I have a question: what do you do if you can't find an object in SimPE? I have the latest version and I have all SPs/EPs and installed the M&G patch, but Glamour items aren't showing up. I have recently installed the SP (along with others) but the others show up fine.

Check your File Table to make sure Glamour items are enabled. Make sure the path is accurate.

Ah, that was it. Also noticed that, because I have the Fun with Pets collection, M&G and Family Fun folder paths had to be changed (as they're installed in a special collection folder). Thanks!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I've been working on an herb garden, cloning Maxis flowers for the base, and its been driving me crazy that I couldn't recategorize them for Gardening. Now I know how! I bookmarked your tut because I know I'm going to need it again!

Thanks so much for your tutorial, I'm so happy with how the buy mode catalog looks and can't wait to play! I wanted to make a quick note that I have the Double Deluxe as the expansion that my game loads from and I was able to put my file in the Bin folder and everything including stuff pack content showed up.

Hello and thanks for the build list, which has helped a lot in recategorising items. However, some of the categories listed were wrong, I discovered and were showing up 2 storey columns and connecting arches in my pool items category...

I have since done a bit of digging and found the right ones - and they're listed below:

Phanoah's List from MTS:

Doors/Windows, Build mode type = 8
Build mode subsort:
- doors = 1
- multi-story windows = 2
- windows = 4
- gates = 8
- archways = 16
- multi-story doors = 256

Garden center, Build mode type = 4
Build mode subsort:
- trees = 1
- shrubs = 2
- flowers = 4
- gardening = 16

Miscellaneous, Build mode type = 1
Build mode subsort:
- columns = 8
- stairs (full staircases) = 32
- swimming pool = 64
- multi-story columns = 256
- column arches = 512
- garage = 1024
- elevators = 2048
- architecture = 4096

They should show up in the right places now.

I'll check these out and then fix my list, thank you!

EDIT: Someone just PM'd me about this and mentioned that your numbers are for Decimal, and my numbers are in Hex. There is a little radio button on the right side of the SimPE editor to toggle between them. If you switch to Hex, you'll see the numbers I had posted originally.

Hello,
thanks for this great tutorial!
I would like to change things on almost all the maxis content so my question is
Can I just use copies of the "objects.package" and "catpatterns.bundle" from all my EP/SP's as a backup and then change things via the Object Workshop or does it also list items there that are saved somewhere else?

*edit* just saw the object workshop only leads me to recolour and cloning. Still question remains are all the items I see in there located in the "objects.package" files from the game?.
In that case I would guess I can just place copies of all in the latest "TSData\Res\StuffPack" folder and any changes I do there would overwrite the default items. Same with copies of "catpatterns.bundle" placed in my downloads folder. Am I right about that?

Btw. I only wanna edit things like description, category, maybe hiding some nothing about general functions of the objects or the way they look

Thanks for your help!
Greetings, Lucy

Extract the files you want to work on (find them, right-click in the Resource View window, choose "extract"), and then do File-->New, before you import the files (Right-click, choose "import"). Now you can safely edit them.

You can find most resources by searching for resource names. You should also be able to "clone" the resources by choosing "start" and ticking the right boxes. If the resource names show in cursive after extracting, they're the "original" ones (or a copy of them),a nd theese can be extracted for use in modding.

DO NOT edit the original files from the game files, or you might end up borking your game. You should also NOT place edited copies of these files in your Downloads folder. Keep the copies outside of your Downloads/SavedSims folders (desktop is fine). As said above: Extract the resouces you need (search function or directly from copies of the original files), make a new file, import the resources, and edit all you like. For objects you usually only need the OBJDs if you're recategorizing, and for clothes/hairs/accessories you need the "PropertySet" or "MeshOverlay" resources (they're practically the same type of resource, just with different names)

Thanks for your help, here's another question, can I change categories of Neighborhood objects? They don't have OBJD Files

Is it the XNGB file and do I have to edit the dtstring that says "sort" ? If yes what are the right names there? Is it: misc, landmark, stone, flora and effects? (did I miss one?)
Can I just change that line and it would go to another category?
Thanks

I don't have that information off hand. Make a copy of whatever file you are editing, make the edit, try it out and report back!

Ok it's me again with some more questions :p
Is it possible in SimPE to edit several files at once?
E.g. select several XML files (in the same package file) and set the number at the showincatalog dstring to the same for all ? (Would be nice if I want to hide several wallpapers at once)
Any other batch operations would be handy as well (I would be careful I only work with copies anyways)
Also the Plugin view window shows little arrows on the top right but they don't seem to have any function. Thought I might be able to go to the next file with them, if batch operations don't work that would at least be a little easier but nothing happens when I click on them (even if I mark several files in the resource list). It's not even changing between the open windows in the lower part of SimPE which would have been my second guess as to what its function could be.


I found the "propertySet" but I couldn't find anything that said "meshOverlay" can you tell me the short name of them? (like GZPS being short for the PropertySets)


I haven't gotten around yet to try something with the NH-Objects but will post my results here after I did

So far I got me copies of all catpatterns.bundle, catcanhobjects.bundle and objects*.packages of all EP/SPs and deleted all file types in them I don't need (so mostly XML, OBJD, XNGB, GZPS, CTSS left in them). The files are much easier accessable for me now because they load faster in SimPE. I also combined all catpatterns into one file and all catcanhobjects into another. Of course I'm keeping all those files away from my game folders but now I can quickly find things and test away to get more used to SimPE in general

Thank you all for your help here!

As far as I know, there is no way to batch edit.

MeshOverlays are only for makeups and some beards and eyebrows - think things that are painted onto the face and have no mesh of their own. If something has a PropertySet, it will not have a MeshOverlay. They are rarely recatagorized, so I rarely deal with them, and as such do not know their short name without looking it up.

Making copies and deleting out the unneeded stuff is generally how I start my giant recat mods, but if you are only doing a few things, we suggest the extract method. You are right now track, keep at it!

I really did it and recategorized one of the Neighbourhood items from Maxi.
Well at least inside the same main category. I chose the "Rock and Sand Peninsula" and moved it from the misc section to the stones section (mostly just to have anything to test). I attached a file showing you the new sorting in the game.
I did not use the Object Workshop but went directly to the "catcanhobjects.package" file which is in the "\TSData\Res\Catalog\CANHObjects" folders of the EP/SPs. The only file needed is the XNGB. In the plugin view it will open something called CPF Editor (I attached a screenshot of that too). Click on the line that says "sort (dtString)" and change the value. Commit and save like before. I put my file into C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Mansions and Garden Stuff\TSData\Res\Catalog\Bins and it worked right away.
I only tested to change from "misc" to "stone" but from seeing other files it should be:
misc
landmark
stone
flora
effects
Not sure if it's case sensitive (and yes it's effects not effect).

While I was fiddling around I found 2 links to be useful one from the MTS wiki and another one from a blog

Thank you so much for your great tutorial here and the encouragement to try something myself!

@Phaenon:Thanks I don't think I'll ever need those files so I can savely forget about the MeshOverlays.
I think you have a mistake in your first post. You listed HEX numbers but the one for stairs which says 32 is a decimal one and the right one should be 20

I hope it's ok to put this question here cause it's actually custom content I'm recategorizing but I guess it could be a thing for maxis items too. I tried putting some vents into the elevator category but this made some of them not placeable anymore. Is there something special about that category? I tried it via using SimPE and the categorizer program. From 4 vents I could only place two. both of them are 2 tiles, the other two which are 1 tiles can't be placed anymore so I wondered if it has something to do with the fact that elevators are all 2 tiles in width !?
So did anyone ever try to put anything in the elevators category? Did it work?

Edit:After putting those same items to garage that worked fine

Ah yes. I tend to switch mine to decimal for ease of reading. Thanks for this.

Whoa, so this DOES exist! Thanks again for all your effort!

I just have a small doubt, please. After placing your mods, I know I can change or delete things that are in the lists, but is it possible to add new instead? There are still a few items I want to relocate, but I'd prefer not to make yet another list for each exp. I want to add each item to its respective exp among your mods, but I don't know if they're already "closed", so to speak.

This was really helpful tutorial (I haven't really touched SimPE before this, but I still was able to do this!!). But when I did this at first I changed the function short poxes and ended up having objects in more that one categories xD ...but I just fixed it later.