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Caroline and Friends - currently working on University Life Badges

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  • lanlynlanlyn Posts: 5,008 Member
    edited February 2019
    @Karritz Ah, that was probably what was happening with the exam. Congrats on the high grades. ...I usually watch a video in one sitting, but sometimes I pause for a moment if I'm trying to write a comment about it and don't want to miss what you say next. Shorter videos are best for me, maybe 15 or 20 minutes rather than 30. If it's longer, I need to watch it later at night when not as much is going on in the house and I can concentrate better. But I know it probably takes more time to make 2 shorter videos than to make one long one. Is that right?

    If you have to quit making some of your sims videos to concentrate on your art, you could still do sims tutorials or segments about the badges you're working on. Something with topics that people could find in search engines. You know what I mean? Unless you'd have more fun just doing one or two family stories. That would be cool too.

    That is awesome that you're doing oil portraits! When I was dabbling in painting, I preferred oil over acrylic because I liked how the oil paints blended. I tended to be a slow painter too, so using acrylics was not very relaxing for me! But I haven't painted in years.
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    lanlyn wrote: »
    @Karritz Ah, that was probably what was happening with the exam. Congrats on the high grades. ...I usually watch a video in one sitting, but sometimes I pause for a moment if I'm trying to write a comment about it and don't want to miss what you say next. Shorter videos are best for me, maybe 15 or 20 minutes rather than 30. If it's longer, I need to watch it later at night when not as much is going on in the house and I can concentrate better. But I know it probably takes more time to make 2 shorter videos than to make one long one. Is that right?

    If you have to quit making some of your sims videos to concentrate on your art, you could still do sims tutorials or segments about the badges you're working on. Something with topics that people could find in search engines. You know what I mean? Unless you'd have more fun just doing one or two family stories. That would be cool too.

    That is so cool that you're doing oil portraits! When I was dabbling in painting, I preferred oil over acrylic because I liked how the oil paints blended. I tended to be a slow painter too, so using acrylics was not very relaxing for me! But I haven't painted in years.

    Thanks @lanlyn

    I tend to paint fast and this business of waiting for half a day for the paint to dry is a bit different for me. I stopped using oils when I was about 20 yrs old because living in the wet tropics meant it often took months for the paint to dry enough for me to continue working on it. I remember one particular large work - I left it under the house to dry. The house it was under was on tall stilts with concrete floor but there were no outside walls. I expected to painting to dry fairly quickly and waited and waited. When 6 months had gone by and some of the reds were still as wet as the day I put them onto the painting I decided to change to acrylics. At least now we have new chemicals that encourage faster drying. I think years of trying to blend acrylics has helped now I've gone back to oils. Not that I've done much painting over the past 4 years. But it seems to be coming back quickly. I actually went to art classes for a few years over the past 15 years or so just to get the confidence back to return to oils. I did lots of portrait painting classes during that time, but most of paintings I did in class were started and finished in about 3 hours. I'm taking longer with the portraits I'm currently painting - or waiting to dry.

    The next Caroline and Friends video is currently loading to YouTube. It was 18 minutes but I added a few screen shots to the end and that extended it to about 19 minutes. I will start making the next Caroline and Friends video now. I think it doesn't take longer to have several short videos. It's just that some people get immersed in the stories and don't like to have to stop and load a new video. And some of the adventure videos can be difficult to cut when they are part way through a tomb although I have done that for some of the really big tombs. I try not to let a video get over 30 minutes but try to restrict the longer videos to around 20 minutes.

    I try to keep videos in each story line at around the same length. I have the 4 series that are mostly longer videos - Caroline and Friends, The McFluff Story, Oscar and Louise (Oscar's Childhood now), and The Isla Paradiso Bunch. Once Oscar grows up and meets Louise I'll continue with the videos on The Story of Oscar and Louise.

    The other video series I try to keep to under 15 minutes per episode. But then I tend to do a few episodes one after the other before going back to another story.

    I don't usually do consecutive videos of Caroline and Friends, but decided to do a few of her videos now to get them back to Sunlit Tides. It's probably difficult to be interested in a story that has an update once every 3 months or so.

    I think the series that gets the most views is Oscar's Childhood. Caroline and Friends doesn't get many views at all but I want to continue with it regardless.

    I hope you find your way back to painting soon if you enjoy doing it. I know I had a 15 year break when I was working full time with small children at home to take care of. I used to paint full time before the boys started school and sold a lot back then - most of what I did were done as commissions, but these days I just do it because I do it. I don't even show them very often. Although these paintings I'm doing now will be seen by lots of people as they are part of the set for a play. I don't know if anyone in the audience will find out who painted them though. Probably not - but I'll enjoy seeing them on stage. As will my cousin who will undoubtedly be with me on the night/day - depends on which performance we get to.

    When I decided I finally had time to get back to painting I started looking for art classes and found a few and just got used to painting with a group of others and getting back to using the brush again. I met people that way as well as got back into doing my art work. Learned a lot of new skills too - not all relating to painting as I did all sorts of classes including printmaking, sliversmithing and others. Now I am looking forward to getting motivated to keep up the painting for a few years.
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    edited February 2019
    Caroline and Friends Episode 13 is now available on YouTube

    https://youtu.be/Zuj21M7nhB0

    In this video you will see Caroline, Wilma and Katie arrive at the University World.

    They settle into a Dorm of their choice and run around the world for a short while before attending a few extra paid classes. Then they attend a meet and greet and get some freebies as well as the information they will need to complete their studies.

    We see them running to class, getting to know their fellow students and using all sorts of equipment they haven't had to use before.

    This video runs for approximately 19 minutes and takes ends late on Wednesday, in the middle of their first week at university.

    Video 14 will be up soon.

    Enjoy and Happy Simming
  • lanlynlanlyn Posts: 5,008 Member
    edited February 2019
    @Karritz Having to wait for oil paintings to dry in a humid climate sounds pretty frustrating! Have you done any watercolor paintings? I've only tried it a few times. I've thought that if I ever got back into painting again, I'd work more with watercolors. I did try pastels for a while. I enjoyed it. ...That's neat that you're painting stage sets for a play!

    An art class would be great. I haven't done that in ages. Not too long ago, though, my husband and I did a "Paint Night" where the cost of the event went to charity. I think they're calling it YayMaker now. Again, it was a little frustrating for me because we only had about an hour to finish our painting. But it was still fun.

    I'll watch your new video tomorrow and leave some feedback then. :)

    Post edited by lanlyn on
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    @lanlyn I do enjoy watercolours too but can't find them at the moment. I have a big box of tubes of watercolour paints somewhere. I've got a few colours lying around but can only find the acrylics and oils at the moment.

    I've been looking at YouTube and there are lots of classes and things available there for free if you want to get started again and need some ideas. Or you might find some artist who teaches for an hour or two a week and you get to take your painting home to finish it. With painting it is often something you do at home and take to class for criticism and ideas.

    I hope you enjoy the video when you watch it.

    I have been watching a lot of videos today and it's already late. Almost bed time. I did the narration for the next Caroline and Friends video and after watching a few videos I started redoing it, hadn't done the editing so it's no great loss to redo, but, although I'm feeling miserable still, I can do a happier sounding video than the narration I'd just done.

    I also did some YouTube searches and all of the videos of mine I could think of came up in searches. It was interesting to see some of the other things that came up with my searches. I try so hard to be totally original and then discover names I've chosen for some of my series have already been used by others, some many times. It'd be pretty funny if someone was searching for a real person and one of my videos popped up as potentially being about that person.

    Anyway, that's my entertainment for tonight. I need to go and get some water to drink, it's pretty hot here tonight. At least we aren't flooded here. I was keen to return home from my time in Cairns because I was worried about getting stuck up north due to flooding. It's a really silly idea to drive up there in the monsoon season, but I never expected Townsville to flood like it is flooding now. I actually spent a night in Townsville on my way home. It is a place I've visited, and even stayed at often, throughout my life and I have close relatives living there now. Apparently they are all safe so far.
  • lanlynlanlyn Posts: 5,008 Member
    @Karritz RE: Caroline & Friends video 13. ...The first time I went to Uni, my 2 sims stayed in the sorority hall. ...That will be neat to have both girls work towards getting the 6 degrees. ...I think the university world is so pretty. ...My sims love that business planner! They get obsessed with it! ...Fun scenes in the student union. ...Caroline seems to be enjoying pool and ping pong. ...LOL at the zombie on campus. ...I like the backpacks that came with Uni. ...Caroline looks like a pretty advanced sim. ...Good that no one was late for classes, no bottlenecks by the doors. ...Interesting about the Socially Awkward badge rewarded because of a roommate. That's cool! ...Wilma looks a bit scared stuck in the chimney.

    ...I'll have to check out YouTube for painting lessons. Thanks for that suggestion. I hadn't thought about that possibility.
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    @lanlyn thanks for the feedback. I'm working on the next episode. I have to take a break now so will probably finish it tomorrow. Then I'll do their second week at uni before moving onto the next chapter of McFluff story.

    I haven't watched many of the painting vidoes. I did watch on on using watercolour pencils and found it interesting. Let me know if you have any questions once you get started because I've been doing art classes on and off (mostly off) since I was 9 yrs old. Even went to art college for a while. And I did an art course by correspondence soon after I finished school. And several years of classes here over the past few years with teachers from Art College. We were just doing the practical side of things and the tutors were just having fun and earning a bit of extra money. So I can possibly help out if you are unsure about something. Learning colour theory is what's helped me the most. So long as you're having fun - as it is with just about everything you do for fun.
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    Caroline and Friends Episode 14 is now available on YouTube.

    https://youtu.be/oETrBF76Dek

    Caroline, Wilma and Katie complete the first week of their two weeks at University.

    Wilma and Katie ace their exams whilst Caroline skips class for each of her exams. In the end the University is sufficiently impressed with their progress that all three get extra funds to assist with their expenses. Subsequently, each of them go to the administration building and ask for more funding and get it.

    Caroline wants to attend a party but there is no party available and she doesn't know anyone well enough to throw a party herself. So she goes out the back of the dorm and lights the bonfire. They have a little gathering and eat outdoors before retiring for the night.
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    edited February 2019
    Update - they have completed their first two weeks at University. This time Caroline actually sat for exams. They all passed with Flying Colours. No one graduated. I didn't send them with enough points to work towards. Shame. Caroline and Wilma both need 6 more points to graduate. Katie needs 24 more points to graduate. I'll keep them home for a while. I've added Marie and Enid to the household and built them bedrooms. Now I need to go out for a while. I have a few things to buy before I can complete my portrait painting project - real life oil painted portraits to be used as stage sets for a play that's opening in a couple of weeks so I have to get them done and delivered.

    I was planning to do the next video and make it cover the entire final week. I was expecting the final week to be a repeat of week 1. It wasn't. I'll see if I can get all the action into 15 to 20 minutes. If not I'll have to make it into 2 videos. I'll keep you posted - but can't do any more on it today or for another couple of days.

    Happy Simming
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    Episode 15 of Caroline and Friends is now available on YouTube.

    https://youtu.be/_pb3iDhl8_k

    In this episode the girls begin their second week at University. During the second week they manage to achieve 3 badges, only one of which relates to University Life. No badge notifications appear in this video.

    We do see quite a lot of the mascot, an outdoor communications lesson with the portable radio station, as well as general fun and games around the world. Katie gets to improve her handiness skill too.
  • lanlynlanlyn Posts: 5,008 Member
    @Karritz Caroline and Friends Video 14. LOL at Katie studying business to become head of a criminal organization. Like the modern day Mafia. ...Good for Wilma advancing her cooking skill, helping her roommates that way. ...Unusually neat roommates too! ...Carolyn wearing her backpack while playing pool. Ha! ...I like Wilma's traits. They go together well. ...Pretty campus scenes. ...Fun scenes of the different classes. Everyone with sketch pads or business planners. ...Congrats on the exam results and the financial rewards. ...Caroline in her drinking cycle! Ha! ...Caroline is becoming an expert at kicky ball. ...I liked the bonfire scene.

    Caroline and Friends Video 15. Caroline must have good athletic skills. Does that help with the Uni game skills? ...Level 5 in cooking is still pretty good for Wilma. ...Flirting with different partners! Sounds like college kids. ...Fun ink blot test with the mascot. ...OMG! I've never seen that mascot costume--the gnome. So funny! Love that. ...Fun about the dance step street art. ...Wow! All those radio waves going up from the communication class. ...All those sleeping students in class! ...Katie sleeping in class, then asking a question. Cute. ...LOL at Katie getting hearts for a guy, then dropping from boredom when he started talking!

    I enjoyed seeing your Uni videos. Thanks for sharing them.
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    Thank you @lanlyn. I'm glad you enjoyed the videos. I'm almost ready with Video 16. Will try to finish off the last little bit this morning. They have arrived home in Sunlit Tides and I've got to make that a bit more fun/interesting than it currently is. It's likely to be around 15 to 20 mins in all.

    Happy Simming
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    Caroline and Friends, Episode 16 is now available on YouTube.

    https://youtu.be/euwDTb8_0yA

    This runs for about 15 minutes. The first few minutes finds the three students completing their second week at university and sitting for their exams. They get two more badges while at university this time. This brings the total University Life Badge count to 3. I'm assuming the two badges their Room mate, Tiberius got for being a Socially Awkward sim is a University Life badge.

    The final portion of the video sees them return to their home in Sunlit Tides. Their house is a work in progress. They have four new housemates waiting for them in Sunlit Tides. We will get to meet the new housemates, have a bit of a look around their home and find out the main badges each of the seven sims in the household is going to be working towards.

    Enjoy and Happy Simming
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    Finally I got back to Caroline's story. She now lives in a seven sim household.

    Episode 17 of Caroline and her Friends trying for University Life Badges is currently available to view on YouTube.

    https://youtu.be/71gXl0iap2s

    In this video the entire household works on building skills and lifetime happiness points. All but Caroline are tragically short of skills and lifetime happiness. Some are starting from absolute zero skills and lifetime happiness. I like my sims to have at least, Simunity and Steel Bladder first then work towards Fast Learner. So far most are still working on Simunity, but I think they all have at least that one lifetime happiness reward by the end of the episode.

    I felt sorry for Caroline who loves to swim and has managed to get to level 10 in scuba diving. She's living in Sunlit Tides now and there are no dive lots. So I take time out during the recording of this video to build them a dive lot. I'll probably build them another dive lot at some stage.

    In this video you'll see around the world and at the very end you will see them set off for University. All 7 of them. Next episode you'll see them at university.

    Happy Simming
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    Hello all. I hope you are all enjoying your holidays.

    I've been having a very quiet time. Just at home working on videos and things. But it's been good. My son is recovering well from his surgery and is out and about as usual.

    Today I added the next chapter of Caroline and her friends attending university.

    https://youtu.be/-evYYQ2SVxc

    They are there for 2 weeks. In the previous video we saw them leaving home in Sunlit Tides to go to university. In this episode we see them arrive at university and spend the entire first week with them. Next episode will hopefully cover the entire second week and see three of them graduate and them all head off home after a successful 2 weeks at university.

    This episode is full of action. I had to squeeze all of a whole week at university into one episode and it still runs for only 26 minutes. I hope you enjoy it.


    The other thing is, I got a really bad idea at around 2 am a couple of days before Christmas. I decided to make a Christmas video. That part wasn't too bad, but the thing I wanted to to was a bit over the top. So far I've worked on it most of the time since about 23rd December. I just got to the point where I can start recording the video late last night.

    What did I do you may wonder. Well -

    I started a new game in Sunlit Tides and totally annihilated all sims from the world. Then I bulldozed EVERY SINGLE Building in the world.

    Then I looked around my external hard drives and internal hard drives for sims to put into this world. They are from various video series. In the end I couldn't fit anyone from 30 grandchildren into it for fear of total explosion of my computer.

    All Sims are in the ONE single household. I had to use Porter mod on them once and it said there are 98 sims in the household. That includes a variety of cats and dogs that I meant to leave out but seem to have found their way in with their various families.

    Initially I had only Old Gertie McFluff and used her as the sim to help me build their house.

    McFluff_TheEnd001.jpg

    I added her to an empty 64x64 lot and started building. Here is a pic of the build soon after I started.

    Community-Living-In-Sunlit-Tides.jpg

    I added sims to the household as I went along and each newly added household got a custom built living space (apartment). I set ALL the doors to allow only certain sims into it. Each one had their own kitchen, bath and other necessary rooms. Plus there is a largeish foyer where there are communal objects.

    This all went marvellously well until I added the final 2 households. By then the house had 2 stories and insufficient space left for all of the extra sims I just added. I was trying to work out how to house them as I didn't want to add a third story to the house for fear of it exploding. At this point I didn't actually know how many sims were in the household.

    I built living areas for two small families and saved. It shut down while saving. So I reopened and enclosed the empty space on level 2 with a wall and it crashed, shut down, as I tried to draw this wall. I fiddled around for a few hours trying to get something to work as I really liked the house that I had managed to successfully save so far.

    In the end I just had to give up. I used Porter mod to pack ALL of the sims currently in the household. At this point I still hadn't added the 16 sims from 30 Grandchildren. When Porter reported there were 98 sims packed I decided to leave the extra 16 out. Sorry to anyone who wanted to see them in my Christmas video. They got left out.

    Now I'd saved the EMPTY version of Sunlit Tides and I had kept it so I opened it. It had been saved with only Old Gertie on the empty lot I wanted to build the house on. I unpacked the Porter pack of the 98 sims. It crashed. I think it was probably because I'd forgotten about Old Gertie. She was in the lot I'd just unpacked all those sims into.

    I relaunched the empty version of Sunlit Tides and found a random sim I hadn't already included in the household and used her to annihilate Old Gertie. I built the outline of a slightly smaller house and set it up with beds or cots all around the exterior walls making sure I had enough of each for each sim to have somewhere to sleep if necessary. They all got the same bunk beds or cocoon cots.

    Then I unpacked the 98 sims from the Porter file. It worked. I saved.

    Then I spend a day or two emptying their inventories. Most had something that needed to be gotten rid of. Some had massively full inventories. There were a few crashes during this process. I managed to get around it by saving just before I emptied the inventory of the sim that I was emptying when the previous crash occurred. Of course, by this time the save and load process was taking a long time. I never timed it but it seemed to be around 20 minutes or more. I didn't sit and wait for it to happen and returned to the computer from time to time to check on progress. I never got an Error 12. I thought that was interesting. But I'd gotten rid of all of the other builds and sims in the world. There were times when the file size got over 3200 MB but mostly it was in the low 2,000's whenever I checked. Obviously there were occasional spikes that took it up over the point where it ran out of memory as it did shut down on me a few times.

    I kept telling myself to just give up but kept going back to it. That was a bit annoying really but I just kept on at it.

    Finally I got everyone's inventories close to empty. Most only ended up with camera and diploma (if they were supposed to have a diploma). I added camera and diploma where they were missing and necessary.

    Then I added my Bluewaters Fun Park (from my Studio) to the 64x64 lot opposite. I was sure this would crash the game and I'd never get it to open again. But it just plopped into the spot. I had to rotate it once and thought it would crash but it just rotated quite quickly. So I saved and didn't watch to see if it was going to crash. It didn't. The save worked.

    Before I saved I'd removed the doors and ticket machines that forced sims to buy a ticket to enter to lot. I replaced the doors with archways so sims could just walk into the roller coaster lot.

    By the time I had all this working it was late last night. I was tired. But I wanted to see if the sims would go there and told a few of them to do so. They went in and just stood in place for a while before finally deciding to enjoy the facilities. I found a lot of them decided to buy themselves an ice cream. But the lot has heaps of things for them to do and they were soon scattered around it doing things. No one went for a ride on the roller coaster. By now I was too tired to do much so saved and shut it down. I haven't opened it again yet.

    The idea was to get all of my video stories together in one video.

    I picked up Oscar and Louise with 11 of their children from the original game. So they are both adults with lots of babies. In the game I found and took them from they only had 11 children. There are later versions of that game where they have 15. The eldest triplets were children so I aged them up to teens. There were toddler quads and I aged them up to children and aged the baby quads up to toddlers before adding them to the game.

    Then I grabbed Oscar's family from Erewhon. Again I aged them all up. It took me a while to find a version of the game where his parents were dead. Initially I thought of just grabbing a game where his parents were still alive and putting them into this video but decided not to do that. Again I aged everyone up one age stage because Oscar is a young adult in this game and he was the youngest in the family and his sisters were still teens. So I made the young adults from the household become adults and the teens became young adults. I included the evil alien who killed their parents and the pretty mermaid who was also living with them. That made it 6 sims plus the graves of Oscar's parents.

    I also aged up Louise's family from Riverview before adding them to the game. That was another 4 sims.

    Previously I'd added Old Gertie, I didn't add any of her 15 cats. And I found an old save from before I started making the videos. It had Iris and Gerry with the toddler son they had in that game. Now I've found him I might add him to their household in the actual video, once they are married and ready to start a family. Not sure how I'll manage that though.

    So now I've got the videos for Oscar's Childhood, Louise's Childhood and Oscar and Louise included plus the first 2 generations of the McFluff Story. All together in one game. Of course, eventually this will happen to these households in the actual McFluff video but in the McFluff story video it'll happen before Oscar and Louise have a family.

    I mentioned earlier that I had added extra sims that prevented me from saving that original house I was building. One of those households was the sims from Perfect Genetics challenge video series.

    The other group was made up of a selection of sims from Cake Island Mermaids. I had the 4 mermaids that came with Isla Paradiso plus a few others. About 9 or 10 sims altogether.

    I had previously picked up a few sims from the boarding school at Moonfall Island. That's where Oscar was living for the recent episodes of Oscar's Childhood. These sims included the 3 cloned children and Petal Jayne the plant sim child. I also got the YA fairy Kaylee Flower. I can't remember if I picked up any others. I wanted the clones as they were clones of some of the sims from Cake Island Mermaids. I aged up Eric to YA and Susanne to teen for this group as well. Susanne looks a lot like her mother. I don't have a pic unfortunately. But she is in the video.

    I also left out all other members of Eric's massive family. There are probably over 100 of them in the Big Game now so they would have exploded this save for sure.

    I added the Isla Paradiso Bunch sims. But it was the group of sims from a game I was playing a few years ago and they have advanced a long way beyond where the current video is up to. That's why I'm wondering if I ought to start a new series to show the toddlers growing up once they complete their final tomb in France. At this point in the video, they have only two tombs left to do and they are both under the nectary in France. I'd had problems with that tomb sequence but in an effort to solve that problem I went back to a much earlier game and continued with the videos from that save and I've been making sure I send them home each time before they travel to a new world adventure world. It does seem to be a much more stable game so I'm hoping they do manage to complete the final two tombs in France. Those tombs are known to be a bit dodgy and bugged anyway. But I'll keep at it and will hopefully get them through them. I've done those tombs with other sims recently. It is just that I want the IP Bunch to complete the tomb collection for ALL of the worlds and they have done that for China and Egypt so there is just these final two tombs in France to do.

    The-Isla-Paradiso-Bunch001.jpg

    Now in the version of the Isla Paradiso Bunch that I've added to this new game, I had changed Judy. She looks different now and she has a new name. She has become Jane Butler. This is because I really wanted to include her orginal cloned daughter, Anne in the group. I wanted Anne to know her mother on arrival so that meant I had to include the version of her mother she already knows. Also, each version of Judy had different skills and achievements and I couldn't decide which one to get rid of so in the end I kept both of them. Anne got to keep the original Judy because I had the Isla Paradiso Game open at the time and it was easier to make her over.

    The new version - Jane Butler
    Jane003.jpg
    I didn't do much to her - just new name, hair and clothes.

    When I added the Isla Paradiso Bunch to this new game it includes a few toddlers who haven't been born into the video version of the game yet. I also added the original Judy and her cloned daughter Anne. I found she also had her plant sim son too. His name is Charlie the Plant Sim. I did a recorded video of him and posted it to my Studio years ago. Judy made his seed and planted it but one of her housemates picked him so she isn't really her son. This all happened back when University Life was first released. That's when I first made Judy, a witch, and she cloned herself and made a forbidden fruit seed and planted it and the two babies that resulted grew up together and I played them until they were children but not much since so I've never seen either of them as teens. They are children in this new game too. But I won't be playing it for long.

    Of course, the 7 sims from the latest version of Caroline and Friends is included in the 98. And a stray fairy brings it up to 99 since I had to add her because I needed a sim in the world that wasn't in the Porter packed sims.

    I didn't add anyone from Colourful Mermaids video because it is the same group of sims as are in Cake Island Mermaids.

    In the beginning I did add a few sims who are in the Big Game but don't feature in videos - or haven't yet. They include the Kluver family. It was their original save that gave me the information on the correct mermaid scale colours as I had those mermaids in the game. This made it possible for me to make the video tutorial on how to fix the mermaid scales. Salty Kluver is a version of Salty Seaworth.

    MaryAnne008.jpg
    Mary Anne Kluver with Charlie the Plant Sim in an earlier game. I don't think they will remember each other in this game as they came from different saves. I've also changed her scale colour from the default female mermaid scales to Salty's scale colour. Actually, she got new hair and clothes too so she looks nothing like this now - but this is the original version of Mary Anne.

    PAndS004.jpg
    Phyllis and Salty from that earlier save.

    The-Salty-Family.jpg

    His wife was made by me and she married Salty and they had a daughter who is a mermaid. I got the badge for having a mermaid baby when she was born. They had a son too but he wasn't in the save in which I found them and it was the very start of adding sims to the game so I gave them an instant baby and gave him the same name as their original baby boy who is in the Big Game. Then I discovered in this game Salty and his wife are not happy with each other.

    I wanted to add more fairies but didn't dare in the end. I thought I'd pushed it as far as I could. I also wanted to add 'the sculptors' as they are features in a couple of videos and will be seen a lot more in future videos but I wasn't game to due to issues I was having and decided I probably had enough sims in this one already.

    Here are some pics I got last night of them in the roller coaster lot. And a pic showing the house I built for them in the end. So far it seems to be working.

    Screenshot-26.jpg

    If you've been watching the videos you'll recognise most of these sims. Two you won't know are the teen in the blue top - she's one of Oscar's daughters. The other is the teen sitting with the pink top. She's Eric's sister, Susanne. You will know her as a toddler and child in the Moonfall Island Boarding School.
    Screenshot-27.jpg

    That's Louise's sister, Leanne in the maroon pants in front of this picture. The rest of the sims in this pic are seen in recent videos. Leanne is in earlier videos of Louise growing up in Riverview. That dark skinned sim in the background is someone the game added. No idea who he is or why he's there.
    Screenshot-28.jpg

    That's it for now. This is getting a bit long and I can't easily find more pictures. I hope you watch and enjoy the video.

    Happy Simming


  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    My latest video on achieving the University Life Badges is now available for you to watch on YouTube.

    https://youtu.be/afzP6hVpVXE

    In this video the whole household is at University. It is week 2 of a two week semester. We see them going to classes, meeting other sims and just being sims around the university world. We go to the graduation ceremony and then they return home to Sunlit Tides where they start, or continue, their careers.

    I was expecting badges to trigger for sims graduating with their degrees but none did. They should have got the badges to: 1. Earn a degree in Technology; 2. Earn a degree in Business; 3. Earn a degree in Fine Arts.

    Wilma, Marie and Enid completed their degree in Fine Arts and graduated. They have their graduation certificate and got their additional trait for gaining a degree.

    Caroline and Katie completed their degree in Business and graduated. They have their graduation certificate and got their additional trait for gaining a degree.

    James completed a degree in Technology and graduated. He has his graduation certificate and got his additional trait for gaining a degree.

    I didn't expect James, Marie or Enid to graduate as this was their first visit to university so I wondered if that might have been an issue. Gary has to return to university to complete his Communications degree so I'm going to send him back alone to do a single week as he doesn't have much more to do to complete the requirements to get his degree. If the badge triggers for him I'll assume the problem was having two groups of sims in one household, one group on their second semester and the other on their first semester. But these badges are notorious for not triggering.

    I did some research before starting this video series and found a work around for the university life badges to get a degree. I used it and managed to get the Fine Arts degree badge to trigger. I included detailed information on how I did this in the video.

    That's about it. Happy Simming and I hope you watch and enjoy the video.
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    Episode 20 of Caroline and her friends at University is now available for you to watch on YouTube

    https://youtu.be/DQnDOuCS0Oc

    The household is at home is Sunlit Tides. They get their new careers, if they were previously unemployed, and advance quickly.

    Since 4 of them are brand new sims and two of the others have very little prior experience they are concentrating on learning skills and getting lifetime happiness points so there are a lot of varied activities happening in this episode. No new badges are achieved but mention is made of some badges I previously achieved with activities they are doing in this episode.

    Gary didn't complete his degree in the previous episode so he returns to university alone at the end of the episode and begins throwing elixirs at other students. He needs to throw elixirs at 50 sims to achieve his lifetime wish. He worked on making elixirs throughout this video. It was a complex task for him as he needed to do a lot of gardening and fishing and collecting and raiding the bee hives at the elixir store to get the ingredients for his elixirs. He managed to get to level 10 in the alchemy skill so all he now needs to do is throw those elixirs at 50 sims to get his LTW. He made more than 50 elixirs before leaving for university and took them all with him.

    Wilma and Marie spend some time painting. Wilma is in the paining career and Marie is in the music career.

    Since Marie is now at level 9 in guitar playing, at the end of this episode she purchased the guitar music books from the bookstore and will learn all of the songs between now and the next episode. You won't see her doing much guitar playing in this episode.

    I found the garden was becoming a problem with them having to spend too much time working at keeping it healthy. So I hired the gardening service but stopped the hired gardeners from weeding. This will keep the garden watered and fertilized and harvested and still give my sims an opportunity to grow their gardening skill. Once they are all at level 10 in gardening I'll get the gardening service to resume the weeding.

    I added a bit more to their basement and they now have a home gym. This is to encourage me to remember to get them to complete various opportunities they get. At the very end of recording for this episode I bought them some extra musical instruments - piano, drums and bass but I don't think they will appear in this episode.

    Into the Future is an expansion pack I rarely use except for the indoor soil rugs. But, Katie has a computer from ITF and she's been developing the advanced technology skill, as have others in the household. This has led to some wishes relating to ITF objects and that led to me adding a new small kitchen in a lower basement so they could program new recipes into the food synthesizer. That's something I haven't got a sim to do before. I'm thinking ITF activities might become part of this video as well as getting UL badges. I'll see where their various wishes and opportunities take us - but UL badges is the main focus. It's just that some of the badges will require sims to get lots of experience or to be high in their careers and that might take a while and we do want the videos to be interesting.

    Some of them started learning to sculpt and invent toys and things.

    I hope you enjoy the video. If you do watch and enjoy the video please give it a like as this will encourage YouTube to recommend it to more people. And comments on the video itself will help with that too.

    Happy Simming.
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    It just took me 2 weeks to make the latest video. It just finished loading to YouTube an hour or so ago now.

    https://youtu.be/qN-gABikWM4

    Gary is the only sim I'm controlling in this video. He gets up to lots of mischief and still manages to graduate with an A. The badge for getting the degree in Communications was awarded. But he didn't get the badge for graduating with a perfect GPA. He was on the dean's list, and he aced every exam. And got a GPA of A.

    When I was finishing up my video I checked the badges I had and found an extra badge was awarded without me trying to do it. It was the badge for getting a degree in Physical Education. I suspect one of the roommates must have got it.

    Gary completed another badge and it was awarded. He had to do a keg stand and streak. He did it and got the badge.

    He also worked hard on his lifetime wish by throwing elixirs at more than 20 sims while at University. He has to throw elixirs at 50 sims to get his lifetime wish. He already got to level 10 in Alchemy skill.

    Gary001.jpg

    In the next episode he's throwing elixirs at sims around Sunlit Tides. Plus two new sims will be added to the household. One to test a theory and another because I need him to get some badges. None of the others in the household can get the specific badges this new sim will be going for. He also looks like he's going to be a lot of fun. I think I'll do the next episode of this story and then move on to the Perfect Genetics Challenge for a few episodes.

    I hope I don't struggle so much with the next videos as I did with this one. My microphone wasn't recording properly. I had the sound turned up as loud as I could and my voice sounded like a faint whisper and the background hiss was overwhelming. Plus the speakers kept crackling and that was going onto the recording as well. I managed to fix both problems - sort of. I think the sound is acceptable in this video - but it was painful to record. Some parts of it had to be recorded at least 7 times to get it sounding reasonable. I have to keep resetting the speakers and I always get a warning that another program is using them and I reset anyway and the problem goes away for a while but it comes back. It's really annoying. Also, I've been struggling with not being able to focus on anything. I am a lot better today and did a lot of work on the video yesterday to finally get it finished.

    That's it for now. I hope you are able to watch the video. It's packed full of activity and things I've never put into a video before. Some of the things that happen are things I've never tried to do before - such as streaking, using an elixir to turn a sim into a zombie, and another into a plant sim. Most of the video was about things Gary did outside of lectures or study. He managed to learn a trick for the pool table too and tried to get one of the fridges in the student union building to give him a freebie. He failed.

    Happy Simming

  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    I finally go the latest video posted to YouTube and made it public this morning. I had more issues with my microphone in this episode. I found plugging it into the computer sends the speakers into a frenze of loud noises after about half an hour. As a result it was taking me days to do the narration. It sounds ok until the speakers start their rattling and then it's impossible so the sound in the video is ok. But about half way through I gave up and went out and bought a new microphone. So the sound changes a bit when I started using a new mike. Hopefully you'll not notice too much difference - but it allows my speakers to remain silent - totally silent - unless sound is required.

    Here's the link to the video.
    https://youtu.be/fN7O3AEq0I0

    It is a really busy and fast paced video. There was a lot of action to get through and it took me 35 minutes in the end but it is done. The first half is just the usual sort of stuff with Gary returning from uni and getting busy with his elixirs and Wilma had to go out to get rid of her stir crazy moodlet. She's now up to level 6 in the painting career as she's been selling a few of her paintings lately.

    My sims are on the highest possible free will. I use NRAAS Story Progression. I am occasionally presented with unexpected surprises. There are a few of them towards the end of this video.

    I did a bit of decorating around the house to make it look a bit more lived in - particularly as so many of them are practicing artists.
    Screenshot-186.jpg

    Two new sims make an appearance and join the household so I had to add two new bedrooms. One of the newbies first appeared at University last episode and became Gary's love interest. He invited her to visit and she decided to stay. Her traits are interesting - definitely a mixture of traits I never would have come up with. She will probably need to join the political career but I think I'll teach her a few skills first.

    Screenshot-195.jpg

    The video series is all about getting university life badges and all of the sims I've made for it so far were made with particular badges in mind. But, there are badges that none of them can get. I added another new sim towards the end of the video and he has been very active and got to level 10 in gardening already. He is a plant sim and there are some badges that need a plant sim. He has started with some plant sim specific activities. I've never played a grown up plant sim before so he's full of surprises. One thing I didn't realise was plant sims and human sims get along very well together - there is an unexpected romance I spotted near the end of the video. It left me wondering if plant sims and human sims can have babies together? Hmmm... Things could get interestinger and interestinger.

    Sylvan Forrest wants to have a Perfect Garden. In spite of appearing for the first time towards the end of the video, he managed to become a level 10 gardener and achieve his lifetime wish in this episode.
    Screenshot-182.jpg

    Gary got the Philosopher's Stone awarded to him at the end of the video.
    Screenshot-192.jpg

    I do hope you are able to watch this video and if you enjoy it please give it a like. Not only does that encourage me to make more videos, but it also encourages YouTube to offer the videos to more people.

    This will be the last video for this series for a while as I need to move on to other series. Next up will be the next episode of the Perfect Genetics Challenge.

    Happy Simming
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    This is another complicated story with lots of possibilities and romance autonomously developing in the household of a group of unrelated young adults with a huge mix of different traits so as to maximise the possibilities of badges that might be worked towards.

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