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Needs Coffee
retired moderator
Original Poster
#26 Old 7th Apr 2016 at 11:41 PM
Thought I'd let people know the BlackieZoo Aquarium pieces all have huge footprints even the single fish, almost/as large as a car. Yes I know they can be changed but I really have enough pieces without using that set anyway. Just thought I would warn anyone else looking. The Savage set, Windkeepers set and Veranka's all come with a footprint of one or two squares.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
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Mad Poster
#27 Old 13th Apr 2016 at 11:59 PM
Did you still need turtles?

I couldn't find the huge ones, but you might be able to get away with the green ones here,

http://www.theninthwavesims.com/201...-mesh-plus.html

And isn't it the way? You've built lots, you want a break from doing it, you figure you can relax and download a pre-made, and you can't find a lot to download that fits into your hood. Or worse ... you find the lot and the link doesn't work. It's almost like it's taunting you.

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
Original Poster
#28 Old 14th Apr 2016 at 1:11 AM
Thanks gazania, I don't have that one, they look cute. Yes I have had that before and ended up building a lot and uploading it here, such as my knight barrack dorm. Really though I am more of a player and don't always feel like building.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#29 Old 28th Apr 2016 at 9:35 PM Last edited by gazania : 29th Apr 2016 at 9:02 AM.
I suppose you didn't upload an aquarium?

(Looks hopefully.)

Looks like I might be trying my hand at one as well. Thanks for the tips! Ugh ... I haven't tried a full-height aquarium yet, but I suppose there's always a first time! (Though downloading that SavageSims lot and being done with it does sound tempting.)

There are these lovely tanks as well. These go with the aquawall, so that could work.

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=558887

There are no NPCs among those aquarium goodies, right? The shark isn't based on the RC car, or something freaky like that?

Note: This site might be having a pop-up issue. I'd use Firefox with NoScript, just in case. I noticed them while using Chrome, even with AdBlock, though adding Poper Blocker seemed to do the trick for now. They're old-fashioned in the not-very-good way ... animated, persistent and annoying.

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
Original Poster
#30 Old 28th Apr 2016 at 10:03 PM
No sorry. :/ My next lots to go up will be from the Monopoly contest, a small apartment, a science centre and a hotel. I took the best lot from what had been posted and tweaked it. That lot had been CFE's to have a window into the pool.

Talking of hotels have you ever tested one using an archway instead of a front door? I had that as a suggestion on creator feedback to make it look more Mediterranean. Not sure how housekeeping would take to that. Have a nervous breakdown I should think.

Those are rather nice, thanks gazania.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#31 Old 28th Apr 2016 at 11:21 PM
I haven't done archways. Sorry. I tend to stick with Three Lakes.

However, I know Maxis has a hotel with them, and I don't recall any trouble. I think the main thing is to use two double archways/doors, rather than single ones, so as not to irritate Freezy. Not that Freezy needs much to be irritated.

I've already backed up my game, just in case those sharks and dolphins are based on the remote-control car, or have lasers on top of their head or something. The SavageSims aquarium is really nice, but just isn't doing it for me. I know what I'd like, but I still have much to learn about building. I tried the sneaky way with Chickadeelee (searched to see if someone provided the link somewhere else), and was foaming at the mouth with excitement when I saw that someone based THEIR aquarium on the original, but alas, no download link. Teaser.

I've managed to remember what e-mail address I used for Blacky's Sims Zoo, reset my password, and have searched back to 2011. Wherever those fish are located, they must be WAAAY back there. I'm a little under the weather and am taking a nap shortly, so I'll look later. But those SavageSims ones, the pretty wall aquariums and the turtles (gotta have turtles!) might be enough. This won't be that large an aquarium! I have a frog somewhere in my downloads as well, but only the one frog. I wouldn't put it with the turtles. Our family did that in real life. It wasn't pretty.

I've been looking at aquarium floor plans. This might be a little more than I can chew, though. I barely managed saltbox, Dutch colonial, early Federalist and whatever building style my Owl Beach Audubon society building is. This is going to be a much larger project.

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
Original Poster
#32 Old 29th Apr 2016 at 12:49 AM
I came across that teaser aquarium when I was hunting for the original link. *sigh*

This would be archways instead of doors. I don't know how that would look it was just a suggestion to make my hotel look more Mediterranean. It might look weird.

As far as I know all the fish etc are deco statues. There is a moving dolphin and shark, by Rebekah perhaps? The moving one would be an npc.

I have the Savage sims and Windkeepers ones. I wont keep them all since my download folder is already too large. All the fish based on what could be a car (huge footprint) will be going.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#33 Old 29th Apr 2016 at 3:21 AM
Egads ... the shark is THAT big?

Well .... the aquarium could just have fish native to my hood. And sharks and dolphins just won't be native.

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
Original Poster
#34 Old 29th Apr 2016 at 4:55 AM
I can't recall which fish/animals were that big, the actual creatures were not all that big but the foot print was, which is why I am guessing they were cloned off a car or something else really large. The pool table might be another.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#35 Old 29th Apr 2016 at 7:29 AM Last edited by gazania : 2nd May 2016 at 6:42 PM.
Y'know, the more I'm thinking about this, the more I'm not wanting to do this. To get a proper aquarium going, you'd need lots of fish and aquatic mammals, and now it seems a good chunk of the showcase fish/mammals might be NPCs or a just-plain-large file. No wonder there aren't too many aquarium lots around!

I did find the Blacky Sims fish, though. There are some really nice ones! However, the size of the folder with even the smaller sample of fish/aquatic mammals in there is fairly large at three and a half GBs (sans the whales). And if you stick in the Savage Sims stuff, even with compressorizing, the folder is going to be huge. Even the wall aquariums here are a little hefty (though they are really strikingly pretty, so I'm keeping those). I can see why Chikadeelee's CC list was so long.

I might go back to the idea of a Children's Museum/kids play place. I could still have some fish, but also other things to do as well. My kids have been to a few of these in real life. One can still have exotic fish ... just not as many of them! And I can use many of the items I have already in my Downloads and Maxis items ... swings, slide, a climbing wall, mini-trampoline, sand area for sand castles, those wall-aquarium fish, etc. Toss in a few of the other fish, if I like, and if I know they're not NPCs ... don't have to toss in that many. Stick in turtles. I can even stick in some of the other items I have, such as the mini easels and pottery wheels and Sunni's chickens, geese and ducks.

I did download these crabs, though:

http://www.theninthwavesims.com/201...bv-crab-as.html

They might be useful for a display, and they're absolutely decorative. Decorative is what I want, unless the creatures are directly based off the Maxis aquarium fish.

(Again, I'd use Firefox to view and download. I'm getting pop-up issues on that site. PoperBlocker on Chrome seems to fend them off for now, but Mediafire has gotten around Poper in the past more than NoScript.)

Perhaps someone with Downloads space to spare and the patience and skill for a creative aquarium building can tackle this ... one day.

P. S. I have glasses, but I guess I need a stronger prescription. Apparently, I missed MOOKIEBLAYLOCK's link for the Blacky's aquarium. That isn't bad, either, but unless I know for sure which fish/aquatic mammals are non-NPCs, I'd rather not take the chance. I committed myself enough with the bumper cars, thanks!

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Mad Poster
#36 Old 30th Apr 2016 at 6:11 PM Last edited by gazania : 2nd May 2016 at 6:40 PM.
FYI, though I suppose I am one of two people here who didn't know this (and the other person is smart enough to not say anything!), if there are any new players who want to do at least a mini-aquarium, the shark in the Windkeeper aquarium set, the manta ray, turtle and octopus in the Savage Sims set, and as far as I know, all the smaller fish in both sets are decorative. If you're a lot builder, this is often desirable. While moving animals look really, really nice, many are custom NPCs. No, that's not a bad thing. NPC animals can add a nice touch to a game. But it's a commitment. You can't just yank these out if you don't want them. For this reason, I and others prefer stationary animals most of the time. Not as pretty, but if I see a better-looking toad, I can simply take out the old one with no trouble.

I have no idea whether the larger fish and aquatic mammals in the Savage SIms set, the shark in Windkeeper's shark lagoon, or any of the Blacky SIms stuff that ISN'T marked as decorative are NPCs or not. Some might be, as joandsarah79 cautioned. I do know several of Rebecah's animals are custom NPCs. Back up your game if you're going to give these particular animals a try, just in case you really don't like them, or your Downloads folder is getting a little too hefty. MOOKIEBLAYLOCK, perhaps, can further elaborate on the Blacky's Sims stuff. I have to admit that some of it really does look nice.

But I am liking the Windkeeper basic set and the stuff I'm using from Savage Sims so far. Thanks for the tips! My kids (and adults ... I used to like playing with certain exhibits in real life myself along with my kids!) should have a fine Children's Museum to roam! I think my problem is not that I won't have enough, but thanks to the great custom content creators out there, I'll have way too much! Not that I'm complaining at all, mind you.

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Inventor
#37 Old 2nd May 2016 at 2:41 AM
@ gazania, sounds very promising, that's great! If you end up making an aquarium , or anything of that ilk, I'd love a link. Thanks! All of the stuff referred to from Savage Sims, Windkeeper and Blacky's Sims Zoo is purely decorative and will not create an NPC. They still can cause some potential dangers though



Cue the music from Jaws

Shotgunning bland cucumbers since 1974
Mad Poster
#38 Old 2nd May 2016 at 4:23 PM Last edited by gazania : 7th May 2016 at 4:56 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by MOOKIEBLAYLOCK
@ gazania, sounds very promising, that's great! If you end up making an aquarium , or anything of that ilk, I'd love a link. Thanks! All of the stuff referred to from Savage Sims, Windkeeper and Blacky's Sims Zoo is purely decorative and will not create an NPC. They still can cause some potential dangers though



Cue the music from Jaws


Thank you so much for your answer!

I'm working on more of a Children's Museum than an aquarium, and it's very boxy. Not download-worthy at all. But it kind of has to be boxy to get everything in there. The challenge for me now is that I must choose which exhibits I want. I want several hands-on exhibits (well, obviously octopus-petting would not be recommended!), and I hope to stick some aquatic life in there somewhere as part of a small "water creatures in Owl Beach" exhibit. (Owl Beach is the name of my favorite subhood, and the only custom non-test one I currently have.) I'll have a food stand outside. (I was going to have a souvenir shop, but there is so much to put into this building that it will have to go elsewhere. I didn't know I had this much CC that I could use!) . And because I like punishing myself, I'm using a beach lot that I've flattened. I'm hoping that flattening it will give me a little more leeway to build; otherwise, it will be crash time and I'll have to move the lot and futz with the current terrain to make it less square (I can kind of get away with a squared look if I'm making a lot, but it will look odd otherwise.)

I also want adults to be able to participate in some of the exhibits. Why should kids have all the fun? (Updated: I've pretty much completed both floors, except I lost a couple of fish somewhere. Where on earth is that catfish? I just SAW that thing in my downloads! I wish there was some sort of CC search feature in-game.) Most animals will be decorative except for Sunni's birds, which are definitely not NPCs. I also put the pirate ship in the back. I like the advice one sage person gave me ... if I'm that worried about the Captain, just don't go into the cabin! )

I see what joandsarah77 means, though ... those Blacky's animals do have a HUGE footprint. The one for the size of one of the smaller fish is indeed the size of a small car. I think I used just one or two of those with the help of move_objects.

Finally. I've done a playable version of it (though I will probably revise like mad once I've played it), put in the petting zoo, a couple of dinosaur sculptures in the back because just about every children's museum I've seen seems to have something about dinosaurs, and usually has a model or two if it has an outdoor area, the tropical food stand, an ice cream stand. This will either be something I'll use in every hood with a beach area from now on, or such a massive crashy flop that it will serve as a reminder of my folly for years to come. Honestly, I don't know which one it will be!

So ... holding breath ... will four days of work go up in a resounding crash? (Answer: No. It didn't!)

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
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