House lot numbers

Downtown lot numbers

Vacation lot numbers

Unleashed Lot Numbers

Superstar Lot Numbers

Magic Town Lot Numbers

Some of the houses and lots have custom textures in them. This means that there are Walls and Floors that don't come standard in the game used in these houses. In these cases, we have included all of the floors and walls that you will need in the Zip file that you download!

Unless you have Windows Vista you will need WinZip. You can download a trial version from here.

First off you will notice there are 2 ways to download a lot. The first way to download a house is to just simply click on the Download Now link. If you want more then one house at a time, subscription members can simply put a check into the white boxes of each house you wish to download and then click the Download Selected button. This will download every house that you have a check mark in!

Now what to do with all those files? Its simple, The lot file is always the (.iff) file in the zip. That will go into your houses folder in your Sims directory. If you have Livin Large or Livin It Up installed, then you need to use the userdata folder relevant to the neighbourhood you want the lot in, so userdata 4 is neighbourhood 4.

Next are the Walls, which are always in a (.wll) format. All of the Wall files will go into your Walls folder in your Sims directory.

And last but not least are the Floor files, which are always in a (.flr) format, and they will go into your Floors folder in your Sims directory

See now wasn't that easy? If you run into any problems then take a look over at the Editing Forum or just on The General Forum and ask someone for help!

Happy House Hunting!!

Note: The basic game is limited to showing 200 textures at any time. See the FAQ for more details.

You will need WinZip. You can download a trial version from here.

Once you have the furniture you want, unzip the .iff files into the \Maxis\The Sims\Downloads\Transmogrified directory as shown below. You may need to create the Transmogrified directory, or you can place the files in any directory in \\downloads.

The next time you load the game, those items will be available to use in all their glory!

Creating your own furniture
If you would like to have a go at making your own furniture, download SimTransmogrifier from the programs page. This will allow you to clone existing furniture items, and edit them to your own design.

A tutorial on using SimTransmogrifier is included in the installation.

Choosing and downloading your skins is now quicker and easier than ever! You can download individual skins by clicking download now. Batch downloads are also available for subscription members. Clicking the download selected button will put together a zip file containing all textures on that page with a tick in the select box. It couldn't be easier!

You will need WinZip. You can download a trial version from here.

To use custom made Sim Skins and Animal Skins in the game, download the ZIP file for the skin(s) you choose. Unzip the files into the \Maxis\The Sims\GameData\Skins directory as shown below.

Once you have imported them into The Sims, you can find them on the Create A Sim screen next time you start the game (Adopt Pet screen for animals with Unleashed users). Alternatively, if you want to mix and match bodies with heads, use SimShow. This program has a detailed (read me.doc) document enclosed explaining how to do just that. When you have selected the Head and Body that you want to put into the game, click on the "import into game" button.

Remember, if you created an Adult Dark-Skinned Male, you must select this category on the Create A Sim screen to view your custom skin.

If you would like to learn more about editing skins, please see the Tutorial. You could also make use of the Editing Forum to help you on your way.

Once you have the textures you want, put the .flr files into the \Maxis\The Sims\GameData\Floors directory as seen below.

The next time you load the game, those textures will be available to use in all their glory!

Note: The basic game without expansion packs is limited to showing 200 textures at any time. See the FAQ for more details.

Designing your own floors

If you would like to have a go at making your own floors, download HomeCrafter from the programs page. This will allow you to convert your images to floor files, which the game uses.

Once you have the textures you want, put the .wll files into the \Maxis\The Sims\GameData\Walls directory as shown below.

The next time you load the game, those textures will be available to use in all their glory!

Note: The game is limited to showing 200 textures at any time. See the FAQ for more details.

Designing your own walls

If you would like to have a go at making your own walls, download HomeCrafter from the programs page. This will allow you to convert your images to wall files, which the game uses.

You will need WinZip. You can download a trial version from here.

Once you have the textures you want, put the .wll files into the \Maxis\The Sims\GameData\Walls directory, as per the Walls Help Page. The next time you load the game, those textures will be available to use in all their glory! Remember, put the mural sections together, numbered _1, _2 and _3.

The images used for several of my Murals are ©Digital Blasphemy. The Hi-res original 3d-rendered versions of these pictures (and many more) can be found at http://www.digitalblasphemy.com/. Thanks to Ryan Bliss for his kind permission for the use of these images.

Note: The basic game without expansion packs is limited to showing 200 textures at any time. See the FAQ for more details.

Designing your own murals

If you would like to have a go at making your own murals, download HomeCrafter from the programs page. This will allow you to convert your images to wall files, which the game uses.

A tutorial on using this program in included when installed, and also contains a blueprint wall to use as a template.

Create your walls in any graphics package like Paintshop Pro or PhotoShop. Each image must be 128x240 pixels in size, and produced in 256 colour bitmap (.bmp) format.

Once loaded into HomeCrafter you will be able to give the wall section a name and price and a description if you wish.

You will need WinZip. You can download a trial version from here.

The 4 default roofs have file names r1_.bmp to r4_.bmp. Files at TSR will be named r5_.bmp unwards.

If you already have files with these names, you will need to rename them, or you will overwrite them. If you have not already added any roof files already you should not encounter any problems. The next time you load the game, those textures will be available to use in all their glory!

Designing your own roofs
If you would like to have a go at making your own roofs, create your textures in any graphics package like Paintshop Pro or PhotoShop.

The image must be 32x32 pixels in size, and produced in 256 colour bitmap (.bmp) format.

If you have Hot Date, or are getting it, custom skin sets (formals, swim suits, and pajamas) won't work normally. BUT! It's actually even better than before. There's a new folder:

C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\ExpansionPack3\SkinsBuy

And you can put your own files in so that sims can buy them Downtown. The naming works like this:

Formals:
F###SexAgeBodytypeSkintone_nameofskin.bmp
F###SexAgeBodytype_nameofskin.cmx
xskin-F###SexAgeBodytype_nameofskin-PELVIS-BODY.skn

Pajamas:
L###SexAgeBodytypeSkintone_nameofskin.bmp
L###SexAgeBodytype_nameofskin.cmx
xskin-L###SexAgeBodytype_nameofskin-PELVIS-BODY.skn

Swimsuits:
S###SexAgeBodytypeSkintone_nameofskin.bmp
S###SexAgeBodytype_nameofskin.cmx
xskin-S###SexAgeBodytype_nameofskin-PELVIS-BODY.skn

"###" is the mesh number
"Sex" is F or M (for female or male)
"Age" is A (for adult; the folder doesn't have any child skins in it)
"Bodytype" is Fit, Skn, or Fat (for fit, skinny, or fat)
"Skintone" is Drk, Lgt, or Med (for dark, light, or medium)
"nameofskin" is the name of the skin--it can be anything

After you find a file you want to download, click the "download" link and the window shown in Figure 1 will pop up. You are asked if you would like to save the file, select Save (or Yes depending on your Windows version)

Figure 1

After clicking save, a window like in Figure 2 will pop up asking where you wish to save the downloaded file. Browse until you find the folder you wish to save the file to and click on the save button. This has now saved the downloaded file to your computer"s hard drive.

Figure 2

Now that the file has been downloaded to your computer, we can now begin the process of unzipping it to the appropriate folder in your Sims directory. Using Windows Explorer, browse to the folder where you saved the zip file in the above 2 steps. You will see an icon that looks like a filing cabinet with a vice attached to it. As you can see in Figure 3 it the file has the correct icon and also the same file name as the file we had downloaded from the Skins Database on The Sims Resource.

To begin the unzipping process, we simply double left click the appropriate icon and it will start up WinZip for us.

Figure 3

When WinZip starts up it will display the screen as shown in Figure 4 if you are using the trial version of WinZip. Simply click the "I Agree" button to continue.

Figure 4

WinZip will open it"s control Window. Be sure that you are using WinZip in it's "Classic" mode instead of "Wizard". In Figure 5 you can see all of the files contained within the zip file which you downloaded. These are the contents of the zip file and are the files that The Sims needs to be able to use the skin in the game. There are large icon buttons above the view window, click the extract button.

Figure 5

After clicking the extract button, you will be brought to a screen which asks you to select a folder to extract to. In Figure 6 we see a Folders/drives window. Here you will browse until you see a folder that represents C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Gamedata\Skins. This folder is where you wish to extract the files into. Make sure that the Skins folder is highlighted as shown in Figure 6 and then press the Extract button on the top right of the window. After the files are extracted, you can close the WinZip window and the files will have been placed in the appropriate folder.

Figure 6

Extracting for other download types is done in the same manner. The only different is the folder which you extract to using WinZip as in Figure 6.

Please note that Walls and Floors are NOT zipped. These should just be saved to the correct folder.

File Type Download Folders to extract Zip contents to (The Sims 1 Only):

Objects (Furniture and Other Items) C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Downloads

Walls (Files of .wll) C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Gamedata\Walls

Floors (Files of .flr) C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Gamedata\Floors

Houses (HouseXX.iff) C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\UserdataXX\Houses

(The Sims itself has one userdata folder where as the expansions have multiple userdata folders representing the various neighborhoods)

Animal Skins should be treated as Sim Skins, and go in the /skins folder.

Please refer to Installing Sims 2 Custom Content for help with Sims 2 files.