I'm hoping to write a tutorial on skill and motive management some time in the next couple of weeks, but if you can give me a contact email I'll put together some notes and send my sample object in the mean time.

Great! You are my hero :D

so we can put our fingers on bCon too :D

Yes, im having a problem... I use the newest SimPE and when i have to right click on the things and then go 'Resourse' there is no resourse there is 'Create Resourse' But no 'Resourse'... What do i do?

Bella: The steps in the tutorial shouldn't have changed since they were written - it was written with 56, only one version lower than the current release. Could you copy and paste the passage you're having trouble with here? I'm not sure which bit you're referring to. Just so you know though, the "Resource" tab is generally near the very bottom of the window. If it isn't there, you can get it back by going to Window > Resource Information.

oh.. k.. i just found it... thanks!

My object can be used only by one sim per time.
so i'm working on the guardian to know if my oject is aviable

i've tried to work a bit with the slot but i'm too neubie to made it works...
so i've tryed with 0x1b if it will fail the guardian will retourn false

that's works but i'm curious to know how to do it in correctly mode, also 'cause the sims will say "hey no path to get the object" .. and i don't want it :P

I finished the part about the animation when you walk towards the painting, but the custom painting cant be placed on the wall, the only way to place it is to use move_objects on and the animation works fine.

Why cant i place it on the wall?

bob: Did you change the init function at all? Can you post the object?

I think i might of done, ill see if i can work out how to upload these kinda things.

I think the link works.

Hi, I've made another object with this tutorial (lost the other while reformatting computer)
I'm using SimPE 0.58.1.29278, and when I add the animation command, it doesn't say "Animation: [No AdultAnims: Private STR# 0x0081 file]:0x0000", it says "Animation: [Fallback: Global] "a-noExpression" [AdultAnims: STR# 0x0081:0x00]". I'm sure I entered the Operands correctly. Is it something with SimPE or did I do somehing wrong?

Thank you so much for this tutorial! I have loaded a painting with some animations for my storytelling.

Now, I have another question.

I understand how to start to stack the menu items (ie: "Call .../") but what I cannot seem to figure out is how to place the menu items under the main heading of "Call ..."

Does this make sense?

bobthefish - At some point, you seem to have accidentally deleted the "Function - Init" BHAV. You can check for broken things like this in any object by opening up the OBJf files and looking for lines that say "[BHAV not found]". I put it back in, the attached version should work fine now.

Edootjuh - Don't worry about it, just keep going with the tutorial. What that is telling you is that:
a) It can't find anything in the private level that matches your number, so it will try to "fall-back" to a more general level,
b) The closest level of animation if can find is the global sim animations, in this case, "a-noExpression"
Just keep following the steps anyway, it'll sort itself out once you have your private STR file set up.

savoury - If you have two menu options:
Top Menu .../Bottom Menu A
Top Menu .../Bottom Menu B
then you will get a top level menu called "Top Menu", and when you select that the second level ("Bottom Menu A" and "Bottom Menu B") will show up. If you're trying to dynamically populate it though (eg - Call [all the different people in the house]) then you're getting a bit more complicated. There's a discussion on it here:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=175668

Aha! I got it to work on the first try! I only did parts 1 & 2, but... Fantastic job with the tutorial Echo. It was very easy to understand with your step-by-step instructions. Thanks

Great tutorial! Thanx! I only started working on mods and BHAVs a few days ago and I think I got a bit greedy from the first time.
I have a question, though. I want to copy the BHAV from one package to another, the whole pie menu options and functions. The original object is a bed and I want to copy it to a bed, so .. the same object.
I cloned the object I want to add the BHAV to, I replaced the files from: Behaviour constants, Behaviour functions, Object functions, Pie menu functions, Pie menu strings, and from the Text List the MakeActionString prim string set file with the files from the object that has the BHAV i want to copy. I did this to make the whole process easyer.
But... something doesn't work. Thru the process, I have had the pie menu partially show up (in wasn't working like the original), do some stuff (not the stuff it was supposed to) and after, when I replaced all files, not only that it made the bed unselectable, but also caused eratic behaviour in my sims(they jump from one place to another and they hace no free will).
The objects are both custom objects downloaded and I want to "customize" them even more.
In the zip:: BHAVbedClone is the original bed, that works
bedroom7reservable is the bed i want to add the property to

I want to know what did I do wrong in the process and.. well.. why doesn't it work and how can I fix it.

Well I'm happy to take a look at the file for you and will do so as soon as I have a chance, but I've got to ask... Why not just clone the file with the behaviours you want, and just replace the mesh with the mesh from the object you want? It's orders of magnitude easier than trying to port behaviours across objects!

Hi Echo! firstly i'd like to say: WELL DONE ON SUCH A FANTASTIC TUTORIAL!!! :D
I have completed up to and including stage 3, but I have a question. I have made the hygene and bladder motives go up and decided I wanted to add a cleaning skill point. I used the expression command: my person data>cleaning skill> := >Literal>100
It worked fine, but it won't go up any higher than 1 skill point, how do I make it so that it will? (go up 1 skill point at a time, like a bookcase, kinda)

Change the ":=" to a "+="
The former says "Make skill equal this value". The latter says "Add this value to the current value".

oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh.............thankyou!! You are great!! :D

Echo, just a thought, if you have the time and the patience and the generosity, etc would you be able to write a very quick guide on what all the symbols mean in the expression command? (like ":=" and "+=" and all the rest?) I would be so grateful if you could

Boolean Operators(true or false)
> [Is greater than]
< [Is less than]
== [Is equal to]
Flag set [Is bit set in a flag field]
>= [Is greater than or equal to]
<= [Is less than or equal to]
!= [Is NOT equal to]

Mathematical Operators
a += b [Assign a + b to a]
a -= b [Assign a - b to a]
a := b [Assign b to a]
a *= b [Assign a x b to a]
a /= b [Assign a / b (division) to a]
Set flag [Set bit in flag field]
Clear flag [Unset bit in flag field]
a mod= b [Assign remainder (modulus) of a/b to a]
a and= b [Bitwise and? (Not sure actually)]
a or= b [Bitwise or?]
a xor= b [Bitwise exclusive or?]
a abs(rhs) b [Assign the absolute value of b to a]
Assign 32 bit value [Same as := but for 32 bit value]

Combined Operators
a ++ and < b [Assign a+1 to a, then Is greater than b]
a -- and > b [Assign a-1 to a, then Is less than b]

First, thank you so much for this awesome tutorial! Without it I would still be totally lost! I have some questions, though. I am trying to get a dialogue to pop up as the first event in a chain of events. However, I cannot figure out how to change the text that pops up. Second, what should I do check if the adult Sims have jobs? (I want the answer to that question to determine where the string goes.) Finally, I want to put a guard on that checks the household's money (just what is available to spend) and only allow access to this function if the total is less than 5,000 simoleons. Please help me! Thanks!

thanx, lifesaver!!

The text in dialogues is pulled from the text list with instance number 0x12D. As for checking household's money, I haven't tried it myself, but maybe try out this one in a guard?
[prim 0x0019] Alter Budget (test if Literal 0x0000 multiplied by 1 may be subtracted as misc expense)
Parameters -> 0000xxxx010000000000000000000000 (where xxxx = little endian amount to check)

I think I'm just not getting this. I still do not quite understand how to enter custom dialogue in. Could you run it by me one more time? Thank you so much!