New "L-Mail" About Family Fun Pack!

Hi everyone! Today we have quite a nice update from Maxis about the Family Fun Stuff pack, this time an "L-Mail" from Lyndsay Pearson instead of our usual "T-Mails" or "H-Mails." So without further ado, here's all the juicy details! (Pictures have been scaled to fit this page properly. Click those with the border to view the full sized image in a new window.)

Hello Simfans!

I know you usually hear all the news about activities here from Hunter in his �H-Mails� so just to throw another wrench in the gears, this is Lyndsay, an Associate Producer on The Sims 2! I�m sending you the first (and hopefully not last) L-mail to tell you some more about the new Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff pack coming out soon! I�m out in California working at Redwood Shores, and I actually sit right across from Hunter, whom you all know and love. The rest of the team is busy working away on new and exciting things, but I get to take a break and share some tidbits about what you can look forward to in the stuff pack.

To start off, I can tell you a little bit more about what a �Stuff Pack� is. There are so many cool things we want to give you guys that we have concept art and design ideas oozing out the doors! The stuff pack is a new way for us to pick some of the favorite themes and styles that we�ve always wanted to make and get them out to you in a little mini-pack; they�re the things that just don�t �fit in� with expansion pack gameplay. Think about it, how embarrassed would a young adult Sim have been if he had an underwater bedroom at University? And princess themed Nightclubs haven�t really taken off as mainstream locales yet. So, we created a Stuff pack!

Now I know you�ve all seen screenshots and lists of the new items posted online already. I�m sure you�re psyched to run out and get it so instead of repeating all of the same information, I�ll tell you about what goes into making a stuff pack and what I love about The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff.

When we first began thinking about a stuff pack we had all sorts of ideas about the kinds of item sets we wanted to make. We talked about outer space, wild west, ancient Greece, romantic gardens� really the possibilities were endless. We ended up thinking a lot about kids and decided to focus on the underwater and fantasy themes. At that point our very talented concept team took over. We started seeing sketches of item ideas and rooms, like this:

Initial Concept of an Underwater Bedroom:

Concept ideas for Different Beds:

Toybox Sketches:

More Underwater Ideas and Sketches:

Then we picked out our favorites and created specs for them. Specs are the documents we use internally to determine how big an item will be, how many design modes it will have, where it should appear in the catalog� all the details needed to create what we imagined. When we design these items we use a lot of reference from Google image search, books and magazines, even toys from each others cubes or digital photos somebody took on vacation. When it�s all put together it�s all on one nice page that a modeler can use as a guideline to build the item in Maya.

Untextured Toybox Model:

After the basic shape has been created it has to be textured. Texturing is basically painting a map of which color appears where on the model. Think about a map of the world, it�s basically an unwrapped globe right? That�s what a texture map is too.

Toybox Texture Map:

Finally all these pieces get put together and we can hook the item up to appear in the game. Voila! The underwater set begins!

Final Toybox:

When you see a finished room in the game that looks a lot like the original concept we came up with, you know you�ve done something right.

Final Bedroom:

So what is it about Family Fun Stuff that I like so much?

One of the first things I was so excited about doing was making a whole suite of matching family outfits! How many of you remember your parents dressing you up in clothes that matched your little brother or sister? Even if you don�t remember that or never had to do it, trust me, it�s great. As soon as I first opened up Family Fun Stuff I couldn�t wait to make my entire family match. I went into Create-A-Sim, picked out all their color coordinated outfits and it was just hilarious!

Family Portrait:

A few of the things that I personally fell in love with were the Garden Bunny (Mr. Shuffles), the fish shaped rug, the Jester masks and the Toyboxtopus. I�m glad that my Sim kids can have cool matching rooms now and grateful for some more �sophisticated� decorations so I don�t have to put a rubber tree plant or apple sculpture in every empty corner.

Besides the furniture and decorations, I think the new clothes are so cute. Every little girl is happy to be a princess and even though the little boys look more devious in the dragon suit, they�re still adorable!

When it comes down to it, Family Fun Stuff really is what it sounds like. It�s new stuff for your Sims. We put the items into it we would love to see in real life and I think you will enjoy it as much as I do. Not much longer to wait!!!

Until later!

Lyndsay Pearson

Assoc. Producer / The Sims 2