#tutorial sims 2

[devotedlyghostlyenemy]

muchas gracias me emociono de ver un tutorial en español !!!!!

Mini Tutorial “Modify the order of the clothes” (Sortindex)

English

Sul sul! Has this happened to you? Do all your clothes, accessories and other things show up in disarray?

Español

¡Sul sul! ¿Te ha pasado esto? ¿Toda tu ropa, accesorios y demás cosas aparecen desordenadas?

English

This occurs when a new mesh is created from a previously created CC, it has a hexadecimal enumeration that follows the order that already has the garment used, this data has the name of “Sortindex”.

An example:

A garment can have this hexagecimal value “0x799B0D88”. The garments created from this value will be in sequential order. If it ends in 8, it will follow with the number 9. “0x799B0D89” and the next garment will have the letter “A”. The hexadecimal numbers have numbers and letters, being from 0 to 9 and follows with the letter A until F.

Español

Esto se produce cuando se crea una mesh nueva a partir de un CC ya creado anteriormente, posee una enumeración hexadecimal que sigue el orden que ya posee la prenda utilizada, ese dato posee el nombre de “Sortindex”

Un ejemplo:

Una ropa puede tener este valor hexadecimal “0x799B0D88”. Las prendas que se creen a partir de ese valor serán en orden secuencial, Si termina en 8, seguirá con el número 9. “0x799B0D89” y la siguiente prenda tendrá la letra “A”. Los número hexadecimales poseen números y letras, Siendo del 0 al 9 y se sigue con la letra A hasta la F.

So that you can keep all your clothes in order like this.

English

So that you can keep all your clothes tidy in this way.

I recommend you to copy the same sortindex value in all the re-colors of the clothes.

Español

Para que tengas toda tu ropa ordenada de esta manera.

Te recomiendo copiar el mismo valor “sortindex” en todos los re-colores de la ropa.

English

To do so, you must open SimPE.

Load the re-color you are going to modify.

Select “Binary Index” (BINX).

The “Pulign view” tab must be selected.

Select “Sortindex” and modify the Hexadecimal code.

* A tip, write all sortindex codes in a notepad. Something like this. So you have an order and you won’t get confused or forget the ones you already used.

Remember that you must do it with all the re-colors that the CC has. And save every time you modify the package.

Español

Para ello debes abrir SimPE.

Cargar el re-color que vayas a modificar.

Seleccionar “Binary Index” (BINX)

Debe estar seleccionada la pestaña “Pulign view”

Selecciona “Sortindex” y modifica el código Hexadecimal.

* Un consejo, escribe todos los códigos de sortindex en un block de nota. Algo como esto. Para que tengas un orden y no te vayas a confundir ni olvidar de los que ya usaste.

Recuerda que debes hacerlo con todos los re-colores que tenga el CC. Y guarda cada vez que modifiques el package.

And that’s it! Now you can enjoy all your CC in order!

Y listo! Ya puedes disfrutar todo tu CC ordenado!

[kayleigh-83]

By popular demand (I saw two people asking) I thought I would throw together a quick guide to using the road editor tool in the newest version of SimPE! You'll see that this is a very easy tool to use, and best of all, goof-proof. If you do mess up (you probably will) it's very, very easy to correct.

Very, very, very important to make a backup of your hood before you ever do any tinkering in SimPE! I also recommend practicing on a test hood you don't actively play in to get a feel for it before you do anything to your main hoods.

We're starting with a vanilla Strangetown. I would recommend going in your game and taking a nice overhead screenshot of the hood like this first to look at for reference of where everything is situated the way that you're used to looking at it.

2. Open SimPE, go to Tools> Neighbourhood> Neighbourhood Browser and open the hood you're wanting to work on. If you're not so familiar with SimPE, opening your hood can take some time. Touch nothing until it's loaded!

3. Once it's all loaded, from the Resource Tree list pick Neighbourhood Terrain Geometry (NHTG). Then you'll see one file populate the Resource List - click that. Make sure on the bottom that you have Plugin View tab selected.

4. Now you should see this map of your hood pop up! There are different things you can toggle, I like to check the Show Lots box when I'm editing the roads. Then click the Road Editor button on the right.

5. To be able to see better, I've pulled this Plugin View window up a bit - it may rearrange the Resource List and Resource Tree windows a bit to accommodate. You can also press the Zoom 2x button to see closer, and then you'll have to use the scroll bars to move around the map and the road editor tool.

6. The road editing tools here will be placed down in the same orientation as the map. So the two parallel roads running through Strangetown from this perspective are the vertical straight road pieces (top row, second from left).

When you select a road tool, above it will indicate which tool you have selected.

Also - I recommend having Handle Stop Signs ticked.

7. Once you have the correct type of road selected for the spot you're working on, simply click on the map - it lays it down one tile at a time. If you miss a spot like shown here, just fill it in.

8. If you want to create an intersection, first delete the section of road where the intersection will go.

9. Then choose the type of junction for the intersection you're making, and add that piece in. You'll see a red circle appear (unsure if this is because it's an intersection or because you have handle stop signs selected, but I recommend you do have that selected either way).

10. Once you're done making all your changes, click Close Editor.

11. This is the part where you save your changes! First click Commit in the top right of the editor. Then, File> Save!

12. Load your game to check! Looks pretty good with all those new roads!

13. However, we have indeed made some mistakes! Which were absolutely for illustrative purposes and not truly an accident.

14. Never fear! Simply reload the hood in SimPE - I've deleted the spot where the T-junction should go and added one in, and deleted where the road just ended abruptly and added a proper end piece.

I have not experimented with what happens if you try to build a road through hood deco - if you have, please let us know in the comments how that went!

I also have barely touched the terrain editing tools, so that's outside the scope of this tutorial.

I hope this helped!

[sims2istheonlysims]

Because you can't save progress on them, I feel like someone should write timeloop horror for Tutorial Joe and Tutorial Jane.

[antisocialbunnysims]

I've got a new video!

Obviously I am preaching to the choir here amongst us ts2 cc addicts, but I have a new video out with all my tips for finding sims 2 custom content. There's ads on google for the superbowl and stuff because i filmed this months ago and editing took me forever bc for some reason i was like pleasantview sims should be looking at cc on their computers dfjkdfkjsdjk

Even if you know how to find sims 2 cc, maybe you will enjoy seeing Brandi Broke browse the sims resource while Dustin gets reprimanded by the police outside!

Things I cover include: - searching on google and getting rid of those ts3 and ts4 results - using google to search specific sites and more - how to use the wayback machine - how to find/download cc from deleted tumblrs

I also share some of my favorite older, harder-to-find sites for new sims 2 cc hunters. I hope you guys like it! watch it on youtube

[latmosims]

Decrease the strength of terrain paint application (in TS2)

If you are like me, you almost certainly never play around with terrain paint. It's not that I don't like to, but the application always felt too strong for me to do anything that doesn't look extreme with it.

So, the other day I was going around looking at the game's directory, and stumbled across these two values in the "Terrain.ini" file:

This file is located in: LATEST EP/TSData/Sys *The exact location depends on where you installed the game, which edition you are currently using and which is the latest EP you got installed.

This might just be common knowledge, but I personally never saw anything related to it, so I'm sharing in case it interests others.

It's fairly self-explanatory: if you change the "PaintBrushStrength" value to something between 0 and 1 (I imagine higher values are accepted but probably useless), the strength of the paint application decreases accordingly.

I've personally put the value at 0.1 – but you might find that too slow of an application. I also feel like this increases how much money is spent to paint the terrain, since weaker application = holding the mouse button longer = more money spent.

I tried to play around with the "PaintBrushApplicationInterval", increasing it to like 6000 (= 1min), but noticed no difference, so I left the default value as is.

Important note: Remember to backup the file! Alternatively, you can add a comment to any change you've made that reminds you what the default value was (I haven't changed anything else).

[sims2forever]

How to play TS2 with Longer Days (50% Slower Time) without going crazy

I don't think I've ever mentioned it here, but I like to play TS2 in a slow mode, to enjoy more time with my sims. This means time runs 50% slower (heavily inspired by @anibats).

But anyone who has tried playing with time at 50% slower knows there are 3 main problems: (1) time control clock in every lot, (2) need decay and (3) relatioship decay. So how do you get around this?

1. Time 50% slower

For me, the first issue is making the day slower. I'm too lazy to place a time control clock in every single household. That's why I use CJH_TimeController, the global version of the mod, that you can download here.

2. Need decay

Now that your day is 50% slower, your Sims' needs decay at the normal rate—meaning, effectively 50% faster. To prevent that, I use Lazy Duchess Motive Decay mod. You set a divider for the hood (mine is 17), and that's it! You can delete the flamingo (mod setup) and never worry about it again. Obs: this link contains the relativity mod. It would solve all our problems, but personally it never worked for me, with it the pregnancies didn't progress.

3. Relantionship decay

In an unmodded game, a Sim's relationship with another Sim drops by 2 points every afternoon. However, with longer days, the relationship drops much more—up to 12 points. Here are two alternatives:

a. For me, the solution is a mod where relationship decay only happens once a week, dropping 12 points all at once. This mod is LessRelDecay, which makes relationships decay only on Fridays.

b. Other alternative is Monique's Relationship (STR) Decay Hack. With this mod, decay is based on STR points and skips some days depending on the relationship strength. However, the total decay will still be 12 points instead of the intended 2.

Other useful mods:

Slower fitness decay

Slower fitness gain

Slower Skill and Badge Gain

Slower LTA Gain

Mods that would be very useful, but that I don't know if exists:

Slower/harder hobby enthusiasm gain (I'm aware of the mod by Tunaisafish, but I don’t notice a difference in-game)

If anyone has any more tips, please, let me know <3

[teaaddictyt]

This is a big one.

[afroplumbarb]

TS2 Legacy Collection CEP Extra Tutorial

Hi guys! I just wanted to make this quick tutorial on this since it's the first time a lot of players will be doing this.

Step 1: Download CEP Extra Manual installation from ModTheSims linked here (Read all instructions included if you get confused)

Step 2: Extract the Zip to a folder

Step 3: Open the folder and place the package _EnableColorOptionsMMAT into the Sims3D folder located here: Program Files > EA Games>The Sims 2 Legacy>Base>TSData>Res>Sims3D

Step 4: Place the package _EnableColorOptionsGMND into your Downloads folder located here: Documents>EA Games>The Sims 2 Legacy>Downloads **Note: You will likely have to create this folder yourself which is easy. Simply right click inside The Sims 2 Legacy folder and create a new folder named "Downloads" and place that file right inside.**

Step 5: Open the 'Extras' folder inside the Zip

Step 6: Open the folder 'MyDocuments' and place the entire zCEP-EXTRA folder inside your Sims 2 Legacy document folder located here: Documents>EA Games>The Sims 2 Legacy

Step 7: Open the folder 'ProgramFiles' and place the entire zCEP-EXTRA folder inside your Catalog folder located here: Program Files > EA Games>The Sims 2 Legacy>Base>TSData>Res>Catalog

And thats it! You should be good to go now. You can check if it's working by the start up message. If you have that setting turned off you can also check to see if it's working by going into one of the households and using the design tool on objects that were previously not recolorable or expanded objects. I believe you can also check to see if it's working by checking the skin tone range in CAS but don't quote me on that lol. Anyway I hope this helped someone 💜

EDIT: Quick reminder for those that are extremely new to the game that you need to start the game at least once first The Sims 2 Legacy folder to appear in your documents folder or you could simply create it yourself, add your folders, and then start the game after and it’ll populate around your newly added CEP and Downloads folder.

[budgieflitter]

AAAND WE'RE DONE! 💖

thank you all so much for participating!! i'm sorry i couldn't do all of your suggestions (obviously), but i hope you still can find your faves here :)

(and if you really really want me to draw your faves you can commission me *twirls hair*)

it was super fun!

[nosferatusim]

SimPe tutorial: How to fix the height setting of CC chandeliers (The Sims 2)

A few years ago, @hugelunatic released a fix for the chandelier added to the game with M&G. Originally, the light cast by the chandelier illuminated the floor level above the lamps, not below them. That mod, however, does not affect custom 2-story lights, which need to be adjusted individually. This is a quick, easy tutorial to do just that.

1. Open the mesh .package file in SimPe;

2. Select "Resource Node (CRES)" in the Resource Tree menu and open the item shown under Resource List;

3. Make sure "Plugin View" is enabled (bottom menu of SimPe);

4. In the "Content" tab, open the "Blocklist" drop-down menu and select the line "cLightRefNode";

5. Select the tab "cTransformNode";

6. In the panel displayed, on the first column (named "Translation"), change the value of "Z" to a number that matches the height of the lamp mesh you're editing.

NOTE: For 2-story lights that sit on the same height as Maxis' chandelier, the value that I used was 1,521330 (taken from HugeLunatic's mod). For CC lights of a different height, you might want to try different values, according to your personal preference.

7. Click "Commit" and save.

_______________________________

For my own game, I edited two custom lights using the same height value ("Z") that HugeLunatic did for the M&G chandelier (1,521330) . I'm not sharing them here because both creators are still active, but I'm tagging them in case they wish to update their files. They are:

@lordcrumps' "Slightly Off Track Lighting", from his 4t2 Industrial Loft Kit; and

@limonaire's conversion of Industrisim's 2-story industrial chandelier.

Not needed, but RECOMMENDED: HugeLunatic's fix of Maxis' chandelier.

[pforestsims]

So it turns out it's quite easy to change Sim's voice in SimPe.

I had this household where all adult female Sims sounded the same and I had to do something about it xD. I've recorded a few TS2 voice types for future reference so I might as well share. Samples below the cut.

Here are examples & values for four adult female and four adult male voices.

It's NOT possible to change voice type gender or age group by editing Voice Type value

AF1 0xFD34, AF2 0xDE83, AF3 0x354A, AF4 0x3949

AM1 0xEF85, AM2 0xDCF8, AM3 0x0D95, AM4 0xE918

These samples are from phone call conversations. Second and the last male voice is by the same voice actor but it has different 'dialogs'. AM 0xE918 seems more assertive (?).

*To be honest I'm not sure if it's a different voice type or does it depend on personality? I need to look into that. TS2 only had four voice actors /for adult voices?/ but that doesn't mean there are only four voice types, right? 🤔/

*This is about The Sims 2

[heartmeadows]

I just remembered this building trick for custom fences as I was building a library! I don't know where I learned it and how it I remembered it out of nowhere but I'm so excited to show you! Basically the steps are:

Build a foundation

Place floors on the side you want your top fence on

Build the lower fence on the ground

Build the top fence on the floor

Remove the floor and foundation

And there you go! It doesn't work with all fences but if you have enough low and shrub fences you can definitely come up with a few options.

[simnopke]

Switching between save folders without renaming them

See the tutorial on Mod The Sims

[heathensimmer]

YOUR VISITOR CONTROLLER MIGHT NEED SURGERY

Hello out there!!! If you use Visitor Controller mod for the Sims 2, it might be broken. I am not sure exactly which version I have ... Midge's that allows togas or the older CrispandKerosene's version with personality options.

The personality settings may be broken because I looked at my file today and sure enough, the BHAVs are not referencing personality properly.

Go into the BHAV "Check Personality Flags" inside Visitor Controller in SimPe.

It should look like this:

The highlighted node should not reference any other value but a number higher than 100.

If you see this:

Then it is broken. Personality has to be referenced in hundreds!

You must change it with the Instruction Wizard which is on the right hand side of Plugin view to make Personality features work, as in banning Lazy Sims from a gym.

The first image shows that Sims with a Neat personality lower than 400, which is 0x0190 in hexadecimal, will be banned from the lot.

Repeat for the other personalities lower in the code.

HAPPY SIMMING!!!!

Also, if anyone is interested in a tutorial for adding custom careers to Visitor Controller, let me know!

[freezerbunny-sims2]

Fully Underwater Lot Tutorial

@creida-sims @kitkat99

UPDATE January 2025

There is now a much, much easier way to do this. This version of SimPE now includes a tool to change terrain geometry. To edit the terrain in SimPE, go to Tools/Neighborhood/Neighborhood Browser and load your neighborhood. In the Resource Tree, select Neighborhood Terrain Geometry (NHTG) and select the only resource in the Resource List. In Plugin View, click Terrain Editor. It's very intuitive, but basically, you can edit the terrain under a lot to make it be underwater. You can also delete the road with the Road Editor.

I'll keep the old tutorial for archival purposes, but unless you can't or don't want to install this version of SimPE, it is pretty much obsolete.

Some warnings and disclaimers

1. This is not a beginner tutorial. I have tried to explain with as much detail as I can, but still, if you just started playing The Sims 2 I recommend trying out other building tutorials first.

2. I have tested it but there's always a possibility that some new problems will come up. Follow at your own risk. Backup your neighborhoods before trying this. Test it first in a new empty neighborhood.

3. These lots are roadless, so they require specific gameplay conditions to avoid breaking immersion (pun intended).

4. They will behave like normal lots in the sense that sims can walk around and do anything as if they were on land. There's one big problem to consider: when sims go fully underwater, their hair and some parts of their clothing might disappear visually.

So this is more useful for structures that sit above the water, shallow water that doesn't reach a sim's head or, with some modifications, small islands surrounded by water. So unless you want bald mermaids, I don't recommend this for sims that live underwater.

5. If you use Voeille's hood water mod, reflections will look glitchy in lot view, because this is technically not a beach lot. The only solution I found is enabling "Lot view ocean reflections" in RPC Launcher. Otherwise you'll have to deal with glitchy reflections.

6. Before following this tutorial, make sure you know the basics of creating, editing, importing and exporting SimCity 4 terrains. Written tutorial by SimEchoes here, video tutorial by loonaplum here.

Software and mods used

The Sims 2 FreeTime expansion pack (required for the modifyNeighborhoodTerrain cheat)

SimCity 4 (required) Hood Replace by Mootilda (required)

Lot Adjuster by Mootilda (required)

Portal revealer by Inge Jones (required)

Voeille's pond and sea water overhaul and RPC Launcher (optional, see disclaimers)

The Sims 2 Apartment Life and Bon Voyage expansion packs (optional, for "walk to lot/work/school" options)

Cheat codes used

moveObjects on/off

modifyNeighborhoodTerrain on/off

1. Creating/editing a terrain in SimCity 4

1.1. You can edit an already existing terrain or create your own from scratch. In both cases, you need to keep two things in mind: If you want the usable area of the lot to be underwater, such as making houses for mermaids or a coral reef, make sure the water is shallow. No more than a few short clicks with the terraforming tools in SimCity 4. This is because The Sims 2 live mode camera won't go underwater, so making the water too deep might make it uncomfortable to build or play the lot.

If you goal is to build a structure mostly above water, like a ship or an oil rig, you can get away with making the water a bit deeper, but not too much. I've noticed that sometimes the lot terrain tools stop working correctly if there a hill that's too steep.

1.2. Once you've created the terrain, you will need to add a small island on the area where your lot will be. I know it seems contradictory, but trust me, it will make sense. Create and name your city. Use the terraforming tools in city mode to make a tiny island of about 6x2 squares.

1.3. On the island, use the road tool to place a straight road that takes up 4 squares. Then, using the street tool (the last option), place two short streets at each end of the road.

Streets will disappear in TS2, only roads translate to roads in ts2, so why do we place them? Well, placing a street at the end of a road will get rid of the rounded end bit in TS2, which can't be used to place lots. This will be important for the placement of the lot and to make sure the edges of the lot are underwater. If this doesn't make sense yet, don't worry, it might make sense later.

1.4. Save the terrain. Don't exit SimCity 4. Copy your new/edited sc4 terrain from your SimCity 4 folder to your SC4Terrains folder in your Sims 2 documents directory. It is usually

"C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\SC4Terrains"

1.5. Back in SimCity 4, we're going to make a second version of this terrain. Remove the roads and streets you made before, with the bulldozer tool. With the level terrain tool in Mayor mode, carefully remove the island, so it's on the same level as the bottom of the ocean/lake. Don't change anything else. Save, exit and copy this second terrain to your Sims 2 SC4Terrains folder. Make sure you rename the file to something different from the first one, like adding "no roads" to the filename. You should have two terrains by the end of this step. One with the small island and one without it.

2. Editing the terrain in The Sims 2

2.1. Open The Sims 2 and create a new neighborhood using your new terrain. Something to keep in mind: if you want the terrain to be a subhood of another neighborhood, make it a subhood from the start. You will not be able to move the lot once it's finished, since it will be roadless. I don't recommend decorating the neighborhood for now. Leave it empty until the end of this tutorial.

2.2. Place the smallest empty lot (3x1) on the island.

2.3. In neighborhood view, open the cheat console by pressing Control + Shift + C, and type

modifyNeighborhoodTerrain on

To quote The Sims Wiki:

"This allows you to alter the neighborhood terrain by raising or lowering it. To use this cheat, be in the neighborhood view, then enter the cheat "modifyNeighborhoodTerrain on" (without the quotation marks), and click over the area you would like to change. To select a larger area, click and drag the cursor to highlight the desired area. Press [ or ] to raise or lower the terrain by one click, press \ to level the terrain, and press P to flatten terrain. When you're finished, type “modifyNeighborhoodTerrain off” in the cheat box (again, without the quotations)."

If you use an English keyboard, these instructions will probably be enough for you. If you don't, I recommend first testing the cheat, because the keys for using this cheat are different in other languages. For example, in my spanish keyboard, the question marks are used to raise and lower the terrain and the º/ª key flattens it.

Another aside: When you select an area using this cheat, a green overlay is supposed to show up. Some lighting mods make this green overlay invisible, like the one I use. If that's your case, you kind of have to eyeball it. Remember that one neighborhood grid square in TS2 is equivalent to 10 lot tiles, or the width of a road. I recommend getting a mod that allows you to tilt the neighborhood camera on the Y axis, which will allow you to have a bird eye's view of the terrain.

2.4. Flatten the terrain around the lot so it's at water level. This cheat won't allow you to edit the terrain inside the lot, so you have to edit the terrain around the lot. Make sure there is plenty of flat underwater space around the island. You should end up with something like the picture above. The water will have some holes, but don't worry, those get filled with water the next time you load the neighborhood.

2.5. Enter the lot and place any object on it. Save the lot and exit the game. This is so LotAdjuster recognizes the lot in the next step.

3. Expanding the lot with Lot Adjuster

3.1. Open Lot Adjuster and select your neighborhood and lot.

3.2. Click "Advanced…". Check "Over the road (only enlarge front yard)". Use the arrows to add 20 tiles to the front yard. Click "Finish" and "Restart".

3.3. Select the same lot again. This time, check "Add and remove roads". Uncheck the road checkbox for the front yard. Add 20 Tiles to the back yard, 20 tiles to the left side and 10 tiles to the right side. Check "Place portals manually". You should end up with a 60x60 lot, which is the biggest size. You might want a smaller lot, but unless you know what you are doing, I recommend starting with this size. You can shrink it later. The goal of making the lot this big is making sure the edges of the lot are underwater. Click "Finish" and exit.

4. Moving portals and flattening the lot

4.1. Make sure you have the portal revealer by Inge installed in your Downloads folder before the next step. Open your game and load your neighborhood. The lot should look something like the picture above.

4.2. Load the lot. Delete the object you placed before. Place the portal revealer on the lot near the mailbox/phone booth and trashcan. It looks like a yellow flamingo and you can find it in Build Mode/Doors and Windows/Multi-Story Windows catalogue. You will notice that when you select the object from the catalogue, some yellow cubes appear on the lot, and when you place the object, the cubes disappear. After placing the portal revealer, pick it up and place it again. This will make the yellow boxes visible again.

So what are those yellow boxes? They are portals. They determine where sims and cars arrive and leave the lot. The ones on both ends of the sidewalk are called pedestrian portals, and in the street, one lane has portals for service vehicles (maids, gardeners, etc.) and the opposite is for owned cars and carpools. You can see the portal's names if you pick them up. Make sure not to delete any of them.

Now, since this is going to be a roadless lot, ideally there won't be vehicles in it. This means that the lot would ideally be accessed through walking only. In community lots, this would not be an issue if you have the Bon Voyage expansion pack, which allows sims to walk to lots.

In residential lots, you might run into some problems. Service NPCs always arrive on vehicles, and unless your sim owns a vehicle, the carpool and school bus will always come to pick sims up for work/school. It might break your immersion to have a vehicle show up underwater or on a ship. There are many options to avoid this: having sims work on an owned business instead of a regular job, not having kids on the lot, making the kids homeschooled, avoiding calling service NPCs… it depends on how you want to play the lot. For example, my icebreaker is a residential lot, only adults live there, some sims live in it temporarily and none of them have a regular job.

All of this is relevant because we're going to move the portals. Where you move the portals depends on you. Think about how you're going to use the lot. In my icebreaker, I placed the car portals (which won't be used) underwater, on a corner of the lot. I placed the pedestrian portals on the ship, to pretend that the walkbys are part of the crew or passengers. But for now, just move the portals, mailbox/phone booth and trashcan to a corner of the lot. To be able to pick up the mailbox/phone booth and trashcan, use the cheat moveObjects on. Delete the street and sidewalk tiles using the floor tool (Control + click and hold left mouse button + drag).

4.3. Flatten the island with the level terrain tool. Save the lot. Almost done! Don't mind the hole in the water, this will be fixed. You will notice that in neighborhood view, the island is still there. This is because the neighborhood terrain under the lot hasn't updated. I don't know why this happens, but it does. Normally, moving the lot would fix it, but we can't move this lot using the game's tools. Instead, we are going to fix the terrain with Hood Replace. Don't exit the game yet.

5. Updating the terrain with Hood Replace

5.1. Create a new neighborhood using the new roadless terrain. Make sure it has the same type of terrain (lush, desert, etc.) as the first one. Again, name it "NO ROADS" or something similar. Exit the game.

5.2. Open HoodReplace. On the left column you will select your "NO ROADS" neighborhood. In the right column, select the neighborhood that has the underwater lot. Check these settings: Replace terrain, replace road, and versioned backups. Leave everything else unchecked. Click Copy.

5.3. Open The Sims 2 and load the neighborhood to check if the changes worked. That concludes the tutorial. At this point you can shrink the lot if you don't want it to be so big. Remember to move the portals to their final placement when you're done building the lot. Also keep in mind pedestrians (walkbys) always walk by the mailbox, so keep the mailbox accessible for sims.

If you're going to have multiple underwater lots, I recommend making them first, and decorating the neighborhood after. Doing this in an already existing neighborhood might be more difficult, mainly because, if you made any changes to the terrain using the modifyNeighborhoodTerrain cheat in the past, they might get reset when using Hood Replace.

[fishcemetery]

This sweet limbo baby has facilitated so many atrocities against his own kind. "Oh hello there, an ambiguous entity of overwhelming power, here to deprive my people of their free will for your own sick entertainment! Let me show you how it's done while I get to chill in my weird offshoot of spacetime where no changes ever stick!" Like wow, what a devious angle.

...just kidding, of course. You're a darling, Joe of the Tutorial variety.

I used to have a ritual for every time I came back to TS2, where the very first session of my life sim binge would be just several hours of tutorial gameplay, culminating in a glorious exit without saving. Those were the days.