The Smythes
Instant Neighbors


The Smythes are a very happy, well-adjusted family.

Harold Smythe graduated with a degree in economics and is now a junior executive in his company.  His wife Betty has a degree in art but hasn't pursued a career yet; she has been too busy raising their three children!



They live in a large upper middle class home.
It's an occupied, mostly furnished 3x3 lot that you can plunk down in your neighborhood.

Befitting Harold's income, they have a rather large upper middle class house.  Four bedrooms, four baths, one-car garage.


What This Is

It's an occupied lot made entirely with Maxian content.  I used some half walls so I think you'll need Open For Business installed to make the whole thing work, though if you use Clean Installer it should still work with any version of The Sims 2.

The house is mostly furnished.  At least there's a bed for everybody.

The house is occupied by a family of five, all of whom are wearing Maxian clothes.  The clothes might be from the original game, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Family Fun Stuff, or Glamour Life Stuff.

The download includes only the lot segment and the family.  All the outfitting and stuff should be pulled in from your existing game.


Where It Came From

The question came up on the adult site whether it might be possible to build lots with some nice neighbors to help populate a new, empty neighborhood.  This was my first experiment with doing that.  A few folks have already play-tested it and report that it works, so here we are!

You can drop this household into your game and never even play them if you're not so inclined.  They'll provide some nice, well-adjusted folks to walk by your house and befriend your sims and their childen.


What I Did

I created the family in a completely empty neighborhood.  None of the Smythes has ever met anyone outside their household, though all of them have seen the papergirl.  That's important because it means they won't have memories that clutter up your neighborhood with "unknown" sims.

I used the Insimenator to tune up the characters' personalities and give them a reasonable set of skills.

I tried to be careful to build the house exclusively with Maxis content, but it still didn't work as I had hoped.  I am now convinced that the only totally safe way to build a house and avoid including custom content is to have a separate, "building" version of the game with zero non-Maxis content.

After building their house and partially furnishing it, I exported the lot.  Then I used Clean Installer to eliminate everything in the exported file except for the lot segment, the characters, and a catalog filenamed "Smythe."  (I don't know what's in the catalog but I figured it couldn't do much harm.  Apparently it doesn't.  It might be their clothing chest.)


What's In The Zip

The zip file attached below contains a .Sims2Pack file with the lot segment, the characters, and the "Smythe" catalog (whatever that is).

If you install the lot, and if you have all the same expansion packs that I do, everything will fall into place.  The characters should be dressed the way they're shown here and they should have the appropriate family relationships, skills, personalities, and everything else.  And they shouldn't cause any "unknown" sims to show up in your neighborhood.


Expansion Packs

I have installed all the expansion packs and stuff packs up through Open For Business, and nothing after that.  


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Downloaded for personal use only.  If you upload this lot to the EA Exhange or some other wretched place, your great-great-great grandmother will rise from her grave to slap you silly.

FAN SITES MUST BE DESTROYED!


Fan Sites Must Be Destroyed!
This is a recolor of the maxis Young Adult outfit that it looks like, so of course it's not worthy of consideration as any sort of new creative artwork.  The download includes only the outfit for YA males.  The anonymous model's headgear and glasses are by Maxis; they come with one of those silly expansion packs that you can no doubt steal from somewhere on the net.

Are you tired of all those poor people with their pathetic busker jars and subscription schemes on their Sims sites?  Do you believe it doesn't matter who you hurt as long as you get what you want?  Do you enjoy hurting others because this is your way to assuage your pathetic ego?  Do you want to clear out all the riff-raff so only the arrogant rich can afford Sims sites? Want to keep all but the richest of the rich from engaging in any form of art so that talented paupers can't outshine the piteous produce of the privileged rich folk?

Are you able to invent increasingly absurd rationalizations for your crimes and still believe them?

Want to drive all the great Sims artists off the net and make them get real jobs where they produce really useful things like male enhancement nostrums and porn sites with never-ending pop-ups?

Need to make sure that no struggling single moms can afford to stay home with their children?  Have you grown weary of all those fan artists making all that neat stuff that makes your game so much fun?  Do you seethe with envy of the artists who can actually do this stuff?  Want to get back at them really good?

Let's keep those buskers out of the concert halls and on the streets where the beggars belong!  Wear this T-shirt and tell it to the world!  But don't forget to hide your cowardly thieving face behind a mask of Internet anonymity while you claim that you're not a criminal!

BE A DESTROYER!  STOP THOSE CREATORS NOW!

[/SIZE]


Copyright ©2007 by The Pearl, but since I'm just a poor fan artist, you can ignore that, right?  Downloaded for personal use only, except by criminals who make their own exceptions from copyright laws and personal integrity; nudge, nudge, wink, wink.  Derivative works of this garment may be made and distributed, but only from sites owned by people so incredibly wealthy that they can afford to pay for your luxuries!  And, for the sake of your own rationalization, never face up to that crook in your mirror!  After all, you're not a criminal as long as you don't get caught, right?  

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
--Rev. Marvin Luther King, Jr.

"Was that over the top?  I can never tell!"
--The Mask

Would it be feasible to change an adult female's body shape so that she looks pregnant, but isn't really?  And then back to normal again?

I've wished for that a few times when I was doing a photo shoot for a story where the sim was pregnant at the time of the action, but had subsequently given birth in the game.  

(I also have this deviant desire to have the social workers run around with a bulging belly, but we won't mention that. :angel: )

In preparation for finally biting the bullet and installing all the stuff up to (but not including) Pets, I wrote a tutorial topic of the installation order at the Hullabaloo.
I don't want to post it here, too, because I don't want to try to maintain in two places. If you click the link, the Insim BBS should pop a new window with the Hullabaloo topic. You don't need to create a Hullabaloo ID unless you want to post a note there.
 
Now, here are the big questions:
[LIST=a]

• Do I have to install the patches as I go? (Are they included in later expansion packs? Can I install them all at once at the end?)
• Are any of these things (besides Pests) so horribly buggy that I don't want to install them at all?
  
• Do I need to have my existing neighborhoods in place when I install later expansion packs? (Right now I have just the base game + University, and a tremendous investment of my life in the neighborhoods I already have.)

Thanks for your help! :smile:

I want to make a new, recolored (use existing mesh) version of a custom object that's not in the Wizards of SimPE catalog.

Is there a simple tutorial for this?  I've found lots of tutorials about custom meshes and other exotic things that are being done by the elder gods of object-making, but can't seem to find the kindergarten version of object recoloring.

Really, all I need to know is what buttons to push to clone an existing object to create a new one.  (I already know how to use SimPE to replace the texture files once I've got the new object to work with.)

Codi Jo
The Meat Market Edition

All characters in my stories are copyrighted characters in a copyrighted story. Downloaded for personal use only. Any publication of these characters in any form without prior written permission is strictly forbidden, and is a violation of US and international copyright law.



Codi Jo, The Meat Market Edition
I called this The Meat Market Edition because there's at least one other version of Codi Jo's self-sim around here somewhere.

Once upon a time, our very own Codi Jo was urgently needed at The Meat Market to fill in some holes in the plot.  She arrived in the company of a bunch of superheroes, and the place hasn't been the same since!

I wanted to see if I could capture the essence of Codi Jo, and with Codi Jo's kind permission, here she is!
It was just a matter of pouring enough Kahlua and rum into her to get her to hold still long enough.



She has a heritage from some of the greatest Sims artists.

All the custom content is included in the download except the meshes.  To fully realize the beauty of Codi Jo, you need to download and install these meshes separately:

For the skin tone meshes, see Warlokk's Hi-Res BodyShape COMPLETE Nude Collection on InSimAdult.  You need these two meshes but it might be smart to install all the meshes at once:
MESH_afTopNakedHi_34D-Nat
MESH_afBottomNaked_HiDetail_36
Codi Jo's skin tone is the same as Anja's Girlfriend Sheila Nordstrom, posted at InSIMAdult.  If you installed Sheila, you don't need to install it twice.  The body shape is 34Dn36, mislabled as 36Dn36.
Caution: Codi Jo's skin tone is anatomically accurate.  Parental discretion is advised.

For the top, get MESH_afTop_34Dn_Tshirt - from Warlokk's Hi-Res Bodyshapes - 34D Enh/Nat Tops Separates Collection.

For the skirt, get MESH_afBottom_36_ShortSkirtShoes from Warlokk's Hi-Res Female BodyShapes - Bottoms Separates.
The skirt texture is from that same thread but Body Shop also packaged it with this download.

For the hair, get XMS_Flora_MeshHair036 from XM Sims, page 49.


Now, just so that we don't start rumors, here's proof that Codi Jo has two eyes:


Yup, two of 'em.
Isn't it nice when everything balances?


And here's how she appears in your sim bin if all the goodies are installed correctly:




No Pests: I made this sim with just University and the base game installed, so it should work with all versions of The Sims 2.


This is an adult sim, so she would tend to tower over the real-life Codi Jo's 5'2" frame.  If you want to be really accurate, you could try making her shorter or use the Insimenator to change her age to an emancipated teen.  These clothes won't fit the teen-sized version but she will adapt her body shape to match and the skin tone will still work.

Enjoy!

Anne's Black Tank Top in 4 Sizes



So many folks mentioned in Anne Seladdams's download topic that they were impressed by the size of her... eyes... that I thought I'd provide these to make her eyes look even bigger!  These additional sizes should mean there's less distraction from her eyes, y'see.

If you installed Anne in your game, you should already have size 36DDDn (it came stuffed with Anne already), so you don't need that one.  Installing that size top seperately might result in an ID conflict since it's the same garment.

Of course, each of these requires the corresponding Warlokk top mesh.  The meshes have filenames like MESH_afTopNakedHi_34C-Nat.

No Pests: I made these garments with just the base game and University installed.  They should work in all versions of The Sims 2.


Amusement: If you look closely at Anne's face (difficult though that may be), you'll see that her eyes are really a bit smaller than a standard Maxian sim.  The apparent size of her eyes is the work of the master makeup artists who provided her cosmetics.

More amusement: When I originally created Anne, I thought she was size 34Dn36, but I made a blunder in her skin tone and had it linked to the wrong mesh.  Hence, the proliferation of sizes.

If you'd like this garment in another size, you're welcome to make it and post it at Insimenator.net.  If you don't know how to do that, just find a post by Warlokk and follow the link to the tutorial in his signature.  No fear; it's easy to do.  I did not add a normals layer to these garments because the shading would be obscured by the tight fit and the dark color; would have been a waste of bandwidth and disk space.

You wouldn't even think of uploading these garments to other sites, right?  Of course not!  And good for you!

I just realized that I ought to note here that Anja's Friend Anne Seladdams, posted yesterday in the main Insimenator forum under Sim Honeys, has three bits of new Warlokkian custom content:
 

 
Anne comes with:
[LIST=a]

• black ribbed tank top, size 36DDDn
• black jeans and boots, hip size 36
• her custom skin tone, light skin with a dark tan and prominent tan lines, size 36DDDn36.

Anne plays the title role in the adults-only story Anne's Obsession, by the famous and enigmatic Warlokkian babe, Anja Vanderspeigle.
 
I debated with myself about where to post her. She wasn't an adults-only kind of sim so she didn't really fit at InSIMAdult, but she was the star of an adults-only story so maybe she did; and she was a whole sim so she didn't really fit here, but she's loaded with new stuff based on Warlokk's work so maybe she did... and so, I gave up trying to decide and just sent her off to play with all the other sim honeys! :lol:
 
Spoiler: Since folks under 18 can't read the story (and wouldn't like it anyway; it's presented as cerebral psychodrama), I'll post a little synopsis right here. Anne wears black in celebration of her lover. She fell in love with one of her high school teachers, but she was a kid and he was a grown-up who had his own life and his own grown-up girlfriends. It seemed hopeless, but she was interested in no other man. After she had grown up and graduated from college, she finally found him again. He was in his twilight years and soon passed on, but Anne was happy that she had him for that short while. She was even happier to discover, after his death, that he had left her with a baby.
 
Oh, and in case you don't know: Anja Vanderspeigle is an entertainer who has been hanging out at InSIMAdult. Since most of her story doesn't need to be over there, it's very likely that in the future you'll see some of her adventures over here.

Anja's Friend
Anne Seladdams

All characters in my stories are copyrighted characters in a copyrighted story. Downloaded for personal use only. Any publication of these characters in any form without prior written permission is strictly forbidden, and is a violation of US and international copyright law.

There's more to Anne than just her black and white walls and floors; for instance: her face, body, and clothes!  And here she is!



Anne plays the title role in Anja's (adults only) story, Anne's Obsession.  She has her own photography studio in The Meat Market.



Anne's download includes 3 items of new custom content from The Pearl: her skin tone, ribbed black tank top, and black jeans and boots.

She also has custom content from some of the master sims artists around the net:



You Also Need to Get These Meshes
Anne requires the follow custom meshes, which you must download and install seperately if you don't already have them:

   MESH_afTopNakedHi_36DDD-Nat (for the skin tone)
MESH_afBottomNaked_HiDetail_36 (for the skin tone)
Warlokk's MESH_afBottom_36_PantsCowboyBoots
Warlokk's MESH_afTop_36DDDn_Halter
XM Sims Flora hair030

Added: Warlokk's clothing meshes are right here in Insimenator.net.

   The top: Warlokk's Hi-Res Bodyshapes - 36DDD Enh/Nat Tops Separates Collection

The bottom: Warlokk's Hi-Res Female BodyShapes - 34B Default, Bottoms Separates

If you would like Anne with smaller (eyes), you might also be interested in: Anne's Black Tank Top in 4 Sizes.


No Pets: Anne was created with only the base game and University installed, and should work with any version of The Sims 2.


Edit (1/3/2007): I corrected the meshes you need for the skin tone.  Skin tones require two separate meshes, a top and a bottom.
Also note that I posted several versions of Anne's skin tone in different top sizes.  Sorry kids; they're on the adult site.


Copyrighted Material
Anne is a copyrighted character in a copyrighted story, so take a clue from that.  Insimenator.net is authorized to distribute her and you're not.  If you upload her to the EA Exchange or any other unauthorized place, you will be plagued with horrible dreams about unspeakable things lurking under your bed for the rest of your life.  You will also be a criminal, which EA sims to think is funny in The Sims 2 but in real life heads you down the path of decades of fear and misery; don't do it!
Copyright ©2006 by The Pearl, for the contributors.  All rights reserved.

Solid Black and White Walls and Floors


Anne Seladdams Lives in a Colorful World of Black and White
Anne has the title role in a story by Anja Vanderspeigle, Anne's Obsession.  
Now you have proof that Anne can smile!
Sorry kids; the story is rated R18.  Admission to adults only.

By special request

"You can have it any color you want as long as it's black," says photographer Anne Seladdams.  "Well, all right, maybe white, too."

Anne does commercial photography for a living.  Pretty girls and dramatic lighting are her mainstay.  

She needs to make photographs with pristine backgrounds, easy to edit for publication.  Stray light and complicated backgrounds are her worst enemies.  For most of her studio work, she uses a solid, flat black room and adds props, scenery, and lights to complete the mood.  

Lately she has branched out into photograph products for catalogs.  That usually requires a solid white background, so Anne added a bucket of white paint to her arsenal.


These walls and floors are absolutely, solidly, uncompromisingly, utterly black and white; intended for special photographic work.  They look a bit weird if you use them for a normal house, but the floors can be rather dramatic if you cover them with the mirror floor.

At least it was easy to get them to tile seamlessly.

The floors are black and white linoleum, priced at $1.
The walls are black and white paint, priced at $1.

I think I just set a record for tiny downloads.
Make 'em come here to get 'em.  If you post these on the EA Exchange, you'll go blind and your ears will fall off.

I wouldn't put a high priority on this idea, but it might inspire some creative corpuscles.  I was clicking on the Google ads at the top of the page* and ran across this:

http://www.laraines.com/masubymicofa.html


Credit: Image pilfered from Laraines.com.

I was thinking some of my larger lady or elder sims would like that.  It covers that midriff bulge and mommy tummy, y'see.  The full-coverage bottom might be appreciated, too.

In actual fact, very few of the sims in my little fantasy universe have these concerns, but folks who are going for more realistic game play (or who pursue different fantasies) might like it!


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*I think this is behavior to be encouraged.  It adds a bit to Insimenator's Google revenues and also increases the site's Google standing.  Besides, the clothing sites are really great references for skinners even for those of us who really aren't in the market for real-world teen clothing.  If you pilfer someone's design and provide a credit with a courtesy link to the real clothing site, then everybody's happy.

I've been searching for that tutorial on how the change what categories a clothing item is assigned to, such as Everyday, Formal, Undies, and so on.

The problem I'm trying to solve: I downloaded some stuff that's showing up in all categories.

Now, really, what could the creator have been thinking when a long formal dress with a full complement of jewelry shows up as a swimsuit? :lol:

I'm not even sure how to phrase the question, so maybe if I just describe what I'm thinking someone will know what I should ask.

Once upon a time, I played The Sims only on my Mac G4.

Eventually, frustrated with running a Windows emulator to use all the tools for The Sims, I finally sold out to the Dark Side and bought a Windows box.  

When The Sims 2 came out, the only machine I had that could handle it was my high-end Windows-based CAD machine (furshlugginer Solidworks stopped supporting MacOS, y'see, a sin for which I am sure they will pay mightily in the afterlife), so I've been simming on Windows ever since.

Now, after reading these threads, I'm getting the impression that The Sims 2 is even more platform-independent than The Sims was.

So... if I were to update the Mac fleet with a fancy new machine and high-end graphics card, how would that experience with The Sims 2 differ from the Windows environment?

Will SimPE run on a Mac?  (I use it a lot to fix things in my game as well as for developing new stuff.)

What else do I need to know if I want to get back to simming on a Mac?

And... as a Maker of Sims Stuff and a Host of Sims Sites, is there anything I should be doing to accommodate Mac users?

So, there I was fiddling around with my virtual airbrush when Paige Warwick stopped by.

"Look, I got a job at Hooters!" she said.

"Congratulations!" I said, "But that makeup doesn't look like the clean-living girl-next-door image that Hooters wants to portray."

"Hey, in the Meat Market, I am the girl next door!"

"Point taken.  So, while you're here, try this on.  I need to take a picture."

"Oh look!" she said.  "It's Squinge!  I like him!  If it weren't for him, I'd just be another airhead bimbo sim!"

"Erm... um... well, so... right!  So, wanna model this new top?"  

"Sure!  What are these for?"

"Panties, Paige.  Undies, y'know.  No, they go on under your shorts!"


Thanks for Fixing My Toy, Squinge!
What can you say about a guy who fixes your favorite toy before you even realize that it's broken?  I don't know, either, which is why this shirt doesn't have a clever slogan on it.  All you see from the back (besides the obvious lovely view) is bra straps.


I had so much fun making the Tribute to Warlokk that I thought I'd embarrass Squinge, too!  A ringer T in blue and black seemed to fit the mood of his avatar.  Since it uses Warlokk's mesh, I thought I'd post it here in the Tower's show room.

This garment requires Warlokk's 34C Nat T-shirt mesh, which you can get from this topic in Warlokk's Tower.  (It's the same mesh as I used for the Warlokk Tribute T-shirt.)

It's a top, but the garment includes the color-coordinated panties shown.  Note that they go under Paige's shorts.  (The shorts are from my version of the Hooters uniform, of course.)  

It also has the blue fingernail polish and the necklace.  The panties are a bit more modest than the Warlokk version, but the shirt's fabric is a bit more sheer.  And yup, she's wearing a bra under the shirt that will show if the light is right.

Inspired by ramseyazad's outstanding tribute to Warlokk, this idea would not rest in my mind until I made it.  So here once again is the notorious Paige Warwick sporting another Warlokkian T-shirt, this time cast in a somewhat more macabre mood.


With Many Thanks to Warlokk from The Pearl
She reminds me of Vicky Poyser.

This garment requires Warlokk's 34C Nat T-shirt mesh, which you can get from this topic in Warlokk's Tower.

Wonder of wonders, Paige is wearing unders!  That is, although this is a top, the panties are part of the garment.  They'll show or not depending on what bottom she puts on.  In the screen shot above, she's just got Warlokk's 36" hip nude bottom.

Caution: The fabric of the panties is somewhat sheer.

I didn't even know that Paige owned a bra but under the right lighting conditions you can see that she is indeed wearing one underneath this tight t-shirt.

After I was out of Body Shop and had my game going, I realized that Paige's long hair hides the back of the shirt.  She was almost late for work so I ventured down the street and persuaded the even more notorious Betty Bendover to stuff her 34DD anatomy into this 34C outfit.  I even had to drag her out of bed to model this shirt, but she was really quite nice about it.


The subtly shaded slogan on the back reads "Body by Warlokk"

Accommodating gal, that Betty!
Or at least she was until Merv Griffin showed up with a bottle of window cleaner.

If you're ever down at the Meat Market, do stop by and stay hello!
Plan for a long stay, especially if you're male.  Take your vitamins before visiting.


Betty liked the top but she could hardly breathe!
Can you tell that she's used to balancing more weight up front?

The necklace with the blue gemstone and the dark fingernail polish are also part of the outfit.


In addition to rising to new heights of fame and glory as Warlokk's avatar, the art on the shirt is the from inner sleeve of the Iron Maiden Album Somewhere In Time by Derek Riggs.