Keep on keeping on.

So I've been having some trouble keeping up with the deadlines for karen's contest, but I don't want to put aside on my uni hood just yet. I'm hopeful that I'll be done with this hood in time for my Creator Anniversary, but if you've been paying attention the last couple of years, that project almost always switches ideas at least 6 times before I finally post something. We shall see. I like the idea of doing a college for my 7 year anniversary, because it took me 7 years to graduate college. I'm also pretty busy doing designs for dollhouse furniture. I plan on having a Kickstarter for that in June, again, assuming I can keep up with it all. Lotta work goes into designing an entire house worth of furniture, regardless of scale. :P

Anyways, one of karen's venue options (I do love these, it got me thinking about all the flavor that is at a university) was a fountain. My hometown Purdue has some fantastic fountains that I've played in at least half the summers of my life. I wanted to see if I could create the Engineering Fountain, and I think I did a half decent job of it!

And here's a view of the state of my hood now. You can see the newly added UOA frat house from the application round, YamYad Bar from round 1, and the Fitness Park from the second round. Additionally, I've created Burnet Woods and I'm in the process of constructing Slayter Hill Amphitheater. My Uni is a complete mash up between Purdue and U.Cinci. How could I not? They were *my* universities! Make what you know! :)

Join the Campus Contest?

karen lorraine is hosting a new contest! The premise is building a college campus. This fits in quite nicely with one of my own projects, so I am highly considering entering. I've got some reservations about it though. The first round is building a dorm, it's pretty basic and a great place to start. The biggest problem with it though, is how small it is! It's only 2 floors and a tiny footprint at that, my other two dorms are MUCH larger. I've managed to stuff 8 sims into this tiny dorm, but my Dabney dorm could technically house 32, and Calhoun (shown below) would be able to hold 48 if I furnished all the floors. The other big issues is she is requiring that your university be themed either arts, science, or sports. The university I'm working on constructing has a very nice blend of all of those! Based on the buildings she is going to have us make, I've ruled out the sciences. From there though, it looks like we will have choices for the remaining 5 rounds:

• Library (sciency)
  
• One-Stop Shop
• Coffee Shop
• Park* this would be awesome!
• House (dull)
  
• Performing Venue (artsy) ooh this!
  
• Art Gallery (artsy)
  
• Fitness Center* ✓
• Bar* ✓
• Games Room*

I have some pretty big visions for my hood. The idea behind my university is actually having the college classroom buildings, so I'll have a large art college, a music college, a teaching hospital, and *very* big sports complexes. I don't really have some of these tinier spaces included, but I really ought to, as they add character. If the shells for the lots aren't big enough, I won't be able to do the Music Hall or Art College the way I want to.

I'm leaning more toward the sporty and generic stuff right now because I know that's my real weakness in the first place, and I can probably get away with doing those on these smaller lots. Maybe that should be my plan. Purposely pick the weakest link and use this to make it stronger.

Uni Buildings are Going Up

In attempts to get out of the mini-depression my failing nano has caused, I've gone back to my Uni hood. I've finished off all of the parking lots because they are simple, and I've constructed the baseball stadium. I haven't furnished it yet, but I'm pretty happy with the structure. I had already also completed and fully furnished my English Department. I've made a fire station, but I don't really like how it looks so I think I might start that one over. I constructed one of the professor's houses and I have 2 of the 3 dorms done. I had the third one done, but I lost it while messing with my AnyGames. It was pretty sweet, so I'll likely rebuild it just as it was if I can.

I'm having trouble with some of the more specialized buildings, the ones where I know I'll be making a more EPs better version. To do those, I think I'll need to make the better one first, and the copy it down into my base hood. That way I won't have to move walls to include activities I didn't have the objects for. It's looking like that's what I need to do for Performing Arts, Design, Basketball Stadium, Soccer Stadium, and Co-Rec. I think those all need FT.

Custom UNI Hood

And nothing says getting out of hand like a project exploding into a full hood... If I'm going to be making all these awesome new buildings for a university, I should prolly make the university as well. I don't really want to make the SC4 terrain so I found a lovely one by my new favorite map maker, Nepheris, called Maple Lake. I'm always looking for some smallish maps with roads that aren't too far apart or look silly, and Maple Lake is turning out to be just perfect. I took some grid paper and have gone to town ;) designing the layout of the new Uni hood. There was a few tiny leveling issues in the center of the map so I had to edit it in SC4. While I was at it I connected the sports complex road to the village. I may or may not keep it like that.

I'm referencing my own University as to what buildings are required, and I nearly forgot the Frat Houses. I hate them and never play them, but I'm sure somebody out there just loves them, so I can't leave them out. And what's college without loser frat guys having wild keggers and leaving red cups littered everywhere 4 nights a week?

University Comm Lots

And this project is quickly getting out of hand. After I made the dorm I didn't want to decorate it because that would require some extra EPs and SPs I didn't want to include. So I decided to make a University Store that had everything incoming freshman would need. But that quickly got out of hand too. It was ugly and needed a bunch of EPs/SPs. So the next logical thing to do was to divide the store into separate shops, have a bookstore, an art store, a music store, a furniture store, an electronics store, and a clothing store. That way as many people as possible can use as many of the stores as possible. I only need FT for the music and art stores, why require it of all of them?

Then I got to thinking what about all the other community lots on a college campus, what if I did minimal EP versions of them as well? I could have a co-rec that only needs FT, a Student Union with NL (bowling) and BV (food dinners). I'm just getting carried away. Then I started thinking about the Stadium and sports complexes. I can build some of them, but some just look better as Criquette's hood deco, so I was thinking why not include a SC4 map of a university. Make a version that is as simple as possible, and then do a full complete version that uses all of my lots and requires a bunch of them for those people who have everything already.

Then there are the actual academic buildings. Most people tend to leave them out because there isn't much point to them, sims won't really go there for classes, but I like seeing where I can pretend my sims are going to class and I like the buildings taking up space in the neighborhood. For that reason I've complied a list of all the Uni majors and all the Maxis career paths and sorted them out into Departments. With just the majors I had it combined to 5 departments, but then when I added in all the career paths I found other commonalities between them that should be recognized on their own. My college will have 10 department buildings: History, Law, PoliSci, Math, Business, Science, English, Design, Theater, and Psch/Phil. These buildings will all have classrooms, offices, computer labs, and specialized rooms specific to the needs of the dept (such as labs for Science, studio space for Design, theaters and practice rooms for Theater). Many will also have their own libraries. As far as I can tell, Mootilda is the only one to have included academic buildings in her college, and it was brilliant. She also did it as a custom Uni template, and I'd like to look into doing that as well perhaps. Though, perhaps not to keep the EP requirements down. The Design and Theater Colleges are likely going to require FT, but I think I can manage without that for the rest of them.

Everything is just getting out of hand - like it should! It's exciting when a project starts running itself! Gosh I'm having so much fun just thinking about it all!

UNI and IKEA Dorm

Ok, I am more than happy that something has finally beaten Afterschool Activities in my poll. Particularity one I want to work on at the moment. After spending nearly all day yesterday in shock from the new of my promotion to Super Moderator, I eventually managed to do something useful. One of the things on my list was to build a dorm that actually seemed to look like a real dorm. I created one and based its shape and dorm rooms off a dorm at my school. I still need to do some final tweaks to it and test it to make sure everything is accessible, but I'm already much happier with this one than any of the Maxis dorms. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

College Collection

So, I'm not really sure how this project is going to play itself out. Having just graduated college myself, I'm really not impressed with how our sims do college. For starters, why the hell is it free? I'm up to my eyeballs in student loans and sims have zero debt and have cash coming out of their ears. Gotta fix that. Secondly, I've come away from college with a TON of stuff. Books, supplies, paper materials, toys and projects I've designed, the list could go on all day. Sims skate through college barely collecting anything. This was one of the reasons I added inventory items to my college major. But its still not enough. I had to rent a U-Haul trailer to dig me out of my apartment of 3 years. My sims should be equally saddled with crap and cheap furniture. The third main thing that bugs me is their dorm rooms. They are terrible. At all the schools I've been to, they have uniform dorm furniture and everyone decorates their rooms. Sims (aside from the stupid uni-townies) never spend any time in their room because they suck and there is nothing to do in there. Part of this problem is because all the rooms are single. College is about roommates! Ok, with all that in mind, here's my list:

This is a laundry list of stuff that is needed. Thankfully, I don't have to make it all. I don't know how I'm going to be presenting this yet.

Tuition: college needs to cost money, and perhaps a different amount based on where you go.
Student Loans: because tuition is just too expensive! Maybe through the phone or comp?
Gov't Grants: based on lot value, family income, and number of family members.
Scholarships: add in Hobby skills and Witchcrafting.
Ask Parents for Money: phone call interaction based on how much parents love their kid, and money in the bank, and how many times they've already called.

Inventory Items for all Majors: just like my major, I want junk added to all majors for almost all classes (some just don't make sense)

Futon: foldable bed, like the Murphy.
Oversized Bean Bag chair: with cuddle interactions.
Laptops and Printers: cuz we all need them in college now.
TVs: small flat screens or larger clunky CRTs
Minifridge with a Microwave on top: and foods that use them.
Matchy matchy bland dorm furniture: IKEA gave us a bunch of nice MALM crap to use.
Supplies: Textbooks, Notebooks, Calculator, Pens, Pencils. All which immediately loose all $ value.
Fans: Box and Rotating, cancels dorm noise.
Bulletin Boards: for pics of friends
Small Bookcases and Shelves: to hold any sentimental stuff from home.
Backpacks and Messenger Bags: just to clutter the rooms.
Stuffed Llama and Cow: University Spirit!
Storage: Clear tubs and plastic crates.

Roommate Door: cuz we really need one already.

I'll be adding links as I find these things. I'm thinking about maybe making it part of the phone call when you go to college. You have to pay a certain amount, and it tells you that the car will be there at 7am, so be packed and ready. Then I'll have a pop up notification listing all the great things your college-bound kid is likely to need.