hello i'm pooklet! i play ts2. (39, they/them, chronic haver of sleepy bitch disease.) posts not about sims are tagged "nonsims"
please don't monetize my content.
🍰💗🦇
FAQ | policy | navigation | downloads | sfs folder | game pics | WIFE!
so this post has blown up; turns out a lot of people feel the same way I do. If you're feeling conflicted or upset over 4th of July, I've compiled a list of educational resources and charities, both regarding US and international issues, which you can look into if you'd like. Issues here include humanitarian aid to Gaza, Ukraine, and the Caribbean, as well as reproductive, LGBT, BIPOC, and disability rights in the US.
woke up and saw people were reblogging this again. anyway, yeah. america is still being really mean and I do not want to go to its birthday party today
if you would like to spite the really mean people even more today, consider donating to raices con voz. they're a student-led organization in los angeles, who deliver food and essential supplies to immigrant families who can't leave their homes due to the ICE raids. More information about them here
EDIT: Had to fix the link! please reblog this version instead
another year of not wanting to go to america's birthday party in two days. because it's really mean. so we should help the people that america is being really mean to
in keeping with tradition, here is a link to unicef's fund for emergency health supplies and services for survivors of the venezuela earthquakes.
here is another link for manos in action, an organization that delivers supplies, such as food and childcare items, to latin american immigrants in central florida. I've participated in one of their local food drives; they're great. if you're not local to central florida, you can always donate money.
the other links are still available too, so feel free to check those out!
yeah, they did. I wrote up a big long post about the Trevor Project and the 12 hour charity livestream I'm participating in right now, and they deleted it. twice. We've raised over $50,000 for a legitimate charity but because it helps trans kids it gets deleted from the site
i genuinely get emotional when i think about how beloved the sims 2 is and everyone making content and mods for this game two decades later i love you so much i hope we are all simming forever
naw, the cakebreads updated at the end of march! (i'm not officially responsible for them, i just help out.)
as for the others, also naw, they aten't dead. pooklet and i have just been doing other stuff. real life has been enormously, soul-piercingly stressful and scary lately, so when we do have a chance to sit down and do something fun, it tends to be stuff that requires a little less of us than legacy updates. we're also working on a book, so that's where the writing inspiration tends to go.
but we both still love the sims 2 more than any other game, and we'll be playing it until it is literally unplayable. you can't get rid of us that easily.
☝️ what @skulldilocks said! things have been Pretty Bad irl. we got an important piece of good news on sunday, so for the next few months at least we get to go back to just the baseline level of poverty-induced stress, which is very cool and fun. hopefully with this reprieve we will have a little more creative energy.
rum raisin fiebelkorn for @dark-side-princess-sims! thanks to pooklet, who still had a functional copy of her, because i misplaced all the human-centric CC i removed and backed up from afterwards so the rumrai i extracted had no skin and no hair 😭
i always rolled my eyes at sims getting upset about a low room score, or screaming and stamping their feet about their pathing getting interrupted.
i get it now. we had our living room carpet cleaned this last wednesday (which was an enormous shitshow that culminated in renting the rug doctor from the grocery store across the street and redoing it ourselves and it's STILL a little wet today, saturday!!) and we had to clear out all the furniture. it's stacked up in our bedroom and in the kitchen. the living room is cavernous and empty. i am equally freaked out by both extremes.
hate this. want apartment back to normal. am sim throwing tantrum.
Hello friends! You may not know that I am a certified freak about Don't Starve Together (WILLOW MAIN FOR LIFE), but @skulldilocks and I have been playing it together for almost ten years now and it is probably my favorite game aside from The Sims 2. Which means I am duty-bound to let y'all know that it is currently on sale for $1.50!
It is intended to be a multiplayer game, but it is perfectly serviceable as a singleplayer one and, although this is heresy to some folks, in my personal opinion it is better than the intended singleplayer version Don't Starve (which is also on sale for $2.50)!
If you like base-building, exploration, 2.5D graphics, procedurally generated worlds, and do not mind the fact that you will probably die a lot at first, I highly recommend it! It also has a very robust modding scene and pretty much every difficulty setting can be toggled when generating your world, to make the game less stressful. It's quite dear to my heart so I figured I would shout it out in case that is of interest to anyone. Okay bye!!
Well it wasn’t just me, to be fair. I would have never been able to without @fireflowersims help and HugeLunatics trust in both of us. Thank you to both of them for their work and thank you @teaaddictyt for reaching out and doing the more public communication.
I’m super happy I got the chance to work to fix it. It wasn’t an easy undertaking. It seemed like every little thing would cause more errors, I fixed one and another thing broke. But now it seems stable, finally.
A lot of technical stuff below the cut, beware.
Fixing such an old forum is not easy. Documentation is rather sparse because the framework it runs on is old. There is however a more modern version, but updating is difficult. Here was the issue for the forum - upgrading failed.
A website (usually) consists of two different parts: 1 - The files. They contain the code, scripts, designs, images, attachment, profile pictures etc. 2 - The database. The database connects all the different parts and tells the website where to find something. Everything gets stored in tables, assigned IDs and given values. Everything written, each post and topic is also stored in the database. So without the database the whole page would be useless.
It was clear from the beginning that the database was the culprit for the failed upgrades. I got an earlier backup from HL and started working.
I set up a local environment with two versions of XAMPP. One running on php 7.4 (the last version having compatibility for the forum framework version and the upgrade script to the recent version) and the other on a modern 8.3, which was the same as the version the server @fireflowersims set up for GOS.
I ran the upgrade script (which consists of 4 separate parts) on the old backup and ran into errors right away. The script would just outright crash on me, most often without a log or message. The (local) server would just stop responding. My original plan had been to upgrade to version 2.0 first, then 2.1, since it was the recommended order. However the database backup had already been partly upgraded to 2.1. That was the reason my upgrade script failed. Reversing those changes could have been a possibility but extremely time intensive.
(This is the frontpage of the upgrader. I stared at it so much. Like you can see it has a ton of steps)
Instead I asked for the current database and HL provided it to me. This one was already further along on the upgrade and I could see the error HL had run into before handing over. I had to look at the upgrade scripts and source php files to diagnose what the framework was expecting - and failing - to find in the database.
That’s where I found the main culprit for *most* of the errors: Time tables. The framework saves every action that a user does in a log, a long table with the action, an id and a date. This was where everything had gotten wrong. The upgrader expected to see one column for the date, named *day*, while the current table had a different column for day, month and year. I tried fixing the table at first but that didn’t seem to work, so I completely deleted the table and created a new empty one myself. (By now I think the issue stems from forgetting to uninstall certain packages before upgrading, more on that later)
That was possible because the log actually doesn’t hold relevant information for the forum to work. It just records each step, probably for moderation purposes. Once I had done that step the upgrade script was finally able to proceed.
There were a few more errors where I had to look at what the script was doing, find the corresponding code in the sources and edit the database myself. Thankfully the code is relatively well commented and named, so I was able to find what I needed.
Finally I got the upgrade script to run to the end and I was actually able to open the forums (local) page. I hadn’t been able to for now so it was a first. But a lot of stuff was still missing, like all the topics. I could see that the posts were back, but not sorted correctly.
The fix was simple but annoying. The forum framework comes with a repair_setting.php file which I had run several times to fix all the paths, but apparently it didn’t fix *all* of them. So back to the database I went, ran some queries and fixed them myself.
Then the forum finally worked again!
(This is what the forum looked like when I first opened it. It ONLY had recent posts)
(The working local forum, no files yet with the default theme. Seems wrong to look at GOS without the dark theme, right?)
There were still a few things I needed to fix but the database seemed to work fine now. I had never done so many queries in my life. I know SQL, and had to fix databases before but not this intensely. So I guessed I learned something new haha.
Next was the exciting step to upload my clean install to the server. @fireflowersims and I had some directory issues, but I was able to fix them manually once again.
Then I had to take a look at the files which mostly consist of avatars and attachments. They didn’t work at all once moved to the clean install. Once again I took a look at the code and realized that the upgrade script would have changed those files as well, but because I ran it on a clean install it didn’t actually do this step.
I didn’t want to run the upgrade script again, worried that it would mess up a now working database. Instead I wrote a script myself that sorted through all the attachments, looked for the IDs of the avatars from the database so it could move and rename them.
Last were the attachments. This was an easier fix. They just had to be given the ending .dat. @fireflowersims ran a command through the console and then the attachments worked too!
We were getting closer!
Next was the theme. The old theme didn’t work on the modern framework anymore so @fireflowersims looked for a new one which I customized with CSS, trying to get it closer to the way the forum looked before. I think it turned out quite alright, hope you guys think so too!
(Trying to find out what CSS class addresses what? Make everything red and green!)
(All the spider webs)
Next was packages, or mods, to the framework. Fire and I encountered some hiccups here too, since there were some leftovers in the database. The packages hadn’t been properly deinstalled before running the upgrade script, which was another source of the errors. I tried fixing them manually but one of the packages would continue to just break the site no matter what I tried, so we settled for an alternative.
Some more work was put into SSL and making the forum secure. Once again some settings seemed to just break the page and each time I had to go back in the database and manually fix what had gone wrong. It was tedious but by now I knew my way around quite well.
@fireflowersims handled a lot of the server administrative work and DNS settings. I know very little about that part so having @fireflowersims there was great and they made sure the page is reachable at the correct address.
So yeah, I hope the site stays online for a long time now. It’s such a big part of our community and communities history. I used to download so much from there when I was younger. I wanted to give back to the community I love so much. That was the reason I spent many many hours digging through code and old forum threads.
Heyyyy, so I'm still learning my way around making Paralives CC at a snail's pace cuz I got bit by the Stardew Valley bug recently, but I did manage to convert my old HQ eye set thanks to @myshunosun's excellent tutorial!
I've also noticed some quirks when it comes to making eyes that I figured I would share for anyone else who's interested in making their own, so, notes on that below the read more!
Basics: If you're at all familiar with TS3 CC-making, you'll be pretty comfortable here. There's a grayscale texture and a tricolor mask that determines how colors are distributed by the game's color picker. By default, the eye "zones" are the sclera, outer iris, and inner iris, each one controlled by a different color on the tricolor mask. The texture formats are PNG, though, so no worries about fucking around with DDS files and channel layers (which is a relief for me, personally). The texture for the eye is about 150x150px, and it's spherical, so converting eyes from TS2 in particular will be difficult if you don't have a hi-res texture as your starting point. Not impossible, but difficult.
Separate textures: Each eye texture is separate so you can decide whether you want to mirror the texture or have completely different ones per eye, so that's neat! The same goes for the tricolor masks, so if you want to have slightly different coloration in each eye, you can.
Pupil dilation: The Paralives eye mesh reaaaaally stretches out the pupil. I'm not sure off the top of my head how this compares to the TS3 eye mesh, but for TS2 textures at least, you're going to have to shrink the pupil a lot to get it looking how it did in TS2.
Separate highlights: Exactly what it says on the tin. Highlights for the eyes are controlled by a separate resource in game, so you can mix and match them. Other people have already figured out how to make additional custom highlights but that's still above my current skill level. When making your eye texture, you'll want to blend out any preexisting highlights on the texture itself.
Sclera washout: Although you can put textures on the sclera of the eye, it renders weirdly in game. Any texture you put on it turns gray and light textures don't show up. I tried adding a little bit of pink and faint eye veins, but the changes ended up not showing up at all in game. It looked identical to the default sclera. However, some folks have managed to make changes to the sclera with darker texturing like these ones by CodeNekko, but it looks like the texture has to be very dark for it to show up.
Pupil lightening with saturated colors: The way the game renders eye colors, anything at 100 brightness causes the pupils to lighten from black to gray, even if the actual color of the pupil texture is pure black (#000000). This unfortunately includes very saturated colors that aren't actually light (such as #0000ff) but are expressed with 100 brightness on the color wheel. I did a lot of fucking around trying to mitigate this, but didn't have any luck. It might be possible if there's a way to enable a fourth color channel on eyes to control the pupils separately, but I have no idea how to go about adding additional channels to eyes or if that's even possible.
Note that I might be wrong abt some stuff or it might change in early access, this is just what I have found in the course of messing around with this one little project! Okay, hope that was helpful to some folks! Back to the Stardew spreadsheet grind lol.
Special thanks to @lordcrumps for making maxis and clean ui pics and counting pixels with me. It was his and @simnopke's idea to make this thing bigger
Some behind the scenes under the cut
Stage 1, breaking out of the tiny window
Stage 2, figuring out how to mod UI again
Stage 3, going big! But not quite there yet
Stage 4, "should I move it 1 more pixel to the left"
🤓
Secret bonus version for behind the scenes viewers who think that smaller is better, available exclusively and only in starship colors (you can only have one version)
(yes it's a reference to the ultimate collection because...it is indeed an ultimate collection)
The Lighting Mod Ultimate Collection is a lighting mod/framework that allows players to switch lighting configurations on a lot-level basis.
Now, the game itself already utilizes lot-level lighting as far back as Nightlife for Downtown lots, and some lighting mods have combined this with the usage of cheat aliases to use different lighting configurations that potentially suit different lots of neighborhoods, or using different lighting color definitions (as in Cinema Secrets's implementation of World Lit by Fire), or the lighting direction changes in Maxis Match Lighting Mod.
However, Lighting Mod Ultimate Collection takes this a step further and features five lighting mods in one setup. This means one installation and you can switch from one config to another on the fly.
By popular demand (I saw two people asking) I thought I would throw together a quick guide to using the road editor tool in the newest version of SimPE! You'll see that this is a very easy tool to use, and best of all, goof-proof. If you do mess up (you probably will) it's very, very easy to correct.
Very, very, very important to make a backup of your hood before you ever do any tinkering in SimPE! I also recommend practicing on a test hood you don't actively play in to get a feel for it before you do anything to your main hoods.
We're starting with a vanilla Strangetown. I would recommend going in your game and taking a nice overhead screenshot of the hood like this first to look at for reference of where everything is situated the way that you're used to looking at it.
2. Open SimPE, go to Tools> Neighbourhood> Neighbourhood Browser and open the hood you're wanting to work on. If you're not so familiar with SimPE, opening your hood can take some time. Touch nothing until it's loaded!
3. Once it's all loaded, from the Resource Tree list pick Neighbourhood Terrain Geometry (NHTG). Then you'll see one file populate the Resource List - click that. Make sure on the bottom that you have Plugin View tab selected.
4. Now you should see this map of your hood pop up! There are different things you can toggle, I like to check the Show Lots box when I'm editing the roads. Then click the Road Editor button on the right.
5. To be able to see better, I've pulled this Plugin View window up a bit - it may rearrange the Resource List and Resource Tree windows a bit to accommodate. You can also press the Zoom 2x button to see closer, and then you'll have to use the scroll bars to move around the map and the road editor tool.
6. The road editing tools here will be placed down in the same orientation as the map. So the two parallel roads running through Strangetown from this perspective are the vertical straight road pieces (top row, second from left).
When you select a road tool, above it will indicate which tool you have selected.
Also - I recommend having Handle Stop Signs ticked.
7. Once you have the correct type of road selected for the spot you're working on, simply click on the map - it lays it down one tile at a time. If you miss a spot like shown here, just fill it in.
8. If you want to create an intersection, first delete the section of road where the intersection will go.
9. Then choose the type of junction for the intersection you're making, and add that piece in. You'll see a red circle appear (unsure if this is because it's an intersection or because you have handle stop signs selected, but I recommend you do have that selected either way).
10. Once you're done making all your changes, click Close Editor.
11. This is the part where you save your changes! First click Commit in the top right of the editor. Then, File> Save!
12. Load your game to check! Looks pretty good with all those new roads!
13. However, we have indeed made some mistakes! Which were absolutely for illustrative purposes and not truly an accident.
14. Never fear! Simply reload the hood in SimPE - I've deleted the spot where the T-junction should go and added one in, and deleted where the road just ended abruptly and added a proper end piece.
I have not experimented with what happens if you try to build a road through hood deco - if you have, please let us know in the comments how that went!
I also have barely touched the terrain editing tools, so that's outside the scope of this tutorial.
What pisses me off the most about there being early access content for paralives is the fact that it’s an INDIE GAME. it’s not a multi million dollar company like EA. It’s an early access indie game and some of you are so fucking greedy for cash that you wanna profit off of it? We already have to deal with this shit in the sims like the community is fucking infested with it and now you wanna do this to paralives when they literally told us that we’d always be getting updates for free???? Loser behaviour. You’re a loser
I actually messaged the Paralives team abt this July of last year to get an idea of their policy regarding people charging for mods. The response I got back was that while they cannot stop people from making paid mods on external websites, the point of the Steam workshop is to "highly encourage" freely-shared mods. So, none of the mealymouthed "well you can charge for it for a little bit but eventually you have to release it for free" shit a la EA. Paid modding is not encouraged or supported, so for those of you salivating at the idea of a new customer base, enjoy having your shit reuploaded for free lmaoooo 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
