Sancta Sanctorum

Лощеде родилось, а значит имеет право на жизнь! Лощеде с нами, Лощеде вокруг нас, Лощеде внутри нас! ЛОЩЕДЕ ВЕЗДЕ!

[lowedeus]

Wellp… looks like I fell out of updates for an entire year. Whoa! Time really does fly...Honestly, I barely had a chance to even open the game, let alone make anything. But! I finally tested something veeeery cool - something that was made during this and last year, and that I’ve wanted for, like, FOREVER!

Just look at the beauty you can create now with @crispsandkerosene's new and improved shader mod. Yay! ✨

Btw, the Empire State Building you see here is the one I shared on my Patreon (and, paradoxically, in the “Unpublished” folder). So if you’re following only this blog, you might have missed it - go check it out! You might want to wait a little before downloading though - one of the upcoming updates includes the new reflection mask itself, plus the AO improvements I’ve been working on. I still want to make a more optimized AO mask version to use the game’s memory more efficiently. But if you’re just want to see the building in action - you’re welcome to try it! As for all the other “unpublished” stuff - I’ll be posting about that too, along with new shiny things wherein Loschede itself resides! Oh, also - happy 20th (and 21st!) anniversary to The Sims 2! And, of course, cheers to 25 years of The Sims as a whole! Stay tuned! Tuturutu~ 🎵

[xiodi-kun]

Hello everyone! It's been almost 4 years since my Garden Heights makeover, and now it's finally time to move on to Stephen!

MESA FLATS

Mesa Flats is a glittering haven for the wealthy and the restless, where the nightlife never sleeps and fine dining is a competitive sport. But beneath the excitement of the upcoming masquerade ball, simmering rivalries threaten to turn the celebration into a scandal. 

🌇🌌🌃

What's new & what has changed?

All sims have ancestors now and some are connected in family ties;

New sims and families (including Kim family from the bin);

Some sims with a 2nd template are remade; sims whose faces were too high are fixed;

More depth & lore of existing sims;

All lots are completely made over (except iconic lots like Stephen Loyal's), including all community lots - a lot to explore;

High quality snapshots in family albums telling their stories;

and many more.

Note: this is my own vision of the hood and it doesn't correspond the original story 100%. I used it for main inspiration, but made my personal interpretation of things. Hope you OK with it!

DOWNLOAD

Zip includes:

folder PSS1 - the hood itself;

folder inDownloads - contains PS and some LS conversions + some more additional items (the "Other" folder is necessary to drop in your Downloads !)

Enjoy!

Credits:

@hoodbuildinggroup for amazing recreation of the hood;

@Stories to Sims 2 Conversion Database for conversions;

@lowedeus for technical and mental support!

[lowedeus]

New banger from my friend just dropped! Very shiny! Go dAwnload it NOW!

[lowedeus]

This nostalgic atmosphere videoclip was made by my friend and shared in my TS2 Fan Community at VK.com (and also reuploaded by him in our TS2 Premades Community)

This is a pity that it was stolen by one tumblr blog without any credit or permission :( Yes, it's "just" a compilation, but it was made as a little piece of art by a talanted and very kind person. With love to the game, personal attitude and great vibe! It was a rude, unpleasure and shameless act to upload this here without a permission and to ignore my asks about adding even a link!

So, I want to reupload this video here with a link to a source as a way to restore justice. All thanks goes to my friend Ali.

[lowedeus]

Wow... Thank you!

[dilya-simblr]

Genshin impact skies set

These clouds are inspired by Genshin Inpact and created by me. I really wanted to post this for #loscheday But I didn’t have time :(

In any case, you can consider this my small gift for the past holiday.

This is a set of 7 gradients and 6 clouds. Clouds are ANIMATED!!! (I'll make a non-animated version later, I promise)

Variations of clouds:

Variations of gradients:

No extra manipulation is needed, just select the clouds and gradient you want and place them the same way you install skyboxes in your neighborhood!

As always, a big thank you to @lowedeus for your amazing skyboxes and for helping create this set <3

Download

[lowedeus]

Look! Here is a brand new simblr with a high quality cc by kind and lovely author! I love this new sky colours, and also new animated clouds <3

[lowedeus]

10th LoscheDay is here!

Hello, my followers and inspired dawnloaders! I know it’s been a while. The real life kinda got in the way. Thanks for staying with me!

10 years ago I created this blog to share worldwide my projects. My purposes are to integrate elements of european culture into The Sims 2, to enchance the neighborhood decoraing with recognizable city environment, and to explore and improve the game itself. This hobby has now allowed me to start practicing as a 3D artist, and I believe I found my true passion in it.

So, today I want to tell you about life changes I’m going through, share the gifts with you, and also ask you for help - all about it under the cut:

The Life Changes

You know I’m not very active last years, and this simblr stays without any updated for a long time. There were reasons for this. In 2022 I had to leave my home and moved to another country. Don’t worry, I’m fine and well. I starts my new life, at least, in a quiet place.

Here is a photo of me and my friend @ivanautumnfield​​ in Astana, Kazakhstan:

And now it’s time to move forward! 

The Request for help

UPD: Thank you all for your assistance!

If you want to help me, you can support me at Patreon or Ko-fi ☕ 

The LoscheDay Gifts

I want to thank everyone for the help and attention to my work, it really spurs me on to keep going. As a gift, I want to share with you some content that are ready to be used in the game, but haven't been published yet for one reason or another. All of the links and info avalible in my new Patreon page.

Not all of my (un)published projects are described at that page at this moment, new posts will be publishing time to time in Patreon’s feed, also a brand new cc files will be appearing in SFS folder. Please, subscribe and stay tuned!

I emphasize that everything I create for The Sims 2 will still be available for free, I am not planning on hiding behind a paywall, this is just if you would like to support me through this challenging time.

Thank you!

Enjoy!

[lowedeus]

💛🌼 SEND THIS TO OTHER BLOGGERS YOU THINK ARE WONDERFUL. KEEP THE GAME GOING 🌼💛

Awww, thank you!

[celestialspritz]

🌴Lowedeus' Neighbourhood Skies optimised (reduced texture sizes)🌴

(cleaning my desktop up and want to post this, sorry for the lame preview but i cba lol)

so this is an optimisation of those hood skies by lowedeus. if you encounter pink flashing, then these are for you! these skies are often listed in sims 2 starter packs and not many people realise how much of a toll it has on your game, being at 4k texture sizes. they are a staple for the game tho so thats why i optimised it

a general disclaimer is that if you use custom skies and horizon mods, they are one of the biggest offenders of pink flashing as those use HUGE texture sizes!!

all i did here was shrink the textures to some better sizes, like 1024x512 and 512x512 (the texture sizes here were different so thats why they're not the same)

it will overwrite the original files (these wont work with the others)

eta: these are not for simnopke's skies, but the originals are tagged above

another not eta: the original maxis sky is 512px only, that's what inspired me to do this as there's no reason why other textures can't be that size too

DOWNLOAD

credits - lowedeus for original files

[lowedeus]

Okay, this should have been done in 2K17 by myself, but the real life says "no". Anyway, better late than never!

Thank you @polygonbeach for uploading this very important and useful edit!

First of all, I apologize to everyone who might have been suffer from the infamous Pink Soup flashing. I never have one in my game, I used that skies for years, and such a HQ skyboxes based on my own game experience. But the resolutions of the totalitarian skies' textures sometimes are actually quiet huge:

- 2048x2048 px for Gray, Rise, Latte, and Tower - 2048x512 px for ACII, Wind, Star, and Alfsi  - 4096x1024 px (!) for Day, Pink, and Night (only for lot-sky)

I have edited the original post to add info and a link. And I promise I’ll upload optimised lot skybox variants ASAP!

The reason why I prefered that size was pixelization. The maxis' skies use simple gradients, so it was not such a big problem, but detalised cloud textures requiered the higher resolution because of texel. I uses the original textures, converted from You Are Empty, Assassin's Creed, and the Sims 4 (the Alfsi ones) - the games from the late 00th-early 2010th, so I sure that 2048x is suits ok for TS2. (maybe the few 4k skies that I made in 2k17 as experimental recolors were excessively, I admit it).

So, variety is always good and it's good to have a choice. Thank you!

P.S. I confused but the polycont of skydome in your version is the same as original (1920 polys for the cross-skydome for example).

[simsaestheticinstitute]

I was browsing old IKEA catalogues from 1995-2004 for autism reasons, trying to find an old IKEA throw blanket I had that I cannot find confirmation had ever existed on any IKEA index outside of it being in my memories and on a chair I own. (I found it, btw.)

I accidentally stumbled across something rather... controversy-inducing.

A lot of The Sims 2's furniture is just 90s IKEA.

No, not just the IKEA stuff pack - that's mid-2000s IKEA, get it right! I mean 1990s IKEA.

Canopy crib, anyone?

I'll add more in a reblog, but those are nearly 1:1 with items in TS2.

The catalogues online are in Swedish but I have the English versions in storage in my garage. Besides the language change and a few small differences local to Sweden such as locations, colours, offers, and prices, the furniture was identical around the world.

[lowedeus]

I really love the sims 2 real-life references! You probably know my posts about that: here, here and here. 

I think the egg-shaped "Shoji Table Lantern” is originally referenced to the Akari Light Sculptures by Isamu Noguchi (1951) - Akari N1

[lowedeus]

💌 | It's time to spread some positivity! Send this to 5 other simmers to show how much you appreciate them & their content

Aww thank you! It warms my heart! Have a good weekend!

[lowedeus]

hello, I was wondering if you ever offered the 'beelzebeef' object up for download, or if it was still a WIP? I use a version of the religions mod and want to recreate the Prime Heifer cult. from this post: https://at.tumblr.com/lowedeus/obey/ji996p0y814k

Hi! It's still WIP from 2021 and I really don't know how to improve it, soooo... The Big Guy. I dreamed about idle anims, but I can't imagine the opportunities or references at this time. It may be kinda large, it was hard to recalculate the proportions, but He is what he is. Moo. All credits goes to Gauntlet101010, who previously converted the model from TS2 PSP and get me a permission to reconvert it.

[episims]

Cleaning Table Lamps of Debris

If you take almost any CC table lamp and open it with SimPe, you might notice that there's an additional object included with it, a pile of debris looking like this:

It's used if the lamp breaks, which I've personally never seen happening outside of forcing it. In any case, there's no sense to include this object with every single custom table lamp. I put a quick tutorial under the cut for how to get rid of it.

Just to show where it's used, here's me breaking the example lamp with the debug option, with the debris still inside the file:

A pretty pile of junk.

The first step to remove the debris from the file is to delete every resource with 'debrispileelectronicsmall' in its name.

That's one CRES, a GMND, a GMDC, a SHPE, and two TXMTs and TXTRs. A lot of junk, indeed.

But if you only do that, this is what happens:

The lamp becomes unplaceable. I assume this is why creators are so keen to keep the debris in the file. Luckily, the additional step needed to make it right is very simple.

Under text lists, there's one called 3D Object Names. If you open it you'll see that the last line has 'debrispileelectronicsmall' in its name.

In this example the line was 0x1C050000![veranka-saoliving-tablelamp]-debrispileelectronicsmall. Whatever it is, simply change it to debrispileelectronicsmall instead.

That makes it use the same debris object that all the in-game table lamps share if this lamp happens to break. The lamp will also remain properly placeable.

Here's me breaking the lamp again, with that line edited and without the debris in the file:

[lowedeus]

Oh! Nice! Thank you for the tutorial! It’s very useful, interesting and crosses with a mod i'm making right now.

In the final game the lamps can be broken by ghost by a chance. According to the bhavs, previously lamps also can be broken directly by sloppy sims and, to all appearances, by accident.

Curiously, in my game, the lamps do not respond to the "break" debug function. I had to restore it in my mod by changing the table lamp globals.

Furthermore this tutorial can be used for applying the custom broken states, just by adding extra scenegraph resourses and changing the cres name in second string of 3d Objects Names. As you can see in pics and video above, the Base Game Bulb Lamps has unique broken model and animations. 

And they’re still in the game files! I found it and restored the original breakage animation for 3 basegame Big Bulb Lamps. You can see the result here:

I’ll upload more information and the link to the tester-wanted version of the mod in a few days. Stay tuned!

UPD: it seems like the video don't shows on the site, so here is a direct link

[lowedeus]

Hi there! A WCIF, where you can find or download the clothes from Daniel Pleasant from one of your last posts? Also I love your cc :)

Hi! Thank you! It's my own work, based on some of the Maxis' meshes. I hope I finish it someday. At this time the clipping issues are still strong, so I can't upload it without fixing the bone assignations.

[lowedeus]

Hello Lowedeus! Any chance you'll be releasing the protective suit conversion from the Sims 4 Strangerville to TS2? It would be a lovely addiction to the game

and also:

Anonymous said: Is your 4t2 hazmat suit publicly available? I saw it in screenshots but could never find the download link.

Hello there, nonnies! Well, here is the unfinished version. I don't know when I'll be able to complete it (joint assign-s are still imperfect), so it may take some time for official publication. However, it works! But shhh, that's only between you and me! Okay?

[lowedeus]

Hello, good afternoon, I was wondering if "The NHBOOD Effects" mod currently works in Sims 2 Stories Life or Pets? Thanks and greetings from Spain.

¡Hola! I'm very sorry for the late answer. It works as long as the essential core effects are included in the current EP engine - for example SC4 fireworks, lot-to-nhood clouds, celestial objects should work in all games, because their fx are from the base game Effects.package. But a smoke from the factory pipe in this set will not - because it has a train smoke effect from Free Time EP, and TS LS or PetStories based on OFB and Pets EPs respectively. But there is an opportunity to include all of the fxs from EPs that isn't installed for you - you can install in Downloads folder the standalone effects.package extracted from the desired EP. Years ago I made such a mod, that allows use the smoke train (and also my factory pipe) in TS Super Collection for MAC users. There are standalone effects.package from the EP7 and all of the train-related resourses extracted from EP7 core files. I hope it helps someone. the file tested on mac version by @criquette-was-here:

[lowedeus]

💌 | Forget about sims, lets learn about YOU! Tell us one fact about yourself, and then send this to 5 other Simblrs to do the same 👽

Hello! Aww, thank you for your interest! Well, I have a Master's degree in Law, and I spent a pair of years of my life as a lawyer. The topic of my master's thesis was the Fair Use doctrine vs Corporate Copyright, so I used the unique opportunity to analyze the TS2 EULA for the sake of science :D Despite almost 7 years of education, I hope I will never have to be a lawyer again!

Also here is a nice pic of me from my graduation:

[lowedeus]

you know how to extract 3d map (terrain) from neighborhood?

Hi! Sorry, I don't know - any SC4 utilites that I ever know doesn't seems functional for it, but the game constructs a 3d object from coordinates in .sc4 file, exactly. I hope someday someone will make a programm for this case.