I got a couple of asks like “How to make my game look beautiful? I’m new to the Sims 2, any tips? Why is your game so bright? The grass so green? The water so reflective??” and so on. I decided to make a guide for new ts2 players that will help to answer all such questions. In general, I just gathered all the basic information about my musthave mods/defaults/cheats/photoshop editing/creating hood/downloading CC and more and more. So, if you’re new for the world of the Sims 2 and want to know how to improve your gameplay pictures, this “Starter pack” guide is what you need! All the info with links and screenshots is under the cut!

WARNING: English is not my native language, so I’m sorry for possible grammar and spelling mistakes.

Ok, first things first. Let’s imagine that you’ve just installed your Sims 2 game and sitting next to the monitor blankly staring and having no idea where to start. Before actually downloading a bunch of custom content or even opening your game, you must do some important steps.

STEP 1 “Graphics”

I would really recommend to start with downloading Graphics Rules Maker. Some new graphic cards simply can’t be recognised by the game as the Sims 2 is a pretty old game. And here we have a problem. The newer your computer is, the laggier your game could be. But usually this step prevents all the graphics glitches (like strange stripes all over, pink flashing and so on). Better save than sorry!

STEP 2 “Lighting mod”

Maxis original lighting can be strange and not so decent sometimes. In order to get a more comfortable and brighter lighting, you can install a lighting mod. I use this one by Spookymuffin. The installation is quite simple. You just go to C/Program files/EA games/the sims2/ts data/res/lights and rename the .txt file called “lighting” to “maxis lighting” (it’ll be your backup in case you want to come back to the original files), extract the lighting file called “spooky lighting.txt” to the above directory and rename it “lighting.txt”. “C/program files/origin games/the sims 2 ultimate collection/double deluxe/base/ts data/res/lights” is the installation path if you have the Ultimate Collection. And you’re done! Now you have a nice lighting with a bonus dusk and dawn that originally are absent in game.



STEP 3 “Camera mod”

And again I’m not pleased with original Maxis camera as you can’t take proper pictures in the hood view and life mod isn’t convenient for me. If you want to take cool zoom-in and zoom-out pictures, you need to install a camera mod. I use this one by Gunmod. This mod opens a lot of posibilities like cool new angles and huge camera distance from the lot view. To install it you need put the files in your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Cameras folder. But read the original link, please!



STEP 4 “Userstartup.cheat”

I rarely see people talking about this feature but that’s really convenient. This step will help you to shorten your cheat names to avoid typing “boolprop snapobjectsto grid false” and replace it with shorter “sotf”, for example. Or “move objects on” with “mon”. And so on, it’s up for you to decide what commands to choose. All the information is right here. If you wonder, what my userstartup cheat looks like, it’s here:

boolprop dontMergeNHflora false



boolprop allow45degreeangleofrotation true



boolprop testingcheatsenabled true



setquartertileplacement on



intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims 20



boolProp ControlPets on



uintProp LotskirtSizeIncrease 120



alias mon “moveObjects on”



alias mof “moveObjects off”



alias sotg “boolProp snapObjectsToGrid false”



alias sotf “boolProp snapObjectsToGrid true”



alias m “maxmotives”



alias mot “motivedecay off”



STEP 5 “Creating your neighbourhood”

I always get questions like “How do I get rid of Maxis townies? Why are your townies so cute?” The reason is that I simply do not have Maxis townies. I’ve created a completely sims-free hood beforehand. The guide on creating your own completely clean hood is here. Be sure to follow each step and read everything carefully. In the end, you’ll have a clean world with no NPCs or townies at all. You can now create your playable sims or even your own townies. To do that, you’ll need a Simblender mod. Just create a sim, randomize their personality and click on “Make me a townie” function.

And now your sim will disappear from family and appear in the townie pool. Ok, now you have a clean but very empty world. Time to customize it!

STEP 6 “Neighbourhood view defaults”

Defaults make the simmers’ life a lot better. I’d like to start with hood view defaults and other important stuff that will make your lot view look great!

6.1. Grass and road replacement. Original grass is definitely something that I dislike a lot in the game. It’s so dry… Everytime I see it, I’m like “Maxis, why? Even the Sims 1 grass was a lot brighter and greener”. The original road looks ok and you can leave it but I’m not a fan of it. So, I’m currently using Rural Charm set by Criquette. I used to have another replacement by Curiousb. Both of these sets look nice in game. It’s up for you to decide which one to use. To my mind, Rural Charm is obviously great for farm-type hoods and Curiousb’s are perfect for towns/downtowns. You just need to drop these files to your Downloads folder. But I highly recommend to read the whole original links cause it’s better to do it once properly than re-reading and fiding out why your default doesn’t look nice.

6.2. Trees replacement. Original trees look very blurry even if you graphics is nice. So, I’m using Criquette’s right now. But also I used to have Silent Dragon’s. (the direct link). Again both sets are nice and it’s up for you to decide which ones to use.

6.3. Sky. I’ll tell you more. Not even sky, but ANIMATED sky. It’s one of those pieces of CC that made me incredibly happy. That’s all I could wish for. You can grab the animated sky by Lowedeus here. The installation info is pretty clear in that post, so I don’t even need to add anything here. Finally the era of beautiful skies for ts2 simmers came! Personally, I use only a hood version as it can be nicely seen from the lot view without extra sky boxes.

6.4 Skylines. That’s a pretty new feature that was brought to us by @greatcheesecakepersona. Well, the idea is the following: the original maxis skylines are very plain and basically are just a bunch of horisontal pixel lines that look quite unnatural. By using the skyline you’ll get that beautiful fading away distance image. You can get them here. Again, the explanation is very clear in the original post.

6.5 Water mod. No comments about blank blue Maxis water. Back in 2014 I could only dream of nice water overhaul. Moi’s water mod did its job. It was very reflective and so on… but far from perfect. I remember making a message on Russian sims forum like “I wish someone could make the water as reflective as in Sims Castaway stories” and boom! Voeille is realising a new water mod in March 2017. How amazing is this mod??? It’s been more than a year but I’m still staring at that beautiful reflective water. There are two versions available (for hood and for lot view) I have both and regret nothing. Remember that for making this mod working properly, you’ll need a couple of swimming pool tiles on the lot. (I usually hide them behind the bushes).

6.6. Sky Fix. It’s more a mod than a default but I’ll leave it here since we talk about sky and stuff. So what’s this? Originally Maxis did a strange thing (again? yes, yes, yes). They created an invisible “box” around your lot so the moon, the sun, clouds, stars, comets are originally invisible. What for? Maybe they had some reasons, who knows. That’s kinda depressing to play without the sun in the sky so Nopke did a fix for that and now all the things in the sky can be seen from the lot! Why is this mod so important? Because we’re going to use custom skies. And how is it possible to see a sky from the lot view if there’s an invisible box around the lot. See?

6.7. Sun and Moon replacement. It’s not a necessity but I was very pleased when @lowedeus released their defaults. I use Corona and Real Moon versions. (Don’t ask me why there’s a pregnant sim in undie outside in the picture :D That was one of the most decent pictures of the night sky I had :D)

6.8 Hood deco It’s important to place not only trees but deco as well as it gives that “real open world” feel to the hood. I like moving my camera across the streets and enjoy the view. haha. There’s a list of hood deco made by @simper-fi. Check it out! She did a great job.

6.9. Game settings and Cheats One more important step for all the hood deco, sky and skylines be seen is to change the settings a bit.

“View distance” must be extra large, “Fade distance” must be off. Also try this cheat uintProp lotskirtSizeIncrease 120 It’ll increase your lot view distance even more. Also, don’t forget to use boolprop dontmergeNHflora false cheat. It’ll make even the furthest neighbourhood trees visible.



For example, this is my lot view at the moment after applying all the steps and cheats :)

After following all these steps I guarantee that your game will be already astonishingly beautiful. To polish this information up I suggest you reading this guide by @greatcheesecakepersona.

Ok, you arranged your camera, lightning, created a clean world, downloaded all the stuff for a perfect hood view. “Is it the end now, Lesya? Can I finally start playing?”, you may ask. Sorry, friend, not yet! :D Time to organize your downloads folder!

STEP 7 “Mods”

I’d like to start with the mods cause they’re important and can make your gameplay very convenient! I’m going to list only my must-haves. You can always hunt for other minor fixes. I’ll link the basics only.

7.1 ACR This name stands for Autonomous Casual Romance. This mod allows your sims doing all the romance interactions autonomously without your interfering. They can even try for a baby themselves. If you’re more a ‘watcher” than a “God” when it comes to gameplay, this mod will become your must-have pretty quickly. Get it here.

7.2. No Pause Frame. I like taking beautiful pictures but that annoying red pause line is… ANNOYING! So to get rid of it, just get this mod.

7.3. Pregnant Sims Wear any Outfit. Originally pregnant sims can wear special maternity suits buuut I don’t like it. By installing this mod, your sims will be able to wear absolutely any outfit. Get it here.

7.4. Shop at Home Hacked Coat Hook. This objects allows you to buy any clothes for any age and gender at home without visiting the clothing store. Very handy! Get it here.

7.5. Community lot time. Just imagine, it’s a nice Sunday morning, 10:00 You send your sim to the community lot to have fun, your sim spends 5 hours on the dance floor/in the pool/buying groceries or whatever, goes home at 15:00 and… it’s still 10:00 on your lot. And you’re just like “What the.. plumbob?” This mod fixes that illogical time counting! Get it here.

7.6. Sim Blender. I mentioned this mod earlier. I use it for making my townies but it has even more options that you can discover yourself. Get it here.

7.7. No plumbobs mod. I like plumbobs in general, but when I take screenshots I prefer not to have it. It’s hugee :D There’re two versions available. Sims only and both sims + hood view. Get it here.

7.8. Sliders YES! Now we can have custom sliders for Bodyshop! You can give your sims very unique features by using them. Get them here.

7.9. Save your game reminder Yes, there’s a mod that’ll remind you to save your game. Personally, I always forget to save my game and after playing for an hour, my game can crash, or elictricity can be off and I lose my progress. I’ve got a 24 hour version. It means that the mod will pause you game and there’ll be a sign “Save your game!” Get it here.

7.10. Faster University Education Another musthave for me. I love playing in uni. But let’s admit that it’s a bit too long and monotonous. This mod shortens the uni time. Get it here.

7.11. Invisible Stop Signs Maybe for big cities those signs are good. But I don’t like them as they’re low quality and seriously everywhere on the roads. This mod makes them invisible. Musthave for rural hoods. Get it here.

7.12 Invisible Neighbourhood Cars Again they are everywhere and don’t match rural-type hoods. Get it here. (nonh-traffic version)

7.13. OMSPs So what do these strange letters mean? They stand for “One More Slot Please”. These are special modded objects (could be tables or shelves) that allow you to place more than one object on the surface. With the help of them, and some cheats (moveobjects on and boolprop snapobjectstogrid off) you can create awesome things. Some examples:

Put a hat on a cat

Put a cat on a broom

Put a cat next to the cauldron

Ok, let’s be serious. These things can be used in decorating interiors with clutter. Get them here. I also explaned how to use them here.

7.14. Roof Shader The same idea as with the water mod. To replace Maxis original shadows on the roofs and to make them brighter, get the mod.

7.15. Neighborhood decorations can be placed anywhere Anthere powerful mod that will allow you to place hood deco even on the playable lot. It’s very cool as you can place trees pretty close to the lot or for example, if you play in a rural hood, you can place fields really close too or even make them a part of the lot. Get it here.

There are a lot more mods and fixes but these are just top 14 can I recommend to start with. For the rest of mods, I highly recommend to check Deedee’s resourse page. It’s nice!



STEP 8 “Defaults”

8.1. Hairs, clothes, makeup, skins, eyes Everytime when someone asks me where to start downloading CC, I always recommend to start with defaults. There’s a special database that will make this process rather fast. This site is super convenient with tons of preview pictures. You can choose whatever you like. Just remember having only one default version per thing.

8.2. Face templates These are replacement of original maxis faces that you have in CAS and that original NPCs will spawn with. By using defaults and creating clean hood, you can avoid those faces. I use tthe ones by Becca. For example, these are policeman and burglar that my game spawned recently. Very pretty faces, I think <3

8.2. Some misc defaults I also can’t live without these three little things. First, roof trims by Phaenoh, white wall top by Mara and floor edge by Feenwald

STEP 9 “Where to get CC?”

There are a lot of places where you can dig for CC treasures. I can suggest starting with:

That’ll really be enough! By checking these links, you’ll discover lots of creators, spend hours on downloading and also make your eyes bloodshot :D

STEP 10 “Building and decorating”

It’s a quite personal thing. Someone likes small box-like houses, someone likes big mansions. You can build whatever you want! But if you still need some tips. Here’s a nice guide by Muupi on colour schemes in your interiors, here’s a landscaping guide by Historicalsimslife which is awesome! And one more here. Basicaly, it’s what I do everytime with my lots. If you feel that your lot is empty, PLACE PLANTS EVERYWHERE. If you feel that you interior is empty, PLACE CLUTTER EVERYWHERE. That really works!

STEP 11 “Organizing”

Organizing your download folder is important especially after all those steps :D You need to know some rules that will make your life easier.

11.1. Organizing sub-folders. Well, if you download tones of CC and just put it in your EA games/The Sims 2/Downloads, you won’t be a criminal. But I prefer separating Bodyshop things like eyes/skins/hairs, Mods, Build and Buy and Defaults. Keeping them separately makes difference. If you want to create a sim, leave only Bodyshop folder. If you want to build a house, leave a build and buy folder. It saves a lot of time!

11.2. Renaming files What’s for? All the special characters in files names like ({[-& and so on are actually increasing your loading time! How to solve it? You’ll need a special utility called “Bulk Rename”. It allows you to rename a big amount of files at the same time and replace all the !@#$%^ with just _ symbol. Your loading time will be a lot faster as the game won’t spend a lot of “effort” on reading the files from now on. I explaned how to use this utility here.

11.3. The Compressorizer. This program will help you to compress the file size. Perfect explanation, yeah :D Get it here.

11.4. Sims2pack Clean Installer Another convenient tool to install sims/houses and even finding file duplicates. Get it here.

STEP 12 “Screenshots taking”

12.1 What tool to use? Maxis ingame screentaking system is a disaster. All the screens taken by means of C-button will be low-quality. There are a bunch of programs you can use to take nice pics. The most popular is Fraps and I used to have it for more than 4 years. But lately I switched to Bandicam. No major differences between them. I’m not going to give you links here. I got my Bandicam from Russian torrent :P

12.2 Angles I’m not going to give tips here. Just try to be as much creative as you can and enjoy the process. Zoom-in, zoom-out, take close-ups of faces/hands/legs/objects. Seriously, I never think a lot about my pictures. Just click PrntScreen button and go on! ;) Nobody is going to judge you for your pictures. If you’re completely new to using ingame camera and know nothing about “cameraman” mode and its features, read this guide by Pooklet and this one by Vimpse.

STEP 13 Pink flashing and crashes

Lesya, there’s apocalypse in my game. Everything is flashink bright pink and game is crashing! Keep calm. There’s a solution. I use all the steps from that guide except for this: Tip#6: Use “boolProp UseShaders false” Mostly because the water mod is using shaders and by turning them off, you’ll get wonky water again. Also, if the game is still very crashy, try to clean your Downloads folder a bit. Maybe it’s a piece of CC that is causing the problem. There’s a working way how to clean your Download folder.

STEP 14 How to…? Where to…? It’s ok to ask questions, everyone has to start somewhere. I’m always open for WCIFs and questions. Also there’s a nice tutorial database. I’m sure that 99% of the existed tutorials are collected there.

STEP 15 “Editing”

It’s practically the end of the guide! I wonder how many survivours have read all the steps? :D Lots of words were said on my blog about Photoshop editing. I like bright pictures and can’t help myself :P Here I’ll link two posts. The first one explains how I edit my portraits and the second one is just a list of Photoshop tools that I use.

That’s pretty all the info I wanted to share with you, guys. I still have a feeling I’m missing something important, though. As you see, I didn’t recommend anything about gameplay itself because everyone is having their own fun in the game. Just try challenges, create funny sims, write funny and absurd stories. Just let you imagination take place!

If you still lack of ideas, you can also check this little guide I made.

Ok, guys, that’s the end of my not-so-tiny but hopefully helpful guide. Feel free to ask questions if there’re still things you can’t understand. Have fun discovering the world of the Sims 2 <3