Installed Swapshop Sims not in Household Bin

[Tealeaf]

So, this afternoon I spent a while downloading some sims from these forums swap shop.  This is the first time I've ever tried to get downloaded sims into my game, but I have had success with several other items such as worlds, patterns, and lots.  The downloading and installing went as expected.  But when I fired up my game, the only downloaded sim I had in my household bin was Leto's Max Skills.  I do have the "show custom content" star symbol highlighted, and all my CAS guys are there.

According to the launcher, everyone I downloaded is installed, but only Max Skills is marked as a "household" rather than a "sim".   All the sims I cannot load from my bin are in my "Saved Sims" file in my Eletronic Arts folder.  I'm stumped.  I'm probably making some simple mistake.  I've tried googling, but can only seem to find ways to install sims, which mine allegedly are.

Any help would be muchly appreciated.

[Ricalynn]

The Sims that you are looking for are in the Sim Bin while in Create A Sim instead of Edit Town.  Have you looked there?   They won't show up as a household because of the way they were saved.   Saving a Sim as a household allows them to keep all of their skill points, inventory, happiness points etc. whereas saving them normally and installing them to the Sim Bin makes them new characters to be developed.

[MrsFlynn]

Yep, when I downloaded my first Swap Shop Sim person, they ended up in the Sim Bin.  I had always wondered why though.  As when I save my sim people regardless if they're family or single. I usually save them as household files.

MrsFlynn

[Ricalynn]

The difference is where you save the Sims.  If you save a Sim when you're in Edit town by choosing to share it, then it's a household and can have multiple Sims plus it keeps money, inventory and skill points.   If you save a Sim while in Create-A-Sim by choosing to share it, then it's regulated to the Sim Bin because it has no skills, no inventory and the money it gets is when the person chooses it. 

A Sim saved to the Bin can be changed by the downloader while in CAS to correct problems or change traits.   A Sim saved to the household has to be changed via the Edit in CAS cheat if you want to change traits or how they look.

[Tealeaf]

Thank you so much fot the help.  As long as I've been play you might think that I'd know about this, but I just never thought to look at the pre-made sims in CAS.  Everyone was there, and now I'm happier.  This was driving me crazy.

[MrsFlynn]

I've been playing Sims 3, since it came out, but didn't really learn how to save Sims in the Sim Bin till later.  Hubby still tries to tell me to save them to the bin before putting them into play. So I can tweak them later if need be. I normally just edit my Sims in-game.

Thank you Ricalynn for explaining the differences in the saving processes. It gives me a better understanding of both saving in the Sim Bin and Household library.

MrsFlynn