Hi, I am rather confused at the moment. I am using maya 8.5 currently and photoshop cs3. i ca use these programs ok. My main question was that is it possible to create a totally new object for the sims 2 as in without cloning other objects? Thanks for replies in advance. ^_^

If you are talking mesh wise, then yes, most definitley (that is what I do most of the time).
But you will still have to clone an existing Maxis object of that type.
1- to create a correct .package file, (replacing their mesh with yours) that you can then imported into the game.
2- to have the correct sizing of the obejct you wish to create, or Sim animation will not corespond.

Technically it would be possible, but there's virtually no point in creating a package from scratch. Open up any object on this site and you should be able to tell what it was cloned from. You see, objects that look and act like something completely new are cloned from an existing object, then given a new mesh and new textures and possibly even new behaviours, so that they seem like completely new objects, but they're still clones underneath.

thanks for the replies. i was wondering if i have a computer whos footprint in the game is one tile, is it possible to increase this to 2 or more tiles? thanks

Alas no, computers have to be able to sit on desks, which means that have to fit in a slot. Only single tile objects can be placed in slots. Objects which are placed on the floor can be increased or reduced in size though.

Hee hee, maybe make an IBM 360?

<* Wes *>

Or something like this?

My grandfather was an architect, and he showed me pictures of a room he designed for one of these monsters (in the 1950's as I recall)

The room had to have a double floor so all the cables could go beneath it, and it had to have it's own air-conditioning system because a slight variation in temperature or humidity would throw the whole system out. The "memory" was on those huge rotating reels of tape, and the only output was through the typewriter-like component.

It's amazing to think how far we've come since then, your pocket calculator is probably more powerful than that whole room full of equipment.

My computing experiences do not go back that far... heck, I barely go back that far. And this old dog has definitely been bended, folded, spindled and mutiplated too much to work in those old machines.

I have worked with some pretty large telephone switching systems. While the CPU for the switches are not so huge anymore, there is still a lot of room needed for all the 'peripheral' devices needed for terminating cables and signal routing and switching purposes.

The double floor is pretty standard, and usually is the air conditioning plenum, besides being the cable route. A big A/C unit blows air into the gap between the floors, and a hole underneath each rack allows the chilled air to rise within the rack. These racks are designed with closable fronts and backs so that the air continues past each shelf, cooling the circuits, and finally out an open grill in the top of the rack.

Oh, how we long for the 'good old days'...

<* Wes *>