Atrium House

I was extremely pleased with how a house I built for some of the characters in my Legacy turned out. It's a three-story house with an attached three-story atrium/greenhouse. I've now rebuilt it (sans most custom content and including room for a driveway, which I neglected on the in-game version), and uploaded it to TSR. And then I built a second version of it, on a wider lot, with a wider atrium and a second part of the house attached to the other side, which I plan to get uploaded some time in the next day or two. Still working on the cryo-bed, on and off. Mainly off, as the Soups have been seducing me with interesting storylines to go play and write about them instead of working on objects. Meanwhile my list of "objects I want to work on" keeps getting longer and longer... I've made another couple of counter-matching items, just a mini set of them since the counter they're for - the Impossible Mission counters from OFB - already have vast amounts of matching items. I wanted a couple of Missionaire-style tables that incorporated the stained glass insets from the Impossible Mission counters, plus matching un-padded chairs, and made both a plain (wood only) and fancy (with stained glass) version of each... since I had to make the plain versions of both anyway en route to the ones with the fancy-shmancy inserts! Just need to do a minor tweak to the meshes for those and then they will be ready to post as well.

Cryobed Progress Report

I've been working on the Mark II version of the cryochamber bed on and off for a while now, and I have to say, I'm very pleased with progress. Currently involved in doing the texturing on it, which I'm being much more finicky with then normal. Here's a little preview of how it's looking in my modelling software. The main thing I'm dreading once the actual model is finished, is making the .package file for it - I strongly suspect that getting the lid to animate properly will prove to be a pain in the nether regions.

Retro Recolours of Stacked Washer-Dryer

I'd have to say that Shannanigan's "Retro Kitchen" set contains what are pretty much my favorite appliances to use, to the point that earlier today I even made the effort of figuring out how to add Season's functionality to the fridge so I could resume using it regularly. I sometimes like putting my stacked Washer-Dryer dresser in kitchens in order to have a discrete dresser somewhere near the back door, and it's always bugged me that I didn't have recoluurs of it that were a good match for her kitchen. So today I also finally sat down, grabbed the RGB values of the colours she's used for her kitchen set, and did a set of recolours for the Great Portholio to match her gorgeous appliances.

More Broke Items...

...Flat Broke set items, that is. After a recent online conversation I was inspired to do a stained cardbord recolour of my "Flat Broke" box bed and a moose-crossing sign version of the table top for my "Road Sign Table". I also threw in a brown version of my green bottle candle lamp for good measure. Enjoy!

Only Four!?

That's right, only four counter-matching buffet-length tables. I found I just couldn't get a table that I could live with out of the limited counter texture for the Industrial Steelate counter; I was already having to mirror it around mutltiple times even just for the kitchen table, it was getting rather tile-y for the dining sized table, and the buffet length... Eeek! It just was too much for one little texture to manage. So your poor little sims who like the industrial look will have to get by with the other two lengths of table, I'm sorry to say.

Still Working On Things...

I know, it's been a while since I last put up any objects. I do have some things I'm still working on and just need to finish off making and testing the packages for before I get them up.

The biggest one is more counter-matching tables - for the same set of five counters as I've previously tackled, but this time in buffet-length size. I was muttering curses to myself a month or two ago about the lack of buffet-length table options and then realised "waitaminute, I just made a set of tables and only did the dining table length, what am I complaining out..." and sat down the next day and knocked out all the meshes for them. It's the actual making into the working packages that's delaying their release at the moment, I find that part a little tedious... and making shadow textures is the bane of my object-creating existence, I have to admit. Just two more tables to get completed and then I'll be posting them.

After that I plan to also do matching barstools for the five counters, and then start tackling other counters, making a kitchen/dining/buffet table and chair/barstool for each (assuming, of course, that they don't already have one or more of the above).

Plus, yes, I am working on some other objects, including another completer set for a Maxis couch, and I'm still tinkering around trying to come up with a mesh I like for a Cryogenic Freezer Bed Mark II.

And now that I know how to get SimPE to only load specific expansions, I should recreate the package files for the counter-matching chairs and the original Cryogenic bed to be base game compatible. Funfunfun!

I swear, I am working on this stuff... it's just my sims keep kidnapping me and demanding that I actually play them and write their stories...

Blue Suede Completer Set

A while back someone posted a comment on one of my items mentioning how much they'd love to see a loveseat and sofa version of the Blue Suede armchair. Normally I'd hesitate to size up something that far, but I got curious and took a took at the original mesh and textures anyway. The simple geometric form and slightly-shaded solids of the armchair turned out to be quite easy to resize, in the end. Too bad I can't find the comment again so that we all know who to blame - I mean thank! - for this latest addition to my ever-growing collection of Maxis Match items. One warning about this set however; patterned recolours of the original armchair might not translate too well to these meshes. In particular there's likely to be a lot of stretching across the backs.

Luxuriare Completer Set

I must be on a roll. I was finally inspired to tackle a project that I've been meaning to do since I did the Lap of Luxury completer set - to do a similar treatment of the gorgeous Luxuriare Loveseat. This was a lot trickier to handle then the completer sets for sofas have been, as it required sizing a mesh up, not just whacking a chunk out of the middle and closing the gap neatly (which is usually my first step when making loveseats and armchairs out of sofas, hehehe!). To my considerable surprise I managed to get a remesh I was happy with on the first go. Well, second go if you count the disastrous attempt I abandoned last year! The new set should be available for download on Monday.

Candy Coated Completer Set

Sometime back at the end of last year, JRon asked if I might consider doing a set for the Candy Coated Sofa similar to what I did for the Lap of Luxury Sofa. Conidering this is another sofa I've rarely used myself because it has no matching pieces, I cheerfully said "sure, as soon as I can find some time...". Naturally it then took me ages to find the time to make them, doh! The Candy Coated loveseat and armchair are now completed, and should be available for download some time in the next few days.

Poll Categories

I've added a poll to the site to try and get a better feel for which of the kinds of items I prefer making you most want to see. Here are some explanations (with examples) of the categories I've listed:

Maxis Match - items made to share textures of existing Maxis items. These might be completer pieces, such as the Lap of Luxury loveseat and armchair, or things like the Charablanca or my counter-matching tables and chairs.

Bedding Match - existing Maxis items and/or custom meshes that have been set up to use the bedding files for their texture. Such as the bedding-match pet beds (which are still a little buggy, grrr), armchair, curtains, and so forth. Sort of a specialised category of the Maxis-Match idea.

Texture-Sharing Items - custom items of my own creation set up to share all their textures from a specific base item (and sometimes Maxis items as well). This would include things like my Bentform set or the Winseat set or the Curvaceous set. Pros - one recolour affects all items, Cons - that specific item might not be up in the free rotation very often.

Stand-Alone Items - okay, if you hate loathe and despise the idea of texture-sharing items, check this one. This is, quite frankly, the style of item I'm least likely to make unless it's a unique one-off item such as the Bust of Lettuce Soup or the Dish-Draining Tray. I like reusing resources! It drives me nuts to see 3 standalone meshes with 10 identical recolours each that could and in my admittedly biased opinion should be done as 3 linked meshes with 10 recolours total. I despise file number bloat!

Storytelling Props - specialised items for specialised uses. Things like the Cryogenic bed, the Water Wheel, the Railway Tunnel, and even the Flat Broke set. Not your average "use it everywhere" kind of items!

Feel free to answer via the poll, by comments here, or even by PMing me! Always interested in hearing feedback, as long as it's not the ubiqitous "Why isn't the Bentform Dining Table Free!?!" complaint.