Tranquility Bay FAQ's

              Hello, and greetings from your friendly neighborhood mysterious voice. You may have noticed that the span of time between posts has been getting longer and longer recently. Some "real-world" changes have left me with much less time to spend with my Sims than I used to have. I do feel bad keeping everybody waiting so long for new posts, though.
              So I thought I'd try something different. I've noticed that a lot of the comments (thank you for those, by the way) contain questions that I still have yet to answer. Rather than go back to each post and respond individually, I thought I'd do a little Frequently Asked Questions post just to reassure everyone that I am, in fact, still alive. This might become a semi-regular thing, or it might not. I honestly have no idea. But I do know it's been too long since I've updated this blog, so I had to think of something to fill the void until I finish playing the next lot.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FAQ #1: Where do you get your custom eyes?
            I've gotten this one from multiple people. My default eye replacements have been in my game for a very, very long time. So long that I had no memory of where I got them from. To add to my confusion, the files didn't include a creator or site in the filename. However, by checking the "created on" date and searching through the MTS2 archives, I have found a set that I'm 99% sure is the one I use. The filenames all line up to what is in my downloads folder. The set is called "Realistic Eyes V5" at MTS2 by Barcelonista, and can be found here.

FAQ #2: Where did you get the glasses for toddlers?
               Very few of my sims actually wear glasses, but those that do sure seem to leave an impression. The custom glasses that I use are called the RealiSim Geeky Glasses. The version for Child-Elders is by HystericalParoxysm and and be found here. The toddler conversions are by Sims2Playerette and can be found here.

FAQ #3: How do your baby girls wear a different outfit than the boys?
                 This is another one that I get over and over again. The ability to have different outfits for baby boys and girls is a fairly new development. I learned about it while attending a live recording of the Sims 2 Challenges podcast. It took a little time to set it up exactly the way I have it, but hopefully having the answer here will save you some searching.
                 The mod that allows different outfits is from Insimenator and can be downloaded here. However, I'm only including that link to give credit to the people who made it possible for girls and boys to wear different outfits. Although I originally thought I had the Insimenator file in my game, as it turns out I don't. My baby girl outfit, both the mesh and texture, are from Sim Oasis and can be downloaded here; make sure you download the "girl-only" versions of both files.

FAQ #4: How did you make a table of contents?.
             Again, learned this one from the Sims 2 Challenges podcast, so I have to give credit where it's due. It's actually a very simple process. What you have to do is create a post that will become your table of contents. At the bottom of the posting area in Blogger, directly below the "labels" box and right above the publish and save buttons, is a menu called post options. This menu has a section called post time and date, which can be used to alter the date on which Blogger thinks you published this post. You can set it to post at any point in the future. I usually give it about two years.
              Then, you need to set up your blog to display only the one most recent post. This can be done by going to "settings" from your Blogger dashboard, and then going to the "formatting" tab. It's the first option on that page. Because your table of contents is set two years into the future, it will always be the most recent post and thus be the one post that shows up on the main page. Whenever you post a new entry, just copy its URL and post a link into the table of contents post.

FAQ #5: Where did you get your default skintones?
          I have good news and bad news on this one. The good news is that my default skin replacements actually have a creator name in the file name. My skintone replacements are by creator Helaene (she is on MTS2 and also has her own site) and are known as the "805" skins. Unfortunately, the bad news is these skins don't seem to be available anymore. Apparently they were the "skins to have" back in the 2006/2007 era, though, because there was a lot of discussion about them on "what default replacements do you use" threads.

That actually covers the majority of the questions I receive, to be honest. I promise that a real update is in the works, but hopefully this will provide assurance that I haven't forgotten about this blog. Until next time, everybody!
-The Mysterious Voice