This is NOT a tutorial on how to make Sims 2 poseboxes in general! It is a tutorial on how to clone poseboxes correctly!
If you want to learn how to make poses and poseboxes, there’s a great one by Digital Angels here.
Just as it is possible to make a base-game compatible object even if you have all Sims 2 EPs and SPs installed, it is possible to make a base-game compatible posebox even if you have all EPs and SPs installed. To do this, you need to change some settings in SimPE (just as when you make objects) – before you clone your posebox.
This will NOT affect any poseboxes you already have in your game! The SimPE settings have to be changed before the posebox is created to have any effect, so if the posebox in question wasn’t cloned properly to begin with, there is nothing to be done.
This is what you need to do in SimPE.
1. In the SimPE menu bar, choose Extra -> Preferences…
2. In the new window that pops up, select FileTable.
3. Under Simple Settings, uncheck everything, except Include CEP and Include Original. Click OK.
4. Next, choose Tools -> PJSE -> Refresh FileTable. (Note that this action might take SimPE a little while to complete – be patient!)
5. Once the “please wait” message has disappeared from the lower left-hand corner of the program, close SimPE.
And you’re done! Now you can start up SimPE again and continue on with cloning your posebox. It will now be base-game compatible – unless the pie menus has several levels.
If the pie menu strings for your posebox do have several levels – that is, look something like ‘Female…/Legs…/Pose 1…/Start’ – then your posebox is still going to require at least one expansion pack to run properly. It doesn’t matter which expansion pack, though; it can be University or Apartment Life or anything in between, as long as it is an expansion pack and not just a stuff pack.
Don’t worry, nothing will crash or be damaged if the person using your posebox only has the base game installed, but the behaviour of the posebox will be unpredictable. you see, the base game doesn’t understand more than two pie menu levels, so once you get to the second-level pie string (‘Legs’ in the example above), the pose will run, even if there are more menu levels. Which pose? The one whose pie menu function comes first, which may or may not be the pose the player wanted.
Important! Even if you have followed the above instructions to the letter, you should always test your posebox with only the base game installed, to make sure that it really is base-game compatible. If you don’t feel like uninstalling all your expansion packs, 😉 I suggest setting up a base game AnyGame using Numenor’s AnyGameStarter. You can also set up AnyGames with only one expansion (preferably one of the earlier ones, like University), to check a posebox where the pie menus have several levels.
Nixed Sims 