Or get Dolphin's gardening gnome http://www.modthesims.info/download...0#startcomments

Not updated, but I'm told it works fine with Generations (or its patch).

I'll take the magic gardening gnome, thanks. I can't believe they didn't give us gardeners.

Extremely stupid question, and the answer is probably somewhere already, but when you install a custom world and it gets updated by the creator afterwards, does this mean that I would have to start from scratch or will existing saves work along with the updated version?

You have to start from scratch again. As far as the game is concerned they will be two separate worlds.

Ah, ok, thanks. That's what I feared. Kind of obvious, isn't it? I should have guessed that much.

Agreed! I think EA's thought process was 'garden plants don't require tending therefore gardeners are not needed' but they seriously underestimated the amount of time and care a fruit/veggie garden actually requires. It's a PITA most of the time.

Today is my lucky day, because I encounter things that I've always thought would be impossible, but, well, here you go: I am currently playing ruthless_kk's Victorian Bay and there is one lot (the middle one between the science lab and the Salon) that is missing its outside trashcan. At first I thought that my inventor Sim might have accidentally blown it up when he "tested" his dynamite on the neighbouring lot, but when I loaded a fresh game and checked the house there it had no trashcan either. So, I guess it's a problem with the lot.
Now the weird thing is that according to MasterController there should be a trashcan somewhere but it is invisible and when I watched a Sim taking out the trash, he disappeared into the ground at the back of the house and resurfaced after a while without the trashbag.
Accordingly I tried to edit the lot and built a basement because I thought that the can was somehow underground, but no, nothing there just blackness.
So, my question is: How can I make this trashcan reappear?

You don't have to start TOTALLY from scratch. You can move families and lots between them via the bin. If you want to move several families and preserve their relationships, you can use Twallan's Porter mod to do it.

I just got a new computer and I downloaded the zip program linked through here to download cc. The cc I download is not coming zipped when I download things. I don't understand why. See this is a stupid question.

rosieposiepudnpie: Just google the extension, rar, 7z, and you'll find the program you need to unzip it.

How do you make money with the tattoo skill. I have a townie who moved in with one of my guys, she had no skills so I randomized, and she got 9 points in tattooing. She visited the Salon, gave a tattoo to one girl, but she didn't get paid. Is the tattooing just a skill, or can you make money out of it?

Without knowing what steps you are taking, I can't say for certain but my guess is that it sounds like you are selecting "run" instead of "save". If you select save, it will save the zipped file to the location you select and then you can extract it there. If you select run, it will unzip the file to the location you select (or the default location depending on your browser settings).

The way I have found is the absolute easiest as I tend to go on massive downloading sprees at one time, is to save all the zip files to a folder on my desktop called "sims 3 temp" and then select all the zips at once, right click and select "extract here". Then I can grab all of the package files and move them to the right folder(s).

Hope that helps.

Thanks both ani and you. I have it now.

It's just a skill. There is definitely no profession for it and AFAIK there is no money earned from tattooing.

There is a tattoo artist career with Ambitions, isn't there? If I remember correctly, it's part of the Stylist career but I really am fuzzy on the details.

No, there isn't. If you put a tattoo chair on a community lot a sim will man it like they do the tills, but there is no career or profession associated with it. It's not even a proper skill, like cooking or charisma.

It's a hidden skill (as you will find out if you try to have an inexperienced Sim give a tattoo )

And I think you CAN earn money for it, if you offer another sim a tattoo at a tattoo chair, but you can't be officially self-employed at it.

I gave one lady a tattoo, but it was free unfortunately.

I was actually hoping my lady could freelance as a tattoo artist, such a shame if she can't earn money from it.

I found that out when I first got Ambitions and my poor sim ended up looking like a toddler had attacked her with marker pens! Re the skill part: what I meant was you don't get a tattoo skill show up in the skills panel, or get a skill journal or anything like that associated with tattooing. I don't know why EA didn't do that actually, then you could have been self-employed with it.

Okay, so I've seen the Fry Bugs interaction mentioned before but where is it actually found in game? I assumed detectives could use their magnifying glass for the purpose but if so, I haven't figured out how.

Hmm. Okay. Maybe I'm remembering something I read before Ambitions was released and they didn't actually implement it. I do clearly remember reading about a tattoo artist career, I swear.

I only played one stylist and there was a tattoo artist at the salon but I couldn't remember for certain if that was a profession my playable could choose. Thanks for the clarification.

I think it was either implied by EA or assumed by the community (can't remember which) that it would be a career/profession and then it turned out to be neither!

So I get generations and it keeps crashing to desktop. After fooling with DEP, clearing caches, etc etc I disabled my custom content for the first time..ever. The game ran like a dream, just my luck.

Now I'm going to spend my day going through all my downloads one by one to figure out which one is doing the crashing And I've been downloading since S3 hit the shelves >.> But I was at least smart enough to remove mods whenever I got a new EP but never any clothes, furniture, etc mods

So my question is, where are all the downloads..furniture, hairs, etc. I'm pretty sure I know where they're all at but I feel like that isn't all of them and just to be on the safe side..I don't want to do this more than once >.> So what file would I find them in?

Are you talking about official Sims Store content? If not the package files will be wherever you put them to get them working.
If you are on about official Sims Store content then it all gets lumped together in one or more merged files with the .dbc file extention found in the DCCache folder.

No, I mean like anything I've downloaded ever. Not the official stuff, I figured all that would be in the launcher (although I am in the process of clearing out the sites that do use S3 launcher packages like ATS, etc). I don't know where they go to get them working, I've always used the Installhelper monkey to install them all. If I did it's been a really long time >.< lol

Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Mods is the new location, however if you've been using the Helper Monkey (which is outdated btw because the new location is so easy to get to) then it's Program Files/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Mods.

Thanks, another thing I need to be rid of lol so when I remove the monkey, I will always install my downloads Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Mods here?

DrunkenWriter: Game Help:Installing Sims 3 Package Files^wiki

How do you upload memories to the TS3 site (for the freebies)? I can't find them in the launcher

You can upload a memory when you make it, with this little button I had to log in the first time and just clicked "remember me" or maybe "remember my e-mail"? Now when I start the game I'm already logged in. Sorry for the non-English version, but I'm sure it's the same button in every game. The hover text says something like "upload to the Sims 3 site", I think. And the "Publish" button right next to it is for Facebook, but I never use it. Does anyone?

I only post to the Sims 3 official site and not to Facebook but that Publish button is for Facebook if you decide that's where you want to post it.

I'm sure all my Facebook friends would LOVE to see me update my page with every little move my Sim makes. Haha

Does anyone actually USE that feature??

Yeah, this. I absolutely abhor game stuff in my feed. I even get cheesed off at the Sims sometimes with their useless babble.

Stupid/lazy question (so I can look like I'm OT): Remind me how to put stuff my Sim has painted into the houses she's doing architectural design on?

I also only upload to the official site, I want to get the freebies. After I get them all, I think I won't be bothered to upload memories anywhere. I don't even have facebook, but if I did, I wouldn't post them there either Nobody wants to know my sims just peed themselves or woohoo'ed in the threehouse. I hope.

Ranissa, I'm pretty sure you have to put the paintings (and sculptures, and anything you want to use) in your family's inventory before you start designing a house. Then you can get them all from there when you start the job.

Is there a way to make one school elementary and one school a high school?

I remember someone saying once that they put two schools in their neighbourhood and the kidlets automatically went to one, while the teens went to the other. I've never tried this before, though.

My sim child goes to put on her princess costume and wears a princess hat and a astronount outfit. Is this a glitch or is she just stupid. She is clone child, and she is a snob, bookworm,workaholic. The other clone child I have wears a princess out fit. I am so confused. Also I get a pop up that keeps telling me that 3's a crowd for romance. One thing is that no one is romanicly involved. The mom of the clone children is single. If it is a glitch oh well, if it is a mod I have an idea which it might be, because I downloaded a few mods that were not updated yet.

I tried that, but the kids and teens just went to the school closest to them, so unless all the children lived on one side of town and all the teens on the other.. idk.

Is it possible to use the familyFunds cheat on families in the bin prior to placing them? I'm trying to set up a new hood prepopulated with my own Sims. The problem is, none of them can afford the homes I want them to live in. I've tried using the cheat and while the game accepts it the funds of the named family never goes up.

I've never been able to get it to work that way. I just use "freerealestate" and they get a home free of charge.

I was not aware of that cheat. Thanks!

You're quite welcome I can't remember if it's one of those that requires testingcheatsenabled true first, though. So if it doesn't work, try that.

I recently installed the game on my mac, mostly out of curiosity.

Turns out, the game is pretty slow and I had to delete 75% of the trees in Sunset Valley in order for me to play with.out.it.freez.ing.every.time.i.moved.the.mouse.

It runs much better now but I completely forgot about the various graphical settings. I'd like to play around with them to see if there is much of a difference but the game suggests you restart after each change.

Does this mean that I have to close down the game and completely start over each change OR do I just have to restart the world from the main menu?

It takes about 15 - 20 minutes to load the game from start up so hopefully restarting from the main menu will suffice. Any suggestions/opinions?

I'm pretty sure that means you have to restart the whole game.

Yes, it probably does mean that if you are planning to -play- with the settings at that level you need to completely exit and restart. But keeping it paused while checking out the settings and not moving the camera let me -look at- the differences in settings (Other than speed difference, of course), and then put them back the way they were before playing again.

I'm building a custom library--how do I fill the bookshelves without actually having to create a Sim, cheat them some money, and make them buy books from the bookstore? Is that even possible?

Bookshelves come stocked with books. Some (low quality-type) even come with skill books. The children's style bookshelf has toddler books and I believe pregnancy books in it.

Each bookshelf has a set selection of books that will be found on all shelves of that type, so you need a large mix of different bookshelves to get a good variety of books.

Bookshelves on a community lot come pre-filled. But if you want SKILL books, you have to use a particular bookcase: the Book Corral. It's a modern-looking one with open shelves and a curved spine.

Bookshelves will fill automatically, but different bookshelves spawn different types of books. AFAIK the glass bookcases are the ones will skill books - unless something has changed in the last few months - so if you want skill books make sure you have at least one of those.

Thanks. I never remember the name of it, just what it looks like and how cheap it is (and looks)

Great, thank you all so much for the good answers. Hope my library works well.

Awesomemod will sort it out for you, though you have to initially tell all the kids to go to one and all the teens to go to another, as they grow up they'll all go to the right one. I don't know how else you might do it.

Cheers, awesome mod doesn't agree with me because I'm not sensible enough to back up my stuff.. maybe I've learnt now, but idk.

I have another question... (this thread might as well be called "let's watch Briony ask everyone dumb shit..)

erm.. How would you get é or any other accented letter in the game for sims names and things?

D/W, lol.. I just copied and pasted, but whenever I've tried before it hasn't allowed it.

Did you do anything different while copy/pasting?

Firefox doesn't let you copy/paste, either. I keep forgetting about that, because it has no quarrel with CTRL-C/CTRL-V

I have still not been able to spray people with nectar (I don't see an interaction about it when partying) in a party, so I have more questions about it. Should this interaction be available at any party, or only bachelor ?

I think it's only available at bachelor (and bachelorette? I haven't had one of those yet) parties.

Nothing different, but I use google chrome.

How do you do bedtime stories?

^ There should be an option when, as the parent, you click on the child that comes up as "Read to Bed' or something similar. And I think there's an vice versa option... as the child, click on the adult and I think you can ask the parent to read you to bed.

Is it when they are in bed or before? I clicked on the child when she was in bed and nothing was there. I had many books in my backpack. Do I have to have the child in her pjs? Thanks

You know the infobubble things that pop up on the top right of the screen? PLEASE tell me there's a shortcut to close those.

you can turn most of them off through the option settings so that they do not show up, i do not know of a short cut as of yet to close them expect the mouse point and click.

I guess you could trade monies for an latin keyboard, or type Alt + 0233 ingame.

My question: can I make a wedding in one place and the afterparty in another place?

It should be there whenever their energy is getting low, and they should be out of bed to choose the interaction. They don't have to have books in their inventory, as long as there are some on the lot it should work.

I must have a glitch. I can't get it to work. The only option is to tell a story, not read. All my mods are up to date also. Except for one, the garden gnome, but I don't see where that would be an issue. Thanks for you help though.

umm, I want to ask, how do I extract music in Sims 3 like I did in Sims 2...?

1) The child must have the "sleepy" moodlet. It doesn't show up if they don't.

2) The child can't be in bed yet. It has to be while they have the moodlet and before they are in their bed.

3) This interaction is available for parents of toddlers, too, but in my experience it has to be initiated by the parent and the toddler, like the child, has to have the sleepy moodlet.

Often when I click on the moodlet to send them to bed, my Sim children autonomously pick a parent and ask them to read them a bedtime story.

Just make sure 1) and 2) are met and the interaction should appear.

Edit: Stupid question of my own. I have a Sim with a red glow around her. According to Master Controller, she's not a vampire (my first guess). She doesn't have the moodlet that makes her sparkle so...uh...what gives?

Has she reached the top of the criminal career? When you reach the top of the evil branch your sim will occassionally glow red. I've read of it before and have actually done it with one of my own Sims.

When you place windows are they supposed to have the green arrow pointing into the house/room or towards the outside?

How I tell is - when the window is facing the right way, the outside light will come into the room correctly. Edit: I just checked - the arrow should point into the house.

i point the arrow out of the house and light still comes through all of the windows. it may depend on some of the windows. if you choose a window that doesnt have any adornments i.e. potters/plant boxes, then you wont notice that with the arrow pointed inward or outward, light still shines through, whereas if you choose windows with the adornments, and place the windows with the green arrow pointing inside the house, the plants are INSIDE the house rather than on the outside. at least thats an observation that i've personally noticed.

i have a couple of stupid questions.

first, i've tested my game without ANY mods, and i cannot have a different hairstyle with each outfit. is this a new glitch? i first noticed it before my old computer crashed and died. i have a brand new computer, and it took me a couple of days to re-download all of my mods, so i was playing "vanilla" (i believe thats the term used) and still i couldn't change the hair with each outfit, so i feel confident it isnt my mods. but i could be wrong.

second question is ..geeze i forgot, i'll come back and edit when and IF i remember.

In my game, I can see the light shift when I switch the window direction, and the correct orientation appears to be with the arrow pointing in. Also the window locks should be on the inside which they are when the arrow is pointing in. Also in my game, the Good Manners Flowerbox window's orientation is with the arrow pointing inward.

I think if you want different hairstyles for different outfits you change into whatever outfit (formal for example) and make sure that it's unlocked from "one hairstyle for all outfits" then change the hairstyle to whatever you want for that outfit. Then change into the next outfit (swimwear or whatever) then change the hairstyle for that, then repeat for other outfits.

I hope it makes sense and I know it's extremely annoying and not simple like TS2

i never even knew you could CHANGE hairstyles to match outfits in TS2. i think i might re-download TS2. i miss seasons and family fun time.. i think thats what its called. anyways.

how do u make sure those things are "unlocked"?i saw someone else mention that in another thread. i guess i'm confused b/c until recently, when i made a sim in CAS (which i think i should have mentioned..these sims were made in CAS) i was able to pick an outfit, then go back to hairstyles and change it, then go back to outfits and repeat the same process. now i cant.

thanks for taking the time to answer my stupid question, i'm sure i have tons more

In 'change appearance' go into the hair category and above all the pictures of the hairs, on the right, is a little padlock. If you click it so that it changes to looking like an unlocked padlock, then any hair style you choose will only be applicable to the outfit your sim is wearing when you change it.

What is easiest to do is edit sims in CAS (either with Awesomemod, MasterController, or testingcheats switched on) to change because then you don't have to switch to an outfit, then go into 'change appearance' and exit for each one. If you edit the sim in CAS you can just change the outfits whilst still in CAS, which makes it easier.

How do you get a sim to drink a potion?

The only options I have are "Throw Potion" or "Give Gift" and I've tried both, but nothing potion -y happens.. The "Throw.." is just a throw and the give gift turns into a gift box.

EDIT: Ahaha.. I had my sim drink a "Mood Elevatus" Potion when she was in the red and she errored and suddenly popped out of the room.. Her mood did increase, but I wonder if it could be a sideeffect of being reset...

How can i protect a newborn sleeping in it's crib on 3rd floor from beeing traumatized by parents nude swimming? Well, the parents can't be nude. i get the message (in a non-english language), "don't you dare to be nude with children around you"!! Even if it's a newborn baby. Poor parents can't have fun in the bubblebath or swimmingpool nomore. Is there a mod for this stupidity? Couldn't EA wait with these warnings at least untill the baby was a toodler?

And. I am sick of adults playing with the sprinkler in the garden. There used to be a mod for it. Is this mod updated? I would be thankful for any answers.

You should ask about updates in the mod's thread, and use WCIF (under Help) to look for other mods

With my potions I also have a "Mix into drink" interaction. I haven't tried it yet, but I wonder if you could spike another sim's drink and make them take it that way?

doh! el_flel i totally forgot about that lock! you are completely right. i need to unlock that. and i did use twallan mastercontorller and the hairstyles doesnt change per category, but its like you said, i have that lock locked. and i do use mastercontroller to change the outfits rather than the dresser. i usually change their clothes while they are sleeping. helps pass the time.

thank you thank you thank you for the response!

Is there a sims 3 version of Live.package, or more precisely, a name list like there were in the other two games? I've poked through the GameplayData file a bit with s3pe but can't find anything.

There has to be a list to generate townie names from, but I'm hoping it's not buried too deep in game files to find...

Here's a stupid question for you all. About how long would you estimate a meter or yard to be in the game? I ask because I'm building a pool/water park and it's probably just me being nitpicky, but I want the pool to be a proper lap pool, so 25 meters or yards. I'm no good at estimating digital distance.

Astronomical, I don't know where it is but there is a file somewhere because AwesomeMod allows you to override it with custom ones.
TheLB, I'm guessing a metre would be just over 1 tile length.

I would estimate that one tile is roughly one yard, maybe slightly less. You could start with 25 tiles and tweak it from there.

If you start a neighborhood completely empty then add familys via edit town and then start playing obivously if you only added a few sims the town will generate sims where needed but will it reuse the familys you've already plopped down or create new ones? or use ones you havent used already?

Some of my vampires have fangs and some don't. The ones that I play don't have them, but the ones that I play less do. I've tried un-vamping and re-vamping them with no luck. Also adult females have skin coloured mouths... i.e. peach(ish).

Has anybody had this problem? What did you do about it?

I find my vamps don't have perma fangs. They show it one second and the next, those fangs retract. I can barely see them when they show it in live mode but you can see it better in CAS. My vamps fangs retract.

As for putting on makeup, it's hard because they have that weird skin colour and the makeup gets tricky specially the blush and lipstick. Tons of tweaks to get it to show up right.

... Inside... i.e. no shading..

is winning prom king or prom queen really random? i've played quite a few generations of teenagers, and every single one of them has become prom king or queen. i thought it was really cute at first, but now it's getting old. they've also been asked to go steady every single time if they went with another sim. most of them have not had a lot of friends, a few of them have hardly had any whatsoever, and none of that seems to affect it either. the same scenarios have happened every time, save for when i sent a sim solo and he got into a fight.

As far as I can tell its entirely random. I've had sims that don't have any friends at school win prom queen.

Does anyone else find it takes ages for the textures to load? It's really annoying.

It usually does the first time you load your game. I load my lot then go directly into Build/Buy Mode and click on the recolour icon, go thru each pattern/texture and load them up. After that, you should be alright. At least... it works that way in my game.

Good luck and happy simming.

Does anyone know where I can download the create a world tool? When i try to download it from the sims 3 site it says "Oops! We are not able to process your request."

I wanted to try that, but I'm impatient, so meh Maybe I'll give it a try anyway, thanks

I'm impatient too and it drives me nuts but I do it and when you play for hours with different saved games or families it really pays off I don't know about you but when I play, I play for about 4 hours or longer depending on the day.

i think the site was down bc i was getting this msg too. but its back up now so if youre still getting that message you have to clear your browser cookies. atleast the cookies for rhe sims3 website.

About the same time-wise I think. I'll have a try at that, thanks

It will generate random Sims, as far as I know.

Edit: The game always knows when I post in this thread to be helpful. Blah. Has anyone else had paintings go missing when you take them from your Sims' inventories and put them on the wall? The game says there is something there because it won't let me hang anything on that wall but I can't see or select the paintings. Thoughts or suggestions?

this may have been asked before but i'm not going thru all the pages again.. sorry i'm just not. how do u get the move in option to pop up? i've gotten the relationship to "simply irresistable" and still no option to move in. am i doing something wrong

The move in option I found is under friendly not romantic. I think they either have to be up sociable or friendly. I could be wrong