Couldn't sleep again.. awake since 4am! I didn't have a relevant picture for this blog entry so have a look at the nice January Sunshine of the EA Campus yesterday instead :-)

So as I mentioned in yesterdays blog we saw some new things about the game during Day 1's demo that was not shown during the Sims 3 Preview which I wrote about last year. The main thing being Build and Buy modes as they were 'off limits' before, but now we have some more info about that which I'm allowed to share with you!

We also learned a lot more info about the custom content processes. The game tools are actually so powerful that pretty much all of the items which you will see in the basic game CAS and Buy Catalogue have been created in the game by the art team and content creators within EA. They didn't need flashy external tools to make all this stuff you truly do have the power at your fingertips to create content just as good as EA. The base meshes (shapes of the items) are imported to the game a default blue, then the artsy type get to work on them. That's pretty much how third party CC will work too.

The biggest power feature is "Create a Style". When editing clothing, hair, accessories, walls, floors, furniture, build items… anything in the game that's customizable, you have the option to either do simple pattern or color adjustments, or go the whole hog and drop into "Create a Style". Kinda hard to explain, especially given that I can't share pictures with you, but basically any item has between 1 and 4 channels to it. A bed for example might have the wood frame and the bedding, so 2 channels. A sofa might also be 2 channels, the fabric and the wood frame. Once you create the bed that you like from the range of hundreds of patterns and textures, and infinite colors for each of those, you can save them as a style and then apply them to any other item. And the process is a simple drag and drop. So place your bed in the bedroom, add a desk, a sofa and any other furnishings you like, then drag the style from the bed to all the other items. You now have a fully matching bedroom set designed by and probably unique to the Simming world! You can even drag it to the walls and have the pattern as paper and the wood as kick board and chair rails. And why not drop it on your chosen floor pattern too! Wildly open ended and freeform!

You can then share these Styles or individual creations with other players either through the exchange or your own websites.

Let me talk a bit about Build Mode! You builders out there are in for the treat of your life with Sims 3! Power tools are abundant here as well, for example, expanding your home as funds allow is so quick and easy! If for example you want a bigger bedroom, grab the outer wall and drag it out as far as you wish, the bed, side tables, window and any other objects along that wall will move with it too. The floor will expand in the same pattern, walls are redecorated and even the roof will free form around it in real time. Same goes for reducing rooms, or you can drag out an entire outside wall of a house and have all rooms enlarge, maintaining their scale and object positioning as accurately as it can.

Stairs have changed a lot: no longer do you have modular or internal stairways, they are now the same thing and just behave differently depending on how you use them. If you place a stairway internally between floors it will take the guise of an internal stairway, and will even box in the area below it with walls and finish it with the décor you already have in the room! These can be removed though if you want an open staircase. When placing modular stairs these can now be placed with a 90 degree L shape turn in them, making shaped stairways so quick to produce. You also have a width slider allowing you to place stairways between 1 and 10 tiles wide in an instant!

Doors will ship in 1, 2 and 3 tile sizes, and even with 1 tile doors that sit in the center of 2 tiles to allow more freedom in design than ever.

Lighting has had a major overhaul too. Internal and external lighting is better realized and put to best use when you build with open spaces in buildings, like courtyards. You can leave the roof off an area of the house and unlike previous Sims games, these will be recognised as outdoor, and lit accordingly. The lights that you place can be set to many different colors to provide ambiance and mood, with the ability too to set them to either dim, bright or normal!

Roofs are now truly dynamic and with the roof height slider you can make anything from flat roofs to tall spires instantly. They reform as you change the shape and size of your house too.

OK, I'm gonna leave you with that info overload for now and go freshen up for another day. I still have lots to tell you about Create a Sim so I'll start blogging again from EA later.

/Steve