(this thread still is a draft, kind of)





Once upon a time, the sprites showcased here belonged to those that were the rarest and most sought-after The Sims 1 Maxis objects, tantalizingly pictured in countless pre-release materials and the game's introductory video. As you know, those objects were either drastically cut off or enhanced during development—maybe because they proved to be sort of borderline kitschy, albeit functional, as the game was getting close to being done and sporting a more polished gfx status — but if you've been determined to create custom contents off of them using The Sims Transmogrifier or any other tool you know, maybe it's your lucky day!

The public availability of the Steering Committee Prototype (or *beta*, if you will) made it possible for us to have access to these once lost objects, in spite of the compatibility issues we're facing when importing the object files into the final product. Fortunately, I found a way of exporting all the sprite resources individually, which can be quite useful for us in the future.

Whether you're simply curious to see the sprites from the infamous The Sims Steering Committee demo, or eager to creatively invest your free time in developing your own proto-to-final conversions using TMOG, we'll deliberately export and share all the object sprites (and their corresponding z-buffers) from the demo here, so you can download them and just do your magic!

We hope this thread becomes a collaborative space where we can work together to transform, in our own sweet time, these sprites into functional, visually accurate objects for our Base Game/Complete Collection copies, replicating their appearance and behavior from the original prototype. So we can party like it's 1998.

...all that, with the assumption that, you know, no-one has done something along these lines before, and such. It's ok if they did, though! =P


FEATURES:

* Complete set of graphics for all the Buy Mode objects in the prototype — four rotations¹; three zooms — preserving their original filenames and indexes, as lossless BMP files. Z-Buffers are also included.

¹ Exceptions include Duck.iff - that contains an early experimentation with objects of EIGHT unique rotations — wow!






RESTRICTIONS:

* The pack does not contain the alpha channels. Since none of the objects at the time of release of the demo sported smooth edges or transparency, I'm positive that you can easily use image editing programs to create your own alpha-channel graphics using the original sprites as reference without compromising the objects' appearance or function. Lmk if you need assistance with this tho!




FAQ:

(soon!)


GOALS FOR THE FUTURE:

* Export Architecture Mode sprites (door, window...), as well as the remaining Furniture Mode sprites;
* Export food graphics in "mealsnacks.IFF";
* Over the long term, transform all sprites into playable objects, preserving their original look and behavior when possible/necessary.


CONTACT LUC & DAN:


Are you having any trouble with the sprites? Are the transparent colors in any of them corrupted? Are the files not well-suited for TMOG? Do you need any assistance in handling them ? Please do not hesitate to contact Dan and I by emailing us at sixampcast@gmail.com or replying to this thread if you have a ModTheSims account!

Thank you very much



* + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + *

Oh and here's the tables with the individual download links for the playable CC (not the sprite pack)!

Everyone is encouraged to participate and reply to this post by "booking" an object slot that they want to work on (no worries if it's an object that have already been previously restored), so they can be given full credits for their efforts.



CC DONE SO FAR:


Note that, just because these files are uploaded, it does not mean they are in their final state, necessarily. They're subject to multiple revisions if needed — even super minor ones, ones that involve tile placement or script fixes. =)

GAME SCENARIOS (really)

Sample	Source	Comments	Author	File
	Level1.iff	The prototype's first "learning" scenario... now playable in high fidelity in the final product. Nice one, PW!	purplewowies	pw_steering_Level1 (object and houses) v1.0.zip

OBJECTS

Sample	Source	Comments	Author	CC File (extract these to the "Download" folder in your game!)
	Easel.iff	With its custom magic cookie blessings, SimOrganizer-powered Buy Mode epistemology and acquired Transmogrifier skills, maybe it's the first port that will not embarrass me over the long run. Well, behold a rotationally hybrid item. The isolated easel sprites follow the standard "back-n-front" arrangement, whilst we have canvases whose horizontally flipped IDs are unique graphics other than mirrored versions. If it were the first object I worked on in this project, I would've given up immediately! On the other hand: lucky for us, a portion of is betaish code (e.g. early messages that always tell the player that the Sim has finished her or his painting) can be found intact hidden away within their due scripting trees (they're just sort of widowed though: none of the existing primitive nodes connect themselves to that), so you can definitely expect some extra behaviors here (yet nothing too fancy as this object isn't that different from its finalized iteration anyway; but, hey, at least your Sims will have something different to paint, beyond a mysterious RL wedding setting, I suppose!? ).	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_easel.iff
	paint1.iff	Its sprite coordinates are a bit different here — more up to par with those of the other paintings in the game —, considering how weirdly it already presents itself in the prototype.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_paint1.iff
	Stereo.iff	xxx	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_stereo.iff
	houseplant.iff	In case you forgot you're a ragdoll living in a dollhouse... allow this flower of astronomic proportions to put your feet on the ground. Pretty solid conversion!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_houseplant.iff
	Table.iff	While you could buy and combine 6 single-tile prototype tables into one yourself, Maxis made a whole "new" Buy Mode object off this concept. A brilliantly made conversion, regardless!	purplewowies	pw_table2x3_steering.iff
	X	Mid-fidelity take on a scrapped Maxis object called Velvet Elvis! Woo-hoo. It’s essentially the only object on this list that is a classic fan-made custom content (CC) rather than an actual port. Its sprites were sampled from pre-release snapshots a long time ago, so don’t expect it to be as faithful to the original as the other objects here. Given its style, canvas, and name, you might assume that Velvet Elvis was a rejected, less copyright-friendly version of the Velvet Clown, appearing in the game from late '98 to early '99 before vanishing. Honestly, I’m not sure I’d want a sobbin' & jugglin' Elvis in my home when I’m feeling down anyway! =) The description and price are entirely made up, although the name is confirmed to be real. Perhaps one day, this CC will face planned obsolescence as a later prototype than the Steering Committee one meets the light of the day, but until then... download it! 🖼🖌	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_velvetelvis.iff
	tvlarge.iff	Allegedly the quintessential item in the pre-release Sims canon, it has been exhaustively showcased in pre-release media and is also tentatively featured in all versions of HomeCrafter (the tool that allows users to create new walls and floors for the game). However, it comes with its own peculiarities. The conversion here stays true to its Maxis prototype IFF, specially in terms of how both of its halves are not quite connected with pixel-perfect precision. Upon closer inspection, you may feel as though it’s just a fraction away from falling apart, depending on the angle. Yet, why the hell have we been wanting to have it so badly over the past quasi-25 years? In the end of the day, you’re left with a beautiful—though heart-wrenchingly expensive—item. The beta kid's must-have!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_tvlarge2.iff
	DresserEx.iff	Back in 1998, Sims did not change (took) their clothes (off), not even pre bathing! This wardrobe is and has always been decorative! Does not have native "doors open" graphics. It enhances the Room score! Makes you look progressive. Not the most interesting item on the list.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_dresserex2.iff
	mirrorex.iff	Rare instance where a prototype object only has 2 original sprite rotation types: "back" and "front"; the engine fills the missing sprite IDs with flipped/zoomed out duplicates of them. For the convenience involved, it's the very same case as 99% of the final objects'. So converting this guy here was pretty ez! Who cares how the mirror looks, Sims will be spending most of their time looking at themselves in it instead of at it. Unlike the original, it supports the basic mirror interactions.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_mirror.iff
	trash1.iff	This one is straight-up proto-core, as its sprites sample some old graphics for the "can of beans" meal. But otherwise it is consistent to the rest of the game world to an OK degree, and it's canonically cheaper than the original base game trash can. Why wouldn't you buy it? §§§§	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_trashcan.iff
	sofa1.iff	xxx	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_sofa3.iff
	sofa1.iff	xxx	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_sofacheap.iff
	SofaMod.iff	xxx	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_sofamod.iff
	duck.iff	This object here ends the holy trinity of Steering Committee objects that are unlisted from Buy Mode (the other ones being the column and fountain), kind of hinting at how old it is. We don't have a Maxis name & description to it, so I filled the text area with something deliberately reminiscent of "duck.iff": the object it is a dupe of. Not to say the chair is handcrafted out of duck parts =) , instead it just borrows an oddity present in the original duck file's draw group resources where you can find dedicated rooms for 8 different rotations instead of typical 4, enabling "diagonal" positioning. You can tell it by viewing some of the chair graphics on the sprite pack, with their placeholder-esque arrows pointing at tile corners that the player is normally unable to turn the objects in the game to. It suggests that Maxoids in fact considered rendering diagonally all the objects in the game at some point, but maybe it would be too much of an effort.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_duck3.iff
	sofa1.iff	One-third of sofa1.iff, sold in "Furniture Mode" as a lounge chair. We can work on the actual sofa later. The fact that most graphics are slightly off-centered is ironically true to the original object's coordinates, believe me! Maxis just had a weird way of handling some sprites — which will get quite obvious when we get to the expensive stove obj.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_sofachair2.iff
	coffeetable1.iff	Same as Hot Date+'s coffee table, but with the minimalistic beta BHAV embedded into it, as well as its legacy Maxis name & description, making it... essentially decorative! The die-hard's item that you did not know you must have.	purplewowies	pw_coffeetable1_steering.iff
	flamingo.iff	Tile coordinates and absolutely anything else match the original. A household name in many pre-release snapshots — its latest documented appearance sports a cast shadow, unlike its 1998 iteration. It's as ugly as you remember it. Buy it.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_flamingo.iff
	newfridge.iff	xxx	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_fridgecheap.iff
	Stove.iff	Graphics + Behavior + Tile placement match the original. But it's still so tall in comparison to all the other surfaces in the game!!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_stove.iff
	floorlampex.iff	Name & description match the original. Do not laugh.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_lampexpensive.iff
	Sink.iff	Works just like your average base game sink.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_sinkcheap.iff
	Counter.iff	Works just like your average base game counter, except it's wayyyy higher than the default counter height. Place any other counter next to it and you'll know what I mean!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_countercheap2.iff
	foodproc.iff	Works just like your average base game food processor.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_foodprocessor2.iff
	bedstandex.iff	We'll work on this object's accompanying fancy bed soon.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_endtableexp.iff
	Bookshelf.IFF	I made the task of combining both sprite halves pixel-perfect more difficult and time-consuming than necessary, but the result is worth it. Some early 1999 pre-release snapshots show this object with a cast shadow, so I decided to add that effect here as well, even though the object does not have that particular feature in the prototype.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_bookshelf_b.iff
	chair2.IFF	Hey, guess it works as it should. As with the fountain object we recently restored, it's incredibly lucky that the unique animations associated with this specific chair can still be found in our retail Sims 1 copies, although, of course, no object uses them. Over the course of development, the devs even added one extra animated loop to this object (a2o-chair2-idle2), hence why this restored iteration here seems even more "lively" than the one that exists in the prototype. It's just fun to watch the Sims unselfconsciously enjoying themselves! The chair predates a time in the making of The Sims when child Sims existed, so there are not child Sims equivalent of these animations — no custom moves for 'em! The adult Sims explictly battle between their global idle sitting animations and the ones specific to the chair, a detail I intentionally preserved, although maybe I shouldn't. Take your own conclusions.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_chair2_b.iff
	Duck.IFF (The Sims Online)	Although this is the only file in the list that does not belong to the prototype per se (it was ripped off of TSO, completely unused), the loose references to this object in old 1998 design documents, as well as its own odd references to ".wav" sound effect strings, kind of suggest that maybe "Duck" is the oldest and strangest The Sims object you'll ever buy for your Sims' houses, period. But what on earth is "Duck", really? Imagine an MM charm that gives you the power to transmogrify your base game rubber tree plants into walking 2D SimSafari Secretarybird virtual pets, and you'll start to get into the spirit of it. You can feed them, they can bite you, and increase in amount if you wait a while, which I'm pretty sure means they mated before you could even realize it. There's a tongue-in-cheek attitude surrounding the crudeness of its placeholder sprites, missing files and unfinished life system script, easily similar to what you'd come across on really obscure neocities fansites or something. But I suspect that, when it was first implemented in prototypes that predate "Steering Committee", it wasn't necessarily the strangest item on the catalogue. If anything, it's fascinating to find out that people at Maxis have flirted with the concept of pets this early in the making of the game. I don't know if Maxis is really proud of "Duck", but its script has been repeatedly cloned throughout development for entirely different sorts of things — check the nonsensical references to ducks among the string resources in objects like TSO's Soccer Ball object or House Party's bubble blower bubbles and you'll know what I mean. In fact, watching the ducks (2D objects) move around freely as though they have a mind of their own makes you think there's some insane and unique programming behind all of it, and maybe the fans should take note and play around with it for their own CC. All its referenced animations and sounds are missing in the final product, so I added the flamingo sounds and some half-fitting animations as compensation.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_duck_b.iff
	fountain2.IFF	By far the object that aged the worst in appearance, yet it sports four unique pre-rendered sprites for each available zoom, which is crazy for an object of radial symmetry—the final product usually relies on pre-rendering just one sprite that is used for all camera rotations. The fountain present in the prototype has basic init and main functions plus a "splashing" interaction that doesn't benefit the characters' motives. Despite being somewhat functional, the prototype doesn't use it anywhere. For whatever reason, its unique splashing animation is hidden away within the final product as an extremely old leftover and works without issues, hence the funny bending down animation you'll see when your Sims use this object. Cool for historical reasons, but I wouldn't see myself buying it for my houses very often! Maybe it would look neater if we played around with some transparency to the water...	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_fountain2_f.iff
	newchair.IFF	Another one that has the early prototype weirdness where each rotation has a unique graphic of totally different lighting — the South-West sprites make my eyes bleed. =) But, hey, we're seeking accuracy here, right? Otherwise, the coordinates are OK!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_newchair_b.iff
	paintingex.IFF	Like the other painting in the prototype, it clips through the walls lightly, either because it's too thin, or the walls are too thick. It can be easily fixed, but by now I will leave it the way it looks like on the demo.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_paintingex.iff
	phone.iff	Be prepared to receive many calls from weird people that'll ask you if you want to contribute to science by having your fingers bitten or whatever! I deliberately changed the original text strings to those up to par with their latest known iterations. For example: when you answer the phone and accept the caller's offer to buy properties in Florida, the caller in the prototype returns you a "Sucker!" text, whereas our retail builds have the very same string ID (obviously entirely unused) that reads a more cohesive "Sucker! You just bought some worthless swamp land. Even the alligators won't live there!", which needless to say was also intended for this specific scenario, so I opted to use it instead of the former line.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_phone2.iff
	table.iff	Aesthetically and functionally matches the original. Cool!	purplewowies	pw_table1x1_steering_hdplus.iff
	table.iff	Same as above, but is your go-to if you play The Sims without any expansion packs.	purplewowies	pw_table1x1_steering_basegame.zip
	HighShrub.iff	What a lovely shrub!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_highshrub.iff
	LowShrub.iff	What a lovely shrub!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_lowshrub.iff
	tree1.IFF/Tree2.iff	It wasn't for the sake of making a bad pun that the two trees in the prototype just happened to be the first objects on this list that I gave full scripting tree treatment from the ground up during the conversions. When I first ventured into the base game's library of animations years ago, it was interesting to realize that Maxis once planned the outdoor trees to be something Sims could eat fruits from and piss/hang out at, instead of just being there for decoration and the sake of increasing the room score. The two objects here answer the question as to how these peculiar animations would manifest themselves. Again, we're well fortunate that such animation files somewhat made all their way to the retail builds, and now we could implement them for their original purpose without compromising anything. The whizzing and eating interactions originally could only be triggered for autonomous Sims in *really* bad mood , but I changed it to be something you can access via pie menus, as long as your Sims' bladder and hunger bars are low enough. A gimmick that isn't used in the prototype trees but is featured here: Censorship flags for the whizz-taking interaction (so we can't tell the male sims don't pull their pants down when relieving themselves).	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_tree1.ifflpx_1998_tree2_b.iff
	tv1.IFF	Arguably the item on the list that takes up residence within the fanbase's consciouness the most, although this has more to do with the fact it's the first thing most players are exposed to in the first seconds of gameplay (through the opening clip), yet it's nowhere to be found in the actual game. In a way, it's the Sims version of the healthy mind blow that some players are subjected to when continuity errors in a game make them realize that It Once Looked Different, and there's a potentially interesting story behind it. Factors as the TV's absence of smooth edges or its weird dithering artifacts or any other easily solvable gfx inconsistencies probably caused the Maxoids to conclude that the object didn't meet the gfx quality standards later in development. Still, imo, it's one of the few examples of proto renders that 'conceptually' are much more appealing than their finalized iterations. If TS1 is your Roman Empire, then this object is for you and your inner child. This restoration CC keeps all of the object's 4 unique rotations for every zoom, as well as tile coordinates that respect the original. Much of its "final" programming (talk while watching tv, personal channel preferences) are also true here, but some things are straight up borrowed from the demo. For example: Cartoon and Horror channels had their names downgraded to "Comedy" and "Mystery", respectively; also, Sims have restricted reactions to channels: They laugh out loud when watching the cartoon and action channels, kind of sigh from boredom when watching the horror channel, and always cry while watching telenovelas! The latter behavior works pretty well in that particular context, and it's a shame it didn't make the final cut somehow! I'm rubbish at importing custom sounds to objects, so maybe someone could volunteer for this noble task .	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_tv1.iff
	tvsmall.IFF	The graphics were successfully imported and the object works as a simple base game clone; however, I still want to import the prototype script and sound effects into it!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_tvcheap_b.iff
	Various Objects	The column graphics are prominently embedded into blank and unused objects in the demo (Exercise.IFF and Pinball.IFF, just to name a few examples) as placeholders, which makes me think that, even way back then, at the time the prototype was compiled, they were these just super old leftovers that did not belong quite well with the rest of the game world anymore. It's as of now impossible to know how the object was supposed to behave. I converted it into a simple decorative object that can be used anywhere at home. Its name, description and price are all made up and do not reflect Maxis' og. intentions! =) It's kind of interesting because, unlike most objects of its kind, it sports four unique rotations. What a waste of disk space!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_pillar_b.iff

PENDING CONVERSIONS:

Thumbnail	File	Status	Author	Download
	aquarium1.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	bed3.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	bedexp.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	Computer.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	counterex1.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	counterex2.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	DishW.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	FridgeEx.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
X	mealsnack.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	microwave.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	shower1.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	sinkex.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	stoveex.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #
	tub.IFF	pending	(no-one yet!)	post #

NEW DOWNLOAD:

Image	Source	Comments	Author	Download
	Various Objects	The column graphics are prominently embedded into blank and unused objects in the demo (Exercise.IFF and Pinball.IFF, just to name a few examples) as placeholders, which makes me think that, even way back then, at the time the prototype was compiled, they were these just super old leftovers that did not belong quite well with the rest of the game world anymore. It's as of now impossible to know how the object was supposed to behave. I converted it into a simple decorative object that can be used anywhere at home. Its name, description and price are all made up and do not reflect Maxis' og. intentions! =) It's kind of interesting because, unlike most objects of its kind, it sports four unique rotations. What a waste of disk space!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_pillar_b.iff

NEW DOWNLOAD:

Image	Source	Comments	Author	Download
	Bookshelf.IFF	I made the task of combining both sprite halves pixel-perfect more difficult and time-consuming than necessary, but the result is worth it. Some early 1999 pre-release snapshots show this object with a cast shadow, so I decided to add that effect here as well, even though the object does not have that particular feature in the prototype.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_bookshelf_b.iff

These are wonderful @Luxpix and my beloved Fritz Frisbee in that last pic! Going to try these out in game, thank you for all your ongoing work here!

That's sweet, man! I tested very superficially, maybe I missed out on some weird potential error message that those may trigger in versions newer than the vanilla game. Lmk it something happens. And I'm very enthusiastic about the idea of one day attempting to restore Fritz to our side of the force =)

===================================================

NEW DOWNLOAD:

Image	Source	Comments	Author	Download
	fountain2.IFF	By far the object that aged the worst in appearance, yet it sports four unique pre-rendered sprites for each available zoom, which is crazy for an object of radial symmetry—the final product usually relies on pre-rendering just one sprite that is used for all camera rotations. The fountain present in the prototype has basic init and main functions plus a "splashing" interaction that doesn't benefit the characters' motives. Despite being somewhat functional, the prototype doesn't use it anywhere. For whatever reason, its unique splashing animation is hidden away within the final product as an extremely old leftover and works without issues, hence the funny bending down animation you'll see when your Sims use this object. Cool for historical reasons, but I wouldn't see myself buying it for my houses very often! Maybe it would look neater if we played around with some transparency to the water...	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_fountain2_f.iff

Maxis name & description:

I had to join to say these are incredible and thank you so much for this project. It has been a dream of mine to have these in my game and Sims 1 players like me appreciate it.

Do you have any plans for Sims Online objects in the future? (I would love to have working sprinklers and the spotlight)

Thanks again for all you have contributed!

Hi! It's very nice of you to take your time to create a brand new account and post this . I won't lie to you and tell you I spent enough time learning how TSO works! Sending files from TSO to TS1 is a piece o cake, but, since we'll aiming for high conversion fidelity, we'd make sure to keep all the details intact. And I suspect that handling its animation format isn't as intuitive as handling TS1's animations. Who knows? I or someone else might should give it a shot sometime. =)

====================================================================


NEW DOWNLOAD:

Image	Source	Comments	Author	Download
	chair2.IFF	Hey, guess it works as it should. As with the fountain object we recently restored, it's incredibly lucky that the unique animations associated with this specific chair can still be found in our retail Sims 1 copies, although, of course, no object uses them. Over the course of development, the devs even added one extra animated loop to this object (a2o-chair2-idle2), hence why this restored iteration here seems even more "lively" than the one that exists in the prototype. It's just fun to watch the Sims unselfconsciously enjoying themselves! The chair predates a time in the making of The Sims when child Sims existed, so there are not child Sims equivalent of these animations — no custom moves for 'em! The adult Sims explictly battle between their global idle sitting animations and the ones specific to the chair, a detail I intentionally preserved, although maybe I shouldn't. Take your own conclusions.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_chair2_b.iff

MINOR UPDATES:

All download links have been updated! Now all items should also be placed on community lots. I am sorry for my vanilla-restricted train of thought.


Flash from the past's placement coordinates are finally up to par with those of the demo. Unquestionably uglier, but... accurate? The newly applied shadow setting is also open to debate, but I'm pretty sure the object used that shadow flag in its last appearance before being cut off from the game.





...Ditto with Never has wicker looked so good.


===================================================================================

DOWNLOADS OF THE DAY:

Image	Source	Comments	Author	Download
	Duck.IFF (The Sims Online)	Although this is the only file in the list that does not belong to the prototype per se (it was ripped off of TSO, completely unused), the loose references to this object in old 1998 design documents, as well as its own odd references to ".wav" sound effect strings, kind of suggest that maybe "Duck" is the oldest and strangest The Sims object you'll ever buy for your Sims' houses, period. But what on earth is "Duck", really? Imagine an MM charm that gives you the power to transmogrify your base game rubber tree plants into walking 2D SimSafari Secretarybird virtual pets, and you'll start to get into the spirit of it. You can feed them, they can bite you, and increase in amount if you wait a while, which I'm pretty sure means they mated before you could even realize it. There's a tongue-in-cheek attitude surrounding the crudeness of its placeholder sprites, missing files and unfinished life system script, easily similar to what you'd come across on really obscure neocities fansites or something. But I suspect that, when it was first implemented in prototypes that predate "Steering Committee", it wasn't necessarily the strangest item on the catalogue. If anything, it's fascinating to find out that people at Maxis have flirted with the concept of pets this early in the making of the game. I don't know if Maxis is really proud of "Duck", but its script has been repeatedly cloned throughout development for entirely different sorts of things — check the nonsensical references to ducks among the string resources in objects like TSO's Soccer Ball object or House Party's bubble blower bubbles and you'll know what I mean. In fact, watching the ducks (2D objects) move around freely as though they have a mind of their own makes you think there's some insane and unique programming behind all of it, and maybe the fans should take note and play around with it for their own CC. All its referenced animations and sounds are missing in the final product, so I added the flamingo sounds and some half-fitting animations as compensation.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_duck_b.iff
	paintingex.IFF	Like the other painting in the prototype, it clips through the walls lightly, either because it's too thin, or the walls are too thick. It can be easily fixed, but by now I will leave it the way it looks like on the demo.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_paintingex.iff

The Duck was also used to create the Pig and Max the Dog at SimFreaks/Sims Plus, which became the base for Maxee the Llama at Simorphor, and all other animal objects in the early days of The Sims (before Unleashed).

In terms of its diverse programming, the Duck was, and still is, one of the most useful objects for the community to use as reference for creating new (living) objects.

Ah interesting! I looked them up and they are pretty cool! They even poo! I wonder where they got the source code from, back in the day ;-)

Speaking of the devil: Here's a tiny early morning update: I recovered the correct Maxis name and descriptions to the duck file in place of its crude "debug" catalog name, uh-oh. The source is steering committee's own "Duck.iff" file , which at that point wasn't the actual duck anymore, but a duplicate of it, repurposed as a... black chair. We can save the chair's proto-to-final conversion for later!

Maxis name & description



Source:

DOWNLOAD OF THE DAY:

Image	Source	Comments	Author	Download
	newchair.IFF	Another one that has the early prototype weirdness where each rotation has a unique graphic of totally different lighting — the South-West sprites make my eyes bleed. =) But, hey, we're seeking accuracy here, right? Otherwise, the coordinates are OK!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_newchair_b.iff

Hello can you fix Small TV link? It's not working 😉

Try this:
https://ia800600.us.archive.org/25/...x-1998-tvcheap/

Sorry Igivica125 - it was my fault. And thank you Mr. simsample! Something happened between revisions. But I fixed the download link now!




giving my former child simmer self a little hug by restoring the moderately expensive tv object right now...

DOWNLOAD OF THE DAY:

Image	Source	Comments	Author	Download
	tv1.IFF	Arguably the item on the list that takes up residence within the fanbase's consciouness the most, although this has more to do with the fact it's the first thing most players are exposed to in the first seconds of gameplay (through the opening clip), yet it's nowhere to be found in the actual game. In a way, it's the Sims version of the healthy mind blow that some players are subjected to when continuity errors in a game make them realize that It Once Looked Different, and there's a potentially interesting story behind it. Factors as the TV's absence of smooth edges or its weird dithering artifacts or any other easily solvable gfx inconsistencies probably caused the Maxoids to conclude that the object didn't meet the gfx quality standards later in development. Still, imo, it's one of the few examples of proto renders that 'conceptually' are much more appealing than their finalized iterations. If TS1 is your Roman Empire, then this object is for you and your inner child. This restoration CC keeps all of the object's 4 unique rotations for every zoom, as well as tile coordinates that respect the original. Much of its "final" programming (talk while watching tv, personal channel preferences) are also true here, but some things are straight up borrowed from the demo. For example: Cartoon and Horror channels had their names downgraded to "Comedy" and "Mystery", respectively; also, Sims have restricted reactions to channels: They laugh out loud when watching the cartoon and action channels, kind of sigh from boredom when watching the horror channel, and always cry while watching telenovelas! The latter behavior works pretty well in that particular context, and it's a shame it didn't make the final cut somehow! I'm rubbish at importing custom sounds to objects, so maybe someone could volunteer for this noble task .	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_tv1.iff

DOWNLOAD OF THE DAY:

Image	Source	Comments	Author	Download
	tree1.IFF/Tree2.iff	It wasn't for the sake of making a bad pun that the two trees in the prototype just happened to be the first objects on this list that I gave full scripting tree treatment from the ground up during the conversions. When I first ventured into the base game's library of animations years ago, it was interesting to realize that Maxis once planned the outdoor trees to be something Sims could eat fruits from and piss/hang out at, instead of just being there for decoration and the sake of increasing the room score. The two objects here answer the question as to how these peculiar animations would manifest themselves. Again, we're well fortunate that such animation files somewhat made all their way to the retail builds, and now we could implement them for their original purpose without compromising anything. The whizzing and eating interactions originally could only be triggered for autonomous Sims in *really* bad mood , but I changed it to be something you can access via pie menus, as long as your Sims' bladder and hunger bars are low enough. A gimmick that isn't used in the prototype trees but is featured here: Censorship flags for the whizz-taking interaction (so we can't tell the male sims don't pull their pants down when relieving themselves).	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_tree1.ifflpx_1998_tree2_b.iff

I've always wondered why the development team included fruit trees in the game if you can't pick the fruit from them. It always felt an odd choice.



This answers that question. They were meant to be something you can sit under and interact with.

It's a shame they scrapped this idea. It would have been nice to see the kids hanging around the fruit trees, enjoying their fruit while playing outdoors.

Ooh, this makes me wanna end my sabbatical from attempting to put together the tutorials/scenarios again... AKA maybe THIS time I start with the fundamentals in order to actually thoroughly understand how assigning stack objects works (in order to understand why my attempts at setting it aren't working) and THEN play with the object.

(I am sure that part of it is because having Steering Committee Match objects means I can create a more "authentic" experience of what the lots looked like as well so I can just turn to that whenever I get frustrated instead of closing the game...)

(Or I wait for someone more skilled to do it instead, but it's more fun to imagine I'll eventually figure it out myself!)

Helloooo! Based on my experience, manually reproducing the programming from the Steering Committee Edith Bunker environment on the final Edith Bunker environment should be a slow, but mandatorily smooth task. In actuality, the entire body of commands in the proto is so comparatively rudimentary that if you did not know better, you would think they were crafted by a skilled IFF Pencil Two(tm) user or something!




It's far more fun to coop! If you want to/can post here a snapshot of the specific part of the code that is troublesome, maybe we can find the ultimate solution for the issue together!

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ALL FILES (bar Outdoor Trees) HAVE BEEN UPDATED! Why? Because I've forgotten to assign their Maxis names/descriptions to all the other language IDs that are not USEnglish. King of Stupidarnia.

I'm just really bad at getting the stack object to be a Sim. I'm almost totally sure the rest of the object (which is currently (other than some Rug-O-Matic holdovers) the exact code from Steering Committee everywhere possible) would probably work. I think I've tried so many different things within the object that I need to try to clean out all the old (failed) attempts at setting the stack object first before I can even figure out what's actually wrong because I'm a little confused what's doing which thing at this point even though I know how to follow the trace. 🤔 (I am doing that right now, but yeah...)

Will return with usable error data after the cleanup and re-attempt inevitably fails today!

(The idea of the object the way I'm putting it together is that it's not going to be an exact copy so much as a visible "controller" for the scenario that's mostly the same in terms of how it behaves once it's up and running (hence the identical Steering Committee code I've already copied) but would have some extra interactions that are purely there to set things up (i.e. stuff like options to set things like the motives and money and stuff so that they're the way they'd be at the start of this scenario, maybe specifically setting which stack object is "Ross" manually so that it can be used with whoever the player wants, etc.).

But the test is just to manage to get the actual Steering Committee code (with adjusted stack object setting) to work first. Then the bells and whistles can come later.)

DOWNLOADS OF THE DAY:

Image	Source	Comments	Author	Download
	phone.iff	Be prepared to receive many calls from weird people that'll ask you if you want to contribute to science by having your fingers bitten or whatever! I deliberately changed the original text strings to those up to par with their latest known iterations. For example: when you answer the phone and accept the caller's offer to buy properties in Florida, the caller in the prototype returns you a "Sucker!" text, whereas our retail builds have the very same string ID (obviously entirely unused) that reads a more cohesive "Sucker! You just bought some worthless swamp land. Even the alligators won't live there!", which needless to say was also intended for this specific scenario, so I opted to use it instead of the former line.	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_phone2.iff
	HighShrub.iff	What a lovely shrub!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_highshrub.iff
	LowShrub.iff	What a lovely shrub!	LUCPIX	lpx_1998_lowshrub.iff

I'll see what I can do!

In the interest of not completely going bald from pulling my hair out over my attempts at the Level 1 scenario, I turned to something that intimidated me less (and which I thought would be easier): Trying to make the one tile table. (I didn't say here beforehand that I was going to do that, but I figured it'd be a good exercise even if someone else might have been working on it.)

I was kind of successful... but only in creating a Hot-Date-or-higher version. (This is in part because I started on it by cloning the cheap one tile restaurant table with the red top from tableshd.) Doing this kind of edit was still kind of a challenge for me at my current skill level, because it involved adding three rotations since the original table was identical from all sides--I'm sure there was an easier way to do this than playing around with pulling resources from a cloned shrub that had four rotations and importing them to the table's iff to the point Tmog would hopefully recognize them, then getting Tmog mad no less than six times trying to import and export the edited sprites from there (including palette tomfoolery that broke the sprite entirely for a second), and eventually ending up with a table that both displayed properly and actually could be placed from buy mode without crashing. (Did I mention I'd never done something like this before? XD)

I wanted to make something either with the behavior from Steering Committee or at least base game compatibility (testing via the Edith basegame build) but I ran into enough errors I thought to myself, "You know what? Just share the Hot Date version. At least that's a little win." (I think I accidentally lost the attempts at Steering Committee code and don't remember what exact errors I was encountering; the base game compatibility/behavior issues I didn't have a long time to mess with because I was multitasking with something else not Sims related, though when I skipped past them in the tracer the table seemed to work for everything except eating. I have some idea why this is, so I might try figuring it out sometime in the next few days before asking for help with it.)

All that to say... this is essentially just a standard Tmog clone right now, but with more steps involved (which I am still proud of myself for managing to make it four rotations!). I do still intend to try more at the actual behavior/compatibility angle, but I figured a visual reproduction might be a good start for a table, anyway--I figure the tables' purposes of "let people put things on me and take things off" and "you can eat at me" mean that the experience will be similar if not identical, at least for Hot Date+ users. I've put it on Sim File Share.

Though its behavior is that of a Hot Date one tile table, I have given it the Steering Committee info for price and name and (lack of) shadow. The beta version didn't appear to have a description, but rather than leave it blank, I opted to give it this silly sort of one instead: "The great minds at WOW! Solutions have been Steering their time machine across the ages to salvage antiques from times long forgotten. The Committee has elected to call this specimen "Table 1 square". Because it's a table. And it's one square."

...Also, as far as I can remember, this is the first object file I've ever shared publicly ever (in part because it's the only one I've ever done that could be described as some form of "finished" even though I intend to keep working on it). O_O Enjoy!

Exquisite n' terrific work, PW ! Kudos to you for converting it without sacrificing its fidelity + adding a fun description that encapsulates the intrinsic wackiness of the game. I thoroughly see myself as you describe your quasi-turmoiled but successful tmog-crafting journey, but I can assure you the whole process gets progressively easier and autopilot over time .

The so longed for base game compatibility can be achieved by using IFF Pencil to "borrow" the BHAV, TREE (and, maybe, TPRP?) resources off a base game dining table and importing them to your cc!

In fact I just tested it out in your file, to some adequate and happy results. The square "16" (North) shadow flag has been experimentally assigned there, just because it almost seems as though it's made specifically for this object.


If you allow me to add it to our download list, you'll be given full credits


I'll give Level1.iff some attention sometime tomorrow, ok?

Hah, that's the strange thing--I specifically tried to borrow a basegame dining table's insides because I figured it was the best chance for compatibility! I'm betting a combination of my novice skills and my multitasking meant I just didn't grab everything it needed and that's where I was getting the errors (which was one of the culprits I expected).

Also, 16 was the shadow it had originally (inherited from the Hot Date table), and I definitely think it's preferable over none. I only took it off in the interest of being as faithful as my skill level could manage to its look in the Steering Committee. XD

You can definitely put it in the download list!