Terrain Paints

As well as windows (which are waiting in the wings for some mapping corrections), we now have Terrain Paints (huge thanks to Inge and Peter Jones over at Simlogical).  Here's the first of many I plan to make for your game...

EA has made a beautiful job of terrain rendering in Sims 3.  Terrains not only blend together much more seamlessly when mixed, but the overall texture is crsisp and sharp in detail.

This is a terrain I'd originally made for Sims 2, but it looks much clearer in Sims 3.

New Windows!!!

We wanted to be sure we could do it before we made any false promises, but Murano and I both have our first windows in game! 

It took a lot of battling to find the window masks, but Apple, Ricci2882 and AnoeskaB finally dug them out after hours of searching and experimenting, and then Murano found a way of extracting them nicely (because window masks are not cloned with the window mesh yet).  The end result is that I now have four windows made!  Sorry about the, er, building, but I just wanted something to slap windows on.  Don't worry - I won't upload it...

For anyone thinking "what on EARTH is she on about?", window-masks are the textures that control where the 'hole in the wall will be for the window.  Without a wallmask, there is no hole - so it was pretty important to find them.

Humble Beginnings

I wanted to start with something very, very simple, so I decided to extend the game's Colonial windows.  I wanted a 2-tile rectangular and arched version that were full size, together with a matching 1-tile full version.  The latest addition is a 2-tile round window. There are minor problems right now (which everyone is experiencing) where the textures are shifting slightly, misplacing natural shadows (for example, where window crossbars join the main frame there is a touch of shading, but that is dropping down below the bars).  Therefore I don't have a release date yet; however, once these mapping problems have been zapped, I'll remake the windows to ensure the texture is correct.

But we have windows in Sims 3 already, folks!

Thanks owed to some real community awesomeness!

As well as three clever folks at TSR named above, these windows have been made possible by some already-incredible tools at Simlogical.  Thanks to everyone working together in the community (especially Peter and Inge Jones for S3 Object Cloner and Package Editor, (truly fantastic tools already - even though we're so early into custom content), Wes-H for our Milkshape plugins and tools so we can edit the stuff we clone, and TSR and the community at large who have been contributing any information they've uncovered in the goal towards making our beloved custom content possuble for Sims 3.

Is that ALL???

Yes, I know what you're thinking: "Is that ALL?"

After submitting something for Sims 3 almost daily, there's been a little hiatus on the submitting front.  Then FINALLY, along comes another set of - wallpapers...

Oh, you say.

One way of looking at this is that my poll says you'd like another wallpaper set, so I could simply be giving more of what you'd like...

But another way of looking at it is that I could actually be working on Something Else...

Not being TOO mean, I shall tell you that it's the latter, but I'm still mean enough NOT to tell you what it is!

Yet.

_______________________

I love power games where I'm the one doing the playing!

The announcement I've been dying to make!

I'm making Sims 3 objects!!!!  MAKING them!  Me!

Woohoo!!!!!

(1) MAKING is the term used to imply the process of attempt.  SUCCESS is neither claimed nor implied.
(2) By reading the above statements, you implicitly agree that it is perfectly acceptable that resultant objects (should they ever materialise, will be a pile of toot.
(3) The term TOOT can be defined by sole discretion of the authoir of this blog.
(4) The above statements seek an understanding that a successful pile of toot has yet to be visible or usable in the author's game.

GOAL! Killed another!!!!!

I've successfully killed my 3rd PC in three years.  Congratulations to ME!  Apparently, the disk controller doesn't want to do any controlling any more and has since left the building, leaving me without a booting machine.  The monitor chose the exact same day to die, but Samsung have cheerfully said "don't worry - a new one will be with you in a few days" - even without a dealer-stamped warranty card.  Samsung, I love you.  May all my monitors be Samsung from hereon out.  I wish the same could be said for my PC dealer where my emotions are of a decidedly cooler nature...

Okay, it's not TRULY the PC dealer's fault.  I have one of those marvellous warranties where anything broken will be replaced - no quibble!  Yep, dear customer, whip out that faulty part and we'll send you a replacement - no fuss!  They do too; they sent me a new fan and a new hard drive when those items failed.  But motherboards?  The sad part of the warranty is that don't send out a tcchie person to accompany said part and fit it.  And my faulty part is the mere motherboard...  Great!  I'm the sort of person who can render a PC unusable simply by fitting a new hard drive.  You think I'm going to touch a motherboard???  I wish I'd paid the extra £135 (£135!!!) that forces an engineer to get off their proverbial bottom and do the replacing.  That will teach me.

Oh, and I live in one of those areas of the world where tractor technicians are ten-a-penny, but not a PC hardware technician to be seen.  There are quite a few small-ads where people advertise "PCs?  Oh, we fix anything!" in our neighbouring town 20 miles down the road (note: 20 miles seems to be just a bit too far outside any engineer's call-out area too), but a quick telephone call establishes that, when they said 'anything', what they actually meant was Windows being crabby about booting, a gummy mouse-wheel or ridding your PC of the latest virus.  Motherboards and disk controllers?  Nope, have I considered calling Korea?

I'm now using an old crate of a machine that was the first of my three failures with an overheating northbridge due to a failed northbridge fan (which no-one within 100 hundred miles wants to touch - and people in forums with a same-failing fan - oh, there are a lot of us - have all bemoaned the fact that no replacement fan will fit).  This crate doesn't have Sims 3 installed.  If it did, I expect it would go into nuclear meltdown (the aging graphics card reaches stellar temperatures before conveniently giving me a cheerful blue-screen reboot (well, 'reboot' isn't exactly true - it doesn't).

So all this is leading to: if my calendar of 'upcoming' becomes empty, I have not abandoned Sims 3.  Quite the reverse; it's killing me not to be able to carry on with two lots I've been building.  However, I am going to try to get Sims 3 working on this old tin box; I have a neat castle headed your way - nearly finished (it's the one pictured in my new stone wallpaper set). 

Magical or poisonous? You decide!

Yes, today is the day that The Secret Lagoon is launched.

Of course, I set out to make something beautiful and wondrous, so I find it MOST hilarious that, having read some of the wonderful comments left by you already (many hugs), it seems many are assuming this water is POISONOUS!  And why?  Because I made it, that's why!

If anyone else had built this, it would be mystical and magical.  Cyclonesue builds it, and it's: "Is that sulphonic acid or something MORE deadly like cyanide?"  Oh, faithless beings that you are!  It might or it might not be.  There are stories, rumours perhaps, that three souls were lost in this mysterious lake. 

That was long ago (if it happened) and the Tourism Board stepped in crossly to make it safe again (or something like that).  Put it this way, many Sims have swum safely ever since.  After effects?  None have been witnessed (not in the 2-3 minutes of exiting the lake at least...).  A lot of fuss about nothing, therefore.

Here we go again!

It used to be a problem in Sims 2.  I would litter neighbourhoods with my dubious non-matched lots and eventually would reach the point of having no decent camera angles.  The only saving grace of Sims 2 is that neighbouring lots became a bit of a blur from a distance, unlike the clarity-for-miles we now enjoy in Sims 3!

And here we have it again.  I've started a new castle, but no matter which way I turn, I've seemingly crammed empty spots with dockyards and factories.  Not to mention the hilltop radio mast, the airplane streaking through the sky in the other direction and my test Sim answering her mobile phone!  I can see that screenshots of this lot are going to be a bit of a trial!

I think I need someone to rewrite English Tudor history - jazz it up a bit with a few 20th century innovations or something.

What the so-and-so is going on with cyclonesue-creations?

 I just want to apologise for a little hiccup in my releases.

TSR has wanted to push out a launch of clothing and accessories this week, starting today.  I didn't want my rubbishy stuff tainting such pristeen work on the opening day, so I've moved everything back a little.  The Container Ship rolls out properly tomorrow, and the other uploads showing in my upcoming window will be out later in the week.

Finally - you CAN now get rid of those red chimneys!!!

You can finally use that beautiful large fireplace in your medieval castles without suffering a stupid-looking red chimney!  It's all very simple to do.  My tutorial, Zap The Red Chimney! shows you how (which a good thing really, because it wouldn't be much of a tutorial if it didn't).

You can either remove the chimney completely and replace it with your own built design or you can move it to another part of your building - it doesn't need to be joined to the fire).  And even if you make your own replacement chimney, you'll see that you can still keep the smoking part, as shown in the picture on the left.  And yes, you can even place the smoking part in different places too.  For a bemused Sim family, place it under the toilet after grandpa has just been (okay - I didn't just say that - can someone delete please?)

Works with all chimneys and the stove flu-pipe too!

Wonderful you!

I am just going to have to get this off my chest...

All the comments you've been leaving, and especially the laughs I've had from your tutorial comments in my guestbook, have been the very, very best thing about being back.  You've been brilliant and wonderful.  I want you to know just how important a part you play in me (and so many other creators) just wanting to make more stuff.  You totally rock! 

And to anyone who wants to point out that I just like an incredibly expanding ego, do know that I managed to kill three people last night within an hour of each other.  Easily and without any remorse (well, not that much remorse)...  Granted they were Sim people who did not have the brains to get OUT of the pool when they were tired, but I clearly have murderous powers!