Thursday, February 25, 2010

Re: objects_for_Sims2 Reorganising your downloads and why you would???

Hi Owlsy! So glad to know you are doing better. LOL I had to clean my CC house because my game at one point took 5 hours (yes 5 LONG hours) to load it's something we all hate to do but if you don't well your game may take 5 or more hours to load! I'm sorry it took so long to welcome you back but I have an 18 year old daughter still at home & her computer is not working at the moment so she is always (and I stress ALWAYS ) on mine LOL! kids what can you do with them! jhoudy

On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Owl Songster <owlsongster@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hello Simmers!
 
This is very long, so if you're not really interested in the trials and tribulations of reorganising your downloads... give this one a miss, lolz.
 
IF I GOT ANYTHING WRONG IN THE FOLLOWING, OR YOU DO IT A BETTER WAY (OR EVEN A DIFFERENT WAY), PLEASE LET US KNOW
 
MY EXPERIENCE IS BASED ON HAVING ALL EPS AND SPS... yours may be different, see the first article below for restrictions on subfolders.
 
To reorganise my folders effectively i have the following helpful proggies (if there are manuals, how-to files, anything like that, get those too, and read them! I mostly didn't bother, winged it, so i'm not utilising the proggies to the fullest):
 
Sims2CleanPackInstaller here:
 
Delphy Download Organiser here:
 
Sims2HCDU (Hack Conflict Detection Utility) and
Sims2Categoriser here:
http://www.simwardrobe.com/ underSims2 then Programs
 
Ok, the wonderful game kept crashing, so i *finally* read Downloading for Fracking Idiots at modthesims - i've been having trouble getting into MTS coz i tried, had probs getting my password sent to me SO I MADE ANOTHER ACCOUNT.  DON'T DO THIS, YER ONLY ALLOWED ONE ACCOUNT!!!  My bad, hopefully i can get that resolved. 
 
Anyway, i can still get links, and you can read articles without joining (but join if you haven't yet, its a GREAT site) so here it is:
 
 
And yeah, the very last link on the article is if absolutely nothing they say works... i wasn't game to push it, bet it says something like YOU ARE A FRACKING IDIOT... has anyone actually pushed the final link? lololol  I thought i knew it all, and i did know a lot, but still learned things from this article.
 
The next article i found useful was Game Help:  Organising Custom Content:
 
 
Basically this article tells you options and how to do it.  I'm assuming you have read these articles.  I chose to keep my files rather than start again, but tried to be ruthless.  So i deleted all files with just letters and numbers, no proper file names.  These came inside SimPack files and since i couldn't *easily* sort them, i got rid of them. And yes, i got all those before i got the CleanPackInstaller.
 
Since i started with over 60 thousand files from many many sites, initially sorted into site folders, i decided to resort by game category.  
 
First Stage:   I used Delphys Download Organiser, and made folders that were named the same as the major categories in there. Any category in Delphys like unknown, duplicate, empty package... i deleted.  After that, i sorted the downloads by type and moved them into the new folders.  You also pick up more duplicates at this point, and can delete files that won't move as copies already exist in the new folder.  This is a looonnnggg job coz you can only move something like 23 files at a time.  If anyone knows how to do it by batch, please let us know. 
 
CleanPackInstaller will also show duplicates, they are shaded pink, and CPI picks up more duplicates than Delphys does.  I've run both these proggies at various times when the game wasn't working, getting rid of duplicates.
   
Both Delphys and the CPI show global hacks, highlighted in red.  Delphys will group them together, for ease of moving.  I already had used these to create a hack folder which i find very useful, as most problems stem from game hacks and its useful to have them all in one place to whip out the folder and see if its THEM.
 
Once I sorted all the files into broad categories, I double checked each category in Delphys by clicking on the folder column and scrolling thru to check that each file had been moved into the right folder... i had made some errors, so that was useful.  Then i exited the proggy, went to the site folders and checked thru them... whatever was still left, if it was obviously different like a sound file, I moved into the Special folder.  If it wasn't something obvious like those, i deleted it.  Then deleted all the site folders.
 
Then i looked at the folders i had, renamed some Delphy folders and made several base ones.  I ended up with a mix of Delphy and game categories, so this is what i have directly in my Downloads:  
1AHackorGameMod
BodyShop
BuildMode
BuyMode
Food
NeighbourhoodObject
Shader
Special
 
Since i don't know what a Shader file is and can't be stuffed googling it, i just left that in main.  If anyone knows, and it should be somewhere else, like Build or BodyShop, please let me know *grins*.  Some Food files are objects, some are linked to fridges... i just left them all in Food, seems to work fine (with the exception of a cake that ages your Sims - stuck that in 1AHackorGameMod).
 
Second Stage:  I moved the lot onto my Desktop, and switched to Sims2Categoriser for fine sorting. At that point i created subfolders.  1AHackorGameMod has subcategories i find useful.  For Build Mode and Buy Mode,  i used the same names for the subfolders as are used ingame.  Body Shop already had its subfolders and the rest didn't need any.  These four are really the only ones that need any more work on them.
 
I set to work with Sims2Categoriser, starting with 1AHackorGameMod  Initially i simply moved each item into it's proper subfolder without changing anything else.  This made the whole job longer, and yeah boring at this point, but was easier.  As i worked on the hacks folder, i went looking for object hacks i remembered and moved them there. Whatever i missed, i'm obviously not using that much and can sort out later. 
 
Now i had nothing in my Downloads folder, it was all on my desktop, so technically i could play the game.  But without hacks its pretty boring. When i finished sorting the hacks i moved that folder back into Downloads and ran HackConflictDetectionUtility (it will only search for hacks within the Downloads folder). Some of the conflicts in HCDU are SUPPOSED to conflict so you don't get rid of those. Yes, i finally got the support files and actually READ them!  Ok, did that, ran the game, still wouldn't run.  Worked out problem files by a process of elimination and deleted them.  Then i used the Sims2Categoriser on my hacked objects to recategorise the ones i could move to a common area.  I selected Hobbies Misc coz i don't have a lot of stuff in there. It just seems a lot easier to get my hacked objects from a smaller folder than sorting thru endless deco objects or wherever they were categorised for.  Some i couldn't recategorise, like Merola's multipainting (my most useful cheat object) so i just have to go find it in Decorative/Wall Hangings ingame.
 
Before you use the Sims2Categoriser to change in-game categories or anything but moving the files, make copies of the files that way, if you stuff something up by changing what you shouldn't have, you can salvage it... guess how i know this???   Some items will tell you that they come in several parts when you click on them inside Sims2Cat... i left those alone, but some others should not be changed, and probably DID tell me when i downloaded them, but i forgot.  So i lost some of my hacks... they didn't show up ingame, i had changed them, i figured i stuffed them up and deleted them.  Some of those were designed to show up only as rewards and just didn't after i fiddled with them.
 
I would strongly recommend, if you download an item that has a restriction on  it, like... don't recategorise this, or... you need another item for this to work... that you immediately make a copy of all the necessary items, then get it into Sims2Categoriser and change the item description/s so you will ALWAYS remember the restrictions.  If you lose the item ingame by doing that, replace it with the copy you made.  There will be very few that no longer work with just the description changed, and with those ones you could probably change the file name slightly to show it as, say, a reward object, or whatever it is.  I'm going to lose a lot of items, not just hacks, because i didn't do this.  Also clearly show the difference between things like object fireplaces and BuildMode fireplaces.
 
Anyway, sorted my hacks, game worked, so i'm now playing the game YaaY.  But the only Sims i can make or play came with the game, and GAWD@those game clothes.  Ok, next folder.
 
Bodyshop files can't be sorted by Sims2Cat, so i just put all the folders i'd made using Delphy categories into the Bodyshop folder.  I did sort through them with CleanPackInstaller, moving files that CPI said were different to what Delphy said they were.  I found some duplicates that neither Delphy nor CPI had highlighted as duplicates... if they weren't the same file, they had the same file name and I chose to overwrite. BE CAREFUL, some of those files are later versions... you should see a creation date for both files with the overwrite option, keep the newest one made, which means you only overwrite if they are identical  (same size, same dates) or you are overwriting the older file.  I blithely chose overwrite/all before i noticed that. Having recklessly done that, the game still worked *whew*.  I'll slowly delete stuff i don't actually like from that category when i use Create-A-Sim. Now i can play the game, make Sims, dress them but not build anything with downloads in it... NEXT.
 
From this base category on (BuildMode), i did something different with Sims2Categoriser.  After shifting all files that showed up in the base category, i exited Sims2Cat and went to the base folder.  If any files were still there, yet hadn't shown up inside the programme, i deleted them.  Then i got back into Sims2Cat, went into each subfolder and changed each item as i saw fit, like price or object values... if there were none set already i'd leave it blank except for room values.. i changed all the plants room values and they work fine ingame.  After making changes, if i'd put the item in the wrong place, or i thought it should be somewhere else, i recategorised it and moved it to another subfolder.  What i DIDN'T change was a little dropdown menu thing which states what this item is for the object values to be set... i can't recall exactly what its called, but its to the right of the values like comfort and fun. Don't know what would happen if that changed, so i left it alone.
 
And there was a problem! In Build Mode, The Sims2Cat has different categories, or different category placement, than the M&G SP or EP now uses.  So i tried categorising some build objects to new categories.  If i had copied my subfolders i wouldn't have lost anything, or at least would have been able to establish if they would have showed up ingame if i'd left them alone.  I lost all my fireplaces, since i'd played around with them i deleted them.  Fences show up in the right place ingame (luckily i couldn't access them with Sims2Cat), my stairs now show up ingame in Doors/Windows under Archways and work fine, my garage items are in Doors/Windows M-Story Windows, and work; and gates are in Miscellaneous Columns, and they work too.  Working all this out took a LOT of fiddling, starting the game, trying something different when either the game refused to start or the objects didn't show up or just didn't work in a certain category (i think only elevators should go in elevators, lol). If any of you know better solutions, please let us know?
 
Ok finally got all that working, played the game a bit, realised how empty BuyMode was and stopped playing... onward!
 
Buy Mode... i am slowly working thru each category, (listed alphabetically, not as the game shows them) and loading each subcategory as i finish, playing the game, opening Buy Mode and deleting all the ones of that subcategory i don't like, or in the case of Refrigerators, any that were not done for Seasons.  So far i've finished Appliances and got as far as the second category, Comfort, and the first subcategory Beds.  I did all that, Appliances were fine, and then had problems with Beds... apparently just deleting away disappeared necessary files, and the game wouldn't start, so i had to then use the elimination process to work out the problem files.
 
Some creators very kindly added requirements to the item description, (readable in Sims2Cat) so i could tell i needed other files for that one to work... i removed them until i have the necessary files ready to go.
 
That is as far as i have got.  When i get to Decorative, i'll be wildly recategorizing objects like towels (Plumbing/Misc), rugs (from Decorative/Misc to Decorative/Rugs) etc and some of this will no doubt cause problems.  I'll just have to make a note of what i am working on and where i am shifting stuff to, so i can pull those folders to see where the problem is.  Not just Decorative... wherever i think something belongs somewhere else, i'm going to try to put it there.  A great adventure! and a bloody long boring job. 
 
In the end i'll lose quite a lot, slowwwly learn what NOT to do, do better next time i go on a downloading spree, and hopefully help some of you.  Oh yeah, and from now on, copy the damned subfolders BEFORE i work on them!  I'll have less items, some by choice, some by mistake and the upshot will be that the game loads faster and i'll be playing with items i LIKE! *grins*
 
I've also realised with all this gameplay, that if i try to do too much too fast ingame, it will just crash... that's not a Downloands problem, its just an old computer.  I am learning patience!
 
Cheers
 
Owlsy
 
 
Save the Earth!!! .... It's the only planet with CHOCOLATE - OK, OK, "and" NEW ZEALAND *grins*

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