Are you bored with the outfits available to your Sims? Do you wish there were some different nursery items or a way to make a Sim have pink hair? You’re far from being the only one, as there are thousands of websites out there dedicated to the Sims 2 ‘custom content’, i.e. downloadable items (clothing, furniture, wallpapers, hairstyles etc.).
Before you start a content download it’s important to understand exactly how to implement the file so that it works within your game. Firstly, each item within the game requires a ‘mesh’ which is the basic framework/image. Onto this ‘re-colours’ are added; for example a certain style of bed will have a mesh, but the re-colours are the different bedding designs available. Therefore if you’re downloading an item which is unique (and not just a re-colour of one that’s in the original game) then you will need the mesh. Here is a step-by-step guide to making custom content work:
1. Find the custom content that you wish to use. If this is a re-colour then the file description should tell you whether you need to download the mesh for it and should give you a link to where you can get it. Right click on the link and choose ‘Save File/Link As’ from the menu.
2. Once it has finished, open the folder with the content download in it, right click on the file and choose ‘extract to’ or ‘open with’ and select an unzipping programme (if you don’t have one of these then WinZip and other similar programmes can be downloaded online for free).
3. You have the file ready, but you just need to get it in the right folder for it to work in the game. Open ‘my computer’ and then ‘My Documents’. Open ‘EA games’, then ‘The Sims 2’ and then ‘Downloads’ and copy and paste the file into here. The full command is :/My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Downloads.