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The Sims 3 Mod Generator (OUTDATED)

by morgade Posted 8th Jul 2009 at 2:08 PM - Updated 27th Nov 2013 at 3:16 PM by Nysha
 
160 Comments / Replies (Who?) - 152 Feedback Posts, 7 Thanks Posts
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Lab Assistant
#2 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 2:09 PM
super great. thank you:-))
Lab Assistant
#3 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 2:21 PM
Hah.. are you aware of what you have done?! This is madness! Thanks! ^^
Test Subject
#4 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 2:25 PM
are there any conflicts with other already installed package files??

do i need to delete them all? now that i can chage everithing with this tool.
Test Subject
#5 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 2:35 PM
Thanks for this, a milestone in the modding world. I am very grateful for this thank you!
Test Subject
#6 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 2:40 PM
Wow! I'm impressed with the amount of time and fiddly tweaking it must have taken to get this working. Thanks!
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#7 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 2:44 PM
Quote: Originally posted by ichibansenshi
are there any conflicts with other already installed package files??

do i need to delete them all? now that i can chage everithing with this tool.

A possible conflict depends on what plugins do you add to the mod project.
The export function generates packages only with xmls concerning the plugins you selected.

In a future upgrade, I will add a conflict checker.

Quote: Originally posted by JigsawAnalogy
Wow! I'm impressed with the amount of time and fiddly tweaking it must have taken to get this working. Thanks!


Actually, the program source-code is very simple and small using Postal-API. I spent no more than a couple of nights programming and generating plugins. :p
Lab Assistant
#8 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 3:05 PM
This is.... amazing! o_o I'm assuming it's a core modder, because I know little to nothing about modding, so I should... not download it with awesomemod? XD Or is this something for modders to use, to make pretty mods for us un-modders?
Test Subject
#9 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 3:18 PM
Oh...My...God.

You're amazing. I want you.


xD. Anyway, this is one HELL of an upload, I can't wait to use it! You rock!
Lab Assistant
#10 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 3:18 PM
Awesome work! Thanx is very ^^ :D
Test Subject
#11 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 3:19 PM
I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one as more people have tested it. I'll probably play around with it myself eventually. This just seems mind-blowingly awesome.

Sim and let Sim...
Test Subject
#12 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 3:33 PM
WOW, just been playing around with this, and I am surprised at the simplicity of how to use this, everything pretty much is self explanatory. It is a big boost for us illiterate modders.
Lab Assistant
#13 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 3:39 PM
The thing I"m confused about... I mean I understand how it works, but can we also use it to adjust custom stuff that we've downloaded?

----->Sleep is for people that have never played Sims<-----
----->Maybe people should actually try Sims 4 before they criticize it. It's my favorite Sims so far.<-----
Lab Assistant
#14 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 3:47 PM
I'm not big into the modding side of the game, though I may actually give this a try since I did tinker with SimPE back in Sims 2. But even if I don't use it I can fully appreciate what a HUGE accomplishment / advancement this is and how useful it will be to the modders among us .

So thankyou very much, awesome work! :D
Lab Assistant
#15 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 3:49 PM
This is awesome. Thanks!
Test Subject
#16 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 4:00 PM
Incredible! Definitely going to test this out
Lab Assistant
#17 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 4:15 PM
Thank you for this awesome tool!
Lab Assistant
#18 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 4:17 PM
This is amazing, thank you
Mother Function
retired moderator
#19 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 4:23 PM
This really is one of the greatest tools so far!
Now I don't have to go cross-eyed trying to scan through a page full of XML to change one tiny detail!

Now if I decide to make a new mod project package, I have to delete the old one right?

"Holy Shift! Check out the asymptotes on that mother function!"
Test Subject
#20 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 4:25 PM
Maybe I just skipped past it, i dunno, but is there a plugin that alters the probability of finding certain metals, gems, insects, or maybe somethin that modifies how many would be in a certain spawn point? thanks in advance
Test Subject
#21 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 4:44 PM
This looks like the best tool ever... quite unfortunate that us Mac users are left out...
Test Subject
#22 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 5:13 PM
Quote: Originally posted by beverlyislike
This looks like the best tool ever... quite unfortunate that us Mac users are left out...

It seems to work on Mac too, just run SimCustomizer.jar instead of SimCustomizer.exe
Test Subject
#23 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 5:14 PM
It is very good but I would be right in that it only allows you to edit the values for certain things ? Things that are defined just in the directly xml and not the tuning files, and it also doesn't contain the xml files which add more stuff. It's very good just for those little tweaks people can do on their own .
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#24 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 5:22 PM
Quote: Originally posted by kletus4pres
The thing I"m confused about... I mean I understand how it works, but can we also use it to adjust custom stuff that we've downloaded?

No. The program starts with all standard game values, but you can use your mods with other custom content (as long as they don't conflict). Conflict detection will be implemented in next version.

Quote: Originally posted by daluved1
Now if I decide to make a new mod project package, I have to delete the old one right?

No. You can save several mod projects. Just have to be careful to not install mods from different projects that use same plugins.

Quote: Originally posted by symo
It seems to work on Mac too, just run SimCustomizer.jar instead of SimCustomizer.exe

Yep. As it was written in Java, it should work on Mac, Linux, Solaris, etc... Just run the jar file (The exe is just a wrapper to verify if Java is instaled)
Test Subject
#25 Old 8th Jul 2009 at 5:26 PM Last edited by shannong : 8th Jul 2009 at 6:13 PM.
Default Answering some questions
This tool is designed to perform "XML Tuning" modifications. It is working with the Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\GamePlay\GameplayData.package file, which is where all the relatively safe tuning parameters for the game live.

With that preamble:
  • The mods you make with this tool are *not* core mods, so they won't conflict with core mods such as AwesomeMod
  • The mods you make with this tool *might indeed* conflict with other mods that have been posted here on ModTheSims! It all depends on which specific resource you have modded.

The upside to this program (its ease of use) is also its downside. It hides the actual resource ID, showing you only the resource *name*. The resource IDs look like this: 0xdfd048952e802db0.

If you inspect various mods using a tool like S3PE, you'll see that they contain only the resource IDs. It's easy to figure out whether a given mod you just downloaded will conflict with any of the mods you already use by opening them all in S3PE and noting the resource IDs for each resource in the mod. If any two mods you want to use have the same resource ID in them, you will have a conflict between them. In this case you either have to pick which one you prefer or figure out what each mod does in the conflicting resource, and then make your own mod that incorporates the things that both of the mods do to that resource.

Another potential downside is that this app might be displaying the various "deprecated tunings" in each resource but not highlighting them in any way. So you might think you're changing a current tuning when in fact you're changing a deprecated tuning. (Maybe the app author is just outright hiding the deprecated tuning values, but I can't tell from the supplied screenshot.) If you rely on a change to a deprecated tuning, one of two things will happen: A) nothing at all, or B) in some future patch your mod will stop working correctly because the underlying logic that uses the deprecated value was finally changed/removed. BTW "deprecated" in the programming sense means "do not use this value any more--it might work for now but we're planning on removing it eventually".

-------

A tool that would be incredibly useful to the *user* community would be one that can trawl every subdirectory in your Mods\Packages folder, open each .package file and write the resource IDs used in each package file to a text file output (or screen output/report/etc). Even better if the program can automatically highlight any conflicting resources that it finds in all the mod files that it opens and tell you exactly with .package files have the conflicting resources.

Such a tool would make it very easy for all users to tell whether that shiny new mod they'd like to download and install will bork their game or not. Right now, only the folks who are actually comfortable using S3PE (namely, the modders) can suss out potential mod conflicts.
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