Pretty Little Houses

So, its been like almost 5 whole days since I posted last. To be fair, I'm currently job hunting. Anyways.

I've recloned all 5 of my bug houses and got all of their effects working. They are super cute! I'd show you picture of them all, but I only have the meshes done for 2 of the 5. I redid the beehive because I was hating it, and I finished the butterfly house. I'll work on finishing the meshes of the moth, fly, and firefly next. When all that pretty stuff is done, then I need to really dig into the BHAVs of it all. That's usually where projects take the longest and get sidetracked. It's not a good place to be.

I also fixed them all so they are recolorable and have the same catalog ratings as the ladybug house. Fun is not advertised (as it was in the Flinko), and Environment score is set to 1. Apparently, just changing it in the catalog does change the real value. I covered an empty lot in these things and watched my sims' enviro score sky rocket. It was more than entertaining to see an entire lot covered in butterflies. :P

Progress and Research

I spent last night re-working my existing beehive because I couldn't remember what I cloned it from and I'm always trying to make things as base-game as possible. The vast majority of this set will require SSNs, but I think it would be nice if I could make a few with versions that didn't.

The beehive is now cloned from a flamingo, so bad sims can come up and kick the thing. The idea though, is kicking it will then cause the bees to swarm out and chase you. I realize that's a BV/FT interaction, so I'll look into using the BG fly swarm for the BG version. I also intend to have the Fly/Maggot Farm react the same way; kicking up a swarm.

Ladybugs, butterflies, moths, and fireflies will not be kickable. Or if they are, it won't cause harm to the kicking sim.

The second thing I was working on was doing research on when these bugs are most active. I want to have their odds of spawning on the lot coincide with reality. Turns out bees are a sun-up to sun-down kind of worker, with an increase in activity from 11-3. However, if it gets too hot for them, they will slow down and seek shade. Butterflies are a little more relaxed with their wake up and bedtime hours, but they are also most frequent from 11-3. They really don't like the cold, so they are a spring to summer bug. Moths seem to be a late spring to early fall creature, and are most active in the early hours of the night, from 1-5am. Fireflies are most active from dusk to midnight, and appear from early summer to early fall. There are so many different types of flies that its common for flies to be around all times of day from spring till fall. I need to remember to put weather checks in as well. Flying insects and rain are not friends.

Another important bit of information concerning butterflies and moths:

• Butterflies rest with their wings closed, folded above their bodies.
• Moths rest with their wings open, spread out on either side of their bodies.

This will help me in the construction of their houses. Particularly the shape of the entry.

Further Bug Functionality

The obvious thing with the bees is, that they should produce honey. Its already been done by a few people, so I don't know how I want my take to be different on it. I think I just want it to end up in their inventory. Maybe it would be cool if I can add it to the Juicer and add some juices like Honey Lemon Tea. Right now the bees and the butterflies are kinda redundant, and the butterflies are better because they do shrubs as well. That's why I want to make the bees do something. Every bug should have its own reason to be needed on a lot, that isn't a duplicate of another. It might be okay to let the butterflies and moths double up. I'm still working on their role.

Thinking more about the flies, I think cloning the compost bin might be the best way to go with them. I want sims to be able to scoop up some maggots, and put them in their garden and then that should fertilize it. It would also be cool if sims would 'feed' the flies, by bringing them dirty plates. Feeding the flies would then leave the sim with a not smelly or fly-y plate that they can then go wash.

I've got a neat little idea for the fireflies as well. A lot of people (myself included) use captured firefies as mood lighting for their lots with the noBugDecay cheat. Why not just make them little bug lantern houses in the first place. They would only glow at night and not in winter; they'd sit on either the ground, tables, or fence posts. I like this idea because most of the other bugs are already taking care of most of the garden, and fireflies don't actually garden much from what I've read.

Now I just need a good way to differentiate the butterflies and moths and I'm in business!

Added Bug Apperance

I was thinking more about this last night in the shower (water is my conductive thinking juice - bathing or swimming). What if having these bug houses on your lot increased the chance of having those bugs spawn on your lot as well. We already have mods that will do that globally, so why not? joninmobile, also known as TheNinthWave, made a very nice little mod that does that globally, he even made a flavor I like, with butterflies being a 75% chance in Spring and Summer and 25% in Fall, and fireflies 25% in Spring, and 75% in Summer and Fall. Very nice.

I don't want to just limit this to butterflies and fireflies, I also want to try to make it for the bees and ladybugs (make them spawn anywhere on the lawn like the other two do) and the little basegame butterfly moth things (I'm totally going to retexture them so they do this set justice) and even the awful flies.

Speaking of the flies, I'm thinking maybe some sort of mix between the flying version and somehow connecting them to a garden plot. Maybe have an interaction of taking the maggots from the house and placing them on the garden plot. I also want to include a tiny percent chance of the flies getting super mad and swarming, maybe a 5% or 10% only for the summer sorta thing.

My two favorite parts of a project are the planning stage (when everything is possible) and then when I have everything meshed and textured and its in my game (sometimes even before its actually working yet). I do really like when everything is working and done, but because I don't play much, that's usually the last time I get much fun out of my own stuff. Oh well. Eventually I will play again, right?

Beehives and Butterfly Houses

This project is about making lots of little insect houses. One of the biggest things that 'bugs' me is that there isn't enough movement in our sims' houses. Looking around at my own house I have to admit I'm pretty much the only thing doing any moving, but there are always bugs. Maxis gave us lots of pretty little icky bugs to play with. We have bees and flies and cockroaches and even some relatively unused (and badly textured) butterflies to play with. When Seasons rolled around we got better butterflies, fireflies, ladybugs, and those little icky white nits. I really love the ladybug loft because it adds cute little flying bugs, and I love the fireflies and butterflies. For this project, I'm going to make houses for all of them (except a Roach Motel, this is about the flying bugs). Now, while cute little flying bugs everywhere is adorable, it's not actually useful. I don't make stuff without a purpose (generally). I liked the idea of TwoJeff's Perfect Plants mod, but I don't like how it feels like cheating. By giving some of the garden care over to these little bugs, it feels less like cheating, cuz I had to buy them, and not every family will have a perfect garden. The other thing I don't like, and I feel like I might be in the minority here, is that when the flowers are properly trimmed and 'prefect', they don't look as pretty or happy. I might consider letting flowers keep their unkempt state for the summer if they have bees tending them or some such. I'll just try to make sure that it doesn't effect the gardener score or environment score or anything. And I won't let them go past that state of being wilty and dying. Though, bugs really have nothing to do with whether they are getting enough water. Oh! But it rains in the game. So maybe I'll go with that. Having bees or butterflies will disable the need to trim them, and in the summer the plants can let loose a bit. Bees and butterflies will do the job of the gardeners for trimming, and keep flowers from dying all together. I hate that the most. I leave my pretty garden for a while and forget to call a gardener and before you know it, everything is dead and I have to rebuy everything. Hate that.

Here's what's planned:

Bug	Visual Effect EP	Habitat	Behavior
Ladybugs	SSN	Loft	keeps SSN nits away
Bees	BG	Beehive	keeps flowers pretty, maybe summer growth
Butterflies	SSN	Mesh House	keeps flowers and shrubs nice (caterpillars eat the shrub overgrowth)
Butterflies (look better as Moths and at nighttime)	BG	Mesh House	keep shrubs nice and weeds from spreading (again with the caterpillars)
Flies	BG	Maggot Farm	keep soil fertilized
Fireflies	SSN	Glow Lantern	outside porch lamps

If anyone has any ideas on how you can help me pull apart TwoJeff's mods, that's really all that's holding me up at the moment. See this thread please!

Snap! She's Back!

Spring quarter just ended for my college and I'm off for the summer for now. I'm supposed to be started a new co-op job assignment on Monday, but with the economy the way it is, and the fact that it's summer quarter and that's when every other school ever has let loose their students to find employment, I'm currently out on my tush for now. It's ok, while I wanted to get a job, I'm determined to make the most of this summer. And, they still have until July 4th to get me placed yet, so there is still hope for that. In the meantime, I've been busily trying to get caught up on my sims stuff. I have a ton of half finished projects that I'm just trying to wrap up and get out to you, which is why suddenly I've got three uploads within a week of each other. They've all been on backlog, even I can't work that fast! In addition to that, I need to get an upload for June Fitness and mid July is my creator anniversary, and you know I always do something nice for that. For June Fitness, I'm thinking some new weight machines or something like Energy bars. For my creator anniversary I'm either going to finish out my Mid-Century set or I'll upload my newer St. Bestine's Cathedral if I haven't decided to upload that later this week.

I find having a Project list in my Journal is helpful for me to go back to look at:
Fix afSwimShorts fatmesh
Fix BunnyEars Flashing Blue
JobLevels in Portuguese

Shelving Set
Functionality to Book Stacks, Chalkboard, Toys
Stackable Chairs
Bauhaus Project
Stair Master no
Yoga Mat / Work Out Mat no
Honey Bees, Humming Birds
Morph Mesh Curtains

Afterschool Activities
Genetic Baby/Body Hair
Newspaper Pie Menu Edits - Puzzles, Want Ads, Comics
Health Food
Product Design Major
University Mods Set

Fence Tutorial
Corner Stairs Object
Smaller Driveways/garage doors
Clear Windows, Frosted, Broken, Empty, Mirrored
Glass Roofs not possible
Window Walls - attics