Sandy Aquatica Bedroom

I picked up another request for more recolours of the FFS objects and thought a sandy beach brown version of the underwater themed bedroom (I call it 'Aquatica') would be nice for those tropical themed homes and mellow Sims. :) Hopefully this set will go live come this weekend but with this being prime vacation time, you might expect it at the beginning of next week instead.

Beacon Falls Intros & Backstories

The joint neighbourhood project I've been contributing to, Beacon Falls, is nearly ready for download! It's been quite exciting to see this project come together and I'm eagerly anticipating seeing what players do with all of the creations. :)

Lechapeau has posted a little designer diary story on the Exchange detailing a variety of the families found in the base neighbourhood. You can also read more detailed backstories of more of the families included as written by their creators in the Beacon Falls: Beginnings thread here on the TSR Stories forum.

Tropical Reef Coral Collection

Back to aquariums! With still quite a bit of aquarium material on my 'list', I have another big set for you - coral recolours. Using Windkeeper's CBA coral meshes, you can now add 6 new varieties of brain corals, branch corals, serpulid worms and tube sponges to your aquariums. Each object contains a unique texture, which hopefully approaches the real thing. Although as Wind herself stated, it's very hard to replicate Mother Nature's stunning creations. ;) I've also tried to provide a good mixture of bright and murky colours so you can create different styles of reefs.

Fort Bartonby

I've already hopefully whet your appetite for my newest community lot - Fort Bartonby, a medieval trading village. You might be interested in knowing a few more tidbits about it while it processes through the queue. Speaking of the queue, release date is this Friday, July 28'06.

I didn't end up adding anything additional to the lot, mostly because it is already built on the smallest size large lot and the building architecture is rather intricate and I was worried about the lot running slowly on people's machines. So, if you have a high-end machine and wish to add more details, I would suggest any of CycloneSue's wonderful medieval & Middle Ages creations and Windkeeper's water troughs, chickens, etc. would be great additions. However, if you have a low-end machine and still really want to play this lot without sluggish performance, start by removing some of the cash registers to reduce the number of NPCs generated, then decide if you need to remove objects.

Lastly, if you decide to add Fort Bartonby to your medieval neighbourhoods and wish to retain as much accuracy as possible, you will likely want to remove the sidewalk and road tiles so as to reveal the more period-realistic terrain painting I've done underneath. Read the installation instructions for complete info on how to do this if you're not already familiar with the routine. ;)

Forthcoming

My blog's been pretty quietly lately, I know. Truth be told, the sharks burned me out and I needed to recoop by playing the game a bit. :) But no worries, there is more work forthcoming soon.

In fact, I took on a request from TS2.com. A gal is doing a medieval Legacy challenge, liked the look of my Farmer's Market and asked if I could do a complete all-in-one medieval community lot for her. I've been working on it this week and it's nearly finished, although I might add some extra tidbits to the version I submit here to TSR. Here's a sneak peak:

I also have more aquarium themed stuff coming when I get this request shelved. Expect more coral colour options (unless I suck at the textures something horrid), educational posters and a completely updated TS2 version of my Swim With the Fishes Aquarium community lot. ;)

Here There Be Monsters!

Starfish recolours weren't enough and I'm a sucker for punishment. Once I've beaten the rest of these textures into submission, you'll be able to add bad boys such as this Great White Shark into your aquariums, swimming pools and more. ;P

UPDATE: Six species. Four meshes. Five and a half hours sleep. Twenty-four hours of non-stop work (roughly). Presenting Shark Mania - coming to an aquarium near you in 2 days!

Tropical Starfish Colours

I fell in love with Windkeeper's custom built aquarium set while beta testing so I asked her about making some additional recolours, since starfish (or more accurately, sea stars) come in such a wealth of colours IRL. These are some of my favourites, which you can add to your aquariums for further variety - they look especially great using coral reef ground textures.

Expect this set to be available around Friday, July 14'06; and many more tropical and aquarium themed additions to come. ;)

Pilialoah Bay Wedding Beach

You can't rightly have a tropical theme without taking advantage of a wedding party! :D Pilialoah Bay gives your Sims the opportunity to enjoy a romantic Hawaiian beach wedding with full outdoor reception services included. This community lot functions as a restaurant for visiting Sims or purchase it to create a unique ownable restaurant business.

NOTE: Due to the community nature of this lot, visiting Sims cannot actually marry here. If you wish to have Sims marry on this lot, you can download a hacked wedding arch that functions on community lots and replace the existing arch with the hacked version - check Mod the Sims 2 for this object.

And in case you're wondering, 'pilialoha' means 'to be in a bond of love' in Hawaiian. ;)

Alaia Boogie Boards

My first submission for the Tropical Paradise theme week, Alaia Boogie Boards is a surf board shop with shoreline beach lounge area. Depending on your preference, you can either use Alaia's as a regular community lot or purchase as a community business. Either way, its small lot size (2x3) makes it perfect for low-end computers especially.

And in case you're wondering, 'alaia' is the Hawaiian word for traditional wood surf (AKA 'boogie') boards. Surf's up! ;)

Dullards Rehabilitation Clinic

I got hooked on the Asylum Challenge.

I like the concept of challenges - I played the Legacy Challenge when it first launched - but my biggest problem with most challenges is that they're simply too big, too long, too complex or all of the above. Less is more, IMO. The beauty of the Asylum Challenge (to me, at least) is it's relatively short and simple.

But before I could wreck havoc on my unsuspecting patients I realized I needed a dwelling to house them. I immediately thought of Cyclonesue's Gravesend Asylum. Sadly, it has yet to be published (looks fantastic, though - no surprise) so I was left to my own devices. It then occurred to me that the smallest pre-made Maxis dorm would be the perfect solution if converted to a residential lot and so I give you a revamped version dubbed Dullards Rehabilitation Clinic:

Dullards comes pre-furnished according to the challenge rules so that you can get straight to playing your twisted little madhouse. :D There are 5 single beds of the required energy and comfort levels, seating for a maximum of 6 Sims (2 kitchen chairs, 2 chess chairs & 1 loveseat), 1 toilet and 1 sink with 1 shower/tub in an alternate room, 1 skill building object of each skill type plus a TV, no buglar or fire alarms and 2 phones for those thrilling calls to the fire dept. :P There is also a little space on the side lawn around the fountain for gravestones should you require it. And naturally the bedrooms are padded.

This little project also came with a very important discovery I feel I should share with other players and builders: never simply convert a dorm into a residence using the changeLotZoning command. While it seems it is perfect acceptable to rezone a residence into a dorm, it is not acceptable to rezone a dorm into a residence.

I discovered half a week into my Asylum Challenge that dorms rezoned to residences receive no carpools whatsoever - the taxi works normally but carpools do not appear, even with manually adding portals. In the end, I had to completely rebuild the clinic from scratch on a residential plot, transfer my household and scrap the original "Franken-zoned" lot. So much for saving myself time and frustration.