OK, so I’ve decided to go in a slightly different direction with Gnomesby. Again. ;-) Big surprise, right? ‘Hood evolution in action!

I’ve completely redone the terrain, which took me several hours but was well worth it. It’s less scenic, perhaps, but it’s more like the slightly rolling farmland I had originally envisioned. I’m using a couple of mods which will give it a completely different look, and I’ve integrated the new railroad deco from Free Time into the hood. Woot! As soon as I saw it, I knew I HAD to work it into Gnomesby. So here’s a little sneak preview pic of my choo choo train. ;-)

(The tunnel is totally fake, by the way — I painted it in. My barn/billboard/torii gate tunnel opening didn’t look very much like an opening, I’m afraid. I need to learn how to retexture…)

So there you go. Just a little sampling of the new and improved Gnomesby.

For those of you asking about when I’m going to update or give tours and such, all I can say is…I’m not sure. I don’t mean to be mysterious, but I really don’t want to make any promises about anything. That’s what got me burned out with Mt. Geneva! So I’m trying to go at my own pace and work on whatever I feel like working on. I know that’ll drive some people nuts, but it’s what I need to do in order to keep my sanity and continue to update this site. I hope you understand, and I thank you for your patience. :-)

Hm, another Stone Temple Pilots song. I need to rotate some new music into my playlist. ;-)

I created a new family tonight — the Pells. I had some issues, though, as you’ll see — so I only have a couple of pictures.

Here’s the dad of the family, Cody Pell. With the custom skins I’m using, it’s harder to make my Sims look middle-aged. Everyone looks so young and dewy-skinned. In an attempt to make Cody look like someone in his 40s as opposed to his 20s, I used Onah’s eye wrinkles and a “late adult” full face make-up from Mermaid Cove (which basically adds some laugh lines and slight bags under the eyes). He still looks a bit too young, but oh well. Perhaps the waters in Gnomesby have magical youth-extending properties…

I’m still working out a backstory for this family, but I have a few basics. Cody used to be in a Beach Boys-esque surf band and is now a music teacher. Or possibly a florist. I haven’t decided yet. He’s married to Maureen, who photographed the band a few times back in their heyday. She’s a bit new agey now and has started her own business (she’s going to sell potions, perfumes, and aromatherapy stuff). Maureen and Cody gave all of their kids hippie-ish names: River, Cherish, and Sunshine.

This is their middle child, Cherish. I really like how she turned out, but I think I may have crossed the line into “too realistic” territory.

Cherish is rebelling against her parents’ hippie lifestyle by gothing it up. But she has to admit the whole mantra of “make love, not war” has a certain appeal (I rolled her as a Romance Sim, heehee).

I wanted to take pics of the rest of the family, but as you can see from the snapshot below, they were having issues; River’s and Sunny’s hairdos have detached completely from their heads.

Not even a trip to the mirror could fix them. I suspect my graphics card was acting up again. Oh, and can you find the green square??

I think I may try rolling back to another graphics driver, but since I have an Nvidia card, I’m wary of bluescreen o’ death problems. It never ends… :-)

OK, since I can never think of good titles for my posts, I decided to go with whatever song happened to be playing in my iTunes. In this case, it was “Big Empty” by Stone Temple Pilots. Somewhat fitting, since my hood is big and, well, pretty much empty.

Some good news: my Snag-It is working again, and I didn’t have to re-purchase it. Woot! I just had them re-send me my key via e-mail. Easy peasy. So I got all worried about it for nothing. :-p

I spent most of this afternoon tweaking my Gnomesby terrain and having a heck of a time with it. I swear I spent three hours just trying to get my bridge to look right. (It’s flat now, thanks to the Bridge Height Mod for SimCity 4. Yay!) I also smoothed some of the peaks since I didn’t really want Gnomesby to be mountainous, just hilly. Another thing I wanted was the ability to put some beach lots in my “campground” area, so I worked on that and finally had some success. And I added/rearranged some roads. Here is the result:

I added some trees and rocks for flavor but I don’t know how much of it will stick around. We shall see.

You may notice a lone lot near the center of the pic — it’s the first house in Gnomesby! Yep, once I got the terrain set up to my satisfaction, I plunged into building a home for the Cliffes. It’s a little fancy for a young college professor, but as he’s also a writer, maybe he got lucky and penned a bestseller. I mean, he does have a cat named Lucky, so anything could happen, right?

I haven’t finished decorating the inside yet, since I ran into some CC that is crashing my game. Wheee. So now I’m moving things out bit by bit in order to find the culprit. I did do a little work in the dining room, however, so here’s a preview:

So Gnomesby is finally taking off!

One more thing — I’m working on a Credits page as well. Until that’s up and running, feel free to ask me where I got stuff. I haven’t posted many pics yet, so it shouldn’t be too hard for me to track things down.

I apologize for the quietness lately. I’ve been working on Gnomesby, but very slowly and tentatively, because I’m not sure what I want to do with it. I still have a bazillion ideas — the problem is narrowing them down into something manageable. I want Gnomesby to be interesting and original, but I also want it to make sense. That means I can’t mix Victorian dresses with ’57 Chevies and gothic hairdos. The result might be mildly intriguing, sure, but it would be a little on the ridiculous side, too. This miniature world I’m creating has to have some kind of internal logic, or it’ll turn into one huge mess.

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Huzzah! I think I finally have a decent terrain.

I may still have a little tweaking to do (such as smoothing some of the pointy peaks), but I’m happy with how it turned out. I wanted hills and valleys, a bridge, rivers and beach lots, room for farmland, and some “out in the boonies” roads for the campground and some secluded cabins, and I managed to fit all of it in. Woot!

And thanks to Jade, my neighborhood deco is showing up from within lot view! She recommended I create a userStartup.cheat file and add “boolProp dontMergeNHFlora false” to it. That worked beautifully. More info on what the blazes a userStartup.cheat file is and what you can do with it here and here.

I am really happy about the bridge; I’ve never gotten one to show up in a terrain before. It looks a little funny in lot view (the road just goes up and disappears into nowhere), but I like its appearance in neighborhood view. I added some deco just for fun, but I’m sure I’ll be rerarranging it and/or adding more as I go on.

Now I just need to figure out the graphics glitches. They’re minor, but they bug me to no end. What can I say? I’m picky as heck. :-) The first one is weird shadows showing up in neighborhood view. You can see them in my first shot up above. See how some spots on the terrain are like dark little blobs? I have no idea what is causing that.

Secondly, I have what I call the “green square” problem. They show up on textures and skintones, mainly. (They also appear on certain textures in my Lord of the Rings Online game, so it’s not just The Sims 2.) Here’s an example:

See how Maury’s and Elvis’s pants have green squares on them, right around the, erm, private area? Heh. Anyway, it’s not a gamebreaking glitch by any means, but having random green squares show up in my pictures is going to drive me batty. :-p

I’ve tried the new Nvidia driver, but that didn’t help. I’m going to keep researching and hope for a solution. Until then, you guys can play “hunt the green square” with my pics!

I’m antsy to start building, but I keep running into snags. I still can’t figure out my weird textures glitch (which doesn’t hurt gameplay but will keep my pics from looking pretty), and the neighborhood deco isn’t behaving as I hoped it would. :-(  I wanted Gnomesby to be nestled in a valley with forested hills surrounding it, but the trees aren’t showing up from lot view. Well, they do, but only within a small radius. I could swear they were showing up from farther away on my old computer, which had a lesser graphics card. So why the heck won’t they show up on my new computer, which has a supposedly awesome graphics card? Did I spend a crapload of money for nothing? Sigh.

I considered going back to my old computer for this project, but that’s just silly. My pics would look nice, but I’d barely be able to play the darned game. So I am choosing gameplay over aesthetics. Which pains me, it really does. I like pretty pictures. But I’m spinning my wheels over this stuff. Time to move on and just start building the town, which is the part I’m really excited about.

So…posting some pictures soon. I’m this close to finishing up my terrain. Just gotta smooth out a few rough edges.

I’m having some weird graphics issues with my new computer, so until I get that figured out, I won’t have any pics to share with you guys. I’m sorry about that. A Sims blog is only as good as its pictures! And this one doesn’t have ANY. Heh. But I thought I’d let you know how Gnomesby is progressing anyway.

If you’re curious, read on…

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Right now Gnomesby is just a blank plot of land in my Sim City 4 game. Eventually it will become a full-fledged Sims 2 neighborhood. As I attempt to build my ultimate town, I’ll post my progress here for whomever digs that kind of thing. That’s right — you will be able to watch Gnomesby grow and evolve…kinda like a Chia Pet.

I have a truckload of ideas floating around in my noggin, but I’m NOT etching anything in stone…except for this: I want to have FUN. If that means I have to scrap and restart the whole hood eleventy times in five months because I’m not having a good time, then so be it.

One more thing: Gnomesby, both the site and the town, are influenced and inspired by the very talented Jade, creator of the Isle of Thyme, my favorite Sims 2 ‘hood. I want to thank her for her patience, friendship, and sage advice. She has told me time and time again to just have fun with my ‘hood-building and not overthink myself into inaction, and by golly, I’m going to give it my best shot.