Hi. This is a tuning mod I made because I was sick and tired of turning off the 'masculine' filter in every outfit, or every time I picked a new makeup category, or literally any other time, ever. I hate it. If I want to sort by fashion choice, I'll apply the filter myself, dammit!!
Here's how it works: When you go to dress your sim, or put hair on them, or whatever, it prevents the game from applying the 'masculine' or 'feminine' fashion choice filter automatically. That's it.
You can still pick a fashion preference in gender settings, and you can still manually apply the masculine/feminine filters if you want to use them. This also shouldn't conflict with any other mods to my knowledge, and is confirmed compatible with Maars' Breast and Pregnancy gender options.
Disclaimer: when the game generates outfits for randos in CAS, and also for random NPCs, it will pick indiscriminately from masc and fem styles, so you may end up with random gender non-conforming sims walking around town. This is not a problem for me and its well worth the CAS convenience imo, but if you don't want that to happen, either don't get this mod, or uninstall it when you're done playing in CAS and switch to live mode.
No screenshots for this one bc there's not much to show. I've been using it for a couple sims now and haven't had any issues, but if you notice this causing any unforeseen problems in game then let me know, I'll try and figure it out.
This typewriter is now retired and no longer supported! I haven't played TS4 in a long time and haven't kept up with the updates so certain interactions may not function any more.
This typewriter uses custom tuning. For more information on the tuning process, and a more detailed changelog, see this post.
DL link and wall of text regarding interactions after the cut!
September 15, 2021 Edit: Version 3 is now out! Please replace any previous versions with MadameRiaTypewriterOTGv3. You cannot have both in your game at the same time!
What’s new in version 3:
Freelance writing career should now be fully functional! My testing abilities were not so great when I first made this mod, and I completely missed how the game checks for objective completion. This should be resolved now.
Basically a re-do of the custom tuning, making it much simpler thanks to @ravasheencc‘s help
I can't be the only person with an aspiring author Sim that wants to isolate themselves off-the-grid in a cabin and write novels nonstop, write right? (Actually, I believe this is a Secret Simblr Wish over at @maxismatchccworld, though I’d started working on this before I saw the request)
Colored in @serindipitysims‘s The Historian Palette because it may have been the obvious choice, but it was also the right choice. (Plus two swatches that I was using while I was testing everything, because I'm partial to multiples of 5).
I'm really, really proud of how this typewriter came out! I edited the mesh from the base game Writer's Lore object, and then I went and re-textured about 90% of the darned thing. I even made a custom specular map for it! Let me know if you feel like it's still too shiny!
Теперь переведено на русский язык! Машинка скачать здесь! Спасибо SofiRing!
A big thank you to SofiRing of the Mods Hunters translation group! She reached out to me to let me know that she translated my OTG Typewriter into Russian!
What you can do with this typewriter:
Pretty much every writing interaction (Practice writing, write books, write jokes, compose comedy routines)
Pen Pal Interactions
Freelance Writing Career
Limited Interactions for the Conservationist, Detective, Education, Gardener, Law, Military, Social Media, Style Influencer, Writer Careers (Essentially the same as the Freelance limitations - nothing that would obviously require internet)
Write Dollhouse Story, Practice Typing
Write Love Letter (changed from Write Love Email)
Write About Feelings (changed from Blog About Feelings)
Write Term Papers/Study for University Courses
You can put this typewriter in your inventory and drag it in live mode, but like a laptop, will only place on desks/dining tables.
What you can't do with this typewriter:
Essentially, anything that would only make sense with a screen or internet connection
Go on Vacation/Purchase Property
January 16, 2024 Edit:
This typewriter is now retired and no longer supported! I haven't played TS4 in a long time and haven't kept up with the updates so certain interactions may not function any more.
How to Add a Single Flame to Your Candle (Base Game) Part 1
A huge thanks to @ravasheencc for teaching me how to do this in the first place!
So far, there is no base game candle that has a single flame that works the way lights do, so in order to make one that is Base Game Compatible, we have to create our own custom tuning. Because I wanted to be very detailed, this tutorial will have a lot of images and will be broken up into multiple parts.
This tutorial assumes you have already created the mesh for your candle. It is best that you go through the steps of this tutorial before you add swatches to your candle, as you will need to edit the Object Definition for each swatch.
This tutorial will not teach you how to give your candle a light source. That requires vertex paint in Blender and you can find a tutorial for that here.
You will need:
Sims 4 Studio
Andrew’s Studio Effect Player (scroll past the Pose Player) - Get it here
Blender (Optional)
Part 1: Adding Candle Tuning
If you created your mesh by cloning a candle that functions like a light, you can skip this section and go straight to Part 2: Creating Custom Candle Flame Tuning.
If you did not create your mesh by cloning a candle, you will need to change the tuning of your object so that it will have the correct tuning for us to use as a base in the later steps.
1. Open Sims 4 Studio, click “Selective Clone” and then click “Object”.
I filtered by Base Game, then searched “candle” to quickly find the “A Story of Three Candles” object. Click “Next”
Click “OK” and when prompted, save this package somewhere you can find it with a name you will recognize. I named mine “Candle Reference”.
2. Navigate to the Warehouse tab of the candle you just cloned.
Locate and click on the Object Definition, and on the right side in the Data tab, look for the line that states the Tuning ID number. We will be copying that number in the next step. For the candle I cloned, the tuning ID is 154731.
3. Open your candle package and navigate to the Warehouse tab.
In the Object Definition of your candle, scroll to the TuningId entry and enter the tuning ID (in my example it was 154731). Your candle now uses the same tuning as other candles and will have the interactions to turn it on/off and set the light color and intensity.
However, the candle that we cloned has three flames, and we only want one flame. This means we have to create custom tuning. As I’ve reached limit of images I can put in one post, Creating Custom Candle Flame Tuning will be covered in the next part of this tutorial, linked below.
How to Add a Single Flame to Your Candle (Base Game) Part 2
Part 2: Creating Custom Candle Flame Tuning
If you did not create your mesh by cloning a candle, you will need to change the tuning of your object so that it will have the correct tuning for us to use as a base in the later steps. Learn how to do that in Part 1 of this tutorial.
1. To create our custom candle flame tuning, we will first need to extract the tuning our candle references.
In your candle’s package, click on Tools, then click Extract Tuning. It can take a while for Sims 4 Studio to load all the tuning.
When it is done loading, enter the tuning Id number of your candle. If you don’t know the tuning Id of your candle, you can find it by looking at the Object Definition in the Warehouse tab and scrolling until you find the entry called “TuningId”. The tuning Id for my candle is 154731. Select the tuning entry that shows up and click “Add to current package”. You can close the Export Tuning window.
2. In the Warehouse tab, go to the Object Tuning you just added to your package. To make sure our custom tuning doesn’t over-write anything in the game and create conflicts, we are going to rename this tuning which will generate a new TuningId for us.
In the Data tab of our Object Tuning, go to the Name entry and replace it with a new name. It is important that you use the format EA has requested tuning modders use. This format is creator name:tuning name. Some people will add the date to make it more specific and unique, so for me, the new tuning name will be madameria:object_tuning_singleflamecandle12172020. We do this so that we don’t accidentally name different tunings the same thing and cause mod conflicts.
When you are satisfied with the name, hit “Enter”.
Sims 4 Studio will generate a unique Tuning Id number based on the name you have entered.
3. In the Warehouse tab, go to the Object Definition and paste the new Tuning Id you just created. I like to paste the Tuning Name too, just to be consistent.
4. Now that we have set up our candle’s tuning to be unique, we can modify the visual effect so that it only has one flame.
This is where Andrew’s Studio Effect Player comes in. I won’t go over how to use it because his post has instructions, but the important thing to know is that you can use it and his link to the list of all in-game effects to find the visual effect you want to use.
Andrew’s Studio post has a link to a list of all in-game effects. Even when effects come from DLC, they are actually all base game compatible.
Since I am looking for a candle flame effect, I did a text search (Ctrl+F) for the word “candle” and looked for a little bit until I came across an effect name that seemed like it might do the job. Mostly, I was looking for an effect that said “candle” instead of “candles”.
After checking a short list in game using Andrew’s Effect Player, the effect I picked was “ep03_light_floor_metal_candle”.
5. Go into your candle’s custom tuning, and in the XML tab, scroll until you find the lines highlighted in the image above. If you can’t see the image, the lines you’re looking for should be:
<V n=“visual_effect” t=“enabled”>
<U n=“enabled”>
<T n=“effect_name”>
Your candle’s original visual effect should be listed after <T n=“effect_name”>. In my example, it is s40_Obj_lightTablemedium_EF09GENcandle. This is the visual effect that creates three flames.
Now replace that visual effect name with the one you chose from Andrew’s Studio Effect list. So for me, I replaced s40_Obj_lightTablemedium_EF09GENcandle with the effect I chose, ep03_light_floor_metal_candle.
6. Save your package and test your candle in the game.
We have a single flame, but it is too high! To fix this, we will need to edit the _FX_:Position of our candle in the Rigs/Slots tab.
To lower our flame effect, we will need to decrease the Z coordinate of the _FX_:Position. Since the coordinate is already at 0, our end result will be a negative number.
Note: The _FX_ rig is displayed in Sims 4 Studio as an orange pyramid, but because it is at the coordinates (0,0,0) it is hidden from view.
You can approximate how much you would have to lower the effect and experiment through trial and error, but in the third and final part of this tutorial (linked below) I will go over a more precise method of adjusting the flame’s position. For this to work, you will need to know the source of your candle’s new visual effect.
Part 3: Adjusting Candle Flame Position With Blender
I've wanted a way to just write off-the-grid for a while now, so I'm working on making something for that! I modified the Writer's Lore typewriter to be a functional computer.
I'm not sure if there's a better way to do what I'm doing, but my method requires a bunch of custom tuning, so I need to refine it a little (and retexture it!) before I'll be ready to share the first version. I know a lot of people want variants on this concept, so I'm open to suggestions on what interactions you'd want available/disabled. So far, I've left only the writing/writing-adjacent interactions (like writing jokes, some of the freelance options), but would people want a super-historical-immersion version?
Because this typewriter required a bunch of custom tuning to make it work off-the-grid, I wanted to make a post specifically detailing the changes for future reference/if I need to update things/for anyone interested. To locate my tuning changes in the object tuning, you can text search for madameria.
Updates for V3 (September 15, 2021):
A huge thanks to Ravasheen and ChippedSim for helping me figure out some things! The freelance careers should work now, and everything is much simpler... because now:
Instead of a bunch of custom tuning for every interaction, there is just the object tuning, that has been given a bypass to the lot power test. It is made to always pass, and means that every other computer interaction will work because it still thinks it’s “powered”.
Updates for V2.1 (April 9, 2021):
Added a Russian translation to the strings table. Thank you to SofiRing of the Mods Hunters group for the translation!
Updates for V2 (March 25, 2021, patch 1.72.28):
Fixed weights for LOD 1. The typewriter should no longer move around when sims use the “mouse”.
The typewriter should now be enabled for live drag, go into Sims’s inventories and storage boxes, and upon selecting “Place in World” Sims should now place the typewriter on a desk/table instead of the floor.
Removed the following Object Definition Component tags:
Func_Computer
Func_Game
Func_Laptop
Func_Lifestyles_Electronic
Func_Programming
Func_VideoGaming
Removing these tags should eliminate the computer interactions that are added by tag instead of being explicitly in the tuning (like the “Change Passwords” interaction that appears for Paranoid Sims)
Changed the broken VFX and audio SFX to the ones used in the Milton Word Processor.
Moved the _FX_repair position
Changed the Eco Lifestyle client state to be default for “Energy Efficient Upgrade Completed”. This way the typewriter shouldn’t count against the Eco NAPs. Unfortunately, I think it will still incur a fine for violating the Good Old Days NAP because it is still recognized as a computer.
Removed the tooltip display test for the Energy Efficient Device state (”+Green Eco Footprint”) to effectively hide that the typewriter has been upgraded. I did this so that it wouldn’t stick out and be anachronistic for historical saves.
Made changes to the Utilities Client States so the typewriter shouldn’t be stealthily consuming power. The base value for Power Consumption is now 0, so the modifiers should be meaningless.
Removed the ECC RAM upgrade interaction.
Original Post (Dec. 20, 2020):
There’s already an off-the-grid tutorial by Zora (link here) which helped a bunch with the function and catalogue tags. Unfortunately, there is no off-the-grid computer, so there wasn’t any OTG computer functionality to replicate. I looked at the tuning, and for nearly every interaction, there is a utility check:
I think that this is a check if the lot has power, which takes into account power generation from things like solar panels and windmills.
After creating a custom Object Tuning (cloned from the game’s computer tuning), I removed all the references to things that wouldn’t make sense on a typewriter (like playing video games or browsing the web). Then I made every interaction that was left its own custom interaction (so it wouldn’t override the regular computer interactions) and removed the utility check. I have no idea if there is a simpler/more efficient way to do this without having it affect every computer, but this is how I made it work.
There is a pretty long list of all the tuning that I changed, but it’s all in the typewriter package. With the exception of the actual Object Tuning, I named each customized Interaction Tuning file with the “madameria:CustomTypewriter_” prefix and left the original interaction name intact so the original tuning should be easy to locate and extract.
I also changed the strings for Blog About Feelings (to Write About Feelings) and Write Love Email (to Write Love Letter).
