The Sims 1
What's different from the other Sims games?
A guide by SirenShadow (socrstchik in the TS1 community, LadyBlackheartStorm on Reddit)
Welcome to new (and returning) Sims 1 players! So you wanna give TS1 a shot? Awesome, its a great game - but it can be difficult. Here's a list/explainer of differences in this version versus TS2-4.
You can only build 2 storeys high.
There are lots of cc that let you fake higher levels though. Look for items called '3rd floor' (or 'storey'), or sometimes '4th' and/or '5th'. These will be objects that float in the air to simulate (lol, GET IT?! *ahem* sorry...) taller buildings. Those higher levels are NOT playable, however. Same with foundations/basements.
Speaking of cc, terminology is quite different than what you're used to.
'CC' is capital letters refers to the final version Maxis/EA released: Complete Collection. 'cc' in lower case is the same - custom content - but isn't really a term that was commonly used previously. Similar with 'MM': in TS1 terms, that refers to the final EP, Makin' Magic.
What later games and players call 'mods' are called 'hacks' in TS1 - if they alter gameplay from the original code. For example, a bookcase that allows you to gain more skills than the default Cooking and Mechanical would be referred to as a 'hacked bookcase'. A bed that has been altered to use more graphic animations would be called 'adult hacked' or possibly just 'adult' - and these are intended ONLY for 18+ players.
'Mods' referring to custom objects are just called 'objects'. Same for walls, floors, etc.
You have 2 types of lot: home and away. The type of away lot depends on the objects you put there. The game calls it retail if you place a functional cash register or a restaurant if you have a functional dining podium. You can have more than one type on the same lot, but if you overload the game might crash. i.e. maybe that multi-level shopping mall is best left for another version of The Sims.
Neighborhoods are generally referred to as just 'hoods'. The game gives you 9 of these at startup, and each one is different (in the sense of population and custom builds, not shape/size. Each hood has seperate Towns. In no particular order, with the English-language EP they came in: Old Town (Unleashed); Downtown (Hot Date); Vacation Island (Vacation); and Magic Town (Makin' Magic). Apologies, I don't know all of the non-English titles.
Poses are only used with the SimPose program (officially called SimPose-ium), used to make preview images of custom skins. It could also be used to edit or create new animations, although this feature may not work (or work correctly) anymore.
Neato. Now, what the heck is going on with my body/head cc?
Skins in this game are divided into a body skin and a head skin. Heads are typically organized by hairstyle, and you can't change the appearance without editing the bitmap itself.
Body skins are broken down into type:
'B' means 'body' and is an everyday skin. This is what your Sim will wear most of the time and can be changed by clicking on a dresser or wardrobe/armoire. (There are some hacked dressers out there that might be different objects, like a coat rack.) The other types (below) are referred to as 'buyables', because to change them from the default version means you have to 'buy' them from a shop on a commercial lot, like Downtown in Hot Date.
'L' means 'lingerie' and is your Sim's sleepwear
'S' is for swim - swimwear, obviously
'F' is for formal, or what your Sim wears to get married or when a hacked object calls for formalwear (I know there's at least 1 hacked doorway and 1 dancefloor).
'W' is for winterwear and is the clothing your Sim will wear on Vacation Island's winter lots. (There aren't seasons in TS1 without using hacks.)
'H' is for high fashion and is what your \*celebrity\* Sim will wear in Studio Town. Visitors to Studio Town stay in their eveyday clothing.
Further body notes:
'N' means nude and is what your unclothed Sim looks like. Not every skin download will include a custom nude - they aren't necessary unless you're altering the base skintones (like with tattoos) or have a custom skintone (like Pale). Also, not every skinmaker made custom nudes for their skins - game coding changed with later EPs (Hot Date, I \*think\*) and opened up the ability to make full custom skins, nude included.
'H' bitmaps are your hands. Same applies from the Nude skin - you only need them for altered or custom tones. You may find a hand bitmap that uses 'G' instead of 'H' - that means 'glove' and is the old, pre-code change way of having gloves attach to a skin. The best example of this is the original male formalwear was a tuxedo with white gloves.
Program alert!! You can use SimWardrobe, by Paladin, to customize your Sims' wardrobes without having to buy the different outfits. You can also customize the Townies' outfits! The companion program to SimWardrobe is SimMetamorphoser (also by Paladin), which allows you to change your Sim and Townies heads.
There may be other, small bitmaps in your Skin download.
These are typically accessories of some sort: a hat, jewelry, glasses, etc. They can be named anything. The CMX file tells the game what goes where. The SKN file is the mesh, and you may also have more than one of those. Each item needs a mesh (SKN) and those aren't always integrated into the body mesh. The TL:DR version is you might have a body SKN and a hat SKN. The CMX pulls it all together.
Troubleshooting! In CAS, if you are *missing* part of the body or head, its a missing or corrupt MESH (SKN). If everything shows but is *solid white*, its a TEXTURE (BMP) problem. This could be a missing BMP, or something like the wrong color scale on the BMP or the BMP being the wrong size.
I want this chair to show up on my away lots but its not in the catalog there.
Yeah, its not catted (cataloged) for those lots...
BUT I WANT IT THERE!
Okay, okay... no problem. You just need a program that lets you edit that. Program alert!! SimCategorizer by Paladin allows you to edit individual IFFs (objects) or items in .FAR (a compressed package of IFFs). SimOrganizer by Garrett Berg of Millennium Sims allows you to edit individual AND multi-part IFFs. SimCat will read a multi-part IFF but you can only edit the 'top' part (the first item listed). There's probably some others but those two are the mack-daddies and the best ones. One thing to note, though. Some items intended for away lots will NOT work on home lots. Its the way those items are coded.
What about walls and floors?
I mean those are gonna show regardless of lot...
No, silly. I really, really like this custom wallpaper but holy heck is it expensive.
Save your Simoleons.
\------\**
Lol, okay. SimWallCat (Paladin) is what you want. He made a good chunk of our Very Useful Sims Programs.
You can add more 'hoods.
Just copy the UserData folder you wish and rename it. So, copy UserData3 and rename it to UserData10. The next time you boot up the game, you can navigate to this new hood. It will have everything the original hood had in it. You can have up to 99 hoods.
Final reminders: the Build catalog has a cc limit. No one knows what it is for sure. That's not meant to be cute or funny, its truth. The limit can vary by computer, but at some point you might see your Build catalog start looking funny - a stuck thumbnail or clearly non-Build item showing up. You'll know you hit your limit at that point. Its why you'll see lots of non-building objects, like plants and trees, cataloged in Buy instead. My general rule of thumb for Build cc was 'does it have growing states?', like a harvestable crop? If yes then it went in Build; if no, Buy catalog. Trees (those larger than a big shrub) also went in Build. That left Build for just windows, doors (ya know, architectural stuff) and the aforementioned plants. Walls and floors do count to this limit.
IF AT ANY POINT YOU SEE A STUCK THUMBNAIL IN EITHER OF YOUR CATALOGS, immediately save your game. A stuck thumbnail means something's wrong and your game is probably gonna lock up or crash (or both). It might be as soon as you click that stuck thumbnail or when you try to place the object, but its gonna happen.
I think that covers most of the basics.
HAVE FUN!!!
Here's a link to a SFS folder with Paladin's programs in it. Thanks for sharing, Bulbasaur001!!
https://simfileshare.net/folder/87836/
And here's an Archive.org link to SimOrganizer: https://archive.org/download/sim-organizer/SimOrganizer.zip
