That's good, at least! Thank you!

Lemme put it this way ... if my Sims need to take a leak, they're good!

And whoward ... I actually use one of those in my real game, and they look really nice, but a swing door wouldn't work in the case of a single bathroom. My poor Simmies would like to lock the doors and not have someone barge in! I would want a Value Door with a sign on it, for instance. And as far as I know, one of those don't exist, or if they do, they're on some really obscure, or worse yet, long-deceased site.

Correction: they do exist. TSR has them. Kind of. I don't see a unisex/non-gendered one.

Gazania, go back a page. Whohoward's got you covered.

OK, I understand the picture limit I’ll probably post more pictures in a spoiler after judging for the last round ends.

Those are the swing doors, though. I'm still trying to find single, lockable doors. My bathrooms don't have stalls, and my Sims would be rather exposed if I used the swing doors. Think Starbucks bathrooms. Actually, no symbol is necessary at all ... just a Simlish sign. I'll take a generic-looking sign, if need be.

What is just a little frustrating is that TSR has a whole bunch of pages like these for men/women, but no unisex or non-gendered signs. But today is a new day (I'm looking through all these pages again, in case I missed something), and there is always the WCIF, to which I'm going to be directed if I keep asking here . I cannot believe that in the last ten years of this game, no one has done such doors. I'm sure they're somewhere.

Examples on TSR: https://www.thesimsresource.com/dow...search/bathroom

In fact, I think WCIF is the next place I should visit. Yes. I think it is. The knowledge base of WCIF helpers is amazing.


EDIT ... Seek and I shall find! It's for a white door, though. I need to figure out a quick way to use the iCad texture and color for this sign. (I know, I know ... I've done recoloring all of once, that was years ago, it wasn't that great a job, and this old dog should learn new tricks. Maybe I should give it a shot again after the contest.) But it is a glorious, wonderful, generic bathroom sign! And for a plain-ish door to boot!

Either that, or change all the doors to white. Probably the windows as well. Sounds like the easier option, and I'll probably go for that!

https://www.thesimsresource.com/dow...tion/id/260838/

But who on earth is Bitzybus, and where do I find said meshes? USUALLY, though, you'll find the meshes on TSR. If Bitzybus had a site that disappeared into cyberspace, never to be seen again, I may have a problem.

(Hits link to what I think is the mesh ... c'mon, c'mon ... here we are: https://www.thesimsresource.com/dow...ims2/id/206296/) As soon as the family member who is using the computer goes to the bathroom, I'm downloading these babies!

@gazania, are these any use to you? They go on the wall not the door. http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=237108

Those could work as well. I forgot that not all bathrooms have signs on the doors. Duh on my part. Those are nice and tiny, too. Thank you! And thank you, Rebecah.

Actually, I think I'll download both and see which one would work the best. Both will be great for future builds.

Just a quick FYI - I let hubster use my PC (his wasn't working right) ...and now mine is having problems too (which, of course, I blame on him!!! Grrrr!)
So/anywho - my judging for this round is only halfway done... and it may be several days before it is completed. I'm terribly sorry, but wanted to let all ya'll know

Opening the fermented fruit juice bar, throwing a party tonight! (Cat, you are welcome before going on judging). Because my lot is not only completed, I am quite happy with it, and tested for a Sim day, and guess what? No lagging. And it has more trees than the lagging one too! It looks better too, in the end. (Phew. Fermented juice, here I come....)

Mine is not finished and doesn’t have plants yet, but it is laggy for some reason when I zoom out, not entirely sure why. Probably because of all the things I placed there, pond reflections, size, and the cheat that lets me see the whole hood.

I honestly don't know what caused the lag on the previous lot, it was the worst lag I have seen in years, and if I have time, I will try to find the culprit (s) causing it.

I'm making reasonable progress with mine now. So far it hasn't got any trees at all, but it has got some shrubs and flowers, a toilet block with a well-appointed parenting room, a restaurant, a swimming pool, an outdoor dance floor, and a bandstand (so you can dance to live music). And I'm planning on adding more attractions for children and toddlers. All on the 3x3 template. It's cost about §62K so far. I don't know if there'll be room for any trees. . . Maybe a little crab-apple with a fence round it.

Now I'm taking a break from building and playing the Lamberts for light relief.

I would like to build but I need to study

I also used the 3X3 lot. Mine will sound a bit boring, compared to yours, AndrewGloria Taking pics tomorrow if all goes well.
Strongs with the studying, Voeille.

Voeille, I don't know whether you can work this way, but when I have creative pressure vs. other obligations, I bribe myself through the obligations ("You can write when you finish X job.") and then set a timer for the creative activity. When the timer goes off, I have to stop and do self-maintenance like getting a drink, eating, or whatever my need is, then return to the next obligation in line.

Not only does it motivate you to do the work with a reward, it makes the work of creating into playtime, and primes your backbrain to be ready to go as soon as you sit down to play. It's astonishing how much you can do in 15 minutes under a system like that - if you can work at all. Some people would be paralyzed completely with this method.

I definitely agree that building after doing uni things feels like playtime, and it doesn’t when I don’t have any duties and I feel like just playing the game (so forcing myself to build then would feel more like a chore), but the thing is that I have two exams on Monday and I don’t really have time for a longer break other than for taking care of needs such as hunger and a few minutes to post here every now and then. In this semester I only need to take 5 exams (well technically they’re called tests, but the only difference between test and exam at my uni is that tests are taken during classes, and exams are in a special exam period [which is usually about 2 weeks after the semester ends] and it’s called ‘exam session’), so it’s at least better than one of the earlier semesters – I had 12 tests within two weeks + classes; on one day I was supposed to have 3 tests but I asked one of the teachers whether I can take it with a different group because I just wouldn’t manage to study to all 3 and luckily she agreed. But anyway, I had two of those 5 tests last Wednesday, I’ll have two more on Monday, and one more on Thursday. And that’ll be all provided I do them fine and don’t need a second attempt (if you fail a test/exam at my uni, you have a second attempt [with respect to exams it can be sometimes 3 attempts], if you fail all the attempts you repeat the course you failed, next semester or next year, without failing a year as long as you didn’t go over a certain point limit [each course has points]). But, I need to study a lot more to have hope of passing one of Monday’s tests so I won’t have time to build until I’m done with them. It’s annoying as I’d rather build than study those nasty things.

Help!

The Crooked Beach Community Center playtests beautifully with both the Newmans and the Lamberts and I was zipping around taking pictures from all angles and making note of little revisions that still needed to be made. One of things I noticed was that some of the OMSPs I placed flying bird statues on so they wouldn't all be at the same height were still visible. (See attached.) But when I went to the lot to make the revisions, there was not an OMSP to be seen!

Is this a known problem with OMSPs, with a known fix? Or will I have to be very clever with my picture taking in live mode?

Have you tried the OMSP Controller?

I leave my OMSPs visible until I have done all the testing, but yes the OMSP controller should help if you have sims on the lot.

Here is a picture of my Community Park under construction in my building 'hood. The price is now up to over §67K. §2.5K of that is for lighting for the open air restaurant. Since this picture was taken, a small toddler playpark and some more greenery have been added, and access to the toilets and parenting room has been improved. Play facilities for older children and the young-at-heart have still to be added.

As for OMSPs, I find the ones by SilentLucidity the most versatile as you can adjust height, and the angled ones let you create interesting things The only thing I’m missing with respect to OMSPs is OMSP Resizer (like in TS3), and one that can hold objects that take more than one tile. Not sure if that’s doable though.

AndrewGloria I like the dome roof, I use them often myself

Choosing a park is not the most difficult lot, but I thought it would suit this particular community, and I tried

When the mayor learned that there was a hood without any community lots, and a growing one at that, with plenty of kids, she decided to donate a piece of land. The residents had to build it themselves, and each family donated something. The Rhodes were very happy, because they could teach the others about recycling. James Evans, being the fittest, chopped wood for hours and then donated Sim bouncers. The Walters donated their wedding arch, the Elliots donated plenty of pond plants and flowers; the Newmans donated the pet stuff, the Rodneys donated the BBQ and dart boards, the Lamberts donated toys and pics and the Rhodes donated some sculptures. On seeing how all kids enjoy the treehouse at the Lamberts, it was decided that the lot would have one too.

Skill object: there are a number, but I will say the Sim bouncer trampoline.
Flirty object: the wedding arch.
Baby room: has toilet, potty, toys, crib, changing table, fridge, high chairs, bookcase, chairs for adults.
Three bathrooms in a separate building plus one in the baby room - 4.
Things to do: trampoline, chess, darts, fishing, coffee, BBQ, view art,get married, toys for kids and tods, and a bookcase. Pet bed, bowls and toys.
Food: the BBQ

Price: 71, 653 if anyone is interested.

Working hard together, the residents proudly presents the Community Spirit Park! Let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

I just tried to play test my lot for the first time. I was worried it wouldn't load because it is crammed with CC., but after a few extra seconds of anxiety it was OK. I had taken Orris and Paul Rodney there instead of letting them have lunch, so I directed them to eat at the cafe, but it kept falling out of their queue.

I went round to the front of the lot to find Paul and Orris and about a dozen townies throwing routing fits . It turns out I had forgotten to put a gate in the front fence.

Oh well. At least it doesn't lag.

I had that with one of my rooms and the food stand. For some reason, I just couldn't figure out why Sims refused to eat there!

Oops. They didn't refuse. SOMEONE ... who posts way too much here ... forgot to put in two doors! Unless I expected my Sims to smash windows, this could present a wee problem getting into these rooms.

I opted to use the sign you kindly found for me, Aysarth. It occurred to me that most non-gendered restrooms would not have "Powder Room" on the door, or a picture of a bath, unless there is an actual bath or shower on the premises (and I can assure you, while I guess a shower room might be nice, I've never seen them on lots like these in real life!) Thanks loads again! I will probably use the heck out of them in my real game as well.

Justpetro and AndrewGloria, congrats on being the bravest among us and being the first two to post extensive pictures of your lots. Those look really nice and elegant. Love the bridge, justpetro!

Question for the more-experienced: Why would I have items in my collection folder that are there, but grayed out, I can't take them from the folder and I can't locate them in their folders? What horrible thing did I do wrong? The Sim can craft these items, but these items are supposed to be buyable as well without crafting. I have all the master files ... I checked a dozen times already. The creator enabled these for residential and community lots. This works fine in my good game without altering any files in Sim PE, so apparently there's a missing mod somewhere?

EDIT ... they look fine on residential lots. I MAY need the Numenor mod enabling custom stuff to be bought on community lots. Let me try that one.

Nope. I guess I have to do all this manually. This may take a while. ("Put this in your game!", I said. "This would be fun!", I said. PS ... there are at least 30 or more items! Maybe just five or six might do for this lot, though. )

EDIT AGAIN ... Yup. Doing it manually did the trick.

My scores are in, just so's you know :D

@Justpetro I like your community lot, especially the log tables and chairs

(Shudders at the judges' scores for this lot and the previous one. I kind of got a little silly on both of them!)

And I need to confess that my CC addiction finally got the best of me on this lot. It's still not too bad compared with many of the community lots out there at 16MB (partially-compressed), particularly the ultra-stocked ones on Tumblr and other sites, but it still has a lot of CC stuff in it. I tried to behave. I really, really did. And to make things worse, I found a bunch of goodies for my already-plump DL in my main game. It's amazing there isn't lag on this lot. I even tried it with all eight Newmans. Cat-herding, yes. Lag, no.

It started with, "Y'know, it would be nice to use that __________ in my DL folder", and it just got worse. Sigh. Fortunately, I think it's going to be one of those lots that no one is going to want, because while I got most of the CC from here, TSR, Plumbbob Keep, Imagine That! (that site alone can inflate a DL folder in minutes!), Nixed Sims. HafiseAzale and a couple of other sites, it would be a challenge to find everything. (For the PBK items, though, you'll have to download them from the site per their TOU, so that would lighten the folder size quite a bit.)

EDIT ... Without the PBK stuff, the size is about 9 MB. (And right now, I'm trying to put this CC folder on a mild diet.) So outside of PBK, which, though you'll get easily-removable statues and money trees if you remove the items, the lot isn't THAT huge in the CC department. And yes, I sinned in that department as well. I originally and mistakenly thought you wouldn't get the statues and other Maxis CC, but alas, you will. However, I have a weakness for craftable stuff. The folder would be even a little smaller if I remove two custom pictures. Those add up to about 1000 kb. Obviously, those wouldn't be included anywhere but in my game! They are definitely acquired tastes.

Hokey-Dokey. Once I test with the Lamberts once again and maybe once with each family, it will be time to take pictures. Joandsarah77 is allowing 5 + 16, but if I recall, you get an extra picture per floor, and I have three floors. So that's 23 pictures? Considering that I will probably have to break up the level pictures into more than three pictures if I can't get the entire area in there clearly (either that, or have really small level pictures that the judges may have a hard time seeing because they're going to be pretty high up*), it's a challenge. I'll have to fudge the price picture to include part of the lot, as I've done before. That's not going to leave me with a whole lot of individual pictures, but as has been written before, I'll need to choose carefully. Just want to make sure I'll have 23 pictures and not 21. If it's 21 no matter how many floors, I'll REALLY have to choose carefully.

*Another possible option would be to leave out the building at the back of the lot with the level shots and take it individually by itself. That is only one story, and that can save pictures. A third option, of course, is to see the size limitations again on these pictures and go with the largest ones allowed for the level shots. Off to the front page I go to check the size limits again. The level and probably the foundation pictures will just be much larger than the others, that's all.