Hood Building and Stuff

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Hey, peeps. Since so many of you are asking about custom neighborhoods, here and at SimScribes, I feel compelled to say a few things which I hope you’ll find helpful.

First off, as many of you know, Jade’s site Isle of Thyme started the hood-building trend with her wonderful creation of Thyme and her generous sharing of tips and tutorials. Unfortunately, her site has closed, and, as far as I know, her tutorials were never posted anywhere else. I do remember some things here and there which I am willing to share (with credit to Jade for finding them/coming up with them in the first place), but my thoughts and info aren’t nearly as organized as her site was. I’m also working about about 12 different projects right now, so stuff might be sparse for a bit.

Also: I am no expert in building a custom hood. Not at all. I am figuring it out as I go with help from the community and my recollection of Jade’s site. What you might want to do is join SimScribes, since I’ve started a sub-forum there for hood building. That way we can all share information as we come across it or learn from our experimentation. If a forum is just not your cup of tea, no problem. I’ll try to answer your questions as best I can.

Another thing about hood-building — I’ve posted this on SimScribes, and I’ll reiterate it here: give your hood some serious thought before you begin. As Jade mentioned on her site, everyone has a different playing style, and you don’t want to build a huge, intricate hood only to find you don’t enjoy the mechanics of playing it. Figure out what YOU enjoy most about the game, and build that into the design of your hood. An integrated economy might be really cool to play with in theory, but you have to build it first, and that takes a lot of patience, thought, and experimentation. And truth be told, the pondering and testing is half the fun, in my opinion. So mull that over before you embark on a huge project of this kind. That’s the best advice I can give you right now.

Elsewhere in the news…

I’ll be posting my revised Bluewater terrain soon — I just have to take pics so it won’t look like a sad grid in your neighborhood chooser. Also, I’ll be posting a story soon (non-Fran). As for Fran herself, I have most of the pics taken for her update, but it may be awhile before I get the rest taken. Too much going on!

Happy Simming!

Ahanu Bay: A Work in Progress

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So…I’m working on a second neighborhood in addition to Annabel Island. (You know, because I don’t have enough Sims projects going on right now. *weak laugh*)

The nifty thing about this hood, though, is that Fran will end up here eventually — so it’s a Fran project as well as a general hood-building project.

Having two neighborhoods in progress works out nicely for my Sims-related ADD (tm Kay). When I get the urge to play my Victorian Sims, I can visit Annabel Island, and when I want to play modern Sims, I can pop over to Fran and Ahanu Bay.

It’s all Jade’s fault — I am seriously hooked on hood-building! I haven’t gotten very far yet with either hood, but even the preliminary work — the planning, pondering, and downloading helpful mods and objects — is so darned entertaining.

Anyway, I worked on Ahanu Bay a little bit last night and thought I’d share it with you guys. Keep in mind it’s a work in progress, so it’s in the very early stages of development. I’m experimenting with building the hood somewhat organically; that is, I want the hood to grow from the Sims and from gameplay rather than the other way around.

Ahanu Bay
Overview of the hood

I’m using the Bluewater Village terrain, but I’ve redone the roads more to my liking. I wanted to have plenty of room for beachfront property and a little grid for the town proper. You can see my Mediterranean-style town hall in the center of the grid. The rest of the buildings will be placed on the streets surrounding it and along the shoreline.

I probably won’t use much of the rest of the land – I want to keep Ahanu Bay small and manageable. So as with Annabel Island, I’ll fill it up with trees, landmarks, and maybe the occasional “rural” home or business.

More about Ahanu Bay after the jump!

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SimScribes and Other Stuff

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Hullo, folks! A few Real Life things (and at least one computer game which is not the Sims, I’m ashamed to say) have taken over my world lately, so I’m a little behind here. I am slowly working on a Fran update and have about five billion other things I want to work on as well. I’m always working on something, even if I’m quiet here. So stay tuned.

In the meantime, check out the SimScribes forum if you haven’t already, or if you haven’t visited in a long time. Devin is now a co-admin (huzzah!) and has been generating interesting discussion on some of the older threads. Also, we’re trying to spiff up the site, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to post them there! By the way, I am moderating registration over there to keep out spammers, so if you sign up for a membership, drop me an e-mail and let me know your username so I can approve you quickly. :-)

Happy Simming!

Newford: A Victorian Country House for You

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I’ve put another house up on Mod the Sims 2 for you guys to download if you wish — it’s a Victorian country estate that I started building awhile ago and finally finished. Woo! It’s pretty massive so if your computer has trouble with large lots, you might want to abstain from downloading this one. (Or you could download it and have it sitting in your ‘hood just for looks…)

Newford

Click on the link below for more info, a ton of pics, and a link to the MTS2 page where you can download the lot. Have fun!

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Those Crazy Sims

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Hey peeps, sorry for quietness lately. I had to take a break from my Sims just to clear my brain for a bit. It’s good to do something else once in awhile, right?

I did boot up the game briefly to check out the H&M Stuff pack stuff, though! My verdict? Not too shabby! I really like the clothes. And there are enough of them that I won’t run out of new outfits for my Sims anytime soon. Some people seem to have a built-in aversion to H&M stores, but since I’ve never set foot in one, nor had I heard of them until this stuff pack was announced, I’m cool with it.

And just for kicks, here’s a picture that falls under the category of “things you don’t see every day”. Also the category of “Sims are really dumb sometimes”:

Splash!

For the record, she undressed herself and started splashing around in the rain. Didn’t Ricky Martin sing a song about that? Anyway, I had to laugh, because as she was walking back to her house, she was struck by lightning. I shouldn’t have found that so amusing, but I did. That’s what you get for playing in puddles during thunderstorms, you silly Sim!

Credits:
Hair and skintone by Nouk
Underwear by Siluettasims

Free Site of the Month: June

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My free site for this month is Parsimonious. (And since I missed April and May, they are getting three months’ worth of my donation money — they deserve it.)

I can’t say enough good things about this site. Aside from having a ton of great, imaginative downloads, the owners of the site are some of the nicest, most generous people in the Sims 2 community. I had the pleasure of creating houses for them for a short time (before my game went belly up), so I’m probably a little biased, but it was awesome to see how their staff works together to create such a unique and creative site. The whole thing is worth exploring, but here are some of the highlights:

– The huge array of walls and floors (some of which I could not live without in my Victorian homes)
– Kate’s Eponymous Garden (so beautiful and useful!)
– Christine’s lots (so inspiring)
– The “Theme” pages — content sorted by several different time periods and themes
– The Community Finds pages — I have found some great free sites through these pages!

I’m donating to Parsimonious this month because I would hate to see them disappear (and from the sound of it, running that site is quite expensive). I’d also hate to see them start charging for items, but I doubt they’ll go that route. I would love to see them stick around and stay free for everyone.

Also, they just had their 4-year anniversary (and offered 400+ items to celebrate it), so…Happy Anniversary, Parsimonious!