The wild flowers over in Western Australia are quite the tourist attraction and like SA it's a display that comes after the major rain time.

@Charmful are you around?

@CatherineTCJD I hope things are okay where you are.

Just letting people know that due to myself being ill and Cat's circumstances this round may be extended.

@joandsarah77 Yes, I am around. I was supposed to be out of town this holiday weekend (Memorial Day in the USA) but I had some health problems so am back at home. I have scores done but no comments written up yet but I plan to.

Thanks for thinking of me - yes, I'm surviving OK... I got caught up today with uploading a house, so I didn't get the last of my comments written. It won't take long to do them, I'll get them to you soon

I hope you are feeling much better by now {{{hugs}}}

Even if this round is extended, if the Federal Court grants my appeal for a postponement (honestly ... I'm not trying to duck it, but this is a legal matter hundreds of miles away that I have to address, as well as my organizing a huge move that needs to be completed by a certain date), I'll be out of town starting June 4th and going through most, if not all of the week, so it's not going to help me much. I still have to get this out by the 2nd (allowing for packing on the 3rd and whatever last-minute oopses I encounter.)

Speaking of oopses ... I never knew that a gardener gets hissy fits if you put a border around the shrubs or sunflowers. I'm now in my third season of testing; preferring to test for a full Sim year and noticing any irregularities in each season before working on pictures. Right now, I'm in the third season (winter). Good thing I waited before posting. I noticed three or four problems in my last play session back in the Fall season, even though I've played this household for several hours now. One involved that border.

Zenith and Cardamon are actually making a small, healthy living now between pottery, sewing projects, paintings and flower arranging. (Yes ... I put the flower arranging station in my lot as well. 60s folks ... flower children ... it all seemed logical when I designed the house a few days ago, for some reason!) They had enough to hire a gardener, so I figured I'd let them create stuff and mind the fruit trees and veggie garden and let the gardener tend to the flowers, leaves and shrubs. Originally, I had roses with the tree-section flower bed around them. (The flower station has roses, so that made sense too in the wee hours of the morning.) The border also surrounded some sunflowers. (Ditto with the flower station.) In both cases, the gardener threw a massive routing fit over and over. Err .... those tree pieces are only a few inches tall at best, you Sim doofus! My Sim also threw a hissy fit when he wanted to trim the roses. All over a three or four-inch flower garden border!

I thought that the flowers and rose bushes being near a fence might have affected routing, but my Sim is happily trimming the rose bushes now sans border, so perhaps that wasn't it. I still need to see if the sunflowers are 100% OK without the border. So far, so good.

I guess I never noticed it because of my Perfect Plants mod in my good game. How spoiled I have been.

So I guess those tree trunk pieces are gone. Yee-haa! What should I shop for next? (Those aren't TOO many Simoleons, unfortunately, so no going hog-wild this time. And alas .. no more move_objects presents.)

Anyway, hope everyone who is under stress for various reasons feels better soon!

@gazania That's where the mods trim inaccessible bushes and water inaccessible flowers come in handy. The gardener throws a fit over the smallest of things such as a bush on a slope-don't build for them.

Your sure it wasn't this mod? http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=288772

I'm over budget, even with my depreciating cheating, by about $8700 per unit, but I think I'm just done with this lot. It's pretty awesome the way it is now, and with how many times I've had to start over and redo the same things, I'm just burnt out on it.

Imma take a break for dinner, watch a movie, and prolly post it up tomorrow before my softball games. I've got a few other uploads I'm working on, but I wanted to keep these apartments all together, so I've been holding off on those until I'm done with this one. Not having 8 different projects to work on doesn't go well for me. I gotta be able to switch gears when I need a change of scenery.

Even so, I'm really happy with how it turned out, I got in a modern grove with the last one, so I kept it going, this time going for high end. It's an interesting mix of mod and elegant, and I think it mostly works. Here's some teaser pics.

Btw, if you want to turn on your lights for the pictures without using a mod, switch to night mode before you buy the lamps. They will be on when you pull them from the catalog if it's night. Then switch back to daytime, and they'll stay on.

Eureka! I downloaded the shaders, copied all the file names exactly, and did a search of the entire EAGames folder for each one, and finally found it! I'm loading my game now to be sure the problem is fixed, and can retake some of the pictures in which the lighter roof shows.

I wonder what default or other random bit of stealth CC I'm not aware of using will be revealed in the last round? Just call me the Accidental Cheater.

But that goes against the foot stompage and making things usable with a CC free game... right? I remember reading this earlier. I thought they all had to be reachable if they needed to be watered and/or trimmed. It's why I used the pond plants- they don't get trimmed.

*sorry, i forgot that not all will be going for the No CC bonus. :blush:




.

Sweet Mystre, garden plants are excluded from the accessibility requirements in the rules (and you don’t even know how I appreciate that ).

Deco items do not have to be accessible. Plants being the main thing.

I must have missed that plants are deco items. I took foot stompage to mean all foot stompage- in that statement.

That's why you can have planters, foundation with flowers on top.

Yet, Having planters from foundations doesn't require plants requiring attention- buy mode plants and plants that don't need attention could be used with the building cheats.
I see now. Garden plants are all the plants in build mode and I really didn't need to make a "Garden" with plts. It's just in the definition -flower garden, rose garden, vegetable garden.
I need to expand my imagination.

I planned to save this round for the Lamberts family. I assumed Jo would leave the most generous budget for the last residential lot, and that turned out exactly like I had hoped. But I just didn't feel like doing that family at all. At least not right now. I just really, really wanted to build a modern (heavily CFE-d) house for a single sim, and I decided to go with Evans. I thought: this is supposed to be a fun, relaxing activity, not an obligation, and I had already been sent faaaar away from my comfort zone during this contest. To be honest, I'm not a family player. Lamberts would be the biggest family I had ever played, and I just craved to return to my regular play and build style, and be myself again. Evans turned out to be the perfect choice. A single Sim also meant - no worrying about routing issues, less time spent on playtesting and more time dedicated to what I love most! :lovestruc The budget was great, so I managed to include practically everything I wanted, and more. I didn't even need to craft anything! Mr. Humble's computer is the only object obtained out of the build/buy budget. The house design also suited me perfectly. The requirements were not complicated, so I decided to add to them (more workout objects: an exercise machine, a stationary bicycle, a treadmill, a punching bag, an Execuputter + radio and TV) or make them more interesting (pool with interesting design and varied structural shapes, with added pool activity objects, like a diving board and a pool slide). Jo, in case you're wondering, the random object ("The Measure of a Sim" statue) is in the living room area, on the shelf above sofa. Also, in case anyone's wondering, the interior is weatherproofed, despite the roofs being curved with CFE (I built dummy levels and made sure to flat the ceilings above usable rooms).

I didn't count pictures, but I see I have them many. I hope you don't mind me breaking this rule; while taking screenshots I made sure to show everything, and in proper order, to make it seem like I'm giving you a tour. I want to thank @CatherineTCJD for this post - it helped me a lot! I just can't believe I didn't figure this out before. It really improved the quality of the screenshots. Catherine, once again, thank you so much! :lovestruc

I took a break from forum discussion a little (busy dealing with other things), and I may not be seen here often in the following weeks, but I'll try not to neglect the contest, read you guys regularly and enjoy your wonderful creations. :lovestruc If I have time, I will even try building for the Lamberts! I'm a playalong after all, I guess I'm allowed to have two entries if I want .

Justpetro and Joandsarah Those flowers are gorgeous! The botanist in me is drooling Plants are amazing.

Peni Griffin I really like your house. The sunflowers look so happy lol and the artwork is great being all animal. I tend not to play with pets but seeing your house maybe I should.

yavannatw Yeah the columns are CFE. Heck I just realised that the narrow ones cost 560 simoleans without wallpaper! I wondered why the budget took a slap when I was building them!
I'm not very good with CFE. Simple things like the columns are okay but it can take me three or four days of build knock down walls hit undo repeatedly to do stairs. It's just practice I suppose.

CatherineTCJD, Charmful and joandsarah I hope you are all feeling better soon sending healing thoughts your way.

gazania your house sounds great. Strangely my hippies favourite occupation (apart from the obvious) was either cooking in the nude or heading outside to water some strange plants that mysteriously appeared behind the factory wall after Moonbeam disappeared out there! lol Hope you get finished on time but I'm sure you will.


Phaenoh WOW Yet again I love your lot. When (IF) I grow up I want to build like you! (no I mean it not meant to sound snarky etc. Its one of the reasons I don't like typing as tone is hard to communicate) The sims in my downtown will be very happy.

Oh and thanks to whoward and Justpetro I'm off to try to build my first apartment building for the "pop star" for Mr Evans She's called Ceinwen Llyod and she's a bit fussy about where she lives. Sim building gods help me

MystAngel I love the colours in your house and the pool is very cool.

Scottiedoag

I normally use build mode flowers on my planters and they do need attention. Either a perfect plant mod or the one that lets sims reach them. Without a mod you could still use them as a decorative piece but you would need to replace them when they die. Either way, flowers are only for looks and enviroment.

Crops do have to be accessible. They are practical items that sims have to tend to grow food.

Wow, MystAngel! I love your CFE work there and very interesting trick with the moveobjects windows! I'd never have thought of that! Your house is beautiful. I didn't recognise the sink in the bathroom!

MystAngel, what a great lot! Love your CFE work.

@joandsarah77 - I hope you get completely well soon Putting Australia's flowers on my bucket list too.

@MystAngel - impressive lot, well done.

@scottiedoag - that forgotten phone turned out a huge pain indeed! I really like your house. You make the lot seem so spacious. Job well done!

I hope to take pics of Evans's house today. He had quite a busy first day. On testing, he was very willing to work out using the radio - but he went all the way to the kitchen in another part of the house to do it

@yavannatw Question from a judge, your stairs outside that meet in a corner, are those game or CC stairs?

I simply got rid of the borders near the sunflowers and roses. Like Sweet Mystre, I approached the plants as if a beginner is playing this game and has no idea about plant mods. Not an easy feat since I don't even think much of tending them anymore thanks to Perfect Plants (though I do have the version that excludes orchards ... let the Sim do SOME work!). Not exactly uniform, but hippies often aren't!

TVs in this contest give me agita. Just as I thought I ironed the kinks out, I saw the ol' standing Sim who, even with a chair handy, wouldn't sit to watch the movie. I had to re-arrange walls and go back to the Newmans' TV layout (using the same TV) because as boring as it is, it works. I did consider having the hippies simply eschew TV, but decided not to, Back in the day, many hippies watched TV. And of course, changing stuff meant changing the price. Good thing I haven't taken pictures of the final layout yet.

The technique is described here

Welcome to the house of James Evans.
He asked for a modern house.
Working out objects on the lot: stereo, exercise machine and yoga mat. (he could use the TV, but does not).
Random object is in the bedroom.
Swimming pool on the lot.
Telephone in living room, fire alarm in kitchen behind the stairs.
NoCC

Privacy is also very important to James Evans, and his house was designed with that in mind. He will appear on the balcony early in the morning to wave at his fans, but James is rather shy. He wants to concentrate on his exercising and has an excellent chance to make the Olympic swimming team. A true minimalist, James asked for a modern house with some color. He wanted two bathrooms, one with a shower close to the gym. He also wanted his living space apart from his exercising space, but still very close together. This is what the architect came up with:

I like that both recent Evans entries aren’t full of red

MystAngel, I really like the use of CFE (I’m obsessed with CFE bridges myself, whenever I make a bridge it must be be adjusted by CFE somehow) and some ideas you used in general. What is that horizontal brown thing above the windows? The vertical ones look like certain Maxis columns. To create such an effect I’d rotate the column using angled OMSP, but you can’t do it no CC, so I wonder what abject you used.

Justpetro, I like the fence and that you decided to add some plants to the garden Lot without plants is not a finished lot to me