Mod The Sims - Neighborhood "Permafrost" Decoration

Disclaimer: This guide does not cover the creation of meshes and custom textures. Additionally, some basic familiarity with SimPE is required.

Tools needed:

SimPE
simple text or code editor (notepad works fine)

Step 1: Creating a new effect

If this is the first mod you are creating or downloading of this type, you will first need to go to the TSBin folder in the game's install location and create a subfolder called "Plugins". Now, create a text file called main.fx and save it somewhere on your computer.

If you already have a Plugins folder and a main.fx, copy that file somewhere else on your computer to edit it. All custom effects and default replacements for effects should be written in ONE main.fx file.

Open main.fx with a text/code editor of your choice. To create a new effect, you will need to follow this basic format:

Code:

[effect type] [effect name]
  texture "[texture name]"
  [effect property 1]
  [effect property 2]
  [more properties...]
end

effect [effect name]
   [effect type]Effect [effect name]
end

for example, terrain covers like farm fields use this format:

Code:

decal neighborhood_farmfields03
  texture "neighborhood-decals-farmfield03"

  life 20
  alpha 0.8
  size 90
end

effect neighborhood_farmfields1
   decalEffect neighborhood_farmfields03
end

and particle emissions (such as smoke) would look something like this:

Code:

particles test
  life 5
  rate 30
  source -point
  emit -dir (0, 0, 1) 1 -speed 5
  texture "effects-puff"

  color (0.0, 1.0, 0.0) (1.0, 0.0, 0.0)
end

effect neighborhood_house_smoking
   particleEffect test
end

The research on these effects was carried out by Ammar and published on github (link in introduction). I highly recommend reading his findings on this subject which covers all the types of properties these effects can have. My understanding is that a lot of different types of new effects can be created by playing with the different properties.

If you would like to use a custom texture in an effect, the texture must be in the group 0x1C0532FA, which is where all of the Maxis textures are stored. Do not include the _txtr part of the name when you are adding it to an effect.

When you are done editing main.fx, copy and paste it to the Plugins folder and your effect is now part of the game. But it's not going to do much good if it isn't linked to an item, so here is where step 2 comes in.

Step 2: Creating an object with the effect
This process was originally described in a thread on MTS which is now down, but can still be found on Internet Archive. This guide covers the addition of effects to build/buy objects on lots. I wont repeat everything that this thread described, but I will make a couple notes on where the process differs for neighborhood items.
https://web.archive.org/web/2018021...ad.php?t=145518

To clone neighborhood deco, you need to open SimPE in advanced mode (this setting is part of the extra\preferences menu). Next, open object workshop and clone an item from the neighborhood catalog that has an effect attached (some examples are the farm fields, crashed UFO, rainbow, and lighthouse)

You can make any changes you like to the Neighborhood Object XML and other files, but the main one we are concerned with for this guide is the Resource node (CRES). Open the file in the plugin view and look at the "Content" tab, which is the default one that opens when you first look at the CRES.
The item you cloned should already have an effect block in the hierarchy, so to change it, use the drop down button on the blocklist and select "0x1: EffectsList (cDataListExtension)". Now, the "Items" box in the plugin view should be showing you a line that looks something like:

Code:

 eff_slot = (String) neighborhood_effname

Where I've written "eff", this is a placeholder for the name of your effect. The slot file name doesn't need to match exactly the name of your effect, but it is helpful to make the name similar to your effect to identify it more easily later on. The "neighborhood_effname" needs to match your effect name from Step 1. As an example, here is this line from my permafrost file:

Code:

 frost_slot = (String) neighborhood_permafrost

Next, open the dropdown list again and open the item that has the word "slot" in the name. This item will originally open on a set of location parameters in a tab called "cTransformNode" (modifying these is optional). Switch the tab to "cObjectGraphNode", where you will now see just two inputs with one being the slot name. Rename this file to match the "eff_slot" name you assigned earlier.

Commit the changes to the CRES file, and make any other changes you would like to the file, and that should do it!

Filename	Type	Size
nhood_permafrost.zip	zip
main.fx	fx	180
nhoodsnow.package	package	726204

nhood_permafrost.zip Download Uploaded: 11th Jan 2024, 298.7 KB. 565 downloads.
For a detailed look at individual files, see the Information tab.

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Neighborhood "Permafrost" Decoration