mysims-mod

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skin tone update for the cozy bundle dropped the other day and i want to talk about it but my mental is ill rn 🥲

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Skintone Fixes for MySims Kingdom

Cozy Bundle

In the original MySims; Dr. F, Liberty, Morcubus, Rosalyn, and Yuki all had tan skin, but were whitewashed and given pale skin in MySims Kingdom. Even now, 17 years later, with the release of the Cozy Bundle, all five of them are still whitewashed.

The Cozy Bundle makes it very easy to make and install texture mods, so I have created a mod to fix this problem.

Previews and download below the cut

This mod comes in 2-3 different flavors depending on the sim.

All sims come with 'Kingdom Style', matching the vanilla tan skin in MySims Kingdom, as well as 'OG Style' based off the tan skin from the original MySims.

I also made a 'Custom Style' for Morcubus and Yuki, with a cooler skin tone to match the gloomy vibes of Spookane.

This mod will replace their in-game textures as well as their profile icons.

Installation instructions are included in the 'READ ME' file in the download zip.

• Download •

SimFileShare

Please note this is not compatible with the Nintendo Switch version of the Cozy Bundle!

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cooking...

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In Sims games, MySims included. Any assets for Sims will have a short abbreviation in front of its filename to denote what age group and gender that particular asset is meant for.

In MySims we have:

A = Adult (There's only one age group in MySims so this doesn't matter all that much tbh)

F = Female

M = Male

U = Unisex

So with that in mind.

what did EA mean by this exactly?

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this feels like a threat

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texture replacements are extremely simple

what do you mean the MySims Cozy Bundle PC release just has the textures hanging out and not in an archive

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what do you mean the MySims Cozy Bundle PC release just has the textures hanging out and not in an archive

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MySims Modloader is here!!

ThuverX alongside some other members of the community have been working on cracking MySims modding wide open and recently the first version of the MySims Modloader has been released!

It's really exciting to see how far modding has come for this game, and I can't wait to see what comes next!

You can visit the GitHub page linked above for a download and instructions on making some mods!

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Unused Essences - Part 2

As I mentioned at the beginning of Part 1. I originally wanted to discuss everything in only one post, but because I hit the 30 image limit. I had to split it into two.

If you haven't yet, you can read Part 1 right here.

So without further fanfare, here's the rest. Below the cut again.

It’s fish. Just fish

Now this is where the unused essences start to get… even less complete than what we have seen this far. While there is a flair model leftover, and even a palette of paints. That palette is incomplete, It has a patterned paint swatch, but only one. The second pattern swatch is black, pure complete blackness. And the rest are pure white like the other essences we have discussed.

Now while I have been showing a render of the swatches up to this point, I do think it is worth showing how it looks in-game as well. Because what would be the second patterned swatch is instead completely pitch black.

It’s also worth mentioning that the one (1) swatch we do have is very similar to the rainbow trout swatch visible in-game. In-fact they are virtually identical to one another.

Sad Bear is an interesting case, while every essence that we have looked at so far has had some paints and text tied to it, this one does not. The only thing that remains is this very cute looking flair model.

We don’t know exactly what this would have been. It’s possible that this was just an earlier form of the final sad essence, but we don’t have any definitive evidence, leaving this one as a bit of a mystery.

Burn is another even more interesting one, and is more mysterious than Sad Bear. 

This one is unique in that it does not have any leftover text, or even a flair model, but it does have two full pattern swatches. But this is even more interesting, with everything discussed before, the Material Sets that allow the paints to appear in-game could be brute forced and loaded in the PC version with no problems, this however cannot.

As a result, whether or not there are any flat paints to accompany the palette is completely unknown.

Ok hear me out on this one.

This last one is just the Cherry Blossom essence. Except under the name of Apple Blossom. Every bit of text, every paint swatch, every everything is the exact same as the final Cherry Blossom, but with ‘appleblossom’ as its internal name. However in the actual text that is displayed in-game, it is still referred to as Cherry Blossom.

Interestingly, while the duplicate textures remain in the game’s files. The material set to actually make them appear in-game seems to no longer exist. Creating another Burn essence situation, where they can’t be seen in-game.

Although it would probably just be a duplicate of the Cherry Blossom’s set as well.

It is worth noting that there are also a few other models in the game files bearing the Apple Blossom name, but none of them follow the standard convention for essence models which is ‘flairEssenceName’, but they do at least provide an alternative idea of what an Apple Blossom essence could have looked like.

And with that, these have been almost all of the unused essences in MySims. But believe it or not, there are still more unused essences to talk about! A whopping 27 that I could find at the time I’m writing this.

However they are… much less interesting compared to the ones discussed today. These have all had some kind of interesting leftover attached to them, whether that’s a model, textures, or text. But these remaining essences on the other hand…

Are comprised entirely out of very basic placeholder assets, which make them not very interesting to look at in comparison.

I do want to talk about them at some point in the near future though, and I can say with certainty that it will be before 2032!

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Unused Essences - Part 1

Seven(!) years ago I wrote about the unused Hedgehog essence and mentioned that there was one other noteworthy unused essence to write about at a later date. It is now later.

But in the seven(!) years since I wrote that post, I discovered a whopping six(!) more unused essences that were previously unknown! I won’t be saving those for later though, I don’t want to wait until 2032! 😩

I originally wanted to do this all in one post. But I hit the 30 image power post limit! So instead I am splitting this into two parts. Part 1 will cover two essences that were previously known but I hadn’t written about here as well as two new unused essences and how these new discoveries were made. Part 2 will cover the remaining four new unused essences.

This is still going to be a long one, so without further ado, here’s Part 1 below the cut.

So first up we have Wood! Just wood.

This essence itself isn’t technically unused. But it isn’t accessible like other essences.

When building an object in the workshop in addition to using essences as paint, you also have access to a “default” swatch.

This is treated by the game as an essence of its very own, complete with its own DEF file and a unique <IsDefault> tag not seen in other essences. 

By copying most of its properties over to a brand new essence file, it can be used like a normal essence!

The only things of note though is the flair model and the icons which are otherwise unused and never seen by the player.

The flair icon, strangely enough, is the same as the paint icons that can be seen in-game. The paint icon showcases an earlier style where they resembled actual paint pallets, as seen in some early footage.

The paint icon also showcases an earlier set of textures they planned to use. Unfortunately the textures for these no longer exist in the files though.

Fun fact about the wood essence model, is that it can be seen in some different early footage. Which is pretty neat!

Next up we have the Acorn, an actual unused essence.

This essence does not have any leftover data, and has to be reconstructed to be accessible in-game. Something that will have to be done for all of the remaining essences to discuss.

By copying and modifying an existing essence file, we can load it up in-game and see that it has a paint set! Sort of. The two patterned swatches work, while the flat swatches are pure white, just like the hedgehog essence.

There’s also a flair model leftover as well! Giving us a good look at what the Acorn essence would have looked like if it was finished.

These are the essences that have been known about already, in fact they have been on the Cutting Room Floor page for several years now. But these next five essences were completely unknown even to myself until just recently. But before I discuss the next few essences, let me explain how I was able to find them in the first place.

These new discoveries were actually made possible thanks to the Cozy Bundle, after “obtaining” a copy of the game, I was able to dump the ROMF, and look through all of the files. From there using Switch Toolbox, I could export all of the new HD textures to regular .PNG files, and amazingly enough, the original file names were intact!

Amazingly enough, all of the essences received new high-resolution textures, even though they are unused. Which is what I will be using for this blog post because seeing these in high resolution is just so much more pleasing to the eye.

Previous methods of dumping textures from the 2008 PC version of MySims did not retain the original file names. While all of the files necessary for these few next essences are inside the 2008 PC version, since the file names were unknown, they couldn’t be reimplemented, until now of course.

This little guy, called ‘applewood’, has a full paint set with fully working flat swatches unlike the previous essences, making it more complete than the other essences discussed so far.

There is also a paint icon leftover! But no flair icon to be seen…

Now internally while it’s referred to as ‘applewood’ the leftover text strings refer to it as ‘Light Wood’ instead, suggesting it was either an earlier incarnation of the final Light Wood essence, or had its original text strings overridden before a new entry made was made for the final Light Wood essence.

This next one is called ‘oakwood’, and with this one we’re back to only having two full pattern swatches and pure white flats.

But thanks to a leftover paint icon, we do know what they would have looked like. And it's brown and beige.

Interestingly this also has the same quirk as Applewood, where internally it is referred to as ‘oakwood’ but the leftover text strings refer to it as ‘Dark Wood’. Suggesting it was either an earlier incarnation of the final Dark Wood essence, or had its original text strings overridden before a new entry was made for the final Dark Wood essence.

Unfortunately This is where I have to cut off for Part 1.

Part 2 will have even more unused essences to discuss, and they get much, much more interesting from here.

You can read Part 2 here.

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so the post that im working on has a lot of images, and i want to provide as much context as i can, but that context requires images

so either i split the post into two, or i consolidate images where i can, im not a fan of either option bc i want it to be a comprehensive resource of some interesting finds, and splitting it up would make it more cumbersome in the far future to access. im not a fan of consolidating images either since i want people to be able to take them and use them wherever they like

😩

tumblr is clipping my wings with this 30 image per post limit...

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tumblr is clipping my wings with this 30 image per post limit...

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promise i am still working!

i just found several more things while putting together my research

enjoy Fish for now

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I promise I am working on some new stuff to share with all of you!

In the meantime though here’s a little preview of some new findings.

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guess who’s been having some fun with the Cozy Bundle… 👀

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i should be playing the cozy bundle rn BUT MY COPY WON'T ARRIVE UNTIL MONDAY I HATE THIS COUNTRY