Out, Damned Spot! Fixing Blue Lots After Using EIG

Once you've placed all of your roads and lots the next logical step is using Edit in Game to add the finishing touches to your world. Except something horrific happens once you save your EIG changes and go back to your world in Create A World. Suddenly you're looking at blue lots and the buildings look like poorly build card houses. Use EIG a couple of times and they look like flattened card houses. 

When I first started, the only advice I could find was to add a bit of terrain paint to each lot while playing the world "in game". And that does work, but it is so tedious and irritating to do and I couldn't see that being the only solution. People are creating worlds and uploading them for other people to use, who is going to download a custom world that they have to fix blue lots every time they start a new game? 

Convinced there had to be a better way I did many Google searches. Most of them lead me to very old forum posts that had nothing to do with Create a World or EIG but finally I found a single post on Aminova's Sims that provided the solution. In her post she doesn't reference blue lots specifically but she does mention corrupted LOD files which were mentioned in >this post< as the cause of blue lots. 

Make a Backup

Before doing anything else, track down your world file in your \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds folder. Copy and paste to your Desktop so you have a back up. 

Open S3EP

Using S3EP, open your original world file, the one in your Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds folder. Sort by Tag and then by Name. This should put all of your unnamed _IMG files together. Select all of the _IMG files that have nothing in the Name column, right click and delete them. Yes, ALL of them. Aren't you glad you have your backup? Save and then close your world in S3EP.

Open CAW

Open your world in CAW again. 

Ta da! No more blue lots and the house of cards buildings are back to normal. Save in CAW and carry on. 

It sure beats fixing each lot one by one.

Editing Monte Vista, Setting up Custom/MV Roads

When you first open your new "Monte Vista" the only road configured is the base road. All of the Monte Vista roads and sidewalks are listed, but empty. When you downloaded your MV Textures, the Road files were included. 

Each subfolder in the MV Roads folder includes a guide for setting up the road. I usually print those out, but whatever works for you is fine. 

Under the Road Tool, click Create Custom Road.

Fill in the road name and then using the guides, browse to your source texture folder and select the appropriate files for each item. For the Cobblestone Road, leave the opacity Map under the Sidewalk Textures empty. Continue until you've created a custom road for each of the MV roads. 

Roads can be locked and unlocked. Click on the section of road you wish to lock/unlock and then hit your spacebar. Locked roads will have red lines instead of the usual cyan. Useful if you are placing roads in tricky terrain, I came across it while trying to edit Twinbrook. At one point, having no idea what the red lines meant, I was deleting and replacing every road in Twinbrook. Finding out it was unnecessary was a relief.

Create a World has been around for a while so there will be many tutorials out there on how to use it. There isn't much reason for me to reinvent the wheel when those tutorials are laid out in a logical way. I started with >this one< and there is a very good section on placing roads & intersections. 

The original Monte Vista has a number of roads that do not end with an intersection and most of the instructions I've read stress this causes routing errors so placing intersections on the ends of those roads is usually one of the first things I do. The road beside Mucho Expresso Cafe is wonky and since making better use of that space is one of the changes I made, fixing that happens early. 

Community Lots

If you're like me, and think that a 40x64 lot for Dr. Simano's Sanatorium is an insane waste of space, the building will fit on a lot as small as 35x35. I opened a game in Monte Vista and in edit town, used a 40x40 lot to create my own Dr. Simano's. That left enough room for a sidewalk and a 40x22 lot for the firehall. 

Mucho Espresso gone, I divvied up that space in the same proportions to make room for the bowling alley from University and the coffee house from Showtime. I also saved the General Store from WA's France and set that up as my consignment shop. With just a bit of redecorating it fits the character of Monte Vista much better than the Ambitions Consignment shop.

The massive public pool that rarely gets used became 2 lots, one for Performance park and a spare to make either a kids park or a more realistic sized public pool. Performance Park draws more NPC's than that ridiculous pool ever did. 

I also like to put  6x9 lots for subways everywhere. With a mod that allows kids to ride the subway it makes them getting around a lot easier. NPC's never use it of course. 

Residential Lots

For residential lots I favor adding more smaller lots. I prefer to play one main family rather than an entire town so a surplus of large luxury lots isn't much benefit. I need plenty of 20x30's, 30x30's, and because Monte Vista style houses favor them, 20x20 lots. 

Monte Vista the original doesn't have a single lot with the beautiful vista moodlet, so I add that to at least the 2 Bard Boulevard properties. 

If you've played the Monte Vista world, you've got a few ideas of your own. Now you can use them.

That Monte Vista Grass

Eventually, I will add a tutorial on making in-game terrain paints but not just yet. So if I've done this right, you should be able to download the light grass using this link.  Once you've downloaded it just drop it in your Sims 3 mods folder and it should show up in your terrain paints (as bluegrass since for the life of me I can't figure out how to rename it.). Fingers crossed.

Finishing Up

We have just a couple more things to do before we get to finally open Monte Vista in CAW and start editing away. 

Create a New Folder on your desktop. Call it MV .Ini Files & Color Ramps. While we're at it, created another New Folder and call it MV Textures. We won't need the Textures just yet but they come from the same place so may as well grab them all at once. 

While I'm sure there is a way for us to extract the needed files ourselves, AuntieLynds has helpfully provided them to download >Here<. While you are there scroll through the thread, she explains a little about how we're going to use the .Ini Files and Color Ramps. She also has the Height Map to download but so far I haven't looked at whether I should be using it or how and I've been able to do what I want to Monte Vista without it. I will edit this post if that changes. Once you've downloaded the .Ini Files & Color Ramps and the Textures, extract and place the files in the folders we created. Keep the Road files with the Texture files.

Copy and past the files in MV Textures, including the Road files to C:\Users\[you]\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\SourceTextures.

About .Ini Files and Color Ramps

Basically these are the files and instructions that make Monte Vista feel like a Mountain Town. They control the light, the water color and so on. They even set up that flyover you get when the game is loading. There are 2 ways to get these files to show up in your edited world. The first way is the best because if it works, everything will show up when you are editing in CAW and then export with your World file when you are finished, but if it doesn't work you can still use the second way as a Plan B. The only problem is Plan A requires you to rename the files and color ramps while Plan B requires them to be left as is. So lets go ahead and create another folder on our desk top. Call it MV .Ini Files & Color Ramps Renamed. Copy and paste the files you downloaded to the new folder. 

You can find a tutorial by SimSample >here< on how to make this work. For now we are just going to rename the files. 

Open up your "Renamed" folder and change the names as below.

0x3EC0CF0CC4A6540F 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - rename to World.ini
0x7886A7F59355762F 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - rename to CameraFlyThroughPath.ini
0xD89F9D186B7BB372 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - rename to Sea.ini
0x5E20253AF53E517F 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - Rename to SkyCommon.ini
0x5E4F8E7B226066CA 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - Rename to LightingCommon.ini

0x967BC6C3B3808C00 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - rename to WorldEnvtIni_Clear.ini
0x560C0FD7012DA7F3 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - rename to WorldEnvtIni_PartlyCloudy.ini
0x8DEA7AE7631A026A 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - rename to WorldEnvtIni_Overcast.ini
0x2C02B3532B64EB49 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - rename to WorldEnvtIni_Stormy.ini
0xFE1F6A95A24A604A 0x00000000 0x1F886EAD - rename to WorldEnvtIni_Special.ini

0x7529C26EE8E2A9E6 0x0076A684 0x00B2D882 - rename to WorldEnvt_Clear.dds
0xECCBBCB773C02131 0x0076A684 0x00B2D882 - rename to WorldEnvt_PartlyCloudy.dds
0xF0A86F660985BF20 0x0076A684 0x00B2D882 - rename to WorldEnvt_Overcast.dds
0xE422CDDE7FE1F25F 0x0076A684 0x00B2D882 - rename to WorldEnvt_Stormy.dds
0x28C841C9462BCDE0 0x0076A684 0x00B2D882 - rename to WorldEnvt_Special.dds

0x4261039931560B4F 0x00000000 0x00B2D882 - rename to Sky_Sun.dds
0x51EAD515780CFC7D 0x00000000 0x00B2D882 - rename to Sky_SunHalo.dds
0xDAA22EF57F391561 0x00000000 0x00B2D882 - rename to CloudNoiseBase.dds
0xE65DA8A3892F387C 0x00000000 0x00B2D882 - rename to terrain_detail.dds 

Next download the Distant Terrain package from Cawster. Extract the file so it's ready.

Once you've finished just leave the files in their folder for now. We're not quite ready to place them yet.

Export the Character XML

The last step before we get to go on to editing our world is to extract the Character Import XML. This is the file that controls who is related to who, skills, jobs and basically every household's story. I've edited some worlds where this file just automatically stays in the World file. Monte Vista is, as always, more difficult, so the Character Import drops out of this world.

Of course some people prefer to remove the existing population when they are editing premade worlds. Myself I would rather go through a mammogram and a colonoscopy than sit and make enough sims in CAS to populate a world so for the purposes of this tutorial I'm going to assume you feel the same.

Open S3PE. Click File>Open.

Select the package from the world file that we set aside in the safekeeping folder. Once it is open in S3PE, sort the files by the "Tag" column. Scroll down until you find the 2 files tagged _XML. If you look in the right hand pane as you click on each file, one is a "Manifest". I have no idea what it does but adding it to your new world file doesn't seem to do anything, neither does leaving it out. The other file will say character import at the top. If you scroll through you can see the information it holds.

Highlight the character import XML. Click Resources>Export>To File and export it to your MV .ini Files and Color Ramps folder with the original format files. While it is neither a Color Ramp nor a .ini file, it is added to your world file package in the same way and they can all be added together if you have to resort to Plan B for those files.

Ready, Set, Go!

For the next bit we are almost going to follow the steps in this forum post by SimSample but with a few changes.

Open Create A World. Click File>New. Select the Large 300 Flat Map. Save as 'test', wait for the pop-up that says the save was successful then close CAW.

Open S3EP. Select File>Open and then your test.world file. The path will be C:\Users\[your]\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds.

Next click Resource>Import>From Package. Instead of browsing for a .world file you are going to import the package you put in your safe file. Replace duplicates, use resource names and compress. You don't want to Auto save.

Click the header on the Tag column until it sorts from Z-A. Scroll down to the WPID tag. There will be 2. One crossed out and one newly imported. Right click the one that isn't crossed out and delete so both will be crossed out. Save.

Give it a minute or 4 to do it's thing and once it's saved (all of the crossed out files will be gone) close S3EP.

Open Create A World again. Click File>Open and open your test.world file. Click Save As and save it with the name you want to use for your town. Wait until the pop-up appears saying the save was successful - it takes a while and doesn't really look like it's doing anything but it's working. Close Create A World again. 

 

Let's start moving the files we've prepared into their folders.

Putting everything together

Copy & Paste the distant terrain package into the Package folder you created C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create a World Tool\Packages. 

Copy and Paste the _xml file you extracted into your new World folder. So I'm going to call my new world Monte Vista II. The file goes C:\Users\[you]\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds\Monte Vista II

Then copy and paste all of the renamed .ini files and color ramps into the Config folder. So C:\Users\Vanes\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds\Monte Vista II\Config

Now you can open CAW and your new world. Check for the bridges, city walls, rabbit holes. If they're all there you're ready to start creating your own special Monte Vista.

 

 

Getting Monte Vista Objects to show in CAW Metadata and In-Game

The next step to editing Monte Vista in Create A World is setting up a framework to let CAW know to look for the object files and modding the files so CAW can read them. While we're at it, we will set up a folder so the objects will appear in-game as well. 

Create Your CAW Framework 

The original tutorial by AuntieLynds that I used can be found >here<, there is also a wiki >here< in the wiki there is an alternate method to use where you create a "symbolic" link. I do not recommend you use that method unless you know how to undo it. It did not work for me and I wasted a lot of time getting it out of my way so I could use the method that does work below.

Using the path C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create a World Tool add a new folder and name it Packages. Next scroll down to the resources.cfg file. Copy and paste into your safekeeping file. Using Notepad (in Windows 10 it is found under Windows Accessories in the start menu) open the original resources.cfg file from your The Sims 3 Create a World Tool folder. Copy and paste the following to the very bottom of the file in Notepad.

Priority 501
DirectoryFiles Files/... autoupdate
Priority 500
PackedFile Packages/*.package
PackedFile Packages/*/*.package
PackedFile Packages/*/*/*.package
PackedFile Packages/*/*/*/*.package
PackedFile Packages/*/*/*/*/*.package

 

It should look like the picture above when you are done. Save it and close Notepad. Your framework is done. Should something go wrong and it causes problems just remove the altered file and replace it with a copy of the original you kept in your safekeeping folder. 

While we're at it, using the path C:\Users\[you]\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\DCBackup add another new folder and call it Edited Monte Vista. Don't worry if your DCBackup folder is a bunch of package files instead of the folders like mine is because that is exactly what mine looked like before I started trying to edit Monte Vista in create a world. The DCBackup folder holds all of your store content and the last time I had to reinstall all of mine, I created all of the subfolders and moved package files into them as I downloaded and installed store content. But we do want to keep the "new" Monte Vista files we are going to mod in the next step separate in case you need to work with them again. 

Mod Your Package Files

The original tutorial I used to learn this is by SimSample and can be found >here<.

Next we're going to use S3PE to import each of the package files in our MV Extracted folder (except the world file you've set aside) into a new file and make some changes to allow the objects to appear in our CAW metadata. The problem is there are a lot of packages to work through one by one and they don't have easily distinguishable names nor will we be modifying the originals to use time stamps to distinguish the files we've done from the ones we haven't. The easiest way I've found to keep it all organized is to add a sub-folder to the MV Extracted folder and move the original package files to it as I finish with them so go ahead and create your sub-folder then open S3PE. 

Open S3PE 

 

Click File>New

Then Resource>Import>From package

Select a package file. If you work methodically from the first package, you can move each one to the finished folder when you are done with it. Larger packages are usually the rabbit holes so I am going to use the 2,299 KB file to demonstrate. 

Using the default settings shown above, click Import. When asked if you wish to auto-save click No.

Scroll down to the file with the OBJD tag. Click the Grid button at the bottom.

In the Data Grid, click to expand the Common Block. Change Version to 0x0000000E if it isn't already. Click Commit.

Expand the Common Block again. Scroll down the the BuildBuyProductStatusFlags. It it is an item that should show up in World Editor - things like trees, rabbit-holes, road signs, street lights, bridges, city walls, poppies - change the IsVisibleInWorldBuilder from false to true. If it's a wallpaper, a hairstyle, any object that would only appear on a Sim or a Lot, leave it false. Click Commit.

Scroll through the information on the right side of your screen. Check to see if the BuildCategoryFlag is appropriate. The original tutorial I used suggested it should always be changed to either Landmark, Tree, or Rock and that was probably true at the time that tutorial was created but so far it doesn't seem to be the case now.

If the BuildCategoryFlags does need to be changed, click on Grid again. Scroll down to the BuildCategoryFlags and click to expand. Select the appropriate category and change from false to true. Click Commit.

Now just go to File>Save and you will be prompted for a file name. Thankfully, it doesn't have to be a string of numbers and letters, you can use something that makes sense. I usually use the object name - in this case I would call it criminalAsylum_DOT07. 

Now you just need to do the same thing to all of the other files in your folder. A couple of things to watch for:

• there are 3 separate packages to the city wall. 
• there are 4 individual ruins packages
  
• there are 2 street light packages.
• there are 2 mail-box packages
  
• be careful in your file naming that you do not accidentally overwrite a needed object. For instance there is a foodEatpizza package and there is a foodServepizza package. In the wallpapers you might have a topL, topC, topR along with a BottomL, BottomC and BottomR.
  
• you absolutely do need the poppies and the trees visible in world editor along with the rabbit-holes, the bridge, the lighthouse and the street signs. You do not need things like Shutters, food, roofs, etc. so for those items leave the IsVisibleInWorldBuilder set to False.
  
• the OBJD in some packages will already be set to all the settings above. Save the new file under a new name anyway or CAW will not recognize them. 
  
• some packages do not contain any OBJD tagged files. Just save under a recognizable name anyway and we can discard them later if we need to. 
• No matter how tempting it is, you can't just open the original package, edit and then save. You must import the original package into a new file. CAW will not recognize edited Monte Vista packages. I know this because I tried it. 
  

When you are finished you should have a folder with 112 packages that are saved under easily identifiable names and a sub-folder with the same number of packages named with seemingly random numbers and letters. Copy and paste everything except the sub-folder and it's contents, to the Packages folder you created in your CAW Framework. I don't know if it's necessary but since it doesn't hurt, paste another copy to the Edited Monte Vista folder you created in your DCBackup folder. 

There is some further information that looks interesting at >this Link<