Been in the game into the wee hours of the morning but I am happy to say .....
I finally have a shell!
I really hope my buddy likes it, even though I have tried a few builds now I am nowhere near a fraction of the talent most of the buddies have ... so I always worry. Might shoot you a message here in a bit Addie just to get your feedback so far. BUT .... we are making progress!
I will give a tiny hint ... My daughter has been through a lot BUT it has made us super close. She is a Sims 4 gamer having never tried Sims 3. Well, she wanted to make a little something for my buddy so she went into Sims 3 for the first time (which was quite comical I might add) and made a small gift for my buddy! I will say this ... It is creative!
How is it going with everyone else? People still feeling behind or do you think you are starting to gain (even a little) ground?
@ADWilson Checking you, checking me checking in early
Living, lurking, loving everything you're all doing, and I can't wait to see such a wonderful variety of things!
P.S Buddy your gift is going great! So far I've moved it, demolished it, re-moved it, accidentally hosted zombies on it and at some point remembered it needed windows and doors
I'm testing it now and I've yet to burn it down, but I'm working on it
P.S Buddy your gift is going great! So far I've moved it, demolished it, re-moved it, accidentally hosted zombies on it and at some point remembered it needed windows and doors
I'm testing it now and I've yet to burn it down, but I'm working on it
Zombies and possible fire ... your sims live quite the life
@ADWilson Sent you a message here on the forums, check it out when you can. Right now I am trying to get animals feed, breakfast for my daughter and I, home-school reports checked, a load of laundry on and a shower and dressed for a morning appointment! BUT, afterwards I will be back on to hopefully get some feedback from you.
Hope everyone else is having a good morning, afternoon or evening! Tell me ....
@Mystik1978 Just finished sending PM reply Must have been busy with that while you were letting me know here, ha ha
Goodness, you're a busy bee! Hope your appointment goes well.
When building, I look at inspiration pictures of rooms, floor plans ... lot of floor plans ... then grab my graph paper!
When making sims, I come up with the idea of their personality and what they plan to do ... then jump in CAS
When writing SimLit, I let the screenshots tell the story. I take A LOT so I have many ideas when looking over those and have to tone it down into a cohesive unit, ha ha (I sometimes take notes while I play but lately, not at all. My legacy family is the main one I keep notes on now since there are so many & I can't remember all the names half the time!)
@Mystik1978 - I type in various search requests and follow links and look at images. I do love to look at room pics, floor plans, building images, and even every day people images for copying the look into sims. Often I like parts of many of different images, so I try to put synergy to work for me and come up with something that alludes to the original, but it is different in a more pleasing way some how - more spacious, more symmetry, less symmetry, more color pop, less patterns, etc.
I found images of parts of buildings that I liked and whole buildings that I loved. Grandma said, "Well, now you can just put that picture in your game and tweak it." You gotta love grandmas! I showed her how you "put a picture in game" by building one section at a time and constantly referring back to the photo.
I'd say I have one project all done except for photo taking and write up and extras. Another project sits in the bin ready to play. And, I'm currently play testing a third project. I have another project waiting to get off the graph paper and into the game. And, then, there's the tying in and story-telling and, oh yeah, lots more CASting!
In the same way I've considered tiger wrestling as a hobby
Creativity the AlphaFen Way: Aka Pretending you meant to make it look like that
Builds: Looks at pics, panic, look at more pics, panic more, shut eyes and build, realise building works better when eyes are open
Sims: Imagine sim, cackle, create sim, cackle some more, drink glass of water to refresh sprained cackle
Story: Realise I should do this, make stuff up, read what I wrote, cry for the future of humanity
If you too want to try the AlphaFen Way please rethink everything you've ever done and call your loved ones immediately
I may as well join the early check-in crowd, too. I have one project finished and play tested, assuming I can leave it alone now. I am in the middle of another one, which I neglected in my last session, because I *couldn't* leave the first one alone and went to change one teeny thing but got distracted looking at a third project I wanted to redo as a new thing and worked on it for hours instead. Yes, I do have a master plan, but the order of the steps are fluid.
There is no longer hhhh hhhh hhhh hhh hhhhhhh hhhhhh, the gift has been ironed out.
Now to test concept one in jjjjjjjjjjjj world and if it doen't fit I'll be switching to lllllllllll world.
P.S Buddy your gift is going great! So far I've moved it, demolished it, re-moved it, accidentally hosted zombies on it and at some point remembered it needed windows and doors
Good job not adding windows until after a zombie attack.
P.S Buddy your gift is going great! So far I've moved it, demolished it, re-moved it, accidentally hosted zombies on it and at some point remembered it needed windows and doors
Good job not adding windows until after a zombie attack.
i took my game off full moon. i like the furniture in supernatural not the supernaturals themselves.
P.S Buddy your gift is going great! So far I've moved it, demolished it, re-moved it, accidentally hosted zombies on it and at some point remembered it needed windows and doors
Good job not adding windows until after a zombie attack.
i took my game off full moon. i like the furniture in supernatural not the supernaturals themselves.
I turned off zombies with story progression after they showed up to the woods where my sim was camping. Three of them watched her sleep for a while then roasted marshmallows at her firepit. I thought it was rude of them not to ask her first.
P.S Buddy your gift is going great! So far I've moved it, demolished it, re-moved it, accidentally hosted zombies on it and at some point remembered it needed windows and doors
Good job not adding windows until after a zombie attack.
i took my game off full moon. i like the furniture in supernatural not the supernaturals themselves.
I turned off zombies with story progression after they showed up to the woods where my sim was camping. Three of them watched her sleep for a while then roasted marshmallows at her firepit. I thought it was rude of them not to ask her first.
I suppose I'll do what the cool kids are doing and also check in early.
Progress Report:
2 gifts done
Working on a 3rd
@Mystik1978, I mostly search for pictures on Pinterest and look at the exchange for ideas. When it comes to exterior looks, I rarely ever convert it to the sims. It seems most things I try don't work in simland or I don't have the patience or the know how to do it. I will, as Ciane says, find particular things I like about one picture and another and take little itty pieces. Unlike Ciane, I do not use a grid or even so much as plan out how everything will go. I basically see something I like, try it, usually fail, and then just let my imagination flow. I think trying to stick to a plan squeezes me in a little box. That said, the pinterest and exchange pictures are always helpful. I've found them particularily helpful for the gifts I'm making, probably more so than most of the other things I've created, before.
P.S Buddy your gift is going great! So far I've moved it, demolished it, re-moved it, accidentally hosted zombies on it and at some point remembered it needed windows and doors
Good job not adding windows until after a zombie attack.
i took my game off full moon. i like the furniture in supernatural not the supernaturals themselves.
I turned off zombies with story progression after they showed up to the woods where my sim was camping. Three of them watched her sleep for a while then roasted marshmallows at her firepit. I thought it was rude of them not to ask her first.
I enjoyed reading about people's creative process. I live for this kind of thing so excuse my long-winded answer, I put some of it behind spoiler tags so I don't annoy people who don't enjoy this kind of chatter as much as I do. I don't consider myself a 'good' builder but I am a prolific builder. I try to learn from my failures, I think I'm getting better with practice.
For buildings inspiration
, it varies. I either see a building that has something special about it and deconstruct it into what I really like about it, like an interesting niche or color combination. I will scribble it down or take a quick picture. I am sure I look like a crazy person sometimes standing there looking at roofline counting out how to reproduce it in the sims. I try to be more subtle about it when it's local but if I'm traveling and won't see it again I will take all the pictures or sketch if I have to. If it's a business or a historic house you can generally find pictures of it online. If I'm trying to build in a style I haven't seen myself I will use google earth to go down the street to see if the one that caught my eye is indicative of the area.
For houses
Then I work with the lot size and scale it down as much as needed. I like to have routing borders so I will draw out a 1-3 tile box out of the free wood flooring to mask off the lot, then I make a cross shape with another color to make off the center of the lot from both directions. Then I mask off how recessed from the road I would like the lot to be, and try to build the lot with space I have left. I decide on the front door first and rather or not it will be on a foundation, If I know the style, so I will know if I am working with a 1, 2 or 3 tile door. Then I build out the front facade symmetrically from the front door. If it's an asymmetrical style I would build it out symmetrically first then bust away for details like bay windows or rotundas. I like to decide if it's going to be a multi-story house or not to build porch roofs and basically build a movie set version of the front facade. Then I make a basic box for the rest of the house and map out the bigger furniture pieces against potential window spots. Then where the staircase is going, and build rooms out from it, adjusting walls as I need to so I can finish around windows. The interior layout always ends up being dictated by the facade and space for routing. I've tried and failed to convert house plans into the sims, it's something I would like to get better at. I always end up making little adjustments until they no longer resemble the plan at all. I go back in with CaS and minor decor to fill in the spaces after I have the layout established.
For Community Lots
I prefer building community lots to houses. When building a community lot, I will decide what the main focus will be and build the room out from it. So if it's a club I will build the room out from the bar, or if it's a shop I will build out from the counter. Unless it's a browsing type shop where things are displayed are the focus. Then I will tuck the sales counter away in a corner. You can get away with much boxier community lots so it's much more fun to decorate them when not constrained by a floorplan.
For making sims
I like to have mostly traits that play well together and one achilles heel trait to fight with the others. Sometimes I have an idea in mind for what I want the sim to look like, other times I base the sim's hair color or clothing style on their traits. I try to treat the collection of traits as an approximation of a personality. So my loves the outdoors sim would dress far more casually than my proper sims. My crafter type sims would have less put-together hairstyles ponytails or mess buns than the more career-minded sims with perfectly styled hair.
I've written as a hobby and played roleplaying games a lot but I'm new to sharing sim stories.
So far, I take documentary style screenshots of their day, and try to have coverage if they are pulling faces about something so I can go back and write what I assume they were thinking. If I want to add in something for story beyond the purview of the game I will stage those screenshots. I save a clone of the game and do any necessary building or force emotions without ruining their relationship. If their relationship is hurt in the story it's done during normal gameplay. The poseplayer mod is great, I've used it in the past for photos for builds but I haven't used it in storytelling yet. I take notes because I am often interrupted and don't get much sleep. I like to roughly plan out where I think my sim's lives will go, but let the games chaos dictate the story for the most part. Sometimes I stumble across an aspect of the game I didn't even know I would enjoy and just have them do that instead of what was planned. You can use the cheat 'HideHeadlineEffects on' to remove plumbobs from screenshots without having other cheats enabled, and Tiny Texture Replacers Combined gets rid of Zzz, music notes and a few other things that can mess with story screenshots.
See, apparently I was already doing the right thing.
i wonder if sims4 counts as a side project. my generation1 kids are teens and are now picking mates. well 4 are 2 were already set cause of the previous attempt. and 1 picked but i set his prefrence. is it weird that even though they have a game mom i feel like i'm a mom too, it sounds nuts.
Wow! I almost always build a shape and roof it and then put in windows. The windows dictate where the interior walls will go.
which ones are the interior walls? yes i know i picked on you when you said you put the walls inside in a earlier post but i was tired that day. i had coffee today.
Comments
I finally have a shell!
I really hope my buddy likes it, even though I have tried a few builds now I am nowhere near a fraction of the talent most of the buddies have ... so I always worry. Might shoot you a message here in a bit Addie just to get your feedback so far. BUT .... we are making progress!
I will give a tiny hint ... My daughter has been through a lot BUT it has made us super close. She is a Sims 4 gamer having never tried Sims 3. Well, she wanted to make a little something for my buddy so she went into Sims 3 for the first time (which was quite comical I might add) and made a small gift for my buddy! I will say this ... It is creative!
How is it going with everyone else? People still feeling behind or do you think you are starting to gain (even a little) ground?
Living, lurking, loving everything you're all doing, and I can't wait to see such a wonderful variety of things!
P.S Buddy your gift is going great! So far I've moved it, demolished it, re-moved it, accidentally hosted zombies on it and at some point remembered it needed windows and doors
I'm testing it now and I've yet to burn it down, but I'm working on it
Ignore the mirrors and my looking over your shoulder!
Ever considered hosting one of these?
Zombies and possible fire ... your sims live quite the life
Sims 3 Blog: Have I Got A Story For You!
Sims 4 Blog: Addy Plays Sims 4
April 30th Check-In
60smusic<3r
Alpha
ciane
FF
Jessa
Prissy
GranMamaD
Mystik
suzses
Sims 3 Blog: Have I Got A Story For You!
Sims 4 Blog: Addy Plays Sims 4
Hope everyone else is having a good morning, afternoon or evening! Tell me ....
Goodness, you're a busy bee! Hope your appointment goes well.
When building, I look at inspiration pictures of rooms, floor plans ... lot of floor plans ... then grab my graph paper!
When making sims, I come up with the idea of their personality and what they plan to do ... then jump in CAS
When writing SimLit, I let the screenshots tell the story. I take A LOT so I have many ideas when looking over those and have to tone it down into a cohesive unit, ha ha (I sometimes take notes while I play but lately, not at all. My legacy family is the main one I keep notes on now since there are so many & I can't remember all the names half the time!)
What about you? What do you do?
Sims 3 Blog: Have I Got A Story For You!
Sims 4 Blog: Addy Plays Sims 4
I'm checked in, I think but unless you count the one item nowhere near as intriguingly funny as AphaFen's adventure.
Getting ready to load up game, take care of said item.
Then reload the game and get started on build two whilst the grands are at school & daycare.
Exploring life through imagination & satire since 1969.
Save Game Often
repair & clear caches Often
S3 Studio
S3 blog Story, lists of empty lots by world
Behrooz
S2/3/4 Randomnes
I found images of parts of buildings that I liked and whole buildings that I loved. Grandma said, "Well, now you can just put that picture in your game and tweak it." You gotta love grandmas! I showed her how you "put a picture in game" by building one section at a time and constantly referring back to the photo.
I'd say I have one project all done except for photo taking and write up and extras. Another project sits in the bin ready to play. And, I'm currently play testing a third project. I have another project waiting to get off the graph paper and into the game. And, then, there's the tying in and story-telling and, oh yeah, lots more CASting!
Store Install
Unlocked Stencils
random legacy
Your name has been added to the list. My apologies for not doing so earlier!
Sims 3 Blog: Have I Got A Story For You!
Sims 4 Blog: Addy Plays Sims 4
In the same way I've considered tiger wrestling as a hobby
Creativity the AlphaFen Way: Aka Pretending you meant to make it look like that
Builds: Looks at pics, panic, look at more pics, panic more, shut eyes and build, realise building works better when eyes are open
Sims: Imagine sim, cackle, create sim, cackle some more, drink glass of water to refresh sprained cackle
Story: Realise I should do this, make stuff up, read what I wrote, cry for the future of humanity
If you too want to try the AlphaFen Way please rethink everything you've ever done and call your loved ones immediately
My Sims 3 Studio
My forum builds thread
Now to test concept one in jjjjjjjjjjjj world and if it doen't fit I'll be switching to lllllllllll world.
Exploring life through imagination & satire since 1969.
Save Game Often
repair & clear caches Often
S3 Studio
S3 blog Story, lists of empty lots by world
Behrooz
S2/3/4 Randomnes
Good job not adding windows until after a zombie attack.
i took my game off full moon. i like the furniture in supernatural not the supernaturals themselves.
https://lifehacker.com/top-10-ways-to-get-your-creative-juices-flowing-5792708
Store Install
Unlocked Stencils
random legacy
Checked it out.. Excellent advice! Thank you Ciane!
I turned off zombies with story progression after they showed up to the woods where my sim was camping. Three of them watched her sleep for a while then roasted marshmallows at her firepit. I thought it was rude of them not to ask her first.
@Jessabeans I didn't know zombies had manners...
6. Stay Motivated with Side Projects.
See, apparently I was already doing the right thing.
My Sims 3 Studio
My forum builds thread
Progress Report:
2 gifts done
Working on a 3rd
@Mystik1978, I mostly search for pictures on Pinterest and look at the exchange for ideas. When it comes to exterior looks, I rarely ever convert it to the sims. It seems most things I try don't work in simland or I don't have the patience or the know how to do it. I will, as Ciane says, find particular things I like about one picture and another and take little itty pieces. Unlike Ciane, I do not use a grid or even so much as plan out how everything will go. I basically see something I like, try it, usually fail, and then just let my imagination flow. I think trying to stick to a plan squeezes me in a little box. That said, the pinterest and exchange pictures are always helpful. I've found them particularily helpful for the gifts I'm making, probably more so than most of the other things I've created, before.
Showcase
can zombies even talk?
For buildings inspiration
For houses
For Community Lots
For making sims
I like to have mostly traits that play well together and one achilles heel trait to fight with the others. Sometimes I have an idea in mind for what I want the sim to look like, other times I base the sim's hair color or clothing style on their traits. I try to treat the collection of traits as an approximation of a personality. So my loves the outdoors sim would dress far more casually than my proper sims. My crafter type sims would have less put-together hairstyles ponytails or mess buns than the more career-minded sims with perfectly styled hair.
I've written as a hobby and played roleplaying games a lot but I'm new to sharing sim stories.
i wonder if sims4 counts as a side project. my generation1 kids are teens and are now picking mates. well 4 are 2 were already set cause of the previous attempt. and 1 picked but i set his prefrence. is it weird that even though they have a game mom i feel like i'm a mom too, it sounds nuts.
Store Install
Unlocked Stencils
random legacy
which ones are the interior walls? yes i know i picked on you when you said you put the walls inside in a earlier post but i was tired that day. i had coffee today.