Yammering, Missed Money Default, Coming Soon...

[hat_plays_sims]

You know, let's start with the missed default.



"But Hat," you may say, "You did the tip jar!"

I know, I know, but I wasn't happy with it, and I discovered that when you tip a significant amount (fifty, anyway, not sure about twenty-five), you drop bills as well as coins in the jar, and the bills had YET ANOTHER texture to fix. (Also, I hated the masking tape.)

So, fixed that up, and now there's a new default in town.

DOWNLOAD REVISED TIP JAR

I'ma go update the main post in a minute here.

Anyway, so the other day I made a post in The Wishing Tree totally begging for Medieval ladies' hats because a) What we got stinks, yo and b) at the time, I thought we only had two crapsack meshes.

But then I made a discovery!

Bipsouille has a passable hennin mesh (coiffures page four) that's actually really nicely animated and would be great for Medieval ladies (at least high-born ones, later in the period)... but it's got one small problem.



And that's the stabbing.

I somehow don't think it's appropriate to edit my Wishing Tree post just to add that in, but damn I am disappointed that mesh went all IM IN UR THORACIC CAVITY, SNIPPIN UR SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF! Is that a simple fix? At all? I'll trade something for a fix. Dunno what, but I totally will, because meshes are totally outside my skillset.

Yeah, okay, for those of you who don't care about hats (or me sticking to my 'one pic outside a cut' rule), coming soon!

Do your Sims tire of wintering at home? Do they wish they could visit somewhere sunny and tropical, despite the fact that they're period Sims and look stupid carting around primary-colored luggage or sunbathing (even if it does ruin their complexions) on terrycloth towels emblazoned with aviator sunglasses? Well, I am nearly done with a set that'll fix all that, or should! There will be beach towels with woven patterns, a bamboo firedancing stick, much more interesting massage oil, and...



Well, I'm not sure I like the shading yet, and those are Bloom's suitcases-as-clutter, but the mapping is the same and it's a hell of a lot handier than sending someone on vacation. They may be getting re-done in leather, however... but I just plain don't think I'm going to be happy with these at all. There's no such THING as a Medieval suitcase.

Comments

[fantasyrogue.livejournal.com]

Just a little notice, I am still working on it. Well technically it's nearly done (but I tried to bump map enable it and something's not working and I can't figure it out which is where the delay is. May have to cut that back out of I can't work this out) but I'm trying not to claw my own sinuses out right now and focusing on any work is spectacularly hard and has been for a few days now.

See, even my game conspires against me with the creating and testing:

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c252/Fantasyrogue/SimsCreations/Yikes-2.jpg

Shendyt maybe, or a schenti. I live relatively near an archeological museum that has a permanent Ancient Egypt display so I may go there when I've got some time and am feeling better. Maybe that'll give me a clearer picture or they'll have some books or something. Crocodiles and hippos probably are not conductive to a hobble skirt. Then again, you never know with those silly nobles. I saw some of those medieval hats on Kats Hats, the big ones, those did *not* seem practical.

I did some searching for medieval hat stuff when I started this, and also particularly *hair* stuff. Wow there were a lot of hat styles and clothing styles of course but I didn't look into that much. You can really get lost in this stuff, it's quite fascinating. I read your post as well, I think you make very many excellent points. I'm all for knowing it before you adapt and use it.

I'm not too familiar with the Medieval Challenge. I do love Ancient Egypt (well and history in general really) and would love to do something with it, even if that means I have to get off my butt and do everything myself. Also, A god did it eh... Now I'm picturing some really awkward looking werewolves if the ancient egyptian gods had a hand in that.

[hat_plays_sims]

If you can't bump map it, you can't bump map it-- the Simming world will be richer for having the mesh no matter what. But DAMN I sympathize with the sinuses (got two different meds I take, one for pressure and one for... er, the wet aspects)-- mine go crazy every time the weather changes, and I live in the Bay Area, and it's an El Nino year.

Zounds, lightnings! Although that is an awesome shot. And everything still looks good, even if it looks like she tried to do something very wicked with that mirror and was smote for it.

Shenti sounds about right-- actually, 'shenti' looks right, I'm sure I read it somewhere in elementary school with that kind of simplified spelling. Although, if those hobble skirts aren't sewn, but wrapped, you could probably walk in them the same way you could walk with a length of fabric or a long towel wrapped around your legs. It's not exactly a kickpleat, but you might be able to get away from the apex predators. Maybe. On a really, really good day. ... Maybe they just figured that there was no getting away from them?

There's really an amazing amount of information out there, once you pick up on what to look for-- and what to take with a grain of salt. I found one site that I can't quite recommend because I kept going "Yes, yes, uh-huh-- wait, no..." It just takes a LOT of looking. ... I still need to finish my book about the 14h century-- I got up to the wars that came after the Plague.

The Medieval Challenge needs some tweaking anyway, since it hasn't been updated past OFB, but it's right here. Half the fun is in squishing it around to suit your playstyle, I think. And hey-- jackals howl, don't they?

[fantasyrogue.livejournal.com]

I've been sitting on it for way too long now (mostly because I spent a week knocked on my ass and vegetating in front of the TV on the sofa was the most strenuous thing I felt like doing). Sinuses plain suck. I need to get a tap installed into mine or something.

The hair (should be binned, familied, all of pooklet's colours): http://www.mediafire.com/?gjmztlnmyx5

And the crispinette with its one recolour in blue and gold: http://www.mediafire.com/?mil2ly2n2mq

Crispinette should show for teens, young adults, adults and elders. The hair for the same ages and also for children (not toddlers, that'd be silly).

I'll need to make some preview shots still to properly upload it to my journal (and uh, I guess link to it when GoS recovers and comes back) but I figured you might like it in advance. Do tell me if I've missed anything or something doesn't show up right or whatnot. I've been fiddling with it off and on for too long and I'm losing sight of what I'm doing at this point. I'll get you the UV maps and such soon, need to scribble some notes on them still. It's not too bad to figure out though, atleast I think. The caul and hat thing are a simple cut-out alpha, the veil and wimple can be made solid or partially see-through and everything in between (and you can also remove the wimple but leave the veil. Or vice versa, although that looks rather silly)

Note the polycounts are not super insane levels or anything but the hair does reach up to 5207 (mostly the braids that do that), the crispinette is 1844.

And thanks for the Medieval Challenge link. It looks interesting. I've not played anything by the exact rules of any challenge in a while (after a while you start tweaking rules, bending rules, hey as long as it's fun right?) but it's the idea that counts. I am having ideas of having a fancy pharaoh's mansion with a pharaoh and his wives. That might be amusing...

[hat_plays_sims]

Woohoo! Thank you SO much! You are made of sheer unadulterated awesome. (Mediafire appears to be having a slight issue, so I will nab these and check them out (and make half a dozen recolors) as soon as I can.)

I don't think the poly count there sounds too bad, actually. I've certainly seen a lot worse lately!

I know where you can find a wedding arch for the Pharaoh and his wives! Indispensible for political marriages. I made an invisible recolor I have to upload sometime.

[fantasyrogue.livejournal.com]

Well you never know. People have different standards as to the polycounts and what is reasonable. I always seem to manage to go over the amount I wanted a bit more than I was expecting.

Anyway, promised UV maps: http://www.mediafire.com/?0d0tmnzwm4y

Two UV maps, one per PSD file. Both have text by me scribbled on seperate layers, texture file and bump map file also included in the one PSD. Hopefully that'll be clear enough to figure it out.

Oh that arch looks useful. I am imagining fun conflict with having a guy married to several ladies. Wonder what'd happen in game. I really need to get on creating content to actually be able to play though. Gah.

[hat_plays_sims]

I honestly keep forgetting what's reasonable as to hair poly count; I know five digits is too many, but I've got a couple of stupidly high-poly hairs in my game and I overload my lots with Sims, so... I guess my graphics card can handle it. (It damn well better, since it puts holes in certain meshes and I can't remember how to fix it.)

*nabs UV maps!* Yay!

And yay for notes; these look ridiculously easy to recolor, actually! (Speaking of recoloring, did you see? Very exciting!)

Dude, I know how that goes. Gotta get X, Y, and Z defaulted before I can start playing, but also need to make A, B, and C and move all the GOOD buildings into the lot bin now that I have the actual clean templates, gotta make some garden club townies and some hobby club leaders, gotta... No wonder I'm getting kind of attached to my testerhood.

[fantasyrogue.livejournal.com]

I am not sure these days. Old articles suggest around 1-2k as far as up to 5k max but personally I think that's a bit low and outdated. Opinions vary on the subject though.

I hope it is easy to recolour, I did my best to map it in a way that made some kind of sense (as far as I even had to do that myself, cylinders tend to map out like that anyway in Milkshape). And I did see, sadly I'd already finished recolouring the hair and I'm not personally up for doing the rest. But someone else has offered to do the other shades so they may go up at a slightly later date in my LJ post.

Ugh, yes. I've got a mountain of plans and very little existing stuff to work with. Egyptian content is low in number and there's quite a bit of uh.. questionable quality... And I don't know where to look for items meant for other time periods but that I can also use. I am not that well-versed in the themed game content and where to find the good stuff, sadly. Need to get on that.

I can understand getting attached. Still, personally I never trust my tester hoods to not explode into a fiery ball eventually ;) I tend to abuse cheats, modding stuff and do weird things with them.

[hat_plays_sims]

I know my game tends to run fine with whatever. I've pulled a couple of women's hairs I know to be up in the "WHOA WAT" range, but I tend to leave the men's. Because there's not enough men's hair anywhere ever, except for swishy anime Sims-- and I'm going to have Vikings, so swishy is right out. My computer can handle it-- my graphics card actually outstrips Sims 2 on some things-- but it's hard to think why a hair needs more than ten thousand of anything.

I may do the other shades myself, too, if only so I have them all in one place in the catalog. Man I like having things all in one place in the catalog. I'm a nerdbucket about organization.

I know Blacky's has a LOT of Egyptian stuff-- I have most of their vases-- and depending on when you're setting things, you could always use Greek and Roman content, too. Tarox is a pretty good source, too, though I always wish the textures were larger. And apparently TSR did an 'ancients' theme that garnered some fun items, if you're up for raiding the Booty. I'll keep my eyes open as I wander the webbernets, maybe I'll spot something fun.

Oh, if the testerhood goes belly-up, it goes belly-up. I'll be sad, but I'll also kind of shrug, you know? (I'm sure it's going to explode. I have one kid with busted DNA from an oopsie while I was swapping out PTs, I get squiggly lines every so often... So far no kids with adult wants, though.)

[fantasyrogue.livejournal.com]

My game has no issues with it either as my graphics card is kinda a bit too much for the Sims XD (I game a lot and really, The Sims 2 is not that new anymore, comparitively speaking). But I know it's not that way for everyone. I am trying not to giggle at the idea of a viking in swishy hair. Maybe he's a very fashionable viking. I can think of a few reasons but not many, when I did that dreadlock style for the secret santa, that one's just shy of 9k and that was after polycount reductions because I insisted on meshing each dreadlock on.

Go ahead. I didn't do it because I'd already finished just before pooklet released the new actions and I find it somewhat tedious work so didn't want to go back and delay this thing even more. I am a stickler for organization myself and wouldn't have binned it the way I have for personal use. But I thought cutting the elder age out for most colours in favor of Time Bomb would be more restrictive than vice versa. I don't personally use the neons either. But deciding what the best thing to do with hairs is hard, everyone has a different opinion on the matter.

I generally find Blacky's somewhat of a pain to navigate so I admit I haven't checked there yet. I could use some greek and roman content. I'd considered certainly sticking one or two sims in from different cultural backgrounds if even for something as simple as genetic diversity (plus, what fun it'd be to see what one or two blonde sims could do to a community made up mostly, but not exclusively, of dark hair colours, recessive wise. Probably not much, but hey, fun to dream).

I think it does not help that I reject a bunch of the Egyptian content on quality reasons and also on lack of correctness reasons. I've spent weeks now looking at Egyptian historical stuff so some of the faux stuff is rubbing me the wrong way. I'm terrible! I'm sure I'd mess it up just as badly once I start crafting my own stuff to use.

That's a good attitude to have towards it. Whatever happens, happens. Squiggly lines aren't the end of the world. And the adult wants for kids could be amusing (I had sims roll pet related wants once for a werewolf sim of mine. It was hilarious. Especially since he was/is an unemployed bum and half of them rolled wants for him to get a pet job)

[hat_plays_sims]

Mm, I'd be thrilled with my graphics card if it weren't SO good that it puts holes in a couple of meshes that're hard to live without-- both Tiggerypum's long dresses for girls, the vampire dresses from the Sims 2 Store, and a bunch of stuff that came with later expansions that doesn't annoy me so much because I use hiders on it. But yeah, every computer is different and not everybody can plunk down however much for a good graphics card. Although I think everybody understands dreadlock meshes are going to be a little bit high poly-- and your dreadlock mesh is awesome, it may just be going on a couple of my Twikkii Islanders when I get around to my big Let's Make Over the Founders-- AGAIN! project. (You get some new eyes, some new clothes, some new hair, you start being glad you're only prepping your hood instead of playing it...)

Blacky's is a pain in the ASS to navigate, this is true. And there's a lot of junk. But there are also some good meshes, so it's worth a crawl-- I've got a whole mess of animals from there that I wouldn't want to do without, even if they are all statue-y. And hey, the Egyptians liked exotic slaves just as much as everyone else. No reason not to throw in a few Gauls.

I hear you on accuracy. My big project after the Default Replace Everything project will be making some accurate Medieval clothing, so I can finally delete everything with a bodice (except the AAS corset undies, I love them too much).

... So basically, they had a pet werewolf. Awesome.