Two Tiled Painting Tutorial

Transcription

Packaging and submitting clean lots at TSR
By CycloneSue, 16 July 2006
INTRODUCTION
2
WHAT YOU WILL NEED…
3
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS…
3
TIPS FOR BUILDING A LOT FOR UPLOADING
4
TESTING YOUR LOT’S PLAYABILITY
5
PACKAGING YOUR LOT
6
CLEANING YOUR LOT WITH SIMS 2 CLEAN PACK INSTALLER
8
TEST HOW YOUR CLEANED LOT INSTALLS
11
SUBMITTING YOUR LOT AT THE SIMS RESOURCE
13
SUBMITTING YOUR WORK ELSEWHERE
22
WHEN A MESH NEEDS ANOTHER MESH
23
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Introduction
If you are new to sharing your lots with others, this tutorial will take you step by step through
creating, testing packaging and submitting a clean lot containing custom content to
www.thesimsresource.com (TSR).
If you are familiar with lot packaging, then this tutorial will explain about those items that will need
to be installed by downloaders of your lot and how to add these as ‘links’ in the TSR lot
submission form.
What you will need…
Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer version 1.5.1.4
This is a free program you can download from http://sims2pack.modthesims2.com/
The program is a great tool with many uses. Not only will it help us clean our lots ready for
submission, but will also check your downloads folder for duplicate and hacked creations, and will
also allow you to check the contents of any lots you download before you install them. Finally,
Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer makes a much better job of installing lots than the Maxis installer
because it will install custom content properly as you’ll learn later.
Page - 2 -
Frequently Asked Questions…
What is custom content?
Custom content is anything you can use in a lot that wasn’t made by Maxis. Floors, walls, terrain
paints and object meshes and recolours are all items of custom content.
What is the difference between a mesh and a recolour?
A mesh is the object itself. For example: a chair. The chair is a mesh. If the chair comes in a
variety of colours, these colours are ‘recolours’. Both Maxis meshes and custom meshes usually
come with recolours.
Whose custom content can I use in a submitted lot?
If you plan to submit your lot to The Sims Resource (TSR), you can use any creations you
have made, the creations of any artist belonging to the TSR Artists Alliance (TSRAA: a group of
artists who have explicitly marked their creations for free use at TSR) and the creations of anyone
else who has given you permission. However, it is worth remembering that it isn’t possible to add
links to people’s work outside TSR for lot submissions, so only use creations from other sites if
you know they package correctly with lots.
If you plan to submit your lot at any other site,
You can again use your own creations and the creations of anyone else who has given
permission. Not all TSRAA artists will grant permission for sites other than TSR (therefore, you
need to check that they don’t mind). It’s also a TSR rule that anything made by any TSR Featured
Artist cannot be used anywhere other than at TSR.
Is there anything I can’t include?
Yes. Don’t include any of the following in your lot:
•
•
•
•
Sim families
Items left behind by any Sims (newspapers etc)
Hacked objects such as Merola’s Mirror or any part of the InSIMinator if you use this
Creations you don’t have permission to use.
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Frequently Asked Questions… Cont.
Why do I need to use Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer?
When you package a lot into a file ready for submission, the lot package picks up ALL custom
recolours of any object you’ve used – whether these recolours are of Maxis meshes or custom
meshes. By using Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer, you can remove all recolours that you haven’t
used. If you fail to do this, it’s not unusual to end up with a lot package that’s some 30-60Mb in
size – far too large to be submitted!
Will everything work correctly in my lot when it is downloaded by people?
Not everything, no. But, if you’re submitting your lot to TSR, the submission form will help ensure
that downloaders acquire everything they need in order to install your lot successfully, as you’ll
learn with this tutorial.
Tips for building a lot for uploading
Don’t build with a Sim family in situ! Not only can they leave behind things that can meddle with
lot functionality later (old newspapers, bills, coffee cups), they will also take everything with them
when they move out! Build a lot with no Sims in it whatsoever, and don’t ever move any Sims into
it.
If you want to create a lot that others will want to enjoy playing (rather than a decorative or
specialist style of lot), remember that people like to play The Sims in many different ways, and so
you need to allow plenty of room for expansion of the lot if possible. Also avoid too much use of
the ‘constrainfloorelevation’ cheat for walls and custom roofs because players will find it very
difficult indeed to modify these things.
Take screenshots
Before leaving your lot, take a variety of screenshots of inside and out. You’ll need this for
the site where you’ll be uploading your lot. If you are submitting your lot to The Sims Resource,
you are permitted only two pictures, but you can combine several pictures into a single montage.
Taking screenshots is easy: simply click the small ‘camera’ icon in the bottom left of the game
screen, or press the ‘C’ key on your keyboard.
All pictures can be found in the folder: My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Storytelling
Page - 4 -
Testing your lot’s playability
Prepare a COPY of your newly built lot
Once you’ve built your lot, you need to make a copy of it.
If you have Nightlife or Open For Business, this is easy! Simply move your lot to the lot bin
using the buttons shown below, and then place a copy back in your neighbourhood. The lot you
place is just a COPY. The lot bin keeps hold of a copy of the lot so that you can place as many
versions of the lot in your neighbourhood as you like.
If you don’t own Nightlife or Open For Business, copies of lots aren’t kept in the lot bin so you
will need to make your own copies to reinstall. Do not test your lot yet. Follow the instructions for
packaging and reinstalling your lot. Install a couple of copies so that you have at least one spare.
Once you have a couple of copies of the lot in your lot bin, you can place one in your
neighbourhood and move in a Sim.
Create a Sim family to test your lot
Make yourself a family of Sim adults and at least one child to be your test family. This will
give you a choice of Sims to send to different parts of your building, and a child to test placement
of homework, testing toys etc.
A new family will only have 20,000 simoleons. If your lot is costlier than that, you’ll need to
cheat your test family’s funds. Do this in Neighbourhood view by opening the cheat window
(press Ctrl-Shift-C all at once to open a white text area at the top of the screen) and type in
familyfunds then a space, then the surname of your test family, then a plus + sign and the
amount you wish to add to your family’s funds…
Page - 5 -
Testing your lot’s playability Cont.
Play-test your lot
This tutorial isn’t going to be an exhaustive guide on testing, but some areas you might want to
look out for are as follows:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Can your Sims access all levels and all rooms?
Do all doors shut properly (ceiling objects next to doors can prevent this)?
Can NPCs (especially firefighters) access the lot with ease?
Does the car pool work (do school buses, maids and work vehicles turn up)?
Can Sims use anything you’ve placed diagonally?
Are all beds and other furniture items accessible?
If you’ve used the expensive shower, check that it’s usable (it’s easy to misplace this item)
Do your Sims crowd into a room and get stuck?
Packaging your lot
After building your lot and testing it, return to your Neighbourhood and place a clean copy of
your lot in the neighbourhood (that is: a lot that has never had a Sim family inside it).
Select the Lots and Houses button at the bottom of the screen.
Select the lot you wish to package, make a note of its price (you’ll need that for the submission
form when you upload your lot) and then click the Package button.
Page - 6 -
Packaging your lot Cont.
In the blue box that pops up, select Package Lot to a file and click the tick…
You’ll find your newly packaged lot in the ‘PackagedLots’ folder: My Documents\EA Games\The
Sims 2\PackagedLots
Page - 7 -
Cleaning your lot with Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer
Open your lot in Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer
Open the folder My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\PackagedLots and locate your lot.
If you’ve installed Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer (S2CPI), you should be able to open the lot simply
by double-clicking the lot package.
If for some reason, the lot opens in the Maxis standard installer, return to the PackagedLots folder
and click the lot package with your RIGHT mouse button and, in the pop-up menu, choose Open
with and then select Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer…
Clean your lot of hacks and unused object recolours
Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer (S2CPI) provides a list of all content contained in your lot. By default,
every item is ticked and so will be included in your uploaded lot.
1. Remove hacked objects
Scroll down the list to ensure that there are no items highlighted in red. If you do find red items,
these are hacks and must be unticked. Never include hacked objects with your lot!
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Cleaning your lot Cont.
2. Sort the list into ‘type’ order
Click the Type column to sort everything by creation type. Note that Game Object is a mesh;
we’re only interested in Object Recolors.
Page - 9 -
Cleaning your lot Cont.
3. Untick every ‘Object Recolor’ you have not used in your lot
You will be surprised by how many recolours have been picked up. As you can see in my screen
below, most of those listed I haven’t used in this lot. Only deselect object recolours and
hacked objects; do not touch other creation types such as Game Objects (unless hacks), Floors,
Walls or Terrain Paints.
4. Save your cleaned lot
Finally, click SAVE AS to save your lot. Save the lot to somewhere you’ll easily find it and don’t
use spaces or any special characters (such as apostrophes) in the name because this can
sometimes cause problems with the lot saving or installing. NEVER OVERWRITE THE
ORIGINAL – always save it under a new name! If you overwrite the original, you’ll be left with an
empty file and you’ll have to start all over again.
Page - 10
Test how your cleaned lot installs
Install your lot with the MAXIS installer
This is arguably THE most important part of preparing a lot for sharing: testing how the lot installs.
What you must also do is NOT use Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer! Why? S2CPI makes too good
a job at installing your lot and you won’t see any problems. The purpose of this test is to
determine what problems your lot might reveal when installed with the Maxis installer.
Open your cleaned lot with the MAXIS installer.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Find your cleaned lot
Click it with your RIGHT mouse button
Choose ‘Open With’ from the pop-up menu
Choose ‘The Sims 2 Body Shop Package Installer’…
Page - 11
Testing how your cleaned lot installs (continued)
Check your lot for faults
Open your cleaned lot with the MAXIS installer and install the lot into a CLEAN GAME as follows…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Empty your Downloads folder of everything except the CEP file ‘_enablecoloroptions’
Find your cleaned lot
Click it with your RIGHT mouse button
Choose ‘Open With’ from the pop-up menu
Choose ‘The Sims 2 Body Shop Package Installer’…
If I had installed this lot with Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer, these problems would NOT have
shown up! This is why we MUST test with the Maxis installer, because this is what many
downloaders of your lot will be using.
Make a note of anything that does not look right. These are the items that downloaders of
your lot will need to obtain before they install your lot unless they are going to use Sims 2 Clean
Pack Installer to install it.
Page - 12
Submitting your lot at The Sims Resource
Before submitting your lot, prepare two screenshots in JPEG picture format. The first should,
preferably, be a main view of your lot. The second image can be used either for internal shots or
a montage of images that you’ve compiled into a single JPEG image.
Also, if you have Winzip installed on your PC, you can zip your lot package to speed up the
upload process.
Opening and completing the TSR submission form
From the TSR home page, click the Submit button in the top screen menu.
Click Submit Sims 2 Creations
From the left hand menu, click Add One Creation…
Page - 13
Submitting your lot at The Sims Resource Cont.
The Base Info section
This is where you enter then name of your lot and type in a brief description. Use the description
to mention anything that may be important to the downloader. For example: I’ve mentioned that
the lot uses invisible stairs beneath the ladders, and that downloaders will need to download the
gas pump mesh first…
In the Credits box, mention anyone whose work you’ve included.
There is also a keywords link. Click this and a new box opens where you can add additional
words to improve the chances of your lot being found. There’s no need to repeat any word you’ve
already used in the lot name or description as these fields are searched automatically.
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Category and Attributes
Lots are stored in categories at TSR. This helps downloaders locate lots for particular themes and
genres. The categories ‘cascade’. This means that, if you add your lot to
Lots\Residential\Rustic\Under $20,000, it will also appear in the parent categories of
Lots\Residential\Rustic, Lots\Residential and just plain Lots too!
Under the Category and Attributes heading, click the Add to Category link. A selection menu
appears. Select lots and choose any sub-categories that apply to your lot. You can add up to
THREE categories…
Requirements and Dependencies
The next part of the form is where we add links to any meshes that didn’t install properly when you
tested your lot. To do this, you must first lookup the TSR ID of each mesh to which you want to
link.
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To look up the TSR ID number of each mesh that didn't install properly in your lot
1.
First, find the mesh at TSR
You only need to link to the base MESH of the object, not its recolours too.
2.
When you’ve found the mesh, click on the ‘More info’ link
This will expand to show an ID number for the mesh. Write this down – you’ll need it!
Page - 16
Adding the mesh IDs to the TSR submission form
1. In the TSR submission form, scroll down until you find the section called Requirements and
dependencies.
2. Click the Item References link.
3. Click the Add New link.
4. Enter the ID of your mesh in the Item ID box, and change the Relation drop-down to ‘Required’
Repeat steps 3 and 4 for every mesh link you need to add.
Once you have submitted your lot form, this information will look like this (see the bit highlighted in
red)…
Page - 17
Required Expansion Packs
There are TWO types of expansion packs available for The Sims: major expansion packs that add
new objects, careers , clothing AND new game-play to the game (driveways, businesses etc), and
minor (content-only) packs that only add new objects, careers and clothing, but don’t change
game behaviours in any way.
MAJOR expansion packs include:
University
Nightlife
Open For Business
…and the soon to be released Pets expansion pack
MINOR expansion packs include:
Holiday pack
Family Fun Stuff
…and the soon to be released Glamour pack
For every MAJOR pack you own, you must tick the equivalent on the submission form. Every lot
you make will require the same major packs that you have installed – even if you have only used
content from the original game!
If you own any of the MINOR packs, you only need to tick these if your lot includes any objects
specifically from these packs.
If your lot contains recolours of Maxis objects, you might want to tick the CEP box too. If anyone
without CEP installs your lot, recolours of many Maxis objects could revert back to their Maxis
defaults.
File and Images
In the box called The File, browse for your CLEANED lot.
Page - 18
Did you know? If you have Winzip installed on your PC, you can zip your cleaned lot package.
This will make the uploaded file smaller, taking it far less time to upload to the TSR server.
Also browse for your two preview images. These should be in JPEG format. They can be any
reasonable size, but don’t make them so big that they won’t be viewable by people with smaller
screens!
Adding your Creation
We haven’t finished yet (we have price and bedrooms to add yet), but this is all we can do until
we’ve uploaded our lot.
Read the information and disclaimers and, if you agree to the terms, tick the box and click the Add
Your Creation button. Now, sit back and wait. Lot files are large and can take several minutes to
upload, so DO be patient…
Page - 19
More Categories and Attributes!
Once your lot is submitted, scroll down the form to return to the Categories and Attributes section
and you’ll see that there are some new boxes now. These apply specifically to lots and allow you
to specify the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, the price of the lot and whether or not it’s
furnished and decorated.
All these boxes are optional.
Note that the price specifies ‘Include the §’ symbol. I simply use Copy and Paste to copy the
Simoleon symbol into the price field. If you don’t do this, it won’t matter. It just makes the price
look neater on the download page.
Click the Update Creation button at the bottom of the form to save your changes.
Page - 20
Finally, test your submitted lot page!
At the top of the submission form, there is a tiny link that will open up a pop-up preview window of
your creation.
Use this to test that any links to meshes you have added work properly.
Submit your uploaded lot for publication
Once you’re happy that everything’s correct, select Uploads from the left-hand menu. Your
uploaded lot should be listed as waiting for submission. Tick the box for the lot and then click the
Submit Selected button to finish.
Your lot will be assessed by TSR staff and, if approved, will appear live on the TSR server in 1-3
days maximum. If for whatever reason your lot is rejected, you will find it listed, with a reason, in
the Rejected area of TSR Submissions (also available in the left-hand menu as shown above).
Page - 21
Submitting your work elsewhere
You will still need to provide links to any meshes that are required before your lot is installed.
Usually, this will mean typing in the full URL of the mesh in the description text. Some sites might
not allow any links, and so these will be of no use to you if your lot DOES require links to some
meshes.
Alternatively, you can direct people to download and use Sims 2 Clean Pack Installer to install
your lot. When S2CPI is used, all meshes install correctly and no links are required.
Unless you are a TSR Featured Artist, there is nothing to stop you uploading your work to any
number of sites as you wish.
Just remember to link to those meshes, though!
Page - 22
When a mesh needs ANOTHER mesh…
Masters and slaves
Have you noticed that all Maxis beds share one set of bedding recolours, and that, if you
download any custom bedding, THAT becomes available for all beds too? What has happened
here is that just ONE bed has bedding recolours and that is the Colonial Ironwood Bed.. All the
other beds have none of their own, but share the Colonial Ironwood’s bedding.
The Colonial Ironwood bed is being the master (or ‘main’) mesh because it holds all the recolours
(including custom recolours made by other people). All the other beds are slaves. The slave
beds have no bedding recolours of their own.
Therefore, if you want to use custom bedding, you have to include the Colonial Ironwood
bed somewhere in your lot so that the lot packager can pick up all custom recolours linked
to it.
Page - 23
Custom master and slave meshes in your lots
Custom content creators now frequently use the same master/slave technique because it’s much
kinder to people’s Downloads folders than including hundreds of recolours for every mesh in the
set.
When downloading new meshes, identifying meshes that are related to one another is usually
simple because the download should be clearly labelled.
The dining seat oil drum in the picture below is part of a set of three meshes. It is being described
as sharing the same recolours as the table master mesh in the set. Therefore, because this seat
has no colours of its own, your lots would also need to include the oil drum table (which would
bring with it all the recolours into your lot package).
Page - 24
What if you can’t remember whether your downloaded meshes are
independent or related?
Don’t worry: just keep a lookout for any missing files in your packaged lot.
You see: if you DON’T use the master mesh in your lot, any recolours of other meshes (the slave
meshes) in the set won’t be picked up, as is shown below…
The first lot package is missing two window recolours. This is because I’ve used a SLAVE mesh
‘Frameless Glass Window With Wall Side Panels’, but have forgotten to use the MASTER mesh
from the same set somewhere in the lot too.
In the second lot package, I’ve used the MASTER mesh (the similarly named but singular
‘Frameless Glass Window With Wall Side Panel’) in my lot. Now that the master mesh has been
added to the building, the lot packager spots my recolours and picks them up correctly.
Page - 25

Two Tiled Painting Tutorial

Transcription

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