Learning A New Skill

Learning to create custom content has been a real adventure. Some days I get sooooooo frustrated i just want to throw by computer out the window, but other days I feel myself swell with pride when I've succeeded. I'm still not as good as some of my favorite creators and probably won’t be for quite a while but I think I've come along way. I wish i had picks of my first few creations. Just thinking about them makes me laugh. I actually only started this a month ago. Wow, it seems longer, but I've become a bit obsessed, as is my personality. I want to be the best at everything. Well I probably won't ever be the best at creating Sims stuff because there are some amazing artists out there but I will most certainly be good. My advice to anyone who is interested in learning to create stuff is go for it!!. Its fun and Workshop makes it much less intimidating. At first it may seem overwhelming but once you get in the groove of the process, its like, "why didn't I do this along time ago?". I personally read at least a dozen tutorials. Most of them confused the heck out of me. Luckily my mistake is your reward. I'm gonna save you the trouble of searching endlessly for tutorials that all seem to contradict themselves and tell you the 4 main tutorials you should use and funny enough, they are all on this website. Well that’s because they are written by TSR creators and they use Workshop. Now I still use s3pe for painting because for some reason workshop doesn't import textures for paintings, it weird I don't know why, when I find out I will let you know. But for everything else I use workshop because it takes all the guess work out of it. With S3pe you have 15 million files all names with numbers and different file extensions which  have kind of figured out but it still give me a head ache and I was taught to work smart not hard, so if there is a simpler way, I’m gonna take it. Anyway, long story less long, these are the tutorials I suggest:

1.       A-Z Creating in Workshop by Apple

2.       Object Creation Part I: The Beginners Guide To Meshing by Riccinumbers

3.       Object Creation Part II: ObjectTextures by Cyclonesue

4.       Baking Shadows With Blender by Sim_Man123

The first 3 are available in PDF files and the last one is extremely invaluable. I had the hardest time with texture and let me tell you Blender solved most of my problems. It does most of the work, all I have to do is go in and add the little detailed like folds in fabric or engraved edges, things of that nature. it's very cool, and super easy once you learn the process. It takes me 3 minutes start to finish to bake my UV map. It's pretty cool. Anyhoo.

I've still got a few issues with slot, but I've figured out the bone thing. And I learned this one the hard way. You see I didn't really understand what bones were used for. I had a vague idea, much like when i first used UV mapping. I kind of got it but not really. Anyway. But then I was working on this hallway dresser for my thriftychic set (coming soon) and It came out real good. I mean the shading was perfect, I got all the slot set up and It looked great in workshop. (which is deceiving, always check your custom content in game, cause for some reason some things look better in workshop then in the game) So installed my dresser and waited in anticipation for my game to load and I went buy mode/ storage/ dressers, and there it was looking just so cute. Simple but cute. I placed it and it lined up perfectly. (this is not always easy but I use the footprints to make sure my objects hasn't went off center at some point, it's also what the original mesh is used fir, sizing and distance and stuff) I was so excited, it looked so good. The pattern fit perfectly. i just hate when the pattern is too big or too small on an objects. Luckily i learned from Cyclonesue's Tutorial that the size and shape of the pattern is directly related to the UV mapping process so now i know the size of my uv map and how it is place depends on the size of my object, but even if i mess that up there is an object in workshop that lets you change tiling options for a pattern so for instance the tiling option for my dresser was 1,2 but the pattern seems a little big (but not stretched) so i changed it to 2,3 and now it looks perfect. I also learned about alpha layers so my dresser is the perfect amount of shiny. Sorry, I 'm not bragging I'm just awfully proud of myself.

Okay back to the point. So, it was all good and I tested the slot, and they were all positioned correctly and I was just so happened. All i had to do now was actually tell a sim to use the dresser. I wasn't worried, it was just a formality at that point. My Sims was way across town so i turned my cheats on and had her teleport home and I clicked the dresser and told her to change into o her pjs. and waited anxiously for her to open the drawer. i really only wanted to make sure my overlay was positioned correctly (for the clothes you see when the drawer is opened) and freaking A, when she went to open the drawer, it stayed in place while the whole dresser moved out. I couldn't believe it. I was like, what the bleepity bleep bleep bleep. trust me I had all kinds of fun words. So I have learned my lessons about bone. I closed the game and turned off my computer and went to watch old Dr. Who episodes swearing I was done, It was stupid and a waste of my time. But then like 3 hours later, much past my bedtime, I went in and redid the bones, which really wasn't that hard, and loaded it back up and it worked. And it looks good. So now I make a list of the bones and what they correspond to so i hopefully don't make that mistake again.

It's a really cute dresser. the candle lamp i made to go with it is even cuter. I will be uploading it tonight when I get home or first thing on the morning while I have my coffee. i would have brought it with me to work but I thought TSR was blocked here, but to my pleasant surprise it was not. My first set got rejected but it really was barbaric. It was my first try but it was awfully cute for a first try. I will probably remake it. Well Happy simming every one.

pS. I didn't really go into it but i was having problems with my slot because i could place objects but when I moved my object the objects placed on it wouldn't move with it. well I think i found an answer here is anyone has had a similar problem. http://forums.thesimsresource.com/showthread.php?p=3931877

Thanks Angela!!!!