Afterschool Activities

Because for some reason even without a post about it, Afterschool Activities is already winning my poll, I should prolly write about it already.

This project was the very first thing I wanted to make when I first got into modding. It was way over my head, and much much bigger than I could handle at the time, so I back-burnered it, and started learning everything I could. I can't tell you how the original concept was supposed to be played out (well I prolly can look up some notes, but that way died and it doesn't matter) so I'll explain where I'm at and what I've yet to do.

Child and Teen sims sign up for Afterschool Activities on a white board calendar type object. (It's already meshed and textured, but I can do so much better now I will prolly redo it.) If they are in public school, they can pick from a variety of public school clubs and teams, if they are in private, they have different but equal options, Chess Club vs. Chess Team and Painting vs. Ceramics. A few are further apart, but they are all similar enough. These are all essentially custom schools. They include the normal time for school, but also either stay later or start earlier. Its not possible for them to be longer or shorter on different days, so its just every day. There are a few different schedules that they all follow, so kids will still be able to bring home friends even if they aren't in the same afterschool activity because they ended at the same time and they were both on the bus at the same time. The game believes these kids are at different schools, but I'm working on making it forget that part because its still just public and private school.

Most of these clubs have custom outfits and I'm working on making them wear the outfit only after or directly before their club, and to change into regular clothes for the rest of the day at school, but that's a tad complicated still. Kids on the swim and track teams might just have to wear their swimsuit or running suit all day at school (more than a little weird still).

Another thing I wanted to do, but it's looking like its less than likely is to make the kids get picked up by a custom carpool or team bus depending on when they are going or arriving back home. Echo and all the other wise creatures that are helping me have yet to figure out where the real bus code is coming from. We've found a couple of fake ones that don't work and it's just confusing. This, like the outfits, should only be on one half of their school journey, and ride the regular bus for the other half.

One very important thing to me about this project, is that the kids who are at these activities need to be having more or less fun depending on what their personalities and hobbies are. Kids who are super active need to be bored to tears in Book Club, and will thrive at Rugby. Kids whose OTH is tinkering need to be jumping for joy that they are part of the AV Club and would burn the kitchen down if they were forced to join the Booster Club or Bake Sale Fundraising Committee. I was working on this part when I last got side tracked from it. Something was working, but I don't think it was working in the way I wanted it to.

Activity	Time	Carpool	Hobby	Good Personalities	Outfit
Track Team / Swim Team	9am - 5pm	Sports Bus	Fitness	Active / Outgoing	Tracksuit/Swimsuit
Soccer / Rugby	9am - 5pm	Sports Bus	Sports	Active / Grouchy	Tracksuit or FT Uniform
Debate Team / Model UN	Saturday	Minivan / Towncar	Science	Neat / Serious	Suit
Drama Club / Theater Arts	9am - 5pm	Minivan / Towncar	Music	Outgoing / Serious	Costumes
Chess Club / Chess Team	Saturday	Minivan / Towncar	Games	Playful / Grouchy	Suit
Book Club / Film Lit Group	9am - 5pm	Minivan / Towncar	Film Lit	Shy / Lazy
AV Club / Computer Engineering	7am - 3pm	Minivan / Towncar	Tinkering	Nice / Shy
Painting Studio / Ceramics Studio	9am - 3pm	Minivan / Towncar	Arts and Crafts	Nice / Sloppy
Etymology Club / Audubon Society	7am - 3pm	Minivan / Towncar	Nature	Playful / Sloppy
Bake Sale Fundraising / Booster Club	Sunday	Minivan / Towncar	Cuisine	Neat / Lazy

So that's my afterschool activities project. It is one of my largest and most in-depth coding projects I've got on my books, and it's no where near done. I'll be excited when this finally starts coming together; it's been a long time coming. However, as awesome as this sounds, it's going to take a very very long to finish yet, so don't look for it just yet. I want to knock out a few of the smaller ones first and get settled into my new job where ever it may turn out to be.