Hat Plays Sims

Just a quick heads-up:

There IS some kind of Large Early January post bonanza coming. Much content.

Will it land on Epiphany?

I sure hope so. But possibly not.

Reality started kicking my ass right around the middle of August, and my post bonanza will include a state-of-the-Hat vent post about how many ways it has done that, but.

This is just a warning: There WILL be fresh content. It may not be on the sixth, but if fortune smiles it should be before the 10th.

In the meantime, please enjoy a video break!

( Lemme just wheel that AV cart in here... )

So I have this massive (forty-three pages in 10-point font) document I use to plan out things like class restrictions and cheats allowed and what trees I can put in which neighborhoods and the bones of a criminal justice system and... basically it's my worldbuilding cheat sheet.

After talking about the G-Rated Religion Mod with Morgaine, I said to myself, "Man, my Religion section sure is... thin. What can I do to get more information in there? Religion and culture inform each other."

So I rummaged around for some writing guides (for both fantasy writing and gaming writing; the gaming guides were more useful) about making up religions. And I built myself a questionnaire.

Because Veetie wanted to see the questionnaire, I cleaned it up, made the language as neutral as I could (hopefully they'll help as much for Medieval Fantasy religions as High Fantasy or Contemporary Alternate Universe), and crammed it behind the cut at the end of this paragraph. This isn't a Mary Sue Litmus Test, feel free to skip any questions that don't apply to your particular playable Religion-- but you might want to give them all a read-through anyway. Most of the questions are aimed at fleshing out a made-up religion, but there's a bit at the end about real-world people and the implications a fictional religion can make, by accident or by design. Also, I'm not a religious studies expert, I'm just a nerd who reads a lot and knows when something feels fake or under-done, and like a lot of people I'm constantly learning what's actually accidentally gross (or accidentally-on-purpose gross. I was in the Aladdin fandom in early 2002, you would not believe some people's nonsense). ( On to the questionnaire-- this is not short. )

That awkward moment when you're browsing Medieval POC because it's never not fascinating and you encounter a drop-dead gorgeous 1412 dress. Hello, neckline, you and your friend the side-slit are super-pretty.

So, I wander away from Sims for a few weeks (it happens. I mean, I did a mini show, got sick, went to Disneyland, wrote a 40,000-word Aladdin fanfic, got an AO3 account, and next weekend is Halloween and my last doll show of the year, I've been busy) and GoS goes down. Alarming! So here's me late to the 'guess I better make some backup posts for my GoS exclusives' party.



( This post is only for hiders, and it is a goddamn hider-y masterpost. )

Wanna help me feed my cats?

In case you feel like dropping me a buck or two, should you have a buck or two to spare. Donors get two things at the moment: a) a link to the Super Secret Cat Gallery, full of pictures of the cats you'll be feeding, updated sporadically when the cats do something photogenic and I'm fast enough on the trigger to catch it, and b) a link to the list of content I have done-but-not-screencapped, nearly done, partly done, or in the planning stages, and the option to suggest what ought to be in the next batch of things I focus on.

This is my new favorite tumblr:

People of Color in Medieval Art History.

I have been learning a lot and because I love learning, I want to share it. (Although I will say, if you are a history nerd who happens to be white, be prepared to be deeply disappointed in the way you were taught history. ... Well, more disappointed.)

Okay, I think I've put this off long enough. I'm sure I've missed things, but this is a good solid overview. I may add more later. And none of my own content is listed here, but... you're on my Dreamwidth. Click the Downloads tag, and suddenly there's everything.

( I'm not really sure how I want to do this. )

Okay, first, let me say virtually everything in this... it's not even a tutorial, really, it's more like a pasting guide. Anyway, virtually everything in this crib sheet will focus on the Property Sets value doodad in SimPE.

These are EASY. Be not afraid. If you are afraid, then make backups (or don't throw out your zipped files).

( Let's get started! )

This concludes what I know how to do in the Property Sets of Body Shop content for Sims 2.

The other SimPE tricks I know how to get some mileage out of involve moving Buy Mode content to Build Mode and making a few simple tweaks to objects and sorts and such by messing with Object Data.

( Object Data )

This concludes what I know how to mess with in Object Data, but I recently learned a cool trick for Buy and Build content in TXMT, courtesy of Whispers.

( Material Definition )

I have a fresh trick recently learned-- scared of the modularstairs script? Don't know what any of it means? Sure you pasted into it correctly but the frickin' stairs have no catalog description or price? Your stairs WERE fine but now they're not? I'm here to help!

( Modular Stairs, No Scriptorium Needed! )

And you know what, here are my Cut Your Loading Time tricks. Outside the cut I'll just explain the simple ones-- download the Compressorizer (scroll down) and make use of it (though be sure to only use it on finished meshes or copies of meshes; I hear altering a mesh after compressing it makes it not go), and download a bulk renamer (that one's the one I use) to go through all your files and cut out the special characters. ... Okay, behind the cut is a quick Bulk Renaming Your Sims Files rundown.

( Bulk Renaming )

And of course, once you're done renaming, you want to keep your subfolders as shallow as possible-- the more subfolders, the longer it takes the game to read them all. Any organizational system is a personal thing, nobody copies anybody else's entirely, but stealing the parts of someone else's system that work best for you? Dude, do it. So, personally, I don't go more than two subfolders past 'Downloads,' and my next level is divided by category-- Sims, Accessories, Buy, Build, Clothes, Defaults, Food, Genetics, Makeup, Mods, OMSP, PetBreeds, Poseboxes. (Okay, granted, it's not then all my clothes in the Clothes folder, I have Clothes_00_Testing and Clothes_01_RECOLOR; Genetics is labeled not only Genetics_Eyes and Genetics_FacialHair but Genetics_Hair_by_Hat, Genetics_Hair_Hats, Genetics_Hair_CHECKING.) Inside those base-level folders are subfoldered sets, and sometimes loose bundled items, especially in hair and clothing.

Which brings me to my next great load-time saver:

( Bundling Package Files )

Of special note with all bundled content, once bundled, you cannot then delete it in-game. Because then you delete your entire bundle, and stuff you use the in-game delete button in is not in your Recycling Bin-- it's just gone. This is, by the way, what happens if you use the in-game delete button on re-categorized Maxis content-- it deletes all the bundles that item's associated resources are in from the Program Files folders, meaning you have probably deleted a fair chunk of your Maxis content if not literally everything in that catalog mode, and now have to figure out what and from where so you can pull those files off the disk to fix your game.

So, basically, ignore the in-game delete button. It's for emergencies only, such as "This is the ugliest wall with the most useless title and description and I can't find the file anywhere!"