@gazania - when building in an empty lot, toggle it to Night before putting in the lights; when putting in the lights it will turn the lights on and leave them on when it is turned back to day (Day/Night toggle).
At least that's how I've always done it without a mod. Even closing the game and coming back the lights will still work.
Deleting the lights already placed and putting new ones while in Night mode will work~ Maybe a little tedious.

Unless I'm reading what you want to do wrong. If so, carry on. I'm just slacking from my chores. :sipswine:

Oh, I know the one you mean. It's not actually a photobooth picture, which is four pictures arranged in a black square, but a set of pictures arranged vertically in a white frame, with the couple in the pictures using the photobooth "romantic" poses. Several of us used it in the qualifying round - you can see it on the master bedroom wall in mine.

Rosebine, almost everything that can be done with most in-game editing mods can also be done with the testingcheats on. If you can't get simblender to work, just enter boolprop testingcheatsenabled true in a cheat window in neighborhood view, and I bet whatever you're trying will work, especially if what you're doing is testing a mod. They don't call it "testingcheats" for nothing - we have it to begin with because the programmers needed ways to test functionality under various conditions in development.

Yes Peni. I ended up doing just that, and spawn the clothing tester thing..the rack of clothing? Yeah. I needed a toddler in underwear.
(Don't judge, see rather)

Oh okay, we are talking about two different things. I thought you meant an actual photo booth picture which only sims can get by going into a photo booth. That is just a buyable one in deco that looks like a photo both picture, but it has a different frame.

@Mom50409 You need to use the Print Screen button on your key board, far left top.
Or if that doesn't work since it will take a black screen or desktop for some people, then download a screenshot program like Fraps. Fraps has it's own folder on C drive and you use whatever key you want to set it to.

Ah, this is where I tend to be reluctant like you, Voielle. I'm not sure if want all the lights on during the day in my pictures. It just looks ... odd ... to me, though I can see from my now-pfft pictures that they do look pretty dark, and why people advise using the lights. But I'm the type who runs through the house trying to turn the lights off constantly! Blame it on my cheap ... I mean thrifty ... nature there.

Let's face it ... in a real house that doesn't have a lot of windows, it DOES get pretty dark during the day!

it is too bad there isn't a way to turn on just ONE light in build mode on an unoccupied lot and leave it on off-camera ... and being able to see the mod in my test game! I see that there is a Pescado wand for the game? I wonder if that would work better, though that might veer into CC territory if I have to leave the wand on the lot.

Well, I can always try cheats and at least see what the place looks like all lit. Maybe it's not all bad: boolProp allObjectLightsOn true. The lights at night are also a good idea ... thank you, Sweet Mystre.

It depends. If the pictures look dim and judges can't see properly you may get less points. They can only judge by what they can see.

The judges have now handed in all the scores, so expect them to go up in the next day or two.

Yay! That's exciting.

The cheat works fine, anyway. That helps.

There is a reason realtors turn all the lights on in a house before they show it.

I finally finish my house for this round and now scores are coming?! Oh man, I'm almost tempted to just turn it in as it is while I still love it, instead of nitpicking it after I get my axe. Haha! I will tell you what, I have finally reached that nirvana with my home where I am beyond happy with it. I mean I LOVE my house. It was tricky though, but I am so pleased, and my confidence is building.

Joining this was the best decision I have made in a long time. Even with all the hand-wringing and self-doubt, I finally feel secure enough to show others my "best" work (so far). Thank you, joandsarah77, so much for this contest.

Aww thanks Goldenbtrfly. It's only 6.50 pm over here in Oz, so many of you may wake up to scores because I am getting close to being done.

I took a break from building as I feel I was getting stale. I played Julianne Rhodes, the daughter of my hippy couple. She moved out of her parents' psychedelic encampment and bought a much more conventional house (Maxis "Bonny Bungalow" slightly modified). She started in her chosen medical career and has got promoted to paramedic. She has also picked up a townie boyfriend and persuaded him to stay the night. I think I've benefitted from the break and shall return to building a bit less jaded. There are, after all, still more than 11 days to go, so I really don't have to rush. My house is now up to about §30.2K, but there's still a lot to do with the downstairs. So the house may end up a bit sparsely furnished. In future I may follow the example of others and allow bigger areas of veranda/decking, rather than building right to the foundation edges. (I think I understand the rule now, Jo. Don't add or subtract anything from the given foundation. You may make a separate one somewhere else on the lot, but choose one that Maxis call a "Deck" rather than the one on a brick base called "Foundation". The "Decks" are cheaper than the "Foundations" anyway!)

Whatever I do in other pictures, I think I need all the lights on in the floor-plan pictures so you can see everything. I use Moo's Lights on/off mod.

EDIT: I redid the house. I guess this will be my final version of the lot

Making something useful from this template was quite... hard for some reason. But! here's my recycle-ish looking lot for the Rhodes



As you can see, most part of the lot is basically wood, though I've added some metal wallpaper just to give it some 'recycle-ish' feeling. I would have added more plants though which was impossible with a 35k budget. However, ti was a fun lot to create! It didn't really turn into something I had in mind, but I guess, since the budget's quite difficult to work with in my case, looks good enough!

Application/Round 1 Judging Scores and Comments

Tips from Judge 1
Lighting
I noticed that some of the lots were very dark. Please turn your lights on as it makes judging so much easier if we can see what we’re looking at . You might find this mod by Mootilda helpful. All it does is enable you to turn the lights on without having to have a sim on the lot or changing from day to night every time you place a light http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=492998
Walls
When you’re taking your images please have the walls up! I want to be able to see what wallpaper you’ve used and I can’t if they’re down! A little tip: When taking pictures in a confined space delete the walls behind you. When you’ve finished taking the image just press undo!
Images

Try not to distort the images when resizing them.
Try and remember to remove the grid lines when taking your images – they’ll look much better press tab then R
With the top down images please make sure you zoom in and fill the screen so that we don’t have to squint!
Please make sure you are directly overhead for the topdown images.
The information in this tutorial is very useful and taught me how to take screenshots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=492998











































Play Along Comments.

I have no desire to nitpick scores, Jo, as this is already much higher than I expected; but that's a Seasons floor I used on the kitchen/living room ceiling. I'm positive of that because I've got a CC-free Seasons AGS in which I've used it several times. I didn't show the bathroom (because I hate taking bathroom pictures; they're boring and constricted) but I think it has the same one. I don't think the whitewashed boards in the bedroom are CC, but I'll check. They don't have a star but I suppose they could be Castaway extractions that slipped by me. If so that deprives me of the 5 points anyway (and for the Rhodeses, too, unless I change it - that's a useful realistic floor/ceiling and it'll be a challenge if I have to go forward without it!), and that's my own fault for not generating the second Sims 2 folder. I don't want to have to load the game to build or take a picture, quit, change out folders, and load again to play, so I chose what problem to have there and can live with the consequences.

On the whole I am surprised and delighted by my scores. Don't be afraid to open your spoiler, people!

ETA: Oh, I was thinking of the ceilings and you meant the actual floors. No, that came with, um, what did that come with? A stuff pack, I think? I'll look that up and get back to you. It's called Blue Beehive and there's two slight variations in the catalog.

Two other moderators confirm its CC and I don't have it in my game. We were wondering if you had a default sneak in. A stories extraction without a star is also a possibility.

@joandsarah77 Just to be completely sure (and I'm sorry to bring up and beat the dead horse), but are extracted items OK? For example, the suitcases they take on vacation, the mop they use to clean puddles or even a loaf of bread from the cutting board? Or are they considered CC?

I know you approved the buyable craftable items. Thank you for that!

The floor in the kitchen *is* Life Stories and the ceiling is seasons.

In the overhead shot, there is one right by the lower right chair.

Okay, my bad. I thought all I had was CS stuff. Great, now I get to second-guess everything! Unless I scrap my BG AGS, since I'm actively using the Seasons and NL ones...Maybe I should. I can always remake it later.

I came to upload my next entry and find scores!!!! Thank you, Judges, I am quite happy with my solid points for my solid build

The house for the Ellitots turned out fantastic until I found that I forgot the computer. So it required some rebuilding and budget cuts, but it is ready now.

The Walters have twins. Trust me, those toddlers are going to use that back door when it snows or when there are butterflies to chase outside. They also have 2 fruit trees and have just met their new neighbours, the Elliots. I have added a subhood to my main hood and named it Jo's village.

@Peni - what about just making a new game folder? I always do that when I am not allowed to use cc because it is just convenient.

Don't want to open the game, take one or two pictures or build, quit the game, and then load again to play. Which I'd also have to do with AGS, of course...only AGS is familiar.

Query: Not to shoot myself in the foot, but shouldn't using the CC get me a 0 for the whole round, since no CC was a requirement for the round?

Peni ssshhhh! :D

Very good comments from all the judges!

Some things I noticed: Judge 2 mentioned gummilutt's 45o toaster oven not being useable. Numenor made a mod that fixed the routing problem with corner counters. Are mod fixes not allowed to be taken into playability consideration because of the no CC rule? I would think that would also mean that all the slot enabling work Lord Darcy did for dressers and the like would be out if that were the case? Judge 1 mentioned needing the diagonal tv mod in gazania's comments, while this time Judge 2 approved of diagonal object usage so we have a bit of a consistency issue. Also, Judge 1 said they took off points from Voeille for inaccessible roof garden flowers when the rules state that garden plants are exempt from this.

Take away I got for our contestants from reading all the comments: Use your entire budget, don't forget curtains, terrain paint is free before moving sims in, and roof pitches should match or be super sure they aren't supposed to.

It’s interesting to know plants are an exception from the accessibility rule (which is great!), especially given that I’ve had the Perfect Plants mod for years and I’m used to building gardens that are completely impossible to take care of in vanilla game. But anyway I’m happy with my score, it’s interesting to see that each judge noticed something different about my house (However I’m still going to use the tiki counters, I like them for some reason )

And it looks like I need to take a new foundation picture for my entry for the second round so the whole lot is visible. I think I’ll also slightly move a plant so it doesn’t go through the wall (a bit of a leaf is visible in the kitchen picture, and I don’t think saying that it’s an unusual wall decoration is a good excuse of not fixing it ).

Oh and Peni shouldn’t get 0 points, after all it’s not CC used on purpose but mistaking it with an already in-game thing.