Spaik's Blog

After a good month, I finally got my notebook back with a brand new motherboard. As you can see, I'm trying to catch up: I made some meshes during the last month and now I'm publishing quite a lot of things. The latest set, of which I'm quite proud, is a set of outdoor lamps in modern style. I've enjoyed so much making these lamps that I've made the widest set of recolours, at least in my habit, and yet I think they are very different one from the other. I've also made a spiral staircase, but I'm not satisfied with it yet and I'm still fixing some things in the package. The staircase is, in fact, two stairs: one winding left and the other winding right, with some wooden and marble recolours to complete the set. Anyway, I think it will be ready for publishing in few days.

After little more than a month my second poll is over. I thank the 160 participants for your feedback: knowing what you want helps me making more things that you like.
The question was: What kind of staircases would you prefer me to do?

31 people (19.38%) answered "Straight boring staircases, the only ones with fully working animations": to you I can answer that I'm already working on a coupe of straight staircases; it won't hopefully take too much before you see more of them in my portfolio.
28 people (17.50%) answered "Curved 'C-shaped' staircases": I'm glad you answered that, because I was seriously considering to do them and now you can be sure that I'll do them for you.
10 people (6.25%) answered "L-shaped staircases": I think that most people don't want these because the modular stairs are enough in most cases; I will give them a go anyway (not too soon though), trying to get the animations right too.
28 people (17.50%) answered "Winding Staircases": I've got one of these almost ready. Cyclonesue beat me in time though, so you might check her great portfolio in the meantime.
5 people (3.13%) answered "Folding stairs and ladders": so little people asked for these stairs, although my first folding staircase has been a great success. I'm afraid you'll have to do with that one for some time, but I can't say that I'm not going to make more in the future.
46 people (28.75%) answered "All of the above, no matter missing animations!": you are the easiest people to please; what can I say... I love you! And I'll do my best not to let you down.
12 people (7.50%) answered "None of the above, I use only Maxis stairs": I'm sorry for you, but I won't stop making staircases just to please you. Anyway, rest assured that I won't force you to download them. You can keep using only Maxis stairs, if you prefer so.

Anyway, it will take some time to offer you more stairs, since my notebook isn't back yet: the recovery time is longer than expected (see previous entry of my blog) and most of my latest work is entrapped there.

"Why? - you are thinking - Did you use to trust them?" And the answer is "Yes. I always trusted my PC, because it never betrayed me and never failed to do what I was asking it to".

But on a hot and troubled morning a few days ago my laptop decided that it was too tired to stay on. No way to make it recover, so I had to send it on vacation and hope it comes back patched soon.

That's why my work with the sims stuff will slow down a bit in the next days. There's something I can do with another PC, but it's an old retiree which starts hyperventilating when I approach with the sims CD in the hand. I think that it would pass away if I tried to actually install the game.

So you'll have to be patient and wait, as I do, since I won't most likely be able to publish anything new until I have my working machine back.
Luckily, I had just uploaded a couple of sets and the second one, the Round Corner for the Country Modular Stairs, will be published tomorrow. So, hopefully, you won't miss me for too long.

Since my Modern Staircase has been so popular, I've thought of making some more recolours: four classic wooden colours and a couple of marble textures that I found quite original.

While making these recolours I also noticed that the railings weren't mapped well (some textures looked blurry on them). So I took the chance to update the mesh too and do some smoothing to make it look more sharp. The old recolours work also with the new mesh, and I think they look much better. If you download the improved mesh, simply overwrite the old file.

The last week has been a really full one. Becoming a Featured Artist is a real honour for everyone who submits here at TSR. I would like to thank you all again for your warm messages. If I forgot to sign someone's guestbook and thank you personally, I'm sorry, I just overlooked you. So, please consider yourself thanked. And I'd like to thank Thomas and TSR again for this opportunity. I still find it hard to believe it, and that's probably because I don't know a person with less creativity than the undersigned. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. I simply look at the real world and at the game and sometimes I see something missing that would be fine to have in there. And if I can, I make it. I'm very picky and over-meticulous: that's why I'm a slow creator and don't submit as many creations as others do. And when I submit something, it's not in most cases because I'm satisfied with it, but because I give up. And now what can you expect from me? Well, I've got a lot of things going on. - I've been asked to make a matching study for the Sintesi series and it's almost ready. - The Acropolis set is taking more time than I thought, since it has become wider; you'll have to wait some more time for it, but I think it will be worth the waiting. - There are more stairs and fences on the way. - And I had to stop with all these things because I had this strange idea for a round connecting unit to complete the modular stairs. It woudn't go out of my mind and wait for its turn, so I had to make it straightaway. The first set is matching the wooden stairs, and others will follow soon. So keep an eye on my minisite for the future developments. And if you have requests, feel free to ask. I cannot assure you I will accomplish them, but I will take them into due consideration.

After a little less then a month the poll is over; I think I have a pretty good idea of the overall situation.
The poll was asking which Expansion Packs people have.

140 people took part.

122 answered Seasons (87.2%), which is the most owned EP.
112 answered Open for Business (80%)
111 answered Nightlife (79.3%)
108 answered University (77%)
101 answered Pets (72%), which is the least popular EP
42 answered Base Game Only (30%)

The last number obviously cannot be true, since if 122 have Seasons and 43 have no EPs, we come up with a sum of 165, more than the participants. I think that some people have missed the word ONLY in the first option and have chosen Base Game, then ticking some expansion packs. If we presume that all those people only have Seasons, the new number for "Base Game Only" is 18 (12.8%), but it might be even smaller.
Anyway, this is what I learned from the poll.

1) Every time that I can, I will make my creations "base game compliant" (as I've done up to now) to let everybody access them, even those who have only the base game.
2) Don't make anything that requires Pets, which is the least owned EP; that's fairly easy, since I don't own that EP either, and I don't think I will buy it soon.
3) Get myself a copy of Seasons as soon as I can, so that when I cannot make something suitable for base game, at least the required EP is the one that will disappoint less people.
4) In all the other cases, I will use Open for Business and Nightlife as required EPs, since a good percentage of people have them.

Not my heart, hopefully.
When I began creating stuff for the Sims, I made a couple of sets of stone floors called as the title of this blog entry. They weren't that bad, but I wasn't at all satisfied with them, since they were in general too plain and there were a few of them which were not seamless.

I finally found the time to fix and revamp them; I've substituted those that weren't seamless, and added some depth to the others. In the end, even if the sets date late 2005, they are completely new.

It seems that I'm only able to build stairs. Since I knew that Select Artists were allowed to participate in the Marine Theme Week, and I saw the great stuff that was going to be published, it came to my mind that a folding staircase could be nice for lighthouses or those lots that resembles a boat. So I googled "folding stairs" and found images of how they looked like. It took me a while to mesh them, and there's no way that I can make the animations working (that would need a much smarted artist than I am), but I think that they turned out well in the end. They will be published tomorrow, with some wooden and some metal recolours; please, let me know what you think about them.

I've been asked to make some neighborhood decorations. Well, I was quite scared at first because 'hood objects are different from objects for lots and I had very little experience in making them. Anyway, I spent a few days looking for material on the net and gathering some ideas and this is what I put together up to now. I've made a set of ancient buildings and artifacts, from Egypt and Easter Island, which will be ready and published in a couple of days, and another one (or two) will probably follow. I've seen the pyramids and the sphinx on MTS2, but I thought I could make a different version anyway. Never seen the Moai statues anywhere else instead. Next ancient buildings will probably be from Rome or Athens, it depends on which of them will give me less trouble :) The Colosseum doesn't want to get textured at the moment. I'm working on more "everyday" neighborhood buildings too, but those are in a very early developing stage at the moment and I don't even know what the finished set will look like.