Title: Simple Columns That Actually Fit








Description

Perhaps Maxis was a bit short of pixels the day they designed the Sims 2 columns, because they are all too short. Ostensibly made to connect with the underside of the floor tile above it, even by this standard they fail to measure up, as shown below. If used within a room as a design element, these short columns look quite daft. And in their typical role of holding up a porch roof, they must do so by emitting a force field, because there is certainly no obvious physical connection.

By extending the base game's simple column by about 5% (more precisely 4.9%), the post connects reliably to both the floor tile above it, and is tall enough to give the impression that it may actually be supporting a porch roof. This optimal height is also compatible with the jgwhiteus ceiling tiles as shown on the right, above.

This little project came out of December's Creator Challenge, in which the default columns looked extremely silly pretending to support an attached carport, until I made the taller columns shown on the right:

For this application - a column that must be tall enough to reach from the ground to the top of a wall mounted on a foundation - I needed a post that was 31% taller than the standard (actually 31.3% taller). An alternative would be to mount a standard column on its own square foundation block, but this quite often looks out of place with a building's overall style. The picture below shows the 31% taller columns supporting a roofed entrance. A standard column is shown for reference.

These new columns use the repository technique to reference the recolours of the original. Please recolour the original simple column if you wish these posts to be available in other colours. I am indebted to the Slave Object Tutorial by IgnorantBliss for making a complex procedure easy.

The 5% taller columns cost §71, one Simolean more than the original (I dislike having custom content jump around within the catalogue, as it does when it is priced the same as the built-in version). The 31% taller columns cost only §2 more at §72 - I wish it worked that way at the lumber yard! :D


International Translations

Mihura has been kind enough to translate the amendments to these objects' titles and descriptions into French, German, Italian and Spanish.


Terms of Use

You may include either of these objects in uploaded lots, whether free or for pay. Please provide a credit and link back to this page. It would be nice if you sent me a PM with a link to your creation, but this is not strictly necessary. Please do not upload these columns otherwise than in lots.


Additional Credits:

SimPE and CEP, which together make it all possible
Milkshape 3D, for smoothly extending the height, and actually placing the column firmly on the ground (the original floats slightly above it)
Microsoft Photo Editor, for preparing the uploaded screen captures
Numenor's BaseGameStarter Pro and AnyGameStarter, so handy speeding up the development process


Polygon Counts:

Lot View: 94 faces, 158 vertices for each object, the same as the Maxis original.

Neighbourhood View: 20 faces, 32 vertices for each object, the same as the Maxis original.