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r/sims2help Guide: Enhancing Your Sims 2 Experience

# r/sims2help

r/sims2help
aesthetic-guide

# Back to Index

# Welcome

Please read the General Support and Technical Support Wiki pages before going through this one. These methods are intense in terms of processing and GPU usage, so it's absolutely essential to make sure your game is running smoothly first. This guide also assumes you know the basics of downloading CC!

I've tried to make this guide as comprehensive as possible, but there are a lot of things I still don't know. If you've got any suggestions, criticisms, etc. feel free to PM me (u/hobgoblin8000) or write a post. :) And I apologise if there are any grammatical errors or weird turns of phrase. English isn't my native language.

Though some of the things detailed in this guide should work for Mac or Linux machines, this guide was written with Windows in mind. Additionally, while most of the guide applies for the Legacy Edition, there are some differences between it and the UC and disk versions. I'll be updating this guide as I find out more.

# 0 Introduction

Have you ever wondered how some people manage to get their games to look absolutely amazing? The Sims 2 might be an old game, but it can be customised to a high degree.

This guide covers most methods of getting your game and screenshots to look their best. Some of them could be applied to lower-end machines as well.

If you’d like to see some previews of what my game looks like using these methods, go here. The CC list for everything used in the pictures is here. Note that I’m using ReShade.

A note about pink flashing! Some of these methods, namely downloading high-poly, high texture resolution CC and/or using similar default replacements might contribute to pink flashing. Some creators have made lower-poly and/or lower texture resolution versions of CC, so you might want to look out for them.

# 1 Defaults

Default replacements replace the look of assets, such as eyes, skin, hair, terrain, special effects, etc. found in the game. You can delete them at any time and the assets they replace will revert to their original look. Be sure to not use the in-game delete button though - it may delete the original asset instead and corrupt your game!

# 1.1 Cosmetic Defaults

A lot of improvement can be achieved by replacing your Sims' skins, eyes, hair, eyebrows and makeup. There are also defaults for face templates if you don't like people running around with the default ones.

For all of that and more, go to the Sims 2 Default Database. It's the most comprehensive archive out there, and it gets updated regularly. It even has a folder structure for you to organise your defaults with! I go there for normal CC too, since a lot of the defaults come with custom versions.

If you do like the original look of the game, no worries! The database has simple enhancements and lots of Maxis Match defaults as well.

# 1.2 Environmental Defaults

A lot of Simmers use environmental defaults to improve the neighbourhood view. You can use them for lot view as well, provided that your render distance is high enough. Here’s a link to a great tutorial by Greatcheesecakepersona that tells you how to improve lot view by increasing your render distance, and much more. The wonderful Object Default Database includes environmental defaults, but I’ve linked some things I couldn’t find in it below. Thanks to u/Sorry_Climate662 for bringing the database to our attention.

As for any other defaults, you can only have one of a certain kind in your game at a time! Default roads are kind of an exception though, since different terrains, such as the Pleasantview terrain, the Veronaville terrain, etc. use different road texture files. However, you can’t use two defaults for the same terrain.

Lowedeus' EAxis clouds fix Sims 2 originally had clouds floating over lots, but the feature was broken in Seasons. This mod fixes it!

Lazyduchess made a version of the above that shows up on all lots automatically!

Poppet’s defaults

Ivy’s Snowflakes, an eternal favourite and also recommended for lower-end machines.

Peppermint & Ginger's neighbourhood defaults

Olivespecter/Olivemuenda/Simflake/Bleubagoo’s downloads, includes misc. and neighbourhood defaults

Dreadpirate’s MM roads

Dreadpirate’s iCad stone roads edit

Dreadpirate’s Voeille lush terrain edit

Shastakiss’s brighter & less square fallen leaves, a mash-up of these brighter and these less square leaves

Criquette’s linden trees as defaults REDUX

Psychosim’s defaults also includes other types of defaults!

Lowedeus’ sun and moon defaults

# 1.3 Build & Buy Defaults

Some creators have made defaults for Build and Buy mode objects using their own retextures and/or recolours. The Object Default Database is the most comprehensive resource out there for them. Thanks again to u/Sorry_Climate662 for bringing it to our attention. Some of the defaults I know of that I couldn’t find in the database are linked below.

Vegan-Kaktus on MTS, lots of Buy Mode and misc. defaults

Lifa’s object defaults

iCad’s object defaults

Forceabduction/Lavenderlight's TS3 logo poster replacements

Dreadpirate’s ceiling-friendly walls replacement

Honeywell’s roof trim defaults

Mirrortron’s bedding defaults

# 1.4 Alternate & Thematic Defaults

I felt like this deserved its own paragraph, since it is an aesthetical thing. Some people like their game to look medieval! Colourful! Sci-Fi! It’s easy to create a whole new look, provided that you can find the right defaults. You might want to look through the Default Database and the Object Default Database for them. But if you’re looking to create a medieval game, then the Plumbbob Keep (aka medievalsims) is your best bet.

# 1.5 Miscellaneous Defaults, including UI, loading screens, Create-a-Sim, NPCs etc.

These are things that don’t really belong to the aforementioned categories in my personal opinion. You can find some of these in the Object Default Database, but I’ve also linked some defaults I know of below.

You might have seen screenshots with a white, black, pink, green or cream-coloured UI instead of the default blue one. Those are Greatcheesecakepersona’s Clean UI (white), Simstate’s Starship UI (Mod The Sims link) (black), Simstate’s Pink UI, and Simstate’s Random UI Experiments [ALPHA] (green, blue, cream).

If you don’t want to change the colour of the UI, the Clean UI page has got helpful links to widescreen and other fixes for the original TS2 UI under the heading “Included CC”.

You can also replace your loading screen! The Loading Randomizer by Greatcheesecakepersona lets you randomise your loading screen so that it’s different every time. If you don’t want that, there are plenty of single replacements out there, such as:

Greatcheesecakepersona’s hi-res replacements

Studio Ghibli loading screen replacements by knowledgeaspiration and falkii

Knowledgeaspiration’s Life is Strange replacements

Adinc’s colourful replacements

The Clean UI does come with its own set of loading screen replacements too.

Also, have some links to other miscellaneous defaults… Some can also be found in the other categories above!

Ivy’s Smooth Talk rose

Ivy’s pink First Kiss hearts

RentedSpace’s Social Bunny replaced with TS3 Imaginary Friend

Phaenoh’s clean Social Bunny

Dreadpirate’s Create-A-Sim includes custom lighting

EddySims’ new computer screens

NixNivis’ brighter computer screens

XanderGC’s better wedding & engagement rings

Pooklet’s Matchmaker overhaul ; and midgethetree’s Matchmaker name fix (not strictly an aesthetic thing, but the original NPC is a racist stereotype and has no place in modern gaming)

A few misc. defaults by Shastakiss

Azaya/Skulldilocks' defaults, incl. various categories

# 2 Non-Default Custom Content

This is kind of covered above, but non-default CC deserves its own category.

# 2.1 Where To Find Beautiful CC

The Mods List Wiki page on this subreddit has a large list of reputable creators with good CC. There isn’t much else I could say here, other than to look for creators who don’t use AdFly, which is a link-shortening service known to contain malware.

Additionally, there is paid custom content out there and while you’re free to do what you want with your own money, I can’t recommend spending money on CC when there’s such a wealth of free, high-quality CC out there.

Tumblr has a lot of CC finds blogs, and some of them are run by CC creators themselves. I also recommend Garden of Shadows (especially the Monthly Themes and Wishing Tree) and Mod The Sims (especially Featured and Picked Downloads) for high-quality downloads.

Some creators have "WCIF friendly" in their profile descriptions. WCIF = Where Can I Find...? That means they'll answer any questions about the CC they use in their posts. It’s a great way of finding CC, as you know that at least one other person likes it, and as a bonus, a lot of people are willing to reupload anything that is no longer available to the public.

Some older pieces of CC are cursed with dead links, but a lot of popular stuff does get reuploaded by other people and sometimes the original creators themselves. sims2packrat on Tumblr is the number one place to go to for CC with broken links.

Some old Box download links might give you an error and refuse to let you download the CC you’re trying to download, but if you fiddle with the link a little bit, it’ll actually work. The old trick and the redirector by DigitalAngels don’t seem to work anymore. Instead, the trick is to replace the “www” part of the link with “app”, e.g. “www.box.com/s/blahblahblah” -> “app.box.com/s/blahblahblah” OR if you want to automate the process, there’s a browser extension that does just that here.

Krabbysims’ Sims 2 Hair Database is a comprehensive resource for finding custom hairs.

And since they might be harder to find, here are some of the neighbourhood decorations I use in my pictures.

Lowedeus’ skyboxes

Greatcheesecakepersona’s horizons - they've got lots of other stuff on Tumblr and MTS too.

iCad’s neighbourhood deco

Psychosim’s animated UFO perfect for Strangetown. ;)

# 3 Screenshots

Why use TS2's default screenshot mechanism when you can take high resolution, fullscreen screenshots instead? This section also contains hints for making screenshotting easier.

# 3.1 How to Take Better Screenshots

For better screenshots, you'll most likely want to use either the RPC launcher's screenshot function (Print Screen by default), the Steam screenshot function (F12 by default) for the Legacy Edition, or an external programme. The default camera (used by pressing the C button) is crunchy and blurry, only saves the captures in .bmp format, and saves them in a weird location with odd names. Some people like the retro look though! Print Screen only captures one image at a time, so you'd have to exit your game to paste it somewhere else every time you took a screenshot.

Windows has its own screenshot programme (Snipping Tool) which comes built-in with Windows 10 and 11. It's a pretty handy one, as you can choose the area you capture, and it doesn't require any additional downloads. You can activate it by pressing Win + Shift + S.

Gadwin PrintScreen is a popular choice as well. It's freeware, so you can download it from the linked website completely free of charge. You can customise it to suit your own tastes, and even email your screenshots as you take them.

Fraps is probably the most famous capturing programme out there, but I personally don’t really recommend it. Unless you use the paid version, you’re better off using Gadwin instead.

# 3.2 Defaults & Mods

There are a few things you can use to make your screenshots a bit prettier and easier to take. First of all, you might want to remove the red pause frame for when you want to take screenshots. If you find that you don’t want to be without it, it’s safe to take these mods out for sessions, and then put them back when you want to take screenshots. Only choose one of these at a time!

simNopke’s No Pause Frame

BeosBoxBoy’s No Red Lines During Pause

Then, a bit of a harder modding configuration. Even if you use the Freecam mode (press TAB), you might find the default camera clunky and hard to use, requiring finesse for taking good screenshots. Oh, and if you’ve patched your game to Widescreen, Create-a-Sim becomes broken and nearly unusable. To remedy that, here are some camera mods!

Now, these are installed differently from your usual mods. CC goes into your Downloads folder, but camera mods go into the "Cameras" folder (in the same location) and require you to overwrite the text files there. You’ll need to back up the originals in case you don't want to use the camera mod(s) anymore.

GunMod’s Camera Mod comes with different options; please read the instructions and choose the one you prefer.

Lowedeus’ Neighbourhood Camera + Cursor comes with a default replacement cursor! The cursor option matches either the default UI or Clean UI, choose the one you want and not both.

Lena’s Widescreen CAS Camera Fix fixes the Create-a-Sim camera for widescreen resolutions. I recommend getting this one regardless, since CAS becomes so much better to use.

Lowedeus’ Camera Mod Compilation specifically engineered for use with Nopke’s SkyFix. You can also check the links for the mods used in it and build your own compilation.

If you’d like to remove PlumbBobs (the diamond above an active Sim's head), you can do so by downloading this mod for neighbourhood view and live gameplay (direct MediaFire link) OR this mod just for live gameplay (direct link). Only use one, but you can remove it at any time if you want the PlumbBobs back.

I’m just going to link to PleasantSims’ Mods Guide for Poses since it has every story-making mod I know of, with great explanations.

# 3.3 Cheats & Camera Controls

Some of the cheats in the game can be used to make your Sims co-operate better while being filmed. Press CTRL+Shift+C to open the cheat console.

- maxmotives – maxes your Sims’ needs so that they don’t complain.
- motivedecay off – makes your Sims’ needs static so that they don’t drop.
- moveobjects on – gives you the ability to move objects and Sims anywhere or delete them.
- boolProp testingcheatsenabled true – tonnes of options for doing things to your Sims, households and neighbourhoods… Just make sure not to click on anything you don’t know about. This one adds the game’s version number to the top right corner, but most people don’t notice or care.
- plumbbobtoggle off – removes the PlumbBob (aka the diamond above your active Sim’s head). Useful if you’re not using a default replacement to get rid of it.
- showheadlines off – removes speech and thought bubbles.
- sethour 1-24 – sets the time to the number you specified.
- boolProp useeffects false – gets rid of headline effects such as stink clouds, rain, sleeping ZzZ’s, and stereo music effects.

Press TAB to go into freecam mode. It’s much better to take screenshots with, as it’s flexible and even has options for saving different camera angles!

Here are the controls:

> TAB – enter/exit freecam mode
> W – forward

> A – left

> S – backward

> D – right

> Q – lower

> E – higher

> CTRL + 4/5/6/7/8/9 – save camera position

> SHIFT + 4/5/6/7/8/9 – switch to saved camera position

> Z – zoom in

> X – zoom out

If you're taking a screenshot in Live Mode, you might want to go to the Options Menu [F5] in order to hide your Sim's action queue. Otherwise it'll show up in your screenshot.

# 4 Lighting Mods

# 4.1 What Do They Do? How To Use Them?

Lighting mods are a specific type of mod for changing the lighting of the game. They make the game look quite different, but arguably much better. Not a lot of them exist because they’re more difficult to make, but there are a few options. Please note that these mods are harder to install than normal mods, and they require you to be comfortable tampering with your Program Files.

# 4.2 Choosing & Installing Lighting Mods

First and foremost, you should probably install the Scriptorium unless you’re absolutely sure you won’t change your lighting mod. It comes with an option to revert to default EAxis lighting, and can also be used to install custom staircases and fireplaces, so you might want to get it regardless.

A note for the disk versions of the game: The Happy Holiday stuff pack and its different iterations make it so that some of the EPs and SPs have different numbers in different countries! Why does that matter? If you’re installing a lighting mod manually, it will require you to replace some files with names such as SP4Lights, which might not be replaced correctly if your EP or SP numbers differ from the ones the creator of the lighting mod has. E.g. my H&M Fashion Stuff’s lighting file is named SP4Lights.nlo, but because in some lighting mods the name for the same file might be SP5Lights.nlo, it would not be overwritten, and that would cause problems. In that case, I needed to rename SP5Lights.nlo into SP4Lights.nlo and accept the override prompt.

Always double check to make sure the lighting files were overridden. If you find that your files were not overridden, rename any lighting mod files so that they replace the originals.

The Scriptorium comes with GunMod’s Radiance Lighting System which you can also get separately. Follow the instructions, and if you’re not using the Scriptorium, back up your original lighting files!

The original Radiance Lighting System is great, but I recommend getting dreadpirate’s edit instead. It includes some shader fixes and tweaks the nighttime lighting to be more natural.

Spookymuffin’s lighting mod only modifies the base game lighting files and thus is easier to install. Still, please follow the instructions.

Dreadpirate’s Maxis Match Lighting Mod is the one I use and recommend the most. You can also choose to only get the shader fixes, which work without the mod as well.

Nopke's Accurate Neighbourhood Terrain Lighting is a great lighting mod to use on its own or with any of the above mods. Please make sure to read the documentation.

Note that some smaller lighting fixes can not be used together with the shader fixes, as they conflict and thus, they’re usually included. The fixes include:

- LD's Overly Bright CAS Fix
- Nopke’s SkyFix
- criquette’s Neighborhood Lighting Remedy
- Better Nightlife and Seasons winter road fix
- Moi’s and Voeille’s water mods
- Niol’s roof shader fix and
- Deastrumquodvicis' Brighter Roofs... But not too Bright!

The shader fixes can not be used with Pine’s Post-Processing Mod either, so dreadpirate has made a version that combines the two. Read on for more info about the post-processing mod.

# 5 Post-processing

Welcome to the most intense methods catalogued here. These are harder to follow than some of the others in this guide.

# 5.1 Post-Processing Cheats

The More You Know: TS2 comes with film-making/post-processing cheats already built in. Some of them are used by mods, but you might want to use them separately if you’re not downloading anything. Please note that they can not be placed in the userstartup.cheat file (see the General Support Wiki page). You can read about them on the Sims Wiki here.

# 5.2 Pine's Post-Processing Mod

An extensive mod only meant for higher-end machines (Seriously. It will wreck your PC if it’s not high-end), with custom MXAO, SSAO, DoF, and so on. It basically forces TS2 to perform modern graphical functions not found in the original game.

Read the installation instructions carefully. You can use the mod together with ReShade.

Also, note that this mod can not be used together with some shader fixes. Those include (same as in section 4.2 above):

- LD's Overly Bright CAS Fix
- Nopke’s SkyFix
- criquette’s Neighborhood Lighting Remedy
- Better Nightlife and Seasons winter road fix
- Moi’s and Voeille’s water mods
- Niol’s roof shader fix and
- Deastrumquodvicis' Brighter Roofs... But not too Bright!

It’s also incompatible with Dreadpirate’s shader fixes, so the second link has a version which combines the two.

Original mod

Dreadpirate’s edit for their shader fixes

# 5.3 iCad's Nvidia Tweaks

iCad has detailed some tweaks they made with the Nvidia Profile Inspector, which are small but have made their game look crisper and better. They do require a higher-end Nvidia card. You might not want to use them if you’re going for ReShade, but they do provide a nice little boost.

Link to post.

# 5.4 ReShade (finally!)

The cherry on top. ReShade is a popular programme for for forcing games to render intense graphical functions. And it does work for The Sims 2! There are multiple methods of making it work for TS2, but the ones I recommend are using the RPC if you’ve got it, the DXVK if you’ve got it or the Ultimate ASI Loader if you’ve got neither.

A note for the Legacy Edition: It seems possible to get ReShade to work on the Legacy Edition, but Simmers seem to be getting mixed results with it, e.g. crashing, pink flashing, etc. As I haven’t tried installing ReShade on it myself, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of any method out there. That doesn’t mean you can’t get it to work though - it simply means that I don’t know enough yet. I advise you to proceed with caution.

I’m going to refer to osab’s The Sims 2: Setup Guide for the first two methods, and vidcunds’ picture tutorial for the last one.

osab’s ReShade tutorial. Note that the RPC method is incompatible with DXVK, so if you’ve got DXVK, you’ll need to use the DXVK method.

Regarding the DXVK method, not every system can utilise the Vulkan API and for some, it can cause severe graphical glitches or failure to launch the game at all. It’s sometimes used to fix pink flashing, but considered to be a last resort. So if you don’t already use it and your game isn’t flashing pink, I recommend using other methods instead.

For the Ultimate ASI Loader method, read this Google document by vidcunds. Note that the Ultimate ASI Loader can also be accessed here. Just rename the file in the .zip to d3d9.dll.

Here are some presets I know of:

Falkii’s Turniphead preset, meant to be used with the MM lighting mod

Dreadpirate’s We Fell in Love in October preset, meant for use/to be used with the MM lighting mod.

Herbalwhite’s presets vol. 2, Wow, look at those previews!

TMBOW/BruisedPeach's cinematic preset, huge thanks to TMBOW for allowing me to directly link to it!

Veronavillequiltingbee/GonerilCapp/Dreadpirate's preset tag

Vidcunds' presets reuploaded

# 6 Sims2RPC (Not for Mac or the Legacy Edition)

The Sims2RPC is a custom launcher made by Lazyduchess that fixes and adds a number of functions to the game. You might already have it if you downloaded the game through the Wiki, but if you don’t, I highly recommend getting it here. Be sure to read through all the instructions! The features of the RPC launcher that are relevant to this guide specifically are the ability to take high-quality screenshots in-game and improved shadow and lot imposter quality.

# 7 Body Shop

You can customise your Body Shop experience as well! The default background is quite boring, the lighting is dull, the programme crashes a lot... But there are remedies for all of that.

# 7.1 What and Where It Is or How to Get It

So first of all, what is the Body Shop? It's a handy programme for making Sims and CC without opening your game itself. On Windows (and Bootcamp), it comes with the game itself. On Mac, you need to download it from Aspyr's Extras page. The file path on Windows is usually C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES or Origin(your latest EP, if you've got all of them it's Mansion & Garden or SP9 inside Fun with Pets)\CSBin. If you're going to be using the programme a lot, it's recommended to make a shortcut for it on your desktop. You can make one by right-clicking on the programme and clicking "Send to... Desktop (make shortcut)."

# 7.2 Fixin' It Up

By default, the programme will only use 2GB RAM, and run really, really badly. You can run the 4GB patch on it as is recommended for the main game. (See the Technical Support Wiki page) If you've only got 4GB RAM total on your machine though, it's best not to try it.

The Body Shop is also really enthusiastic about compressing textures. You'll notice it if you're making your own CC and it comes out looking like crap, or Sims just look bad compared to the main game. Not to worry though, that can be fixed. Take a look here. Note that Mod the Sims recommends modifying CSConfig Graphics Rules for every single expansion, but in my experience, that's not necessary. I only modified the files for Apartment Life and Mansion & Garden.

If you use the Body Shop for too long or load too many things, it might start to flash pink. Even with fixes applied, I've noticed that it's a much less stable programme than Sims 2 itself, so it will crash and have problems more often. Just close the programme if anything happens and load it up again.

You can edit the resolution to be more than 800x600, but it doesn't work as well as the main game does. However, SmugTomato made a fantastic custom launcher for it that scales the programme to widescreen, fixes bugs and modifies the UI to be similar to the Clean UI. Please read all of the instructions carefully. You can get the launcher here!

# 7.3 Actually Using It

It's recommended to take any Build, Buy and Neighbourhood View CC out of your Downloads folder upon running the Body Shop. Body Shop will try to load them even though it doesn't use them, so it's useless to have them there. If you've got human-skinned Sims with alien eyes, be sure to not remove Creature Fixes or Theo's Alien Eye Enabler from your Downloads folder - otherwise they won't look right.

The programme may not show a loading screen for a loooong time, especially if you've got lots of CC or it's your first time running it or Sims 2 after restarting your computer. Once the loading screen shows up and completes, you'll be greeted with a menu. "Build or Clone Sims" is where you can view Sims and make them. "Create Parts" takes you to a menu where you can make your own CC. "Package Sims" is the one you use if you want to share your Sims with other people.

In "Build or Clone Sims," you can choose to clone or delete Sims you've already got or make new ones! If you've never made any Sims, there are some that come with the game itself. Let your imagination run wild!

In "Create Parts," you can make CC! Nowadays it's recommended to use SimPE instead, but the Body Shop is still very much competitive. You can look up tutorials on lots of sites or just experiment with it yourself. There are so many good tutorials out there that I won't be covering CC making here myself. Note that the graphics fix tutorial in the above chapter is pretty much essential if you're going to be making CC in the Body Shop - otherwise it won't look as good as it could.

In "Package Sims," you can choose a Sim to put inside a Sims2pack and share with the world! If you've used any CC while making the Sim, that CC will be attached. The process is fairly self-explanatory - just make sure to not use CC if you merge your files, since that way the file size will be huge.

# 7.4 BUG: BodyShop is STILL compressing my projects/CC

Did you follow the steps in 6.2 and find that your projects/CC are still being compressed? If so, please see this thread for info on how to fix the problem.

# 7.5 Advanced Controls & Tips for Pros!

There are certain hotkeys you can use to alter the camera, UI and Sim poses. Here's a guide.

> ALT + Enter: Will toggle The Sims 2 Body Shop between windowed mode (default) and full-screen mode.

> F3: Toggle between normal camera and free camera.

Free cam controls:

> Click and drag the Left Mouse Button -- Orbits the camera around the Sim's head.

> Click and drag the Right Mouse Button -- Controls the camera zoom. Move the mouse away from you to zoom out. Move the mouse toward you to zoom in.

> Click and drag Left and Right mouse buttons together -- Changes the center point the camera is looking at.

> Note that this command disables tooltips.

> F5 or Fn+F5: Changes the background to a solid black color. If there is a bitmap graphic named 'userBkg.bmp' in the '\EA Games\The Sims 2' folder in My Documents, the image will be displayed as a backdrop. (More in the chapter below)

> F6: Changes the sim pose. The sim will have the arms held straight out. To return the sim to the normal pose, click on any sim thumbnail or content thumbnail.

> F7: Zoom out in the normal camera mode.

> F8: Zoom in in the normal camera mode.

> F9: Toggles the UI off and on.

And just as a tip, don't use the Delete button in Body Shop. It gets the job done sometimes, but in my experience, most of the time it either deletes too much or too little. You can also accidentally delete original in-game assets and corrupt your game. Some mods unlock the Delete button for Alien eyes, and deleting default replacements almost always deletes the original thing as well.

And a couple of tips for CC creating.

- Always create descriptive tooltips. They are the text that shows up when you hover over a CC thumbnail in Body Shop. You don't have to enter them in "Enter Tooltip Here" though - the Automatic Tooltip Adder has an option for automatically adding the file name or a certain text into a tooltip.
- It's advised to rename Body Shop packages to be something other than gibberish.

# 7.6 Making It Pretty <3

By default, the background could be considered to be pretty boring. As it says above, you can make the background solid black OR use your own background image. There's a popular one by Poppet here, but you can also make one of your own! Take the image you want and crop or resize it to 1024x768 (1600x900 if you're using the launcher by SmugTomato). Save the file as UserBkg.bmp and put it inside your Documents\The Sims 2 (Ultimate Collection) folder.

The default lighting is pretty dark, much darker than Create-a-Sim. You can get a mod to brighten it up right here. There's multiple versions, so if you're not sure which one you want, you can try them all out. :)

Hate the default Sims? Want them to stop taking up space in the Sim bin? You can hide them with this. You can take the mod out at any time if you want the default Sims back.

On a related note (sort of), you can get some nice-looking Sims from the Japanese, Korean and Traditional Chinese versions of the game here.

Last revised by hobgoblin8000 3 months ago
Created May 2, 2020
6 years ago
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- PAGE SECTIONS

- Back to Index
- Welcome
- 0 Introduction
- 1 Defaults
- 1.1 Cosmetic Defaults
- 1.2 Environmental Defaults
- 1.3 Build & Buy Defaults
- 1.4 Alternate & Thematic Defaults
- 1.5 Miscellaneous Defaults, including UI, loading screens, Create-a-Sim, NPCs etc.
- 2 Non-Default Custom Content
- 2.1 Where To Find Beautiful CC
- 3 Screenshots
- 3.1 How to Take Better Screenshots
- 3.2 Defaults & Mods
- 3.3 Cheats & Camera Controls
- 4 Lighting Mods
- 4.1 What Do They Do? How To Use Them?
- 4.2 Choosing & Installing Lighting Mods
- 5 Post-processing
- 5.1 Post-Processing Cheats
- 5.2 Pine's Post-Processing Mod
- 5.3 iCad's Nvidia Tweaks
- 5.4 ReShade (finally!)
- 6 Sims2RPC (Not for Mac or the Legacy Edition)
- 7 Body Shop
- 7.1 What and Where It Is or How to Get It
- 7.2 Fixin' It Up
- 7.3 Actually Using It
- 7.4 BUG: BodyShop is STILL compressing my projects/CC
- 7.5 Advanced Controls & Tips for Pros!
- 7.6 Making It Pretty <3

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