Lovely lot, @gazania Looking really pleasant and colorful (and juice bar is open, all exhausted builders)!

I love your pool! What I wouldn't give to soak in the rock pool. You'd feel so relaxed afterwards.

gazania Your lot looks great! I wish I was in your part of the world. In mine community centres are surrounded by concrete and build of concrete. Our olympic size swimming pool is a concrete box with stairs and ramps to get up to it with a large concrete car park underneath. It would be bliss to visit somewhere like your lot! I think your are worrying too much it really does look great!

Jo Thanks for all your work for this contest. yavannatw for helping with the links for the entries, and thanks to the judges again.

Scottiedoag

yavannatw, letting you know I haven't forgotten your links but felt scores and totals were more pressing. The code drives me a bit crazy(always making mistakes that make me sweat and correcting them ) so I only do so much per day.

scottiedoag I hope you are enjoying it, I had wanted to run a contest for awhile. I even 'know' a little about coding now.

Oh, Gazania's definitely worrying too much! But for some people that's part of the process, especially for a first time out. It sounds enormously and debilitatingly stressful, but if that's what you've got to do, you do it.

But seriously Gazania - considering dropping out because you knew the lot was flawed? Will you go look at your scores and compare them to the rest of us? It would've been a damn shame for you to drop out in the stretch. The lots don't have to be perfect, and a good thing, too, because that's not going to happen. It just has to be as good as you can make it, right here, right now. And what you made is pretty darn good. By the time you've revised something 27 times, of course all you can see are flaws - you're sick of the sight of it. I guarantee you, by the time Shakespeare finished writing Romeo and Juliet he was convinced it was sentimental trash and rotten tomatoes were in his future. You done good. Grab one of JustPetro's drinks and go soak in the rock pool. You've earned it.

I agree Orange cocktails for everyone and extras for @gazania I feel like hanging out in that cool pool myself.

yavvanatw I've put up a wcif for the mesh needed for the hippie pics after spending goodness knows how long looking in the blackyzoo site, Think I need to hit the bar to replenish my eyes lol. Hopefully someone better than I can find a link to it.

Now back to STILL trying to fix my game.

Scottiedoag

Gazania, I like the idea of a stool in the room with easels so it looks like they were painting a sitting sim, I never thought of doing that.

I think my lot is ready, I also tested it and everything seems alright (go through/around blocks saved the day), I’ll test it again after a few changes and take pictures.

Thank you.

I see one thing that is sticking out like a sore thumb. It will mean attempting to rearrange two rooms, though. I'll see if I can fix this, but I don't think I can because I believe I've already tried this sometime in Revision 22 or so and it failed, and I'll have to take the deduction. I have a couple of days to try, though.

Maybe go around or through blocks might help in this case, though. Thanks for the idea, Voielle.

EDIT ... Nope. Couldn't fix it, no matter what I tried. But I did make it less obvious. It now looks like a slightly sore thumb. It involved the sitting portrait shot, actually.

I haven't posted in this thread for a few days. I've been sending various Sims, mainly ones with children or toddlers, along to the new "park", taking pictures, and making minor changes as requested by my Sims. Thanks Jo for the comments on my round 4 house, and thank Peni for the links to those Pride flags; when I get back to Veronaville, I think we'll organise a Pride event, probably downtown where there's a strong LGB community.

Taking toddlers to a community lot for the first time was a bit scary. I can't use dickhurt's mod to take toddlers there (because it needs Pets) so I have to send the older Sims there, and then teleport the toddlers in. The cat teleporter, which most people here use, also needs Pets, so on community lots I just use Inge's basic teleporter shrub, which lacks some of the finer features. I also usually use Dolphin's Control this Sim to make Sims selectable. Well I sent Dean Walters to the lot, and then used the teleporter to summon his toddler son Phillip. Well, I couldn't make him selectable with Dolphin's mod, presumably because he is a family member, so I ended up playing that visit with an unselectable toddler, which was a new experience! I did remember that you can make Sims selectable with Boolprop TestingCheatsEnabled true, but I was initially a bit wary of that, so I didn't use it on that first visit, and made a full game backup before I did start using it. When it was time to go home, I noticed that the basic teleporter doesn't have an option to clear off individual Sims. I tried "Clear off all visitors" but Phillip didn't go, presumably again because he is a family member. So Dean had no option but to go home leaving a distraught looking toddler sitting at the roadside! I can't help thinking that that might attract the attention of a Real Life social worker!

After a full game backup, I did start using Boolprop TestingCheatsEnabled true to make the toddlers selectable, which meant I could tell them what to do and see how they felt about things. I sent various members of the Lambert family there, and then used the teleporter to bring in Thomas, their older toddler. One very useful thing about bringing a toddler from a large family to a community lot is that the accompanying older Sims (and the player -- myself) can give that toddler their undivided attention. Well it wasn't quite undivided on the first visit, because Patricia (aka Pat) also had Phillip Freedman the paper boy with her, whom she was assessing as a possible soulmate. In the event he didn't quite cut it as a boyfriend -- I mean how could a self-respecting Goth be seen going around with a boy dressed in yellow?! But at the time he was the only teenage boy she knew. However, after a restaurant meal with Phillip, she did spent a lot of time with Thomas, who was at the time behind his brother in learning the toddler skills. Before she went home, she had very nearly finished his potty training. I turned Boolprop TestingCheatsEnabled off again as I was getting errors with Rebecah's toddler swings. Once it was off they seemed ok -- I find I quite often get little "jumps" with custom animations. When it was time to go home, I still didn't like the idea of leaving little Thomas in the park, but I was afraid that, if I left him selectable, she might take him home in the taxi, and then I was afraid I might end up with two Thomas's there! Of course I had to temporarily turn Boolprop TestingCheatsEnabled back on again to make him unselectable again. (I'm glad I've got that one in my userstartup.cheat file!) On subsequent visits, first with his dad, and then with his mum, Thomas has learned to talk and, nearly, learned to walk. I've turned Aging on in the Lambert home to let him age up. (I think that will make him only the second toddler to age up to a child in my whole Simming career!)

All in all, everything seems to work, with the singular exception of feeding the toddlers. Like Peni's Sims, mine can't get a bottle out of the fridge. I've tried different fridges, but none of them give the option to feed the toddlers. I now have MsBarrows's formula fridge on top of the counter, with the little University fridge underneath it. The latter allows Sims only to make cold food, and I'm not sure if any of that is suitable for toddlers. Anyway I prefer my Sims not to make their own meals when there's a restaurant on the premises. I might go for the breast feeding mod -- the "powers that be" in my part of the world (I think the same part as scottiedoag's) are always telling us that "Breast is Best"! By the way, does the breast feeding mod work for toddlers. My sister breast-fed some of her children almost till they started school, by which time they were quite able to undo all the necessary buttons and tell her just what they wanted!

I've now got my lot almost ready to post with all, or most, of the pictures taken. Taking eye-level pictures was difficult with so many structures with, and without foundations adjoining each other. I wonder if a camera mod might help. One change I might make is to put dark ground cover "paint" under the lattice-fronted decking; I don't think much grass would grow there. But I really don't think I could face retaking all the pictures. It would take too long anyway. Yesterday I sent the Rodneys (and Pat Lambert) there so I could get a picture of them using the vending machine. They ended up staying for 15 hours! There's so much to do on that lot! So, all being well, I'll get it posted in the next day or two. I'd be quicker if I wasn't so verbose.

By the way, just when does this round finish now? Is it 30th June, or 2 days after that? I'm a bit confused, but I think Jo deserves me to get my entry in on time, even though I am just a play-along.

I hear ya on the logistics. Even with selecting, unselecting, teleporting and turning off the freakin' free will, plus maxing motives, my Sims still seem to have a mind of their own. And when you're trying to get a group together for a picture, there is always that one Sim that decides to go against the Sim Overlord and do whatever it feels like. Retakes can sometimes make you shudder.

It must be harder for you, AndrewGloria, because you don't have the post-Pets perks that we do, and it must be even harder to get all the Sims together and doing something you vaguely want them to do ... preferably at the same time!

Now it's on to the other pictures that I see could use a little improvement. The one I will not touch is the one with the toddlers at the activity table. I think toddlers can be more unpredictable than the older Sims sometimes! And Victorine (the goth teen), kept wandering off all the time. I finally got her to stay put for a while. I think I will leave stuff well alone now.

My second take of the art studio sitting picture wasn't as nice as the first, but at least the people on the right have more room to paint, the Art Nouveau painting is sunken into the wall and looks slightly less ... less .... painting-y (it could pass as an inlaid mural now), and everyone actually has something on their canvases. And everyone is out of their winter clothing. I mean, I know the museum might be trying to save money and all that, but I would think the admins there would turn the heat ON, and I don't have temp problems in any of the rooms!

[QUOTE=AndrewGloriaI might go for the breast feeding mod -- the "powers that be" in my part of the world (I think the same part as scottiedoag's) are always telling us that "Breast is Best"![/QUOTE]
Well I'm not sure where you are but I'm on the east coast of Scotland.
Sounds like you had fun herding those toddlers. I'm looking forward to seeing your pics!
Oh and gazania I always laugh when I see peeps complaining on sims 4 threads about how sims wont do what they are told as if it was a new thing. I've given up telling my self-sim and her vamp boyfriend what to do as they are just going to ignore me anyway! Or maybe that's ACR for you
Scottiedoag

If I had $5 for every time I said, "Oh, come on! Stay put/don't pull a stupid Sim face/turn this way/how did YOU get into the picture! Shoo! Shoo!/where the heck are YOU going?", I could treat all the entrants to brunch!

Now to work on the content list. WIP, this will be really long, and I'll probably leave someone out, and sorry about that. Under SPOILER tag. So much for trying to be restrained! There are about fifty CC links here!



And why I couldn't use the lecture picture. I worked so hard trying to get some appropriate designs and using Sim PE to make them into something that would go in a lecture hall. (The leaf design dates from 1900, and is from Rene Beauclair. William Crane did the swans and Walter Morris did the two birds. I don't think those are copyrighted anymore, unless these gents lived a long, long time.) Cassie looks like she's either angry, bored and/or distracted. What does she have against Peter Ottomas?



Next will be stuff we learned during this contest. Under a spoiler, too. I'll include the things I knew already and the things I found out.

Now, see, I never have this problem because staging is not my thing. Even when I have something specific I want to show off - like the dog-washing fountain - I just set it up, take a bunch of pics, and pick the one that most does what I need it to do. I don't have a vision of how it's supposed to look. I freewill them and they give me photo ops and the only frustrations are with my picture-taking skills and those times you don't realize the OMSPs were visible till you look at the pictures.

It's like shopping. It's fun if you're just looking for something you like. It's torture if all you want is a white blouse with a breast pocket.

Well, I think I’m ready to post it. It was hard to decide on which pictures I want, and I hope I managed to get the amount right – 23 pictures as I have two separate buildings, and one of them is 2-story. I didn’t include the price picture because Jo said it’s not required, and I didn’t want to use one of my extra shots for it, but the lot costs §288156, which isn’t that expensive considering what is on it I know it’s a weird lot, but I was going to weird and I think I managed to create the feel I wanted It fits perfectly to my Oasis Valley with its modern-Moroccan style.

Info for the judges:

• I used go through and go around blocks, so if something looks like it’s in the way (mostly columns) it means I used a block under it so sims don’t complain. Grass and ferns are neutral with respect to routing because I set so in BHAVs, so they don’t need blocks. There are 3 separate staircases so there aren’t traffic jams if someone wants to go upstairs. Some of the small stairs leading to the foundation on the plaza have a decorative purpose (those that have a table or a chair in front of them). There are plenty of other stairs so the plaza is fully accessible.
• If plants are in a place where they wouldn’t naturally grow, it means I used artificial replacements
• All the pictures are taken during the day, but the lot is well lit at night. If you see a random sphere it means it’s a lamp, and I used my usual trick with lamps hidden in walls inside.
• Not sure if it’s visible, but there is a public phone and two trash cans on the lot.
• The pet area has two kennels, two bowls, and two toys (they’re CC toys and they additionally fulfil hunger).
• I hid the lattice decking using cornices.
• I moved the car portal so the plants aren’t in the way and sims arriving in their own cars won’t have troubles getting out.
• Requirements:
  • Flirty/romantic object: I have two benches in locations separated from the rest of the activities, so couples can have some privacy. There’s also sauna and photo booths (woohoo spots).
  • Educational object: easels, bookcases (one in the parenting room, and two functional stacks of books on the balcony), chess, activity table, skill building toddler toys, and there also are fishing spots.
  • Fun object: playground items, toddler and children toys, card table, don’t wake the llama game, hot tubs, and probably something I forgot about.
  • Food: vending machines, barbecue, coffee, fridge, those pet items I mentioned before.
  • All toddler/parenting room requirements are met.

I hope I listed everything important. If something is unclear please ask

Ooh, I like the fountain made of a bunch of little fountains particularly.

Thank you for the extra time, Jo. I am really in a corner here with my lot. I'm struggling to make it cohesive while still maintaining the "type" of each building on the lot. I'm trying to work on other projects in-between to keep those creative juices flowing, but it's not helping. Maybe I just need to step away from the Sims for a bit and play something on Steam for a while.

I know what it's like, I've been in contests and been bitten by the lack of inspiration bug. I hope two days will be enough for everyone's issues. If need be I will tack on another few days, since one of the contestants has some chronic health issues going on right now. It's not like it hasn't been a speedy contest only 21/2 months, 3 months is considered normal.

So am I, in that big city just south of the Forth!

I think I'm closer to Peni when it comes to taking pictures. I do tell my Sims where I'd like them to go, but I leave Free Will on and I've never, ever used MaxMotives. Usually I'm just telling them to do something that they'd quite like to do anyway, like, "Go and have a meal in that restaurant." I don't tell them where to sit: they just choose their own seats at whatever table the host shows them to. I like to gently guide my Sims in the right direction, rather than dictate the minutiae of their lives. On the whole I'd say I have a pretty good working relationship with most of them. But in this case the problem is indeed "staging", if by "staging" you mean that massive timber structure (courtesy of Phaenoh) that proliferates over so much of my lot. (The word "staging" can be used in this sense in UK English.) The problem is, if level 0 is ground level (the ground in this lot is completely flat), then in my buildings on foundations and decking, level 1 is there. But my staging, or elevated playground (or whatever you want to call it!) has no foundation or decking under it, so its level 1 is its floor level. In CFE terms (which I'm beginning to learn), it's 12 clicks higher up than the floor of the restaurant (or the bandstand, or the toilet block for that matter). So my Sims are sitting round the table, and I'm trying to get an eye-level picture of them. I pan the camera round to get the right angle, with nothing in the way, and a glimpse into the open-plan kitchen. But now the camera is over the high staging, and it shoots away up into the air so that I'm looking over my Sims' heads! So all told it was very hard to get pictures from the angles I wanted, and it wasn't my Sims' fault. If anyone's it was my fault for building the lot the way I did. So yes, I really wonder if a camera mod would help me. In some of my pictures I set up the camera at foundation level, so I couldn't see my Sims, and then pressed first Tab and the Page Up to bring them into view. Sorry gazania if I didn't explain that properly in my last post. I think my problem with pictures is different to yours. My problem with retakes is that I don't really play-test or set up photographs; I just play, with a few tests and casual poses thrown in. And if a party of my Sims arrive on the lot on a "Just for Fun" outing, then they'll "just want to have fun", and so will I. And 15 Sim-hours later (which, with pauses and breaks, will probably be 4 or 5 real hours), and we'll still be there, having fun, and just beginning to think about going home. Which is all very well, but it doesn't help me to get the entry posted! So I might retake the foundation picture in build/buy mode, with darker ground cover under the lattice decking, but I won't retake the ones with Sims, because it took me days to take the ones I have. (And on one of those visits I forgot to turn FRAPS on, so we got no full size pictures at all on that trip.)

I love your lot Voeille! Some of my Sim couples are asking if there's a hotel or Bed & Breakfast nearby. It looks an ideal place for a honeymoon. I thought it looked romantic way back when you posted that picture of the bridge. I really wouldn't mind going there myself -- preferably in the company of a really special friend. (Maybe one of my favourite Sims.)

Gazania I really wish I could stop you worrying. But maybe as Peni says you need to worry as part of the creative process. And I know you've had serious Real Life issues during the contest. Your lot is excellent. No doubt it has flaws , but you have to look really hard to find them! Absolute perfection isn't humanly possible. All our lives are flawed, and, precisely because TS2 is such good life simulation, our Sims lives are all flawed too. Imperfection is an inescapable part of life, but despite it, life is good! It would have been a loss to all of us if you had withdrawn and hadn't posted your round 5 entry. You will undoubtedly finish in the top third in this contest, which, considering the quality of the competition, is no mean achievement. I haven't seen any bad entries in the whole contest. You are an excellent Sims 2 builder, and the only quality you may lack is self-confidence. Of course you can still improve; so can everybody. But you can start off in future knowing that you are among the best. I know I have adopted a bit of a happy-go-lucky approach to this contest, and possibly missing the "cut" for the contest proper has helped me to do this, but I'd like to believe I wouldn't have done all that differently if my entries had been being judged and scored. I probably would have missed out the bike and recoloured driveway on the Elliotts' lot to get the No CC bonus. And I might have made a bit more effort to get my entries in on time. But I think that's all I'd have done differently. Enjoying my game with my Sims is what I play for, and I'd be loathe to give up that enjoyment, even for a higher score. I have enjoyed this contest and am enjoying it still. I've learned a few things too -- I'm even beginning to use CFE, which previously was as abstruse to me as advanced calculus! But best is the sheer fun of watching my Sims enjoy the things I've built for them. I do hope you've enjoyed the contest as much as I have.

Now to see if I can get everything together and get my entry posted before the round closes.

I'm sorry I've totally disappeared. I won't be finishing my play along. (I hadn't started yet, so nothing lost there). After my move, which I'm still settling into, I've had a few other IRL things that need my full attention, and the tipping point came tonight when I was asked to check in on my sister, who is having health problems and was admitted to the hospital last night. She's two hours north, so my day tomorrow, and possibly my week, is pretty much gone. My parents are currently visiting family out of state for the rest of the week, so I'm the only one available. Now I'm house sitting two houses and two sets of cats. I don't mind any of this, our family always pulls together like this, I just wanted y'all to know why I disappeared. Don't anybody panic about my sis, she is in mostly for a 'maintenance' visit, so we all expect her to be back out in a few days. Sending positive vibes in her direction couldn't go amiss though. <3

I hope she continues to make a great recovery. And I hope you take care of yourself as well. You've been through a lot!

And once again, thanks all.

Hope your sister is back home quickly Phae.

Strongs, Phae - hope your sister is home soon. We will miss you, though, and the high rise community lot

@AndrewGloria, if you have a high chair, a toddler can be fed anything. Now I am not sure if that was always the case or if it came with a later EP, but if my toddlers are in high chairs and a Sim serves food, they serve the toddlers as well. The toddlers in my game has had everything from cereal to chocolate cake - I always try to have them eat with the family.

Heck! I'm Jusr north of you in the one famed for jute, jam and journalism! In the home of The Broons and Oor Wullie .


I couldn't agree more! I wish I had half the skill of the other contestants and that includes you gazania.


Me too! All of my sims used to live in auto roofed rectangles. Now I can use CFE for columns and dummy levels for stairs and roofs. Haven't got a grip on those pesky bridges yet though! I even learned to do simple recolours because of this contest. I think spending so long in hospital and loosing the leg have given me a different attitude now. Life is way too short for worrying! The bad stuff is gonna happen without any help from me so why worry? Just enjoy the good stuff and the fermented juice bar lol

Sending loads of healing thoughts your sisters way Phaenoh. I hope she's feeling better soon. And I hope your life calms down soon too!

Still trying to fix my game. It's gonna end up being something so obvious that I missed it I bet!

Scottiedoag

Enjoy

I think one problem was ... and is ... the fear that I misread the instructions.The lot is probably just fine, though. I do have a tendency to overthink stuff.

The point is ... most of us have FINISHED. Done. Over! Yay, us! And I'm sure we'll be seeing some great stuff from the others as well, including you Goldenbutterfly! I found that looking at real-life equivalents sometimes works. What is on these lots, and how are things arranged?