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… :-)
Well, that hair problem is definitely interesting. I’ve never seen that before! If you can’t fix it, you could always write it into the story, “Gnomesby is afflicted with a disease that makes your hair levitate off your head. If you are a victim of this illness, please visit the medical center to discuss your treatment options. At this time, there is no cure for the dreaded Levitating-Hair Disease (LHD), and you are basically doomed to a lifetime of floating hair. Our condolences.” Heehee, see how fun that would be? Hmmm, I’ve just woken up so you’ll have to bear with my silly-ness! Anyhoo, good lookin’ family…can’t wait to see them in action!
I See The Green Sqaure.
The Family sounds Interesting. I Lve how you make up background for them :D it makes it soooo cool.
Green square! :D
Cherish does look realistic-y.. but I LOVE her hair. Where’s it from?
Floating hair aside, the Pell’s are looking good! Hope you can get some of the graphical issues sorted out! :)
This isn’t a solution to your problem, well it could be, but probably isn’t the most desirable one: I had the same creepy black neighbourhood blobs you first had so I just bought a new card and every thing was fixed up quick. Also the floating hair? Are they from Peggy sims perchance? Because if so it’s her meshes that are the problem as I have witnessed this in several forums!
Oh, they’re beautiful! I love Cherish … sorry about the graphics card problem, though. Is it all your hairs or just some? (maybe it’s not graphic card related?)
Hope you geddit fixed! :)
Gemma
Shotsii found the square!!
On the mom’s pant leg near the bottom. I think :P
They are a beautiful family minus the hair levitationalthingie :-P.
I have no idea what to tell you to help you fix that.
Have you created their home yet?
I must be in the minority here, but I really detest the custom facial skins. Love your stories, love your families and the homes and all that, I’ve read all of your previous stuff. But I just think that the facial skins look ugly. I can’t explain it, it’s just something about the colors and the textures that makes it look garish, even more unnatural than the typical animation. I understand your desire to have something different, especially after playing all this time – I certainly could use some variety in my facial structure choices after all these years, but I find the solutions disturbing.
Ha, I really like this family too! That hair problem makes them look really weird ha, by the way I found the green square!!!!! :]
I found it! :) Wow, that LHD (lol Mandie) sure can be a pain…. Hopefully you’ll fix it Jen. I love the whole Hippie lifestyle, and the kids names are absolutely adorable! I wish I could’ve been a hippie. :)
That floating hair is seriously some kinda freaky. Whoa. I’m wondering if it isn’t just the hair… I don’t think I’ve heard of a graphic card causing that kind of issue?
Love the ‘hippie’ family, hehe. Cherish looks like a girl I went to school with, only sans the ‘good’ makeup job.
Cool names! But will you actually paly with the families or just create them to be, for example, the professor, the florist etc. ?
Oh yeah I found the green square! ^_^
Wow. At this point, you must be wondering if your game is cursed. *hugs you* No matter, your sims look amazing as always – and I thought your fellow looked 40ish. He looks good for his age! :-)
@Mandie: “Levitating-Hair Disease (LHD)” LOL! Mandie, you crack me up.
lol i found the green square! i hope you get your computer graphics fixed.
I think I have the same hair problem, I saw it briefly in the mirror some days ago just before my game crashed.. I will try to check again, I suspect its a peggy mesh that has this problem with the female child version.
What a cool family and I can’t wait to see what kind of home a hippie family would build. Cody looks a bit like David Hasselhoff in the lower face area to me, maybe I’m just weird or have Knight Rider on the brain.
I almost missed the green square, but looking for it was fun…a glitch turned into a game. Sunny’s hair is freaky but River looks like he’s holding his in his hand lol
Mandie – I love your description of LHD! Too funny. I’m thinkin’ the medical center could have a whole wing devoted to the care of LHD patients…
Yasmin – Thanks! There’s not much background yet, but having even a little bit of backstory makes it so much more fun.
Audrey – Cherish’s hair is from Shady Sims (it’s a recolor of a mesh by Rose). I love it, too!
winkling – You know what, those hairdos ARE Peggy meshes, so that might explain the floating hair issue. Thanks so much for sharing that info! I need to get out and about the Sims community a bit more… And considering my graphics issues, I am very tempted to buy a new card…but since I just got this one, I hate to spend the money. Ah well. It’s driving me so nuts I might have no choice but to change cards. What kind did you end up buying?
Gemma – I think it’s just the Peggy meshes…:-p
shotsii – The Pells don’t have a home yet…I’m thinking they’ll have a nice artsy fartsy bungalow, but I’m not totally sure yet!
Megan – Thank you very much for your honest feedback. I totally get what you are saying. Like I said, I’m not completely sold on the custom skintones yet. And if I’m bringing Fran and company into town, I might have to ditch the custom skins anyway. Fran just doesn’t look right with one. Plus I finally looked at the toddlers, and they weirded me out a bit. The thing is, I’m getting so used to seeing custom skins everywhere (almost every site I download clothing from uses custom skins on their models), that my Sims look sort of dull and plain without them. But maybe I can find other ways to perk them up. :-)
chloe – Thanks for your feedback! :-)
Josh – Hippies are definitely cool.
Mao – I think you’re right about the hair being the issue. But I keep having other graphics weirdnesses, so I just don’t know what I’m going to do. Darn this game! ;-)
Shaera – I’m not sure how much I’ll actually PLAY the game at this point. As Jade has said, “playing” The Sims 2 is boring. I mean, it was compelling and fun back in 2004-2005, but I really don’t find the life management aspect of the game to be that fun anymore. Sending Sims to the toilet, shower, fridge, job, toilet, shower, bed, etc. is mind-numbingly dull to me. There’s nothing interesting or challenging about it. So I might try “Simprov” (tm Jade) or something similar. I do want to try having stories and possibly an integrated economy. But I’m not sure yet.
Jade – Thanks, Jade! I think my game IS cursed. :-)
Tammy – Thanks, I hope so, too!
ingeli – I think you’re right!
Ann – Ooh, a hippie version of the Hoff would be kinda fun. :-) And yeah, I figure the green glitch game can be kind of like Where’s Waldo? :-p
Jen I bought a Nvidia 7600, because it was on sale at FutureShop about two weeks ago. Installed it myself and felt immensely proud that I have at least +3 mechanical points in my ol’ repertoire.
As for your trouble with custom skintones, have you checked out Oepu’s maxis-like defaults over at ModtheSims2? They are just a modified maxis skintone made a little more real without the glazed-ham effect so many custom skins have. Also, they age really well when you add wrinkles.
Hey Jen!
HAve You got the new expansion pack yet?
its really good :D all the activites are awsome (:
I just had to comment when I saw that you said about not playing anymore. I can’t believe it’s been so long. I can’t think of anyone’s blog I started reading way-back-when (except Bitsy) who still actually plays the game. I still find it entertaining, but I put my own spin on things (but I actually LIKE my sims aging… I had several years with The Sims 1, so yeah, aging off? No thanks!!) to keep it that way.
Sims 3 just seems like it’s going to be a big disappointment, but we’ll see. Buh. I wish I could give you back the wonderment and joy that comes from Simming, but we all lose our interest in games at some point. I’ve played MMOs since I was thirteen and I can’t pay attention to any of them for more than a few months (only EQ and WoW held my attention). Sorry I’m all nostalgic… I was reading old blogs today and it kicked in!
Either way, I hope your game stops being a PITA and lets you build your hood. Maybe it knows you don’t like it anymore and it’s rebelling. ;) Also, Peggy’s meshes can be a bane on humankind. Be very wary!
winkling – LOL, way to go on the Mechanical points. :-) Sounds like you made an excellent purchase. I think if I were to get a new card, I would look into the Radeon ones, just because I’ve had so much trouble with Nvidia. :-P And thanks for the tip on Oepu’s skins! I’ll have to check those out. (chuckling about the “glazed-ham” comment…too true)
Yasmin – Yep, I got Free Time! Now I just need more free time so I can actually play Free Time. Har har. Seriously, though, I did play for a little while and checked out the new objects. Very neat stuff.
Mao – I really like my Sims aging, too, but I want it to be slower, I think. So I’ll just have to age them at my own rate. ;-) I know what you mean about losing interest in games. It’s too bad we go in phases like that. Good thing they’re always coming out with new games! I don’t even play LOTRO much anymore because I’ve been into my Simming again. I was having that creative urge! I also get nostalgic for the early days of TS2. I remember when my legacy family was an insane amount of fun, because the game was so NEW. Now just playing Free Time for an hour has me yawning. ;-) (Even though the new stuff is really really cool…but I still had to make my Simmie go to the toilet and eat scads of lunchmeat sandwiches! BLEH!)
Just chiming in, here…
I agree with Jen about aging – it is such an important part of the game! BUT, I want my simmies to age at the rate *I* say so, (or more specifically my Anul Calendar says so, and not at an arbitrary Maxian formulaic rate.
I have not got FT yet, though I did pre-order the Prima guide. I was so burned with BV really messing things up and the securom fiasco that I have finally learned my lesson – I will wait until hacks and such are updated before taking the plunge. There are several new objects and features that I will be using in Thyme.
Also, Circuit City always has a really good sale on EPs a few weeks after they come out. ;-)
Oh, yes, I haven’t let my sims age ‘normally’ (outside of a challenge) for about a year now. The wonder of InSim… but there’s some hacks out there that extend the lifespan for adults, too. But, like Jade said, I prefer to control it. Though mine is more the fickle reason of some sims just need to live a little longer than others. ;)