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hat_plays_simsI have a Bobby Darin song stuck in my head, so I have no intro this time, only music.
Somewhere, beyond the sea,
She's there, watching for me
My lover stands on golden sands...
And watches the ships that go sailin'...
I love most of the expansions for Sims 2, and Bon Voyage is no exception. I've cheerfully taken Sims on all kinds of vacations... but somehow, Tropical is always my favorite. I use a ton of extracted Castaway Stories crap from MATY to make my tropical excursions more authentic, but as usual, many of the accessory defaults suffer from Crayola Plastic Syndrome.
Sims love to build sandcastles. I do not like bright yellow buckets for Medieval Sims. No, a solid brown bucket isn't a perfect improvement, but when you can only swap solid colors, you do what you can.
The iron spade, on the other hand (part of the same package; the bucket handle controls the spade color) got the better end of the deal when it comes to looking good in a solid color.
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, step right up-- buy a bottle of Mama Fortuna's Soothing Crystal Oil, guaranteed to protect a lady's fine complexion from the heat of the sun! It's the powdered crystals, you see. Bounces the skin-crisping light right off your skin, and adds a healthy glow all on its own!
Also useful as a massage oil!
Which is to say, green glass corked bottles as sunblock and massage oil defaults; both reference the same texture, so you get Mama Fortuna's potion.
Every so often, there's something so blatantly technological in-game that I wonder how the heck I'm supposed to default it. Then I remember my Servos and dig out my lovely gold oak texture and start slapping runes and carvings on things. Oak inlaid with gold can only mean one thing in Hat's Medieval Neighborhood: A wizard did it. Also check out the camera front and back.
The souvenir box was a mighty offender in the war against artificial colors; now it's a simple thin-wood box tied with string... It still doesn't look big enough to hold any of the Bon Voyage souvenirs, but maybe they're kits or 3-D puzzles or something.
Now here's one with a mess of pictures. Beach towels!
The brightly colored beach towels, with their terrycloth and their sunglasses, just had to go. Now, there was plenty of dye in Medieval times, and many different methods for weaving, so I don't feel bad at all about the stripes and color spread on these towels. I do feel kinda bad for not using Castaway Stories textures, but maybe I'll do that later. Not every beach is on Twikkii Island, after all!
But hey, you can see 'em from neighborhood view! (Quick tip for those interested in creating beach towel defaults: in order to photograph a full lot, beach towels ARE recolorable with the design tool, but those changes do not show up in 'hood view."
Behold, the only default in this update that does not require Bon Voyage! It's a default replacement invisible boom box, with bonus original-texture recolor. "Hat," you'll say, "that might be kinda handy, but why a default, not an invisible recolor? Why in the tropical set?"
Because it's the only way to have a fire dance mat without a boom box stuck to it-- the boom box is not recolorable as attached to the mat, for some reason. Yes, the shadows are indeed imperfect, but just do what I do and pretend it's a scorch mark.
Fire happens here, after all! I know, I know, what was wrong with the old stick? Not much, except it was too clean (those cotton-swab lookin' heads get sooty really fast, I've watched fire-eaters), I didn't like the bright silver metal, so I changed it to black, and instead of an Anonymous Dowel as the center handle, I nabbed a polished dark bamboo. It's not much of a change, but I think it adds a sooty little something.
Ooooh I had fun with this one-- the photo album!
Not only does it have a lovely black leather cover with gold detailing...
I made sure to give it its own catalog description...
And some fairly appropriate photos (wedding and volcano, respectively).
Last but not least, suitcases! The smaller tapestry one works for kids, while the larger leather one is for adults. These appear in your Sims' hands when they leave for vacation, arrive at their hotel, leave their hotel, and arrive home again. (They are, however, shown here as recolors of Bloom's suitcases-as-clutter meshes, which were a godsend in getting them DONE.)
And now, the boring words you have to read before I give you the download link:
No bloody paysites. Not with defaults. I have Issues with people charging money for default replacements; it just rubs me the wrong way.
There can be only one. For any particular default, you can only have one replacement. If you have any other defaults for any of these items, yoink 'em out before you use mine.
Learn by doing! Love the idea, hate the texture? Feel free to use my work as a guide for creating your own default replacements. Remember, if you ever want a template for anything you see in my sets, let me know and I'll upload it for you!
Nobody's perfect. Please let me know if you upload your own defaults of any of these items-- I'd love to see your work and maybe your suitcases will be better than mine.
If you downloaded this set before May 30, 2010, please redownload. I totally forgot to include the file for the wooden souvenir box, but the file has been updated and re-uploaded. If you like, you can just download the box and fling it into your defaults folder.
DOWNLOAD BEYOND THE SEA on Mediafire | DOWNLOAD BEYOND THE SEA on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD SOUVENIR BOX
But wait there's more!
All my best attempts at Medieval luggage applied to Bloom's base-game compatible Bon Voyage luggage-as-clutter! Mesh is included for both adult and child sizes. These are cloned from the gnome, so you can kick 'em over. The only ones I've uploaded are the ones that got compliments, so.
DOWNLOAD CARPETBAGGER on Mediafire | DOWNLOAD CARPETBAGGER on Sims File Share
Wanna help me feed my cats?
In case you feel like dropping me a buck or two, should you have a buck or two to spare. Donors get two things at the moment: a) a link to the Super Secret Cat Gallery, full of pictures of the cats you'll be feeding, updated sporadically when the cats do something photogenic and I'm fast enough on the trigger to catch it, and b) a link to the list of content I have done-but-not-screencapped, nearly done, partly done, or in the planning stages, and the option to suggest what ought to be in the next batch of things I focus on.
Somewhere, beyond the sea,
She's there, watching for me
My lover stands on golden sands...
And watches the ships that go sailin'...
I love most of the expansions for Sims 2, and Bon Voyage is no exception. I've cheerfully taken Sims on all kinds of vacations... but somehow, Tropical is always my favorite. I use a ton of extracted Castaway Stories crap from MATY to make my tropical excursions more authentic, but as usual, many of the accessory defaults suffer from Crayola Plastic Syndrome.
Sims love to build sandcastles. I do not like bright yellow buckets for Medieval Sims. No, a solid brown bucket isn't a perfect improvement, but when you can only swap solid colors, you do what you can.
The iron spade, on the other hand (part of the same package; the bucket handle controls the spade color) got the better end of the deal when it comes to looking good in a solid color.
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, step right up-- buy a bottle of Mama Fortuna's Soothing Crystal Oil, guaranteed to protect a lady's fine complexion from the heat of the sun! It's the powdered crystals, you see. Bounces the skin-crisping light right off your skin, and adds a healthy glow all on its own!
Also useful as a massage oil!
Which is to say, green glass corked bottles as sunblock and massage oil defaults; both reference the same texture, so you get Mama Fortuna's potion.
Every so often, there's something so blatantly technological in-game that I wonder how the heck I'm supposed to default it. Then I remember my Servos and dig out my lovely gold oak texture and start slapping runes and carvings on things. Oak inlaid with gold can only mean one thing in Hat's Medieval Neighborhood: A wizard did it. Also check out the camera front and back.
The souvenir box was a mighty offender in the war against artificial colors; now it's a simple thin-wood box tied with string... It still doesn't look big enough to hold any of the Bon Voyage souvenirs, but maybe they're kits or 3-D puzzles or something.
Now here's one with a mess of pictures. Beach towels!
The brightly colored beach towels, with their terrycloth and their sunglasses, just had to go. Now, there was plenty of dye in Medieval times, and many different methods for weaving, so I don't feel bad at all about the stripes and color spread on these towels. I do feel kinda bad for not using Castaway Stories textures, but maybe I'll do that later. Not every beach is on Twikkii Island, after all!
But hey, you can see 'em from neighborhood view! (Quick tip for those interested in creating beach towel defaults: in order to photograph a full lot, beach towels ARE recolorable with the design tool, but those changes do not show up in 'hood view."
Behold, the only default in this update that does not require Bon Voyage! It's a default replacement invisible boom box, with bonus original-texture recolor. "Hat," you'll say, "that might be kinda handy, but why a default, not an invisible recolor? Why in the tropical set?"
Because it's the only way to have a fire dance mat without a boom box stuck to it-- the boom box is not recolorable as attached to the mat, for some reason. Yes, the shadows are indeed imperfect, but just do what I do and pretend it's a scorch mark.
Fire happens here, after all! I know, I know, what was wrong with the old stick? Not much, except it was too clean (those cotton-swab lookin' heads get sooty really fast, I've watched fire-eaters), I didn't like the bright silver metal, so I changed it to black, and instead of an Anonymous Dowel as the center handle, I nabbed a polished dark bamboo. It's not much of a change, but I think it adds a sooty little something.
Ooooh I had fun with this one-- the photo album!
Not only does it have a lovely black leather cover with gold detailing...
I made sure to give it its own catalog description...
And some fairly appropriate photos (wedding and volcano, respectively).
Last but not least, suitcases! The smaller tapestry one works for kids, while the larger leather one is for adults. These appear in your Sims' hands when they leave for vacation, arrive at their hotel, leave their hotel, and arrive home again. (They are, however, shown here as recolors of Bloom's suitcases-as-clutter meshes, which were a godsend in getting them DONE.)
And now, the boring words you have to read before I give you the download link:
No bloody paysites. Not with defaults. I have Issues with people charging money for default replacements; it just rubs me the wrong way.
There can be only one. For any particular default, you can only have one replacement. If you have any other defaults for any of these items, yoink 'em out before you use mine.
Learn by doing! Love the idea, hate the texture? Feel free to use my work as a guide for creating your own default replacements. Remember, if you ever want a template for anything you see in my sets, let me know and I'll upload it for you!
Nobody's perfect. Please let me know if you upload your own defaults of any of these items-- I'd love to see your work and maybe your suitcases will be better than mine.
If you downloaded this set before May 30, 2010, please redownload. I totally forgot to include the file for the wooden souvenir box, but the file has been updated and re-uploaded. If you like, you can just download the box and fling it into your defaults folder.
DOWNLOAD SOUVENIR BOX
But wait there's more!
All my best attempts at Medieval luggage applied to Bloom's base-game compatible Bon Voyage luggage-as-clutter! Mesh is included for both adult and child sizes. These are cloned from the gnome, so you can kick 'em over. The only ones I've uploaded are the ones that got compliments, so.
Wanna help me feed my cats?
In case you feel like dropping me a buck or two, should you have a buck or two to spare. Donors get two things at the moment: a) a link to the Super Secret Cat Gallery, full of pictures of the cats you'll be feeding, updated sporadically when the cats do something photogenic and I'm fast enough on the trigger to catch it, and b) a link to the list of content I have done-but-not-screencapped, nearly done, partly done, or in the planning stages, and the option to suggest what ought to be in the next batch of things I focus on.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 04:40 pm (UTC)No, seriously, thank you very much for another great set of replacements!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 04:46 pm (UTC)Thank you, you're welcome, and I hope you enjoy them!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 08:15 am (UTC)I think I have every decent looking animal there is out there for TS2, animated or not. I guess I'd just always been hoping that EA would come out with a better animal ep, with farm animals, and rideable horses, and tropical animals, that way they would have been integrated in the game play much better, I think. Like the monkeys, the wild boars and the orang-utan in Castaway stories, they look nice. What we need is just really another EP, like the hospital EP that Chris Hatch (?) is developing.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 02:55 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think EA went to Sims 3 a bit too soon, but Will Wright left the building, so I'm not surprised. I mean, when one of the most consistently innovative minds in the industry lets you buy his company, that's good! But when he then decides a few years later to leave and start his own company again, that probably means you're screwing up. There's so much I miss from The Sims that never made it into Sims 2-- the rabbits and mice from Unleashed, and likewise the fact that some of your crops STAYED instead of disappearing once you harvested them-- picking tomatoes does not negate the existence of a tomato plant!-- the butter churn, the spinning wheel, the beehive (Bon Voyage and Apartment Life at least have BEES-- although there's a CC beehive I'd be tempted to recolor if 'disturb bees' led to 'chased by bees' instead of 'death by flies'), the canned preserves you could make or give away, the spa equipment, the fact that kids could use magic, with their own set of spells, the picnic baskets, the rugs with the special animations if you put them in front of a fireplace, the nectar press, the fact that you could animate the lawn gnomes and they'd do your yardwork and swim in your nectar press, the raccoons that would come in the middle of the night and knock your trash can over and wake everyone up... okay, I don't miss that so much, but I miss the CONCEPT of it.
... Ahem anyway but MAYBE it's possible that the CS Orang could use stolen Sims 2 Farm code, if there's a way to get hold of the animations? You couldn't send him to work, but he could hang around.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 04:47 pm (UTC)I can't actually remember much from TS1. I only played it for a rather short time, and I didn't have all the ep's.
And yes, that sounds awesome about the orang, but unfortunately my knowledge of coding is non-existant.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 05:48 pm (UTC)We got TS1 when it came out, and the expansions were like crack (even if Vacation WAS the Hot Date patch).
My knowledge of code is just knowledgeable enough to go "Couldn't it work to copy this?" to someone who knows better, so... yeah.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 07:02 pm (UTC)Thank you so much, Hat, these are awesome. :D
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 08:54 pm (UTC)And the photo album is way too awesome.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 12:36 am (UTC)Thank you! It occurred to me that maybe I should post the PSD of the photo album, or a blank bmp or something, so people can put their own pictures in.
I'm glad you like them!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 07:16 am (UTC)Issie
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-25 05:41 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for sharing all of your hard work with us! :D
no subject
Date: 2010-04-25 05:58 pm (UTC)I hope you enjoy everything in-game!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-30 09:30 pm (UTC)Btw, if you don't already have it, the junicode font (http://junicode.sourceforge.net) will let you use Elder Futhark in photoshop & so forth very easily (& read it in your browser!), in case you want to go this route for another default; it took me ages and ages of searching to find it, myself, so. Just in case you didn't have something like this already! (I suspect you do. I'm just very excited about runes working in my browser).
no subject
Date: 2014-06-04 03:13 pm (UTC)I'll check that link out-- I know I have an Elder Futhark font now, but for the life of me I can't remember what it's called, partly because I have several runic fonts and just sort of cycle between them based on what looks best on whatever project I'm fiddling with. Thanks for the heads-up!
Souvenir box download link -- file missing
Date: 2014-06-07 05:05 pm (UTC)Re: Souvenir box download link -- file missing
Date: 2014-06-07 07:46 pm (UTC)Re: Souvenir box download link -- file missing
Date: 2014-06-07 07:59 pm (UTC)Re: Souvenir box download link -- file missing
Date: 2014-06-07 08:02 pm (UTC)