Is this possible in Sims 2?

[ncths]

Hey everybody, our names are Ben and Ali and we currently attend new century tech high school in huntsville, Al. Recently we found out our school is being sponsored to produce a simulation of some sort and present it at a huge simulation convention in orlando. We automatically were interested in participating in it and went to discuss with the sponsoring teacher. of course our teacher has said we have to do well on this or the school won't get invited back/sponsored so no pressure haha. After discussing various ideas, we came upon the idea to try to simulate our school building. The program that first came to mind to use was Sims 2. Our big emphasis is to have a program that would allow us to design a basic model of our school inside and out. Here is a picture of our school:

http://www.hsv.k12.al.us/schools/high/nchs/Pictures/schoolwitshrubs2.png

Then we would like our sim to be able to walk in the school and explore the school, be able talk to stationary sim models of the teachers outside of their classroom with the ability of a text bubble(with real text, not the sims language :D ) to appear with a real life picture of the teacher and a short description of what they teach and their room number. Our aim in essense is , just allow the person controlling the sim to explore the school and become familiar with it. We thought this would also be a great tool for upcoming freshman in our school.

NOw we've never used Sims 2 before so we want to make sure before we ask our sponsor to buy the software that Sims 2 could realistically produce our project. If we necessarily need an expansion pack(Like sims2 university), we're also willing to purchase it as well and learn the different capabilites along with it.

Our project deadline is the week after thanksgiving so we have a good amount of time to learn any new software. We would really appreciate any advice or help ;) Thanks guys,



Ben and Ali

[Inge Jones]

My immediate thought is that you won't get that round roof or the gently curved walls.

[jaxad0127]

Other than what Inge said, I don't see any problems with your idea. You're going to want to read basically every tutorial out there for sims 2 modding.

[trezero]

Actually, my immediate thought is that sims 2 would almost be overkill, for something like this.

But it would work, yes. And it would probably be one of the easiest ways to do it.

[niol]

just in case the followings may be helpful... while not considered before.

In terms of the build-challenge mentioned earlier, one may try to make some custom objects with meshes that simulate the sylindric part of the building (can be liike a carpet-like object-based or tile-based cyclic roof piece plus a some fence-based "curved" walls... Non-interactive decorative objects can save a lot of work in these 2 cases.

Maybe, you can show some of the interior structures so that more ideas may pop out... Besides, may also tell what type of interactions do you need, what sorts of rooms will be in the building...? etc...

[poifectly_poiple]

For the text-speaking part it might be easier to edit that with a movie maker maybe, because the only way I can think of to make the text work is to change the picture of the speaking subjects, which I'm not even sure is possible. Also, since topics are random, you would need to try several times before the correct bubbles would appear.

PS: I was born in Huntsville :)

[trezero]

I'd think the text would have to be done with a completely new interaction; something like "Learn about school."

And you wouldn't use the text bubbles; you'd probably use one of those notice boxes that come up.

[jaxad0127]

Right. The game's dialog system is perfect for it. And you can easily change the picture.

[trezero]

...Another possible issue: Where is this game going to be run?

I mean, any project you create with sims2 won't run on a computer without sims 2 (and any expansions you used).

If this is something people will only use in one place (like on school computers that do have sims2), it'll be fine. But if you're looking for a stand-alone program that can be burned to a disc and used anywhere, this won't work.


Unless there's a method I don't know about for "publishing" a standalone-type of thing.

[jaxad0127]

It sounds like it's going to be used in a convention-like setting, which means a limited number of machines.

[trezero]

It sounds like it's going to be used in a convention-like setting, which means a limited number of machines.

Still iffy. If they've got a laptop they can take with them, well and good. But if it has to be shown on a machine at the convention, they probably won't have the authority to install sims 2.


Not trying to be a downer, but the situations where this thing could feasibly be implemented using TS2 are narrow. Not at all like a flash application or a Java applet.