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#76 Old 19th Aug 2013 at 4:14 PM
Earlier versions of SimPE are available at the SimPE download location, but most people just use the latest version (which is required for the later EPs anyway). The functionality is similar.

Many tutorials are written with older versions of SimPE, but there's no need to download an older version to do an older tutorial. The format of SimPE may have changed a bit over time, but it's the same program and it has the same abilities.

The best thing is to use the new SimPE. The new version of SimPE will work with all versions of the game. Using the older SimPE will cause problems if it isn't compatible with your installed game.
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#77 Old 16th May 2015 at 5:21 AM Last edited by KillerBee256 : 16th May 2015 at 8:18 AM.
This guide has to the most frustrating one I've ever tried to follow, from it being written using an older version of simpe, and the author assuming the reader knows what he is talking about and worst of all the pictures are so low resolution they are worthless in figuring out what to do next!
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#78 Old 1st Jan 2017 at 9:45 PM Last edited by bungaboo : 5th May 2018 at 5:09 AM.
Default Updated and Simplified Custom Video Game Creation Tutorial
So I have been lurking around this site for years now and although this particular thread is nearly 12 years old, I thought I would provide a helpful update for this tutorial. Let me say that most of what I have done here is just updating and rewriting the tutorial provided by raquelcesar so that it could be performed more easily by a novice member of the sims mod community.

I must also say that this was something that I have wanted for a long time but always noticed a low abundance (likely due to the litigious nature of such content) of custom video games. When I came across this tutorial I found hope and began what became a journey that I thoroughly enjoyed. Seeing an object come to life in the game is like finishing a work of art. This tutorial formed the groundwork from which I built my process of creating custom video games.

I am no expert when it comes to creating custom content and my past experience has mostly been with textures, catalog description and price editing, and organizing the billions and billions of 1's and 0's that make up my custom content folder. I started with the tutorial provided and though I was not met with success the first dozen times I tried, small bits of progress were made and I pushed on. After my first major breakthroughs, I thought it would be good to take notes and make a folder with templates and steps for making the process easier.

This process requires the Halo 2 objects from raquelcesar since the new video game objects are cloned directly from those, instead of going through the process cloning standard video games and manually adding the BHAVs provided in the original tutorial. (Sorry, but this makes it easier!)

I went to a lot of trouble to fine tune the texture templates so that each videogame box has matching faces and sides for the display racks. To be honest I went even further than that and created a grid to map each of the faces with the corresponding sides used in the texture. Some faces use multiple side textures, so only certain combinations make sense. If you don't care about these minor details, then just slap the cover of the game onto one of the old textures and be done with it. I am a little anal when it comes to texture files and I even retextured the top and sides of the video game box texture so that it has a nice clean and more realistic look.

The template for the display rack works for both countertop and standing displays so you can use the same one for both. The completely blank display rack texture has numbers and letters to separate each texture "unit". I used this to map video game box faces to sides and I have a document showing all combinations used and positions on the rack; if anybody wants this info I would gladly provide it. These can be used to make racks full of custom games rather than the same old games from standard racks.

If I have learned anything from the modding community it is that sharing is caring, so attached is the revised tutorial and relevant files that should make all you custom video game dreams come true!

The following files have been attached to this post:
  • Written instructions for custom game creation with some notes added
  • Blank templates for video game box and video game rack textures

I didn't really do anything original here, this is more of an update to allow for people without much modding experience to create custom video games. There are not many tutorials on this subject which are written for people who do not have much modding experience, so I thought this might help others as it has helped me.

Additional Notes

I learned alot of things while working through this project and here are a few helpful tips that may help novice modders along the way:

Write the GUIDs for each object in the blank spaces in the .txt file provided, keep track of which GUID you should be using at each step because this is an easy thing to make a mistake on.

Always hit that "Commit" button after each step!

Use the "build DXT..." function in SimPE to quickly retexture objects (I didn't know about this one for a long time). Just change the sharpen option to "none" and often I find it useful to use the DXT3 format rather than the DXT1 format since it seems to look a little better. Not sure what the difference is, I just noticed that there was less image quality changes when the texture was applied using DXT3.

To do a quick check of the object after retexturing just go to the Geometric Data Container on the Resource Tree and under Content->cGeometryDataContainer there is a Preview function that shows how the object will look in the game.

Movies 0 and 2 can not be longer than 7 seconds, otherwise the game will not function properly.
After playing around trying to get the movies to play in the correct order during use, I found that movie 1 and 7 never seem to play...ever. I am still unclear about the function of the ESRB rating movie and I have no idea why movie 1 (the one labeled "attract") does not play, but with the directions given, my game works great.

Known issues and other goals:

I noticed that in the dialogue box which pops up when a sim buys a game from a display rack, the thumbnail for the custom game is upside down and I am not sure how to fix that. The texture is perfect when in the sim's hand and this is such a minor detail that it doesn't cause too much stress. I would like to figure it out eventually but the Halo 2 game from raquelcesar does the same thing...

I would also like to figure out how have multiple custom games available from a single rack, but this is currently beyond my skill level.

Currently I am working on a way to have the game available as a deco object so that sim's can have physical copies of the games they own. I have seen a few similar objects around but most were not actual games that sims can buy and play. I wish sims could sell the games they own if they wanted to, but I am not sure how that would be accomplished.

Again, I do not take credit for this tutorial. The general instructions provided come directly from the tutorial by raquelcesar. All I've done is clarified some points throughout the process, some of which may have become outdated if using the most recent version of SimPE.
Attached files:
File Type: rar  Custom Game Creation Files.rar (90.0 KB, 41 downloads) - View custom content
Description: Tutorial text file and texture templates for custom video games
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