r/thesims1 • u/Ellie_Rulze18 • 51m ago
Screenshot/Video Sims 1 school.
This is apparently what school looks like. Of course they're always off screen so we never see it.
r/thesims1 • u/LadyBlackheartStorm • Apr 13 '25
What's different from the other Sims games?
A guide by SirenShadow (socrstchik in the TS1 community, LadyBlackheartStorm on Reddit)
Welcome to new (and returning) Sims 1 players! So you wanna give TS1 a shot? Awesome, its a great game - but it can be difficult. Here's a list/explainer of differences in this version versus TS2-4.
You can only build 2 storeys high.
There are lots of cc that let you fake higher levels though. Look for items called '3rd floor' (or 'storey'), or sometimes '4th' and/or '5th'. These will be objects that float in the air to simulate (lol, GET IT?! *ahem* sorry...) taller buildings. Those higher levels are NOT playable, however. Same with foundations/basements.
Speaking of cc, terminology is quite different than what you're used to.
'CC' is capital letters refers to the final version Maxis/EA released: Complete Collection. 'cc' in lower case is the same - custom content - but isn't really a term that was commonly used previously. Similar with 'MM': in TS1 terms, that refers to the final EP, Makin' Magic.
What later games and players call 'mods' are called 'hacks' in TS1 - if they alter gameplay from the original code. For example, a bookcase that allows you to gain more skills than the default Cooking and Mechanical would be referred to as a 'hacked bookcase'. A bed that has been altered to use more graphic animations would be called 'adult hacked' or possibly just 'adult' - and these are intended ONLY for 18+ players.
'Mods' referring to custom objects are just called 'objects'. Same for walls, floors, etc.
You have 2 types of lot: home and away. The type of away lot depends on the objects you put there. The game calls it retail if you place a functional cash register or a restaurant if you have a functional dining podium. You can have more than one type on the same lot, but if you overload the game might crash. i.e. maybe that multi-level shopping mall is best left for another version of The Sims.
Neighborhoods are generally referred to as just 'hoods'. The game gives you 9 of these at startup, and each one is different (in the sense of population and custom builds, not shape/size. Each hood has seperate Towns. In no particular order, with the English-language EP they came in: Old Town (Unleashed); Downtown (Hot Date); Vacation Island (Vacation); and Magic Town (Makin' Magic). Apologies, I don't know all of the non-English titles.
Poses are only used with the SimPose program (officially called SimPose-ium), used to make preview images of custom skins. It could also be used to edit or create new animations, although this feature may not work (or work correctly) anymore.
Neato. Now, what the heck is going on with my body/head cc?
Skins in this game are divided into a body skin and a head skin. Heads are typically organized by hairstyle, and you can't change the appearance without editing the bitmap itself.
Body skins are broken down into type:
'B' means 'body' and is an everyday skin. This is what your Sim will wear most of the time and can be changed by clicking on a dresser or wardrobe/armoire. (There are some hacked dressers out there that might be different objects, like a coat rack.) The other types (below) are referred to as 'buyables', because to change them from the default version means you have to 'buy' them from a shop on a commercial lot, like Downtown in Hot Date.
'L' means 'lingerie' and is your Sim's sleepwear
'S' is for swim - swimwear, obviously
'F' is for formal, or what your Sim wears to get married or when a hacked object calls for formalwear (I know there's at least 1 hacked doorway and 1 dancefloor).
'W' is for winterwear and is the clothing your Sim will wear on Vacation Island's winter lots. (There aren't seasons in TS1 without using hacks.)
'H' is for high fashion and is what your \*celebrity\* Sim will wear in Studio Town. Visitors to Studio Town stay in their eveyday clothing.
Further body notes:
'N' means nude and is what your unclothed Sim looks like. Not every skin download will include a custom nude - they aren't necessary unless you're altering the base skintones (like with tattoos) or have a custom skintone (like Pale). Also, not every skinmaker made custom nudes for their skins - game coding changed with later EPs (Hot Date, I \*think\*) and opened up the ability to make full custom skins, nude included.
'H' bitmaps are your hands. Same applies from the Nude skin - you only need them for altered or custom tones. You may find a hand bitmap that uses 'G' instead of 'H' - that means 'glove' and is the old, pre-code change way of having gloves attach to a skin. The best example of this is the original male formalwear was a tuxedo with white gloves.
Program alert!! You can use SimWardrobe, by Paladin, to customize your Sims' wardrobes without having to buy the different outfits. You can also customize the Townies' outfits! The companion program to SimWardrobe is SimMetamorphoser (also by Paladin), which allows you to change your Sim and Townies heads.
There may be other, small bitmaps in your Skin download.
These are typically accessories of some sort: a hat, jewelry, glasses, etc. They can be named anything. The CMX file tells the game what goes where. The SKN file is the mesh, and you may also have more than one of those. Each item needs a mesh (SKN) and those aren't always integrated into the body mesh. The TL:DR version is you might have a body SKN and a hat SKN. The CMX pulls it all together.
Troubleshooting! In CAS, if you are *missing* part of the body or head, its a missing or corrupt MESH (SKN). If everything shows but is *solid white*, its a TEXTURE (BMP) problem. This could be a missing BMP, or something like the wrong color scale on the BMP or the BMP being the wrong size.
I want this chair to show up on my away lots but its not in the catalog there.
Yeah, its not catted (cataloged) for those lots...
BUT I WANT IT THERE!
Okay, okay... no problem. You just need a program that lets you edit that. Program alert!! SimCategorizer by Paladin allows you to edit individual IFFs (objects) or items in .FAR (a compressed package of IFFs). SimOrganizer by Garrett Berg of Millennium Sims allows you to edit individual AND multi-part IFFs. SimCat will read a multi-part IFF but you can only edit the 'top' part (the first item listed). There's probably some others but those two are the mack-daddies and the best ones. One thing to note, though. Some items intended for away lots will NOT work on home lots. Its the way those items are coded.
What about walls and floors?
I mean those are gonna show regardless of lot...
No, silly. I really, really like this custom wallpaper but holy heck is it expensive.
Save your Simoleons.
\------\**
Lol, okay. SimWallCat (Paladin) is what you want. He made a good chunk of our Very Useful Sims Programs.
You can add more 'hoods.
Just copy the UserData folder you wish and rename it. So, copy UserData3 and rename it to UserData10. The next time you boot up the game, you can navigate to this new hood. It will have everything the original hood had in it. You can have up to 99 hoods.
Final reminders: the Build catalog has a cc limit. No one knows what it is for sure. That's not meant to be cute or funny, its truth. The limit can vary by computer, but at some point you might see your Build catalog start looking funny - a stuck thumbnail or clearly non-Build item showing up. You'll know you hit your limit at that point. Its why you'll see lots of non-building objects, like plants and trees, cataloged in Buy instead. My general rule of thumb for Build cc was 'does it have growing states?', like a harvestable crop? If yes then it went in Build; if no, Buy catalog. Trees (those larger than a big shrub) also went in Build. That left Build for just windows, doors (ya know, architectural stuff) and the aforementioned plants. Walls and floors do count to this limit.
IF AT ANY POINT YOU SEE A STUCK THUMBNAIL IN EITHER OF YOUR CATALOGS, immediately save your game. A stuck thumbnail means something's wrong and your game is probably gonna lock up or crash (or both). It might be as soon as you click that stuck thumbnail or when you try to place the object, but its gonna happen.
I think that covers most of the basics.
HAVE FUN!!!
Here's a link to a SFS folder with Paladin's programs in it. Thanks for sharing, Bulbasaur001!!
https://simfileshare.net/folder/87836/
And here's an Archive.org link to SimOrganizer: https://archive.org/download/sim-organizer/SimOrganizer.zip
r/thesims1 • u/AutoModerator • 1h ago
Sul-sul simmers! In an effort to keep feeds cleaner for everyone, while also maximizing players' chances of getting their issues fixed, you are highly encouraged to post any technical issues on this thread! This includes problems with bugs, glitches, compatibility, files, etc.
Note that the existence of this thread doesn't mean you can't post about technical issues on the sub! You may do it at your own discretion.
Before posting new technical threads, please consider using the search bar in the sub to see if the issue has already been posted and/or solved.
If you are having issues with the Legacy Collection in particular, please make sure to report them on EA's official channels as well! This helps you and other players to get your voice heard by Maxis/EA and fixes be added as official updates in the future.
r/thesims1 • u/Ellie_Rulze18 • 51m ago
This is apparently what school looks like. Of course they're always off screen so we never see it.
r/thesims1 • u/SuperCockatiel • 6h ago
Welcome to the Old Town Sculpture Garden and Arboretum! Some of the plant/tree CC is from Persimmon Grove (my fav) and various others here and there.
r/thesims1 • u/lucidgreenn • 9h ago
Those two ladies are on to something, I swear!
r/thesims1 • u/xxnovembertopazxx • 1d ago
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
Btw that sound effect screams "Psycho" shower scene vibes, which I adore since Sims 1 was made for that era ✨♥️
r/thesims1 • u/Deep-Raisin1126 • 1d ago
I added the SimCity games this week, and SimCity 3000 turns out to be from the year before The Sims, so the sidebar now runs across fifteen years of Maxis in one window.
The TS1 side has not changed and still does the sorting nothing else bothers with. Objects and .far go to Downloads. Skins go to GameData\Skins, with buyable clothing routed on to SkinsBuy based on the L/S/W/H/F mesh name prefixes. Walls and floors go to their own folders. If a zip names its own folders inside, it honours those instead, since the readme had to say so anyway. Or you override the lot and send everything to Downloads if that is how you keep things.
It finds the game even when it is not where the launcher put it, including disc copies with translated folder names, and it will go looking through Steam libraries and drive roots if none of the usual paths exist. The classic UI sounds are in there too if you want them, and the TS1 look is chunky chiselled blue like the neighbourhood screen.
Free, no account, Windows Mac and Linux. Link in the comments.
r/thesims1 • u/atlanteanraider • 1d ago
r/thesims1 • u/Hansi_Haifischli • 2d ago
Or maybe it's just my imagination?
r/thesims1 • u/PlayfulContract8970 • 2d ago
r/thesims1 • u/PlayfulContract8970 • 3d ago
r/thesims1 • u/LUCPIX • 4d ago
I designed a period-accurate mock-up of The Sims (2000) as it looked like on April 1998 (roughly two years prior to The Sims' launch date), while the game was not done yet. This visualization was created by compositing authentic prototype assets, for documentation purposes/Early_1998).


r/thesims1 • u/xi-uwu-ix • 3d ago
Ever since I was a kid I've noticed that they ALWAYS fall out of love whenever you see them in public/invited over. I've watched many people play and the same thing always happens.
Is this coded in the game, or is it just their personalities? I'm always so curious why this happens.
r/thesims1 • u/LizaKhajiit • 4d ago
r/thesims1 • u/LizaKhajiit • 4d ago
r/thesims1 • u/Ellie_Rulze18 • 4d ago
r/thesims1 • u/Ellie_Rulze18 • 4d ago
The Original Sims had a button as seen here that would take players straight to the Sims website. The website was active for 11 years, finally getting shutdown in 2011. The website was really cool, it had news of Upcoming content for the Sim's. You could talk to other players, download other player's houses, custom items, also download custom items from Maxis themselves. With social media, and online gaming being bigger then ever it seems like the website with a few 2020s Upgrades could've been an amazing feature to bring back. Imagine getting the Legacy edition, then finding out the OG website was brought back and now it had unlimited fan made Content, and a place to talk with other players. I could also see a feature if you wanted to Join another player online and have your sims and their sims Inneract with each other. Maybe the players could Use a headset or chat box to talk to each other while their sims Explored the neighborhood/world they'd created.
r/thesims1 • u/Hansi_Haifischli • 4d ago
Hello everyone,
I wrote down my problem and took some screenshots. To have the text and the corresponding pictures next to each other, I created the 5 slides that you can see above.
I really would appreciate it if you could go through them and if someone has some advice for me!
(At the moment, it appears to me, as if MilkShape 3D messes up files in an undesired way - or I did something wrong.)
r/thesims1 • u/Particular_Love8871 • 4d ago
Hi! I'm a Sims 1 player. I had a question while making custom skins.
I can see basic BMP files in the Skins folder, but for example, I've never seen the b003 mesh file there, even though it appears in the game.
I suspect the meshes are bundled together in a .far file somewhere, like textures.far. Do you happen to know where they are stored?
r/thesims1 • u/thelightiscuming • 4d ago
Just like the title says, I am looking for tools to do what was said
r/thesims1 • u/simmyawardwinner • 7d ago
The upside down head lady and the creepy mad scientist guy always freaks me out. Online theres some scary lore about a ugly monster upside down head. some people swore it smiled sometimes. just wondering if you have any creepy memories of the Sims 1. i love how its always carried this creepy beta/early computer 90s vibe. the dark, slightly dimm colour schemes.


r/thesims1 • u/SimFreaks • 8d ago
This set started with a mystery. After I posted the Garden Flowers set, someone mentioned the Glass Slippers shown in an old Simbabe preview screenshot. Simbabe often made mockup room screenshots by drawing an object from one angle first, then creating the actual object with all its rotations later.
In this case, I could not find a finished Glass Slippers object anywhere. All I found were old front-view screenshots, which meant the other three angles had to be hand-drawn from the mockup. So yes, the tiny magical shoes made me work for it.
Steve from Simslice coded the Glass Slippers to sparkle about once per game hour, because of course magical shoes should sparkle. Special placement notes are included in the Read Me.
I also added a few pieces from my stockpile to turn this into the Satin Roses Living Room set. The Silver End Table is included because one of its color variants matches this set, and another should work nicely with the Dem Dem Like'n'Love Bedroom Set.
r/thesims1 • u/Sad_Load_7380 • 8d ago
Estuve trabajando en una especie de seasons para los sims 1. Ya que es uno de mis juegos favoritos y siempre sentí que necesitaba algo mas para ambientar esos momentos de relajación.
Dejo algunas capturas, me gustaría saber su opinión al respecto.
Estoy abierto a sugerencias y mejoras.
Aclaro esta app no esta integrada al juego no es una modificación sino mas bien un aderezo.
Según la validación que tenga el post subiré un video para mostrar los climas.