Quote:
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Originally Posted by Greg
I think the trick is to enjoy other people's kids. It saves a lot of heartache and hassle.
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You might be on to something there! I suppose I should clarify that I'm not a child hating, baby eating monster or anything, even though I sometimes imply I am.
I think my feelings were best summed up in a classic line on the
Fraiser TV Show : "Oh yea, kids are great! I just don't see my self
mothering one, though."
I always thought I would be a cool Aunt or something...just not so sure about the parent gig! Then again, you never know what life will through at you...
...like for instance, say you are a Sims 2 player with an interest in modding your game. You start by making your own clothing mods & spend some time dinking around with SimPE. You even make a not-to-scary recolor or two.
Then you stumble across a set of custom skins that get you excited, as they have the infant stages "hair enabled", & you start to think that maybe- just maybe- you could find a way to make that a feature of the default skins so you don't have to think about editing 13 Hoods worth of Sims by hand.
So you set about the daunting task of learning about making default overrides. You even post a bunch of pictures detailing your progress on a Very Cool Sim Site (hint: rhymes with
Fun Wins) were nobody punishes you for asking questions & they even encourage your incredibly clumsy results.
Then you hit a wall that seems insurmountable (in-game skins using funky texture logic for babies) & you are tempted to resign yourself to either living with bald babies forever or spending a lot of time with SimPE going through all your character files one at a time.
But inspiration has a way of finding you at the strangest times (like in the middle of eating a tuna fish sandwich for lunch) & you dive back in with both feet, a little bit of skill & a whole lot of hope.
Without further ado (well, maybe a little bit more ado) I present you with another series of pictures, depicting my latest test & the results.
First up, it's time to say hello to Guy & Gal Tester, generation 2. I'm sure you recall the exciting adventures of the original Guy & Gal, but they are currently zipped up along with a whole mess of "redundant" Hoods, hence the need for their "twins". They live in Isolation Islands (also known as Hood 89) & this is their story.
So, is that the infamous "Mystery Sim" everybody's been kissing? (Seriously, whatinthehech was Maxis smoking when they thought of that creepy idea!)
No.
That would be Guy Tester...well, it's
supposed to be Guy Tester! So much for the default templates I downloaded! Geeze, maybe this whole thing really is out of my grasp after all! But wait a minute...
...okay, that's much better! It turns out that Default Replacement templates like it when you actually add textures to them.
Who knew?
Okay, so lets take a breath & make my (potential) "Hair Enabled Overrides".
To make things simple, I decide to try:
S1 (Light) with Blonde infant hair
S2 (Tan) with Red infant hair
S3 (Medium) with Brown infant hair, &
S4 (Dark) with Black infant hair
Guy is S2 & Gal is S3, so I am hoping for a red-or-brown haired baby.
So it's time to fire up InSim...
...& get Gal on her way to mommy hood!
As she stares at herself in disbelief, I can't help but notice...
...that having a pregnancy-wear-anything hack means you need to be careful about what your Sim is wearing when they get preggers!
Oh well, who cares? Not me (though I do use InSim to grab her a "belly mesh enabled" outfit anyway) so lets get on with it!
I will spare you the delivery pics (I'm something of a picture addict) & just cut right to the end result.
Gal delivers a bouncing baby boy.
She is happy.
Guy is happy.
ZW is also happy.
In fact, ZW is super uber incredibly happy.
If you can't tell from the above picture why I'm happy, maybe the next one will explain it better.
Is it just me, or is that a little S2 infant
with an adorable head of red hair?
No, it's not just me; it's real! I actually did it! I actually made my very first Default Replacement skin package!
I was so excited, I think I scared my dogs when I cheered out loud!
When the box pupped up to enter a name for the little tyke, I didn't even hesitate: Atlas. (At last...get it?)
It is late (almost midnight here) & I have got to get away from this darned computer for a bit...
...but before I go, I just want to post one last picture.
Oh yeah.
Victory never tasted so damned sweet!
-ZW