Announcing Urban Conversion Contest

So, it's been a while since my last post, but I'm still here, I promise. I am pleased to announce that I am hosting a new contest!

Concept
Land is at a premium in the city and many older buildings are being removed for newer ones, but many older ones have history that is worth protecting. Every two weeks Sim City's Conservation Committee is review preservation applications for a different type of building in the city and they will choose to either preserve or demolish your build. While these building are deemed important, it is still required that they generate income and do not fall into disrepair. These buildings will have their original architecture respected and renovated for new use.

Task
Contestants will be tasked with building a lot from an older time period and style. Those approved by the City as worthwhile to save will be tasked with then converting and renovating it to a newer commercial space. The new commercial space will not be revealed until the shells are completed.

Head over to MTS's Sims 2 Contest section of their Community board to check it out!

Calendar Contest

As some of you may have noticed, I have recently retired from staff at MTS. This is particularly bittersweet timing because usually I am involved in the creation of the yearly calendar content in game calendar. As I am no longer staff, I don't know what they are planning, but before I left I said I'd be happy to continue putting together the calendar after they've chosen the winners. It's been a very busy month and I wanted to enter two months as I usually do, but I only had the time to create this one image an hour before they were due. I was two minutes late by my post timestamp, so I hope that won't disqualify me. I also wanted to create something for the month of March. October is my favorite month because of Halloween, and March, being my birthday month, is a close second. I didn't even have a plan for what to do with it though, so no real loss. I love doing images with dramatic lighting. Here is my Mistress October. :)

Done with Moving

After learning of Mootilda's passing, finishing our joint project became a priority for me. I guess I felt guilty or ashamed that I took it for granted that we'd have more time? As it turned out, she had mostly finished off her part, so I made a few tweaks and added in the interactions she had requested and uploaded it. Because I am fairly certain I won't be doing anything more with the moving boxes, I tossed them up too, and now I can officially mark this project as done.

We had wanted to make it so that the user could pick between keeping the fixtures and keeping everything, but I had trouble with getting that to work, so it's all still there, but hidden in debug mode if someone wants to help me finish it off the way she wanted it.

Tribute to Mootilda

I'm sure you've heard by now that our community has suffered a great loss. Mootilda passed away on the 2nd. She will be dearly missed by everyone. She and I had been working on a project over a year and a half ago, and with the way real life always jumps in, we never got around to finishing it. I pm'ed her husband, Quatchi, and he was able to send me her files. Looking at it, we were very close to being done. It is my intent to finish our project and upload it in tribute to her.

Changes Coming!

So, it's been a while since I posted anything. I've got a few reasons for that. The one that's actually relevant to you is that MTS is revamping our submission system. Delphy has been hard at work coding out the new system and I've been helping him get the user interface just perfect. (I'm an industrial designer, remember? That's something I can do in my sleep!) We are hoping that the new system will feel more positive to the users and be easier to comply with. It will be a much more standardized system and we are also working on updating the Creator Guidelines to reflect these changes. We want it to be easier for everyone to upload, and we want it to be a positive experience, but we also need everyone to follow the guidelines, so this should help everyone out. Here's your spoilers: "stars"

OMG I'm Purple!

Sometimes I guess it really does pay to be patient.  I've been staff here at MTS for a little over 4 years and today I got promoted. I even skipped a level. I'm super excited to be purple, and a Super Mod now. This means I now have privs in all areas of the site, not just Bodyshop and Downloads. In the next few days I'm likely going to be organizing TS2 Objects and Modding forums, unless I get a real job handed down to me. Its always been my goal to help creators, and I feel if information is easy to find, its easy to create things. TS3 create areas are still in flux because we are still getting new EPs, but TS2 is set in stone now. Its about time to give it a good cleaning and organizing!

So happy to be my favorite color! Makes me feel ok that I don't dye my hair purple anymore (just graduated college, looking for a real job, remember?)

        

Purple!!!