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 triggered 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.
Hi everyone! This is an experimental (WIP) mod that makes lot skirts in TS2 looking like neighborhood terrain. TSCS inspired me to create this mod; as far as you remember, TSCS has visible neighborhood decals from lot view. It is set in assembly code so that TSCS lot skirts use neighborhood techniques for mapping. Original TS2 doesn't have such functionality. LD attempted to immitate that via fake neighborhood deco but it was created for particular terrains only. So I decided to attempt editing lot skirt shader and got some results; it adds cliffs, rough and meduim stages and improves shores from lot view! Though it is not perfect as it has some misconsistency with lighting (original lot skirts also do) and doesn't repeat the neighborhood terrain mapping but I think it's more practical than neighborhood deco. Hope you like it!
Features
Adds neighborhood decals (cliffs, rough and medium terrain) to lot skirts.
Decals are also visible with snow states.
No blue snow fix is included.
Works for every neighborhood automatically.
Supports lighting mods (dusk and dawn states).
Looks better with default replacements.
Installation
Put the .package file into your Downloads folder.
Compatibility
Incompatible with shader mods that modify lot skirts so rename the file adding "zzzz" prefix to make it load last to prevent conflicts if you use many shader mods.
Doesn't conflict with other no blue snow mods that modify the rest shaders (roofs, lot terrain).
Known Issues
May look weird in dusk and dawn states using some lighting mods (still have no idea how to fix that).
Seam between lot skirt and lot terrain (original TS2 lacks lot edge blend technique like in TSCS to make smooth transition between lot terrain and lot skirt).
Lot imposter terrain paint may be invisible sometimes for unknown causes.
Terrain Types
Recently it has been discovered that it's possible to create new terrain types. My shader contains standard terrain types (temperate, desert, dirt and concrete) and uses dependence of textures on lot texture so if you add custom terrain types it's required for my shader to have added such dependencies otherwise my shader will look buggy for your custom terrain types (you are free to contact with me for more detailed information).
DOWNLOAD
Vanilla:
Anyone has had this happen to them in sims 2? I'm not referring to pink, blue or whatever flashing. Just things popping on and off (going invisible) when the camera moves or the game feels like it.
I'm talking about a fresh, unmodded install, btw, with edits for the game to recognize my GPU (as it wouldn't even launch otherwise). The only solution to this issue I've found online is to set anti-aliasing to max -which does fix the problem- but then there's the other thing which is ReShade's DoF not working without AA off.
An update for users in Brazil and the United Kingdom
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People in Brazil or in the UK, who are 18 or older, will soon need to verify their age to change content label settings and view mature-labeled content. Until then, the settings will be locked to hide.
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Questions? Contact Tumblr support or learn more about these changes here.
Oh joy, I’m now thoroughly protected against seeing pictures of Sims in swimsuits - the horror! - but never mind, I’ll still get every soft-porn ad going shoved under my nose!
How about sorting out your content labelling algorithm, @tumblr @staff, so that it actually works (and doesn’t label completely random stuff as ‘Mature’)?
Ugh, yes, I LOVE providing pictures of my personal documents to for profit foreign corporations!!!!!! YESSSSS!!!! They TOTALLY delete it, you guys! Do it!
I will VPN the hell out of something or just leave before doing that, wtf.
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).
On a frosty morning in year 615, familiar footsteps approach the unfamiliar farm. Our legacy heir, Joseph, is finally home!
Well, sort of. After five years on the road as a bard's apprentice, Joseph expected to reunite with his mother and sisters and support the family with his earnings. But their old house has been abandoned, and the village cemetery is more crowded than he remembers. Eventually, he finds himself knocking on his aunt's door, instead.
Hello, The Sims lovers 🥹 After months of work, the first episode of a new series is finally here — a nostalgic tribute to the golden era of the game and Studio Town from the original title.
This new story explores the lives of characters, creators, and Sim actors whose brightest days are behind them, as they search for a new path after the fall of STV Studios. Told through a slightly twisted lens, with a touch of dark humor and a wink to the audience, the series playfully parodies familiar stories we all know.
So hop on the nostalgia bus for anyone who misses the Superstar expansion pack, and imagine how it would look in The Sims 2 edition. I’d be incredibly grateful if you gave it a few minutes ❤️
This series is available in both POLISH (original) and ENGLISH. However, this is my first attempt at recording English dialogues, so please don’t be too harsh — I did my best! 👉👈
