How to Use Sim Surgery with SimPE

[SenkoTwiik]

Hello Everyone,
This is my first tutorial. I wrote it for Nightwish, but I decided to upload it here for everyone that needs help with this. With this tutorial you will learn how to:
a. Change a sim's skintone.
b. Change a sim's face.
c. Change a sim's eye color.

First things first. I have heard mixed messages about Sim Surgery. Some people say you should not use it unless you are just trying to remove bugs, and others say that it is safe to use for vanity porposes. This is my warning on this subject:

**Please be sure to back up all of your sims files before attempting this. Though I have had 100% success rate with all of my sim surgeries (and I have done a lot), but for safety precautions, copy your files onto a disk.**

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Now let's get started. Before you can do surgery on a sim, you need to first make sure that there is an existing sim (IN GAME not just in Bodyshop) that has either the skintone, eyes, or face that you want your sim to have. If there is not currently a sim existing that has what you will be putting on your sim, we will call this "Patient Sim" from now on, you need to create one, and we will call this new sim that you create for the change, "Archetype Sim"
So, if you need to make an Archetype Sim, do so:

1. Start up your Sims2 game.
2. Choose a neighborhood (both the Patient Sim and the Archetype Sim need to be from the same neighborhood).
3. After the neighborhood loads, go to the CAS or "Create A Sim/Family" screen.
4. Once that loads, create your Archetype Sim (Your Archetype Sim should be the same age and gender as the Patient Sim).
5. Be sure to include on this sim either your skintone, face, or eyes, and save the sim. Give it an easy name that you will remember, something like "Sim No 1." or "No 1. Archetype"
6. Wait for the neighborhood to reload. Make sure that your sim is in the family menu.
7. Quit your game.

You will now be back on the desktop of your computer. This is where we get to the actual Sim Surgery.

8. Open SimPE, and wait until everything loads. Your screen should look like this if you have the .68 version.
[ATTACH]123552[/ATTACH]
9. Go to the "Tools" menu at the top of the screen and click "Neighborhood" then "Neighborhood Browser"
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10. Choose which neighborhood you want, and then choose "Open" This may take some time to load.
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11. Go back to the "Tools" menu again. Go to "Neighborhood" and "Sim Surgery"
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12. You will see a menu called "Sim Pool" on the left of this new screen. You will also notice two empty boxes on the right, one labeled "Patient Sim" and the other labeled "Archetype Sim"
[ATTACH]123563[/ATTACH]
13. Scroll through the Sim Pool until you find the sim that you want to opperate on. Click it once so that it is highlighted in blue.
14. Once your Patient Sim is highlighted, click "Use" under the "Patient Sim" box. The picture of your sim should now show up in the box.
[ATTACH]123556[/ATTACH]
15. Scroll through the Sim Pool again, until you find the sim that you just made, the sim that I called "Sim No 1." Click that one once too, so that it is highlighted in blue.
16. Now click "Use" under the Archetype Sim box. The picture of this sim should show up in that box.
[ATTACH]123557[/ATTACH]
17. Look back up by the Patient Sim box, and you should see three options.
"Face Only"
"Makeup Only"
"Eyes Only"
"Skintone Only"
Check whichever part of your sim that you are going to be changing. (I didn't add the Makeup Only part to this tutorial, because there is not a lot of call for it). Your screen should now look like one of these.
[ATTACH]123559[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123560[/ATTACH]
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18. Once this is checked, click Surgery at the bottom of the screen. A warning may come up, but ignore it and choose "Continue" if it does.
19. You will now be taken to the original SimPE screen, but a picture of your sim will be in the lower screen with your sim's information beside it. Your sim WILL NOT look any different than before in this picture.
20. There will be a box that says "Commit" at about the middle right of the screen. Click it.
[ATTACH]123562[/ATTACH]
21. Close SimPE, and when it asks if you want to save the changes, choose Yes.

Your sim should now have the changes that you want. Open your game and check. If it was successful you can delete the "Sim No 1." because it is no longer needed. Congratulations, you just did your first Sim Surgery!

If you have any problems, or this does not work for you, please comment and let me know.

SenkoTwiik

P.S. Yes, I know my pictures are really small. I have no idea how to make them show up any bigger. But you can click on them and they will show up bigger in a new window.

[caffeinated.joy]

Thank you for sharing this!

[XPTL297]

Just adding an info for people that create Sims for the purpose of making a surgery and delete it afterwards. This Sim will be deleted the same way that when you delete a tombstone for dead Sims, they will become a "no character data" and will leave small files behind.  The best archetypes for Sim surgery are those unuseful Eaxis characters that are added to the game in spite of you want them or not, such as Garden members, hobby members, townies etc. Take your time to improve their appearance or create self the ones with the appearance you like. You can use SimPe to move them to the respective families once they are not NPCs as the workers. Keep those unuseful characters as containers for facial structures.
For example: vacationists are generated in umproper clothing for the hoods they will live in (e.g. winter clothes in tropical hoods). There's no problem to move them in and change all their characteristics and then move them out again to a vacationist family. Once there's still no possibility to change clothing unless you move a character in an active family (the clothing information are saved in the lot, not in the Sim - this is the reason why Body Shop characters don't have more than one set of clothing and cannot change), the best is to make the moves in and outs in SimPe.
SimSurgery changes everything on a Sim by just pasting a copy of the donor over the "patient", so all is changed from clothing, appearance, dna and all about and it is definitive. So, it works as if you had just taken out one Sim and replaced by another.
If you have some Sims in game that you like best, just use them as donor to change the appearance of Eaxis Sims that you think you will never need.
Keep them as template for further Sim surgeries.
Remember that two Sims with exact the same characteristics can look completely different in game if you change them in a simple mirror (hair, facial hair, hats, glasses, etc). You can also change temporarily those characteristics on a very normal play Sim and use it to make Sim surgeries. Afterwards you change the donor back to his original appearance once you still have their thumbnail to recover the way they were before.

[ko3p1ng]

I've been looking this tuto for a months. Danke SenkoTwiik

[maricry68]

Thank you!!

[Dalma134]

Thank you very much SenkoTwiik!

[zolabee]

Thanks, I appreciate this.  I've been wanting to learn how to use SimPe and this is fairly easy to read

[katiemassarella]

thanks a ton! i've been getting so annoyed with how all the wrong genetics get passed on to the children >:O

[Kendall]

Thank you but I currently had a problem here.
Your method works fine with skin and face but not the eyes color.
Actually, the eyes did change but just after I used a mirror to change appearance the eyes change back to the original.
Which that is I dont know why, is there anybody got the same problem?