Do you plan for "special" chapters to mark X number of episodes, or season endings or any other milestone or do you prefer to just go with the flow of your stories? Also, do you like to write character bios or "behind the scenes" sections of the stories?
I had a strict structure from the start - each generation is 10 chapters and I have 12 generations planned for a total of 120 chapters. So there aren't really any season endings, apart from of course when the next generation takes over, but I try to do that somewhat seamlessly. And since the Duchelli Legacy has become simlit and isn't a "real" legacy challenge any more, there's no challenge points or milestones to keep track of.
I've considered making a page with the previous heirs and their bios so people can catch up a bit faster, but I keep the behind the scenes stuff to the various forums and Discords I'm active on, plus a few writer friends. I would post more behind the scenes stuff if there was any sort of demand for it, but I don't think I have enough readers yet.
I used to do Halloween specials, season endings and bonus chapters depending on what was happening in the story. I still do the last two, though I missed Halloween last year, I think. I’ve even done a crossover story with another writer that was a lot of fun to make. The occasional “behind the scenes” just-for-fun pictures end up on my blog often, too. I’m picturing all of my cast to be working together to “shoot a movie” in San Myshuno. Off-camera, they have very different personalities and relationships than on-camera. It’s very entertaining, even if it’s just in my head. 😂
@Lucy_Henley oooh, yeah, once you start looking for specific poses to fit your scenes, it gets pretty difficult to find what you’re looking for. I’ve seen the family portrait style poses, too. They’re great for, well, family portraits, but for actual storytelling, they don’t do much. The models tend to “look in the camera”, too.
@GlacierSnow I’m hopelessly behind on Seventeen & Maldusk but I’m already giggling over the idea of Ion and Ruben going to the beach together 🤣
Hosting D&D sessions on the side. Interested in playing through some fantasy-themed shenanigans? Send me a message 😘
@Kellogg_J_Kellogg Congratulations on being so close to 200 chapters! That's a huge milestone.
Do you plan for "special" chapters to mark X number of episodes, or season endings or any other milestone or do you prefer to just go with the flow of your stories? Also, do you like to write character bios or "behind the scenes" sections of the stories?
I go with the flow, but I occasionally do special image-only holiday chapters. I also have a brief introduction to my legacy and some of its characters. About poses, I generally avoid them in the body of my non-specialty posts, but I find them more time-consuming than difficult. If someone is willing to fiddle with them, they'll generally work. I've shared some tips and examples below the spoiler.
Hellohannah2 mentioned this previously, but it's convenient to use the in-game poses and animations through the mod Teleport Any Sim/Andrew's Pose Player. If you have Sims 4 Studio, you can export a list of all the animations. Here's a list of some of them.
An example with my Sims Ennik and Elmire. FTR, I have never done this with any of my legacy posts. But if I wanted to create a cute bathtub play scene, I would first place two statue objects side-by-side in the tub.
2. Teleport Ennik and Elmire into place.
3. Use the list to figure out a suitable animation, and click Pose By Name for each Sim.
4. Copy/Paste the animation.
5. Success - I like that it's not a static pose. They're moving, and I think it's easier to capture good screenshots this way. For the later two images, I redid it because they needed to switch sides.
For large group poses, I stack the teleporter statue on top of itself. For the below image, I stacked it 12 times , teleported each Sim onto the stack, paused my game, used a Pose by Pack pose for each of them, and unpaused. Luckily, no Sim moved and messed it up.
Like DaniRose2143, I also recommend Wonderful Whims for poses because it lets you move Sims around mid-pose.
I’m already giggling over the idea of Ion and Ruben going to the beach together 🤣
I'm afraid Reuben might get a very nasty sunburn...
@haneul How did you get the splash effects with your "pose by name" examples? When I use "pose by name", there is usually no visual effect that goes with it, it's just the sim's animation by its self.
@GlacierSnow I'm not sure. I think some may randomly have it. I used animations from Island Living, but I tested the splash fountain animations (a2a_fountain_playTogether_splashFeet_left_x) and they also have water. I've had decent luck with effects so far, but I normally don't use poses so I'm not sure how often they appear.
@haneul Interesting. I'll have to watch for which ones have it. I sometimes pair pose-player up with effects-player, but it's hard to get the timing right.
@haneul@GlacierSnow I've experienced the same thing. Some animations have effects baked into them, but a good number of them don't. It's very much a gamble every time. Though if you really need a specific pose that has no effect baked in, you can always position the effects player underneath! It's a bit of a hassle, but worth it most of the time. For me, at least 😊
Hosting D&D sessions on the side. Interested in playing through some fantasy-themed shenanigans? Send me a message 😘
For me it’s the opposite. Since using other people’s poses and especially since making them, I try not to use EA animations (even if it’s a bit time consuming not to) becuase I’ve come to genuinely despise almost every single EA animation
@SnowBnuuy For the style and tone of your story, I can really see why the EA animations would not work well. They're very melodramatic and cartoonish, which doesn't fit the effect you're going for at all. I think the poses you use really tell the story well.
The official game animations work fabulously for my story though (because it's also melodramatic and cartoonish, I assume. ) so I use them as much as possible, even if I need to make single frame poses from them to get the exact moments I want.
I do wish the "neutral" ("fine" moodlet) chat animations actually had more neutral expressions though. When I want serious faces, I have to make my own poses, or modify the EA ones to make the faces serious. Though, I have found that giving everyone the "confident" potion before starting the conversation can help cut down on the ear-to-ear grinning at least somewhat. So sometimes I do that. I still end up taking a bazillion screenshots per scene though to pick the three I actually want. Sometimes I make custom poses just because it takes me less time than waiting for my diva-actor sims to do what I want and trying to catch it.
@GlacierSnow Yeah you got a point actually. They work well in yours because of its more fun nature and the exaggerated emotions work well especially for when certain characters infodump about conspiracy theories, or are seething underneath about said character spouting said conspiracy theories… XD
Yeah, Confident emotion is good to at least give them a bit of a smile but not the out-of-place ecstatic smiling that seems to be constant!
@GlacierSnow@SnowBnuuy Confident is great! Inspired sometimes also does the trick, where happy, flirty and fine are way more on the goofy side. I think I'm somewhere in between you two. I use EA expressions every once in a while, but only on select characters like Lionel and Gawain. Mostly when they're meant as comic relief.
Hosting D&D sessions on the side. Interested in playing through some fantasy-themed shenanigans? Send me a message 😘
Ah, exaggerated expression, when playing a legacy they are a disaster (because I can't cheat to change their mood, sigh).
When I'm playing in a way that allows me to use cheats, though, I very often cheat a certain emotion on my sims. Since when I found out that I can cheat a +20 of any emotion on a sim with the debug cheats, actually, I find it very hard not to do it on a legacy, but I have to resist...
You can follow the Legacy Miller from my blog and the forum thread, *Chapter 8.17 posted on the 18th of April 2024*
Expressions that come with poses can be a little odd. I’ll see a group pose that looks good, but the models have creepy smiles so it’s a little off putting!
My avatar is a great kids’ pose. I wanted a fun sibling one for all the Masterson kids, but most sibling poses are for things like teen + toddler, or two toddlers and a child or whatever. This was the only one I found that was for four children. There’s a teen version too which is on the blog under the little Welcome page. The expressions in the kids’ version are a little weird, slightly intense/“smouldering model” almost. Which is bizarre on kids.
@HermioneSims What are the cheat codes for the emotions cheats? That could be really useful for my story sometimes.
To add to _simi_Yimi's answer, I usually enable debug cheats with "testingcheats true", then shift+click on the sim, and use the emotions-related option in the menu tht pops up. I know that, other than mccc there are also line cheats to be used ( link ), but I've never tried then.
You can follow the Legacy Miller from my blog and the forum thread, *Chapter 8.17 posted on the 18th of April 2024*
@Lucy_Henley Honestly most storytelling pose packs have no expression at all or just really poorly done expressions in my experience. Usually Sims are staring into nothing instead of looking forward at the other person talking, and it’s a nightmare
Though if anyone wants suggestions for good storytelling emotion/conversation poses I can probably make a list of the ones I use.
I use ChippedSim’s Storytelling Kit to force emotional buffs, which requires the XML Injector mod.
I do have MCC, but currently only have the base mod and the Dresser module installed. I think I'll add the Cheats module and try it out. I appreciate the screenshots, so I can see exactly what I need to do. That helps a lot.
I did read somewhere what Hermione is suggesting, but for some reason when I use "testing cheats on" and shift-click on a sim, I have never found an option for setting emotions. I'm not sure why. Could be a mod interfering with it possibly, but I haven't figured it out.
@SnowBnuuy The vacant expressions of many of the poses I found online, as well as the stiffness of posture, was one of the reasons I started making my own.
In case anyone on this thread is learning to make their own poses, one of the tricks I learned for making multi-sim poses in Blender is to put the different sims rigs on different layers, so they can easily be turned on and off independently. Then I can get my own view lined up with where one of the sims needs to be looking (i.e, put myself in the place of the "target sim" they are supposed to be looking at) and then turn off the "target sim" layer so I can adjust the other sim's head and eyes to be looking right at me. This sets them up to be looking properly at the target sim when I turn that layer back on. It's worked really well for me.
A while ago I posted on here about how a lesbian couple I have adopting kids. I just recently read about the upcoming “science baby” feature coming to the base game update next week. Now I’m not sure what to do! Perhaps they could have one science baby and one adopted baby?
I’m seriously considering deleting one of my story saves and starting over. I haven’t played it in months (despite saying I would in future) and I feel like I could have done it much better. It’s a shame since it’s at a really interesting point currently - the two oldest children recently married and were thinking of starting a family, which would’ve been great with the whole infant update. But having this prolonged break has got me thinking. I wanted to have a plot to my story and I did start off with one of sorts, but I didn’t plan very much and it mostly ended up a “gameplay update” blog.
Anyone else restarted for similar reasons? I restarted my Mastersons save but that was after the HSY patch borked everyone’s ages.
@Lucy_Henley , this is a quite complex question...
With my legacy I took the choice to "look forward and not back", so even when I'm not happy about a past section I try to focus on making the following one better. I find this to be the funnier way gameplay-wise, as it avoids me to replay over and over the same part (which may be repetitive).
I can see how restarting after a long break could be difficult though, more often than not it's hard to immediately find the same interest and motivation in that old save.
If it was me, I would probably give it another go to the old save and see if, after a bit (one hour or so?) it still seems funny to play and write about or not.
In either case, I can see why restarting the save can be an option, but I would not completely delete the old save, just in case (the save folder usually it's not that huge anyway).
You can follow the Legacy Miller from my blog and the forum thread, *Chapter 8.17 posted on the 18th of April 2024*
@Lucy_Henley I would also recommend not deleting your old idea, even if you decided to start a new one or a new version. I pretty much never delete old story ideas or old versions of my stories (both for game saves and written story drafts). I keep them in case I want to scavenge pieces from them later. This has turned out to be hugely useful and sometimes inspires new "cross-pollinated" ideas I would not have come up with otherwise.
In fact, my main save for Seventeen & Maldusk is actually using an old save file that I decided I wasn't that interested in. Two of the main characters in this story were sims originally created for that other discarded story idea.
Yeah I am ALL FOR not deleting any unwanted or old saves / story material cuz you might wanna re-use or revamp something later. One pre-Simlit story I wrote I have seven drafts of, and i brought an idea back in the seventh draft that I ditched in the very first one.
Comments
I had a strict structure from the start - each generation is 10 chapters and I have 12 generations planned for a total of 120 chapters. So there aren't really any season endings, apart from of course when the next generation takes over, but I try to do that somewhat seamlessly. And since the Duchelli Legacy has become simlit and isn't a "real" legacy challenge any more, there's no challenge points or milestones to keep track of.
I've considered making a page with the previous heirs and their bios so people can catch up a bit faster, but I keep the behind the scenes stuff to the various forums and Discords I'm active on, plus a few writer friends. I would post more behind the scenes stuff if there was any sort of demand for it, but I don't think I have enough readers yet.
I used to do Halloween specials, season endings and bonus chapters depending on what was happening in the story. I still do the last two, though I missed Halloween last year, I think. I’ve even done a crossover story with another writer that was a lot of fun to make. The occasional “behind the scenes” just-for-fun pictures end up on my blog often, too. I’m picturing all of my cast to be working together to “shoot a movie” in San Myshuno. Off-camera, they have very different personalities and relationships than on-camera. It’s very entertaining, even if it’s just in my head. 😂
@Lucy_Henley oooh, yeah, once you start looking for specific poses to fit your scenes, it gets pretty difficult to find what you’re looking for. I’ve seen the family portrait style poses, too. They’re great for, well, family portraits, but for actual storytelling, they don’t do much. The models tend to “look in the camera”, too.
@GlacierSnow I’m hopelessly behind on Seventeen & Maldusk but I’m already giggling over the idea of Ion and Ruben going to the beach together 🤣
Do you plan for "special" chapters to mark X number of episodes, or season endings or any other milestone or do you prefer to just go with the flow of your stories? Also, do you like to write character bios or "behind the scenes" sections of the stories?
I go with the flow, but I occasionally do special image-only holiday chapters. I also have a brief introduction to my legacy and some of its characters.
About poses, I generally avoid them in the body of my non-specialty posts, but I find them more time-consuming than difficult. If someone is willing to fiddle with them, they'll generally work. I've shared some tips and examples below the spoiler.
An example with my Sims Ennik and Elmire.
2. Teleport Ennik and Elmire into place.
3. Use the list to figure out a suitable animation, and click Pose By Name for each Sim.
4. Copy/Paste the animation.
5. Success - I like that it's not a static pose. They're moving, and I think it's easier to capture good screenshots this way. For the later two images, I redid it because they needed to switch sides.
For large group poses, I stack the teleporter statue on top of itself. For the below image, I stacked it 12 times
Like DaniRose2143, I also recommend Wonderful Whims for poses because it lets you move Sims around mid-pose.
@haneul How did you get the splash effects with your "pose by name" examples? When I use "pose by name", there is usually no visual effect that goes with it, it's just the sim's animation by its self.
The official game animations work fabulously for my story though (because it's also melodramatic and cartoonish, I assume.
I do wish the "neutral" ("fine" moodlet) chat animations actually had more neutral expressions though. When I want serious faces, I have to make my own poses, or modify the EA ones to make the faces serious. Though, I have found that giving everyone the "confident" potion before starting the conversation can help cut down on the ear-to-ear grinning at least somewhat. So sometimes I do that. I still end up taking a bazillion screenshots per scene though to pick the three I actually want.
Yeah, Confident emotion is good to at least give them a bit of a smile but not the out-of-place ecstatic smiling that seems to be constant!
When I'm playing in a way that allows me to use cheats, though, I very often cheat a certain emotion on my sims. Since when I found out that I can cheat a +20 of any emotion on a sim with the debug cheats, actually, I find it very hard not to do it on a legacy, but I have to resist...
My avatar is a great kids’ pose. I wanted a fun sibling one for all the Masterson kids, but most sibling poses are for things like teen + toddler, or two toddlers and a child or whatever. This was the only one I found that was for four children. There’s a teen version too which is on the blog under the little Welcome page. The expressions in the kids’ version are a little weird, slightly intense/“smouldering model” almost. Which is bizarre on kids.
Do you have MCC? If you do, there's a menu in there that lets you add, remove and change buffs, traits and emotions on your sims at will.
I use that to control my sims' emotions all the time.
To add to _simi_Yimi's answer, I usually enable debug cheats with "testingcheats true", then shift+click on the sim, and use the emotions-related option in the menu tht pops up. I know that, other than mccc there are also line cheats to be used ( link ), but I've never tried then.
Though if anyone wants suggestions for good storytelling emotion/conversation poses I can probably make a list of the ones I use.
I use ChippedSim’s Storytelling Kit to force emotional buffs, which requires the XML Injector mod.
I do have MCC, but currently only have the base mod and the Dresser module installed. I think I'll add the Cheats module and try it out. I appreciate the screenshots, so I can see exactly what I need to do. That helps a lot.
I did read somewhere what Hermione is suggesting, but for some reason when I use "testing cheats on" and shift-click on a sim, I have never found an option for setting emotions. I'm not sure why. Could be a mod interfering with it possibly, but I haven't figured it out.
@SnowBnuuy The vacant expressions of many of the poses I found online, as well as the stiffness of posture, was one of the reasons I started making my own.
In case anyone on this thread is learning to make their own poses, one of the tricks I learned for making multi-sim poses in Blender is to put the different sims rigs on different layers, so they can easily be turned on and off independently. Then I can get my own view lined up with where one of the sims needs to be looking (i.e, put myself in the place of the "target sim" they are supposed to be looking at) and then turn off the "target sim" layer so I can adjust the other sim's head and eyes to be looking right at me. This sets them up to be looking properly at the target sim when I turn that layer back on. It's worked really well for me.
A while ago I posted on here about how a lesbian couple I have adopting kids. I just recently read about the upcoming “science baby” feature coming to the base game update next week. Now I’m not sure what to do! Perhaps they could have one science baby and one adopted baby?
What to do, what to do…
Anyone else restarted for similar reasons? I restarted my Mastersons save but that was after the HSY patch borked everyone’s ages.
With my legacy I took the choice to "look forward and not back", so even when I'm not happy about a past section I try to focus on making the following one better. I find this to be the funnier way gameplay-wise, as it avoids me to replay over and over the same part (which may be repetitive).
I can see how restarting after a long break could be difficult though, more often than not it's hard to immediately find the same interest and motivation in that old save.
If it was me, I would probably give it another go to the old save and see if, after a bit (one hour or so?) it still seems funny to play and write about or not.
In either case, I can see why restarting the save can be an option, but I would not completely delete the old save, just in case (the save folder usually it's not that huge anyway).
I guess I’ll take some time and think about it!
In fact, my main save for Seventeen & Maldusk is actually using an old save file that I decided I wasn't that interested in. Two of the main characters in this story were sims originally created for that other discarded story idea.