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fellowstrangetownappreciator · 3 years

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The Strange Case of The Strangetown Metamorphosis

There is a mysterious Sim that appears in Strangetown.

That's like saying "there is a fish that appears in the ocean", I know, so I'll be a little more specific.

They are an adult whose memories show inconsistencies with those of their family members. Something is missing!

Alright. That's also not saying much, that's like half of the premades in vanilla, non-clean hoods.

They are immediately recognizable by their appearance and, dare I say it, have distinguishing features unique to them.

Well, that also kinda fits everyone...

They feature in more than one installment of the series.

Again, not that helpful. I mean, almost everybody from the base game hoods is (for better or worse) represented in TS3 or TS4.

They appear in TS2 for PSP!

Hmm...

They are a member of a wealthy family connected to science and paranormal.

And...

They are somehow connected to (possible) cloning.

I imagine that now you’re probably rolling your eyes and asking: Why didn’t I just simply say I was going to talk about Bella Goth?

Because... I’m not!

It’s Loki Beaker. In this mini-essay I’m going to speak about Loki, what is the mystery around him, what hints are there and what are some of the theories and which one do I fancy.

It’s basically a routine round of the popular game “connect EAxis’ oversights and glue them together into a headcanon”.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to:

The Mystery of Loki Beaker!

0: Preface: Loki who?

“As soon as he perfects his latest invention, Loki is sure to get the recognition he knows he deserves. In the meantime, he keeps himself busy by trying to assemble a nuclear reactor out of common household items.”

On the first glance, Loki as a Sim seems quite straightforward. He is a Knowledge Sim with a very eccentric personality. All his trait points are in the extremes, as you can see:

He is a scientist, a competent one at that, as proven by his high career level and the fun fact that some of the game’s horrible machinery you can buy for Aspiration points is attributed to his creation.

(It explains why are the Beakers the only ones who have the stuff lying around by default. It is normal for a Strangetown family to own a non-buyable reward object or two but those are career rewards, the Beakers are the only one who canonically own Aspiration points rewards.)

Even though he knows his stuff when it comes to his profession, he is very corrupt and tests his questionable projects on his captive, Nervous Subject.

To say that Loki is unpopular would be an understatement. No one but his wife Circe likes Loki, even his own sister is indifferent towards him. Yes, he has a sister. Her name is Erin and she also lives in Strangetown with a colorful collection of roommates.

Nothing mysterious about him so far. (apart from his eyebrows)

1: Characterization fallen apart

And then The Sims 3 happened. It was actually quite late into the game’s life cycle, the early 2013, when a beautiful nordic-themed world was released on TS3 Store. Its name was Aurora Skies and it featured Loki, Erin and their parents.

TS3 Loki is a child and Erin is a toddler.

Now I haven’t actually played Aurora Skies. I own (and love) TS3 but the price range for the Store worlds is too high for me, content-to-money wise. So there might be some hidden clues about the Beakers in their house or relationship panels that I haven’t been able to inspect but... not to sound cynical but I doubt it. I doubt such attention was given to detail of this family in Aurora Skies, as they don’t even have individual bios.

But... that is... fine? I mean, we have Loki’s TS2 bio...

Nope. Sure we do. And it would be fine if hair color and ambitions weren’t the only thing Loki and his younger self (from now on referred to as smol Loki) had in common.

Let’s take a look on smol Loki’s personality.

The first noticeable thing is that there is not a trace of Loki’s trademark villainy. He’s not Mean Spirited, he’s not Evil, he’s not even a No Sense of Humor Sim. His extreme neatness and hyperactivity are nowhere to be seen either. While it is true that TS3′s capabilities of defining personality are very limited as it picks “outstanding points” rather than a position of each trait on a scale, and it only has 5 slots (and tiny teeny 3 for children), it doesn’t make any sense still for the devs not to pick some more loki-esque traits for the precious slots they had.

Unless...

They didn’t care about Loki’s personality and there were no deeper intentions.

Unless the devs were trying to purposefully show us new angles of his character that either got suppressed while he was growing up, or manifest in ways that TS2′s scale system wasn’t able to show.

Could the Lucky trait in particular have had something to do with the change?

(Also, those traits of smol Loki are reason why I usually go for a Family Secondary Loki in TS2 and thus make Strangetown the purgatory of two unstable blonde Knowledge/Family sciency guys.)

We also must not omit that even though smol Loki didn’t display any of them, he still had all of Loki’s signature traits in him, as Loki in TS2 has his actual personality synced with the genetic one, meaning that there was something in there that caused him not to act so mean that got lost as he grew up. In other words, something brought up the worst in him.

And that’s not all. Smol Loki is not a regular TS3 child. You see, in TS3, premade children aren’t particularly known for being highly skilled experts. Neither are in TS2, for that matter, and it’s okay. It’s realistic.

Smol Loki has a skill maxed.

It is very rare for a premade regardless of age to already start with a maxed skill and I personally don’t know of any other premade children that do.

And it’s writing.

What does writing have to do with Loki? Does Loki write? Probably he has to, those academic papers aren’t gonna spawn out of thin air, but that’s not what the writing skill in TS3 (or the hidden writing skill in TS2) are about. They’re about creative writing only.

Ok, ok. How high is Loki’s Creativity skill, then? In TS2, skills are much broader, they more resemble skillsets than individual skills, and writing categorizes under Creativity. Bring out the skill panel!

Two. He has 2 points in Creativity. That is... low. That is actually very low, especially for a Sim that has supposedly been writing for fun since childhood. (and was a prodigy, while we’re at it) It is safe to say, I think, that if the player doesn’t make him do it, Loki doesn’t write anymore and he hasn’t been doing that for a long, long time.

While I would cynically admit that the dissonance in personalities might be just the lack of damns given from EAxis’ side, this seems to me too on the nose to be unintentional.

They would have no reason to bring the Beakers back without the “evil scientists” thing in mind. I mean, that’s what they’re iconic for. That’s what they’re recognizable by. (apart from their eyebrows)

So the person who was in charge of creating smol Loki probably knew they were recreating “Loki the mad scientist”.

So when they were picking the skill they use to demonstrate that this kid is gonna go far, they thought... “evil scientist = writing”...?

I would understand going for Creativity in general. I mean, Loki’s an inventor. That comes with the territory. But creativity as such isn’t really a skill in TS3. It’s divided to different activities.

Wouldn’t it make more sense just in general to pick logic, then? I mean, Loki isn’t that extremely logical by default but it is his second strongest skill and a feature unmistakably connected to being a scientist.

That’s what leads me to believe that writing plays a role in the story and it was chosen on purpose.

So how did a sweet little family-oriented boy talented with words transform into the ruthless catboy inventor we know and love?

And that, my friends, is the mystery of Loki Beaker.

2: A closer look at our environmentalist friends, the Beakers

If we want to get the full picture and come to a satisfying conclusion of some sorts, we need to inspect smol Loki’s surroundings. Maybe there is a clue to the continuous force or a traumatic event that shifted smol Loki’s direction in life?

Loki’s and Erin’s parents are named Gundrun and Bjorn. Even though their age would still allow it, they’re not present at the start of TS2′s Strangetown play, they’re long dead. Bjorn died before Erin became an adult and Gundrun died shortly before her son’s engagement to Circe. Because they died by the time Loki had (presumably) already long enrolled in his current life-path, we can safely rule out any tragic early death of parental figures scenario as a possible answer.

Gundrun is the only Beaker that canonically also writes. She has 5 points in the writing skill. She also shares some traits with Loki, namely the smarts and ambition.

But she has little to do with science and is way more business-oriented which is a trait she shares with Circe’s ancestors, for example her father. Maybe the families knew each other from business ventures even before they moved to Strangetown? It is stated in their memories that Loki and Circe first met when they were children. But I digress!

Anyway, I don’t see anything in Gundrun that would suggest any abusive behavior towards her son that might have triggered his drastic change. Possibly but not necessarily she might’ve been a bit absent but nothing out of ordinary.

And now the father, Bjorn.

Bjorn is the sciency half of the couple and works as an Aquatic Ecosystem Tweaker. Again, he has zero traits that would raise any red flags and he shares 4 out of 5 traits with either smol Loki or Loki. (I don’t know if Loki is a “natural cook” but he cooks quite well, so I think that counts.)

What’s interesting about Bjorn, though, is his speech that serves as a flavor text for the Aurora Skies store page.

(Image transcript: “Do it for science! Science is everywhere around us, but at Aurora Skies it’s not just something you learn; it’s something you do! We need bright young minds to make the dreams of the future a reality. Even now we’re finding more uses for garbage to help the planet. Charging batteries, powering machines - the sky is the limit. Just this last year we created a modified Hot Air Baloon using garbage as fuel and turning it into pure air with a pine breeze scent. Now you can have efficient travel and an amazing romantic adventure with no cost to the ozone (or your nose)! Every year we’re creating more and more exciting things in the world of science. Garbage-powered hearts, heart-powered cars, solar-powered cats; what will you think of next! It’s all up to you. Do it for Science! Did you know? Hot Air Balloons are an epic form of travel based around the simple principle that hot air is lighter than cold air. They lift in the air based on the heat system in the balloon. Increasing the temperature of the air inside the balloon makes it lighter than the air outside and the balloon begins to float. More air is required to lift heavier things; that’s why the balloons have to be so huge! How cool (or hot!) is that?”)

From this piece of text we can see Bjorn’s passion and dedication to “green” science. Nothing in his traits suggests he fakes it, so I think it’s safe to believe that this peppy idealist is a glimpse into Loki’s father’s genuine self.

He might have encouraged his children to follow in his footsteps (”We need bright young minds to make the dreams of the future a reality.“) and smol Loki, who later in life seemed to have similar levels of enthusiasm (science is his One True Hobby), might have been receptive to that.

Now just close your eyes for a second and imagine an alternate reality in which Loki picked up where Bjorn left and instead of a energy-refilling machine that electrocutes you if you’re not happy enough, he invented “solar-powered cats”.

Still no hints on what could’ve messed Loki up, though.

Let’s take a look at the parents in TS2. Even though they’re not present and aren’t even resurrectable, they’re still coded in the game for purposes of genetics, memories and family trees, so some of their characteristics are salvageable.

And by the Watcher, they were both Romance Sims.

They were workaholic Romance Sims who cared about the environment and liked recycling (and Hot Baloons).

And they were both extremely Nice and very Sloppy, if their personalities on wiki are something to go by. Which they unfortunately aren’t, at least not completely because most ancestors don’t simply have “their own” personalities and use presets instead, so they tend to be quite similar.

The same goes for most of the Beaker clan, unfortunately. Fun fact is that there is no Knowledge Sim in sight (before Loki, of course). Maybe they weren’t a scientist family, but a bunch of Romance Sims who used to spend their free time in between woohoos saving the planet with eco-science. (3 out of 6 of Loki’s and Erin’s ancestors were Romance Sims, 2 were Fortune and 1 was Family)

But! There is one outlier. Her name is Gertrude Beaker. She is Loki’s paternal grandmother.

And similarly to her grandson, she certainly has a personality to remember.

She doesn’t use a preset, this is a personality that someone went and manually assigned (...or generated) for her. And she is Neat, Outgoing and doesn’t have a nice bone in her body. But unlike Loki, she has a sense of humor (which makes her even more dangerous, in my opinion) and is extremely Lazy.

She is a Fortune Sim and the only Beaker who shares the darker sides of Loki’s personality. (to be clear, I don’t mean their taste for cleaning but the round 0 of Nice points)

Because she doesn’t feature in TS3 at all, it is safe to say that she wasn’t in her grandchildren’s lives until the family moved to Strangetown. Could she be the corrupting influence on smol Loki?

As far as personality comparison goes, she seems to be the only possible culprit, the only one who’s personality shares the same unpleasant qualities he became infamous for. But! That’s not saying much. There is no evidence she actually did anything.

There’s not even any evidence that she ever met her grandson, given he has no memory of her dying which means she might have died before he was even born. That would be a solid evidence on the contrary and would rule her out. But I’m leaving some maneuvering space for theories here because she is the only Beaker ancestor with custom personality, after all, and that is suspicious.

That’s all the Beakers we know of if not counting Atom and Ceres, who came after Loki, so they’re not relevant to the question of his childhood. Or... are they?

3: And that’s when the trouble began

Another part of this question that might help us discern what happened to Loki is the when. All we know so far is that there is a big void of unknown between smol Loki and regular Loki and the point of transformation happened in there somewhere.

Thankfully, we have something to give us an idea. It’s this snapshot in storytelling pictures for the Beakers:

It shows smol Loki destroying a dollhouse. It seems to be in an impersonal environment of some sorts. The cheapest bed in the game is against a bare white wall, the window is hid behind blue curtains and there doesn’t really seem to be anything else but the dollhouse, a teddy bear in the background and that... very unpleasant bed.

It clearly tells us that Loki’s shift started in his pre-teen years.

And seeing that room which is definitely not in the Beaker Castle at 1 Tesla Court, it makes me think of a hotel or a cheap apartment the family was staying in while moving from Aurora Skies to Strangetown. Maybe the castle-like something the household inhabits at the start of the game wasn’t a property of the Beakers at all, maybe that was where the Salamises used to live and now it belongs to Circe?

Anyway, could it had been leaving Aurora Skies that sent smol Loki down an existential crisis and settling in the not exactly welcoming environment of Strangetown, enrolling in a local school, that sealed it?

But why all the stuff with writing? This would work with any other hobby but somehow it had to be writing and it’s our task to find out why.

4: Not your average tragedy

Now in our search we already have some ideas but it wouldn’t be thorough if we didn’t take into account smol Loki’s actual personality. I mean, we went into what traits he doesn’t have but what about those he has?

Namely Lucky and Family-Oriented.

I think Lucky is a very interesting choice. There’s nothing inherent about Loki Beaker that would make you go “that’s one lucky guy!” (if you don’t count his relationship with Circe as a stroke of luck, that is) and the same goes for smol Loki.

But... it could be a clue. His metamorphosis either couldn’t be triggered by trauma because he’s lucky and it would avoid him, or it must’ve been something tremendously horrid so he’s lucky he’s still alive.

Now we know we are searching for something that happened in his late childhood, verging on the start of his teenage years. His family was going through the turmoil of moving to a desert and he has already known his future partner Circe. Meanwhile Erin-

Oh, wait. Erin.

Smol Loki was Family-Oriented which implies he would probably have a good relationship with his little sister, as he would’ve naturally inclined to protect her and help his parents take care of her. But!

Not only do they have an amicable but distant relationship as adults but Erin seems to forget that Loki even existed in her childhood.

He has the usual set of memories of a sibling growing up well but she doesn’t, she has no Loki-related memories at all, not even of his marriage, which was a quite recent event.

Could the reason for Loki’s “downfall” be somehow related to his sister? Was there a dramatic event in which she lost a part of her memory?

5: Theories!

Ok, we’re finally here! Now I try to present some theories about what might’ve happened.

1. Burdens of the golden child

In Aurora Skies, Loki used to be the little wonder every relative was gushing about. With his father as an acclaimed scientist and a very liked person in general, there was little to no adversity his son had to face. He followed his passion and having nobody to really compare himself to, nor anybody who would terrorize him, he prospered.

But then the Beakers moved. Strangetown was... different. It was way smaller than Aurora Skies, so everybody inherently knew everybody and everybody had to interact with everybody... because the small space of a desert community didn’t leave them with any choice. And it was bleak and unfriendly. No one except for the Salamises knew the Beakers, so they found themselves under scrutiny from their new neighbors.

So Loki, who used to live thinking he was unique, was now sitting everyday in a much smaller classroom with Pascal and Vidcund Curious, whom he was immediately being compared to. But he wasn’t like the Curiouses. He was a kid of a scientist but wasn’t a science kid. He didn’t have much in common with Pascal who approached him and tried to befriend him at first but he wanted to. In Strangetown, nothing seemed to be cooler than being really, really into science. Pascal’s and Loki’s communication attempts were rather poor, though, and in the end, they never made friends. Loki slowly began to disdain the oldest Curious boy and it culminated a few years later in high school when Pascal made an attempt to woo Circe. It was even worse with Vidcund. Ever since Loki’s first day at the new school, Vidcund had been eyeing him with a disgusted look and Loki became quick to reciprocate.

In Strangetown, nothing seemed to be cooler than being really, really into science. Even Circe was on it! She was the only person his age he has know in Strangetown before his family moved in and he liked her. Not “like” liked her, yuck! But he thought she was cool. Her family used to visit the Beakers in Aurora Skies and they played together. She was a friend! Or so Loki thought. She seemed to like hanging out with the Curiouses much more.

In Strangetown, nothing seemed to be cooler than being really, really into science, yes. But not in the eyes of Buzz Grunt, the son of a general who lived in Strangetown. Their family were the self-proclaimed protectors of the hood but at the same time they weren’t shy to show a strong distaste for all that made Strangetown an important desert settlement in the first place. And little Buzz, although Loki doubted he understood the nuances, was very fond of asserting his dominance over his less sporty and hyper-masculine classmates.

Suddenly jealous of the Curious brothers, under pressure from both the adults and his peers comparing him to them and bullied by Buzz, Loki’s social life fell apart. He started having problems... and he came up with solutions. He has always liked science but from back then on he hyperfixated on it to prove everybody who picked on him for being a worthless parody of a science kid wrong.

Not only his social life and self-confidence were busted, though. Moving away from Aurora Skies to Strangetown that had much higher prices for housing because of the limited space, the living standards for the Beakers lowered. It was chaotic and uncomfortable. Plus, almost everybody in Strangetown was loaded. Why, Circe and her parents lived in a small castle! Loki felt like they’re the only “poor” family around and it played into his new-found insecurities.

And then there was Erin’s accident. She suffered a severe head injury and even though she fortunately survived, she was never... the same. She had issues with her memory. Loki tried to convince himself that he’s big enough not to cry but when they were visiting Erin in the hospital and she didn’t recognize him, he cried. It was his little sister! And... it was all his fault anyway! If he was quicker and pushed her to safety, she would’ve been fine! Or even better, he wished the car would’ve hit him instead.

Loki was becoming more and more snappy, focused on his grades and projects, unavailable. The siblings never mended their relationship, Erin, even though she recovered, never got to make new memories with her brother. Not remembering them growing up together, he was like a stranger to her. A scary mean teenage boy she didn’t know and, even though she was a very friendly child, she was too intimidated to willingly spend time with him. And Loki was always busy and moreover, he felt guilty and inexplicably angry, so he postponed approaching her, until it was too late, he was in college, she was in high school and it was too awkward.

And... there was no time to write anymore.

2. Gertrude the Neat and Mean (and Lazy)

Ok, Loki doesn’t have any memories of his grandma. But hear me out! Erin does not have any of him either and yet they met. This theory doesn't require any additional write up – he simply got under the influence of his 0 Nice points granny and she cultivated him to be just like her.

My personal take: This is maybe my least favorite theory of them all, even though it is quite straightforward. It doesn't take much into consideration and demonizes Gertrude, who as far as we know, might not done anything wrong.

3. The accident

This theory takes advantage of TS3's canon sciency machinery, namely Cerebralizing Brain Enhancing Machine 2.0.

It can, among other things, change a Sim's personality. There is (quite unfortunately, in my opinion) no chance of consequential failure in the actual game, the most it can do is to (non-fatally) electrocute your Sim. But...

Imagine smol Loki sneaking into his dad's laboratory, most probably at his workplace.

He was curious. Ever since his father showed him all the equipment in there, all he could think of was the machine that made people smarter.

Maybe it could make him smarter?

I mean, Loki knew he was already quite smart. At least, he's been told he was and he had no reason not to believe it.

But he could be even smarter.

He could be like his dad. Or his mom. Or Erin. Everyone was talking about how clever young Erin seemed. Loki was proud of her but part of him just wanted that, too.

So what if... he went to dad's laboratory, just for a little while, and made himself smarter?

He made all the necessary preparations. It meant to memorize dad’s schedule, so he knew just the time when he could sneak into the laboratory. It also meant to get a good costume so he won’t be recognizable on the security footage!

And then finally, he was ready. To infiltrate the laboratory was easy enough but it only made Loki more nervous. He was on the edge but determined. He wanted to make it big in the world. He needed to seize the opportunity. And fear... fear was there to be ignored! Hands, stop trembling!

His confidence grew a bit once he got to the machine itself. He knew how to run it thanks to his dad and it made him feel competent and ready.

Little did he know that there was a huge oversight. Although Loki could operate the technology on a very basic level, his knowledge went nowhere near deep enough for him to detect that the machine has yet another set of settings and those currently expect an adult user. It wasn’t configured for a child patient.

But unaware of that, the boy in his patchy dinosaur costume climbed on top of the machine and with his eyes wide open and his heart racing he connected the Brain Enhancer to his system. Then, with his hand sweating, he pushed a button on a remote he was clutching to.

When Bjorn, alerted by Loki’s screams, rushed into the laboratory, it was way too late.

As his terrified father was calling the ambulance, the child was alive and even still awake. He was too weak to cry. He just watched Bjorn, wishing for death and looking for signs of wrath in father’s eyes.

There were none. Only fear.

Physically, Loki Beaker managed to recover just fine. With the power of advanced medicine and plastic surgery, the burns he suffered were reduced to nothing but almost invisible scars.

But inside, he was never the same. Literally. Even though the procedure backfired horribly, it still worked to some extend - but even that extend was warped. Loki succeeded in giving himself the Genius trait but several of his traits were replaced also, including the Lucky trait that probably saved his life.

6: Conclusion!

I like Loki very much. (no sh*t, who would’ve guessed) He’s a very controversial and over-the-top character who tends to be rather unpredictable in the actual gameplay. I started writing this giant thing to find an answer to his backstory that would satisfy me and hopefully also some of you.

With a heavy heart I conclude I’m not successful.

First I have to admit I originally planned to present 5 theories instead of 3 but I scrapped 2 of them.

First was about Atom time traveling and replacing Loki, creating himself again and again in a time loop (would explain the huge personality difference between smol Loki and Loki-Atom) and it was very far-fetched but fun, alas I realized it was out of character for Atom, since he seems to love his sister and his Plumbot so much he would hardly leave them behind to pull that off.

The second was about Nervous and the corrupting power of Death he has inside that would slowly drive Loki and Circe “evil” even though it’s unclear whether they first adopted him with being a lab-rat in mind. But it would not make sense since a change like that would be visible on their personality panels. That’s not that important, though. What made me not include this theory is that it feels uncomfortably victim blame-y. It’s not directly since it wouldn’t be Nervous’ fault anyway but any attempt to shift the blame from Loki and Circe in this situation feels uncomfortable.

(To be clear, I don’t think the Beakers deserve demonization. In my opinion, the best way to treat them narrative-wise is like eccentric people capable of feeling love and doing good things sometimes, yet irredeemably self-centered, morally bankrupt and deserving a lifetime in jail for child abuse they have done on Nervous. Not one-dimensional but still villains and still objectively bad people.)

And those 3 theories above? They could’ve been better.

I think I like the first the most, even though I still feel like something is missing. I just tend to like relatively grounded explanations and this one doesn’t feature the supernatural nor any deus ex machina gadget.

What about you? And do you have any other theories? Sky’s the limit! It’ll make my day to hear them!

Whatever your takes are, they’re all valid.

#loki beaker #strangetown #premades #the sims 2 #the sims #simbrl #headcanon #ts2

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cidira · 3 years

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How to Update TS4 Custom Skin Colors for Patch 1.69 with Sims4Studio

EDIT 12/22/2020: S4S has updated with a batchfix and several other related improvements; so I’ll be updating this post soon to focus more on editing already-fixed files (and to update the names of the fields).

You can use this method to update any non-default custom skin COLORS, as well as defaults that are not texture-only (but not any other type of skin-related custom content, and not texture-only defaults which already needed updating after the October patch), that do not work after the December 2020 skintone patch. (This is particularly relevant to Macintosh users who can’t use CmarNYC’s automated tools, or to people who just want to do it themselves at least once so they have a better idea what’s under the hood.)

You can also use this method to change whether custom skin colors that already work in the game show up as Warm, Neutral, Cool, or Miscellaneous, or to change the values of the light-dark sliders on custom skin colors. (This is particularly relevant to people who have downloaded a creator’s own updated version of their custom skin colors, but have totally different ideas about where they should appear in CAS.)

It’s possible S4S may later add prettier GUI tools for at least some of this process. If so, I’ll update to mention it.

I am going to assume that you have some basic familiarity with Sims4Studio and not tell you how to open a package file in it. Skintone packages don’t have the Studio tab, only the Warehouse. You’ll see something like this (which is the upper left part of the S4S window):

(You might also see other resource types, but in this tutorial I’m only working with the things that say SKINTONE. This tutorial also doesn’t cover updating RLE2 image resources to LRLE, which may be necessary in some cases, as there are already multuple good tutorials on how to do that.)

There will be one Skintone resource for each skin color in your package. (That could be quite a few.) You’ll need to follow these steps for each one, or any that you skip won’t show up in game. (If you click on the Type header, it will sort the contents of the package file by type so that all the Skintone resources are together in the list.)

The fields inside the Skintone resources (and resources in general) are listed in alphabetical order in S4S, so we’ll update them in alphabetical order. Click on the first Skintone resource you want to edit, and here’s what you’ll look for next:

The F1-F3 fields are the slider values. (EA hasn’t shared the technical specs for the new version of the CASPart resource yet, so we don’t know what their proper names are.) You don’t have to change them to make the skin color work, but you do have to change them to make the slider work; sliders with no values are not disabled, but work poorly. If you’re fixing the skin color for the first time, all the numbers I highlighted in yellow will be zeroes before you change them. Unless you specifically want to fool around with these values, you should set them exactly as shown, which is the same way that EA skin colors are set.

If you do want to fool around with them, F1 is the minimum value, F2 is the maximum value, and F3 is the increment the slider moves by. If you want a larger or smaller range, you can try things like setting F1 to -0.07 and F2 to 0.07 (bigger) or setting F1 to -0.03 and F2 to 0.03 (smaller). Beyond that, you can experiment as much as you want; you can’t break anything in a way that can’t be fixed by changing them back to the EA values.

Next you’ll want to scroll down near the bottom of the Skintone resource, where you’ll see a section like this:

We need to make sure all three of these fields are updated. Unlike the sliders, these are needed for the skin color to show up at all.

TanFlags might already be set to 3, since it was introduced in Island Living and your skin colors may have already been updated for that. If it is not, change it.

U1 is the field that determines whether each skin color shows up as Warm (U1 = 1), Neutral (2), Cool (3), or Miscellaneous (4). THIS AFFECTS GENETICS. If both parents have Warm, Neutral, or Cool skin colors, then their kids will have skin colors based on, but not necessarily identical to, their skin colors. (More on that in a bit.) If at least one parent has a Miscellaneous skin color, then their kids will get the same skin color as one parent or the other.

Version tells the game which version of the Skintone resource the skin color is using, and must be set to 0000000B.

Once you’ve changed everything, save your package file for safety, then start over with the next Skintone resource and continue until done.

Re: genetics, my info is based on my own testing in CAS. Also, which skin color kids whose parents all have Warm/Neutral/Cool skin colors get is based on both those values and how light or dark the game thinks each color is is.

If Sim A has the lightest warm skin color and Sim B has the darkest warm skin color, then their kids could have any warm skin color, but not a neutral or cool one. If Sim A has the darkest warm skin color and Sim B has the lightest neutral skin color, their kids could have any warm or neutral skin color. If Sim A has a fairly light cool skin color and Sim B has a very light neutral skin color, their kids could have any cool or neutral skin color that is fairly to very light. You can probably extrapolate from there, or do some of your own testing. A warm/cool pair does not appear produce any kids with neutral skin colors, so neutral doesn’t seem to be considered a middle point between warm and cool.

Miscellaneous skin colors don’t participate in this system because the EA Misc colors for humans alone include green, blue, red, blue-white, and a small range of greys. It’s just straight up one parent’s skin color or the other.

Telling the game to put a skin color in the Warm/Neutral/Cool bins does not necessarily mean that the game will correctly understand how light or dark the skin color is. I have not played with this in the game yet (and EA’s own ordering of swatches doesn’t seem perfectly based on light/dark value either, though it’s clearly at least approximately based on it), but I have some ideas about it. If I learn anything useful later, I might add it, or make and link a separate tutorial.

That’s all I’ve got! At least 95% of the important information in this post came from conversations with CmarNYC, who I’m pretty sure knows at least as much about CAS content in TS4 as anybody else who doesn’t work for EA. I just wrote it up and added screenshots to it.

Let me know if there’s anything in here that is unclear, or if you run into something that doesn’t match with the info here, and I’ll try to clarify/investigate. I’m also often hanging around on the Creator Musings Discord (as are many other people who may be able to help, that’s what it’s for!) since Tumblr is (still) a terrible way to have a conversation.

#the sims 4 #ts4 #s4cc #ts4cc

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sympxls · 7 years

Text

TS4 CC Basics 101

😍 😍 😍 😍 “Oooooooohhhhh look at that. That’s perfect/pretty/gorgeous!!! I must have this in my game!!”

If you are a simmer that uses custom content, you’ve said this at least once. 😋 If you’re like me, you say this at least once a day. 😝 To avoid cc blunders & problems with your game as a result of using cc, below are some things that, I hope, any cc user can find useful. (under a read more due to length)

✪ Right click & open in new tab when following links to download content. Just clicking on a link alone can result sometimes in a ‘not found URL’ or something of that type of error by mistake. 👌

✪ The only file type that should be going into your mods folder (with the exception of MC Command and Whicked Whims files~follow the installation directions given by those mods creators) are .packages. No matter the amount of, or the type of, files a creator included in their .zip folder, .packages are the ONLY ones that should make their way into your mods folder. EVER. Adding unnecessary files to your mods folder results in longer than usual loading times as your game is taking more time to read files it doesn’t needs to work. 👌

✪ Any folder you download that ends in .zip, .7z, or .rar, should be unzipped, or unpacked, before placing into your mods folder. Most recent computers already come equipped with an unzipping program. If not, or if you prefer not to use what your comp came equipped with, you can download programs like 7zip or WInZip, for free. A google search can be your best friend in this instance for either a program or how to unzip a folder. 👌

✪ Its always a good idea, & safer for your game, if you direct your comp to download files to either your download folder (your PC name > Downloads) or another folder you have specifically for your downloads, & not directly to your mods folder. Its always a good idea to “test” out any new cc you download, be it one day or one week at a time, in order to weed out any cc that isn’t showing up for lack of not downloading meshes that were noted as required, or because it conflicts with other content already installed in your mods folder. Its always a good idea to keep this new or new-to-you content in a testing folder, that way you know exactly where it’s located for easy removal, if need be. If you test out the new cc & you’re satisfied with its performance, you can then move it into your mods folder along side your other installed content. 👌

✪ Its always a good idea to organize your mods folder. & by organize I mean, categorize your content in some way, shape, or form, so its easy, or easier, to find if & when you need to. Most simmers will categorize something along the lines of how the game categorizes content (ex. CAS vs. Build/Buy, Female clothes vs. Male clothes, Clutter vs. Comfort). Some categorize according to the date they’ve downloaded it. Find a method that works for you & stick with it. It’s never too late to organize your mods folder. 👌

✪ The Sims 4 already comes with a mod folder installed in your game folder (Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > Mods), unlike previous versions of the game. & it also comes formatted for you to use subfolders within your mods folder. If it does not, instructions on how to add them can be found in this post here. It comes formatted to go up to 5 subfolders deep, but it’s been found that most content will only work when its 2 folders deep, ex Mods>CC Folder 1. Going any deeper can result in the game being unable to read the content, which results in it not showing in game. 👌

✪ Take time to read what the content creator is writing in their download post. In it they will, 99% of the time, note if you need anything else for their content to function &/or show in your game. This can range from what pack the content may require, to what mesh is needed for their recolor to show. Please don’t just go and click download all willy nilly. You could potentially be ignoring important information. This is not the case for all content, but it is the case for most. Taking your time to read what is written will pay off. 👌

✪ Sometimes a contents poly count matters when speaking about loading times & lag experienced in game. Poly count refers to the amount of polygons being rendered per frame. Example of low poly content is mm (maxis match) content, although not all mm content is low or lower poly but most is. Example of high poly count content are some curly alpha hairs. Having said curly alpha hairs in game won’t cause lag specifically, but having said hair on your sim, & every townie, & then they’re all at a place of business together, for example, well you could very well experience lag because of that. High poly build/buy content will also have the same effect. If you have a lot of it in one room or on one lot, then you may experience lag. How do you avoid this you ask? Just don’t use a lot of it at one time. How does one tell what the poly count is? Easiest way to tell if a piece of content is high or higher than usual poly, is to check how big the file is. You can find that by opening up the folder its located in, & in its file size column it will say it, or you can right click on the file, & select properties. It will tell you its file size. You can also check the poly size by opening up the .package with Sims4Stuido & navigating to the meshes tab. Anything above 5-10K polys, or 10K in file size, in my opinion, can be considered high poly. The better your comp is, the better equipped it is in rendering the high poly & the less lag & loading times you should experience. 👌

✪ When a patch or new EA content is released, your best course of action is to completely move your mods folder, your save folder, and your tray folder out of your Sims 4 folder before making the update. This is to ensure that nothing happens to it, in the off chance that some new or updated code EA releases doesn’t destroy it. The likely-hood of this happening is slim, but to save your self stress & headache, just move your mods folder before an update or install new EA content. After you’ve installed the patch or new EA content, open up your game and start a new bullshit save. You can trash this save once you are done. Its only purpose to verify your game is running smoothly without cc installed. Once you’ve run your game after the update/new content install, & you’ve ensured you can move around CAS &/or any world with a new save, & you have zero problems, you can then exit the game & move your mods folder back & resume your current save. 👌

✪ Once you’ve updated your game, while your testing out the same fresh bullshit save from above, don’t forget to go into the game options & TURN BACK ON YOUR MODS & SCRIPT MODS. If you don’t do this, you will not be able to see your installed cc once you start the game up again with your previous save. If you do forget to do this, & you accidentally save over your old save, you old save will now be cc free, & you’ve ultimately ruined your previous save. 👌

✪ Deleting your localthumbcache.package (located in your Sims 4 folder) periodically can help in seeing new content that should show in game. The localthumbcache is responsible for storing your thumbnails. It’s perfectly okay to delete this file as a new one will be regenerated once the old one is deleted. Keeping its size at around 80K-100K is ideal. 👌

✪ Merging cc can help reduce load times & in game lag. My preferred method of merging cc is through Sims4Studio. There’s a video explaining how it’s done here. Its logical to me to merge like items together, but again, stick with whatever system works for you. Its best to keep the pre-merged files amount to under or around 200mb, or you can risk items not showing in game. Why this happens, I don’t know. And always, always, ALWAYS keep a back up copy of whatever content you’ve merged, clearly labeled somewhere (another folder on your comp, a cloud drive, an external drive) if you can, so you know what came from where in the instance that you have to remove from or add to that merged package file. 👌

CC Basics 102 coming soon? Feel free to contact me with any questions, or suggestions. 👍

Happy Simming!

#ts4 #simblr #cc basics 101 #sympxls #tutorial

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