Tutorial to Create a Custom University Template?

[Mootilda]

Can anyone help me to find a tutorial for how to create a template for a custom university? I want to add my own university to Program Files, so that I can add it to my neighborhoods, rather than using the standard ones which are shipped with the game.

[HystericalParoxysm]

Hey Mootilda,

I haven't tried it myself and can't verify it'd work, but... do you know how to do stuff like I did for the Megahoods? In doing that sort of thing, you take the game's normal neighborhoods (or potentially, a neighborhood you've already started playing and modifying) and get the game to think that it's a template for a downtown or shopping district by renaming the files and replacing an internal resource on the main .package, IIRC. I would imagine something similar would -probably- work for a custom university, though I don't know how it would work to -add- a new one. Probably wouldn't be terribly hard to temporarily replace the one you have though.

I did a quick and dirty tutorial on that method here: http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorials:Combining_Maxis_Neighborhoods

Again, no clue if it works for universities, but it seems like it -should- work, and I know you've got the big squishy brains to do it. ;)

[Mootilda]

I was really hoping for something simpler, allowing me to share a custom neighborhood with other people without requiring them to do a complex installation procedure. I searched and couldn't seem to find anything about adding new subhood templates, although there are lots of tutorials about making new one-off subhoods.

[Update:]
OK, here's the method that I've come up with:

1) Create an empty neighborhood.

2) Rename the neighborhood folder to U### where ### > 3. For example, I renamed my folder to U004. Rename all files within folder to have prefix U### (in my case, U004_). I'm not sure whether this step is necessary, but all of the other universities are named U###, so it seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

3) Run SimPE and open neighborhood.
Change ID Number (IDNO) record for neighborhood:
- Set Neighborhood Type = University.
Commit this change and save the neighborhood package.

4) Run the game and enter the neighborhood. It should behave as a university subhood, even though it's a primary neighborhood. Add lots and sims as appropriate. At this point, I was able to create and add lots (including dorms and secret society lots) and create young adult sims, as well as spawning young adult townies, professors and university NPCs such as cheerleaders.

Note: Be careful to avoid returning to the primary neighborhood from the university, since there is no primary neighborhood. I'm not sure what would happen if you tried this, but it seems like a bad idea.

5) Once the university neighborhood is set up as you want it, you now have your custom university template. If you want to share this subhood, then zip or rar the entire neighborhood folder (U004) and share that file.

6) To install the template, move or copy the neighborhood folder to
\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 University\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate
(or where ever you installed University).

7) Your custom university subhood is now available to be installed into any of your neighborhoods, along with the standard Maxis-made universities.

This seems to work, although I obviously haven't had a chance to play my sims all the way through to graduation. It makes me wonder whether the same method could be used to create templates for all of the other subhood types. I also wonder whether this would be a simpler way to create a mega-hood?

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[Another Update:]

I finally found the tutorial:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,3996.0.html

Here is a useful hack which allows you to select from multiple pre-made shopping districts:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6872.0.html