Contest Entry (what else do I blog about?)

So yeah, contest entry. Sweet action Tire Swing. This is the first time you get spoilers, meh. Echo and Tig have been LOADs of help, Echo made the original package, and helped me with some of the beginning stuff, and Tig helped with the animation, thats right, 'Tiggerypum-Animation'. It took us far too long to realize that yes, it won't move if its not assigned to bones... I was hoping to be able to create brand spanking new custom animations for it, cuz right now they just kinda melt into and out of the tire when they want to get in or out, but from a rather lengthy explanation by Wes_h, its not looking so good, but I'm still gonna try!

I'm hungry,...brb sandwhich.

Fairytale Contest

I got started early with my idea, and then school knocked me back quite a bit. I'm starting to think I might not have enough time to finish my project. I need to make 52 outfits, I've got three done. About half of them require at least some mesh work. Then I've still got alot of other work and problem solving yet.

On the school front, the quarter is starting to come to a close, meaning all the teachers are trying to get in as many more projects as possible. For Monday I need to have 5 shaded geometric shapes, and 3 photos and at least 3 sketches of clay geometric shapes, which I have to redo, most of the class made them wrong, teacher was vague. Then there is also the Final Project to worry about. No idea what else is getting assigned between now and then. In my other class I have to get my saturation project mounted, do the optical project, redo the contrast project, and continue on the leaf project. Luckily the leaf project is also the Final project. Oh, and document everything in my journal. Ok, 2am? Time to go to bed!

Finished my Shirley Temple and Hair Tutorial

I barely squeaked in under the wire, but I finished my contest entry mostly on time. I made Shirley Temple. Go check her out! While making her hair I was getting increasingly fed up at the lack of any full-blown hair tutorials, so I decided to write my own. Go check that out too.

EEEK!!!! EXCEPTIONAL!?!?!?

omgomgomgomgomg!!! My contest entry made the short list for the vote!!!! I'm so excited and freaked!!!! ahhh! I don't think I'll be able to concentrate on anything else while the poll is still up! I still can barely believe I got this far!

Edit: IT MADE IT! My Parthenon was voted as EXCEPTIONAL!!!! {-can't-breath-}

Slave Objects, I think I'm going to cry.

I remeshed my columns for my contest entry. Now I want them to link together. I've been trying and trying and trying to get them to connect. But I am just thwarted at each turn!

I have a single story column as my repository. I have a 2 story that I need to link to it. Currently, I've recolored its original master to achieve the desired effect because it is still linked to that one. NO MATTER WHAT I DO. I also have various other 'broken' column pieces that were cloned from another completely free column. Remeshed those and I want to link them to the original 1 story version. Those don't work AT ALL. I don't know WHERE they are getting their texture from currently, happily though, it looks fine. When I try to connect them to repository object one of two things happens. Either the game loads and they appear flashing blue in the neighborhood (haven't chanced going farther than that) or they crash my game entirely.

I don't know what to do anymore.

milkshape....very spiteful program indeed

Ok, so I've figured out the basics of editing an existing mesh, and I ran with it. Good, cool, peachy keen. Then I run into this problem. I can't FOR THE LIFE OF ME make the face look halfway decent, or even human for that matter. Everything else is working out beautifully, but it won't mean crap if I can't get the face to look right because thats always the most looked at and important part of anything. Case in point, no one would download a sim with a gorgous body but an ugly face. Just ain't happening. I'm thinking there are similar quality standards for statues with faces too. ARG!

ok, thanks for rant, back to task

-Later (saturday, 1:45am)

Ok, I've figured out the program, and I stole meshes from other maxis objects to make the face. Now it looks KICK A$$. I was really confused with the UVmap, but I eventually stuck with it and figured it all out. It looks decent enough now, atleast for my first ever mesh. However, bad news, SimPE states the face count at 'way too many' that can't be good. I loaded up my game and (though not in play mode) looked around at it and such, it didn't seem to slow my game down, and I sim on a laptop. Granted, its a good laptop bought for doing design work (hey thats like meshing and viewing in game!) but its still a laptop and my video card isn't as fastasmic as I'd like it to be. Anyway, this means I'm almost done with my contest entry! You'll see it soon, I promise!

OMG LEARNING HOW TO MESH EDIT!! and a rant about radio talk shows

Ok, so I was getting annoyed with how a key part of my contest entry was looking, so I downloaded that trial version of Milkshape and started deleting things I didn't like. I was only half following the tutorial, cuz I was pretty sure it wouldn't work right anyways, but when I loaded it into the game, I was like HOLY CRAP IT WORKED!!! cuz well, it worked. Then I started looking at other bits I could tweak here and there, and now I've been at this all day and its starting to look alot like my source picture!!!! I'm getting really excited about it. However, I'm not really liking the Milkshape program, I'm going to look into getting a copy of 3D Studio, I used it in highschool, but its been a while.

But anyways, back to topic, IT WORKS!!! Ok, small victory, but you have to start somewhere, right? Ttyl, I'm going to go back to work on it now. And as a side note, whoever came up with the idea of radio talk shows on regular channels needs to be shot. I want my music back. GAH, this is worse. Now they are playing music in the background that kinda relates to their problems BUT THEY ARE TALKING ON TOP OF IT!!!!!

Current Project

I'm working on a contest entry. I'm not going to give away any surprises, but I will tell you that its a Community Lot. The construction is, for the most part, finished, now I'm working on the custom floor and wall coverings, and depending on how cooperative it wants to be, a complicated object recolor.

I also am still working on my other larger (and a lot slower projects). I've been receiving A TON of help from Numenor and Inge Jones on one in particular. With any luck, I might have a working template version by sometime next week. Hurray!

Hello Journal!

Here I plan on discussing projects I am currently working on and where you can submit requests or suggestions. (I'm not the worlds best modder, but I will tell you straight up if I think I can do it.)

Here's a little info about me:
I'm 20, and in college. My major is industrial design, that means when I grow up I get to design the next iPod, or the next sweet furniture set. Currently my dream jobs include working for Apple, designing furniture, or designing playsets for Barbie.
I'm decently computer savy, and HIGHLY creative. My college is one of the best schools for my major in the United States, and its hard to get into. During my first year there I became extremely proficient with Photoshop and a couple 3D modeling programs. Sadly, currently, I don't have any 3D programs on my laptops, otherwise you'd have seen new meshes by me already.

Personally, I find too many strange things with Sims, and I will endeavor to make mods to fix these strange sim behaviors. That is where I want to end up, but I have to work up to that, since I have never done any of that sort of stuff before. Right now, we are in the secondary stages of clothing recolors. This is where SimPE starts to come into play. BTW, I've never used SimPE before, and it really confuses me, so we truly are starting at the beginning.

If anyone reading this admires my work or has a question as to how I did something, write a response, I love getting feedback, and I love helping others with their mods.