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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 15th Mar 2019 at 12:00 PM
Default How do I make this?
Hi, I'm new to Sims 2 coming from 3 and 4 and although I made tons of personal mods for both of those games Sims 2 modding is just going waaaay over my head. What I want to do is make some custom alarm clocks function as Pescado's sleepclock, like this, but I just can't find any tutorials for how to modify custom objects like that with SimPe. My first thought was to clone Pescado's original and then extract/add the relevant parts of the custom clocks but when I tried that I couldn't figure out what's relevant. So, now I'm trying the other way around and cloning the custom clocks then applying the BHAVs and BCONs from Pescado's but this is extremely tedious and I have like 20 clocks I want to do so I don't want to go any further if I'm not even in the ballpark of correct on my guesses on how to do this. I've only used SimPE for VERY simple changes like editing motive gains and advertising on objects and I thought this would be a nice little project to get used to the tool. Can anyone point me to a tut or give some tips that would help explain what I'm trying to do and/or some more varieties for the original to look over in SimPE and use in my game until I figure this out? Thanks and feel free to P&L if my guesses are absurdly wrong!
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 15th Mar 2019 at 4:57 PM
If Pescado's clock is a full item with mesh and recolor, the easiest would be to clone that item and change it the way you like (replace mesh/texture, etc.). If you want the handles to work, you may need to do some bone assignments, too. It's not the easiest item to start out with, but if you're ambitious (aka REEEEALLY want to do it) you'll probably succeed.

If you're converting clocks, you can make one, fix up everything that needs fixing, test to see if it works, and then clone this for the rest of the clocks. You can reuse GUIDs, and extract GMDCs and textures. If the original clocks have a lot of recolors, you may want to fix them manually so you don't accidentally screw up the recolors.

You may be able to extract and replace the modded BHAV and BCONs, though I'm not sure if you need to do some changes to make them standalone from the modded item (linked to the object you're working on). You can compare the instance and group, and if they're different you may have to change them.

If none of this works for you, then I'm afraid you'll have to do it manually one by one.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 15th Mar 2019 at 9:41 PM
Thank you! So, from what you're saying I had it half right the first time; I need to apply the meshes and textures from the clocks I want to a clone of the original. It's the animations that threw me; I don't really know much about how this game works so I was worried that reusing the ones from the original mod on different clocks or vice versa might break something.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 16th Mar 2019 at 2:26 AM
If you extract the GMDC, and the clocks were clones of the one you want to modify, you most likely don't need to do anything. Just replace the GMDC:

- Open the file you want to extract from, right-click GMDC and choose "extract". Save somewhere you can find it, and take note of the name so you know which one it is (you can copy/paste the original GMDC name if you want, or the saved files will be named a string of letters/numbers).

- Then open your file, copy the original GMDC name from this file in the GMDC window, right-click and choose "replace" and find the file you extracted, replace the name, click commit, and either continue editing or save. You'll need to make sure that the subset names are the same, or this won't work.

This won't work if the clocks are based on the other alarm clock. Then you'll need to use that clock as a base (or redo the entire mesh file with bone assigments and all).

The worst that can happen is that it doesn't work the first few tries. I've had tons of game crashes and errors from trial and failure when learning to make new things, but armed with a recent backup (just in case something screws up a little too much - usually doesn't happen unless you're making certain mods) and a lot of patience, I've usually managed whatever I was trying to do.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 16th Mar 2019 at 2:10 PM
The first test clock that didn't have any recolors appears to be working great using your instructions! It looks like they're all clones of the expensive alarm just like the original so I think I've got it now. Thank you so much!
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