[SIZE=3][COLOR=Red]**** PLEASE NOTE: This document will no longer work as of the the most recent release of SimPE (OFB compatible;0.56) due to the removal of the classic GUI, which this was based on using some tools that are not present in the new GUI. Unfortunately, without some major retooling which MIGHT be done one day, this doc is now only good as a reference. ****[/COLOR][/SIZE]

Here you will find the Custom Career step-by-step How-To document. It is rather long, but hopefully simple enough for beginners, as it is designed as a true step-by-step guide. The document does not use any career editor plugins or programs, other than SimPE and an optional graphics package.

This was originally developed, then moved from http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=25474, and some useful resources are still located there.

Any feed back will be appreciated (please be gentle )

To give people a better idea of the content of the document, I have changed the format of this post to include only the latest changes, and added the table of contents.

The guide is in both MS Word 2000 (DOC) and Adobe Acrobat (PDF) formats. They are the same document. Word format is recommended as it has active hyperlinks for the document's bookmarks, making navigation easier.

I have now released v0.05. A lot of changes in this one.

There are currently 15 main sections to this document:

01) Introduction

A short introduction to this document. Going over the conventions, programs and limitations of this guide.

02) New Career Worksheets

Useful for planning and referencing your career

03) University (EP1) pack compatibility warning!!

Warning to career modders

04) Language translations

Adding extra language support to your career

05) Steps to Create a New Adult Career (Standard non-Graduate)
06) Steps to Create a New Teen / Elder Career
07) Steps to Create a New Graduate Career
08) Creating Custom Icons

A small guide, based on the GIMP, to making custom icons for your career

09) Steps to Upgrade a Pre-EP1 career
10) Testing your career

A quick run through on testing your new career

11) Posting your career for Beta / Release

A small guide on how to go about posting your career for beta testing or final release on MTS2.

12) Useful Tables

Tables that have information on how to find various settings etc

13) Resource Materials

Stuff used as reference for this document (will be removed a bit later)

14) TestingCheats

Raw Information. You are better off using the “Testing your career” topic

15) Changelog

Log of changes made to this document.

Version Changes
0.05

Added chance balance reminder
Expanded on filtering instructions (pointed out by Airelda)
Added career worksheet templates
Re-did reward instructions for updated SimPE (pointed out by athenegw)
Changed reward packaging recommendations.
Added “EP1 only” labels to relevant steps.
Expanded on Chance Card text entry.
Expanded on TS2 root location values.
Added posting guidelines (Thanks CynicalChick)
Added further explanations to some values
Corrected value for Chance Card presence indication (pointed out by jmk4422)
Added reward award level instructions
Added translation optional suggestions
Added short explanation of Hexadecimal
Updated TS2 / EP1 compatibility warning
Improved requirements description for unique GUID and GroupID

Added custom icon creation instructions

Nicee one Psion! Its so nice to see something as comprehensive as this :D

Extremely detailed. I can see where grammar and such can be cleaned up, but those spots are minor, and overshadowed by the great job you did in describing.

Pat yourself on the back!

Is it possible to just edit the careers that are already in the game or will I need to makle a copy of it and just edit that?

You always clone an existing career first. If you don't change it's GUID, it will replace a Maxis base career when installed. Likewise, when it is removed, the base career comes back.

It is considered better to make a separate career, rather than to overwrite one anyway.

You must state in your object post whether a career replaces a base career when publishing it.

Thanks psion hopefully this will help! :banned:

Thank you.

How come psion can put tutorials here and I can't??

eh? what kind of tutorial are you trying to put up?

Well p00jkins it is in microsft word format, and a zip file. but I will not tell you what kind of tutorial it is. But it says you do not have the options to post here!

I had to post elsewhere and Loverat moved it for me. You will need to speak to an admin about it.

Well how can I reach an ADMIN?

What the heck?

you need to go to the quick links at the top and go to private messaging, then go to send, then put in Loverat, then ask him about it

Try HER . . . :D

Thanks all.

Please also check out this thread: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=52699

It is a proposed 'standard' for posting careers.

The results will be in a future release of the document, so all comments appreciated.

What is the way the game identifies career package to be career? What settings are different in for example carrier package and cloned table package?
Or it depends on the whole set of resources
For examle only carrer's consist of :
- 86 Behaviour constants
- 2 Behaviour Functions
- 1 catalogue description
- 1 global data
- 5 image files
- 1 Null Reference
- 1 Object Data
- 1 Object Functions
- 1 Slot File
- 5 Text Files
and if i'll make table with
- 86 Behaviour constants
- 2 Behaviour Functions
- 1 catalogue description
- 1 global data
- 5 image files
- 1 Null Reference
- 1 Object Data
- 1 Object Functions
- 1 Slot File
- 5 Text Files
the game would treat it as career object
???
Thanks

No-one has tried to identify the career marker to my knowledge. It is likely a value in either the Object Data file or a BHAV, though.

We normally just clone an existing one, and change the settings we want to change.

Hi and thanks for taking the time to write this tutorial! I have been wanting to make my own careers for a long time, so I was excited to see your tutorial.

I hope it is okay for a complete novice modder like me to test it out? Or does it assume prior knowledge? The reason I ask is that I'm already stuck at step two :lol I was trying to make a new Graduate career, but unfortunately could get no further than step 2 which is "Filter for GroupID 0x7F2CA2DE (Artist Career) "

I don't really understand what is meant by this. I see at the top of SimPE is a box to type in a filter number but when I try to type in the number you specified it comes up with a completely blank file. I also tried going through the files one by one to find the right file but soon realised there are thousands of files listed and it would take forever to find the file you mentioned like that.

Please let me know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks!

Thank-you for the thank-you



The document was designed precisely for people who want to make a career without much, if any, prior knowledge of the tools involved. So in effect, it was aimed at yourself and other novices, although obviously it is usable by anyone. I did the somewhat easy part of documenting it. The hard part is coming up with the ideas required to complete a good career. THAT is up to you . . .



Thank-you for bringing this to my attention. I have not used the required detail for a SimPE novice (which is what I should have done), like I did in the other steps. I will amend the document with the following entries (v0.05 onwards):

2. Filter for GroupID 0x7F2CA2DE (Artist Career)

a. Select the box marked “Group Filter”.
b. Type in “0x7F2CA2DE”.

Good luck, and don't hesitate to ask any further questions. That is how documents like this are refined.

Hello
Brilliant tutorial, ive been wanting to make my own careers for ages.

Just a couple o' question question.
Is it possible to change the career outfit to a custom outfit?

The Reward object. Do you open the object file in simPE?
I tried this but i couldn't find 0x0090.

Please help oh great and knowledgeable one.

Thank-you, and good luck.


You can change the outfits to custom outfits, yes, as long as they have GUIDs. As for making custom outfits, that is beyond the scope of this guide.


Sorry about that. This part of the guide was made for SimPE 0.17. Quaxi has since changed the way the values are displayed / accessed for the section you need. Please find below updated instructions that will be present in v0.05.

Thank-you for your input into this, and again, good luck.

--->>>
1. Flag object as a reward type object

a. Load the object you wish to make the reward (clone it if not a custom object).
b. Select “Object Data” from “Filetypes”.
c. Select instance “0x000041A7” (Object Data) from “Packed Files”.
d. Select the “Packed File” tab.
e. Click “Byte Editor”.
f. In the “Byte Editor” window, change the “Display Mode” at the bottom left to “Hexadecimal”.
g. In the “Offset” box at the top left, type “0x90”.
h. Click the “go” next to the “Offset” box.
i. In the “Word” box, change the value to “0x0800” (tells TS2 this is a reward object only).
j. Click “Commit”, which will close the editor.
k. Confirm the change has occurred correctly.

i. Select “Name Reference” from “Filetypes”.
ii. Select “Object Data” from “Filetypes”.
iii. Select instance “0x000041A7” (Object Data) from “Packed Files”.
iv. Select the “Uncompressed Data” tab.
v. Select the box that is immediately to the right of “0x00000090”.
vi. Note on the right that “Word” should have 3 values: “0x800”, “2048” and “2048”.

l. Select the “Plugin View” tab.
m. Note the GUID of the object.
n. Select “Save” from the file menu.

2. Bind Reward to Career

a. Select “Object Data” from “Filetypes”.
b. Select instance “0x000041A7” (Object Data) from “Packed Files”.
c. Select the “Packed File” tab.
d. Click “Byte Editor”.
e. In the “Byte Editor” window, change the “Display Mode” at the bottom left to “Hexadecimal”.
f. In the “Offset” box at the top left, type “0xA8”.
g. Click the “go” next to the “Offset” box.
h. In the “Dword” box, change the value to the GUID of your career object. Note, if you do not already have a public GUID assigned, you will need to repeat this step later to update the GUID when it is assigned.
i. Click “Commit”, which will close the editor.
j. Confirm the change has occurred correctly.

i. Select “Name Reference” from “Filetypes”.
ii. Select “Object Data” from “Filetypes”.
iii. Select instance “0x000041A7” (Object Data) from “Packed Files”.
iv. Select the “Uncompressed Data” tab.
v. Select the box on the far right, next to the “GoTo” button.
vi. Enter “0xab”.
vii. Click the “GoTo” button.
viii. Starting with the highlighted box in the middle, reading right to left, your GUID for your career should now be listed in reverse. For example, if your GUID was “0x12345678”, it would be listed (right to left) as “12”, ”34”, “56", “78”.

k. Select the “Plugin View” tab
l. Note the GUID of the object
m. Select “Save” from the file menu

Great job on the tutorial - I was having the very same problem myself. One question, though - do you still need to bind the career to the reward (aka the same as step two in reverse)?
Thanks for your help - you guys are awesome.
SimSpeare

One more quick question - how do you set the job level at which your sim will recieve the career reward? I apologize if this is an obvious question, but I can't seem to find it in SimPE (I'm working on a pretty cool career that I'll post here soon).
Thanks!