I'm surprised this project didn't come to me sooner. For years I've been packing and moving, between houses and apartments and hotel rooms and boarding houses for my school. On one of my 'final' moves I really really wanted to have my sims pack with me. They've moved a lot for their poor little sakes. I'm still playing my original save game from over 8 years ago. I had a late start with them because I started on a Mac, but then we safely transfered them to a new temp laptop, then a new bitchin one, and now they are at their (hopefully) final computer - my graduation present, a new gaming tower!
This project is coming along nicely. I have the first part completely done, the middle is in progress, and the harder 'if I could do anything' stuff still isn't any closer to becoming a reality. Here's what's going on:
For Sale Sign:
This is a mix between two 'borrowed' things (as usual). I very much like
Inge's Stay Things Shrub. But as usual, I hate it when the object has absolutely nothing to do with the mod it's performing. So Instead, I looked at how it was working, and figured out a new way of making it only 'stick' things in your house that would actually be left when moving. Things like plumbing, lighting, and most of the kitchen. Then, I needed a cute little object to run this. Being lazy, I found something that is already nice. When I upload this set I will make sure to change the mesh and do the textures myself, but for now,
this sign by KiaraRawks was perfect.
Moving Boxes:
Next up if we are going to move, we should pack first. I always hated the idea of putting everything into my Sim's inventory. It's got a backpack for it's icon, but sims don't wear backpacks, so it's probably just their pockets, like where the cell phone ring comes from. What logic tells me that I can put 50 things in their pockets? Ok, so I can't fix that issue yet, but how about the hella long time consuming job of putting everything individually into and out of their inventory? Ok, so my plan didn't really fix that either, instead of into the inventory, you have to put everything into a box and then into their inventory, so we are actually adding a step, but somehow it makes the story better. And you don't have to pack or unpack all your stuff the second you move in. We could store junk! And, I even made labels for them. :) The idea here is a box with 4 or so slots in it, and in Live Mode, things in the slots are not visible, and in Build and Buy, the box isn't. I might need to make some part of the box stay visible so you can see where you are placing things and such, but you could also do all that though the inventory hand tool. Who knows, I haven't gotten everything worked out yet. I do have a nice mesh and a sweet texture though! Echo is
helping me with it.
Moving Truck:
The final part of this project (that will likely never actually happen or work) is a moving truck. I don't like the idea of sticking all these boxes into inventory, but would rather put them into a truck instead. I also want to be able to call up a moving company on the phone and have a truck show up at my house. Then I can put all these boxes inside, and the larger furniture, and then have my family drive off for their move out. Then enter the neighborhood screen and pick a new house. The cinematic for moving in would use the moving truck and either the taxi or the family car. The moving truck would then not leave until I unloaded all the stuff and paid the driver. I'd love that to be how this all works. No idea how much of that is possible. If you have any ideas, let me know!
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.
