Managing Custom Content for Noobs
There are a lot of other tutorials out there on how to do this, but since my co-blogger's asked nicely, I'll post this up for her anyway. It's nothing new from all the millions of other step-by-step instructions on managing Custom Content, but I'll try to make this as detailed and easy as possible for all the Sims 3 Newbies out there.
1. Downloading the Essentials
1) First, you'll need to download a few programs.
1) Delphy's Sims 3 Pack Multi-extractor
2) Delphy's TS3 Dashboard tool
3) TS3 Package Editor
**NOTE** in order to use the Sims 3 Package Editor (s3pe), you will need to have Microsoft .NET Framework 4 installed on your computer. If you don't already have it, you can download the web installer here or the offline standalone installer here.
2. Making sure your game is ready for Custom Content
2) After you've downloaded and installed/extracted all the essentials above, you'll have to make sure that your Sims 3 game is ready to load Custom Content. Basically, you just need to open up My Documents and take a look at your Sims 3 folder.
>> Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\(user name)\My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\
>> Windows Vista/7: C:\Users\(username)\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\
Now, if in your The Sims 3 folder, you have a folder named Mods \ Packages , then you're all set. If you don't have it yet, it's nothing to cry about. Just download this Sims 3 Framework Setup and extract it (using WinZip or WinRAR or a similar program) in the Sims 3 folder that you just opened.
If you've done everything right, you should have your Sims 3 folder look something like this (click on each picture for a bigger view):
And if you open the Mods folder, this is what you should see:
All your Custom Content will later go into the Packages folder you see above. If you're still looking for some CC, I also have some links on the sidebar that you can check out.
But now I assume you already have CC that you want to install into your Sims 3 game. I know I wrote in the last paragraph that your CC goes into the Packages folder, but don't do that yet!
3. Organizing your Custom Content
3) Third step will be to organize your CC. If you only have a handful of custom content, then go ahead and put that into your Packages folder, but if you (like me) have hundreds of CC, this will cause your game to lag, or at least somewhat decrease the game's performance.
This happens because the way the game works is that it doesn't load based on the size of your CC, but on the actual amount of CC you have installed in that Packages folder of yours. So what you need to do is to merge your hundreds of CC into just a couple of reasonably-sized packages.
So. Organize your CC.
How I like to do it is to make a separate folder (away from your Sims 3 game folder) where I store all my CC. I do this on a completely separate drive (preferably not on your C:\ drive or whichever drive you keep your system files).
Now, it's entirely up to you how to organize your files, but just for reference, I store my CC into separate folders according to their type. This leaves me with the following folders:
Clothes (self explanatory, really)
CAS (where I store Create-A-Sim CC such as eyebrows, skins, beards, sliders)
Hair (I have tons of CC hair, which is why I have a completely separate section for them)
Make Up (for blushes, lipsticks, eyeliners, eyeshadows, contact lenses, etc.)
Buy Mode (where I keep the buy-mode items, such as decor etc. as well as accessories)
Build Mode (also self explanatory)
Again, you don't need to follow my classing system, of course, it's really up to you how you do it. The point is to keep all your CC organized and easy for you to work with.
4. Converting Sims3Pack files
4) Now that that's done and you've put all your CC into each appropriate folder, this step is optional but I recommend you to follow it anyway.
Some of your custom content downloads may be in the form of Sims3Pack. Now, I've had bad experience if I install too many Sims3Pack, plus some of them may cause serious glitches and basic annoyances throughout gameplay, so I like to convert them into .package files. This is where Delphy's Sims 3 Pack Multi Extractor comes in. So open up that baby.
This step is pretty straightforward. Under the box that says Step 1, just locate the Folder where your .Sims3Pack files are contained.
Under the box that says Step 2, locate the Folder where you would like your converted .package files to be stored in.
Don't forget to check the box that asks you to Rename files on Save, as it will help you differentiate which CC is which, otherwise it will just rename your newly .package-converted CC into a string of numbers. Once you're done, click Extract.
Now open up the folder where you've chosen your converted .package files to be stored in, and place them accordingly into each folder as per Step 3.
5. Checking for bad Custom Content
5) Once everything is in .package file, you are technically ready to merge them with TS3 Package Editor. However, once you merge .package files together, there is no safe way to take a file out of the merged .package. So it is important that you make sure your CC are safe, that there are no duplicates, etc. etc, before you merge them together.
For this, we have Delphy's TS3 Dashboard Tool.
So after you've opened up the program, click Files --> Scan Folder and then select the folder where you've put all your .package files. Preferably you should select the main folder that contains all your CC sub-folders, so that all of your CC are scanned at once.
e.g., I've saved my 6 folders (Build Mode, Buy Mode, CAS, Clothes, Hair, and Make Up) in D:\Files\Sims 3 Custom Content. Instead of selecting individual folders [eg. CAS], it is better to select the Sims 3 Custom Content folder, as it will scan all .packages in all sub-folders.
A list should come up of all your CC. If the colours don't automatically show up, what you need to do is click Filter --> All None Standard Files, and the dashboard will then highlight any problematic files you have. The non-highlighted CC means that they are a-ok.
**NOTE** the above screenshot is obviously just an example, which is why there are only a few files shown. In actuality, there would be hundreds of files in the list (according to the amount of CC I actually have).
Unfortunately, you will need to delete any corrupt files, duplicates, conflicting packages, or sims 2 packages that the dashboard has detected. For conflicting & duplicate files, you will (obviously) only need to delete one of the duplicates, or one of the conflicts.
There is the "Fix All Problems" button, but I prefer to remove duplicates and delete bad CC manually because somehow the button doesn't actually fix the problem for me. In my example above, I ended up manually deleting PS Manor Rug II.package, PS Manor Rug I.package, and [PS] Tender Eyebrows.package.
Anyway, after you've deleted what you need to delete, don't forget to hit the "Refresh List" button on the lower right corner...
...and just to be safe, hit the Filter --> All None Standard Files one more time, and if you've done everything right, all the CC should be fine now and ready for merging.
6. Merging your Custom Content
6) Final step is to merge the .packages, so open up s3pe (they have an updated version, so if you had downloaded it quite a while ago, make sure you've downloaded and use the newer version).
Before you begin, there are a few things that you should take note of.
(a) This is optional, but it is better if you do not merge core/script mods or default replacement CC. Rather, simply keep them in a separate sub-folder in the Mods \ Packages file folder. The reason is because mods are usually often updated and change with each new patch, and it would cause more trouble if you merge them together.
Also, I've had experience with some mods conflicting one another if I merge them, so again, I find that it's better not to merge mods.
(b) Keep in mind that each merged .package should not exceed around 450 mb (my largest file is about 480 mb), so if your CC goes over 450 mb, it's better to separate them into different merges (i.e. Hair 1, Hair 2, etc...)
Now, go to File --> New
Once you've done that, go to Resource --> Import --> As dbc... and then locate the folder of your Custom Content.
If you've grouped your CC based on categories, then you'll need to do this for each category later on.
Then locate the folder that you want to merge, and select all the CC (unless it goes over 450 mb, in which case you can separate them into different merged files.
When the dialogue box prompts you to "Save As", give it a name representative of your files, then hit the "save" button. (I like to save it on my desktop first just to make things easier, but you can directly save it in you Mods \ Packages folder if you like.
After you've hit the "Save" button, it may take some time (depending on how big the total files are) before it finishes. But once it's done, you should have something like this on your screen:
And that's it! You can close s3pe and move the merged file into your Mods \ Packages folder (if it isn't already saved in there).
This is just a look into my Mods \ Packages folder for reference:
So, as I've said, I separate my mods and default replacement CC into sub-folders (because I like to keep my files neat and uncluttered, but this is completely optional) and doesn't actually affect game performance as far as I know.
And that's it!
7. Finishing up
7. You have to remember that once merged together, there is no way to UNMERGE your CC. So if for instance you need to take out a CC, you have to re-merge your packages again from Step 6. For this reason, I like to keep a copy of my unmerged CC on a separate hard disk, compressed into .RAR files, just in case I need to change my merged packages.
So it looks something like this:
Once again, you do not have to do this, and even if you do, your categories do not need to be the same as mine, but keep in mind this is just a back-up of the original CC packages. Good luck!