The Sims Resource

Basements Quick and Easy part 1

News postAuthor: KiduJoJolePublished: Jun 13, 2010Comments: 1

1. Start out by using the wall tool to lay out the outer perimeter of your house's foundation.

1. Lay out the foundation

You can put a lot of planning into exactly where things will be in your new home, or you can do what I just did and sort of wing it. At this point I really don't know what the finished house will look like but I thought that since this is corner lot, a nice turrety kinda thing will look nice in the neighborhood.

I figured I wanted a front porch that's six squares wide and the rest is just sort of intuitive, based on whatever instinct I've developed from building lots and lots of houses in The Sims 2.

2. Now we need to establish the level of the basement floor.

In The Sims 2, using the shovel tool to move terrain up or down 16 clicks will be exactly the height of a wall. A normal foundation on level terrain is 4 clicks high, and so is a short staircase. So let's save ourselves a lot of time and just use the stair tool as our measuring guide.

2. The staircase tool takes us down 4 clicks.

If we start at the lower landing of the stair we just built and go down another level, and then do it once more, we end up exactly 12 clicks below ground. We want our basement walls to extend 4 clicks above ground to accommodate a normal foundation height, so now we know just the right level!

3. Three flights of stairs down takes us to the depth we need.

Now, while have the stair tool in hand, just hold down the control key and delete the stairs. They served us well as a measuring device but now we are done with them. I put a floor tile on the bottom level to make it easier to see where we are.

4. Delete the stairs. They were just a measuring tool.

Now it's time to level out our whole basement floor. With the shovel's "level terrain" tool selected, we start at the one square and sweep toward the outer walls, stopping 1 square short of the perimeter.

5. Flatten the basement floor out to 1 square short of the perimeter.

Release the shovel tool and the floor flattens out. Now you can see why we stopped 1 square short. Those outermost squares become the sloping sides of the basement.

6. The squares nearest the outer perimeter form the sloping cliff face.

If you go too near the edge, the game will whine at you.

7. You can't select the squares right at the edge.

8. When you hit red, back off one square and let it flatten.

Incidentally, that's Wilhelm Smythe watching the construction in progress. He's just here to keep me company while I'm digging.

9. You can get a couple of more squares of flat floor from those bays, giving the basement a more interesting shape.

10. Sometimes you can sneak up on a sloping edge to flatten a little bit more basement floor.

11. Our excavation is done!

I don't like to leave green turf on the sloping walls. In this house I fixed that by paving over the entire basement in concrete. That was easy to do because the perimeter walls are still there. I just selected one tile in the basement and held down the shift key.

12. Pouring the concrete.

Now we're ready to add the foundation. Start by deleting the perimeter walls. Then construct a foundation just one square wide all around the perimeter.

You select where you want the foundation to go by selecting (1) the top outer corner of the starting square and sweeping to (2) the bottom corner of the ending square, diagonally opposite where you started.

13. Build the foundation with its outer wall right along the cliff face and its inner wall on the basement floor.

14. See how it works?

Work your way around the perimeter, always starting on the foundation you've already built. This assures that you have a consistent level for the whole first floor of your house.

15. Turn the corner and build the next segment.

16. Use the diagonal foundation tool to line up the outer edge where you need it.

17. Keep working your way around, building the foundation along the edge of the cliff.

18. The concrete we poured earlier gives us a nice reference for the diagonal edges.

Installation Order for Expansion Packs

News postAuthor: KiduJoJolePublished: Jun 13, 2010Comments: 1

Although there are no specific instructions from EA on how to install or reinstall all the Expansion Packs and Stuff Packs for The Sims 2, conventional wisdom seems to think that it's a good idea to install them in the order that they were published:

Base Game: The Sims 2* September 17, 2004
Patch: The Sims 2
Expansion Pack: University March 2, 2005
Patch: University
Expansion Pack: Nightlife September 13, 2005
Patch: Nightlife
Expansion Pack: Open For Business March 2, 2006
Patch: Open For Business
Stuff Pack: Family Fun Stuff April 13, 2006
Patch: Family Fun
Stuff Pack: Glamour Life Stuff August 13, 2006
Expansion Pack: Pets October 17, 2006
Stuff Pack: Happy Holiday Stuff** November 2006
Patch: Pets Body Shop December 2006
Patch: Pets Not published yet.
Expansion Pack: Seasons Probably coming in March 2007

You can also download this list in a printer-friendly Microsoft Word file. (That's .doc format.)

IMPORTANT: If you have a working game, back up your entire game before installing any of the expansion packs!

Yes, it does take a lot of time and a huge amount of disk space to make a backup copy of your game, and there's almost half a chance that you won't need the backup. Nevertheless do it! The fan boards are filled with sob stories from people who didn't make a backup first; you don't want to be one of them!

All you need to do is:

select your The Sims 2 folder,
control-C to copy,
navigate to somewhere else on your machine, and
control-V to paste.

Then take a long break while your machine copies the files.

If you are installing from scratch, it's going to take you all day to reinstall this software. You can afford the time it will take for your computer to make a copy of your The Sims 2 folder. If you have a separate physical disk drive installed in your computer it's a really good idea to send the backup copy to that disk so that you will be protected from a hardware failure.

*The Sims 2 Holiday Edition includes Holiday Party Pack, released November 17, 2005

**The Happy Holiday Stuff Pack includes the original Holiday Party Pack with about 20 new items added.

How to Edit Family Relationships in SimPE

News postAuthor: KiduJoJolePublished: Jun 13, 2010Comments: 0

How to Edit Family Relationships in SimPE
Part 1

1. Open SimPE.
2. Select a neighborhood.
3. Make a backup of the neighborhood.
4. Did you make a backup?

5. Open the neighborhood, and make sure you're opening the right one!*
6. Are you sure you want to make the planned changes to this house?

How to Edit Family Relationships in SimPE
Part 2

Select a sim whose relationships we will mangle.

If the family you want isn't the one selected when you first open the Family Ties tool (which is very likely), look in part 5 of this tutorial (below) for how to find the right family and how to pick people from other households.

In this case, our victim is Andrea Hogan in Bonnyview Shores. Andrea is the target because when I opened the Family Ties tool, the Hogan family happened to be the one selected. I saw that Andrea was living with two people and related to neither of them so they had the misfortune of becoming the victims for this exercise.

How to Edit Family Relationships in SimPE
Part 3

Now let's add Sophie Miguel to Andrea's family.

RIGHT-click on the target sim.

Note that Andrea is still selected and we are still in the Hogan household. I right-click on Sophie to select her. The menu pops up and I choose to add Sophie to Andrea's family.

Make Sophie Miguel a child of Andrea Hogan.

Click on Sophie in the family area to select her. Then use the pull-down menu at the bottom of the window to make her Andrea's child.

How to Edit Family Relationships in SimPE
Part 4

Now to try something really weird. Let's marry teen Skylar Bear to adult Andrea Hogan. Right-click on Sklyar, add him to Andrea's family, and then select "spouse" from the pull-down at the bottom of the window.

Skylar Bear and Andrea Hogan are married.
Note that males are highlighted in blue and females in pink.

In any other neighborhood, they might have thought it odd for Skylar to get married while he was still in high school, but this is, after all, Bonnyview Shores, where normalcy is the only weirdness.

Andrea thought it was just a passing fancy, a mere dalliance, but Skylar takes his responsibilities seriously. Here is the real reason he married Andrea:

Skylar is Sophie's father!

To complete Sophie's set of parents, I selected her in the left-hand column. Then I right-clicked on Skyar to add him to her family.

Skylar came in as Sophie's sibling. I changed that to make him Sophie's father. Sophie is a teenager, so he must be having a terrible time getting through high school. Maybe it's all the time he spends working that cash register at the local supermarket; no time for studies. We all know that Sophie is quite precocious but until tonight I had no idea just how precocious she is!

How to Edit Family Relationships in SimPE
Part 5

You can add sims from all over the neighborhood to your sim's family.

The pull-down in the upper left selects a family.

If you have Andrea selected and choose a family other than "Hogan" she will disappear. However, if you choose "All Households" she'll stick around and you can add anybody to her family.

Michelle Kearney and Andrea Hogan are sisters!

How to Edit Family Relationships in SimPE
Part 6

Skylar finally found out who his real parents are. Now he wishes he didn't know.

Parents for Skylar

Even NPC's can be parents. Skylar learned that he was Gary Hiatt's woods colt, out of the furshlugginer Social Worker! No wonder she is the way she is! She couldn't keep her own child so now she runs around kidnapping other people's children!

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHH!

I faithfully backed up Bonnyview Shores before I made that mess. Then when I started my game I went looking among the gazillions of houses in Bonnyview Shores for the Hogan family.

They're not there! I was editing Lake Dorothy! shocked

But oh, it gets worse! Sophie Miguel's family tree turned out fine...

... b'b'b'but...

And if it's not bad enough that she's going steady with her father, look at how she feels about her mother!

Aaarrrggghh! So much for the sane society of Lake Dorothy!

Something in my room?

News postAuthor: RetroColourPublished: Jun 13, 2010

I am so bored.. Hard day ... (Not)
The weather is not helping.
Sooo bored... Deepp sleeeeeeeeeeeep

How to create Cheat Shortcut

News postAuthor: KiduJoJolePublished: Jun 13, 2010Comments: 0

I can't remember who first told me how do to this, but for those who frequently use cheats for building houses, this tutorial should save you a lot of time when making a house.

First, open up the "My Computer" icon on your desktop and go to:
C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Config\

Note: if you are using Sims2 university, go to: C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2 University\TSData\Res\Config\ instead.
In that folder, you will see a file called globalStartup.cheat

Right-click on the file, and select "Open With..." from the menu.
Choose to open the file with Notepad and select OK

The file should open, and will look something like this:

#
# Sims2 global startup cheat file - this file is run on startup of the
# game application. It's meant to reflect "production defaults".
#
# Do not modify this file locally -- instead create
# UserData/userStartup.cheat and modify that.
#
# ----------
# alias real command brief help full help
# ----------
alias exit hide "Hide the cheat console window" "Hide the cheat console window"
alias x expand "*Expand the cheat console window" "Hide the cheat console window"
alias h help "*Show the cheat help" "Show the cheat help"
alias ? help "*Show the cheat help" "Show the cheat help"
# ----------

Now what we are going to do is add a couple of our own commands as shown below...

#------------------------------------------------------------------
# mikeInside Cheat Shortcuts
#------------------------------------------------------------------

alias m "moveObjects on" "Enables the ability to move normally unmovable objects" ""
alias m- "moveObjects off" "Disables the ability to move normally unmovable objects" ""

alias s "boolProp snapObjectsToGrid false" "Lets you move objects off the grid" ""
alias s- "boolProp snapObjectsToGrid true" "Makes objects snap to the grid" ""

alias f "boolprop constrainFloorElevation false" "Enables the ability to change terrain even when there is a building on it" ""
alias f- "boolprop constrainFloorElevation true" "Disables the ability to change terrain even when there is a building on it" ""

alias t "boolprop testingCheatsEnabled true" "Enables a lot of hidden features that can be accessed by holding shift when clicking on objects" ""
alias t- "boolprop testingCheatsEnabled false" "Disables a lot of hidden features that can be accessed by holding shift when clicking on objects" ""

alias party "intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims 50" "Allows you to throw big parties when activated on the neighbourhood screen" ""

#------------------------------------------------------------------

Select this text, and then copy and paste it into Notepad, below the text that is already there.

Save the file, and exit Notepad.

Now, when you run the game, you will be able to activate cheats just by typing in a single letter instead of the whole word.

To turn on one of these new cheats, hold down CTRL, SHIFT and C to open up the cheat dialog. Then just type in the letter that corresponds to the cheat of your choice and hit the enter key.

To turn off the cheat, type the same letter that you used to turn it on, except with a "-" after it. For example, to turn off the moveObjects cheat, you would type "m-"

Here is a table of the cheats I included....

Cheat	What it does...
m	Enables the ability to move normally unmovable objects
s	Lets you move objects off the grid
f	Enables the ability to change terrain even when there is a building on it
t	Enables a lot of hidden features that can be accessed by holding shift when clicking on objects
party	Allows you to throw big parties if you activate it on the neighbourhood screen

You could even try adding your own cheat shortcuts to the file.
For example, this piece of code:
alias cash "motherlode" "" ""
...would allow you to get $50,000 just by typing "cash" into the cheat console.

Cappuccino Bedroom Set

News postAuthor: mensurePublished: Jun 13, 2010Comments: 2

Hi everyone!

I have a new set and I wanted to share it with you. Cappuccino Bedroom Set.

(bed, end table, dresser, lamp, tray and OMSP for beds)

Rug belongs to Cappuccino Livingroom Set.

(bed, end table, dresser, lamp, blanket, tray and OMSP for beds)

Rug belongs to Cappuccino Livingroom Set

Hello Everyone!! My First Few Creations...

News postAuthor: modern_designsPublished: Jun 13, 2010Comments: 2

Hi i thought i would start tsr with a blog post! To show my first new creations that will be uploaded when tsr submission is working on my computer. Check them out...

vacation next week

News postAuthor: openhousejackPublished: Jun 13, 2010Comments: 0

I will be going to San Francisco for a week next week. I'll try to update before I go; otherwise I'll do it when I come back

Have a great summer every one

Old Fashioned Community Lots

News postAuthor: missyzimPublished: Jun 12, 2010Comments: 4

Hi everyone! I've finished and submitted the last of my community lots. I may create more later and would be happy to take requests if anyone wants something specific. I'm working on 3 townhouses to go with the series which will be similar in style to the market. The one below is just about finished. Thanks so much to everyone who downloaded my lots or who left me comments. I'm so glad others like my creations and I really appreciate getting feedback. Happy simming! Missy