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Snowy/Grassy Slidehill - how about some Fun?

SCREENSHOTS
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Uploaded: 15th May 2008 at 7:24 PM
Updated: 8th Dec 2008 at 10:05 PM by -Maylin-
I understand that it's not the time to upload winter-themed objects, but :-<
I started to work on this slidehill over 1.5 years ago, revisited it a bunch of times, failed to finish it during this winter... just wanted it to see the light, finally :-<

So, this is a new Fun object. Sims can slide on it - without, um, any accessories (really enjoyed it when I was a kid :D) and in the process they gain some Fun (depends on sim's Playfullness and age), lose a bit of Hygiene (you can guess what happens with clothing ), Energy (isn't it tiresome to do it over and over?), and fat.
I hope it'll be enjoyable :-<

No addons required, but appearance is a bit different if you have Seasons addon.

Guess I should start from Placement instructions - they are a bit tricky.

1. Slidehill needs a hill to be put over it. The hill should be exactly 1 floor high - it's 16 clicks of raise tool. A way to check yourself - build a wall nearby, and compare your hill's height with wall's height.
2. Hill is 5 tiles long - first and last of them must be placed on flat ground, the middle lay on slope. The shape of slope in the middle is completely up to you, though it's better to not raise it above the hill - you'll get sky-colored holes. It's better to leave more space on hill top, since sims will wait for their turn there (more about it later).
3. Use some modular stairs to get up to the hill. In this screenshot, stairs by marvine are used - thanks for your wonderful stairs, marvine
4. Arrange your hill however you like you can raise ground over the hill sides, too, so if you would want to hide hill sides under Sims hill completely, it's up to you.
If you see blue holes in the ground, you probably messed up somewhere - like built hill of not enough height, or built too high slope.

Note that the hill is also modular - if you place two hills adjacent to each other, they'll change their shape. No corner hills, though. Adjacent hills work independently.

About recolors - it's also a bit tricky.
Firstly, the hill is recolorable and multistate (like dirty/clean counters, or lit/unlit lamp shades) - every recolor of it consists of 2 states, grassy and snowy. Thanks to Numenor for providing info on how to make it work so
By default: snowy state is used when there's snow on ground or Seasons not installed, grassy state is used otherwise. You can change this default behavior via Appearance interaction - make the hill you clicked, or all the hills on lot, always grassy or always snowy or seasonal (back to default behavior).
I made 6 recolors - matching default, Bright Burst and Grassy Growth grass terrains, with and without dirt spots. All of them share the same snowy texture, because there's no much difference when the lot is snowed Original Maxis textures were used for these recolors, so that hills blend with Sims hills more-or-less nicely.
If someone wants to add more recolors - feel free to do so (as long as result is free), I'll provide UW maps and more info about recoloring if needed.

About sliding - there's a tricky part here, too I played with this hill alot, you see :D
You can have multiple sims sliding on the same hill - in this case, they are using it in FIFO manner (first in, first out) - slide once, go to the end of line, wait until sims before you slide, slide again, and so on. So leave some space around the hill top for them to wait.
Conditions for interaction are Maxis/EA standard tests for fun objects.
Animation for sitting, sliding, and standing is made by me - many thanks to Wes Howe for AniMesh Criticism is welcome.

Technical details.
Original object was 2x2 sculpture - Chi, if I remember correctly. There's 1 recolorable subset, and 4 graphical states, single-left-right-middle. Single state has the highest count - 112 faces, 98 vertices - that's really low for 5-tile object
Since TXMT names must follow strict naming rules, I used 'clean' suffix for grassy state and 'dirty' for snowy state (yup, somewhat illogical - was too lazy to switch ).
Textures are 1024x1024 for default grass and 512x512 for the rest - sorry for such big textures, but they look too blurry otherwise. They're compressed, though, so package sizes are bearable.
All strings are in English and Russian, if someone would want to see other languages - please help me to translate.

Thanks.
To Wes_H, for AniMesh plugins and listening to my whinings :D
To Peter Jones, for PJSE plugins.
To Numenor, for info on multi-state textures, and explanations how to add custom thumbnail camera.
To everyone who helped me with it, one way or another - it's been a long project so I learned and used alot in it, I may simply forgot to mention, but it doesn't mean I don't value your help :-<

Policy.
Feel free to recolor, but don't use those recolors as donation or pay items, and don't forget to credit me
Ask for my permission/instructions if you want to clone the hill. I'm likely to give permission if result wouldn't be donation or pay.
You may use it in your houses, and include in upload, if they are posted as free items. Please give link to this thread - for bugreporting and possible updates.
Please don't upload it to Exchange.

Polygon Counts:
Slidehill - 112 faces, 98 vertices highest of 4 states.