Hi everyone! Remember the tutorial on how to create custom service NPCs I wrote a few years ago? Where you'd let the game generate the NPCs first and use Alt Sim Surgery to modify their appearances?

Well, with April Black's recent discoveries about sims corruption, especially with respect to whether or not NPCs are safe to play as, it has been discovered that creating custom NPCs is actually way easier than we all thought!

Plus, with Chris Hatch's updated SimPE (0_77_69), NPC creation has never been easier before!
So first things first, credit goes to all these amazing people who helped within the sims community and discovered new stuff up to this day! It's crazy how new things are still being discovered well after 20 years from the release of a 2004 game!

Alright, let's get to the tutorial.
You'll need:
- SimPE (0_77_69)
- InSimenator
- FFS Debugger, aka Batbox

Step 0: Always, ALWAYYS back-up your neighborhood first before doing anything unusual or SimPE in general. Please do not skip this step! Made your back-up now? You're good? Good!

Step 1: Create your custom NPC just like a regular sim in CAS. You don't even have to worry about their NPC outfit, just create your sim as you wish to create them! You can create any NPC you like, I'm creating a Drama professor for this tutorial, as professors are the only NPCs that need a bit more special tweaking in order for them to work properly.



You can even give them a family if you want to. This is especially useful and interesting if you're creating custom neighborhoods for upload! Always wanted to create a playable sim who's the sister of an imfamous bank robber? Or a playable uni sim who has professor parents? Well, now it's your chance!



(Step 2:):
Note: This extra step is only needed if you create custom uni professor NPCs! Otherwise, skip to Step 3!

Using the batbox, give your sim a college degree in that major you wish to assign your custom professor to. You can do that by selecting "Upgrade Sim.../Pre-Uni.../[Major of your choice]".



Since I want to create a Drama professor, I'm choosing Drama. If you want to create a professor for the hidden major "Undeclared", don't give your sim a college degree. You can just skip to Step 3!



Step 3: Customize your sim as you like, you can give them even careers, skills, relationships, etc. as you like!



As you can see, for my custom Drama professor NPC, I made her 1 brother and 3 daughters, one of which is also a cheerleader NPC. You can link as many NPCs as you want (or not if you prefer for them to not have customized family trees). You can even add ancestors if you want! All up to you ^^



Step 4: Now, comes the magic, lol! Open up your neighborhood in SimPE and select your sim's SimDescription file. Under "Type" select the NPC type you wish to assign your sim to.



Step 5: A pop-up will appear then, telling you that changing a sim's NPC type won't make them into an actual NPC, but only give them the special powers associated with that NPC (i.e. giving playable sims the ability to sneak if you give them the Burglar sim type). To make them an actual NPC, hit the button "Fix Original GUID".



Oh, and don't forget to commit your changes! You can save and close SimPE afterwards.



Step 6: Load your household your newly created NPC sim is in... and tadaaa! Upon load, your NPC sim should be properly initalized now and should wear their respective NPC clothing.



Now is your last change to make any additional changes, i.e. interests, skills or relationships, etc. Once you've fully customized your NPC sim, you can continue with Step 7.

Step 7: Your sim should be ready to go now! Now, use InSimenator's FamilyTree to remove your sim as an NPC from your household.

IMPORTANT! You really need the InSimenator for this. Teleporter Shrub/Cat/SimBlender can unfortunately only remove sims as townies, not NPCs, hence not so useful in this tutorial. The only "use" it may potentially have is to clear non-residents off your lot after you added them to the NPC household using InSimenator.




But this can also be done with InSimenator's Summoner or just with a simple Force Error >> Delete. You can technically also just ask the NPC sim to leave the lot using a playable sim. You don't technically have to clear off the NPC sim from your lot at all, that's more a cosmetic thing to do, lol.





Step 8: Now, feel free to check whether your newly created NPC really works as intended. If you for instance created custom maids, they should be available for your sims to hire now or any custom burglars may come to rob your houses at night, etc. As you can see, my custom Drama professor suddenly fell in love with everyone except her family members, as she should... oh, well!



That's it! I hope you have fun creating your custom NPCs! It's quite fun and simple with the new SimPE update actually!

Note: If you're trying to create custom burglars, cop or animal control officer NPCs, please have a look at this post as these NPCs are a bit special and need to have their NPC BHAV functions in their character files.

Note: If you don't want your NPC sim to wear the default NPC clothing, you can do the following in order to force the game to use their everyday clothing as their work clothing. Open up the sim's character file and go to "Age Data". In Age Data, look for the line "age" that should have a value like 0x00000008 (if the sim's an adult) or 0x00000010 (if the sim's an elder). Change that to 0x00000040. Most of the time, the NPC clothing template isn't enabled for young adults (0x00000040), so doing this trick will force the game to use the everyday clothing instead.

Loving this (re-)discovery!

Is it possible to change their NPC clothes to something custom? In step 6, can I have them plan outfit and then assign something different, like a CC outfit for a maid?

Also in step 7, I'm not sure I understand this:So, do I need InSim/Teleporter shrub/SimBlender at all, or is error + delete enough to get through to step 8/end?

@topp



Yes, but some NPC have hard-coded clothing like the diva NPC or the professors, but some NPC can have custom clothing as well. In my own test, I created a bartender who had the maid outfit and she showed up just fine!

And I think the same might be also true for maids!
Since this hasn't been done before, I'm not quite sure which NPC have hard-coded clothing, and which are free to wear whatever they want.

But you can have unusual NPCs, like a male social worker or a repo-woman, they all work just fine! Or a teenage nanny! I've also created a child paper delivery boy and he showed up just fine as well! It's just the animation of laying down the newspaper that's a bit weird, but hey, at least we can have teenage nannies and paper delivery kids like in TS3!



You will need InSimenator's FamilyTree to add your sim to the NPC household, otherwise it's just like as if you befriended a NPC and moved them in. They won't show up as service NPCs if you leave them in your playable household.

The Teleporter shrub/cat/SimBlender can unfortunately only add to the Townies household, hence not so useful in this tutorial. The only "use" it may potentially have is to clear non-residents off your lot after you added them to the NPC household using InSimenator.

But this can also be done with InSimenator's Summoner or just with a simple Force Error >> Delete. You can technically also just ask the NPC sim to leave the lot using a playable sim. You don't technically have to clear off the NPC sim from your lot at all, that's more a cosmetic thing to do, lol.

This is why I haven't listed Teleporter shrub/cat/SimBlender as a required tool for this tutorial... only InSimenator
I've edited the main post to make things more clearer. Hope this helps

Thank you!

I guess the Insim step can also then be done using SimPE? In the FAMI tab, I can just find the Rauvu household and transfer the Sim from that household to the NPC household. It can be a bit tedious to find, though, but the high instance number of the NPC household/FAMI entry easily gives itself away. I'm not sitting at my computer right now to open SimPE and get the instance number myself, but I'll update the post once I do!

EDIT: From looking at my Strangetown, I think the FAMI with the instance 0x7FFF is the NPC "household." So just transferring Sims there could work (remove them from the list of family members of the Rauvu household and add them to the 0x7FFF one). That way, Insim may not even be required at all! Not sure what would happen to the Sim once you load the lot, but I believe that a simple force error would suffice, like you said.

(Unless Insim does something extra other than switching the FAMI data when transferring Sims between households...)

@topp

Yeah, sure! You could technically do everything in SimPE!
After changing the sim type to the desired NPC, as well as fixing the original GUID. While in SimPE, you could also edit the family information file and remove that sim from the household and add to the 0x7FFF NPC household as you mentioned.

But that will require at least one NPC to be generated by the game in order for that household to exist. So yeah, you'd still need the InSimenator to remove as a NPC (hence creating the hidden NPC household) if you have no sims in your neighoborhood and want to create the NPCs completely from scratch.

And the FFS Debugger isn't actually required as well. If you want to create custom professors and assign them a major, you can do that in SimPE as well, just switch to the University tab and change the major there. But I think... professors should still have a degree. Lol!

I've listed those mods as required tools anyway, since I thought it would make things even easier! So you don't have to deal with editing FAMI files and all.

You can set custom clothes if the NPC is of the wrong age for whom the special outfit doesn't exist. For example, a young adult doesn't have most service clothes. He will try to put them on but have no change. If you want to customize clothes per lot (out of possible GUID outfits), you can use Memory Commander with the controller that will put on the clothes every time he sees the NPC.

I came up with a new idea for a feature to make custom NPCs or Playable Custom NPCS, add custom ways of walking like the rabbit or other NPCs or even the sexy, angry, sad, skip walk and so on. But unfortunately my knowledge of SimPE is practically zero and I only know how to do very basic things. I am sure that with your knowledge you could follow the instructions that @kestrellyn and @jonasn gave me and create a tutorial with images and suitable for storytellers or more casual players who lack such advanced knowledge of Simpe.

https://modthesims.info/showthread....25#startcomment

@Sokisims It's quite doable. I experimented a little and managed to make it work.^^
Have a look here.

All you need to do is extract the walk style from the social bunny NPC (or any other locomotion files for the other walk styles you wish to use) from the game files (objects.package file) and add those files into your sim's character file. Then go to Resource Tab and change the group ID of the files you've just extracted to match with the playable sim's group ID (i.e. 0xFFFFFFFF). Next, you'll just have to add an additional line in the "Function - Init" BHAV file to include the "CT - Restore Loco" BHAV file and you're good to go!

But as I said in that post, sims never use the coding from their character file but use the code in the template they were made from which is determined by their original GUID. That's why, as a final step, you'll have the change the sim's original GUID to just the sim's actual GUID and that should make the game use your sim's character file to determine its behaviour, i.e. make the sims hop like the social bunny for instance.

By the way, you can also customize the sims further by also including unique idle interactions (i.e. make a sim juggle occassionally, etc.) much like how EA implemented the unique behaviour for Mr. Big/Diva or the Grand Vampire NPCs.

This is awesome! I am having some difficulties though, I tried to make some custom cops, but when I tried testing them, they wouldn't spawn onto the lot? I tried prank calling the police, spawning a burglar so the burglar alarm would come off, but they wouldn't come. Am I missing something when it comes to making police npcs?

Unfortunately, custom cops, burglars and animal control officers cannot be made using this method in the current version of SimPE. It’s because SimPE cannot update the character files properly. The game recognizes them as cops and burglars, but they’re unable to perform their NPC job due to missing references. I’m currently investigating this and possibly come up with a (better) fix.

But you can workaround this issue by first extracting your sim to Body Shop and replacing their broken character file with a character file that actually has the coding in it (i.e. from a cop generated in the game) and lastly by performing Alt Sim Surgery (already included in the most recent version of SimPE) to restore the original appearance of your sim. This should make your sim be able to perform their NPC job.

Be careful when replacing their character file though. Make sure to make a backup BEFORE doing anything, especially write their GUID somewhere down (not original GUID but the sim’s actual GUID this time, it should match with Fallback GUID by default). I’d also make sure that the age and gender of the generated cop matches with your sim. BTW, you can also use one of the cops from Pleasantview, just copy one cop character file and rename it to match with your sim’s character file and add it to your neighborhood’s Characters folder to replace it. Then, open up the character file in SimPE and replace the cop’s GUID with your sim’s GUID you wrote down earlier and you should be able to do Alt Sim Surgery.

One down side: by replacing the character file, you’re also replacing the appearance of your sim, hence why we need to do Alt Sim Surgery in the last step and extract your sim to Body Shop in the first step.

How Do you make Custom npcs landlords that appears in all neighborhoods like the Magic (neighborhood) Vyn Shaw Nicholas Landchild Steven Butler do using a clean Magic (neighborhood) template? as i want op landlords with all skills and gold badges and university degree and I have all clean stealth hoods as well

Thank you for this tutorial!
If it's the same as the Make a Townie option, is it safe to assume their inventory items isn't wiped when they're off the lot?
I'd like to make sure I can give them traits with no issues.

Does changing their GUID file in SimPE work for them to behave as that NPC or that doesn't work either?

Hi, I just want to add on to this something I discovered after hours of testing today. You can also do this to make custom Pack Leaders! But, since InSim sadly doesn't actually work on pets, you'll have to use SimPE to do this instead, so I'm adding in a mini tutorial of my own.

First off, you'll want to make a LARGE dog in CAS, as small dogs and (obviously) cats cannot be made into Pack Leaders, or at least, SimPE won't let you, and I advise against trying. You can also make a family with the dog, or just make the dog by itself, and you can go crazy on its appearance if you'd like... it doesn't even have to be a wolf! You can even make it female, even if the Maxis default pack leaders are male. So, for this tutorial, I'll be showing how I made a custom alien Pack Leader named Gleepus, using this method. I moved her into the Howell household that I have in Strangetown, and then immediately closed the game and opened up SimPE.

In SimPE, I searched for her using Neighborhood Search followed by Sim Search, and then opened up her profile, setting her type to "Wolf (LOTP)," clicking "Fix Original GUID," and then committing the change.


But, we're not done in SimPE yet. Next, you'll need to go to Family Information, and first find the household that the dog is in and remove it. I found Gleepus in the Howell household, as I said before. I clicked her name, clicked "Delete Sim," then committed the changes.


Next, still in Family Information, you'll need to find your Service NPC household. While in my game, the household is named Service NPCs, the actual household name varies, usually being the surname of one of the Sims living in it. Thankfully, SimPE will tell you if it's the Service NPCs household; the blue space at the top will read "Service NPCs" regardless of the household name. Anyway, from this point, you'll have to find the dog under the dropdown menu, select it, and then click "Add Sim" and commit the changes. Note that depending on how many Service NPCs you have, it may take a short wait before the changes commit.


Once you've confirmed the dog has been added to the household, as I made sure to do for Gleepus as you can see here, save the all the changes you've committed and then close SimPE.


By the way, this isn't a necessary step and can be skipped, but I prefer my pack leaders to not have surnames, so I removed Gleepus'. To do this, find the dog using Sim Search, click the "More" option and choose "Open character file," click "Catalogue Description," and then you can simply leave the surname blank. Do not worry, this will not cause any harm to your game.


And so, after all that is done, using testingcheats, you can shift+click on the mailbox, then click Make NPC... -> Leader of the Pack, and any Pack Leader you have will spawn on the lot after a few in-game minutes, even if it's daytime (keep in mind, Pack Leaders usually only appear at night). Since I already had the other Pack Leaders I made spawned on the lot, Gleepus spawned in immediately! I did have to save and then reload the game in order for the glowing effect to properly align with her eyes, but, lo and behold! A custom Pack Leader!


I used this same method to create other Pack Leaders whom I named Nightmare and The Golden Wolf.


You can also use this method, albeit without any of the steps regarding moving the dog to the Service NPCs household, to give the glowing yellow eyes to any playable large dog in a household, as I did for this dog who was the daughter of a Pack Leader and a husky.


So, yes, you can also use this as a means to have playable Pack Leaders in a household! Just remember, though, that they will still autonomously nibble Sims they have a high relationship with if that Sim isn't already a werewolf (which means you can get into a vicious cycle of become werewolf -> cured of werewolf -> repeat), and since the game still recognizes them as a special NPC type, they also cannot be trained in any way; no scolding for undesirable behaviors, no praising for desired behaviors, no teaching commands. Also, their personality will be changed to that of a wolf (genius/hyper/independent/aggressive/pigpen & finicky; interestingly, their star sign won't change), and this means they'll very frequently growl at and attack other pets on the lot, which can cause pets to run away. For these reasons, while they're not buggy and certainly aren't corrupt when added to a household, they can be a major inconvenience due to their rather annoying quirks.

While I doubt I'm the first person to have tried all of this, I think I may be the first to have documented this, so I hope it helps y'all with your custom neighborhoods!