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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 1st Jul 2006 at 5:48 PM Last edited by Emma_Barrett : 20th Aug 2006 at 5:01 PM.
Default Custom Careers for absolute beginners (NOW WITH PICS)
Custom careers a detailed guide to planning and building!



If you have downloaded BIDOU’s career editor this is not the tutorial for you (although it may help) as I’ve never used the career editor so cannot say how it is used!

YOU WILL NEED SimPE Blank career package which can be downloaded from the bottom of this thread


Ok so I’ve now created a custom career and messed about with it enough to understand what’s going on! If you want a full step by step with all the jargon and why it all works then this is not the tutorial for you but if you want a very basic guide which a beginner can easily follow this is what I’m aiming at! Attached to this thread at the bottom is a template (empty) career. I suggest you download this

1 open the template and just have a look at what’s in there without changing anything just to familiarize yourself with the contents.

2, The basis of your career
Close the file! We don’t need it yet! Open up good old Microsoft word or your own equivalent and begin. What we need to start is 10 job descriptions. You can have different ones for male and female but as this is your first career I recommend just using the same for both.
Each description needs a title and a short description for example:
Title Career writer
Description: you are now in charge of writing careers for Sims 2 

3, chance cards
The next part is a mammoth challenge. We need chance cards!
Still using word type up the following for your new career:
For chance cards we need 10 cards for male and 10 cards for female
(The easiest way is to use the same text just change all the “he” to “she” and the “his” to her … this consists of:
• 10 scenarios (one for each employment level) for each gender
• 2 options the sim in question could answer. (yes or no for example)
• Option A good result (for both genders and for every card)
• Option A bad result (for both genders and for every card)
• Option B good result (for both genders and for every card)
• Option B bad result (for both genders and for every card)

This does take a little while!
Make sure you spell-check it all and check the grammar!

Now make a list of what your Sims earn or lose as a result of every chance card; this can be money, skill points or job level DON’T WORRY ABOUT HOW TO DO IT YET … JUST WRITE IT DOWN!!
An example:
CHANCE CARD ONE

(Simname) gets a phone call, maxis want him to come in for a seminar, he has to finish his new career by noon tomorrow, does he go to the seminar?
YES NO

Yes is chance A you have two outcomes:

CHANCE A GOOD
(Simname) goes to the seminar, maxis love him and he gets promoted!

CHANCE A BAD
(simname) goes to the seminar but the career goes unfinished! (simname) loses a logic point for his poor decision

CHANCE B GOOD
(simname) explains to maxis that he cannot make it because he has to keep up with deadlines the manager respects his decision and rewards him with a grant of $50!

CHANCE B BAD
(simname) does not go to the seminar so missed out on meeting lots of VIPs!! lose 1 charisma for his poor decision!

For this chance card your results read level 1
A good + job level
A bad - 1 logic
B good +$50
B bad – 1 charisma

Do this for all levels and then we are ready to start in Simpe!

ARE YOU FOLLOWING THIS? If not reread this a few times until you get the idea,
if so then open up Simpe!


Open up my template: templatecareer.package which is downloadable at the bottom of this thread if you don’t already have it



This is what you should have at the top of the screen!

i54.photobucket.com/albums/g94/emma_barrett/careertutorial/Image1.jpg[/IMG]



GUILDS
See superflys cool tutorial here YOU MUST ADD A NEW GUILD ELSE YOU WILL BE OVERWRITING OTHER PEOPLES WORK!

http://forums.modthesims2.com/showt...&highlight=guid

ADDING OUR JOB TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS


First click text lists in the first window
(resource tree)





Now click text lists in the second window






Underneath in plug in view you should now see this:



This is where we’re going to add all those job titles and descriptions we just wrote (not the chance cards though, I’ll get to that!)

I have added notes to the DESC box to help you along whilst you’re working, YOU type into the string box.


but basically it goes
male 1 title
male 1 description
male 2 title
male 2 description … through to ten and then the same with female!
The first box 0x0000 should be left blank!!! (this is for the unemployed option)

Okay are we happy? We’ve got the base of our new career but there’s still lots of work to do!
Save your career.

ADDING THE CHANCE CARD TEXTS


ok for this you need to click the text lists which are third from the top in the second window!
The process of adding the data is almost the same as the job titles only we now have a new order
Scroll down to 0x0010 and you should see this text


ok! $me is the tag we use to indicate that we want the game to display the Sims name so if we want to say “simname” we type in $me instead, start at 0x0013 and begin to enter in this order:

choice A
choice B
Scenario text male
Scenario text Female
Choice A good result male
Choice A good result female
Choice A bad result male
Choice A bad result female
Choice B good result male
Choice B good result female
Choice B bad result male
Choice B bad result female

And repeat this pattern for all 10 levels!
SAVE!!!!!!!

Done? Phew!

Test at this point to make sure it all works, To do this just add the career to your downloads folder!
YOUR SIMS WILL NOT GO OUT TO WORK YET as the career template is set to 0 hours per day!

• check the Sims can get the jobs (it is random as always on pc and newspaper so either persist or if you use insim spawn the career adjuster and check it appears there!)
• check the chance cards are working properly (I use boolprop testingcheatsenabled true, shift-click a sim and choose spawn, chance card tester but always turn off boolprop: boolprop testingcheatsenabled false)
• double check you’re not overwriting anyone elses work

Is it working?
Yes, carry on
No, make sure you followed ALL the steps above, if you’re sure you did check out the create help on MTS2 for assistance or email me (emma_barret@hotmail.co.uk)

Ok you’ve earned a coffee break!  see you in half an hour

Once that’s all working we need to change working hours, pay and skill required for promotion ….. I will then move onto chance card results. All of these are very similar to do.


I will start with HOURS OF WORK

Ok we now need to click on BEHAVIOUR CONSTANT (BCON) the first top window



In the second top window you will see a long list (89 items in fact)

We will start with Behavior constant – tuning – start hour (it’s the second one down!)



The plug in view below should be showing the below screenshot



as you can see (I hope) everything is set to 0 (or in hex 0x0000) we need to alter these values but if you don’t know hex DON’T PANIC We’re going to use the dec (decimal) box for this tutorial!

ok this is really sim-ple (sorry)
in the line box the number is the job level so we will start with level 1 or 0x1 (0x0 is unemployed don’t forget!)
so click on 0x1 in the line box and then click into the decimal box to the side of it (see last pics) type in the start hour (in 24hour time)

***edit*********
when you add the 24 hour time you don't need to add the 00 at the end
For example
2pm become 14 not 1400 (thanks to mode-x for pointing this out! )

move onto level 2 and repeat until level 10 is done!!

Now we’ve done that we need to open up behavior constants – tuning – hours per day (it’s the next one down  )

Work out how many hours are needed (if you put in that level 1 starts at 9 and you want sim to work till 6pm then its 9 hrs) and add that number EXACTLY like above!

Sorted! You’re getting the hang of this I think … not so scary after all!

Let’s look at DAILY PAY now

Daily pay is the first option in behavior constants (you probably noticed this earlier) and guess what! It’s exactly the same as for working hours!
All we need to do is click on each line and add our daily rate into the dec box
so line 0x1 is level 1 add career level 1 pay into the dec box (you probably don’t need diagrams for this anymore but here’s one anyways  )



so my level 1 daily pay is $50 ….

Do this for all levels, a guide is that all the maxis careers end with level 10 between $1000 and $2000 per day! (wish I earned that per day …. Lol)

FAMILY FRIENDS

As we all know promotions depend on how many friends you have so that is the next set of numbers we need to edit! By now I’m guessing you know how to do it 

The file you need is Behavior constants – tuning – family friends. It’s the forth one down in the list!

Ok so once you’ve done that go on to the next 8 in the list , these are the

SKILL POINTS REQUIRED TO BE PROMOTED

Ok for skill points we need to times the number by 100 so 4 required skill points becomes 400! (in case you’re interested this is due to the learning times, 3 skill points and a half full learning bar would be 350)

just add a number for any levels which you think a certain skill point should be required for each promotion, example if level 6 of your career is chef then in level 5 (0x5) of behavior constants – skillreq –cooking type in (for example, 400) then your sim will need that 4 skill points to reach level 6 .

follow this process for all except the gardening skill (not sure what that ones for as there’s no gardening skill in the game) remember that the more of these you assign for each level the harder your career will become to play!

So now we have a pretty cool career coming along and need to move onto the final step of my tutorial

CHANCE CARD RESULTS

By this point I’m imagining that you may have some idea of how these are changed! 



chance card results are also behavior constants and are located about halfway down the list we want to edit the ones which have the words good or bad in the file name. so open up behavior constant – chance A – good – money

its now time to pull out the list we made earlier of the results of our chance cards.

Start with all the chance A good results and work your way down the list, this can get confusing so I’ll go through it with you for the first one

If on your list level 5 chance card option A good was a bonus of $50 then type 50 in 0x1 dec box and then if level 4 chance card option A good was a bonus of $500 then type 500 into 0x5 dec box and so on

Do this for all the chance card A good files (remembering that skill points are in multiples of 100) and then move on to chance card A bad files. This is exactly the same but remember to put a minus symbol ( - ) in front of the number.

Follow this procedure for the chance card B Good and Bad result files!

GIVE YOURSELF A PAT ON THE BACK!!!!

That’s the basic tutorial done!
Test extensively to make sure it all works and that is it

Once you’ve mastered the basics you can begin to add custom clothing, custom aspiration rewards and all sorts of other nice goodies to your career I HIGHLY recommend superflys tutorials for this so here is a link to his profile, (bow down to the career god!....yes i'm a suck up)
http://www.modthesims2.com/member.p...poster&t=170398
Attached files:
File Type: rar  template career.rar (32.2 KB, 21963 downloads)
File Type: rar  Custom careers for beginners.rar (235.6 KB, 9472 downloads)
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Test Subject
#2 Old 11th Jul 2006 at 6:32 PM Last edited by mode-x : 14th Jul 2006 at 5:31 PM. Reason: Corrections actioned.
A small Edit for your Tutorial
Hi, I am very new to all this so please bear with me . . . . I was following your tutorial. However, found you may want to put in an example after "type in the start hour (in 24hour time)" as to me this would indicate entering e.g. "1400" for 2pm!


This is incorrect syntax for SimPE and The Sims (if tested in game). You may want to say something like e.g. "type in the start hour (in 24hour time) i.e. 14(for 2pm), 6(for 6am) and so on..."


I hope the above makes sence
NOTE 1: I have added images to explain what I mean. If you cannot see them follow these links:
http://www.modxbox360.co.uk/Wrong.JPG
http://www.modxbox360.co.uk/Right.JPG

NOTE 2: I cannont see any of the screen shots / pics that you have posted. You may be showing what I have said in these images. However, I cannot see them so I got the error as explained above.


***EDIT***
Emma_Barrett has edited her tutorial with my corrections (Thanks Emma )

And I have to say this tutorial is the easist to follow I completed my career (Government Agency - Not available for download) a big thank-you and well done for this tutorial!
Test Subject
#3 Old 23rd Jul 2006 at 5:34 PM
the career template comes up as a package file and wont let me open it or anything what have i done wrong?
Part-time Hermit
#4 Old 23rd Jul 2006 at 5:37 PM
Did you try opening it with SimPE?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#5 Old 23rd Jul 2006 at 8:05 PM
yeah it is a package file you need to open it from within SimPE (file,open)
it's the package file which will become your career as you work through it.
if its not opening with SimPE maybe it corrupted when you downloaded it? try re-downloading!

sorry not about much anymore
Test Subject
#6 Old 24th Jul 2006 at 1:00 AM
hi just saying that this is a great tutorial i will try this very soon
Test Subject
#7 Old 24th Jul 2006 at 5:47 PM
i hav now
thnx u had a bit of a blonde moment :D
Test Subject
#8 Old 24th Jul 2006 at 5:52 PM
um, when i downloaded the file, it downloaded it as a .rar file


what am i doing wrong?
Part-time Hermit
#9 Old 24th Jul 2006 at 5:54 PM
You need WinRAR or another rar extracter to open the rar and get the actual files out of them.
Test Subject
#10 Old 24th Jul 2006 at 5:57 PM
ok thanks

but where do i find it?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#11 Old 24th Jul 2006 at 9:29 PM
http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=14481
is a free rar extractor

sorry not about much anymore
Test Subject
#12 Old 25th Jul 2006 at 12:37 PM Last edited by IgnorantBliss : 25th Jul 2006 at 1:49 PM. Reason: edited to combine posts
when i click text lists the first time it works but the second one does nothing at all. besides that this a great tutorial.

do i need a certian version of sim pe?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#13 Old 25th Jul 2006 at 1:48 PM
i'd say fairly modern version of simpe, i have the latest one. the 2nd text lists file will be empty as you need to add your content

sorry not about much anymore
Test Subject
#14 Old 25th Jul 2006 at 1:57 PM
thanks it works now!
Lab Assistant
#15 Old 26th Jul 2006 at 11:25 PM Last edited by phoenix42793 : 26th Jul 2006 at 11:39 PM.
Do we have to have a chance card for every level because it takes a long time to write them, can we have them just for a few levels?

I'm back, trying make a name for myself in the sims community. I'm going to try to match up the meshes with the content I previously made so I can share it with everyone :]. I wish my username didn't suck so much, I think I'll make a new one for the sims 3 :]
Lab Assistant
#16 Old 27th Jul 2006 at 12:17 AM
Agreed
Quote: Originally posted by phoenix42793
Do we have to have a chance card for every level because it takes a long time to write them, can we have them just for a few levels?


I agree with phoenix42793. I have only written two levels and it has taken me over a half an hour. I really don't want to write all those chance cards. And they may not even come up in the game anyways(like during the time you are in that level)

If ya could tell "us" as soon as possible i know i would appretiate it

Thanks and happy simming! :p

♥kelsey♥
Admin of Randomness
retired moderator
#17 Old 27th Jul 2006 at 1:13 AM
If you want to create something new for the sims, you should do it right. Things take time to do well, not everything on the planet is a project that can be done in 2 hours or less.

Creators often spend days, weeks, and sometimes months on a project. The Simstones project was 3 1/2 months of work by a team of people. I rarely complete *anything* I'm working on in an evening or two - it's often a week or two, depending on how much time I can get.

Hopefully you're working on something you're inspired to do. So have fun with it, be creative, and take a break when you get tired and go back to it another day.

"Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." - Ronald E. Osborn

Please do NOT PM me with requests, creation questions, or game help questions. Click for help:
Game Help | Create | Content List | Where Can I Find?
Lab Assistant
#18 Old 27th Jul 2006 at 2:44 AM
Okay, tiggerpum I really do appreciate your enthuisiasm but this takes a very, very long time. You have helped me before with meshing and even meshing didn't take as long as this. The chance card thing is like a page long of written stuff for a single chance card. But, still no one has answered my question... Do you HAVE to have chance cards for each level? Please if someone can answer the question. Like what will happen in the entering the chance card part of this tutorial if I just enter chance cards for certain stages will blank ones show up in game. Tiggerpum your really smart with all this complicated stuff, would something bad happen if I didn't put a chance card in certain levels?

I'm back, trying make a name for myself in the sims community. I'm going to try to match up the meshes with the content I previously made so I can share it with everyone :]. I wish my username didn't suck so much, I think I'll make a new one for the sims 3 :]
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#19 Old 27th Jul 2006 at 12:26 PM
you can do as many as you like but you wont be able to upload here unless you finish it ... careers are based on chance cards and yes they take time! .... my pet care career took me about a week and a half to write but i'm incredably proud of it now its done!

in the template i set up 10 levels of chancecards if you dont fill in the chance card a blank card will pop up insted

sorry not about much anymore
Lab Assistant
#20 Old 27th Jul 2006 at 2:02 PM
oh, thanks for answering my question, I really appreciate it. ALso Thanks for writing this tutorial. i'm just not looking foward to writing lol.

Do we need to have a chance card for tenth level because in your pet care post it said 9 chance cards?

I'm back, trying make a name for myself in the sims community. I'm going to try to match up the meshes with the content I previously made so I can share it with everyone :]. I wish my username didn't suck so much, I think I'll make a new one for the sims 3 :]
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#21 Old 27th Jul 2006 at 2:23 PM
yeah you do really need a 10th, i didn't for level 10 because i didn't think it nessasary. that really depends on the career, if you want the chance (for example) that even at the top of the career you can still lose the job then yes put one in!

sorry not about much anymore
Lab Assistant
#22 Old 27th Jul 2006 at 7:55 PM
But I mean if we dont put one for ten wont a blank chance card appear.

I'm back, trying make a name for myself in the sims community. I'm going to try to match up the meshes with the content I previously made so I can share it with everyone :]. I wish my username didn't suck so much, I think I'll make a new one for the sims 3 :]
Lab Assistant
#23 Old 27th Jul 2006 at 10:36 PM
I finished writing all ten right now..I didn't stop writing them and i am ready to start on the actual career...I am really excited! I hope my chance cards are good though...because i myself have never gotten a chance card I'm not that lucky anyways thank you for answering my question. I appreciate it.

♥kelsey♥
Consciously Undead
retired moderator
#24 Old 28th Jul 2006 at 7:45 AM
phoenix42793- in answer to kind of everything, a 10 level career needs full chance cards. Leaving it blank will simply result in nothing showing up. However, career are meant to be read, so not including text seems a bit pointless. Like Tig said, good things take time- no career that I have created took less than two weeks to create, including writing, thinking of things and spell and grammar checking. If you're looking for something that yields faster results, try recolouring or maybe even clothing creation. If you don't have the patience then careers won't be for you.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Lab Assistant
#25 Old 28th Jul 2006 at 2:02 PM
Well, I want to create a new career so I will, I'm new to career editing so I wanted to know what happens if I don't put a chance card for ten , or other levels. Emma said though that if you don't put a chance card in for the other levels a blank one will show up. And your saying no card will show up. Which one is is it.

I'm back, trying make a name for myself in the sims community. I'm going to try to match up the meshes with the content I previously made so I can share it with everyone :]. I wish my username didn't suck so much, I think I'll make a new one for the sims 3 :]
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