Ok. I've thrown together what will be an official template for how I will present all lots in Overlook Bay - either in it's own website/forum, or in the official thread at these forums. Just did two of my completed lots real quick to show the style, and thought I'd get some opinions on it.
Good? Bad? What could be better and so forth.
Note: Those are displayed in a slightly smaller format than the original images, which will be 800x600. That may make the Description text a little hard to read in these examples.
Wow, what a wonderful world that completely shatters the scope and size of Sunset valley and riverview. I don't have WA but I'm sure it trumps thei sizes.
This will be "the must" download world for a very long time once it gets all filled in. Looking forward to watching the progress!
Hey LeeMortis, This world is looking absolutely awesome! Love the "epic" feel to it, with the different climate-zones and all. I stumbled across Overlook Bay while looking for a new neigborhood with more room for residental zone. I think I found it.... (If this isn't the understatement of the century, I know not what is )
If I was any good at building, I would offer you my services to help fill up this plethora of buildingsites in Overlook Bay. But as it is, I am sure other people will do a much better job at it then I ever could. So all I can do is compliment you on all your hard work and on the nearly(?) finished fruit of your labors Keep up the great work! Am definitely going to download this when it's completed.
Panther00567: Thanks. Yeah, I will settle for that version of the lot pics. I kinda like it myself. Glad you like my world, and hope you will have much fun playing it when it is finally released.
ProfPlumbob: Thank You. I've been playing around a little bit with your Coconut Island world, and I think it's a really nice place. Don't (obviously) have any time to give it a proper run, but I still have it installed and will play it some more once I'm finished with Overlook Bay. Say - I kinda like your beach building skills as well... if you'd be interested to build something for Overlook Bay beach areas I'd be honored. Don't know what would happen should you install without WA, but I assume you'd only be missing some WA objects (like many of the Cairo Palms in the beach area). Anyway - let me know if you're interested.
mar_cas: Thanks. It's still going to be a while before the final version of Overlook Bay can be released. I'm longing for the day myself But, I know I'm doing 30 or more lots myself, and it is taking a long time. Maybe I can finish one lot per day - and even that would mean the release is still a month away. So far, I haven't had as many offers for house building as I'd like in the building thread either, which means I may have to build even more stuff myself. Some lots could be filled up with downloaded creations - but many lots also have unique sizes and slopes that would not be compatible with other default lot buildings. Anyway... I'll be taking my time and not rush anything. Once released, I want it to be as good as possible.
Just to keep you guys up to speed. I'm still hard at work with the Trailer Park area. That is 13 lots though, so it is a somewhat big project (even though 12 of them use the same base house). I'm very pleased with how it's coming along, and I've been furnishing and decorating each trailer with a certain Sim Personality in mind. There is the perfect trailer for the Sporty Sim, The Single Mom, The Artist and Musician to name a few. There are still many styles I could do that wouldn't fit on the 12 lots... so I'm thinking of doing a few extra lots that could be downloaded on the side and people could mix and match trailers to their hearts content, and also be sure that there is a ready furnished Trailer that would suit YOUR Sim's needs.
There is the perfect trailer for the Sporty Sim, The Single Mom, The Artist and Musician to name a few.
Ooh, now I can finally house my Spice girl sims!
LeeMortis, please don't feel pressured by my last post! Whatever you do, take your time developing your neighbourhood, and don't rush! Sure, I want to play Overlook Bay, but I think a lot of people are experiencing the side-effects of a rush job every day (People not being able to play the sims at all for example). I gathered from reading this thread, and your building corner thread that there aren't as many applications to build houses coming in as you would like. Again, I wish I could help with this, but alas. :roll:
Anyway, I will definately keep an eye on this thread to keep up with developments!
By the way, your idea about the mixing and matching of trailers sounds awesome!
LeeMortis : Could i please download your Avatar Sim and put it in my world when it'll be done ? I really like his unic face and personnality traits .
Hope you'll want so,
Estyle
EDIT : Oh and could you please tell me what textures your used for your dirt roads please (the complete template), i'd really put some in my world , the roads i make are really bad :evil:
mar_cas: Don't worry - I won't feel pressured I am a bit of a perfectionist, and I would never dream of uploading this world and calling it finished unless I believe it is the best it can be. I'm not too worried about the slow rate of applications from builders either - not yet, anyway - as there is still a lot of time left before I finish the lot building and fine-tuning of the world itself. I don't want to pressure people into building - they should only do it if they really want to. All in it's own time; This world will be finished some day
Oh, and the Trailer Park thing is a go. I've furnished nearly all of them, so I should finish it up tomorrow. I may offer the base Trailer and upload it so that people could furnish a few of their own and there would be plenty of trailers to choose from by release. People would have to plop them down in the Overlook Bay - Builders Template to do so. Otherwise it would be hard to make sure you stay within budged (16.500) so that newly created Sims can afford them. Also, the lot size is not available anywhere else (20x14).
estyle36: Of course you can use my avatar Sim. Paul Mach is a hardened criminal, and will feature in my Overlook Bay story save as well. I like the Sim as well (which is why I use him for my avatar). Please, just let him keep his name and description... if there is a way, I'd appreciate credit for him, but it's not absolutely necessary.
Oh, and I'm not sure where you read the traits for my avatar. If you liked the ones on my profile, those are not the ones that come with Paul. These are his traits:
Kleptomaniac, Mean Spirited, Hot-Headed, Daredevil, No Sense Of Humor
About the dirt road texture. I'm sorry, but now that I looked at it, I realize that I did use custom textures that I created myself. However, both the grass_mud_muddier and grass_mud_greener should look decent enough if replaced with dirt_light_base. Here is the exact set-up that I used:
Street Texture Base: grass_mud_muddier Street Detail Texture: dirt_street_detail
Sidewalk Base Texture: grass_mud_greener Sidewalk Normal Map: dirt_sidewalk_base_n Sidewalk Opacity Map: dirt_sidewalk_opacity
Ok! Finally I've finished the Trailer Park area, and I'm happy to present it to you all. This is, after all, where we will all start our lives in Overlook Bay (unless we cheat or take over existing family in the Story Save I will provide). It's not a nice looking place, but it certainly has it's charm.
Welcome to Economy Hill Trailer Park, where hospitality is worth more than the roof over your head. We don't offer luxurious living, but we sure know affordable. Like the saying goes: "You get what you pay for!"
Want to furnish a trailer to suit your needs?
Each trailer is furnished and decorated individually, and I thought it might be a nice idea to offer alternative downloads so that anyone can start the Overlook Bay game with a Trailer available that suits their own needs. I have uploaded the empty Trailer Base, and if interested, you could furnish your own Trailer and upload it. Give me the link and I'll make a "directory" of available alternate Trailers come release time of this hood.
All you need to do is load up the Overlook Bay Build Template and place the empty Trailer on either of the Interchange Drive 20x14 lots. Make sure the finished trailer costs NO MORE than 16.500, so that any newly created Sim or Family can afford to buy it. In the description - simply change "YourName" to... well, guess what , and then finish the unfinished sentence to describe what kind of Sim/Family this Trailer would be suitable for.
The current available Trailers that will ship with the default Town (subject to change) are:
Writer/Bookworm
Hardened Criminal
Single Mom With Twin Daughters
Family Oriented
Young Couple In Love
The Gardening Sim
Sporty/Athletic Sim
Single Mom With Toddler
Bachelor
The Culinary Sim
The Musician
The Artist
Here is the Trailer Download for those interested: Click Picture for download
Now it is time for me to return to CAW, and start ironing out the remaining bugs. Then I'll add the street signs and lights, followed by Spawners and Routing. I will also finish up some half completed areas and add a few more surprises that I will not reveal - those are for you guys to discover as you play the hood
Thank You to all who are helping out with the lots, and also to those of you following the progress of this town.
Yeah - right now I can't wait 'til the bug fixing stage is complete. Struggling to get all the road and lot tears out of it right now. Thought I was done when I finally fixed the last road and lot tear in the farming area. But, when I finally had that fixed I noticed it had messed up the Trailer Park really BAD!
I'm getting closer to fixing the Trailer Park again, but will probably have to completely rebuild the lots and roads once more... and pray a little prayer that it doesn't destroy some other area of town once I'm done.
So - I've hit a bit of a snag at the moment, but I'm persistent and confident I'll get it fixed (can't wait to move on to doing something else...)
thought i bump this lol. im looking forword to this its all looking GREAT! but i do say thank u for building the houses urself because im having prob with teh houses that people just put in there from CAW.
First of all - I'm happy to announce that I've finally made it past all the road and lot tear issues (well, as good as I can get it anyway, and acceptable). It was a job I expected to last half a day... possibly a full day. It took me just over three days of constant frustration. I am just SO relieved to finally be done with that part.
ilovepie: Not sure what you mean by me building all houses myself... I am getting people from the community to build most of the lots, as there is no way I could finish off 160 lots by myself. And, what kind of problem have you been having with lots that were placed in CAW?
Gillie: I'm not sure about calling me a God, - Maybe a Legend, and Icon, or heck... why not a Saint... No, seriously - I'm just a regular Joe amongst men. Thanks, though - and I assume that comment implies you like my world
The pics show you've put tons of effort into this world and even paying attention to detail. I look forward to anther batch of photos to oggle at sometime.
tygercat12: It doesn't matter where you save your files - just keep'em somewhere you can find them. To install the world and the pattern files, all you need to do it double click on the sims3pack files (those with Sims3 icons). The launcher will load and populate the downloads in there, and then you just proceed to install them by checking them off in the launcher and hit the install button. The preview pictures, and map pictures are just for your own reference while helping build houses.
Gillie: Thank You. I'm happy to hear that you like it, and I've indeed put a lot of work and effort into it. I'll see what I can do about getting some new pictures of the world soon. Reason I haven't been updating with that is because I was at a standstill for 3+ days trying to get rid of the bugs. A process that nearly made me give up... Create-A-World surely needs some more work before they could remove that Beta tag from it.
Moving forward again now, though - so I'll see if I can't give some new information later on today or tomorrow.
EDITED:
Im so excited to download this town! It looks amazing. I love how many lots there are, It gives the players such a huge room to grow!
A few questions if you dont mind!
Will the world have empty lots? Or empty houses? So we can move our sims in, or give us more variety while upgrading from the trailer?
CaseyMarkam: Hi. Glad you like my world! And, I sure don't mind answering questions... that's part of what this thread is all about
I can't say for sure at the moment whether or not there will be any empty lots. I actually plan to fill out every single lot with buildings to make it feel much more like a complete town - but I'm not sure I'll be able to get enough houses done in a reasonable time. There will definitely be unoccupied houses for you to buy in varied price ranges, so while you may be keeping your eye on that luxury mansion up in the mountains - you might buy a simpler house closer to downtown at first when you have enough cash to get out of the trailer park. Of course - for anyone who wants to build their own houses, they can just delete an empty one where they want to build a new home.
One of the reasons I made so many lots is because I, for one, intend to play this neighborhood for the duration of the Sims 3 series, and want it to be able to handle all forthcoming expansion packs... and I don't want to run out of lots UPDATE:
Well, after lots of trouble ironing out bugs, I am finally on the move again adding to the world. Been a while since I gave you guys any new pictures to feast your eyes on, so I thought I'd throw out a couple tonight.
Currently I'm working on adding all street signs and lights to the world. I've also finished up some areas I felt needed more stuff added to it. About halfway done with the streets now - and I don't think I fully realized how much work it was to add those... hehe... phew! But, I'm having fun again - so it's all good
NEW PICTURES:
Added some guardrails to prevent cars from driving straight into the ocean
Also finished up the beach promenade area between the hotels and the main beach
Here is the corner of Old Pier Rd. and General Malloy Blvd. with street decor
And the same picture by night...
Finally - I present a night overview of the finished areas
Got a lot done today, even though I don't have a lot of new stuff to show you guys. I finished ALL street signs/lights so the entire town is now nicely lit at night, and proper traffic signs should be where they are needed. I've also finished all the routing to prevent Sims from taking strange and impossible paths when up in the mountains - which is where most of the problems were before. Camera routing has also been done, although you can still see some odd parts on the extreme edges of the map... you got no business looking there anyway
Also did a couple of minor fixes and updates to the environment.
Couple of pictures for you today to keep you guys interested...
Farming area at night
Entrance to Elm Lane at night
Part of the Military Base at night
Oh, and I changed the bridge used at the Military Base. Much better like this...
Comments
Good? Bad? What could be better and so forth.
Note: Those are displayed in a slightly smaller format than the original images, which will be 800x600. That may make the Description text a little hard to read in these examples.
I'm looking forward to when this town is finished!
This will be "the must" download world for a very long time once it gets all filled in. Looking forward to watching the progress!
If I was any good at building, I would offer you my services to help fill up this plethora of buildingsites in Overlook Bay. But as it is, I am sure other people will do a much better job at it then I ever could. So all I can do is compliment you on all your hard work and on the nearly(?) finished fruit of your labors
Panther00567: Thanks. Yeah, I will settle for that version of the lot pics. I kinda like it myself. Glad you like my world, and hope you will have much fun playing it when it is finally released.
ProfPlumbob: Thank You. I've been playing around a little bit with your Coconut Island world, and I think it's a really nice place. Don't (obviously) have any time to give it a proper run, but I still have it installed and will play it some more once I'm finished with Overlook Bay. Say - I kinda like your beach building skills as well... if you'd be interested to build something for Overlook Bay beach areas I'd be honored. Don't know what would happen should you install without WA, but I assume you'd only be missing some WA objects (like many of the Cairo Palms in the beach area). Anyway - let me know if you're interested.
mar_cas: Thanks. It's still going to be a while before the final version of Overlook Bay can be released. I'm longing for the day myself
Just to keep you guys up to speed. I'm still hard at work with the Trailer Park area. That is 13 lots though, so it is a somewhat big project (even though 12 of them use the same base house). I'm very pleased with how it's coming along, and I've been furnishing and decorating each trailer with a certain Sim Personality in mind. There is the perfect trailer for the Sporty Sim, The Single Mom, The Artist and Musician to name a few. There are still many styles I could do that wouldn't fit on the 12 lots... so I'm thinking of doing a few extra lots that could be downloaded on the side and people could mix and match trailers to their hearts content, and also be sure that there is a ready furnished Trailer that would suit YOUR Sim's needs.
What do you all think of that idea?
Ooh, now I can finally house my Spice girl sims!
LeeMortis, please don't feel pressured by my last post! Whatever you do, take your time developing your neighbourhood, and don't rush! Sure, I want to play Overlook Bay, but I think a lot of people are experiencing the side-effects of a rush job every day (People not being able to play the sims at all for example). I gathered from reading this thread, and your building corner thread that there aren't as many applications to build houses coming in as you would like. Again, I wish I could help with this, but alas. :roll:
Anyway, I will definately keep an eye on this thread to keep up with developments!
By the way, your idea about the mixing and matching of trailers sounds awesome!
Hope you'll want so,
Estyle
EDIT : Oh and could you please tell me what textures your used for your dirt roads please (the complete template), i'd really put some in my world
Oh, and the Trailer Park thing is a go. I've furnished nearly all of them, so I should finish it up tomorrow. I may offer the base Trailer and upload it so that people could furnish a few of their own and there would be plenty of trailers to choose from by release. People would have to plop them down in the Overlook Bay - Builders Template to do so. Otherwise it would be hard to make sure you stay within budged (16.500) so that newly created Sims can afford them. Also, the lot size is not available anywhere else (20x14).
estyle36: Of course you can use my avatar Sim. Paul Mach is a hardened criminal, and will feature in my Overlook Bay story save as well. I like the Sim as well (which is why I use him for my avatar). Please, just let him keep his name and description... if there is a way, I'd appreciate credit for him, but it's not absolutely necessary.
Oh, and I'm not sure where you read the traits for my avatar. If you liked the ones on my profile, those are not the ones that come with Paul. These are his traits:
Kleptomaniac, Mean Spirited, Hot-Headed, Daredevil, No Sense Of Humor
Also, he uses a shirt from the Store: Men's Henley Shirt
About the dirt road texture. I'm sorry, but now that I looked at it, I realize that I did use custom textures that I created myself. However, both the grass_mud_muddier and grass_mud_greener should look decent enough if replaced with dirt_light_base. Here is the exact set-up that I used:
Street Texture Base: grass_mud_muddier
Street Detail Texture: dirt_street_detail
Sidewalk Base Texture: grass_mud_greener
Sidewalk Normal Map: dirt_sidewalk_base_n
Sidewalk Opacity Map: dirt_sidewalk_opacity
Intersection Corner Texture: grass_mud_greener
Intersection Corner Normal Map: sidewalkTile_concrete_corner_n
Intersection Crosswalk Texture: grass_mud_muddier
Ok! Finally I've finished the Trailer Park area, and I'm happy to present it to you all. This is, after all, where we will all start our lives in Overlook Bay (unless we cheat or take over existing family in the Story Save I will provide). It's not a nice looking place, but it certainly has it's charm.
Welcome to Economy Hill Trailer Park, where hospitality is worth more than the roof over your head. We don't offer luxurious living, but we sure know affordable. Like the saying goes: "You get what you pay for!"
Want to furnish a trailer to suit your needs?
Each trailer is furnished and decorated individually, and I thought it might be a nice idea to offer alternative downloads so that anyone can start the Overlook Bay game with a Trailer available that suits their own needs. I have uploaded the empty Trailer Base, and if interested, you could furnish your own Trailer and upload it. Give me the link and I'll make a "directory" of available alternate Trailers come release time of this hood.
All you need to do is load up the Overlook Bay Build Template and place the empty Trailer on either of the Interchange Drive 20x14 lots. Make sure the finished trailer costs NO MORE than 16.500, so that any newly created Sim or Family can afford to buy it. In the description - simply change "YourName" to... well, guess what
The current available Trailers that will ship with the default Town (subject to change) are:
Writer/Bookworm
Hardened Criminal
Single Mom With Twin Daughters
Family Oriented
Young Couple In Love
The Gardening Sim
Sporty/Athletic Sim
Single Mom With Toddler
Bachelor
The Culinary Sim
The Musician
The Artist
Here is the Trailer Download for those interested:
Click Picture for download
Now it is time for me to return to CAW, and start ironing out the remaining bugs. Then I'll add the street signs and lights, followed by Spawners and Routing. I will also finish up some half completed areas and add a few more surprises that I will not reveal - those are for you guys to discover as you play the hood
Thank You to all who are helping out with the lots, and also to those of you following the progress of this town.
Looking great + can't wait for the release of the town!
Yeah - right now I can't wait 'til the bug fixing stage is complete. Struggling to get all the road and lot tears out of it right now. Thought I was done when I finally fixed the last road and lot tear in the farming area. But, when I finally had that fixed I noticed it had messed up the Trailer Park really BAD!
I'm getting closer to fixing the Trailer Park again, but will probably have to completely rebuild the lots and roads once more... and pray a little prayer that it doesn't destroy some other area of town once I'm done.
So - I've hit a bit of a snag at the moment, but I'm persistent and confident I'll get it fixed (can't wait to move on to doing something else...)
ilovepie: Not sure what you mean by me building all houses myself... I am getting people from the community to build most of the lots, as there is no way I could finish off 160 lots by myself. And, what kind of problem have you been having with lots that were placed in CAW?
Gillie: I'm not sure about calling me a God,
The pics show you've put tons of effort into this world and even paying attention to detail. I look forward to anther batch of photos to oggle at sometime.
Gillie: Thank You. I'm happy to hear that you like it, and I've indeed put a lot of work and effort into it. I'll see what I can do about getting some new pictures of the world soon. Reason I haven't been updating with that is because I was at a standstill for 3+ days trying to get rid of the bugs. A process that nearly made me give up... Create-A-World surely needs some more work before they could remove that Beta tag from it.
Moving forward again now, though - so I'll see if I can't give some new information later on today or tomorrow.
Thanks for your support.
Im so excited to download this town! It looks amazing. I love how many lots there are, It gives the players such a huge room to grow!
A few questions if you dont mind!
Will the world have empty lots? Or empty houses? So we can move our sims in, or give us more variety while upgrading from the trailer?
I can't say for sure at the moment whether or not there will be any empty lots. I actually plan to fill out every single lot with buildings to make it feel much more like a complete town - but I'm not sure I'll be able to get enough houses done in a reasonable time. There will definitely be unoccupied houses for you to buy in varied price ranges, so while you may be keeping your eye on that luxury mansion up in the mountains - you might buy a simpler house closer to downtown at first when you have enough cash to get out of the trailer park. Of course - for anyone who wants to build their own houses, they can just delete an empty one where they want to build a new home.
One of the reasons I made so many lots is because I, for one, intend to play this neighborhood for the duration of the Sims 3 series, and want it to be able to handle all forthcoming expansion packs... and I don't want to run out of lots
UPDATE:
Well, after lots of trouble ironing out bugs, I am finally on the move again adding to the world. Been a while since I gave you guys any new pictures to feast your eyes on, so I thought I'd throw out a couple tonight.
Currently I'm working on adding all street signs and lights to the world. I've also finished up some areas I felt needed more stuff added to it. About halfway done with the streets now - and I don't think I fully realized how much work it was to add those... hehe... phew! But, I'm having fun again - so it's all good
NEW PICTURES:
Added some guardrails to prevent cars from driving straight into the ocean
Also finished up the beach promenade area between the hotels and the main beach
Here is the corner of Old Pier Rd. and General Malloy Blvd. with street decor
And the same picture by night...
Finally - I present a night overview of the finished areas
I suck at building things so an empty lot = scary.
nice job [:
UPDATE:
Got a lot done today, even though I don't have a lot of new stuff to show you guys. I finished ALL street signs/lights so the entire town is now nicely lit at night, and proper traffic signs should be where they are needed. I've also finished all the routing to prevent Sims from taking strange and impossible paths when up in the mountains - which is where most of the problems were before. Camera routing has also been done, although you can still see some odd parts on the extreme edges of the map... you got no business looking there anyway
Also did a couple of minor fixes and updates to the environment.
Couple of pictures for you today to keep you guys interested...
Farming area at night
Entrance to Elm Lane at night
Part of the Military Base at night
Oh, and I changed the bridge used at the Military Base. Much better like this...