Sim to share and a game/peek

First up I offer a sim!


This sim was inspired by a good friend who gave me a link to this doll. I wanted to create a sim to resemble her.






I was playing with her looks, so this was the last outfit I actually had her in:


It's definitely a store outfit. Part of the steam punk set I think.




Heck if I know where I got the hair from. Pretty sure it's one of Miss Bonbon's recolors which can be found at GOS. The eyes are actually contacts by Heiret which I can't seem to find, but they were linked over at My Sims 3 Blog. And the eyeshadow here is Tri-tone shadow by arfmoo at MTS.

That's it. I didn't use any slider hacks so she should be fine in anyone's game. I gave her a random name and some random traits.

Sim to share (Mediafire link) Just put the file in your savedsim folder and she'll appear in the pre-made sim folder of CAS with traits and everything.




Also, over at TSR (I know, players are all, "TSR??" But I like the forum. Generally friendly and pretty drama free even if it's a little stifling with so many rules), we had a discussion about the faces of sims. That's why I was asking on Twitter what faces people recognized easier.

Even before I liked their faces, I could tell TS3 faces apart right away. With TS2 sims, unless they look really unique or they're my sims, I can't tell them apart. Give them different hair, and usually they look the same to me.

I think that shows in my sim creations. I can see the differences and I have a lot of fun molding them.

For the story, I play around with the faces, and I don't rely on the game's aging system to age their faces realistically. Instead, I tweak them to make them look older or younger. They're story sims after all, so they aren't meant for playing really. I've even gone so far as to age up toddlers with the edit in CAS feature of the supercomputer, edit their faces, then age them back down and save.

So here's a little game. I saved some story sims to the bin and de-aged them. Lets see how well I did it and how distinguishable they are.

There's probably only one that is really randomly tossed out there, but you've seen her. Once on this blog, and very recently in the story blog. ;)



Sim 1



Sim 2

(TS3 toddlers will eat you. Do not turn your back. Seriously. *walks you backwards to the next pic*)


Sim 3


Sim 4

Setting up!

Wow, thank you Laura for this link to Speechless' blog. I never would've figured this out before hand.

So, I think this will actually be much easier. If each day is one month, so that twelve months is one year, that means I can properly set up sim birthdays and pop in to see them on their months. So that's what I'm working on right now.

For the keeping track of days, so far I average about one sim day per play session so far. But I've mostly been editing relationships and the town.

I have noticed though that you can hover over the time and see how many days into what week you are like so:



So far so good. *knocks on wood*

Everyone is linked up now-- as in all the family members. 'Cause you know, I've got Brandon, Henri, Jimmy, and all the rest. That includes their mother and Killer too.

So here's the rudimentary calendar. I've picked a random number for the year going based off the story in my head. (Basically, about 5,000 years ago the world ended. So the stories say. ;) )

To keep track of the current "month" I figure I can move the *current* around each day or so. If that doesn't work, I generally keep a lot of stuff in my head, which is pretty dangerous. And I can always check the world date just to verify. I'm sure I'll mess up at some point and miss someone's birthday.



Taking a cue from Carla, I've used a similar, but simple organization system. Each family gets a note, and under each note, I write down information. So far I have their ages and birthdays, their traits, and their lifetime wants. For houses that I play, I also take notes on impressions of them and any other detail that I might find important.



Whatever pops into my head. (Though I will say, Michael really is the town thug. He was selected through story progression for that role, and he managed to shake down nearly one grand from one character already, lol!) I do that a lot when I'm working on the story anyway.


And looking at the pictures, I think I might have messed up and lost a day. When I was on the desktop, the poor thing crashed more than once, so I lost at least a day. That means I'll probably have to redo all of these, but I've got the important info down.

For a short while, I was worried I'd done something wrong with my world, but no, seems my computer just really couldn't handle it. Probably just too many trees for it to render. Works perfect now that I'm back on the laptop though.

Still working on things, perfecting things. I've made a list of hacks. This'll help when another patch comes out and it's time to update.

Michael & Edith's household



Where to start with these guys? They are not necesarily the same ones you know from the story. These are alternate reality Edith and Michael.

They live with the Old Man. He has a name, but Michael started calling him that before he even took them in and it pretty much just stuck. He used to roll his eyes and repeat his name which would make Edith laugh, and a laugh from her in those early days was a rare thing. It became a game after a while that Old Man and Michael both secretly enjoyed just to hear Edith laughing.

When they came to town, they had nothing. The city leader set them up on the site of a failed construction project. They were just thankful for anything at the time. Michael has nothing but complaints about it. Meanwhile Edy sees all the possible good that can come out of it. She wants to grow a beautiful garden and use the fresh fruits for her cooking.

New to their little group is Selene Toma. She doesn't say anything about her past, and that makes Michael highly suspicious. He was very against letting her stay with them, but Edy made a plea so convincing that the old man couldn't refuse her. (It's not easy to refuse a girl who rarely makes requests and then asks for something for someone else the first time she does.)

But rest assured that Michael sleeps with one eye open as the three teens share a room.



On this night, the teens are working on their homework after school.

Michael and Edith sit at the kitchen table together pouring over their work. It's no trouble for Michael. She knows he'd be done already if it wasn't for her slowing him down, but he never complains about it. (The one thing he doesn't seem to complain about.)

What she doesn't know is what is actually slowing him down. It's not stopping to help her that's the problem. It's that she has a habit of drawing attention to her lips when she thinks by nibbling on her pencil.


Dirty thoughts in her presense always make him feel a little guilty even if they're caused by her. He scratches the back of his head and looks away towards the ceiling, trying to banish the thoughts and focus on his work, but you just try thinking about formulas with her sitting so close poking at her sweet lips with the tip of her eraser.

By the time they actually do finish, it's about time for bed. Everyone in the house is really exhausted. Her from all the cooking, cleaning, and homework she did, and him from work and the exertion of trying to keep his thoughts distracted from distraction.

They fold up their notebooks and put them in their backpacks which they leave by the door so they can run off and catch the bus tomorrow at the last minute like usual.

And that's the moment when Michael slides something out of his backpack and turns to her. "I got you something."

It's a book on gardening that makes her smile. Not a cheap book, he probably had to use a day's wages to get it for her. She'd been ready to just spend a lot of time at the library after school.


Before she even takes the book from his hands, she throws her arms around him unexpectedly. "Thank you." It's the nicest thing he's done for her-- or anyone really.

That's when Selene comes out from hiding to head to bed. "Oh get a room, you two." She rolls her eyes. She did her homework in the Old Man's room because she can't stand to watch Edy and Michael working (or not working) while together. Sure, she's here only because of Edy's moving plea, but it doesn't make things better. In some ways, it makes it worse.



Michael glares after Selene, but Edy manages to catch his attention. She thanks him again, slightly leaning towards him, the corner of her mouth turned up in a very shy and yet welcoming smile, like she knows what he'd most like from her as a thank you.

And that's when Old Man stomps in, kicking the dirt from the build site off his boots. Michael catches his suspicious glare. "It's time for bed, you two. School in the morning."


I know you must be wondering. The only reason Michael and Edy can share a room is because you know Selene would rat on them in a second if there was any funny business. Besides, while Michael probably would have no shame, Edy has more than enough for both of them, and so nothing would ever happen. At least not there where people can see it.

***********

And so there was a scene from one of my first proper play sessions where I actually focused on a family instead of bouncing around checking things out. Also, sorry about the lack of Selene's picture here. I thought I'd taken a shot of her somewhere. Guess not. Oops, poor kid.

Selene and Edy jostled for a place at the dinner table to do their homework, and Selene finally settled for hiding out in the other room. When Michael got the want to kiss Edy for the first time while they were working on homework, I knew why. Awkward!


So I'm going to play with the life span on long though I keep bouncing between that and epic. But I figure that on epic, I might as well turn off aging. On long, they get like 100 some sim days per age group.

Time to experiment

Anyone remember TS3 Amberle?


I have not really been playing Sims 3. Various reasons, mostly that the neighborhoods were too large to control I think. I need to know the sims in town to have it have meaning for me.

So, with the creation of this little village world for my story, I've decided to give this another go and actually try playing the game the way we do TS2. I want to create a town, fill it with Sims that I care about, hopefully give it room to grow. (Though I didn't give it a lot of room, I admit. There's not even 30 lots on this world.)

The sims I'm using to populate it are some-- strike that, most of my story sims. Because they are faces that are familiar to me and that I can spot around town.


A couple of hacks I've picked up to help with game play:

Twallan's Story Progression and Sim Selector

The Sim selector is very essential right now. It allows you to hop from household to household without having to press all those extra buttons. (For any non TS3 players- you normally have to go to the main menu, select Edit Town, then select "change household," then you have to select the house hold you want to play). Now, with this mod, I just click on the sim I see walking around town and I can pick "make sim active" and then I'm seamlessly playing that sim's household without having to go to their house. No issues so far, and I've hopped around town on it's first actual test runs.


Still have torn lots


The lot tearing is a lot worse than I thought, to be honest. But I'm going to just ride with it. My fix had been to just delete a lot and plop a new one down, but somehow that doesn't seem to help at all (In fact it my have made it worse in the case of my meadow).

Mmm, pie!

With World Adventures, I love that we technically get shops in a way. You can buy food, and then eat it right there. So here is a semi-random sim enjoying pie. You can also buy a plate and eat it elsewhere, so I've got some outdoor eating areas. Same thing for the nectar. You can buy a bottle and then share it later on elsewhere.


I have managed to find some really gorgeous lots. Like this one which I have very near my forest.

It has a hidden little secret in the center of the lake. Sims can swim in it. (I did a little renovation though to try and make it mesh into the surroundings a little bit more because it had a fence around it.)

Here are three of my teens enjoying a dip in the pool. That's Selene (not introduced yet), Michael, and Julia (who was Killer's odd girl that stood behind him).


Right now I'm just wandering around patching up the town. Indispensable right now are MelissaMel's Rabbit Hole signs. But they're a little tricky. Place them wrong and sims either can't get in or end up getting stuck.





Here's my school that's right outside of the library. I had an issue where it was too close to the road, and sims all got stuck. I had about three standing there on top of each other. Paula just doesn't know. Teresa (the girl in front) is still traumatized about being one with two other people.

Lots of work to do still decorating the town. I think I have managed to completely gorge myself this weekend properly. It was all fast food and sims this weekend. Weekend well spent I think after the beginning of my week.

Listing of Hacks

Listing of Hacks
(Updated 6/1/2011 for Generations)

Essential
:
Twallan's Hacks In particular: Master Controller, The Animator, and The Story Progression
Pregnancy Length (set for nine days) Not working with Generations currently
No Martial art clothes (Includes a mod for no work clothes-- tempting!)


Lighting Hacks (choose one only of course)
Outdoor light tweaks v1.5 by dDefender (This is the one I am using)
Outdoor Light Overhaul

Defaults:
EA Face Overlay Fix (I use it to get rid of the default overlay lips. Much better faces!)
Asian Skins by 234jiao
Odd socks (because my socks don't match in real life, why should my sims?)
Hi-Res Moon



Handy:
Less coughing choking
Autonomous Gardening (which includes less hygiene loss)
Jonha's new CAS sliders (hips, bust, butt, etc.)
More Height Sliders in testing (Includes shorter)
No Pregnancy Chime
Carpool disabler
Cooking on Community lots
Buy Take Out and Order Food at Restaurants
Scribbling Pad (Allows for writing of reports and novels the old fashioned way)



Adds to play:

The Working Sim's Bed
Shop from Inventory (To make Ambitions shops more like OFB from TS2. One word: AWESOME!)


Modded Objects:
Statue of Life
Money Bags (To give sims in the same household separate funds in case one is only a renter or something like that)
Rabbit Hole Rugs


Story stuff:
No Camera Fade
Aikea's Camera Mod
Buyable fire
Tiny Texture Replacers by HystericalParoxysm (I don't use them all, but it's handy she's put them in one package and one post with links to all the replacers)
Vanishing script by Buzzler. **You need the script and an object that takes advantage of the scrip.
Invisible furniture by me (Sometimes I actually come in handy)
The Relativity (To slow time down. Good for story picture taking.)
Fancy, stackable OMSPs (Sims can be placed on these)

Haven't tested these with Generations. It's possible these no longer work with the latest updates. :(
Chaos Carrier
FoodeX
PhoniX



Currently testing
:

More Waking Hours
No Excitable Idles



Contemplating:
The Multi Owner's Door Version 2 (like the dorm room door in TS2's Uni)
Lot Sizes Mod


Not needed, but you never know!
Less Hygiene decay and more fun from gardening (not needed with the auto gardening mod)
Extra Sliders
Autonomous Teen Woohoo (not needed with latest Woohooer from Twallan)
No Uniforms to work


Out of date, but possibly still handy for those not up to date
Autonomous Repairs (Out of date as of WA and not being updated)
Delphy's Height Slider (this one only makes taller, Johna has a better version of this mod broken into pieces)
Chaos Mod Painting (NOT updated for LN! Try Twallan's Animator)
Absimiliard Realistic Aging (Not needed with Generations since you can set the length of each stage)
aWT's Slider Hack (Use only if you aren't using Awesome mod.)


Programs
Clean up Sims 3 Packs

No good reason

Just what the title says. Last night I decided to fire up the game and play dress up with the dollies. And then did some very minor posing.

I love playing around with TS3 for pictures because it's so easy to grab and move them around. That's one thing that they really got right.

Still wish they had something like OMSPs for sims though so I could have Paula sit cross legged on the couch because whenever I see her hanging out on Brandon's couch in my mind I see her sitting there cross legged.







The woman isn't important. She may or may not show up one day in a story, though she's faaaar in the background, even in the back of my head. Still, I have some ideas swirling around her. (The sim isn't really important either, pretty sure she's just a premade sim dressed up in a very sheer dress made by LemonLeaf.)

So how unique are my sims? Can you recognize the guy? If you did, give yourself some chocolate. He was just the closest one to my mouse pointer in this case. Though I'm sure there would be a connection between him and her. At least there is in my head.


I'm thinking about playing around with character bios for fun. Lately I've been in a tell not show kind of mood. (Who knew that happens?) But I'm still playing with the idea. I'd have to be very careful with it, don't want to give away too many secrets. Mostly, I'm thinking I'd do bios for the side characters that are important, but you won't see very often 'cause they're too distracting.



So the pics against the black background is pretty much for those possible bios. I had a lot of fun with WA too. I needed some ferocious looks, so I set them to spar and then moved them around.



Lot tearing Boo

I'm lucky I don't have this issue. My world is so small that there are few lots. (Maybe 15? I have never counted.)

But if anyone stumbles across this blog and somehow doesn't know about the lot tears, I'd like to throw up this link about lot tearing and now about saving which I got from Poida of Wasteland. SO sad! I guess once I'm done with this world, there will be no meddling with it or adding onto it.

Right now, the problems are easy to fix. I guess the deal is that you'd have to sculpt, then lay down the roads, and then lay down the lots. Yikes. That would take some serious in depth planning so that you aren't figuring that out in game.

And that is probably a little too much for me! But that's probably why they took so long to release the tool.

Though I will have to say I disagree with LeeMortis. Even with these issues, I am very glad to have this tool. It has come in very handy.



And a sneak peek... at my lot tear.


Boo lot tear. Luckily, it's been easy so far to fix. Minor ones I've just decided to completely ignore. This tear was in a pristine picture taking area, and the lot is completely by itself, so I can't screw this up. Even if I do, the world is mostly done and I've already exported it, so so even if something happens to my saves, I'm pretty good. *knocks on wood*

World previews

All right, I admit I had some issues with Create a World. But nothing that's been too discouraging. The very worst was last night. I think I just spent way too much time editing in game. I have to use that sparingly. Either just to look or to place a lot here or there. And when I save, I need to walk away from the computer.


So some first peeks, at least the ones I am happy with. (Click to enlarge.)




Huh, floating shadows. I hope that doesn't become a problem! But I'll work with it if it is. I don't want those hills completely bare.

Also, near the mine, I have made a lot to put down a special tomb just for my own amusement.


This is one of my favorite views. Near by I've put a community lot just so sims can have picnics on a hillside meadow that will overlook the town. I did not get pics of this meadow unfortunately. And I also have to test it to be sure that sims really can use it the way I intend them too. (Not for the story, just for my own fun again.)


I love this far a little too much. The building in the distance is actually a little french farmhouse I downloaded.