relevant shaders to the relevant pieces of material data of an object (e.g. a reflection shader would be linked to the glass part of a mirror object), creating shader 'packages' for the whole object. Again, both these packages and the information that links them to the object are also stored in memory.

As you can probably imagine, if you have a large number of different objects in your hood/lot (particularly more complex/detailed objects with many rendering properties), the amount of free memory the game has to use to keep storing things starts to decrease FAST.

Back in ye olden days of 2004 when The Sims 2 was released, 32-bit was the most commonly used architecture for consumer-grade hardware and software. Despite its known drawbacks, the 4GB memory restriction was not really a huge issue, as the technical limitations of the time meant your parents' PC would likely catch fire and explode long before this level of memory usage could be reached in-game.

Windows XP (the operating system the game was primarily developed for) was also a 32-bit operating system. The way XP handled the 4GB memory limit was simple:

2GB was given to the kernel (the core of the operating system).

2GB was given to applications (i.e. The Sims 2).

This is why it is commonly recommended to apply what is known as a '4GB patch' to the game, as by default, it still thinks it's living in 2004 and is only allowed to use 2GB of memory — the 4GB patch therefore permits the game to use the full 4GB of memory it is able to support.

So, where does the pink soup come in to this?

Basically, there is a piece of logic within the game's code that is used during the process of linking shaders to material data described above. All this logic does is check whether the material data it is being given is stored at a memory address above or below the 2GB mark, presumably some kind of relic of the Windows XP days.

For whatever reason (either due to a bug or intentional design), for data stored above 2GB, the game performs additional checks which will ALWAYS FAIL, and the game will treat this data as being malformed/invalid, refusing to link any shaders to it.

Hopefully, the chain of causality should now be clear:

The capabilities of our hardware has increased dramatically in the past 20+ years.

We've all been applying a 4GB patch to the game to allow it to make use of more of our RAM.

We've also all been installing a load of cool custom content and creating highly decorated hoods/lots because our fancy graphics cards can handle them easily.

All of these objects are causing memory usage to quickly surpass the originally intended 2GB range.

The game is considering any data for the objects stored above this range to be invalid and refusing to do anything with it.

The pink/purple error shader is instead being applied to these objects because the game thinks there is something wrong with their material data.

In conclusion, The Sims 2 is confused and elderly, frequently soiling itself when presented with high-tech information from the far off future of the 2020s that its puny 2004 mind can't possibly comprehend.

What are the differences between v1/v2 of the mod?

Both versions of the mod patch the same piece of logic in the game's code, but with differing approaches.

With v1, the additional (and always failing) checks the game performs on material data stored above the 2GB mark are essentially patched out, meaning they are not executed and shaders will always be correctly linked to them, regardless of their location in memory. This is great, as you should never see any pink soup that would usually be triggered by these failed checks. Consequently however, the game will give you no indication that it is running out of memory, except for when it inevitably crashes once all free memory has been used up.

On the other hand, v2 makes use of these faulty checks. Instead of removing them completely, they are repurposed to warn you of high memory usage, with the game not performing these checks until material data starts being stored above the 3.5GB mark. This means you will still see pink soup, but only once memory usage exceeds 3.5GB. This is intentional, and is meant to be a trade-off between allowing the game to correctly process more data in memory, but also still letting you know that a crash may be imminent some time after the pink soup appears, giving you enough breathing room to save and restart the game before this happens.

To illustrate these differences better, here is roughly what the code is doing in the vanilla game, v1, and v2 of the mod:

Vanilla:

if memory address <= 2GB everything is fine, continue as usual if memory address > 2GB pink soup time!

V1:

if memory address <= 2GB everything is fine, continue as usual if memory address > 2GB everything is fine, continue as usual

V2:

if memory address <= 3.5GB everything is fine, continue as usual if memory address > 3.5GB pink soup time!

Which version should I choose?

There's no correct option, but if you play with a lot of CC or with highly decorated hoods/lots, I would probably recommend starting with v2, only for the so-called 'safety' reasons I outlined above.

I personally use v1 because I play very vanilla, so I know memory usage should never really get that high. If you're like me, or you just don't care about potential crashes and want to be rid of the pink soup, then v1 of the mod is the one for you :)

I know people likely still have many questions, so I've enabled the 'Ask me anything' option on this blog - feel free to use it!

Thanks again,

Will

[teaaddictyt]

The Sims 2 Purple Flashing Patch

(yes, PURPLE, because I always saw it as purple and the shader name is literally called the purple error shader. Sue me!!)

Just in case anyone missed it, "pink flashing" in The Sims 2 has finally been busted wide open by a lovely chap named Will Nixon, see here.

I thoroughly recommend reading through the entire dissertation pdf, it's a good read! Even if your eyes glaze over and you skim past the super technical computer engineering jargon, you'll pick up some interesting tidbits from it. Just wanted to share that

1) the patch is fully compatible with Linux and works to improve Linux performance even further, as testing by myself and my dear friend @niamh-sims

2) Some screenshots from testing my medieval hood on Windows 11:

No patch:

With patch:

I also stress-tested the hood by loading into the main Castle lot and having a sim travel between 4-5 different lots with my settings on max. (This is how I play on Linux now so I've gotten used to it, no more turning neighbours and hood deco off for me!!)

Without the patch in, the game crashed and wouldn't load the castle lot for me at ALL, so that was a great start.

Ooft, lol.

With the patch in, I could load into the castle and travel freely around the hood. I noted that that game also generally felt smoother.

This is an absolute breakthrough, people. Linux is no longer absolutely required if you want to play TS2 without pink flashing! Get excited!!

I will personally continue to play on Linux because I honestly enjoy the OS and prefer it over Windows, and my game still loads faster and runs smoother on Linux, but I recommend every simmer download Will's patch (V1 or V2, but V2 is likely safer) and keep it in your essential mods list forever.

[onefiancee]

[helene2troie]

Gorgeous 🤩

[ekrubynaffit]

Sims 2 Tutorial - Apartments on a foundation with a private backyard.

I did a tute for this years ago at mts, thought it was looking a little tired so heres an update.

This tute is for when you have built an apartment lot on a foundation and you also have individual enclosed backyards with stairs leading down to them. You do not need to do this tweak if you have no foundation.

First thing you will require is an invisible fence Pfishes one works perfectly, download that pop it in your game and build/open your apartment. Build your shell, add apartment doors, add back doors, the stairs and enclosed fences and any other little bits you want to add. It's better to do this tweak before you add any other details, incase for some reason it doesn't work, also make sure your apartment is still residential if not change it back (changelotzoning residential) now you're ready to follow the tute.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Sorry Typo here, says it won't delete the stairs, is supposed to say it won't delete the invisible fence!!! My spell check person was sleeping on the job! (me)

5.

6.

7.

8.

If you still have an invalid message then you need to look a bit further and figure out what the issue is. Some are:

- you have used the wrong apartment door, it's easy to mix up the hotel door and apartment door. Easy way to tell the difference is the apartment door has a door mat and the Hotel one doesn't.

- You've used the right door but the mat is facing inside. Make sure it faces to the outside.

- You have used the great divide fence somewhere in the apartment (you know that teeny low one that is great for blocking off areas and using as edging) this is a big no in apartments as it creates a whole new exclusive area. Did you know if you enclose a baby crib with this fence then their cries won't be heard by sims in the same room trying to sleep! So don't use it in apartments!

- You havn't fully enclosed a backyard somewhere

- You havn't fully enclosed an apartment inside eg. you have forgotten to add one piece of wall seperating two apartments.

- You've used an apartment door as a back door and a front door, just use a normal door for the back.

Thats all the things I could think of that might cause an error when trying to change it after the tweak, am sure there's more, sometimes a fresh pair of eyes over the lot can help you see what you didn't before!

[helene2troie]

Super useful, thanks for this tutorial! I always struggle with building appartment lots, hopefully this will make things a little easier!

[simper-fi]

Hi there!! I was wondering where you get all your clutter from? I already have a ton, but you can never have enough pixel clutter... c; Also, I wanna say that I just found your blog and Sycamore Cove is gorgeous. I love it.

Awww, thank you!! I’m so glad you enjoy my blog and my silly little neighborhood. :D *gives you hugs and tea* 

As for clutter, oh boy. Where to begin? XD These are just some sites/creators off the top of my head:

8-3 Studio/Atelier (Sims Cave, requires registration)

Amovitam

Around the Sims

Billyjean (formerly at BPS, check here and here at Sims Cave)

Cassandre (formerly at BPS, check here at Sims Cave)

Chimerical

Clutter-a-holic

HafiseAzale

Mutske

Nemestnaya (formerly at BPS, check here and here at Sims Cave)

Tinkle

Veranka

And of course, there’s always THIS PAGE. Proceed with absolute caution (for your download folder’s sake!) :D

I hope this is enough to get you started! :3

[creesims]

How do you make objects have new guides? I tried reading some tutorials, but I don't get it.

First you need a new guid. I use this Random Hex Generator, set it to be 8 digits

Go to SimPe, open Object Workshop then use the Open option to load up the Mesh you're editing

In the next window pick Clone and follow the next step to clone your object. Now you have an exact replica of the original package

In the Resource Tree on the left click on Object Data. In the Object Data Editor on the bottom paste your new guid into the Guid box, click 'update all MMATs', press the Update button then press the Commit button. If your object has multiple guids you'll need to do this for each one

Make any other edits you want to make to the object. When you're finished click on the top toolbar Tools -> Object Tools -> Fix Integrity

A window called Screengraph rename Wizard will pop up. Hit the Update button then Okay

The window will go away, SimPe will do a little shimmy as it updates the files (only takes a second). Save and close the file

Now go to Tools -> Scan

This will open the Folder Scanner window. Click the drop down menu on top, select ... then navigate to the folder your file is in. In the active Scanners box on the bottom left put a check in GUID Scanner, then hit the scan button on the bottom

This will scan the in-game objects and anything in the folder you selected to make sure there are no Guid conflicts. When it's done scanning the screen will look like this

If there any conflicts the item will be listed in red and the Duplicate guids row will say yes. For a yes, give it another guid as shown in picture 3 and scan it again. If it says no then you're all set. Close the window, load a file into SimPe then close the file (you have to do this to clear the Scanner, it doesn't matter what file you use), then open the game and test your object

Bear in mind that the guid scanner is limited to the in game objects and whatever files you put in the folder you scanned. Someone else may have made CC with the same guid you're using and the only way to figure that out is to find their CC and realize it conflicts. But there are millions of possible guids so odds are good that yours will be okay. If you do find a conflict later down the line you can usually fix it by simply changing the guid in the object data (picture 3), you wont need to clone it again but you will need to redo any recolors for the object if they're not bundled with the mesh

[helene2troie]

Super helpful thanks!

[hometoursandotherstuff]

As soon as you step into the hall of artist João’s apt. in Brazil, you know it’s something special. He has named it the “portal of good energies.”

His favorite subjects to paint are large colorful snakes with big eyes. (The walls in the hall are one long snake on each.)

I’ve noticed that in lots of Brazilian apts. people put hammocks across the glass doors to their terraces, which is a lovely idea. 

He painted suns around the lights on the ceiling. 

Look at the vibrant eating space. João says that his previous apt. was much different. He moved into this one at the start of the pandemic and began to paint it. 

His bed has a painted sun for a headboard.

He uses green tape to display his smaller paintings on the closet doors.

His own, bold art makes his white apt. so much more livelier. 

A small nook is his studio. 

https://www.historiasdecasa.com.br/2022/04/28/uma-casa-como-voce-nunca-viu-ape-alugado/

[gumdropgamespot]

Hey everyone I could use some help!

On Monday of this week, two of my side blogs were terminated(? glitched out of existence??) without notice. I have received no warnings on either blog so I suspect an error on Tumblr's part. I submitted a help ticket but have not received word back.

While the first (@gumdropwcif) was a reblog sorting project (that I was going to announce publicly this week after much effort smh) I can let it go, honestly.

But the other was @notsosimstober!!!

I don't want us to lose our community home for all things spooky-ookie over an error. The team can start over in a new location, but until I get at least a reply from the help team, I can't even know if my main account is safe to start anything new...

I don't want you to brigade @support or anything, but if one of you has a twitter account would you be willing to get the word to staff that way? Beginning to suspect I'm not going to hear back via the help portal (and unclear if it even worked, without an email notification).

Thanks for any help you can give!

[helene2troie]

Signal boost

[dystopianam]

[DOWNLOAD] COLORED CEILING LIGHTS (16 COLORS - 5 DIFFERENT INTENSITIES + INVISIBLE RECOLORS)

Finally here are the colored lights! I've always loved NL neons, but I've always hated that they were huge and impossible to put in residential lots unless you want to make your home look like a fantasy, alien or futuristic house.

I specify that those who use lighting mod see the intensities from 4 to 5 very bright (like me in the video), but those who do not use lighting mod see the intensities from 4 to 5 as in the video the intensities from 1 to 3 are shown! Intensities 4 to 5 are for those who don't have lighting mods!

EXPLANATIONS AND CREDITS

(Skip it if you want, but it's full of credit for other persons)

For years I looked for invisible recolors of NL neons, or someone who had changed the mesh of these, but I never found anything.

I remember that, perhaps, I had once found an invisible recolor of the round neon lights that you can place on the wall, but honestly that recolor never worked for me ;_:

So I gave up, I lost hope of having some comfortable neon lights that I could put in my house and I went on with my life, until...one day I don't remember what I was doing in game, I took a cc lamp I had and saw that it had a beautiful colored light. I told @jacky93sims "this light is beautiful, but the mesh is huge and impossible to use".

At first, since I just wanted to do something personal, I wanted to change the mesh of that cc, but I had difficulty because I didn't know how to do one thing yet (which I now know how to do). So Jacky said to me "but instead of changing the mesh why don't you take a lamp from the game you like and change the light using the light from this cc?" and she proceeds to send me a tutorial on how to do it. She then added "it's a Nightlife light, it's called [name of light]".

And that's where it all started.

I looked for that lamp in the game, I found it, and it was this one that I asked you about a few days ago.

However, there was a little mystery surrounding it: this neon does not emit light, but both Jacky and I saw blue light. Just me and her. Nobody else.

It was strange. Right now my suspicion is that we probably have a different light from everyone else because we use two lighting mods which, although different, use the same settings for that particular light.

But...Jacky doesn't have NL, yet she saw the RGB color of that NL light, how was that possible? Snooping around a bit in the file, we then discovered that the RGB value was set to emit that particular color. Jacky then understood how to make the RGB codes work on simPe, she explained it to me and out of curiosity I started trying other colors: BINGO! The light could become any color I wanted! And what's even more beautiful? Even Jacky, without having NL could do it! It therefore meant that we could create neons without needing NL and above all... without editing game files.

I was so happy. So to test that light would work for everyone, I sent the light to @simstraffikcone @ash1c , but... it was a fail. It didn't work for them. Right now I thought it was because Traffikcone not have a lighting mod, while Ash has the Maxis Match Lighting mod, which I remember not having that specific NL light with the blue light as Jacky and I see it.

I was confused. I could edit a lot of non-RGB lights and make the colors work on many of them, but no one but me saw those colors when I sent the files. Then Jacky suggested to try using the source of these RGB spotlights... and finally, with this the others were able to see all the colors too!

I hope that the creator of these spotlights doesn't mind that I used the same source, their post is from 18 years ago, the last time they was online was 2021 and they doesn't have a TOU. From the name of the light it seems like a custom light, but not having a custom installation I can't say. This creator is a pro when it comes to editing game lights, I saw them talk about it on some posts on MTS!

In the end, It doesn't matter what kind of light it was, I just needed the RGB values to work.

PROS AND CONS

But at this point you're thinking, looking at they profile on MTS "but sorry, this creator also made RGB ceiling lights, so what are yours for?" and here... comes the part where I explain why my lights exist (don't fall asleep, I'm almost done, I swear)

Its ceiling lights have two requirements that I tried to bypass: you need NL to make them work and to do extra steps, editing game files. Some people are uncomfortable doing these things, others don't have all the expansions!

My lights don't need NL to work and you don't have to do any extra steps, you don't have to edit any of the game files, you just put them in the download folder and play with them.

And why this? Because I don't use the source of their ceiling lights, but that of their spotlights!

But here too you may be wondering...why not use spotlights then? Well...it is a question that includes many factors:

- The spotlights are very nice to use in the garden, but what if you want to use those colored lights indoors? Wouldn't it be strange to have garden lights around the house INSIDE the rooms? I think sims can bypass them, but it's not very aesthetic! With my ceiling lamp not only you not take up space in the house and you can't see it, if you don't want to see it at all you also have the option of making it invisible!

- True, you can mess around with colors to get colors other than red, blue and green, but my lights come with 16 ready colors! So you don't have to bombard an area full of spotlights to form a color! (Mine can mix too btw)

- The spotlights can illuminate a maximum of one or two objects that they point to, this means that to illuminate multiple objects you should use lots of spotlights. My lights on the other hand illuminate practically every object in the room!

- The ONLY con my lights have is that following the light settings of the RGB spotlights, my lights illuminate all objects and sims, but not the walls and floors. This means that you won't always get nice effects, you have to experiment a little. Sometimes rooms that are too empty will have bad effects, it is better to use them on rooms full of objects that reflect light. I tried to solve this problem, but unfortunately I haven't succeeded yet. And this is the same reason why I'm only doing the ceiling version.

I want to point out, however, that I am not discrediting their lights. Indeed, without their work today I couldn't even create these lights! So BIG THANKS to their works! I invite you to also download their (absolutely compatible with mine) They are NOT necessary to make mine work, but if you want to use their too, you can!

Another of the advantages that these lights have is that they work both for those who do not have lighting mods and for those who have them. (Obviously those who have lighting mods have better light and shadow effects, but I can't do nothing about this).

The solution was to create different intensities. People who have lighting mods see lights that basically have low intensity with high intensities. People without a lighting mod see lights with low intensity...well, with very low intensity.

For this reason I made sure that each set of lights has unique guids and that they can all work together. You can put all 5 sets in your download folder, figure out which lights you see best, and delete the ones you don't see well.

I can already tell you that people who don't use lighting mods can use intensities 3 to 5, while those who use lighting mods can use intensities 1 to 3!

So to summarize, the pro of this light are:

Base Game compatible. (You don't need NL!)

Work with and without lighting mods.

5 different intensity which you can choose.

16 ready colors to use.

Invisible recolors for all the 5 sets of intensity.

Ready collection files for all the 5 sets (residential and community lots)

You don't need to edit game files. Installation is simple. Put everything in the download folder and it works. (Everything except the collections you have to put them in the collection(s) folder)

By enabling moveobjects you can put them ANYWHERE, they work both inside and outside the house, and you can use invisible recolors to hide them.

Because they use the light from the RGB spotlights, you can mix colors and sometimes you can create some really cool gradient effects!

They work better with the light off, but even with the light on it has a nice effect because the colors that reflect on the furniture can still be seen.

And the downside...precisely, is only that the walls and the floor don't light up, but I'll see if I can resolve this in the future.

Stop! I'm done torturing you with my chatter! In the download you will find a .rar with all 5 sets + a folder with two collections for every set! (One for community lots and one for residential lots)

Thanks to jgwhiteus for the source of the light, Jacky for explaining how to use the RGB codes on simPE and Ash and Traffikcone for testing the lights for me!

DOWNLOAD (SFS)

(Recommended but not necessary, this rug fix. Game rugs are buggy and don't reflect well the light and the shadows.)

[h0nkytonkangels]

I’ve been trying to get into body shapes for years but finding outfits for all clothing categories and multiple ages + showerproof skins + BLOCKFEET and no vacuum sealed boobs is such a massive pain in the ass. 😩

I’ve got a pretty complete fat family collection thanks to @letomills but I’d love recs for other shapes like volgal, rengal, athletic girl, sbb, etc!!

[letomills]

I feel you! Here all the other creators who make CC for body shapes that I can think of (sorry in advance to anyone I forgot, please reblog or comment so we can see you):

@julietoon-ts2 - also on her blog (LBB, SBB, NuAM, Sassy Curvy, CPU, Rio, Sussi, VolGal, Momma Lisa, Fashion Model...) @blueheavensims - also on his blog (Athletic Girl, Rio, Momma Lisa, CPU, FitChick, VolGal, Sussi, Fashion Model, Amazonian, BBG, BB, SBB, LBB, HBB...) @monilisasims (Momma Lisa, Melodie9 fat Male, FtM) @withlovefromsimtown (trans shapes, CPU, VolGal, RenGal, FitChick, Rio, Fashion Model, Faerie Gal...) @kalux-sims (fat & trans shapes - see the EveryBody project) @theboldandthebeautifulsims (trans shapes) @ogsnarf (Athletic Girl, Amazonion, CPU, Fitchick, Rio, Sassy Curvy, Rio) @beatricecrumplebottom (Athletic girl, CPU, VolGal, Faerie Girl, FitChick, Momma Lisa, Melodie9 fat family, BB, SBB, LBB, HBB...) @mrs-mquve-cc - on Dreamwidth, Pillowfort, Simblr.cc (CPU, VolGal, RenGal, Dummy Thicc, Momma Lisa, Trans Momma Lisa) @h0nkytonkangels (CPU, Dummy Thicc, FitChick, Fashion Model, Momma Lisa, Rio, VolGal) @daman19942 (LBB) @pooklet & @skulldilocks (trans shapes, Momma Lisa, MartaXL) @berrynooboos (FtM, androgyny) @kaylynn-langerak (Momma Lisa, Melodie9 fat Male, trans shapes) @simhow (Momma Lisa, CPU) @simstralia (SBB (search "SBB"), binders for trans body shapes (search "binders")) @nixedsims - also on their blog (Momma Lisa, Consort's Heavy Male) @gingerplaysthesims (Pear bodyshape project) Melodie9 (Melodie9 fat family, Melodie9 slim family) Consort (Consort's Heavy Male) magical-girl-sandbox (LBB, BB, BBG, AG, Andro, Momma Lisa, Consort's Heavy Male, Melodie9 Fat Family) Slig (Momma Lisa, VolGal, Sussi, Melodie9 slim family) Roxxy (CPU, RenGal, Rio, Classic Pinup, Fashion Model)

If you play a historical neighborhood, the Plumb Bob Keep's Tailor Shop has clothing searchable by body shape.

[asimplevampire]

I make bodyshape clothing! Most of the stuff I've done has been for Lifa's trans shapes, Momma Lisa, and Dummy Thicc, but I've done some of everything at this point!

[helene2troie]

Get to know you- Sims style

Thanks for tagging me @niamh-sims and @12raben! I used to play TS1, but have been playing TS2 pretty much since it came out!

What’s your favorite Sims death?

So I've been playing for year and years, but I still haven't seen some of the deaths (like the murphy bed one?). I'm going to go with the satellite-falling-on-Sims death, just because the first time it happened, I was totally unprepared for it, I didn't know it was so risky to have Sims sky-gazing! XD

Alpha CC or Maxis Match?

Alpha CC all the way.

Do you cheat your sims weight?

Nope.

Do you move objects?

Yes, both for building and moving Sims past annoying obstacles.

Favorite Mod?

Recently really loving the trait-related mods, and my community lots couldn't function without the visitor controller.

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack?

It was the complete TS1 set with all the expansions.

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing?

Live like aLIVE. But never really stopped to think about it until now.

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made?

Probably Madeline Morleigh from my old victorian hood. Love love her cheekbones, I still use that Sim as a base sometimes when making other Sims.

Have you made a simself?

Nope.

Which is your favorite EA hair color?/ Favorite EA hair?

I don't use any Maxis hairs except the bald and the cropped hairstyles

Favorite life stage?

I don't have much of a preference, I'm just not a fan of the infant stage, I frequently age them up to toddlers with some cheats.

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay?

Depends on the mood. I sometimes have this grand idea and spend hours decorating, only to arrive at something completely different than what I wanted to execute. But mostly gameplay. Recently I'm also posing and decorating for picture-taking, that's fun too.

Are you a CC creator?

I've tried, only to discover how hard it is! I want to get a little better at it, because I have a lot of ideas, but I'm not skilled enough to execute them yet!

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad?

Not really. But everyone is super nice, and I love following other simblrs doing BACCs/medieval/historical NHs!

Do you have any sims merch?

No.

Do you have a YouTube for sims?

No.

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing?

As soon as I discovered what CC was all about, I started spending a lot of time hunting down cool stuff. I used to have a fantasy-ish NH, and I even uploaded a few stories on the Exchange a while back (ages ago!)- it was actually pretty formative, because it taught me (very basic) picture editing. After a long break from the Sims, I came back to it and created mostly Victorian-ish NHs, like with my first simblr @janyasims2. Then I got bitten by the medieval CC bug, and I got excited about this new medieval/zombie apocalypse challenge, which I started posting over at @ts2mortalswar. Sadly I lost this save because of computer issues. Now back to medieval-ish content, over at @ts2cambremon, but mostly using the Sims as a way to worldbuild and weave in stories with gameplay. The Sims is such a versatile game, I have taken long breaks from it before, but I keep coming back to it!

Who’s your favorite CC creator?

@sunmoon-starfactory, for all their amazing sets!

How long have you had Simblr?

It was during the covid shutdown! So... April 2020?

How do you edit your pictures?

I try to edit as little as possible because honestly it's not something I enjoy, so I usually just crop pictures, and that's pretty much it. If I'm feeling fancy, I'll add some light gaussian blur and make the colors a little warmer. I usually rely on in-game lighting, especially with colored lights, makes all the difference.

What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite?

Open for Business! (also the 'fame/hollywood' one for TS1 was amazing, I really wish we could have had something similar for TS2!)

Tagging @esotheria-sims and @equinoxts2 !

[erebiatyndarus]

this may be too broad of an ask so sorry but i'm just getting into the sims 2 and want to recreate vtmb locations as well + make the game look more grungy and "alpha" i guess sims 4 players would call it. can you point me in the right direction in terms of your favorite mods or creators? thank you. also i am polish-american and your presence is so so welcome and your builds are amazing

thank you anon!

there's so many creators, i don't know where to begin

go to place for grunge, rusty-dusty cc - garden of shadows

Aviolina made some Silent Hill stuff worth checking out kativip has some good cc packs that i use a lot (S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Metro converted objects) Pixelhate has some nice Fallout convertions and more Adele got beautiful things (liam buid set my beloved)

check out this board by @zombies-who-speak-simlish

as you can see theres a pattern: 🔥converted objects🔥, try looking for cc by searching the sims 2 *name of a different game*

also, speaking of vtmb, my dear anon, we have been blessed by Yolartut who gave us these (scroll down a bit), just got them, beautiful, i'm mad at myself for only just now downloading them heh, now i want to recreate the whole chinatown part of vtmb

damn, wish there were more convertions from this game... (and half life, source engine stuff + the sims 2 is like a match made in heaven)

oh, and a lot of my cc tbh... comes from builds of other simmers xD i like to download any build that tickles my interest and analise how others design and decorate. later i end up with a bunch of cc in my build/buy catalog of unknown origin (don't really recommand doing this tho, this way i got some really nice stuff, but the mess and the amount of stuff i would later end up deleting, oh god)

hope i helped a bit

[annachibisims]

Daislia is also a good creator for VTMB in particular! Their stuff is most accessible via TSR these days, but they did Jeanette's vanity among other things!

[erebiatyndarus]

omg, thank you @annachibisims for letting us know abt them!

[helene2troie]

great cc links, thanks for sharing!

[lifehacksthatwork]

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it’ll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I’d recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn’t read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can’t for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You’ll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It’s genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.

[osab]

osab's Sims 2 Setup Guide [Google Doc]

Reposting this because it got deleted for no reason!😍💓

This guide details how to install and optimize TS2 with essential fixes for modern systems in 2023!

Includes download/install instructions for the full Ultimate Collection (w/ Starter Pack web install hosted on GitHub), as well as disc & Origin UC install info for those who own them, plus graphics setup and Sims2RPC/alternative fixes.

The Sims 2: Setup Guide - osab

Easily setup The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection on modern 2023 systems.

Also check out my GitHub (@voicemxil) where you can find all my installers!

Video walkthrough of the guide from @acottonsock is available here!

Please don't kill my post evil tumblr men.

[withlovefromayre]

This is a fantastic resource, reblogging to boost and save.