Meshing - Part Two - First Chair attempt - Learning UV Mapping

First, The chair came out real nice, second, the UV map was.. interesting to say the least.  Show the chair Julie! Um nope.

So learning to mesh from scratch is turning out to be fun.  My stance is better to learn how to build from the ground up, then just altering a ready made mesh for now.  If I don't know how to fix my own mistakes, it will be highly probable that I will miss important items in a ready made model.

Meshing has also made me vulnerable to what can be a really bad habit.  If you use Photoshop or Paintshop Pro you may identify with the plugin, filter, brush, tubes and texture fetish where you just cannot seem to get enough for your collection.

Well.. I am finding myself starting to do the same for import/export scripts, Textures, Tools, and scale objects. I wasted my lunch googleing my way through the internet for tools and scripts. <grins sheepishly>

Back to my chair this afternoon.  It wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be, and the built in uv mapper in blender wasn't as scary/difficult a time as I had trying to figure out one of the recommended stand alone products. 

The more I mess around with this, the more ideas that start flowing through my head.  Stay tuned, you never know what this mad scientist might come up with.

<waves Goodbye>

Meshing - I was introduced to George today

I am playing with meshing.  Since I haven't opened up a mesh tool since Lightwave 6 (a college class that required me to recreate my car) I am a bit behind the eightball.

I have Milkshape and Blender, and for me, blender is more intuitive.  Don't ask why, it just is.  So I'll put up with the extra import export pain in the ascii later.

In today's tutorial I got to meet... well I call him George.  The Blender Wiki has such fun tutorials. (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro)

George started out as a simple cube, then something that resembled a bad day with scrabble ending with a cherry on top.  Finally his George ship began to take a really rounded shape.  The poor man's hips could put mamma Sincinelli to shame, and that belly! His feet were a bit short and his head defintely askew.  But he was my george in all his glorious jelly belly yumminess.

Now off to more challenges, supposedly next I am to create a hat, I wonder if George likes flowers?

<walks off whistleing>

New Eyeballs - Eeks Bifocals Oh My

One of my employees is on leave this month due to shoulder surgery, the young college student that is trying to cover for him is doing and excellent job, until he accidently placed a box of parts ontop of my glasses.. snap!  Now admittedly they probably shouldn't have been laid down in the middle of my desk, but I hate trying to stuff them inside of safety glasses when I have to be in the shop.

Anyhow, I made the appointment with the eyedoctor dutifully and headed into his office for new frames.  Lovely, someone misfiled me and they cannot locate my 20 year old files, must have been too thick for their new filing drawers!  Fill out all new forms and wander in for the tests.

Dr. Y grins when he is done and says "I have some good news and some bad news, the good news we have the contacts you need for your perscription right here.  The bad news is that your eyeglass perscription is totally different.  Miss J.. it's time for progressives!"

Argh.. bifocals.. NOOOOOO!

I Love my contacts, I can see, it's wonderful, they are terrific, but I cannot wear them at work.  I picked up the new glasses a few hours ago, and oh boy this is going to be interesting to get used to.  Look down to read report, look up to enter into database, dizzy for a few moments weeeee!

New patterns comeing this weekend, but please forgive me if they are a bit.. wavy or something.  I am going to blame it on the new eyeballs!

<hugs to all>  Hope you are having a wonderful week and a even better weekend.

Admission of Guilt - Actually Playing the Game

I am sure many other creators are guilty of the same, you get caught up in that Lot design, or mesh, or texture, Sim, pattern or paint, and instead of playing Sims you find yourself constantly loading up that 'test' neighborhood.  The place where you don't have to worry about accidently breaking your favorite family with a whacked out experimental hair mesh or new counter.  (did you know that sometimes those hair meshes LOOK like counters?) <Boggle>

So here I am, with tons of my fellow creators objects downloaded, but not necessarily installed, always putting off Loading that legacy neighborhood I spent so much time on.  Never really taking the time to appreciate all that other have done and contributed because I am so focused on my own.

I ask myself how did I end up this way, Legacies and the family trees I used to lovingly create used to be my only pleasure with the Sims, why now do I ignore them for spending the Majority of my time in Photoshop?

Maybe it's because of the multitude of bugs that cost me two of my largest legacies. Maybe it's because I get frustrated that I have to use a Mod for true story progression.  Or maybe it's because I've discovered that there is just as much joy to be found in creating for the game as I once found in observing what occured in the game.

Whatever it is, someday soon I promise the Drew Family, The Harlson Family, the Myzer family and the Pocketz family that someday I will return and they will once again be able to babble away at each other and at me while I watch and guide them through their daily lives...

Oh wait, that home looks pretty blah, maybe it needs a good face lift, you know that texture I saw the other day at Joanns would look really nice here.. hmmm...

A big thank you to all the other creators here on TSR, when I do get back to playing, your creations are another reason I find such pleasure.

<hugs to all>

Installation issues with my Patterns

It has been brought to my attention that there may be an issue installing my last 8 patterns.  These patterns were created after the latest EA series of patches and I am trying to verify if the installation issues are because of the borked EA launcher and I along with everyone else must be patient, or if I've broken something my self at creation.

If you are having issues, please reply to this blog.  Let me know what pattern ( please do not say 'well all of them' because I do know that some people are not having any issues at all) you cannot get to show up and what version of Sims 3 that you are running.

For example,  Sea Shell Sea Shore will not install, running base game Sims 3 patched to version 1.86

or Dilitante Damask installs on my lap top that has the base bame and world adventures fully patched but will not work on my desktop, the only difference is that one is xp and the other is vista.

Thank you so much for having patience while I work through these issues.  Because of these problems, I will not be submitting any more patterns until EA releases a new patch for the launcher issues.  I do not want to add to the heart ache other simmers are having with their game at this time.  Do not fret though, once these problems are nailed down, I have plent of others waiting for me to convert/create and upload.  I am thankful that I don't create in batches and trickle my uploads.  I'd hate to have months of work being questionable.

Thanks again for any information you can supply if you are having issues any patterns.

Julie

Busy Pre Holiday Preparations

Happy Holidays everyone.

Just letting folks know that may be stopping by, that my simming will be slowing down for the next few weeks with relatives visiting and holiday trimming, cooking and preparations underway. 

Hoping that every one has a safe and prosperous Holiday Season.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing everyone a safe, sumptous and fun family filled Thanksgiving. :)

Story Progression

I don't know how many other players were as disappointed as I was with EA's default story progression.  So much potential, so wasted.

My niece was the one who got me hooked on Sims 2 three years ago, she new my love of family heirlooms and my fascination with the game called Creatures and their wacky genetics.  So started my obsession with legacy families.

She also talked me into buying and trying Sims 3, then prodded me to actual post my creations for the public consumption.  You can blame or credit her for the houses and patterns that I create.

I was excited about the story progression, dropping a couple of premade sims into the town and watching what happened.  Well pretty much nothing at all, I was bored quickly.  Then I discovered Indie's story progression and fell in love all over again.

Now ISM has been taken over, modifed, converted and glorified by NRaa Industries Twallan at Crazy Town.  Twallan's story progression mod is wonderful.  Phase two just entered beta testing, while phase one is pretty solid.  It is a non core mode so if you are an awsome mod user you won't have to choose.

As I read more about the upcoming expansion, I am still suprised with how EA has ignored developing what we already have and giving us the tools to create our own neighborhoods as originally mentioned upon release of Sims 3.

For me the hunt/quest/collect side of the Sims 3 is of no interest, probably due to World of Warcraft and similar game burnout.

Building and Story progression would be my niche, and I hope more than crypt basements are in our future.  While I am humbled by what modders have done with story progression, I feel EA should have taken on that responsibility themselves.

Excited about a upcoming pattern

<Dances>

Ok, I am so excited about one of the patterns I will have upcoming in a day or so.  It is a Indian/Oriental carpet pattern.  It is extremely detailed and I just love it.  I am SOOOOO happy with how it turned out.  Learned a couple new techniques for working with something so tight.

Anyways, hope you all enjoy it, I know my Sims sure do.

Evil error 13 -Part Two - Reclamation!

I've been working on trying to reclaim my legacy neighborhood that went boom a month ago.  I've gotten everything almost.. back to normal cept for the fact only 3/4 of the sims are invisible instead of all of them.  The other 1/4 are.. headless!

In this screen capture, headless Deb Myzer is speaking to her husband, thats him there in the foundation.

I can now see the plum bob on the rest of the neighborhood sims as well as see their conversation bubbles and what objects they might be carrying.  Unfortunately it is all at ground level.  They all seem to be submerged now.  I have also recovered some of the thumbnail icons for the UI.

Whoza Myzer gripes about the local art.  Yes thats a cell phone in the stones.

If anyone else has been able to recover from something like this, let me know how you did it :)  At least all my other hoods are normal.

Wish me luck.