Creating A Sims 3 Career: The Mega Tutorial

[MissyHissy]

The Primary Language String

 This section is now for the primary language string. This will be the part of the code that includes all your descriptions you wrote out back when you were planning this career.

 I recommend you choose your primary language string as the language your game is installed in. This will make it easier to test when you finish coding the career.

 First of all, open a new Notepad file and paste the following into it.

<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your career title. Example; Estate Agent"
<KEY>Gameplay/Careers/GetJobInRabbitHole:JoinCareerNoCareer</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your get job title. Example; Join Estate Agent Career"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANKOffer</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your job offer description"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANKRetirement</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your retirement text"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your co-workers title. Example; Coworker"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your co-workers metric title. Example; Estate Agents"
<KEY>BLANKTone.BLANKCareerBLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 1st skill booster tone tile. Example; Photograph House"
<KEY>BLANKTone.BLANKCareerBLANKDescription</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 1st skill booster tone description."
"This is where you add any extra skill booster tones and descriptions using the same format, that is if you have added any extra in the other stings file."
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 1st tone tile. Example; Meet Agents"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANKDescription</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 1st tone description."
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 2nd tone tile. Example; Gossip at Coffee Machine"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANKDescription</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 2nd tone description."
"This is where you add extra tones and descriptions, such as Work Hard and Take it Easy, using the same format if you have any."
"This next part is where all the career titles are added followed by the promotion descriptions for males, and females starting with the entry level going up to level 10."
"If you wish the description to be the same for both male, and female sims, then simple use the same text."
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 1st job title. Example; Receptionist"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:EntryLevel</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 1st job description for a male sim. (Entry level description)"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:EntryLevel_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 1st job description for a female sim. (Entry level description)"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 2nd job title. Example; Assistant"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel2</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 2nd job description for a male sim.£
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel2_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Should be your 2nd job description for a female sim."
"Carry on down the list adding the job titles and descriptions per career level."
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel3</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel3_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel4</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel4_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel5</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel5_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel6</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel6_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel7</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel7_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel8</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel8_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel9</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel9_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel10</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/BLANK:PromotionLevel10_Female</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANKBranchOffer</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "This should be the text in the Branch offer screen"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "This should be your first branch name"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "This should be your second branch name"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "This should be your first journal name"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:BLANK2</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:BLANK3</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:BLANK4</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:BLANK5</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Opportunities/Names:BLANK_BLANKName</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Your opportunity name"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Opportunities/Names:BLANK_BLANKDescription</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "Your opportunity description"
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Opportunities/Names:BLANK_BLANKHint</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "This is the hint that appears when the opportunity is first offered to the Sim."
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Opportunities/Names:BLANK_BLANKCompletion</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "The text when the opportunity is completed successfully."
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Opportunities/Names:BLANK_BLANKSecondaryCompletion</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "The text when the opportunity is completed unsuccessfully."
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Opportunities/Names:BLANK_BLANKFailure</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "The text when the opportunity was failed."
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Opportunities/Names:BLANK_BLANKProgress</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "The text that appears above the moodlet panel, to give a hint towards what to do."
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Opportunities/OpportunitiesSetup:BLANK_BLANK</KEY>
<STR>BLANK</STR> "The interaction name."

 In a nutshell, the <KEY> tags are identical to the <STR> tags from the UnhashedKeys file. The <STR> tags here will be the text as you want it to appear in the game. So an example from my Archaeology career would be:

<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Careers/CareerList:Archaeology</KEY>
<STR>Archaeology</STR>

 When you get to the journal entries, each one will need a different name. To illustrate, here's an excerpt from my Archaeology English strings:

<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:DiggingInTheSand</KEY>
<STR>Digging In The Sand</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:DiggingInTheSand2</KEY>
<STR>Dirt Digging</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:DiggingInTheSand3</KEY>
<STR>Grassy Knolls</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:DiggingInTheSand4</KEY>
<STR>Desert Digsite</STR>
<KEY>Gameplay/Excel/Books/OmniJournal:DiggingInTheSand5</KEY>
<STR>How To Dig Properly</STR>

 As you can see, the names are all different but they're part of the same set of journals; they'll all appear at the same level but on different days.

 When you get to the end of the file, save it to your working folder. Name it something like "Archaeology English".

 Go back to your career package and go to Resource --> Add. This brings up a Resource Detail window.

 Fill in the fields like this:

Resource: STBL 0x220557DA
Group: 0x00000000
Name: YourCareerName English

 Press FNV64 but DO NOT PRESS OK yet. You need to change the first two numbers to match your language code. So for English, this is 00.
Example:

Resource: STBL 0x220557DA
Group: 0x00000000
Instance: 0x494292A286440200
Name: EstateAgent English

 Changes and becomes

Resource: STBL 0x220557DA
Group: 0x00000000
Instance: 0x004292A286440200
Name: EstateAgent English

 The codes for the other languages are as follows:

English: 00
Chinese: 01
Taiwanese: 02
Czech: 03
Danish: 04
Dutch: 05
Finnish: 06
French: 07
German: 08
Greek: 09
Hungarian: 0A
Italian: 0B
Japanese: 0C
Korean: 0D
Norwegian: 0E
Polish: 0F
PortugueseStandard: 10
PortugueseBrazilian: 11
Russian: 12
SpanishStandard: 13
SpanishMexican: 14
Swedish: 15
Thai: 16

 Now you can press OK.

 Right-click on your new STBL and select Edit STBL. This brings up the STBL Resource Editor window.

 There's a small, thin field toward the bottom of this window with buttons beneath it. In this box, you need to paste the first <KEY> line of your English Strings. Then press "Add" and you should see a series of numbers appear in the large box above. In the box on the right, type in your Career name.

 Follow down the rest of the file. Copy the <KEY> lines into the thin box, press Add, then paste the contents of the <STR> line into the large box on the right.

 Once you've done the entire file, press Save. Select Yes to continue.

 Save your career package.

 The reason I don't advise you to run the language file through the STBL creator is because it becomes difficult to change the language code sometimes. I've also personally noticed that symbols from other languages don't translate well through the STBL creator, so I advise that you do copy and paste each line. It is time consuming but worth it in the end.

[MissyHissy]

The First Test

 This is the exciting part; you're going to test the career in game.

First of all, make sure you've got the updated version of the Careers Mod. Once you're certain you have it, put that and your new career package into your Mods folder and load up your game.

When the game loads, click on the rabbithole you've set your sim up. If all has gone well, you should see JoinCareer[StringOfNumbers]. This is great.

Make a note of these numbers, because you're going to need them in a minute.

Close the game and get back your UnhashedKeys Notepad file.

 On the line where it says:

<STR>Gameplay/Careers/GetJobInRabbitHole:JoinCareerNoCareer</STR>

change the NoCareer to the string of numbers you made a note of just now. Now copy the whole line and paste it into the FNV Hash box we used earlier (Go to Tools --> FNV Hash). Copy the FNV64 field and paste it into the <KEY> line above the line you just edited. Save the file.

Go back to your working folder and drag the UnhashedKeys file onto the STBL Creator again. This will replace the STBL file you already have, and that's good.

Go back to your career file and right-click on the UnhashedKeys file and select Replace. Navigate to your new STBL file and select it. Press yes to continue.

 Now go to the language strings Notepad file and paste the same string of numbers you made a note of in the same place. Copy that line of code that looks like this:

Gameplay/Careers/GetJobInRabbitHole:JoinCareer12771533684546438208

Go back to your career package. Right-click on the language file and select Edit STBL.

Click the Second line of code, Join [YourCareerTitle] Career.

Paste the new line into the thin box and press Change. Press Save and Yes to continue.

Save your career package.

 Copy and paste the new career package into your mods folder and test in game. If all goes well, your career should now show up and be ready for further testing!

This is a good opportunity to test your opportunities and make sure they show up and do what you want them to do. I often shift-click on the rabbithole building to force a career opportunity to test it but you can simply play test if you want to. It's entirely up to you.

When testing opportunities; don't be alarmed if things don't work straight away. This is still very much an experimental thing and they rarely work out immediately for me, so don't worry. If you do get stuck, feel free to start a thread on the board to get some help and advice.

 You're always welcome to open any of my careers up to see how they're coded. I encourage this because it is honestly the best way to understand how an aspect works and what the code should look like. There's an FAQ post further down which will help with any typical or expected question you may have. 

[MissyHissy]

Additional Languages

 If you're intending to share your career, you need to add compatibility with other languages. If you don't follow this step, your career won't show up properly for people whose games are installed in a different language.

 If you're not sharing this career, you can skip this step.

 To add the other languages, simply copy your primary language file in the package and go to Resource --> Paste. When the box comes up, change the language to a different language and press FNV64. Remember, only change the first two numbers to match the language.

 For reference, this is that chart again:

English: 00
Chinese: 01
Taiwanese: 02
Czech: 03
Danish: 04
Dutch: 05
Finnish: 06
French: 07
German: 08
Greek: 09
Hungarian: 0A
Italian: 0B
Japanese: 0C
Korean: 0D
Norwegian: 0E
Polish: 0F
PortugueseStandard: 10
PortugueseBrazilian: 11
Russian: 12
SpanishStandard: 13
SpanishMexican: 14
Swedish: 15
Thai: 16

 So if you're going to share your career, you'll need all of these.

 This means your career will show up for everyone in your native language. Often, people are willing to translate for you. They can do this one of two ways:

1) They can edit the package directly. Simply tell them to right click on their language file and select Edit STBL. They can edit the strings from there, hit save and send the package back to you.

2) If you want, you can provide a language file for people to edit. To do this, just copy your language string file and rename it to something more neutral, like LanguageStrings. Make that file available for download so people can edit it and send it back to you. You then simply open the file in Notepad++ and change the Encoding to UTF-8 and save. You can then run this file through the STBL creator and replace the string in your file. Many thanks to Zoe for explaining this faster and easier method of applying translations.

 I generally do this the second way but the first is definitely faster and highly advised for languages with a very different alphabet, such as Russian.

[MissyHissy]

Basic Debugging

 So you've created a detailed career for Sims 3? Hats off to you, well done!  This isn't always the easiest type of modding but it's really fun and addictive once you get going!

Of course, things often don't work out the first time and we have to sit and debug the career.

 Debugging is the process of identifying and removing errors from the career.

The easiest way to know something's wrong is with a script error. There's usually a variety of reasons why the game generates a script error but if the Nraas Careers mod throws one out after you install your nice, new career, then that's probably the cause.

 There are a couple of things to look for in the error log. So open it up in Notepad and we'll begin.

 Firstly, it might make mention of a Line and Position. It will also be like to tell you which file the error is in (often the .Careers file). If you're using Notepad ++, this makes it easy to find the error because the lines are numbered. The error will probably be on the line above the one mentioned in the error. Usually, this is a missed or incorrect closing tag and is very easy to solve.

 You may find you get another one similar when you next test. This is because the error doesn't tell you all the errors in the log - just one at a time. I've been known to spend an hour debugging one career because of this limitation.

 If your error doesn't mention a line or position then that's not going to be the problem. Instead, search the document for:

[E]

 This is often put in front of a line that tells you there's a problem. This could be with a skill that isn't recognised - you may have misspelled it so double check. It may also tell you that an opportunity reward isn't recognised. This will mean the reward isn't coded properly so if you get stuck, open up some other opportunity files to compare.

 If you're really stumped, feel free to upload your script error to the forum so I can have a look for you. However, if you can learn what to look for and where to find it, you'll be able to debug your own careers a lot faster. 

[MissyHissy]

Career Creating F.A.Q

Q - My career doesn't show up at the rabbithole!
A - Has the game generated a script error? If so, check that and see what it says. It's probably a typo.

Q - One of my career levels/tones is blank!
A - Probably a typo in your language string file. Maybe something in the line of code didn't copy properly. Redo that line and see if that works.

Q - The career isn't showing in my language properly.
A - Did you remember to change the two numbers when you created your language file?

Q - I'm trying to test my opportunity but it won't show up at all!
A - Does your sim/town meet the requirements you coded? You wouldn't believe how often I forget the requirements and tear my hair out for hours.

Q - Do I need to keep the UnhashedKeys file in?
A - Technically speaking, it doesn't seem like it's required. I have seen some careers where this file doesn't stay. I leave mine in, purely because I have an open policy, allowing anyone to open the careers and learn from the coding there. So this is up to you.

Q - My opportunity disappears as soon as I accept it!
A - This is probably because there's a problem in the OpportunitiesSetup section. Are you trying to use an interaction as either an Event Listener or Completion event? If so, you might have forgotten the rest of the code. Try looking at another career for reference at this point. If no, feel free to start a thread and I'll see what I can do.

[T1gerCat]

Hey Missy, I've got a problem. So, I wrote 3 careers and fired up the game to get their NoCareer numbers. I got it for one of them and after updating the career, it refuses to show up. No script error is created either. However the other 2 do give a script error stating simply "System.FormatException: Invalid format." and I have no idea what that even means, let alone how to try and fix it.

Then, I get a script error about your Afterschool Clubs having a problem in the opportunities file (no error that I can see and, anyway, I got no such message last week when I played last).

And on top of all that, I get script errors about NRaas Bootstrap and NRaas.CareerSpace.Booters.CareersBooter whatever that is!

[MissyHissy]

Right, that sounds pretty dramatic! Let's break that down a bit.
For the career you got the numbers for, are you saying the career doesn't show up at all at the rabbithole? If so, try putting the numbers in again and see if it changes. The issue's got to be there somewhere for the career to not show up. Try taking the other two troubled ones out first though; they might be making a difference.

As for those errors, can you send them to me, please? I might be able to get an idea of what the issue is. The same with the opportunities error, if you can. There isn't an opportunities file in the afterschool clubs but it sounds like it might be related to one of your careers. Especially as you didn't get it last week when you played. So it might help us pinpoint your problem.

If you zip up all the script errors you've got and attach them to this thread, I should be able to take a look for you. The Bootstrap is where you got your original STBL numbers from, so I'm suspecting an issue there.

[T1gerCat]

ScriptErrors.rar (15.71 KB)

Right, sorry for sounding so dramatic last night. I had been fixing stupid typos and trying to get it to work for close to 2 hours at that point and I was pretty frazzled.
About the one that doesn't show up, I plan on taking the numbers out, let the game regenerate them and try again. I could have simply written them down wrong or something. That one can be easy! I put in parenthesis which script error is what. 

[MissyHissy]

No need for apologies, I get seriously stressed with these sometimes 

Right, the Afterschool Activities one can be ignored for now. That's an error my end  I'm in the process of updating all the careers that came with the Fun With Seasons career and for some reason, this little test file slipped through the net. I'll be testing and updating the careers really soon, so ignore that one for now.


The others are definitely looking like there's a problem with one of your files. Now, I think it might be that the number you generated with the BootstrapCreator right as the beginning of the tutorial isn't matching inside the career. So firstly, try reimporting the .dll file into your career. After that, try copying the numbers.dll again and renaming the appropriate files. Basically, go over Renaming And Preparing Your Package section and see if redoing that stage makes a difference. I've never had these errors before but there's a first time for everything, so let's see if that makes a difference. 

[T1gerCat]

First of all I'm definitely happy I didn't wreck your activities!! I do wonder though why it'd show the script error now after all the time I've had them?

I tried that and to be thorough I went a step further and created a new dll file for each problematic career. I loaded a fresh game, took out my cc, removed all other careers to make sure nothing clashed in the background and tried again.

My Babysitting (originally named Daycare) career now won't show up at all at the rabbithole even though it didn't generate any errors. Cheerleading career gave me the same error as before. Still got the Bootstrap related trio of errors.

[MissyHissy]

Did you download them again recently? I updated to include new translations not so long ago. I think I zipped up a file I wasn't supposed to. That would be why the error's only showing now.

Okay, there's obviously something up with these guys. Would you mind zipping them up and uploading them here for me to have a look, please? It might take a bit of solving, this one 

[T1gerCat]

I want to say 'no' but I did go on a binge downloading of your updated careers both to see how you set up the opportunities and just to use them, so maybe I grabbed them again? Could be but it definitely wasn't as recently as this past week.

I started re-writing the Daycare one from scratch but sure. I'll zip them up and send them.


Careers.rar (50.28 KB)

[MissyHissy]

Okay, I don't immediately see what the problem is. I've had something similar to this before with my first career, my Accountant career. I just couldn't get it fixed no matter what I did so I ended up creating a brand new package and starting from scratch. It's irritating but I can't see a problem with your packages  The script errors don't give much away, either.

[T1gerCat]

Update. I finished re-writing Daycare and while I get no script errors for it, it also doesn't show up in the rabbithole at all. Still it's a step in the right direction! I still got the Bootstrap errors while having no CC, and no other careers at the same time...

[MissyHissy]

These Bootstrap errors have me puzzled. Have you posted about them on Nraas at all? Because I've never come across these before but somebody like Chain might have a better idea what's causing them