Hi Guys

At the suggestion of the lovely and kind Tiggerypum, I'm posting my CAS modification tute. I've broken it up to make the tutorial as easy as possible for you guys. This tute is also hosted at The Sublime Sims Forum/.

This tutorial is also provided in PDF format. To view it, we strongly suggest to download the Foxisoft PFD Viewer: it's free and small, less than 1Mb!

If you have the Seasons Expansion:
You must use Numenor's BaseGameStarter or the Any Game Starter to create your custom CAS lot without Seasons!! Custom CAS lots created in Seasons will cause all sims made within your new CAS screen to freeze to death. Unless you like simsicles, you'll need to use the BaseGameStarter.

PETS also can cause problems with strays appearing. Fencing in the lot seems to help - perhaps the basegame starter is also what you'll want to use. Yes, you will not be able to place things from EPS that you didn't include using the basegame starter, but it's better than having random strays appear or freezing sims.


Creating Custom CAS houses

Hi Guys

It's been a year since this tutorial was originally written and it's time for an update so we can incorporate all of the wonderful things we've learned about modifying CAS houses. I will also be writing a tute that deals with some tricks involved in creating more advanced CAS houses and how to package your CAS house be shared with others.

Today I'm going to explain to you how to add a custom background into the Create a Famiy screen. There are quite a few steps to creating these backgrounds and it is a slightly fiddly process but it's much, much easier than you think! So let's begin..

1. Firstly, open up your game and add a brand new neighbourhood without lots or Sims. The neighbourhood can look any way you want and can have any terrain you want. Once you have created your neighborhood, close your game.



2.Follow this path to find your CAS household package

C/program files/ea games/The Sims 2 Pets (or whatever your most current expansion or booster pack is)/ TSData/Res/Global Lots.

When you get there, you will see two files, the CAS!.package and the YACAS!.package. The CAS package is your Create a Family house for your base neigborhood, Downtown and Bluewater Village. The YACAS!.package is your Create a Student house for your University Nieghborhoods.

For today we are going to edit our Create a Family house for our base neighborhood. (the principles are exactly the same when you edit the YACAS! House) Copy the CAS!.package file to My documents/ea games/the sims 2/lot catalog



3. You will see a series of files labelled cx_00000001.package, numbered upwards (ignore the files labelled Character, they’re not the one’s we’re working with). In this case they’re numbered up to cx_00000041. Change the filename of your CAS! Package to be labelled the same as these packages, but make it one number higher than the last package. In this case because the last file is numbered 41, we labelled it cx_00000042.package.



4. Re-enter your Sims game and go to your newly created custom neighborhood.



5. Go to your Lots and Houses bin, scroll right to the end. The CAS house will be the very last house in the bin and will be recognisable because it is labelled as a series of junk letters, in this case jkgbkyuy. Place that house in your neighborhood



6.Enter the house. You will see two rooms. The room to your left in this picture is the room where you assemble your family. The room to the right is where you view the individual Sims while you customise them.

The podium and photos in the right hand room and the camera set-up (all those items are actually only one item) in the left hand room cannot be moved, but you are able to do some fairly substantial editing around them. You can for example remove the standard windows and replace them with different ones. Today I’m going to redecorate both rooms using standard Maxis furnishings, mostly from OFB.

note: There are hacks done by Windkeeper that we can use to make the Podium objects dissapear, but we won't talk about how to use them when constructing CAS houses until the next tutorial.



7. Ok, here is the room where we preview individual Sims given a spit and polish with a new paint job and carpeting, some new furnishings and an extra window.



8. And this is the room where you assemble all of your Sims, repainted and carpeted with extra windows and lighting. Ok, we're now ready to reimport it back to being a Global Lot so we can use it to photograph our Sims. Save your changes and close the game.



9. Go to My Documents/ Ea Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods. Inside the folder you will find a number of neighbourhoods. The neighborhood with your CAS house will be the highest number because it’s the most recently created.



10.Go into your Lots folder within your Neighborhood folder. There will only be one lot in there, which is your customised CAS house. Copy that house to your EA Games/ The Sims 2/ Downloads folder, then go to that folder.

Once you have copied your package file to your downloads folder, if you wish to you may get rid of the new neighborhood you've created as you won't need it again and getting rid of it will not damage your CAS house in any way.



11.Edit the name of your file to call it CAS!.package.



You are now able to go into Create a Family and take screenshots and the Create a Family background will now be edited the way you want it to look. Just to prove it, here’s a shot of our new house..



12. As you can see, it looks much, much brighter prettier than taking photos of them against a standard brick wall and wooden floor. From here, just take your screenshot and crop the picture as normal.

If you would like to share your CAS Screen: So you've made the perfect CAS screen and you want to share it? You will want to share the CAS!.package file that you put in your Downloads folder. If you are meaning to upload to MTS2 please see the Creator Guidelines for information on how to rar or zip your file and the requirements for upload. If you have used custom content in your CAS screen it will not be included! You will need to make a "shopping list" of links to every custom item you have used (with details enough that people know which item from a set you used, if applicable), and anyone who downloads your CAS screen will need to go and download all those custom items for your CAS screen to look right in their game. For this reason, it is likely MUCH better for you to use all Maxis content for your CAS screens, or a minimum of custom content that's easy to find and download. If you use items from expansion packs in your CAS screen, downloaders will need to have those expansions for those items to show up right in the CAS screen, but it should still work even if they don't have those EPs.

If you're sharing the CAS screen with others, it's recommended you put a little installation instruction on your upload. If you want you can copy-paste this here:

To install this custom CAS Screen:
Place the CAS!.package file in your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads folder after making sure to remove/delete the files for any previous custom CAS screens you may have downloaded.


Have fun creating pretty backgrounds for your Sims! Cheers Kath

http://www.sublimesims.net

Excellent Tute, I might go start making some now!

Hi Skadi

Thank you so much for your kind feedback it is very much appreciated! :-)

Kath

Very easily understood tutorial. Thank you for sharing this! Gave this tutorial 5 stars and a thanks! I just have one question, you said "(Note: I will mention at this point that I have been trying adding the modified CAS to my downloads folder at the suggestion of Windkeeper and leaving the original CAS house where it is and early indications are that it seems to work just fine that way.)" So which way should we import the new CAS, the downloads folder or... the other folder. Does it make a difference?

Phoenix you should be able to put the new package in your downloads folder and it should work. If it doesn't you could put it in the other location.

Does it make a difference? In the functioning of your game, no. For you to keep track of if you get a new EP, yes. Much easier to have it in your downloads folder, where you expect your customizations to be, instead of someplace else on your hard drive.

Thanks Tiggerypum for answering, as always your a great help

Great tutorial, however I can't seem to find the TSData-file?! I have UNI. Is there something wrong with the game, me or may I find it at another location?

ok big problemo!!!!
When i try to upload the lot onto my neighborhood my game crashes!!!
(just a little info i downloaded a cas screen wrong and deleted my original if that is any help)
will somebody PLZ help me!!!!!
i hate the one i have!!!!!

Ophelia....

You need to go to your C drive and work your way through the folders...
This is what Vashti wrote:
C/program files/ea games/The Sims 2 Open for Business (or whatever your most current expansion or booster pack is)/ TSData/Res/Global Lots.

So you would go to my computer - c - program files - ea games - and then look for your Uni folder.

ElizabethSwann -
I suggest (as you say you downloaded a CAS house and deleted your original - you should always follow directions carefully) that you try downloading a different CAS house and delete the one you don't like from your downloads folder. Maybe someone else will have a better suggestion.

Hi! this is a great tutorial, thank you very much.

I have a question. Awhile ago I downloaded a new CAS and in the instructions it suggested replacing your default with the new file. Now, I'm fairly certain that I no longer have my default, which could cause problems. If I go in and delete the CAS!.package entirely, will it automatically regenerate the default? Or will I have to do a reinstall? If anyone has any information, I'd be very grateful.

I believe it will NOT regenerate. You could try moving that CAS file out of your folder and see what happens. Or download another CAS you like better from this site and replace it with that one. You looked and you didn't have a backup file anywhere in your folder?

You can retreive a copy of it off the install CD (in compressed.zip under the same folders).

Thank you so much! Getting it off the compressed.zip worked perfectly. Now I have all my defaults back in place in preparation for Pets.

Thanks again!

Cool! :D

OMG!!!! thanks for this tutorial take a look:

thanks a lot for the tutorial

Playgirl, that is so cool matey!! well done!! :D

Vashti

thanks so much again cause if it wasn't for you i couldn't have done it thanks a lot

Wellm, i have a problem... I couldn't find the house were you bulidt the CAS-screen. Help?

Nathe, you don't say exactly which spot you're at when you can't find things. Perhaps best would be to start over and read very carefully. If you still get stuck, please try and explain exactly what part worked and where things don't make sense.

I have a question....How do you get rid of the objects that are already there, such as the chair, all the paintings on the wall etc...

You can hide parts of the CAS using this from windkeeper: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=162363

thank you! xxxx

no the Foxisoft PFD Viewer is 2.0 so dont listen to the top part.




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Umm, I don't understand what you mean by that. The download is 1.5MB but otherwise, what's there not to listen?

I have finished making a custom CAS screen and though it was created in the dark, now it shows as daytime when in-game. Is there any way to correct this and make it show as Nighttime?