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!!!

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.

Bauhaus Furniture

Now I can't very well expect people to vote on a project that I haven't posted about, but it seems like you do any ways. I'd rather you all be informed voters, so here's a post about furniture from my absolute favorite designers and time period. This originally was a group project between myself, QBuilderz, Leesester, and Fresh-Prince. We were working on products, houses, and cars from Bauhaus and Mid-century Modern design. I am very interested in the office furniture of the time. Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen. I've got Breuer's bookcase done, and I had the Barcelona Daybed meshed, but it was extremely high-poly so I'll have to rework that. ta539 at MTS has already done some of the pieces I'm interested in, but she doesn't always use the correct name, there is no catalog description, the recolors are all over the place, along with no slaving, and I'd be willing to bet most of her meshes are far too high-poly now (we didn't have poly guidelines back then). She seems to still be active at MTS, but hasn't posted anything since 2005.

College Costs

I haven't done any play testing of this yet, but I think I've got a starting point for the tuition cost. I'm thinking its going to be $2,500 a semester. That means going to college costs $20k. If I manage to get the scholarships to repeat on the beginning of Junior year, I'm going to up the cost to $5000 each instead. I'm also going to nuke the $20k handout upon graduation. That is the least realistic thing ever. I just graduated, where's my $20k? I had to move back in with my parents, and I think colleges grads should have to as well. This will also up the amount of apartments I use in my game because apartments are actually still within a college grad's budget. I wasn't planning on limiting student loans to only students, so they could take a few more out just to make sure they can land on their feet upon graduation. I am not trying to make college impossible or sucky for my sims, I just want them to know that it wasn't free, they had to work toward it, and to appreciate everything. Yes, little pixel dolls can learn that. :P

As I was going through the scholarships, I noticed that I don't think anyone has made any scholarships based on FT Hobby Interests yet, so those should definitely be included. I want to make college cost, but I do want it to be attainable.

I need to find a BHAV that gets called during the switch from semesters that I can insert all this tuition stuff into, but it should also be one that I'm not using to add in inventory items into. I want the tuition to work even with custom majors, and the inventory items will only be for the maxis ones.