Sorry for disappearing - my phone decided to go to silicon heaven a few weeks ago and because I have 2FA set up, I couldn't log in to my accounts until I got a new phone :/
Anyway, I just wanted to give an update on that water mod I showcased a while back, as it's basically all I've been working on.
This is going to be a long one, so I'm going to make use of that post cut feature for once. I don't mean to be a tease, but there will be a download link provided below :)
Firstly, the good news is that I managed to fix mirror reflections!
I did have to switch back to using the vanilla OceanReflection effect to do this, instead of the ScreenReflection one used in Castaway (for reasons I'll explain later), but fear not - the water is still visually identical and is just as reflective as Castaway.
In fact, I managed to get everything to reflect in the water - check out those roads and clouds!
And yes, even Sims are visible in the water!
It's kind of hard to see because of the ripples, but Chloe Curious is indeed present in that reflection.
Another benefit of using the vanilla OceanReflection effect is that Castaway's shaders aren't required for the reflections to work. This means the plugin will work with the vanilla water shaders, or a different water mod like Voeille's, if you prefer the look of those.
Something else I've tried to do is reduce the visibility of that annoying gap that can be seen between the lot skirt and the ocean's surface. It's not perfect by any means, but it's certainly an improvement over vanilla imo:
Unrelated to the ocean, but I was made aware of the fact that pools don't reflect the terrain. This has also been fixed:
I'm happy with what I've produced so far, so I've published the mod on my GitHub if you're interested in giving it a try:
https://github.com/spockthewok/TS2ReflectiveWater
There are two files available to download. One is the plugin itself, which patches the game to allow for the extra reflections and reduces the lot skirt gap, and the other is a modified version of Castaway's ocean shaders. I've provided a version of the shaders that incorporate the edits from dreadpirate's shader fixes mod too. Again, these shaders are completely optional - if you only want the extra reflections, you only need to download the plugin!
What about pond reflections???
Okay, this is where I have to give the bad news. Pond reflections are not currently included, because they're an absolute nightmare to figure out.
For a body of water to be reflective in TS2, it needs either a reflection plane (which is what the ocean has), or a reflection camera (which is what pools have). Lot terrain has no such functionality to support this in TS2 (ponds are classed as terrain tiles), so Castaway added a load of extra functionality to make ponds reflective.
It's not feasible to backport all of Castaway's new code to give ponds their own reflection method, and even if it was, it introduces another problem with the game's engine - it really does not like two separate reflection contexts using the same render type.
If you ever happen to look at Sims 2's various reflection functions, you'll see several magic numbers being thrown around. These are the game's render types, and the number that corresponds to each type is defined in the same shader code as the pink soup (I'm never going to be able to escape it). Here are a few examples to feast your eyes on:
Remember the issue with the mirrors? That was related to this. Basically, if the ocean and mirrors are using the same render type for their reflections, the game can't figure out which reflection belongs to who and the reflections start fighting each other to be displayed.
How did Castaway solve this? It didn't, mirrors are broken in Castaway too, because everything is using render type 2 (ScreenReflection).
They mostly work if they're placed indoors, but place them outdoors and, oh boy...
Likewise, if you patch the ocean to use the pool reflection render type, the pool reflections start fighting with the ocean reflections for dominance.
So, if we can't create a separate reflection context for ponds because there aren't enough unique render types to use, we're stuck trying to get ponds to use an existing reflection method.
Let's start with the simplest one - the ocean's reflection plane. If you recall the issue with ponds from my previous post, that was caused by this same plane. As discussed, ponds don't have a way to render reflections, so the reflection visible in the pond was actually created by the ocean and therefore being displayed at the ocean's height, which is why the reflections appeared super far down.
Unfortunately, the game only allows one ocean plane at a time, so if you try to create a second one at the pond's height, it just replaces the ocean's plane. This does give accurate pond reflections, but at the cost of cutting off the ocean reflections:
I did try and hijack the reflection plane used by the neighbourhood water as it shouldn't technically be in use in lot view, however all this did was give me a one-way ticket to crash city :(
Evidently, we need a method that supports rendering multiple reflections at varying heights at once, which leaves us with two options (to my knowledge):
The reflection camera for pools.
The reflection camera for reflective floors.
I don't think floor reflections are a thing in Sims 2, despite there being code for a reflection camera in the game's binary, so who knows if it even works. The floor shader code contains this quote:
"reflective floors are currently dead. might ressurect them in an expansion pack"
Great, now we're down to pools as our last hope.
As you probably know, if ponds use PoolReflection, they appear black without a pool present on the lot. Maybe if we lift this restriction, things will start working? Think again:
I have no idea why there is a chess table(?) baked in to the reflection texture.
I guess that makes sense - the game also isn't creating the pool reflection camera, as it only does so if a pool exists. What if we allow the camera to be created regardless of the presence of a pool?
While doing this allows ponds to now 'reflect', the reflections are still broken, being displayed at the wrong height and sliding around with the movement of the camera. It expects to be given several bits of information to work properly, such as a node for it to be attached to, the bounds of the pool, and the depth of the water - all things ponds are not giving it.
Compounding this is the fact that ponds have very little functionality to work with to provide this information. You can get the elevation of the water (which I suppose could be used as the depth), but other than that, all there really is is a way to check if a specific terrain tile is a pond tile.
This creates all sorts of headaches, like how to differentiate between multiple ponds on a lot, getting the width and height of them, what the camera should be attached to, yada yada yada...
It was at this point that I started to wonder - is this really even worth it? Sure, placing a pool tile on a lot to get pond reflections working is a bit janky, but would whatever Frankenstein's monster of a pond reflection system I might be able to create be any less janky?
For this reason, I have decided to take a short break from pond reflections, as I was starting to get a metaphorical concussion from banging my head against the keyboard to try and figure something out. I know it's disappointing to hear, but hopefully the fancy new ocean reflections will soften the blow somewhat.
If anyone has any suggestions for pond reflections, I'm more than happy to hear them :) I'll return to the trenches soon...
I have released a new update for the plugin that attempts to fix that weird bug in the vanilla game where the skybox reflections would break and get 'stuck' when the season is anything other than summer.
Not sure how I'd never noticed it before, because it happens surprisingly often. Thanks to @lowedeus for making me aware of it :)
Before:
After:
Isn't it strange how autumn (the season is internally called autumn rather than fall, interestingly) has a unique 'cold' looking skybox, but winter doesn't?
The issue was caused by the game's lighting manager - it checks that it's been given either the string "day" or "night" so it can choose the correct skybox reflection for the time of day, except in seasons other than summer, it is instead given the season name. Obviously "spring"/"autumn"/"winter" are not "day"/"night", so the reflection would never change!
There is no "summer" string, so I assume that the summer season is just the game's default day/night cycle from before the Seasons EP, but with some extra temperature functionality added on top. This would explain why it's the only season where the reflections don't break.
There's a rare chance that the lighting manager won't be prompted to update the reflections when the weather changes for whatever reason, so you may see a clear sky reflected in the water when it's actually raining and vice versa. It's a bit annoying, but the reflection will fix itself the next time the lighting manager triggers an update.
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~ 🎵
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;
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.
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.
(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
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).
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.
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.
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:
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
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.
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?
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:
andulkaphoto
baratheonpilled
turnnoffyourmind
ellievsbear
gracieabrams
origamiaround
