At Affinity Sims, under buy mode animated objects: http://www.affinitysims.com/IPB/ind...imated-objects/ there are a number of them available, Mootilda. Here are the horses: http://www.affinitysims.com/IPB/ind...ideable-horses/ Here are the chickens: http://www.affinitysims.com/IPB/ind...mated-chickens/
There are older versions of these here at MTS: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=265537 for horse and http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=265231 for others including chickens.
I have only used the farm-type animals myself, so no idea how the sharks and swans and all show up. I can say that on Inge's AL summoner, the chickens show up as Chicken Chicken in the default family, and the other animals I use similarly. And no, I've never summoned them; just noticed their presence when looking for ghosts or Tricous in need of tombstones/resurrecting.

I believe most of the older versions on MTS2 are based on the RC cars ... at least when I downloaded them.

When I downloaded the owl from that Affinity site, I did not get the wants like I did with the chickens. While it's animated, it does not move on its own, and you cannot interact with it.

RE Mootilda response 2-10 re "plant sim package is 227 KB" - the reason I thought this was add is because it is only ONE ".package", while with PTs there is one package (1KB) which controls the "use this as the PT", plus lots of other packages that have skin, face, personality, picture. Obviously, I am even unsure of nominclature.
RE: PT fathers not on family tree; I can't tell you what I did, as I did lots of random stuff to figure out how to seperate the "use this PT default" bit from the other information that needed to stay in Downloads. It does seem like, even though I think I have all the right "default packages" split up (one folder, "Katu master", on desktop holds the "default only", and another folder, "Katu PT info", stays in Downloads), there are still missing pictures in the family trees.

Thanks for offering, but it's not worth fooling with. I am SO happy you are takeing this on! I'm sure I'm not the only tec-challenged out here (as you can tell by the way I discribe things) that are bookmarking this thread. But even I can see the logic with putting the needed info in the character folders (although I will need further instructions). Thank you so much!

P.S. re Hat's fairies: I seem to get memory "abducted by fairies" for ALL abductions!

I believe that default replacements can be fairly large (227K), but that they do not contain character files. So, I would just treat them like normal CC.

I know that it can be confusing. It's pretty obvious that even the people who created the multi-<x> mods didn't necessarily understand why you shouldn't delete the character data. Some creators warn you to remove all packages, some creators warn you to remove only the selection mod, some creators think that you can remove them unless the PT had a child. No wonder users are confused.

I know that I'm just one more voice in this cacophony, but I hope that I'm not making things even more confusing. I've tried to explain how these mods work, and why it's a good idea to keep the character files with your neighborhoods.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I downloaded and tested the animated sheep from Affinity Sims. It adds one sim to your neighborhood - the NPC in the package named <xxx>-NPC.package. So, my comments hold for that one package, and I believe for the NPCs in similar mods. Copy the NPC to your Characters folder and you should be safe, even if you remove all of the animals from your neighborhood, and then remove all of the packages for this mod from your Downloads folder.

Since most of the packages contain objects, you can't use the size of the package to decide which one contains the sim. Hopefully, all of these mods have naming conventions which make it obvious which package contains the sim.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I believe that I've done all of the research that I promised. If I told someone that I would do something and I didn't do it, please remind me.

Link to the version of the animals available here on this site:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=265231
If you want to have a look at them. Would be interested to know what you think. I'm thinking about a PT mod - maybe. I might be tempted to make my own. There are some great skins out there.

OK, I'll download and check the chicken (unless you prefer that I check a different animal). I assume that they all use the same method.

So removing the sheep, pigs or chickens from your download folder is bad? I may have coruped some hoods than. I had a problem with the pigs randomly having the NPC pop up to standing inside of them. It was the same NPC as they all looked the same. He would appear and disappear which started when the snow started, so I deleted the files and re-downloaded them.



What does that mean exactly? Open the folder with the download and select BecksFarmSheep-NCP, then cut and paste it into the character folders under Documents? So N001/Characters?

As far as I can tell from the limited research that I've done, the animated animals from Affinity Sims are well-made and it's OK to remove everything except the package labelled NPC. That one contains the user data for a sim who is now in your neighborhood. Deleting that package is like deleting one of the packages from your neighborhood's Characters folders, which is a very bad thing.

Luckily, reinstalling that package gives the user data back to the sim, so you may not have caused too much damage, especially if you didn't do a lot between removing the mod and reinstalling it. As you know, it's difficult to predict exactly what damage is done or how it will spread.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. If you have multiple neighborhoods, then every one of those neighborhoods will contain the sim, so it makes sense to copy the NPC to each of your neighborhood's Character folders.

Unfortunately, this mod doesn't seem to be as well behaved as the animated animals from Affinity Sims, or the various multi-PT and multi-Plantsim mods that I've tested.

A new sim is added to your neighborhood as soon as you play the neighborhood. The Controller package contains the OBJD for the missing user data. However, even if I copy the Controller to my Characters folder, neither SimPE nor the HoodChecker can find useful information in the package.

As I understand it, the animated animals at MTS are an earlier version of the ones from Affinity Sims. It looks like they weren't as well made.

Because of this, I'm going to reserve judgement on this set. I'm really not sure what to think. It may be best to avoid uninstalling this mod.

Just FYI: I have been doing most of my testing with all EPs and SPs except the Store Edition, although I have also tested with the base game where appropriate. I also want to make clear that I have not been testing whether the mods can be removed safely, just how to make sure that the character data is not removed if you remove the mod.

Seems like I am still finding new ways to mess up my game. *sigh* At least I know how to rebuild a hood now.

You can hardly be blamed for this one. The creators should have understood the ramifications of their mods and warned people against uninstalling them. These are all really interesting mods, but they just can't be completely uninstalled.

Have you seen any indications of corruption? When I tried playing a neighborhood with missing user data for some of the NPCs, I started seeing corruption almost immediately.

The lot that I deleted them from started to play very slowly, so speed 3 was more like speed one. I moved the family to another lot and it played fine, moved them back and it played slowly again so I bulldozed the lot. I don't think I've seen anything else apart from that.

Edit: i just checked the files in my chicken folder and that doesn't have a chicken NPC, but it does have Chicken controller, is that the same thing?

If you have the Chicken Controller, then you have the older version... the one that is NOT well made.

With the multi-PT, multi-Plantsim, and well-made animated animals, it's possible to keep the character files while removing the rest of the mod. In that case, it makes sense to copy the character files to your Characters folder, so that they will not be inadvertently deleted.

However, with the older versions of the animated animals (like the one that you have), I can't find any way to uninstall a portion of that mod without corrupting your neighborhood. Basically, for the animated animals from MTS, I recommend that you do not uninstall any part of the mod. For these, there's no use copying one of the packages to your Characters folder, because there is no package which contains the character data... I can only conclude that the character data is spread out among several of the packages.

I was really sorry to see that there is at least one mod which is so badly made that it's impossible to isolate the character data from the rest of the mod. That means that each mod must be checked individually to see whether the character data is contained in one package or not.

I believe that all of the multi-PT and multi-Plantsim mods are well made, because the first one was well made and people just copied that technique. So, it's only the animal mods that are in question.

If the character data is contained in one package, that package can be copied to your Characters folder to help make your neighborhood safer. However, if the character data is spread out among several packages, then that can't be done and my only suggestion is that you avoid uninstalling the mod.

I think I took out all my older animals from here and an old closed site last year and installed the ones from Afinity, again last year. :/ I just re-downloaded the pig from Afinity sims just now to take a look, and it has a controller. Downloaded the chicken and it does as well.
http://www.affinitysims.com/IPB/ind...mated-chickens/
http://www.affinitysims.com/IPB/ind...ated-farm-pigs/

I just thought of something else that might be similar, cc animated human stand statues. I had two of those at one time from a carnival set on here, a female and a male clown. I deleted them both some time ago from the buy cataloge the same way you might delete a chair.

I wonder if a mod would be able to flag the old animal sets of Rebecah's with something like "Old, out of date, do not use: go to Affinity to get the new version."
No idea how hard it would be, but while the site is in maintenance mode anyway, maybe a subsection for all the NPC adding hacks with a big fat "Do Not Remove" at the top would be feasible? I suppose they would technically be deletable if one used the batbox/SimPE method.
I would think things like these: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=493883 http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=426531 if used without NL http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=149177 would also add an NPC and therefore be unsafe to remove without precautions.
Hope the Mobacy neighborhood is safe, Jo.

One thing this thread has taught me is that I'm not the only one who was in the dark about all this. The Multi-PTs ... hit or miss re the creators. Some, such as Boiling Oil, s-p-e-l-l-e-d it out for the clueless. Some, I guess, presumed everyone knew what to do.

Beck's animals ... I have added them and subtracted them over the years, including the ones on this site. The ride-able sheep and horse I downloaded actually sounded like the toy car, so I presumed they were cloned off that. I've long reset the neighborhoods, so all I can do is sin no more with the current ones. Hopefully, the neighborhoods can keep from exploding until I do my reset in a couple of years, but if they don't, as joandsarah77 wrote, I've become REAL good at resetting them. It used to bother me sooo much to reset them. Now I cringe and shrug and get to work. How time has changed things!

My test neighborhood, I'll keep as is. When it implodes, or when the three years are up, I'll reset. That is why it existed in the first place ... to test things out.

I did not notice corruption at all after I pulled the animals out, but that was years ago, and I did so many other VBTs that when it did finally get that wonderful "$Subject" message, it was pretty darn hard to tell why it happened. Pulling the animals out certainly didn't help any!

I should note with Beck's animals ... some, like the owl, are stationary objects that simply turn a head or otherwise, move in place. I think they might be in a separate category ... pretty much like a fancy object, or those animated clowns. There was no way for a Sim to interact with them, other than to view them or turn the noise off. There are no separate controllers for them in the package ... just the one package, or in the case of the owl, two. (There was a tree for the owl to perch, if you chose.) I just recently downloaded the mallard (Twice, apparently ... I thought it was OK to delete one, but at this point, who the hay-ell knows? When I briefly put it back in the game and ran the Hood Checker, it did not generate a second ID, nor did it do so in Sim PE.).

Stupid question ... how can you determine what IDs belong to what unknown objects in Sim PE? Some are really easy. I added the four new PTs ... they're on there, listed in the correct order. Some are not so easy. I'm sure there is probably an obvious way to do it.

But the clowns would be made off the human statue wouldn't they? The human statue is an NPC. And my chickens and pigs are the afinity sim current ones. The only one that says NPC is the sheep. The remote control car is also an NPC.



Do I detect an esteemed reader of my legacy? *offers Sunbee a chair and a drink*

Well my antivirus already caused some corruption I think. It's a very strange thing and I've only come across one other person on windows 7 whose antivirus eats sim babies. If I have it on and save with a baby on the lot, next time I open the lot the baby is no more and I'm left with had $subject memory. If I have it on any time a sim ages up the sim acts like it's the younger age still. I quickly learnt to play with it turned off, but Tony's baby in downtown was one of the casualties. I wrote it in that she died. I guess when I start seeing glitches I will just have to extract, clone and rebuild all over again. I hope it isn't too soon as I only did a rebuild when Tony was a teen.

*checks LJ* How come I didn't know you were doing Fuzzy's trailer challenge?

Oh ... forgot about the car. Now I'm hoping that deleting the duplicate duck file isn't going to totally mess up my game. I didn't notice any new potato heads in Sim PE. If I recall, though, it just enters that ID once per NPC type. So much for deleting the main duck file ... turned out I misread it, and it wasn't what I thought it would be. My bad on that. Oh well. Hopefully, since I put it only in Riverblossom, any related problems stay in Riverblossom.

This does make me reluctant to download anything resembling an NPC ever again ... and i guess that would include several things that have moving parts, unless it's something like a fountain. Stay stationary! Like jo, I will probably just stay with the neighborhood and hope it doesn't corrupt before the scheduled reset time, which is in about 2 years. If it does .... I do so know what to do now!

This makes me really nervous re Windows 7 AND 8 now ... it seems that both are so kind to The Sims. Then again, I suppose that's the nature of the EA beast. Gives me so much to anticipate when I have to replace my XP.

EDIT ... I am probably going to sound even more stupid, but here goes ... how do I know that an animated animal, or indeed any animated object, is an NPC or not? Is there something in Sim PE OTHER than "Mr. Potato Head" that would make me absolutely sure that files like the mallard duck file (which does not have a controller; otherwise, it would be easy, it seems ... just leave in the controller file) would be a really bad idea to remove, or if I can do so safely? I would like to remove the mallard duck file, but now, unsurprisingly, I'm reluctant to do it until I reset all THREE main neighborhoods, even if I put the duck in only one of them.

First, this isn't a stupid question at all. It's a very reasonable question. Unfortunately, it's one that I'm tempted to answer in techie-talk. Let me get it down, then we can discuss whether there's a simpler way.

First, it's always a good idea to backup your save game before adding new CC. I know that it's a bother, but then you don't have to worry about installing CC and destroying your hood.

When you open your neighborhood after adding one of these mods, a new Sim Description will be added to your neighborhood. If you have a backup of your neighborhood before installing the mod, you can open both the neighborhood and the backup in SimPE and find the newly added Sim Description. I usually sort the Sim Descriptions by instance number and look at the end of the list, since new sims are usually added at the end.

This newly added sim will not have a name in SimPE; instead, they will show as Unknown (picture 1). When you ask to see the character file associated with the sim, no file name will be there (picture 2). However, the Sim Description will show you the SimID. That's the important piece of information.

If you then open every package in the mod, some of them will have OBJD records. If you select the OBJD record, it will contain a GUID. If the GUID matches the SimID, then you've found the right package (picture 3).

However, if you copy that package to your Characters folder, close and reopen your neighborhood in SimPE, and SimPE continues to show you an Unknown sim with no character file, then you know that the mod is not well-made and that the character data is not isolated to just that one package. Pictures 4 and 5 show what a correctly-formed character file will look like in SimPE, when it is copied to the Characters folder.

--------------------------------------------------------

One thing that you can do to simplify this is to use the HoodChecker to tell you the SimID for the missing sim. You'll still have to open each package in the mod to find the OBJD that has the matching GUID. The sim's name should be in the Catalog Description, and you can look at the images and textures to help identify the sim.

Another way to simplify this might be to browse the mod's packages using the Clean Installer or any similar tool. The Clean Installer will be able to tell you that it's a sim, but will not show you pictures or the SimID. Still, it gives you a good idea of which packages to check first.

Sorry about the double post, but that was getting much too long, and I wanted to keep that information all together in one post.

That seems like overkill. It's not that the mods are broken, just that they can't be removed safely. Perhaps just "A new version of this is available at Affinity <link>"?

I believe that this is feasible and fairly simple. The mods always have too much to do; however, I've found them amenable to making this kind of change if they feel the problem warrants a warning. Again, this specific warning may be overkill. I believe that many of these mods can be removed safely, as long as you do not delete the character data... which is dependent upon whether the mod is well-formed.

I haven't tried it, but I believe that it would be possible to remove these sims safely using the batbox and Theo's sim deleter SimPE plugin. I'd have to check that method again, though... it seems to me that Pescado warns you to remove the sims from all family trees before using the batbox.

Note that the package will be modified when you do this. If you have multiple neighborhoods, you'll probably have to backup before you start the process, and keep restoring that package until all of the neighborhoods have been cleaned. Note: if you've copied the user data to each of your Characters folder, you don't have to worry about this, since only the local copy should be changed.

[Update:]

Here's what Pescado has to say about family ties:

Because . . . uh . . . I don't socialize/self-promote very well? Or maybe because I've got three updates of pics I haven't posted and a new faster computer that saps my motivation to even turn the computer that houses the TPC sims on? Or because there isn't a TPC thread here? But I knew you're playing the TPC. I have a tendency to read people's blogs but not say anything unless it hasn't yet been said and is more complex than "I love this." Thanks for the drink and chair, by the way.
I don't know about sim babies, but I nearly chucked AVG out the window for eating the .exe for SimCity IV the other day. Now AVG has to ask pretty please before it can do anything.
Um, what was our topic?

The topic? ...My legacy of course! *creepy 10 point nice mobster smile of doom*

Joking aside, I would like to know about the human statue type cc objects and are the versions I got from affinity sims with a controller better made then the old ones here or not?

Can you follow my instructions in post #68 above?

Backup. Install the CC. Run the game and enter your neighborhood, then exit the game; no need to play a lot. Check whether a new unknown sim was created, using either SimPE or the HoodChecker. If not, fine. If so, find the package which contains the sim. Copy that package to your Characters folder. Check whether the sim data is complete, using either SimPE or the HoodChecker. If so, then the mod is well made and you should be fine if you keep the package in your Characters folder. If not, then you know that you shouldn't uninstall that mod, because the character file is incomplete; in this case, remove the duplicate package from your Characters folder since it isn't useful.

If you decide that you don't want the mod, remove it from your downloads folder and restore from your backup.

Should I try and find the carnival clowns again? There could be others like a rideable duck too. But I'll try and do what you said later. Too late now I already have the game running and I reinstalled the sheep before I loaded it up. My guess all my hoods are corrupted anyway.

Jo, I think that you're talking about http://modthesims.info/d/213108 by Echo.
The rideable duck is one of Rebecah's, too, not sure if here or Affinity or both. There's a bicycle, tricycle, etc. This sort of item seems to be her specialty.

I still have the tricycle, that one I never took out, but the duck I did as it never worked properly. But because there were others there’s s a good chance I am not going to fix my game just by putting the sheep back in.