Date Posted: 12th Sep 2009 at 3:54 AM

So... courtesy of watching copious amounts of Mad Men (hence my current and somewhat ridiculous avatar), I've been in kind of a retro mood lately. I realized that there wasn't much in the way of retro furniture available for TS3, however, soooooooo... I decided to fix that. Here's what I've been working on:



I still have a ways to go before I can call this set finished... so for now, this is just a preview. I need to make the painting less shiny, fix a small section of the armchair that is mysteriously invisible (I cleverly rotated the chair so you that can't see it), make the TV set fully functional, and add a few decorative knick-knacky type items. And I'm sure there are plenty of other things I'll think of along the way as well.

This set is perfect for adding a little retro flair to your sims' homes... and would probably work well with some grungy recolors for your Fallout sims too.

Date Posted: 29th Sep 2008 at 7:29 PM

So.... there is this lovely house I found once called an Eclectic Victorian, and naturally I tried to build it for the Sims. That was four or so years ago, and then I tried it again more recently when custom content and build options had expanded for the game.

And now, I'm trying my hand at it one more time. It's going to require quite a bit of custom content to look right, and unfortunately I'll probably have to make most of it myself. I've already meshed a few of the pieces that I'll need, but it's a slow process... hopefully I'll at least have it finished before TS3 comes out.

This is the architectural sketch I'm using as my inspiration:



It's a very ornate house (as you can probably tell from the picture), which would most likely explain why I was drawn to it. Me and my big ideas...

Anyway, that's about it... wish me luck, I guess. The new building ornaments that came with AL are going to make this a lot less painful, but it's still going to be challenging.

Date Posted: 16th Sep 2008 at 10:41 PM

I was going to call it builder's block, but that sounded a bit too punny.

Anyway... I think the title says it all. I'm at a bit of a loss right now, and I can't seem to get my creative juices flowing. I have a large-ish project planned, but it requires some objects from AL as bases and I can't really do a whole lot about that until SimPE is updated.

In the meantime, I'd like to create something--or, rather, build something. I'm not really sure what to build, though, or where to start. If worst comes to worst, I'll just restart my "Normal Houses" series, which I've been meaning to do for some time anyway. But if that fails, well... I'm asking for suggestions. NOT REQUESTS, but suggestions. Just... ideas. You know, to give me a friendly push in the right direction.

So if anyone has any ideas (not requests!!) for me, then I'm all ears and would very much appreciate it.

Date Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 at 6:03 AM

So... I know this is a bit late considering that she posted this several weeks ago, but... V1ND1CARE's retirement announcement has me thinking about the current state of things: What exactly is going to happen when the next Sims game comes out?

The Sims community (MTS2 and S2C especially, but lots of other sites as well) has been sort of a surrogate home for a lot of people over the past four years. I know I've forged a lot of friendships and done a lot of growing in my time here, and I'm sure a lot of other people can say the same.

But what happens now?

Are creators planning on moving on into the next generation of simming, or is this the end of the line? I know there isn't going to be a MTS3, and I really can't blame Delphy for not wanting to create a sequel to MTS2. Running a site of this magnitude must be an incredible amount of work, and surely it must lose its appeal after a point.

But even without MTS3, will the community still exist the way it does now? I feel like MTS2 reinvented the art of Sims creating, at least to some extent. I know there are other sites that include both community and creation aspects, but none has achieved quite the same level of harmony and balance as MTS2. There have been plenty of bumps and bruises along the way, but what other site can honestly claim that its community is this tight-knit? And yeah, I know there's been talk about cliques and "secret inner circles" and whatnot, but those are just unfortunate side-effects that go along with people forging friendships. They're certainly not unique to MTS2, at any rate.

Anyway... I'm kind of rambling now, and I'm not sure if this post is following any sort logical train of thought, so I should probably begin wrapping it up. Basically, the point that I'm trying to make is... well... that I'm going to miss you guys. I'm going to miss this site, and all of its creations, and all of the fabulously talented people who made those creations possible. I'm going to miss logging in and getting that little surge of excitement whenever I have a new PM, I'm going to miss checking the downloads page for new gems everyday, and I'm going to miss the nerve-wracking experience of preparing something for the upload process.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a bit of a sentimentalist. I get attached to things rather easily, and I have a hard time dealing with the changes that they go through. And I suppose that "change" is a bit of an understatement here, because it's more of a fading process than a change. I know that sounds bleak, but that's just the way things are.

I know it may seem like I'm posting this a year earlier than I should be, but V1ND1CARE's journal entry sort of set off a few alarms in my head. Some people are already starting to get tired of creating and are happy to just retire quietly now, while others are going to keep on creating stubbornly until the bitter end. There's nothing wrong with either option, or any of the options in between--I just wanted to post this now before I missed my opportunity and too many people had moved on.

I guess... let's just see where the future takes us. And please... to all of those wonderful people that I've encountered through the Sims: don't lose touch! Regardless of whether or not you're going to stay involved with the Sims, you will undoubtedly be missed by many of the people whose paths you've crossed.



Ok, I'm done now. :P

PS - I have roughly 8 zillion projects sitting on the back-burner right now, and I still have yet to purchase Free Time... so hopefully this summer will see lots of uploads on my part.

Date Posted: 28th Apr 2008 at 8:05 AM

I'm not sure if anyone actually remembers me trying to do it the first time around, but... I've finally figured it out. I have successfully made a big fancy globe for the Sims, and the map of the world that's on the globe doesn't look all stretched out and distorted. The entire thing is like 95% textured right now, and will hopefully be part of a set of items that I will release at some unknown point in the future.

And until then....

Shameless self-advertising!

EDIT:

So, I took a few pictures of the globe this afternoon, and I was hoping that maybe (on the off chance that someone actually reads this :P) would mind giving me a little feedback. I know we have a feedback forum, but... well, this is just one dinky little item, and I didn't want to start a new thread just for that.

Front:



Back-ish:



I'm pretty happy with how the globe itself turned out, but I'm not so sure about the legs, or the brass ring going around the globe. So if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears! Oh, and also... I realize that the globe currently doesn't have a shadow... I'm working on that.

Date Posted: 1st Oct 2007 at 2:41 AM

WHOOOO, I have access to the Sims again! I have everything up to (but not including) Seasons, and I'll be installing all of them soon. I'll get Seasons back as soon as I can, and then I'll run out and buy Bon Voyage as well. And then I'll be totally up to speed! Now hopefully they won't end the Old Hollywood competition before I'm finished getting back in the swing of things, because I have something glorious planned. Such glory indeed...

So just bear with me. But don't bare with me, because you're probably not as good looking as you think, and no one wants to see you naked.




I hope you all enjoyed my bad pun. Cuz I sure did.

Date Posted: 25th Sep 2007 at 4:37 PM

Ok. I really haven't forgotten about the Sims, I promise. I've just been very busy lately, and I haven't installed the game on my new computer yet (and I won't have access to my old one for a while). But I really do have all kinds of stuff I want to work on, like that Real Houses series I was doing and that silly set of objects I started during a fit of insanity. So... yeah. I really will start again! I have plans for trying to make something for the Old Hollywood contest, so we'll see how that turns out.

In the meantime, please amuse yourselves with this lymerick I wrote after someone sent me a plagiarized love poem:

There once was a dame from Darjheeling
Who sought to express her true feeling
But her poem was took
From a poetry book
And I suppose that you might call it stealing.


For the record, I find myself very entertaining.

PS I don't have a secret admirer who is also a literary thief, just a goofball friend who was too lazy to write her own poetry. :D

Date Posted: 11th Sep 2007 at 7:44 AM

Ok... I know I was all excited and stuff about that cabinet that I made, but... I'm not sure whether or not I'll ever actually upload it. However, I am currently working on a set of objects that I have every intention of uploadingin the forseeable future.

The set I'm working on is a collection of furniture and such that might have appeared in an old fashioned study. I was going to keep the whole thing a secret, but... I finished what'll probably be the masterpiece of the set, and I really really really wanted to show it off. Also, since only like .07 people read this, I won't really be ruining the surprise, now will I? :D

Anyway, here goes:



It's called an armillary, and... well, I'm honestly not sure what it's supposed to do, but it sure looks spiffy. I've always found these things fascinating, and I've never seen one created for the Sims before, so I thought I'd give it a go. This was originally supposed to be a globe, but I discovered the hard way that it's insanely difficult to get the textures right on a globe, so... I started from scratch and made this.

Date Posted: 7th Sep 2007 at 11:34 PM

Ok, after a little bit of texturing (and by "a little" I mean 2 days of trying to figure out how in the world UVMapper works and a crash course in mipmaps from HP), I've come up with this:



Still far from perfect (notice how the two woods kind of... merge with each other at the front), but I think I'm on the right track so far.



Also, I just realized that the cabinet doors don't have hinges.

Date Posted: 5th Sep 2007 at 10:34 PM

Yes... I've started learning how to mesh. It's kind of exciting, but I'm not sure whether or not I'll actually be able to make anything worthwhile. I guess we'll see. If I just continue to upload houses, you'll know that things didn't work out.

Wish me luck...


EDIT:

Ok... so, I've been working at it all day, and this is what I've come up with so far:




And this is what it's based off of:



The legs clearly need to be reshaped, but other than that... how do you guys think it's coming along?

PS Why did I pick something so... um shapely for my first meshing attempt? There must be something wrong with me...

EDIT: (Even more)

I fixed the legs and the top of the cabinet... so now it looks much more like it should.



And, judging by the bottom of the mesh, I'm a bit of a table leg thief... don't judge me! I only took *one* leg... and I had to mirror it and stuff for it to work...