#ts2 ressource

[crispsandkerosene]

The Custom CubeMaps for TS2 Post

You may know that the Sims 2 uses cubemaps to add a reflective effect to certain objects/materials. The details of this are explained in Part 2 of Pixelhate’s ‘Exploring the TXMT’ series.

This document also explains how to make a custom one... but the result is not functional, at least in my all-EPs, all-SPs game. Fortunately, there’s an easy fix:

‘EnvCubes’ are not regular texture images. They contain six different “blocks”/subtextures, one for each side of the cubemap. Thus creating a custom EnvCube involves extracting and renaming one of Maxis’, and replacing the various subtextures. (Unlike SpecularMasks, these don’t mind the DXT1/3/5 formats. Error messages may appear if you import a texture bigger than the existing ones, though. In that case, commit and close the ressource, save the package, and open the ressource again.)

So TL;DR, I made a bunch!

I also made a test object for ease of visualization. Here, it demonstrates Maxis’ “reflectioncubetemplate-envcube” texture with the material’s “stdMatEnvCubeLockedToCamera” parameter set to zero and one respectively. More on that later.

The materials in the following pictures generally have an“stdMatEnvCubeCoef“ parameter of 0.5, 0.5, 0.5; its base texture is flat black.

My first creations: extra recolours of the texture used by most of the game’s metallic cubemaps. The top ball shows Maxis’ “reflectiongold” envcube as a point of comparison.

The middle row contains “MetallicRed”, “MetallicPurple”, “MetallicBlue” and “MetallicGreen”.

The bottom row contains “RoseGold”, “MetallicBrown” and “Gunmetal”.

I’ve also made variations of Maxis’ “reflectionsparking” cubemap (visible left), often used for glass and plastic. The middle texture is “HighContrastSparkling”; the one on the right is “SparseHighlights”.

The same custom envcube, previewed on the urn sculpture. Probably not their best look, tbh.

Now for something quite cool:

With specific textures and the “stdMatEnvCubeLockedToCamera” parameter set to 1, we can achieve a rimlit and/or holographic effect! Here are “RainbowFresnel”, “HoloFresnel” and “Fresnel”.

The spheres don’t really do this effect justice. So here is a demonstration of their “cool holo fabric” potential, gif included. Hopefully no one beats me to making a holo skirt haha. (+ my two reflectionsparking edits on the sides. )

I’ve also fixed up Pixelhate’s own custom envcube, though their texture turned out not to be ideal.

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My test object and all the pictured recolours can be downloaded here on SimFileShare.

The tester is found under Deco/Misc for 1$. The actual envcube textures are found in its various recolour files, but are only referenced by the recolours of other objects. This means that if you delete “EnvcubeTester_recHoloFresnel”, “HnMManequinLongDress_RecHoloEnvCubeLocked“ won’t be able to find the texture it’s supposed to use.

And here is a zip containing these envcubes as individual TXTR ressources ready to be imported into SimPe, as well as a package file containing all of them.

Again, Pixelhate’s documentation explains how to actually use these custom envcubes for your own CC. My last package file can be used as a “pseudo texture repository” as described in their guide.

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And a few last minute tips for creators:

The projected envcube is additively added to the object’s main texture and shading. Its brightness is also dependant on the ambiant lighting, being much duller inside. This means that a dark envcube texture likely won’t have much effect.

Maxis’ cubemap projection is weird. Some of the textures don’t have the orientation you’d expect. I’d recommend extracting the subtextures from “reflectioncubetemplate” and testing out your envcube on my test object if you’re strugging with that.

Making a ‘rimlit’ cubemap only involves creating three textures: ‘back’, ‘front’, and a gradient between those that will be reused by all sides. See my ‘fresnel’ envcubes as a reference.

When using such a ‘rimlit’ envcube, don’t forget to set the “stdMatEnvCubeLockedToCamera” parameter in the material to 1. It won’t look too good otherwise :p

Custom EnvCubes can also be used for clothing and other CaS items with the “SimStandardMaterial”. However, they are a bit pricklier: “##0x1C050000!” has to be added before the texture name in the “stdMatEnvCubeTextureName” parameter. It won’t work if this extra string is not present.

[ts2cambremon]

This looks great ! Cool new ressource for medieval games! Can't wait to adapt it to Cambremon!

Lille's Kingdom Events Generator

It is done-ish! And by that I mean the most basic form of this lil idea I had is ready to be unleashed on the world.

But Lille, what even is this?

Why thank you for asking, audience in my head. This is a random generator that reads in a list of events and a list of kingdoms and gives you random events that make sense to happen to said kingdoms based on requirements. Kinda like everyones beloved ROS, but instead of being for single households usually, it's on a more neighborhood scale and has a few more ways for you to influence which events roll.

I am bad at explaining it, but I promise it makes sense.

Is it necessarily a sims thing? Absolutely not! I am sure you could use this for writing prompts or random events in a TTRPG campaign or whathaveyou. But my main thought was "medieval simmers would love to have a random thing to throw natural disasters or war refugees from whatever fictional 'other' kingdoms are around in their minds at them" because I AM that medieval simmer.

So here's what you get:

An .exe which randomizes things, ala ROS, but while taking requirements into account.

An XML with sample events to generate. Are they good? Eh, they'll do. This is why it's an XML, so you can edit it and someone smarter than me can make a cooler version.

An XML with sample Kingdoms, upon which the requirements for the events are tested. They are named A,B,C,D and E and just had random-ish values thrown at them. Edit them. make them your own!

A Readme, which explains things in more detail.

Huge thanks to @clouseplayssims for throwing some inspiration in the form of every single ROS list in existence at me and being one of my initial guinea pigs, as well as enabling the silly little idea in the first place.

Alrighty, to the download, yes?

DOWNLOAD(SFS)

Note: Due to how I turned the base python code into an exe, some antiviruses flag it as a possible Trojan. I do not know how to fix that. I can only say that me and my 200 lines of code do not want to damage your computer or steal your monies, I promise.

I will happily answer any questions, take suggestions or try to do tech support, just let me know!

Also definitely feel free to share your edited events/kingdoms files. My examples are thrown together haphazardly and it SHOWS.

Also - you can totally use it for non medieval things. Just write modern events and ignore the fact that the program calls things in the kingdom file kingdoms. They could be cities, or planets, or whatever else you can come up with!

[keriworld]

I took the texture of some of my favorite sims 2 CC jeans. They look a bit (very) Blurry tho but most of them were created in 2005 ! For the original texture , if you want them for your sims 2 or just for the credit I would like to thank:

Creator From The sims ressources:

Sims2sister

RisingSun

brainchildvn

Kaylinn19

duddlyaaron88

Jordansgirl

Creator From Modthesims

sara_sare

dare2DV8

Kyriaw

And finally

Lianasims2 site , that somehow is still open after all these years! :)

Its just a recolor of the basegame lowrise jeans. I wanted to see what would happen if I would use TS2 texture on sims 4 jeans. Well , I'm a bit disapointed , but also, those are old blurry texture so what did I expected ! Hope some of you guys enjoy them anyway !

:( it's all blurry !

[crispsandkerosene]

‘Bastian’ Knee-High Boots for Adult Males (TS2)

I ‘harvested’ these boots from a character model from the game LOST ARK, which was extracted and shared by the user :Dim0s: on Pack 3d Models. Cue their title of the ‘Bastian’ boots.

Though I mostly wanted to share these for other creators’ use, I’ve made them into a ‘pantless’/skintight bottom as they might fit into a historical or fantasy game. I’ve borrowed VampireKiss6661‘s “Aris Vest Skirt” texture for the leggings, but the only recolour included is the one pictured.

The mesh (legs included) weight about 1k triangles, and has fat and preg morphs.I’ve remapped the boots to fit onto regular Maxis body textures. They and the legs form a single mesh group, though the alpha bows form a second one.

As always, please message me if I forgot anything. My brain is lowkey a sieve lol.

-> Download at SimFileShare

[crispsandkerosene]

Interesting discovery: TS2′s StandardMaterial shader can use a texture mask for specular highlights. The relevant parameters are “stdMatSpecMaskTextureEnabled” and “stdMatSpecMaskTextureName”. The texture mask has to be a black and white image stored in the ExtRaw8Bit format.

Here is my test recolour demonstrating its use, on the “Blossoming Heart” sculpture from Uni.

I’ve also included a few recolours demonstrating different values for “stdMatSpecPower” as the specularity parameters are not well known. I’d originally made others with values for “reflectivity“, but that parameter didn’t seem to do anything­. The other specularity-related parameter, “stdMatSpecCoef“, controls the ‘brightness’ and colour of the highlight.

(The specularity parameters are responsible for the plasticky appearance of objects cloned from the fancy base game vase. It can be fixed by changing the values of stdMatSpecPower and stdMatSpecCoef to low numbers.)

[cindysimblr]

Thank you so much!

Your Sims look amazing! Can tou share some resources for skins, face masks, sliders, etc. you are using? Do you have any advice for making Sims?

Thank you so much :D and sure, always happy to share resources!

Sliders: I download every single slider I see because I love messing around with them (even if it does the same thing as another one I already have, chances are it does that thing in a slightly different way that could be useful), so that’s basically everything from here or here

Skins: All the ones I currently use are in this reply here, though every sim I create gets a ton of face shaders, nosemasks and the like so half the time the skins end up looking notably different

Face masks: I've hoarded a ton of stuff over the years, so I'll only include stuff like face shaders here so I actually get to sleep tonight, but here's a few of my favourites (or at least, the ones which I can find, some are proving to be a bit illusive):

simplelife's face shadow, highlights, wrinkles and face kit

rensim’s Old Facekit & Circonflex Anti-Shine

rensim’s Curved and Triple Threat Blush

sleepytabby’s unbeauty parlour

nopke’s subtle wrinkles

mina’s chin masks

mistyblue’s bits ‘n’ bobs part 1

mistyblue’s bits ‘n’ bobs part 2

amaryll’s miranda facemasks

alfredaskew’s advent 2012 shaders

alfredaskew’s CiJ 2020 shaders

alfredaskew’s 28 shaders

digi’s CiJ face shaders + more

pooklet’s collection of face things

(and likely a lot more I’m forgetting at the moment)

and as for advice? I’ve no idea what’s generally common knowledge when it comes to sim making, so hopefully something here will be actual advice and not blindingly obvious :D

Well, kinda obvious one first though: ingame CAS is... not great. Bodyshop is a million times easier to create in, especially once it's modded to brighten the lighting. Maxis why did you make it so gloomy by default :(

The default sims 2 face sculpt has some interesting anatomy, shall we say. It makes it a bit tricky to get proportions right, and if you're going for realistic faces, proportion is the most important thing. It can really help having a photo up on screen at the same time of someone who looks like what you're going for with the sim you're making (that might be obvious too though haha)

Saying that though, thanks to the strange mesh anatomy and the fact that the poor sims 2 sims have <1000 polygons to their faces, sticking 100% to a photo and trying to replicate it exactly never seems to work very well (in my experience anyway). If using a photo I usually get the basic proportions and general feature shapes looking good, so maybe about 60% of the sculpt? going on the photo, then freehand the last 40% or so just shunting around sliders until I'm happy with the sim

I usually try and get as much face sculpting done as possible with the sliders before adding any makeup or face effects. It tends to be a bit easier to see what bits are going to play nicely with the sim's face shape that way. (not a definite rule though, I have been known to completely re-do a nose because I wanted to use a particular nosemask haha)

Adding the makeup/shaders/etc is basically 70% a really long-winded game of trial and error, throwing a ton of things at a sim's face and seeing what metaphorically sticks until you stumble on something that looks good, 30% knowing what you have in your CC collection that might do the trick. It's also fun using things in unintended ways, like using a shader designed for pale skintones as highlights on a darker skintone, or layering nosemasks.

Wish I had some advice for speeding up making sims though, it can take me forever trying different stuff haha

I'll add more stuff if I think of it later since damn am I sleepy right now, but hopefully something was useful in all of this!

[crispsandkerosene]

I wanted to use the Grandma’s Comfort Soup icon for a recolour and ended up redrawing it in InkScape. idk if this’ll be of use to anyone else, but vector art seems to be popular in the community, so :p

+ PNG and SVG files at SimFileShare

[crispsandkerosene]

A List of Community Lot Ideas by Careers

Thought this list I came up with a while ago could be useful o/ also I just love creative community lots and I hope it may inspire them.

Other peoples’ lists of ideas: 1, 2.

Sims 2 Careers

Adventurer: - Embassy - Mine/cave/etc. - (Random adventure locations) - Harbor - Ruins - Archeological site - Ship/boat/etc. - Battlefield - Spacecraft launching site - Police station - Secret services’ bureau

Architecture: - Construction site - Construction company’s office - Real estate office - Architect’ office - City hall - Public services office - Home designer’s office

Artist: - Art supplies store - Art studio - Street corner - (Various wedding venues) - Museum - Fashion house - Newspaper redaction office

Athletic : - Stadium/arena - Sport Center - Playing Field - Gymnasium - Olympic installations

Business: - Post office - Office building - Company headquarters - Trade center - Golf course

Criminal: - Unsavory backstreet - Parking lot - Pawnshop - Racetracks - Casino/gaming ring - Bank - Totally not suspicious warehouse - (Whatever place might be targeted by organised thieves) - Mob’s HQ - Lair of evil

Culinary: - Fast food restaurant - Generic restaurant - Fancy restaurant - Chef’s own restaurant - TV studio

Dance: - Gymnasium - Sport center - Theater - Concert hall - Television studio - Film studio - Dance studio - Walk of Fame

Education: - Primary school - Middle school - High school - University - City hall - Public services office - Kindergarten

Entertainment: - Coffee shop - Restaurant - Bar/pub - (various party venues) - Street - Lounge bar - Theater - Medieval/renaissance fair - Film studio - Television studio - Film set - Walk of Fame

Gamer & Game Development: - Arcade - Cybercafé - Online gaming guild HQ - Professional gaming ‘arena’ - Video game studio

Intelligence: - Police station - Street (unsavory or not) - Private detectives’ office - Secret services’ bureau - Forensics Laboratory

Journalism: - Newspaper redaction office - Cybercafé - (Fancy techsmart office building) - High school - Television studio - (Various fields of investigation)

Law: - Law firm - Courthouse - City hall

Law Enforcement: - (Whatever place might need security guards) - Parking lot - Police Academy - Police Station - Forensics Laboratory - Jail/Prison - Superheroes’ league HQ

Medicine: - Hospital - Psychiatric hospital - Clinic - Medical school - Medical laboratory - Nursing home

Military: - Paintball court - Training encampment - Military base - Air base - Spacecraft launching site - Battlefield

Music: - Record store - Music store - Coffee shop - Summer camp - Theater - Stadium/arena - Street/road/subway - Open air show venue - Music/recording studio - Concert hall - (Various wedding venues) - Lounge bar - High school - Walk of Fame

Natural Science: - Laboratory - Harbor - River/lake/etc - On the field sites of research - Nature Center - Botanical garden - ‘Heart of the wilderness’ - University’s department of natural sciences - Mad scientist’s lab

Oceanography: - Harbor - River/lake/etc. - Municipal aquarium - Oceanarium/marine theme park - Nature Center - University’s department of natural sciences - Beach - Boat/ship/etc - ‘Heart of the sea’

Paranormal: - Call center - Newspaper redaction office - Cybercafé - Occultist’s shop - Mysterious tent/caravan/etc. - Paranormal convention - Spooky haunted location - River/lake/etc - Police station - UFO crash site - Church - House of cult

Politics: - City hall - Public services office - Courthouse - Mayor’s house - Political party headquarters

Science: - Laboratory - On the field sites of research - High school - University’s department of natural sciences - Military laboratory - Mad scientist’s lab

Show Business: - Television studio - Film studio - Cinema - Theater - Film set - Walk of Fame Slacker: - Golf course - Gas station - Convenience store - Record store - Cinema - Television studio - Art studio - (Fancy techsmart office building) - (Various party venues) - Pool - Film studio - (Various scenic tour locations)

 Non Sims 2 careers (many of these have been ‘converted’ here: www.modthesims.info/browse.php?f=229&showType=1&gs=0&showAll=1&u=2067321)

Animal Care: - Street - Beauty salon - Farm - Municipal aquarium - Oceanarium/marine theme park - Zoo - Nature center - Film studio - Veterinary Clinic - Theater

Astronomy: - Observatory - Air base - Spacecraft launching site - Stargazing field - Planetarium - Laboratory - University department of sciences - UFO crash site - Salvaged alien spacecraft

Circus: - Funfair/carnival - Travelling circus - Fancy circus - Sideshow - Gymnasium

Counter Culture: - Street - Headshop - Paranormal convention - Art studio - ‘Artsy’ warehouse - Public garden - Meadow - Massage parlour - Gymnasium - Sport center - New age healing center - Open air show venue - ‘Heart of the Revolution’

Fashion: - Department store - Fashion studio - Film studio - Television studio - Art studio - Fashion house - Fashion runway - Walk of Fame - Newspaper redaction office - Beauty salon

Ghost Hunter: - Spooky haunted house - Spooky haunted venues - Church - Cemetery - Mausoleum - Hospital’s morgue - Mad scientist’s laboratory - Paranormal convention - Ghostsbusters’ HQ

Hacker: - Cybercafé - Video game studio - Call center - (Fancy techsmart office building) - Public services office - Information Overlord’s den

Swindler: - Street - Car dealership - Television studio - Call center - Inventor’s warehouse of questionable legitimacy - ‘Bank’ - Pawnshop - Real estate office - Trade center

Xtreme: - Street - Gymnasium - Sports center - Olympic installations - Beach - River/lake/etc - Mountain/cliff/etc - Racetracks - Air base - Newspaper redaction office - (random adventure locations) - Garage - Secret services’ bureau

TS3 part time jobs: - Bookstore - Library - TV studio - Film studio - Grocery store - Convenience store - Mausoleum - Office building - Spa - Beauty salon

Service NPCs’ careers

Animal Control & Pet Adoption Service: - Public services office - Animals’ shelter - Local service sims’ office - Pound

Bartender: - Pub/bar/etc - Restaurant

Bulter: - Local service sims’ office

Caterer: - Caterer’s kitchen - Restaurant

DJ: - Club - Pub/bar/etc - Various party venues

Exterminator: - Local service sims’ office

Firefighter: - Public services office - Fire station

Food Delivery Person: - Fast food - Restaurant - Grocery store

Gardener: - Local service sims’ office - Public garden - Botanical garden

Maid: - Local service sims’ office

Matchmaking services: - Mysterious tent/caravan/etc. - Paranormal convention

Nanny: - Local service sims’ office

Repairman: - Local service sims’ office - Garage

Social Worker: - Public services office - Orphanage - Halfway house - Psychiatric hospital