Come on, Jawusa, you can do it! These fixes are absolutely necessary to have here on MTS (along with Lola Duff, Hilary's dog - wouldn't make sense to separate them )!



Sokisims, I don't know if you have isbrealiomcaife's non-default face templates but you should definitely get them: https://isbrealiomcaife.dreamwidth.org/11526.html NPCs/townies can also spawn with them. I myself have always been on the lookout for non-default replacement face templates so it's nice to see a good batch of these have been created.

New Update: Created Townie Households!

Hello! This update focuses on introducing the unlockable townies from the console version! (All attached images have been labelled.)

Update notes:

• Fixed Penelope's memories: Blank 'Grew Up Well' memories have now been corrected.
  
• Adjusted relationship values in townie households: Once again, certain relationship values between married Sims were relatively low by Sims 2 PC standards, which can cause trouble.
  
• Hilary Duff face template was fixed: Once again, thank you, Jawusa, for all your hard work!
  
• Console Townies as actual PC Townies Issue: All townie households are currently in the family bin. I haven't decided if I'll convert them to actual townies or if I should just keep in the family bin. One thing I realized about converting CAS created sims into townies is that pets belonging to townie households will have to end up in the default strays household, essentially splitting up the townie household...? At least, that's what I've noticed from testing with the Teleporter Cat... How do you all think I should go on about this?

Just a reminder: Expanded Neighborhood Camera:
You will need a camera mod to give you an expanded view of the neighborhood in order to be able to view all lots. You can use one of the following:

• GunMod's Camera Mod 3.1 -- All Game Versions -- : https://modthesims.info/d/97642/gun...e-versions.html
  
• Enhanced Gameplay Cameras: https://modthesims.info/d/312294/en...ay-cameras.html

Squeee!! I love the additional townies and their pets!! ^^
Comes perfectly in time after getting miserably disappointed by the TS2 re-release yesterday and needing desperate consolation, lol.

As for the townies, I'm not quite sure how the game treats decides the walk-bys but what I noticed is that if a sim and a pet have the "Master" relationship tag, they'll both appear on a residential/community lot together.

So, maybe you might get it to work, so even if the sims are in the actual townies household, they'll appear together with their pet as walk-bys but I fear townie pets (=strays) in the game are treated as strays, so, you'll be able to adopt their pets after befriending them... which is weird considering that they already have a master.

But in theory, townie sims may appear with pets as walk-bys if they have a "Master" relationship tag with that pet.

I did some testing. I moved all members of the Prescott family, including the cat, to the default Townie household. Went into the Newbie household to play test and see if any of them would show up with the cat, and they did! I tested with and without the 'Mine'/'Master' relationship tag. In both cases, the cat showed up with one of the owners. (Please refer to labelled screenshots below.) So, at least I can retain the original relationship values from the console version. Also, when I sent Bob Newbie to the phone to adopt a pet, Paisley, the Prescott's cat did not show up in the adoption pool. So, hopefully, no one will accidentally adopt the Prescott's cat.

BTW, this was all made possible thanks to jonasn's Instant Inviter.

With that in mind, for v1.5, I'm hoping to move all townie households in the family bin over to the default Townie household, along with their pets.

Now, there may be some oddities, for instance, Hilary Duff showed up with the Prescott's cat, Paisley, since they are technically in the same household. (Please refer to the third screenshot - also labelled.)



Opinions?

Yayy!! That’s great news! So they can all be actual townies just like on console. ^^

I think the game still specifically checks for the “Master” relationship tag and if the game sees multiple sims in one household, it will choose their master for the walk-by. That’s how it works for regular households as well.

This way, you can also prevent Hilary Duff taking Paisley for a walk (just because you’re a celebrity doesn’t mean you can kidnap other sims’ cats and dogs!) She will then only take Lola out for a walk as intended lol.

I mean, even if that happens, you could still say she’s taking her friend’s dog out for a walk.. I have done that in real life as well and I don’t think I feel criminal about that. XD

Aw! That's so sweet!

Okay, did additional testing, making sure both Sim and Pet were at BFs/Master/Mine level, and they still showed up with pets from other households - please refer to labelled screenshots below. I guess it doesn't really matter what relationship level they're at. The game seems to pick a Sim and Pet randomly for walk-bys. 🤔

I'll just keep the original relationship values unchanged since it would be more accurate to the console version and move everyone to the default townie household. Whatever happens happens!

Okay, maybe it's all been coincidence then all these years of playing TS2! Lol! I really thought the "Master" relationship tag really had an effect.
Anyway, I'd say it's still fine! They have their owner's last names as well, so you'd basically still recognize it's Hilary's dog.

New Update: CAS Townie Sims Townified!

Hello! This is just a small update where all CAS created townie sims have been moved to the default Townie household, along with their pets. Each townie sim should have their original bios (copy-pasted from The Sims Wiki ).

There are no other NPCs in this neighborhood.

For the next update, I'll need to start working on updating household bios, seeing that certain couples don't have high relationship scores, and start preparing pictures for Story Mode. I am curious to know, if anyone here's worked on custom neighborhoods before, how you've created Story Mode images that resemble the ones for the premade neighborhoods? Are there any tutorials out there? Did you use Photoshop, Gimp, or any other image editing tool? Is there a debug animations object I can use? Any tips?

Just a reminder: Expanded Neighborhood Camera:
You will need a camera mod to give you an expanded view of the neighborhood in order to be able to view all lots. You can use one of the following:

• GunMod's Camera Mod 3.1 -- All Game Versions -- : https://modthesims.info/d/97642/gun...e-versions.html
  
• Enhanced Gameplay Cameras: https://modthesims.info/d/312294/en...ay-cameras.html

Hiiiiiiiiiiiii, so glad to see this project is alive and well again! Definitely gonna give this a download and test it out some.

Have you considered any scripted events?

Hey! It's an interesting topic you brought up, M.M.A.A. There is a thread that's exactly about "Maxis-like" photos!! In fact, @Peni Griffin made a very thorough "guide" on how to make this kinda photos. On my opinion, they should be unedited photos from the game (although you can use the special effects camera that comes with it) with cinematographic angles and, normally, akwardly posed sims, facing away from the camera. Thta is not very consistent, though, since Maxis clearly used some post-processing effects and more polished looks in some others.

When I made my custom nhood, I tried to make photos that look as they were taken elsewhere from the hood, constructing sets with profoundity (so you can see a background to the photo). The situations shown on them can be straightforward, but most of them are somewhat ambigous; it's more interesting if you do that, on my experience.

*Apologies for not being able to respond to anyone sooner. Real life got in the way. *



Thank you, @Kat Attack !

At the moment, no, but it would be nice to include them. I'll need a tutorial on how to get those done.



Thank you for the tips, @ed95 ! I've completed all Story Mode images for all households, except for the ones in the family bin. I'll be sharing a version of the updated neighborhood file soon for everyone to review.

New Update: Story Mode Snapshots Completed!

Hello! First of all, just wanted to apologize for taking so long to update this project. I was traveling, then got sick with the flu (or something, hope it wasn't COVID), and have been working on sorting out job applications. But I'm back, for now.

This update features a whole set of Story Mode snapshots for resident households, with slightly edited household bios. Let me know what you all think of them!

For the next update, I will continue adjusting some of the household bios. Also, I'm contemplating fiddling with the relationship scores for the married couples, like the Townsend's and Hardiman's (and townie couples). During testing, I noticed that they would lose their best friend and/or crush tags the moment they interact with each other. Not sure if I've mentioned this before but the console version does not have a Long Term Relationship (LTR) and Short Term Relationship (STR) scores. It's just a single value. So, I could leave the short term relationship scores as it is to match the console version's, but have the long term set at a minimum of 70, so that it's 50-50, i.e. if anything goes south, they would lose their tags; otherwise their relationship simply improves. (See this wikia article for reference.)

Just a reminder: Expanded Neighborhood Camera:
You will need a camera mod to give you an expanded view of the neighborhood in order to be able to view all lots. You can use one of the following:

• GunMod's Camera Mod 3.1 -- All Game Versions -- : https://modthesims.info/d/97642/gun...e-versions.html
  
• Enhanced Gameplay Cameras: https://modthesims.info/d/312294/en...ay-cameras.html

Will you also add the two default Chris Newbie as a Bin family?

As far as I'm aware, there are no premade Sims by the name of Chris Newbie in the console version of The Sims 2 Pets. 🤔 There's no mention of them in the wikia either: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Whiskerton

They are the default sims you create when you start the console CAS.
They have a default name and appearance, and both the male and female sim are called Chris Newbie.

Oh! Okay! I remember now. If I remember correctly, 'Chris Newbie' is just a placeholder name that CAS defaults to when creating new Sims. Any Sim you create with any (random) appearance would have Chris Newbie as their name until you change it.

Just to clear things up, I'm basing this neighborhood on the PlayStation 2 version of the neighborhood and I'm only focusing on recreating premade Sims (with the exception of Penelope Arnold's family, for storytelling/technical reasons previously mentioned in the thread).

New Update: Custom Scripted Notifications Created!

Hey! This is just a small update that features the following:

• Custom Scripted Notifications: When loading up a playable household for the first time, a notification should pop up. This was made possible thanks to this tutorial by simstateTS3: https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=658827 The scripted events package file can be found inside the neighborhood folder itself. (No need to place it in the Downloads folder.) Below are some examples:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Long Term Relationship Scores Adjustments: I decided to modify the LTR values for married playable and townie Sim couples, so that they would be at a minimum of 70. The short term relationship values remain unchanged.

I've tested the scripted notifications package and it worked for me. However, I would really appreciate it if you all can test it in your games as well. Let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback on the text itself.

Last but not least, if all goes well, the next update, v1.8, should be the final draft. I'm planning on making minor tweaks to the LTWs to fit each Sim's bio better. After that, I should be able to begin the process of finalizing this neighborhood for uploading. Thank you!

Just a reminder: Expanded Neighborhood Camera:
You will need a camera mod to give you an expanded view of the neighborhood in order to be able to view all lots. You can use one of the following:

• GunMod's Camera Mod 3.1 -- All Game Versions -- : https://modthesims.info/d/97642/gun...e-versions.html
  
• Enhanced Gameplay Cameras: https://modthesims.info/d/312294/en...ay-cameras.html

Heyaaa I snooped around in the hood a bit ^^ I think you did a good job recreating the Whiskerton experience so far and I really love how you repurposed the Town Square shops into other shops from the PC game :D

I do have a couple notes/bits I recall from the PS2 game to make it slightly more accurate:
Penelope Arnold is a popularity sim, and Betty Newbie is a knowledge sim
Also because the console game has the creativity aspiration instead of romance, it could be an idea to make originally creativity sims such as Dan Hardiman and Dottie Simpson into romance sims.
This would add more popularity and romance representation among the true premades, solving that problem

I also had a look at the Town Square and I recall that the tile used outdoors there looks a lot like the "Before It's Time" Tile, you may want to update that. (Veronaville houses use it a lot, I'm 100% sure it's base game)
You may also consider moving the collar store to the Pet Salon, as those were originally sold there in the console game.

Hope these points help you out to make this great project even more accurate :D

Good luck with the finishing touches ^^

Do you need help to translate it in other languages once you're done?
In case I can provide you with the translation you need for italian