Another day in Sim World! While educating myself on beautifying my NPC, I keep coming back to this tutorial http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...5#startcomments by Grapholina. I liked the approach, however there one thing bugging me - the fate of archetype (the one whose appearance we used). According to comments, he or she can stay in family bin or one can delete from there. We of course know that one cannot delete anything one family bin and something just being there with no purpose drives me mad. So I ask the best and the brightest - what is there to do with archetype?
In the interest of full disclosure, I also would like to swap several faces of playables, so the solution would need to match that goal.

1) Give playables NPC jobs and make the NPC look like the playable. For example, my mailman looks like my playable sim who has a custom mail career.
2) Download default templates, kill off NPC's you don't like and make a graveyard sims can visit and new ones will spawn with the default faces.
3)Grab and change them with Christianlov's Closet Gussy Up. (looks only, does not change DNA)

There is the approach above, but I think there is one without adding extra archetypes.

There's an alt Sim Surgery plugin by Theo... somewhere... that allows you to use Bodyshop sims as the archetype, so you wouldn't have to create them in the game at all.
ETA: Here.

I knew someone would know, what and where. Thanks sushigal.

I like recycling my sims, never killing them off, and I don't like anything in the game for no reason either, so although I have done the Alt Surgery thing, I usually just make the archetypes different with another bout of SimSurgery but just not using a whole sim... like... I make the archetype a downtownie, townie, or whatever, then change them in a rather hodgepodge way with SimSurgery by giving them another sim's skin, a different sim's eyes, a different sim's face, whatever... you can freely and safely mix genders as well, but mixing life stages can get messy so I don't do that, usually. Sometimes I get interested in them and decide maybe they are cousins with some of the sims I used, but sometimes just a quick click, click, and release them into the wild. Occasionally, I have used this mix method hodgepodge for the target sim so I don't even need an archetype.

Why not just keep her (or him), move the sim into a home? You've made a sim that you like the look of to make other sims look nice so why dispose?

I had just finished making over the look of Sim Surgery in SimPE when I first read this, I made it so when you resize the window it's the sim selection area that re-sizes instead of the control area. Also I prevented it from loading skins if A&N is installed because A&N has too many skins for SimPE to handle while a neighbourhood is open which stopped Sim Surgery from being used. After reading this I decided to try to put Theo's extra option from Alt Sim Surgery into the default Sim Surgery to give the best of both. It is still in testing, I have found no problems yet so it will certainly be in the next SimPe Update.

The code for the extra option is copied from Theo's source code so credit for the extra option goes to Theo.

Inspired by joandsarah77's idea I spend a little more time searching for face templates and find the ones I like - so will probably use Sim Blender to change most of mu NPCs (at least the ones worth changing). sushigal007, thank you for the idea, I'm sure it will be useful it the days to come.
I'm still torn about my sim-family - the goal is to recreate three families with children, but I would like children to be born in game (or rather born again, no pun intended) and at the same time look the way they did. So far I see two ways - classic sim surgery (so they keep DNA) on toddlers and then age archetype to become townie children; or move-in grown sims, use Sim Blender to age them to toddler and do some fiddling with Memory Manipulator. Anyone has experience to share? Maybe there's another way I'm not considering?

I updated SimPE a coupe of days ago http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...832#post5568832

If it were me I'd start again from scratch, use the opportunity to clean up your download folder first and remove any genetic items like skins and eyes you don't need because they can be very difficult to remove later. If the new sims look similar to the old, have same personality and the same names they soon become the same sims in your mind. Have their offspring be born in game again, it is the best and safest way and probably quickest. Open the old 'hood and take a lot of notes, things like sim and lot names so you can be sure to get at least them the same, a few screen shots can come in handy too.

Regardless of how you proceed keep your old 'hood backed up forever, it is possible to pull some lots from it later.

Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to grad an update!
Now I am right in the middle of cleaning my download folder (checking mods, deleting 137 recolors of that outfit I don't particularly like and so forth). The idea of creating a completely custom hood seems a little overwhelming at times, but I'm constantly surfing for tutorials and random tips.
Lucky for me I have whole stories about my sims-to-be-recreated, so most of the info is already there (I'm even planning to right a few wrongs). I was actually wondering about the lots, the info seems conflicting at times - I usually use anyone's lots and often don't bother too much with my owns, but I have few I would really love to keep. They were heavily lived in, is there a safe way to transport them to a new hood? Maybe even furnished?

I still recommend closest gussy up because it includes plastic surgery, change appearance and set clothes. Midge the tree recently updated it to include Seasons. https://midgethetree.tumblr.com/pos...y-internet-died

joandsarah77, do you see advantage of using gussy up instead of Sim Blender?

For makeovers yes. The simblender does not include plastic surgery and you can't buy new clothes with it. Closet gussy up goes on each pie sims menu and lets you buy a full wardrobe, plan the clothes, does change at mirror and plastic surgery. Meaning that dormie with the ugly nose, you can give him a new nose. (change is cosmetic, not genetic) You can grab any NPC and give them a full makeover with it. Because the sim is temporarily added to the household while you make them over do not use this on universal or unsafe sims like Mrs Curumplebottom or the Social worker etc. You can't change eyes or skin with it though, you need SimPE to do that, but most things will be like you took the sim into CAS, so you can reshape their face.

It isn't a case of which one is best though, the simblender does other things, you really want both.

1) Make a permanent backup; You’ll never regret having a backup but you’re sure to one day regret not having one if you don’t.
2) Open the Primary Neighbourhood in SimPe. For any playable family that lives in a lot you want to salvage open their family and change Now On Lot: and Lot Instance: values to 0x00000000, perhaps clear the Flags (Has Computer etc).
This moves them into the family bin and keeps the home furnished, if any families were in Apartments the game will automatically delete their sub apartment when the neighbourhood next loads. To salvage an Apartment Base you must move out all families that live in that apartment block.
3) If you want to salvage the whole neighbourhood use deleteAllCharacters cheat.
4) Use Lot Cleaner in every lot that has been lived in that you want to salvage, don't need to do Apartments as the Apartment Base does not get lived in. (If you deleted all characters then more sims will be generated every time you enter a lot).
5) If you want to salvage the whole neighbourhood after you complete step 4 use deleteAllCharacters cheat again to remove those sims created in step 4
6) Use the Lot Compressor (Included with SimPe_0_75_68 self install versions or http://simfileshare.net/download/479352/) to clean up all lots in the neighbourhood, Tick remove sim data and remove weather (to reset the season back to un-played). Do this for every sub-hood as well as the primary neighbourhood.
7) If you want to salvage the whole neighbourhood then open the Primary Neighbourhood in SimPE again and Delete all of the following:
Sim DNA (SDNA)
Sim Relations (SREL)
Sim Wants and Fears (SWAF)
Sim Scores (SCOR)
Family Unknown (FAMH)
Inventory Items (INIT) (these are created by apartments).
Sim Descriptions (SDSC) (These will only be the unique NPCs built in, as they were added in neighbourhood view and no op-codes have run yet they can’t have memories etc. associated yet so just delete them).
Delete all empty families except Default.
Clear out excess Text Lists, this isn’t mandatory but may as well begin in pristine condition. There should be one text list for each family and one for each lot so the number of text lists should equal families + Lots.
Using the Hex Editor you can (not mandatory) set the Sim Creation Index (SCID) back to 1 (never set it to zero as that will crash the game), the value to change is the last two bytes, change in the box named Short (see attached image), a quirk in the Hex Editor is the value doesn’t actually change unless you select another box, then commit.
8) If you just want to salvage a few lots then the filename of the lots corresponds to decimal value of the Lot Instance. Open the neighbourhood/sub-hood that contains the lot(s) and note the decimal value of the lot instances you want to salvage. Now you can find those lots by their filename and copy them to somewhere. Change the filenames of those lot copies to ‘cx_0000xxxx.package’ where xxxx is the next in sequence for the lots in your LotCatalog, then you can move them into your LotCatalog ready for re-use.

If they want the change to be genetic, they can always use the DNA Fixer in my signature.

joandsarah77 I agree that both of the tools have their uses, and actually Sim Blender has the option for plastic surgery, but not for clothes. Thanks for the tip on universal sim, didn't know that yet.

Wow, thanks RoxEllen1965! I found the instruction on changing genetics in SimPE, but this looks much easier