SimPE Question, Please Help

[Sugarpumpkin]

Hi guys, I have a little matter that i would have answer to. It is pretty simple question about the SimPE most likely. But it is several years i have played the sims 2 and also used SimPE, so the question might sound stupid for some, so bare with me, ok! It is about creating package files.

I have a LOT of package files in my sims 2 downloads folder and i would like to tidy it, in hopes of saving some space. I know you can make package collections for the sims 3 with S3PE. For example all jeans clothes for teens and make it in one and the same package. So now I am wondering can I do that with sims 2 packages too...Lets say, put all pinup clothes in one and single package file, like i did with the sims 3 packages i had so many of?! Please let me know!? I do not want to do something stupid so the game starts to crash...

[HobbesED]

My Sims3 playing was short-lived, so I don't know what was possible there. For Sims2 and saving space, the only times I've heard of combining multiple clothing items into one package file is when they share either textures or meshes with the other items in the package file. Chris Hatch did that frequently with the clothing used for all the female bodyshapes in his expansions. He may have an account here although he has been active at the Mamba City site. Chris would be a good person to ask if no one here knows of a way.

More often, I've heard of people using some sort of compression program on their Downloads to reduce the space used. I'm not sure what it is nor do I know anything about it. Perhaps someone can give you more information about that if you don't find anything doing an Internet search. I've not used any compression for my Sims2 files. I would proceed carefully with that though as that could have a risk of making the files unreadable by the game.

I have more than 20 GB and nearly 50,000 files in my Downloads folder. The "tidying" I do for the files is arranging them in subfolders by age and bodyshape or by function. In the game I use the BodyShop Organization Kit (BSOK) to sort like sized clothing together in CAS and BodyShop. I've not combined files or compressed them. They're still in "normal" Sims2 form.

[Theraven]

You can use the TS2 Compressorizer to reduce file size, but it's really only useful for clothes when they've had textures replaced in SimPE. Clothes directly from Bodyshop rarely reduces more in size than 20-50 kb.

You can combine some files, but I don't think there's a program to do it. You can extract all the resources from one file and import them (both via right-clicking the Resource View) into one file, but it doesn't work for everything. I think you can combine recolors for one particular object into the object mesh package, possibly also for clothes (but I'm not sure about meshes), but make sure you test the files before you delete the originals.

Also be aware that if you package sims and houses, these modified files will be added to the house, and there's always the potential of breakage in other people's games, so give them warnings first if you intend to upload something.