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Teen Graduation Yearbook (Updated 03/04)

SCREENSHOTS
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Personal Picked Upload! This is a personal favourite of the creator!
Created by beestew
Uploaded: 1st Apr 2023 at 7:46 AM
Updated: 3rd Apr 2023 at 8:09 PM
Update 03/04: Added a new archive containing .packages for resolving conflicts.

About
After A LOT work, I'm pleased to release my first custom hacked object. This fully customizable Yearbook is intended to be a reward object for your teen Sims. I was inspired to create this for myself when I noticed:

1) I don't throw birthday parties frequently enough
2) The teen lifestage drags for too long to keep me engaged - I wanted to make it more meaningful

If you find yourself in the same position as me above, or if you are a story or family based Simmer, this object is just for you!

Installation
There are three archives in this download. One contains the actual Yearbook itself, which can be found under Recreation/Knowledge for 45 Simoleons. Note that on its own, it doesn't do much - in the spirit of Maxis game design, aquiring the object through legitimate methods gives it better and more rewarding functionality.

The other archive, labelled 'Mods' contains the actual overrides you need to make the yearbook work to its full potential.
The first one, 'Birthday', awards Yearbooks to teens who age transition when any sort of birthday party is going on, permitted they had one or less days left as a teen when the party was thrown.
The second one, 'College', awards Yearbooks to Sims when they arrive on Campus - they MUST move to college via the phone or computer for this to work, however.
More mods may be released in the future. You can pick and choose mods as you please.

The third archive, labelled 'Conflicts', contain .packages intended to make this mod work with other mods. See the 'Conflicts' section below for more details.

Features

Your Teen's Adolescence Shapes Their Yearbook



Making Connections
In order to encourage your teen to branch out, the Yearbook's appearance will vary depending on their relationships. The Yearbook will always feature the owner on the left side, along with up to three of their closest teen acquaintances. These Sims are ranked based on a point system, with the closest friendships placing on the top. Notice how Ophelia scores higher than Ripp.

Below is a table of the values that influence a Sim's score (all are tunable). Also, family members are excluded, as one sibling would always inevitably be missing the other in their own yearbook.




Growing Up Well, or Growing Up Badly?
The owner of the Yearbook will pull a face in their Yearbook photo if they Grew Up Badly. For the Birthday mod, aspiration on age up matters, same as the cake. For College, aspiration when making the phone call/computer application matters.

Growing up well/badly has additional effects on the yearbook, such as...



Looking Back On Memories Of Adolescence
The 'Reminisce' interaction is the primary way Sims interact with the Yearbook. This interaction is available to family members of the owner aged child and up. Owners of the Yearbook will approach the Notebook; They will react with regret or pride depending on whether they Grew Up Well or not; They will then proceed to go through each of their teen memories one-by-one, reacting each time. Reactions are influenced by personality; Outgoing Sims are more prone to cheering, Grouchy Sims are likely to throw tantrums over negative experiences. Sims will also have more reserved reactions to positive memories if they Grew Up Badly, and more pronounced reactions to negative memories - the inverse is also true. Each positive provides a small Fun boost, so make sure you rack up positive experiences as a teen!

Family Connections



Reminsce As A Family
The 'Reminisce' interaction extends to other family members too!
You can direct other Sims to Join In Reminiscing by clicking on them, or even just clicking on the Yearbook. Your Sim's relatives will view the Yearbook and react appropriately. Reactions are based on the relative's age, relationships and blood relation to the owner Sim.
Do they deride their cousin's accomplishments? Begrudgingly celebrate their failures? Feel responsible as parents? Admire their older sibling? Some of the above requires a bit of interpretation from the player - the table below features a list of all possible relative reactions, but I've spoilered it for those who want to experiment in-game.


Reminiscing provides a slow Fun-increase-over-time for all adult and up Sims, as long as the owner Grew Up Well. Of course, when multiple Sims are Reminiscing, they will engage in a conversation instead of just standing there, filling their Social need. The tone of the conversation depends on whether the owner of the Yearbook Grew Up Badly or not - it can be a civil discussion or a heated family argument!


I remember when I was your age...

The Flow Of Time Is Eternal
If the owner of the Yearbook is dearly departed, reminiscing is replaced with a mourning interaction instead - copied over directly from tombstones for that Maxis feel I aim for. Additionally, the Yearbook will take on an 'aged' swatch if the owner is deceased, or if 60 in-game days pass with the Yearbook out. Think of it as a sort of bonus reward, for diehard legacy players :p

Express Yourself!



Recolours
The yearbook comes in five swatches. Considering this was the first time I made textures more complex than just recolouring, I'm pleased with how these turned out. Of course, if you want to make a recolour for this object, please do so!



Strike A Pose
Well, the Yearbook can, at least. You can pose the Yearbook three ways: Upright, face up on a surface, and at a roguish angle for more natural placement.



Backgrounds
You can customise Yearbooks even further with five backgrounds for each picture. These can be set independently for each Sim!



Not enough self-expression for your Teen? That's okay! The Yearbook supports custom backgrounds - with just a little bit of fiddling in SimPE, you can set your Sim's background to any image you wish, giving countless possibilities! Tutorial below.


Debug Options - For Storytellers and Detailers



These debug options allow you further customisation if you want to either alter an existing Sims yearbook, or if you want to modify a blank yearbook straight out of the catalogue for storytelling purposes.
Note that the majority of behaviour for catalogue yearbooks is disabled, since there are no sims 'assigned' to the yearbook - they are purely cosmetic.

- Assign Teen ID To Picture.../ This option allows you to place a thumbnail of any teen sim in any of the yearbooks 'slots'. Note that this is purely cosmetic and doesn't actually associate any IDs with the yearbook.
- Make Picture Blank.../ This option makes any of the yearbook slots have the default white background.
- Make Picture Invisible.../ This option will clear any slot of both its background and its Sim thumbnail. This is also purely cosmetic. If you have a valid yearbook, you could use this option to remove a Sim's thumbnail from a slot, then change the background to a custom image, if you wanted to. That's how I got my profile picture in the yearbook in the tutorial above.
- Set Owner Picture From Saved GUID.../ (For Valid Yearbooks Only) This option allows you to toggle between an Owner's 'Happy' or 'Angry' picture. Note that this is also purely cosmetic and doesn't actually change whether the Sim Grew Up Well or not. Useful if your Sim would pull a face even if they grew up well.
- *Age/ This option automatically sets the yearbook to the number of days required for it to change to the 'worn' state. Note that this is not reversible.

Tuning


Compatibility
You need University to use the University mod, of course. It may work with BV games, but AL is considered the supported version nevermind actually, I forgot about witch outfit checks which make it AL+ compatible only.

Mod Conflicts
1. Semester Changes By Cyjon. Conflicts With: College. TeenGradBookMod-College-CJ-SemesterChanges combines both SemesterChanges and TeenGradbookMod-College, so you can replace the originals.

2. Nopke's goToCollegeWantSatisfiedBeforeGrowingUp. Conflicts With: College. TeenGradBookMod-College-simNopke-goToCollegeWantSatisfiedBeforeGrowingUp combines this mod and TeenGradBookMod-College, so you can replace it.

3. Nopke's Growing Up Wants Panel. Conflicts With: Birthday. TeenGradBookMod-Birthday-simNopke-growingUpWantsPanel combines both Nopke's mod and TeenGradBook-Birthday, so you can remove the originals. Choose 'Gold' or 'Platinum' depending on your preference.

4. kestrellyn's Autonomous Gift Giving At Parties. Conflicts With: Birthday. This is a PATCH, not a standalone .package. Load this patch last after kestrellyn's and then my mod. You need any 'Birthday' mod, then kestrellyn's mod, with the patch loading last.
Here is a visual example of the load order:


5. Meduza's Bigfoot mod. Meduza has kindly created a patch of their own!

Always run HCDU or HCDU+ after adding new mods.

Technical Information - For Modders

Special Thanks
whoward69, thanks to whom the aging feature of the Yearbook would not be possible. Check out his write up on multi-state objects here
Fire, who first volunteered to help out with my multistate issues
DeeDeeSims, whose awesome Changeable Sim Portraits inspired parts of this mod
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