This is a continuation of the previous thread on this topic:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=416989
Since that thread got rather large!

We have now two methods for attempting to open premade (packed) worlds in CAW, to try this yourself you will need the latest version of S3Pe.

Please post your findings and failings in this thread, it will be good to know what you have tried, what worked and what did not work so that we can make a good tutorial.

Please remember to make a backup of any files before you change them, and also do NOT take credit for a world which you did not make.

Please warn any downloaders of your world that it was made using this method, if you decide to share. That way, users can report back if there are any problems, and will know that the method is experiental.

I hope you have fun with this!

(I call this the 'First Method')

Originally devised by HystericalParoxysm, drowssap and others who experimented with this.

Inkantator has made a great tutorial with images for this method, take a look at Post #30 for this. Thank you, Inkantator!

1. Open CAW. Make a new world, large 300 flat map. Save it and close CAW.

2. Open S3PE. Open the .world file that you just made. Choose Resource> Import> From package, and browse to the world you want to open- for example, Bridgeport.world or France.world. It can be any INSTALLED world, you can't really use a S3Pack for this. Click replace duplicates, use resource names, and compress- choose NO if it asks do you want to autosave. Click okay, and let S3PE import those files.

3. When it has finished, delete the following resources if they are present: WPID 0xF609FD60 and UNKN 0x296A6258. Those files give the world its identity and type, so you do not want to copy those. (Exception- you might want to keep the city resource if you wish to make an amended version of Bridgeport, or the vacation resource if you with to make a vacation replacement world. See this thread for more details.)
Save your world in S3Pe- just click SAVE not SAVE AS.

4. Open the edited file in CAW. It may take a while to open and may look weird at first (trees were black for at least two minutes after it appeared the file was fully loaded). I can also go to Edit in Game and it looks good there too - though any sims inhabiting the world are standing outside their homes.

5. Give your world a name, description and thumbnail in CAW. Rebuild the routing data. Choose File> Save as and give your world a NEW name in CAW.


Additional notes:
Removing sims- some people have had problems with inhabited worlds, you could remove the population by either entering edit-in-game mode and evicting sims to the clipboard, then deleting them, or else using Awesomemod and the command 'destroyallhumans'.


Forther information: computertech82 suggests editing and saving the world in EIG mode prior to exporting- details here:
http://modthesims.info/showpost.php...5&postcount=414

Havockitten suggests making sure the global layer name is correct- see this post for details.

(I call this the 'Second Method')
Devised by me, improved by hotroxy777

Please note: This method seems to work fine on unoccupied user made worlds, but not so well on some of the EA worlds (users are having an 'Out of memory' error). [Edit 20th Oct 2011- it does seem to work on Appaloosa Plains!] I would suggest trying the first method before this one if you are editing the EA worlds.

If you don't want to create your own resources, download the files attached to this post and extract to your desktop. The file called 'Test.zip' contains the Test Folder, the one called 'unpacked world resources.zip' contains the files to import to the world file.

To create your own resources, start here
Create a blank test world in CAW- size large, height 300. Call it Test.world.

Go to Documents\ Electronic Arts\ The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\ UserToolData\ Worlds and copy the Test folder to your desktop. Open Documents\ Electronic Arts\ The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\ UserToolData\ Worlds\ Test.world in S3Pe, and find resources UNKN 0x0477BD6A and UNKN 0x0498DA7E. Right click those, export to file and choose your desktop.

Once you have your resources, either by creating your own or by downloading mine, do this!
Now you have three files on your desktop, Test folder and the UNKN 0x0477BD6A and UNKN 0x0498DA7E resources. You could keep a copy of these to use again to open another world!

Find your packed world file, for example Bridgeport.World. Copy it to your desktop. Now, rename the Test folder to the same name as your world, for example Bridgeport (Don't put the .world extension there, just the name).

Now, open your packed world file, for example Bridgeport.World, in S3Pe. Resource> Import> From file and select your two exported resources, UNKN 0x0477BD6A and UNKN 0x0498DA7E, from your desktop. Tick the 'Replace Duplicates' and 'compress' boxes in the import dialogue box.

Delete the following if it is present: WPID 0xF609FD60. This file gives the world its identity, so you do not want to copy that (unless you are making a default replacement for an EA world). If you are opening Bridgeport or the Vacation worlds you may also need to edit UNKN 0x296A6258. See this thread for more details.

File> Save your world in S3PE (NOT Save As).

[Discard the UNKN 0x0477BD6A and UNKN 0x0498DA7E files from your desktop, unless you want to save them to use again. Also you could delete the Test.World file from Documents\ Electronic Arts\ The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\ UserToolData\ Worlds.]

Put your edited world file and your world folder, for example Bridgeport.World and Bridgeport folder, into Documents\ Electronic Arts\ The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\ UserToolData\ Worlds.

Open CAW, and see if your world will now open.

Does it work?

If so, rebuild the routing data and give it a new name/ description/ PNG image before saving as a new file name.

For information:
UNKN 0x0498DA7E- Identifies the Global Layer
UNKN 0x0477BD6A (0 Byte file) Empty resource that seems to denote a non packed file.

Lot thumbnails/ textures: It has been seen that the low LOD lot textures (what the lot looks like from a distance) can look strange in worlds opened using these methods.
Example Image:

This is just caused by the game messing up some texture files, you can correct it by entering the lot (in EIG or in-game) and editing it slightly by moving a tree or spraying terrain paint. This will cause the lot textures to be recalculated correctly.


Lot names/ sim names being displated in the form World\ Pleasantvalley\ housename:Goth or similar in EA Worlds: This seems to be due to the way in which the sim and lot names are stored- the world file references an STBL rather than storing them as plain text. The only known solutions are to manually edit the names in EIG, or to import the _XML resource from the original EA world to your CAW world, as in this post by Inkantator. (Thanks Inkantator!)

Populated worlds- MODL resource giving an error in S3Pe- This seems to be happening when opening user populated worlds (populated using this method). S3PE will give an 'Error reading resource' message. To get around this, you could try using the second method as this does not involve S3PE reading those files.

'Could not open package' error in S3Pe- if you try to open any of the world files that came with the game and you have Vista/ Win7, you may have an error which is caused by the UAC protecting game files. To solve this, copy the world file to your desktop before opening, or else open as read only with S3Pe.

Question: How to convert a WA travel destination to a *populated* base world? So far, converting worlds has worked like a charm. However, they were unpopulated.



I assume you mean the blue pixels? Just making sure.

when you say UNK files in the new Test.world, do you mean UNKN? I don't have those UNK files in my Test.world. I thought it was the EA world ones you had to delete.

I have UNKN files with those numbers, just thought I'd mention it if you need to update your post.

Also there is no overwrite command in my s3pe, maybe you're using the newer version. In mine it's just replace duplicates. As you can see I'm having another go at this as I'd love to get stuck into that Bridgeport

OK, I got Bridgeport opened but not exactly the way you had it. I was right abo9ut those UNKN files.

Once I had it all imported to s3pe, you say only to save in S3PE and not to save as. When I did that CAW threw up an exception and said it couldn't open a packed file. I then did save as and named it as Test.world V2. When I went to CAW to open the world I opened the Test.world (the first version and this time it did open, maybe it's just because I hadn't shut down S3PE at that point.

Anyway, I'd tried this the first way on this thread and it didn't work for me. I now have Bridgeport opened and don't care too much about the city part as I didn't quite get all that going from thread to thread. So it will be a basic world and I'll just have to use the modded food trucks and parking spaces for it.

I really just want to get stuck into that suburb area and leave the town as is. The problem for most people with Bridgeport is that there isn't much room for expansion, so removing some of the non routable areas would solve that, plus I'd like to plonk down some of my own builds. I'll also murder all the Sims first. So far so good. Thanks for the thread.


EDIT*** Did a bit of terrain work, i.e. making another flat area for builds and fixing a few of the EA bumpy roads, tried to save and it wouldn't let me, CAW crashed, will work on and try again. I think it might be that I didn't save the world tight away and get the layers and lots folders in CAW before I started work, so when I tried to save a whole world it was too much for it. Or, I'm rubbish at this, lol

Devised by me, special thx for simsample.

Unfortunately, customizing Bridgeport is more problematic than other worlds. Known issues with exported Bridgeport :
missing family and sim descriptions, changed names of some sims (e.g. Jessica Talon -> clubby Vampire, Elvira Slayer -> Head Vamp etc), diffrent set of traits, deleted relationschips, every vampire changed to normal person.

This is connected to XML file determinating everything above. After every save in CAW, XML file is gone. It contains informations about every single sim in Bridgeport, so if you want to edit Bridgeport and play it normally, follow that step :

1. Extract XML file from original Bridgeport.world (located in game install direction). There is only one:
S3_0333406C_00000000_E51DF1C5C044A949%%+_XML.xml

2. Edit Bridgeport in CAW - follow instructions in post #2 (tested by me), do whatever you wish, but I recomend NOT to : delete already existing sims or add a new one.

3. a)When you finish, save your world , then open it in s3pe, import->from file and choose our precious XML file.
b) If you are planning to change, for example, watercolour, you have to import additional files too.

4. If you want to make additional changes to your world, you can still edit it in CAW, but you will have to import XML file once more after saving it. Export to game.
Your exported world should be fine now. The only problem is missing names of some buildings, but you'll have to do it manually.

Additional notes :
1. Of course can try to add other sims in CAW, but then you'll have to change XML file correctly (most probably). You can also do it already in game.
2. You can also add XML file to already exported world (located in Installed worlds folder).

What? How can you not save it in CAW? I want to make a few changes and I can't do them all in one day, if I don't save before I shut it down, all changes would be lost. If I export, I can't open the exported file to do further work. I have a feeling there's a language problem here and I'm just not understanding what you mean

Read it again. XML file is gone after every save in CAW, so : edit your world, make a few changes, SAVE it, export XML file, export world to game, play. Finito. If you save your world in CAW again, XML file will be gone again and you will have to put it back... again.


That's right, you can't. Now concentrate, because I'm not sure how to say it.
After exporting, you have two .world files - the one exported to game (Installed worlds) and the one you have choosen to export (.world you have been editing in CAW). They contain the same world, so you can still edit the second one, save it, export XML and export world to game. Right?

Yes, all that's fine, if you can save it in CAW. You say that after every save in CAW that you must import the XML file. My problem is that I can't get it to save as it crashes. Also I took it into EIG last night and the first world save failed and the second one crashed my PC.

Then again if we don't want to have the Sims from Bridgeport to remain, then why would we want the XML back in if it only contains Sim info?.

The main point here is that I can't save it so the whole XML thing isn't going to help me.

Also, there's no need to be patronising, I've tried this many times since this whole thing first started and it's been the same each time.

Simsample, still can't get past saving, this is what happened last time too

I did try awesome to destroyallhumans and it did, it did it with poisonous gases. So it's nothing to do with having Sims left. EIG crashed when I tried to save

Here's something interesting though. Last night I went into EIG and altered a house. I made it bigger/wider and removed the roof so that I would be able to see if changes held. Despite the fact that CAW crashed my PC when I tried to save it, the house has still held the changes. I know the previous save failed.

@ fluttereyes

Now, that's interesting. I think I'm going to try Bridgeport, too, and see what happens. As for converting a populated world I'm afraid I must be lacking some fundamental knowledge, as neither Egypt nor China contained any families or Sims when I converted them, at any time. 0_o


____________________________________________________________________

Edit:

I did exactly as with the WA destinations, and got the funniest message "CAW has crashed. Attempted to read or write protected memory". At first, I was convinced it was saving just fine as it took forever, but I got this nice little downer in the end. Is that the same message you've been getting? Or is CAW indeed eating my computer from the inside? :P

Edit 2:

After trying a couple more times it seems to reproduce the crash at saving RES_Shell_HomelessM_f59000354ae64bd0.lot.temp. I'll continue to look into it. *scratches head*

Edit 3:

Oookay. After I deleted the lot in question it hated the graveyard. Then it hated another lot, and so on. Now, I'm not sure if the world file isn't simply too big for CAW to handle as it may be related to saving times rather than the lots themselves. I'll continue to weed out the lots it refuses to save and just see what happens. *shrugs*

fluttereyes
I have a feeling there's a language problem too. Are you sure you are doing everytihg right?
About crash - in order make Bridgeport editable and possible to save you have to follow instructions in post #2 first.
Create blank (large 300) world in CAW. Call your world, let it be, XXX.world. Save as -> XXX.world.
Open it in s3pe, import->form pakcage and choose original Bridgeport.world (program files/sims 3 late night/GameData/NonPackaged/World/Bridgeport.world. After task complete - Save (NOT save as).
Open your XXX.world for the first time in CAW. SAVE AS and give it a diffrent name, let it be, save as -> BridgeportXXX.world.

After that you should receive a folder 'BridgeportXXX' and a file BridgeportXXX.world ~57MB. The you can start edit it and save normally.
You dont have to import XML file after EVERY save in CAW. Only when you finish your work with Bridgeport completely and world is ready to export. Then just import XML file and right after that export world to game.

Alternatively, if you want only a new world based on Bridgeport, you don't care about premade sims and/or you want to eradicate them all, then you don't need XML at all.


But if we actually WANT them, then we need it. Specifically, I want.

You can also look at THIS THREAD. XML file edited and imported correctly can be potentially useful.

@ Inkantator

Problem is you cannot save Bridgeport in CAW. At least fluttereyes can't. I can't. Yes, you can open and edit but you cannot save because CAW crashes every time I've tried (still trying btw...). Did you manage to open Bridgeport in CAW and save it there? Not in EIG, in CAW?

Yes, I did. In both. I managed to edit, save, export to game, even play it. Many times. I wonder why you can't. Maybe something is wrong with your CAW version?

What we want to know is what you did. Exact steps. Maybe I missed an important step or something. Here's how I do it:

1) Create new world in CAW (LargeFlatMap300), save as Test.world.
2) Export resources UNKN 0x0477BD6A and UNKN 0x0498DA7E.
3) Open Bridgeport.world from game files, import 0x0477BD6A and UNKN 0x0498DA7E, delete WPID 0xF609FD60 and UNKN 0x296A6258 (world identity).
4) Save as BridgeportX.world (or any name, really). Rename Test folder to match new world name. Put BridgeportX folder and .world back in CAW folder.
5) Open BridgeportX.world in CAW. Add thumbnail and description. Try to save as BridgeportXX.world.
6) CAW creates world file, populates Layers folder and crashes when trying to save all lots to the Lots subfolder. Without lots, the world saves fine.

Did you do something else? Leave a resource, delete a resource, fixed something in CAW?

Rockerduck, I had just about the same as you but I managed to get as far as trying edit in game. Same thing, looks to be saving as it takes ages and last night it crashes my whole PC, not just the game crashing. Had another go this morning and it crashed CAW and that was from Edit in Game, it crashed both. After that I started working on my own world for a bit and it crashed with that too. Had to clear the caches to get CAW to work without crashing again.

Oh FYI, when I did destroyallsims it came up with 0, as in killed them with poisonous gas. I wasn't sure if that meant 0 Sims were killed as there were no Sims or if it meant 0 Sims were left. I downloaded awesome mod just to do this.

I remember when we all first started looking into this I noticed in S3PE that there were files called snap files, when you click on those a lot of them are Sims. I haven't gone back to look and see if anyone worked out what they were but I did, at one point, try deleting them and it still crashed. I've tried this a few times now.

I did the same steps as you.



Again you're doing it. Save as a different name and then Save as BridgeportXXX or do one of those or do both and overwrite. Can you show us some screenshots of the Bridgeport you have edited and managed to save. None of us here are new to world building so yes, we do understand the instructions. If you have this working, then good on you and I'll look forward to seeing your new version of Bridgeport uploaded somewhere, the rest of us seem to be having the same issues.

Now as for the XML file, you've been told, I DO NOT want a prepopulated world, I never use prepopulated worlds and therefore the XML file is neither here nor there for me. As I have already told you and as Rockerduck has told you, it won't save in either EIG or CAW so the XML thing is a mute point for us.

Like I said, I'd love to see some screenshots of your version of the world and also a screenie that shows the save successful screen. It would help us fight on if we know for sure that someone else has done this.

Heh, one of the first things I did was delete the SNAP files, too. It reduced filesize but didn't make a difference otherwise. I still don't know what makes CAW crash. The individual lots were fine, and CAW saved a little more data when I moved all lots to a single layer. It still gave me the memory message, though. It must be something about the lots or their layers, though, as Bridgeport saved flawlessly when I simply deleted the lot layers. This. Is. Annoying. ò_ó

I don't know, I'm sure EA will have protected the worlds in some way.

I'd like to leave the city in Bridgeport as is but sort out the residential areas, there isn't enough space for people to add builds so it would have to be a world with the terrain changed a bit. My head hurts so I'm backing away from the PC.

Perhaps my English is not good enough... that means : save as->BridgeportXXX.world. This is this 'diffrent name'. End of story.


Ok, I get it. Perhaps someone else would want, thats why I wrote about it.



Alright, I didn't understand. I just though nobody has problems with editing Bridgeport. I wrote that I've managed to edit, save and export Bridgeport on page 4 of the previous thread. That was months ago! Nobody asked me how I managed to do it. That's why I though it's not a big deal.
Your impossibility of saving Bridgeport in CAW is a big surprise for me.

Currently I'm not in home. Tomorrow on Sunday* or on Monday I'll post here a total step-by-step tutorial of what I am doing with Bridgeport. With full set of screenshots, but don't expect the moon.

* Tomorrow on Sunday =/= tomorrow or on Sunday

Thanks for all the testing and information, guys! This is great that you are all trying this and reporting your findings.



Try Inkantator's method of importing the _XML file, as in post #7. You will need the _XML resource from the appropriate vacation world.


I added an image to post #4, I've had all kinds of weird looking effects but the lots are always fully functional and look just fine after I've regenerated the texture. Perhaps it's because my computer is rather old, so it does not have a lot of brain power!


You know what, I did mean UNKN! Thanks, I've updated the original posts to make it clear.


Yes, that's what I meant there, too. I corrected it! Thank you for noticing this!


I do mean save and not save as- it's important that you do not rename the file at all in S3PE at the import stage, as the name of the file has to perfectly match the name of the world folder. I'm not sure what you did wrong there, but keeping the file open in S3PE would have prevented CAW from saving it correctly.


Fluttereyes, you need to give the world a new description, name and thumbnail in CAW, then do 'save as' and give the world a new name. Are you doing this? What error are you getting when it crashes? I take it you are following the first method? I, like Inkantator and many others, can get Bridgeport to open and save and export just fine (populated or unpopulated), so I would think that there is something you are doing differently.


I notice you seem to be using my new method here, Rockerduck- I mention in Post #3 that this is a problem we had. Perhaps you could try the first method?


Inkantator, thank you for the idea with the _XML file! Of course, I keep forgetting that CAW discards some resources on saving- now you mention it, it's obvious. Great find, well done! I've added that information to my post #4. If you manage to get that tutorial written, I would be most grateful- it would help, I think!

Ghost sims anchored to urns or tombstones in the world may be why it hates places like the Graveyard, plasma 501, and so on.

Anyone having trouble using S3PE for this who doesn't have the test version may like to try that. MODL resources are being improved all the time. If you don't like the test version after trying it, it is fairly simple to just reinstall the older one over the top of it.

Nope, I didn't because I'm an old idiot, lol. I'll have a go later again. I'm using your method but missed that bit.

My CAW is really playing up with me now though since I did this and it's crashing when I try to save my own world. The world I'm making has been fine until I started to add all the skyscrapers. Since adding them I've been back and forward, doing the same work over and over. Last night I build an apartment lot of my own, it took me three hours and then it crashed on save. I could kick myself as I usually export lots I build before saving and I forgot to last night, so I lost it. I might have to uninstall and reinstall CAW.

No worries on the errors in the post, I just thought people who don't know that UNK and UNKN are different would get confused, thanks for changing that.

Are you doing this as we go along too, you seem to understand it more than us so maybe you'll spot something that were not.



I've added that Plasma 501 to my own world, I wonder if that's what's crashing that, I'll try removing the headstones., thanks.



I'm using the old version Inge, so I don't think it's that. S3PE is doing it's work fine, I do get to open the world and play around with it but then it crashes on save, my problem could be that I forgot to name the world internally in CAW and add a description, I'll try and see if that's it. Anyway, I haven't downloaded the new version of s3epe yet as I'm not good enough with it to bug spot.




Now the whole XML thing confuses me, does this just contain info on the Sims or does it contain something else, if we don't want a prepopulated world can we skip the XML part or what?

Thanks for the suggestions, Inge and Michele Magus!

fluttereyes, I would suggest to try the first method initially, as there have been problems saving some of the EA worlds with my second method (although it seems to work just fine for unpopulated worlds). Try it exactly as written, don't worry about the XML or the sims for now, just see if you can get the world to save as I can by doing exactly as written in post #2. Don't worry about my general notes in post #4, those are just additional notes for if people are having issues. All we are concerned with right now is to get you to be able to open and save Bridgeport, as in post #2.

For your other world having problems, try the suggestions here regarding deleting caches and removing CC, and making CAW LAA:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=441595

I have a question about this. I was just wanting to change the name of a world (Oakwood City) and the description. Would I have to go through this process or is there no way to really do this?

Edit: I meant is there an easier way to do this?