I especially like the row of modern townhouses, because they look so down to earth and realistic. As for the deco building, if it makes you sad it's being used as a bingo hall now, why don't you use your powers as a simmer and turn it into a cinema again ?
I love your new pics! have you considered using the store objects from Le Cinema Plumbob venue in your theater? Then your sims can really get the whole cinema experience. Throxton is really coming along beautifully.
I love your new pics! have you considered using the store objects from Le Cinema Plumbob venue in your theater? Then your sims can really get the whole cinema experience. Throxton is really coming along beautifully.
Thank you for your kind comments At the moment I am digging out the canal and the air is blue with swear words I like your idea about the theatre. My dilemma is I said I would not use store content for this build but increasingly I have found myself wanting and needing store items. I have already given in over some roof decorations and I really want to use the store wharf fencing on the dock area.
I see your version 3 is coming along well. Have you got any plans for another project ?
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Hi Betty, I have a few ideas for my next project, but I will probably wait a while before starting any new worlds. I have a few challenges I want to play and they are really long ones. I've already started on Llandro's ultimate sims 3 challenge I love his youtube videos.
Hi Betty, I have a few ideas for my next project, but I will probably wait a while before starting any new worlds. I have a few challenges I want to play and they are really long ones. I've already started on Llandro's ultimate sims 3 challenge I love his youtube videos.
I will confess I have two newish games on the go. One is exploring Dragon Valley and I am seriously thinking if I do end up using store content for Throxton then I would love to use DV textures and roads as well. Hopefully you will share your next creation with us when you are ready
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
This week's efforts don't look much but believe me I have sworn more and drunk more coffee than when I was in my high pressure job. There are easier ways to create a canal but that involves cc or importing height maps. Neither appeal for different reasons. The reason for the swearing? Getting totally straight walls in CAW is difficult probably because I am not the best at terrain sculpting. Still I am pleased with what I have so far. Worth bearing in mind I have yet to line the canal with the riverside fencing.
The very distant trees are where I must dig to. At the moment I have not yet reached the foot bridge.
The lumpy bits on the right hand side will be where wooded slopes come down to the canalside. I intend there to be only a tow path but it will all have to wait until the riverside fencing is in and I can delete the roadway which is there now.
This gives a better idea of the lumpy bits. On the opposite bank I am considering putting a small housing estate. Not sure as I am also thinking of where to put the nightclub.
As mentioned I am in two minds about using store content. One more thing in favour of store content is the creation of Devizes castle. This is not quite what it sounds as the original medieval castle was essentially destroyed during the Civil War. Then in the late Victorian era it was rebuilt as a family home. So it still has turrets etc but is decidedly more gothic than the original
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
I fancied a change from digging out canals. This house is based on Roundway House. I am working from a couple of images taken in 1910. Today the house has gone and the site has lots of little houses and bungalows on it. Like many the family who owned it could not afford the death duties which came with such estates. Particularly when the owner, heir and spare were killed in WW1. Not that I can find any evidence that is what happened in the case of Roundway House. Originally a beautiful geometric building along classical lines, over time various generations made additions and alterations. Hence the different coloured stone and shaped windows at the end of the left side.
The other thing to note Roundway House is not to be confused with Roundway Hospital, known locally as Roundway, which was the local mental asylum. It is an lovely designed building but far too big to fit on a 64 x64 lot. It was not designed to be a place of serious incarceration except for those who really were deemed to be a danger to themselves and others. Patients were encouraged to use physical work to aid their recovery, with much of the food for the hospital being grown on the estate. Like a lot of mental institutions it was closed in the 1990s, the belief being it was better for such patients to be in the community. Maybe so but patients at Roundway were cared for and looked after. Today the asylum has been converted into flats and the extensive grounds now provides modern houses and bungalows. The tiny parish of Roundway has gone from a hamlet of only a few homes and the hospital to a very large housing estate in less than 50 years. Nice to see property reused in this way but at what cost to the existing community.
It is very much a work in progress and therefore subject to further change
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
This lot has become a saga of woe over the last few days. It just demonstrates how important it is to do your research thoroughly.
At first glance from the 1910 photos it looked like a fairly straightforward build.
Then there was the wall textures. Using a grainy black and white image it is not easy to judge textures. The number of times I changed textures and colours for stonework, walls, roof tiles, and roof.
It seems everyone who owned the property added something and not in the same style. At the last count there were at least six different styles of window. The walls as a consequence look like an advertisement for a local glazing firm.
I can find no comprehensible floor plan without going to the Wiltshire Archive. This would be pointless as I am hopeless at building from plans.
The final thing that made me throw up my hands in horror was a further photo coming to light showing the back of the property. Only by then it wasn't the back, some bright spark had decided in the 1840s to make it the front entrance and to add a porte-cochere. To add insult to injury to get to main door there was an archway built plus stables. There was also a haw-haw built to keep the little bambis from the deer park from chewing the garden shrubbery.
Now I haven't got room for an archway and stables. I already have a very large, sprawling build. I can't reorientate the built because of the long wing on the right side and the haw haw.
And then there is the ivy. If this had been a listed building which it most definitely should have been then there would be no ivy. Earlier generations though perhaps did not realise how damaging ivy can be to a structure. The biggest problem is the only ivy available to me is store content.
Anyway I am going to leave the building as it is and how it is. Perhaps in time I will rebuild it. If I don't and you ever get to try Throxton just remember Betty had a really bad time with this build. Please xx
On a more serious note I found out a bit more about the last owners of the house. It is much sadder than I thought. The family were originally from Bristol and in early centuries closely connected to the slave trade. It was a titled family and the last owner inherited the title in 1916. He was married and they had a daughter. She was killed falling out a window in their London home. There were no further children and the owner died in 1944 without an heir. The widow sold the property after the war, most of it going for new housing. The house remained until 1955 first owned by the local Council and then in the hands of a property developer. The house was in a pretty poor state and was demolished at this point, leaving guess what. That's right the dratted archway and stables
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Looking great! I love the countryside you're creating and the sense of history is excellent. Great job!
Thank you for the kind comments. How is your build progressing ?
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Haven't done anything with it for a couple of months. I've been more into Sims 4 lately but I hope to get back to Ralton soon!
No worries.
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Nice mansion It's also interesting to read your historic research.
It's visible that you put many efford in recreating details in this project.
Thank you I must admit I had trouble finding decent photos to work from and as I said every owner changed something.
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Hi Betty thanks for the history research. I find researched information you found on these properties very interesting. I hope you put some of this info in the lot info box as you create them and as always great job these lots look wonderful!
I came across this house when looking for images for Roundway Park House. At one time it was the Home Farm for the Roundway Park estate. Most big estates had tennanted farms as part of the property and the one closest to the main house was known as Home Farm. While Roundway Park house was demolished some properties associated with the estate remain. Home Farm is one of them, along with the stables and the gatehouses or lodges. Some of them have listed status but I am not certain about Home Farm. The colour scheme particularly on the window shutters suggests not but the architectural style suggests the farm house dates roughly from the same time as the main house, mid to late 18th century.
I have found only one decent image to work from and the first pic has been taken from the same angle. Obviously it is not a working farm anymore and some of the information I found suggests it is a rental property. The interior has been heavily modernised which again suggests no listed status. The wire fencing to the front and the fact the trees badly need copsing suggests periods of neglect.
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
I never realised what a feature I would be making of the canal but it seems to have taken over my every waking thought on Throxton. I have spent part of this week filling in the roads around the canal, making sure there is ready access to the canal bank and the lots closest to the water.
It looks pretty boring at the moment because there is a great deal of landscaping and sculpting still to do. I have started putting down lots for the horsey venues and am planning a drainage ditch leading to a pond to one side of the Barrows. As for the Hill and Barrows I want to leave the landscaping reasonably bare so as to suggest them being on the edge of the plain. For the first time some of the gaunt trees might come in useful for decorating.
The other task I started this week is decoration of the canal bank. I have decided to leave just a sidewalk along some parts of the canal to suggest a towpath. In some photos it is clear the wooded slopes come all the way down to the canal side.
Obviously I like to play around with the light so I took this.
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
It might not look like much but I have been pretty busy this week. Once the canal is finished I never want to see another piece of riverside fencing again So the effort has been concentrated on landscaping around the canal. I estimate at least another two weeks of work before it really looks the way I want it to. I say this because it is obvious from the pictures that the right side of the canal has still to be fenced, the footbridge needs sorting out, the far end of the canal needs landscaping and routing sorted.
I had to reposition the dock to accommodate the canal wall. The building behind the dock is the Criminal hideout. Not that I think Devizes is such a villainous place because it has the police headquarters for Wiltshire
This is the view from the church, which is yet another wip.
I almost didn't want to show this last pic. It is not very inspiring but it does show how much canal wall I still have to do. The narrowed part will become a lock and behind that you can clearly see the markers for the footbridge.
In case anyone is wondering I have been thinking of Fenbury. I have been doing something a little different towards the completed world for testing and hopefully I should get a fresh post up tonight.
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
You've been making a lot of progress with building the canal @Bettyboop55 and it looks awesome !! I know it's a lot of work to line up the riverside fencing and probably drives you to despair at times but it is definitely worth it!! x
You've been making a lot of progress with building the canal @Bettyboop55 and it looks awesome !! I know it's a lot of work to line up the riverside fencing and probably drives you to despair at times but it is definitely worth it!! x
If I bothered with a swear box it would be full after attempting to line the canal still I have coffee and my audio book to keep me sane while I work.
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
This is looking gorgeous!
For the placement of the remaining canal walls, have you been using the XYZ values to line it up exactly? Helped me out a lot when I did the harbour walls for Ralton.
This is looking gorgeous!
For the placement of the remaining canal walls, have you been using the XYZ values to line it up exactly? Helped me out a lot when I did the harbour walls for Ralton.
It sounds a much better way than my putting on the grid and doing the fine placement by eye. Do you have any instructions I could use ?
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Comments
Thank you for your kind comments
I see your version 3 is coming along well. Have you got any plans for another project ?
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
I will confess I have two newish games on the go. One is exploring Dragon Valley and I am seriously thinking if I do end up using store content for Throxton then I would love to use DV textures and roads as well. Hopefully you will share your next creation with us when you are ready
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
So pleased you like them
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
The very distant trees are where I must dig to. At the moment I have not yet reached the foot bridge.
The lumpy bits on the right hand side will be where wooded slopes come down to the canalside. I intend there to be only a tow path but it will all have to wait until the riverside fencing is in and I can delete the roadway which is there now.
This gives a better idea of the lumpy bits. On the opposite bank I am considering putting a small housing estate. Not sure as I am also thinking of where to put the nightclub.
As mentioned I am in two minds about using store content. One more thing in favour of store content is the creation of Devizes castle. This is not quite what it sounds as the original medieval castle was essentially destroyed during the Civil War. Then in the late Victorian era it was rebuilt as a family home. So it still has turrets etc but is decidedly more gothic than the original
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
The other thing to note Roundway House is not to be confused with Roundway Hospital, known locally as Roundway, which was the local mental asylum. It is an lovely designed building but far too big to fit on a 64 x64 lot. It was not designed to be a place of serious incarceration except for those who really were deemed to be a danger to themselves and others. Patients were encouraged to use physical work to aid their recovery, with much of the food for the hospital being grown on the estate. Like a lot of mental institutions it was closed in the 1990s, the belief being it was better for such patients to be in the community. Maybe so but patients at Roundway were cared for and looked after. Today the asylum has been converted into flats and the extensive grounds now provides modern houses and bungalows. The tiny parish of Roundway has gone from a hamlet of only a few homes and the hospital to a very large housing estate in less than 50 years. Nice to see property reused in this way but at what cost to the existing community.
It is very much a work in progress and therefore subject to further change
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
This lot has become a saga of woe over the last few days. It just demonstrates how important it is to do your research thoroughly.
At first glance from the 1910 photos it looked like a fairly straightforward build.
Then there was the wall textures. Using a grainy black and white image it is not easy to judge textures. The number of times I changed textures and colours for stonework, walls, roof tiles, and roof.
It seems everyone who owned the property added something and not in the same style. At the last count there were at least six different styles of window. The walls as a consequence look like an advertisement for a local glazing firm.
I can find no comprehensible floor plan without going to the Wiltshire Archive. This would be pointless as I am hopeless at building from plans.
The final thing that made me throw up my hands in horror was a further photo coming to light showing the back of the property. Only by then it wasn't the back, some bright spark had decided in the 1840s to make it the front entrance and to add a porte-cochere. To add insult to injury to get to main door there was an archway built plus stables. There was also a haw-haw built to keep the little bambis from the deer park from chewing the garden shrubbery.
Now I haven't got room for an archway and stables. I already have a very large, sprawling build. I can't reorientate the built because of the long wing on the right side and the haw haw.
And then there is the ivy. If this had been a listed building which it most definitely should have been then there would be no ivy. Earlier generations though perhaps did not realise how damaging ivy can be to a structure. The biggest problem is the only ivy available to me is store content.
Anyway I am going to leave the building as it is and how it is. Perhaps in time I will rebuild it. If I don't and you ever get to try Throxton just remember Betty had a really bad time with this build. Please xx
On a more serious note I found out a bit more about the last owners of the house. It is much sadder than I thought. The family were originally from Bristol and in early centuries closely connected to the slave trade. It was a titled family and the last owner inherited the title in 1916. He was married and they had a daughter. She was killed falling out a window in their London home. There were no further children and the owner died in 1944 without an heir. The widow sold the property after the war, most of it going for new housing. The house remained until 1955 first owned by the local Council and then in the hands of a property developer. The house was in a pretty poor state and was demolished at this point, leaving guess what. That's right the dratted archway and stables
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
Thank you for the kind comments. How is your build progressing ?
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
No worries.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
It's visible that you put many efford in recreating details in this project.
Thank you
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
I have found only one decent image to work from and the first pic has been taken from the same angle. Obviously it is not a working farm anymore and some of the information I found suggests it is a rental property. The interior has been heavily modernised which again suggests no listed status. The wire fencing to the front and the fact the trees badly need copsing suggests periods of neglect.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
It looks pretty boring at the moment because there is a great deal of landscaping and sculpting still to do. I have started putting down lots for the horsey venues and am planning a drainage ditch leading to a pond to one side of the Barrows. As for the Hill and Barrows I want to leave the landscaping reasonably bare so as to suggest them being on the edge of the plain. For the first time some of the gaunt trees might come in useful for decorating.
The other task I started this week is decoration of the canal bank. I have decided to leave just a sidewalk along some parts of the canal to suggest a towpath. In some photos it is clear the wooded slopes come all the way down to the canal side.
Obviously I like to play around with the light so I took this.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
I had to reposition the dock to accommodate the canal wall. The building behind the dock is the Criminal hideout. Not that I think Devizes is such a villainous place because it has the police headquarters for Wiltshire
This is the view from the church, which is yet another wip.
I almost didn't want to show this last pic. It is not very inspiring but it does show how much canal wall I still have to do. The narrowed part will become a lock and behind that you can clearly see the markers for the footbridge.
In case anyone is wondering I have been thinking of Fenbury. I have been doing something a little different towards the completed world for testing and hopefully I should get a fresh post up tonight.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
You've been making a lot of progress with building the canal @Bettyboop55 and it looks awesome
If I bothered with a swear box it would be full after attempting to line the canal
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
For the placement of the remaining canal walls, have you been using the XYZ values to line it up exactly? Helped me out a lot when I did the harbour walls for Ralton.
It sounds a much better way than my putting on the grid and doing the fine placement by eye. Do you have any instructions I could use ?
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita