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plasticbox
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#1 Old 6th Sep 2014 at 4:31 AM Last edited by plasticbox : 9th Feb 2016 at 9:31 PM.
Default Maxis CC documentation | Patch notes | tdesc + XML updates
See this thread at EA:

Quote: Originally posted by SimGuruModSquad
We’ve been busy working on technical documentation to share with you on best practices for Custom Content and Mods and details about how the game works. We’re happy to announce that this can now be found here: TS4_Custom_Content_Guide.zip

The Sims 4 is a large game, so we can’t document everything about it, but we’ve included information about a few key things we thought you’d appreciate.

We hope this accelerates your progress. Please continue to ask questions in the forums, and we will do our best to answer them.


Note that the .tdesc files in the TuningDescriptions directory are XML, i.e. human readable text files. You can also use tdesc browser.

Also note that the simsmodsquad-novelist.package included with the examples has a nonstandard compression type – if you run into issues trying to re-save that package, copy + paste its contents into a new package instead.




For an overview of other documentation published by Maxis, as well as links to the current TDESC download, see here: Maxis Info Index

--





Full patch notes are here: http://help.ea.com/en/article/the-sims-4-updates/


--
CmarNYC
Ms. Byte (Deceased)
#2 Old 6th Sep 2014 at 5:55 AM
They were pretty stingy with resource data format descriptions. For my purposes the CASP/Part Data documentation is helpful but I wish they'd included the GEOM format among many others.
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TheHologramMan
Test Subject
#3 Old 6th Sep 2014 at 6:11 AM
I suspect part of why it is more complete in one area than another is probably the people involved. I'm guessing we got the programmer who did the python integration and probably not the designers of those file formats. I'm rather happy so far with what we got. I've been part of many modding communities and most companies are very closed when it comes to file formats and modding. I remember getting help from the NWN2 team for the binormal and tangent calculations and that was cool but we didn't get much documentation for mesh file formats.

Here we actually got an example though unfortunately it did not actually work out of the box. It can always be better and it would be great if they can help more. I think if we can make a concrete list of exact pain points we will likely have a better shot at getting that information.
plasticbox
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#4 Old 6th Sep 2014 at 6:41 AM
To me it seems the not-working-out-of-box-ness is the same issue that they asked about on the forums recently – so when they’re saying now that they'll fix this with a patch soon, that's actually very positive news in my eyes =).

I can only recommend going there and asking them specific questions – the ModSquad account (not sure if it’s always the same person) has been very straightforward and responsive so far. Also about things he couldn’t answer himself (e.g. lot sizes); he said he’d check and get back, and he did.
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cwurts00
Lab Assistant
#5 Old 6th Sep 2014 at 6:21 PM
So how does one open the xml files to edit them, and where are they?
Carved Crayon Rose
Test Subject
#6 Old 7th Sep 2014 at 7:21 PM
Quote: Originally posted by cwurts00
So how does one open the xml files to edit them, and where are they?


The documentation only provides examples of creating new xml files, not editing the combined Maxis ones (as editing them would cause the tuning mod to be incompatible with any other mod that edits the Maxis files and, apparently, create longer load times).
velocitygrass
Inventor
#7 Old 7th Sep 2014 at 10:03 PM
The combined XML tuning file mentioned in the tutorial is 0x62E94D38-0x00000000-0xF1352E740C4710BA in SimulationDeltaBuild0.package in case someone hasn't found it yet. As mentioned in the document, it shouldn't be overridden directly, but I found it useful to just copy and paste from there as basis for my changes instead of creating from scratch.
livinginfinite
Test Subject
#8 Old 7th Sep 2014 at 10:26 PM Last edited by livinginfinite : 7th Sep 2014 at 10:40 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by velocitygrass
The combined XML tuning file mentioned in the tutorial is 0x62E94D38-0x00000000-0xF1352E740C4710BA in SimulationDeltaBuild0.package in case someone hasn't found it yet. As mentioned in the document, it shouldn't be overridden directly, but I found it useful to just copy and paste from there as basis for my changes instead of creating from scratch.


That's very helpful, thanks for that.

Has anyone found a good way to find the ID for various things? (Such as from the novelist example, statistic_Skill_AdultMajor_Writing has ID 16714)

EDIT: Okay, I found what I was looking for by ctrl+f'ing the aforementioned combined XML tuning file. That is a seriously huge text file!
Carved Crayon Rose
Test Subject
#9 Old 8th Sep 2014 at 3:47 PM
Quote: Originally posted by velocitygrass
The combined XML tuning file mentioned in the tutorial is 0x62E94D38-0x00000000-0xF1352E740C4710BA in SimulationDeltaBuild0.package in case someone hasn't found it yet. As mentioned in the document, it shouldn't be overridden directly, but I found it useful to just copy and paste from there as basis for my changes instead of creating from scratch.


Ah, thanks. I've been a bit busy with work, so I haven't had the time to go poking through the Sims 4 packages as much as I'd like.
plasticbox
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#10 Old 10th Sep 2014 at 11:05 AM
Update: Script issues is fixed as of yesterday. Not sure whether it said so in the patch notes.
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plasticbox
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#11 Old 1st Oct 2014 at 11:45 PM Last edited by plasticbox : 2nd Oct 2014 at 12:39 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by SimGuruModSquad

UPDATE: As of the 10/1/2014 patch, modded tuning will now be loaded out of .package files


^^ This pertains to that /unpackedmod folder business -- not needed anymore for XML. Phew.


Full patch notes are here: http://help.ea.com/en/article/the-sims-4-updates/
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plasticbox
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#12 Old 8th Nov 2014 at 1:01 AM
Update: New tdesc files, see top post.
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plasticbox
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#13 Old 14th Jan 2015 at 9:08 PM Last edited by plasticbox : 15th Jan 2015 at 11:55 AM.
New tdescs for the 2015-01-13 patch available here (directlink). Please make note of the additional info by SGEugi today -- XML tuning for Outdoor Retreat must have a group ID of 2.
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plasticbox
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#14 Old 27th Mar 2015 at 7:12 PM
New tdescs have been posted and also the combined tuning file in the pre-patch format – links see post #1.
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plasticbox
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#15 Old 31st Mar 2015 at 5:06 AM
Tuning (XML) for EP01 added, see post #1.
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Tanja1986
Instructor
#16 Old 21st Apr 2015 at 11:01 PM
I know it's a stupid question, but how do I edit the XML tuning files? I am right now in the Alien abduction tuning file and I see a lot of numbers. What do these numbers mean and in what way do I need to change these settings? I want to make reverse what EA did with the Aliens in the last patch. How do I do this?
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plasticbox
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#17 Old 21st Apr 2015 at 11:11 PM
You should probably read the tdescs, they ought to tell you what each number means. If you have more specific questions, can you make a separate post please?
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plasticbox
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#18 Old 2nd Jun 2015 at 1:32 AM
Updated with link to the current XML/tdesc upload in case anyone doesn’t have that yet. They have also stickied it now.
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plasticbox
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#19 Old 12th Jun 2015 at 12:41 AM
Updated with links for 1.8.
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plasticbox
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#20 Old 10th Jul 2015 at 3:18 AM
Updated with links for 1980.
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plasticbox
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#21 Old 7th Aug 2015 at 8:54 PM
Updated with links for 1.10.57.
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plasticbox
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#22 Old 24th Sep 2015 at 11:10 PM
Updated with links for 1.11.64.
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plasticbox
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#23 Old 5th Nov 2015 at 2:06 PM
Updated with info on 1.12.118 (no changes) and an old issue with one of the examples.
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plasticbox
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#24 Old 6th Dec 2015 at 1:45 AM
Updated with links for 1.13.104.
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