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world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
Original Poster
#1 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 9:01 AM Last edited by HystericalParoxysm : 19th Jul 2010 at 8:19 AM.
Default MTS Official Contest: Foundations (Round 1) (Entries Closed!)
Welcome to the MTS Foundations Contest! This is intended as a fun contest that anyone can join - even if you don't think you're a great builder/decorator! Challenge yourself, and see what fun stuff others come up with, too!


The Foundations Rules - What You May Build:

You are building a residential lot, on the foundation given. One foundation per round - four foundations total, so you'll be building four houses for this contest, one per week.

While you are welcome to get as creative as you want in structure and style, you may not touch the foundation (besides adding textures to it) - you have to build around it. It's the "footprint" of the lot.

Your house should have, at least:
  • A living room

  • A kitchen

  • A bathroom

  • Minimum 1 bedroom

You can build more than that if you like and have room for it - if you want to make it a 6 bedroom house with a rec room and study and garage (or whatever you want), go for it - you may not be able to show off everything for the contest though.

You may build as many stories up as you want - it can be a single level house or more, your choice.

You CANNOT add a basement, as this may require modification of the foundation. No, you can't add a WA non-foundation basement either.

You do not have to cover the entire foundation in walls - if you want to leave part as a porch or whatever, you may.

You may use build cheats such as constrainFloorElevation and moveObjects as long as you do not modify the foundation with them. It must stay the same height and shape.

You may not use split levels to extend or modify the footprint of the lot as an alternative to using foundations. Nor can you do floating floor tiles to extend the footprint. The supplied foundation is the footprint you must use - that's why it's the theme of the contest, and not just "build whatever you want on a 30x30".

You may not rotate the foundation on the lot, or put it on a larger lot. It needs to stay on a 30x30, with the front as shown in the images (bottom of the picture is the front of the lot).

You can add a carport, garage, pool, gazebo, etc., as long as it does not modify the foundation, and as long as it doesn't add additional buildable living space - if you add an attached garage, for instance, it needs to just be for the parking space, and you can't build rooms on top of it attached to the main house.

There is no limit on the price of the lot in-game.


Your Pictures:

You'll need to be taking pictures of your lots you've built so we can see what you've made. Please make sure these images are AT LEAST 800x600 pixels so we can see them clearly. You may use larger images if you wish.


Photoshopping: This contest is focusing on your building and decorating skills - not your Photoshopping skills. For this reason, please do not do any significant modifications to your pictures in Photoshop or similar image editors - you may crop, add a little text, borders, etc... but please keep it to an absolute minimum.


Required Pics: For each round, you will be doing several pictures. Please do not collage your pictures together.

You may move sims into the house to make picture taking easier. The sims may appear in the pictures if you want - or not, it's up to you.

The pics you need are:
  • Street View: One picture of the lot from the outside, from the front, with all the levels showing, from a sim's eye view.

  • Floor Plans: One picture of each level of the lot, from a high overhead view. If you have multiple levels, you may post these collaged together into a single image, or as separate images - your choice.

  • Living Room: One picture of the living room, from a sim's eye view.

  • Kitchen: One picture of the kitchen, from a sim's eye view.

  • Bedroom: One picture of one of the bedrooms, from a sim's eye view.

  • Three Bonus Pics: You may post up to three additional photos of whatever part of your lot you want to show off - another one of the bedrooms, a cute bathroom, the garden, whatever. These can also be additional angles of the living room, kitchen, or bedroom. Whatever you want.


Custom Content:

To focus on your skills at building and decorating and not your downloadaholicism, we're giving you a limit: No more than 10 pieces of custom content used on each lot! And there's a scoring bonus for using no CC (see below).

If you DO use CC... you'll need to list what CC you've used, so we can count up for scoring - you don't have to have a link/credit, just indicate that it is CC, i.e. "CC used: Dining chair, dining table, custom pattern on table and chair"

A "piece" of custom content is: One particular item in the catalog. You can use any particular item as many times as you want and it still just counts as one. For example, one custom dining chair, used four times, would be 1 piece. Using its matching custom table would make it 2 pieces. Applying a custom pattern to them would make it 3 pieces. A custom counter and its matching island, and overhead cabinet would be 3 pieces.

EP/SP/Store content: Does NOT count as CC. You may use any items from the base game, World Adventures, Ambitions, High End Loft Stuff, and/or the Store content. As long as it's official stuff, you can use it as much as you like with no scoring penalty. We realize this may give a bit of an advantage to people with more official stuff, but it's just too much of a pain to score otherwise.

Free/Pay: Doesn't matter for this contest. While we always encourage people to use free content and support free sites, if you choose to use CC, you may use pay items for this contest. Of course, if you would like to upload your house to MTS when the contest is over, make sure you use all free stuff!

Scoring Bonuses: For using no CC or low CC, there is a scoring bonus for each round. See the "scoring" section below for details.


Scoring:

Scoring will be as follows. Point values are maximums for each category:

Structure - Interesting architecture, unique interior layout, uses the foundation well, good roofing, etc. - 10 points.

Decor/Furnishings - Well decorated and furnished (furniture, paintings, etc.) inside and out - 10 points.

Landscaping - Trees, bushes, plants, ponds, etc. which add to the look of the lot - 10 points.

Theme - Lot has a cohesive theme or style which works together with the architecture. You may choose any theme or style you want (even if that's just "contemporary"), but try to keep it somewhat consistent through the house - 10 points.

Aesthetic - Attractive, nice colours, good flow, looks pretty - 10 points.

Presentation - Good pictures, good angles, well-presented, interesting text descriptions - 10 points.

Wow Factor - Not just a house but a really GREAT house, over and above anyone's expectations - 10 points.

Custom Content Used - Maximum of 10 pieces. Scoring bonus for using none - 20 points:
No CC: 20 points
1 piece: 10 points
2: 9
3: 8
4: 7
5: 6
6: 5
7: 4
8: 3
9: 2
10: 1

At the end of all of the rounds, we will add up each participant's score for all the rounds (your total score). Whoever has the highest score wins.

Eliminations:

This is a NO ELIMINATION contest. This means that even if you have the lowest score in a round, you can still continue with the contest. While there will be a winner and runners-up, the main point of this contest is to be a fun challenge to your building and decorating skills.


Judging:

Judging will be done by MTS staff and will be scored based on various points (detailed above).

Judge comments are optional - judges are not required to make comments, but they may if they wish. PM me after scores are posted for each round if you would like me to PM you your judge comments.


Prizes:

We're offering a few fun little prizes for those who get the top scores:
  • First Place: A one-time change of custom user title (of your choice), a specially-created unique avatar, and a "Contest Winner!" achievement on your profile.
  • Second & Third Place: A specially-created unique avatar.

All contest participants will get an achievement for doing so (including those with the highest scores).

If you would like to donate an additional prize to the winners, please PM me.

Time Period/Duration:

Round 1 of the contest begins today, as soon as I have it posted up. Each round lasts 1 week from the time of the round being posted. There will be a total of four rounds, with a different foundation to build on each round, so the contest will last 4 weeks (if no extensions are given). Extensions will only be given if more than 20% of participants ask for more time to finish up their entries.

How to Enter

Want to enter this contest? Great!

1. Download and install the lot, attached to the third post in this thread. Double-click the sims3pack, open the Launcher and make sure it's properly installed to your game.

2. Load up the game, and place the lot from the lot bin into your neighborhood, on any 30x30 lot. There's at least a few in Sunset Valley.

3. Build your lot. Remember the rules above - the footprint of the house you build has to stay the same as the foundation - no adding or removing any part of the foundation or changing the footprint by other means. Build it up and finish it like you would any lot - walls, furnishings, lights, plants, beds, paintings, etc., in any theme or style of your choosing.

4. Take the required pictures and up to three bonus pictures (listed above) to the best of your abilities. Don't Photoshop them too severely (if at all).

5. Upload the pictures to any image host - Tinypic, Photobucket, Flickr, or Modyourpanties.

6. Start a new reply post here on this thread - click Go Advanced, and you can just click the little "Insert Image" icon in the toolbar, or just copy-paste the image location into some [img] tags. Make sure you put all your required images.

7. Write a description for your lot. How much you write, what you write, and formatting is entirely up to you - you can write captions for each picture, or a blurb at the beginning, or both, or whatever, as long as there is some text to go along with your lot. Make sure to mention somewhere in the text whether or not you've used CC - and if you have, what items are CC and how many there are. This will make scoring a lot easier for the staff!

8. Submit your post - doing so will submit your entry. If you need to edit or make changes to your post, you may, up until the time limit for the round. After that, no changes may be made to your entry.


Chat Thread

If you won't be able to participate in all four rounds, or don't want to follow the rules exactly, or just want to build but not compete, or just want to chat about the entries, please post in our Chat Thread!


Good luck, and happy simming!
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world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
Original Poster
#2 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 9:02 AM Last edited by HystericalParoxysm : 19th Jul 2010 at 8:45 AM.
Default Participant List
This is a list of those participating in the contest, with links to their entries! One entry per person, please! - If you want to do more than one entry, please post your official entry here, and any additional ones in the Chat Thread!

1. Miuki - R1
2. yorkielove1 - R1
3. Flabaliki - R1
4. armiel - R1
5. Greenlea - R1
6. Vampire_aninyosaloh - R1
7. missroxor - R1
8. Padda1794 - R1
9. Rez Delnava - R1
10. Mia138 - R1
11. Llihnae - R1
12. outburst - R1
13. Kitty Terula - R1
14. ForeverCamp - R1
15. Jhona113 - R1
16. lewisb40 - R1
17. heaven_sent_8_18 - R1
18. saku-baka - R1
19. Fyendiar - R1
20. sandymdh - R1
21. Masswo - R1
22. Twilightsimgirl123 - R1
23. lewjen - R1
24. confused_claire - R1
25. LifesLover - R1
26. fairycake89 - R1
27. Waterstar - R1
28. Alan_Gast - R1
29. cherios - R1
30. seraphime - R1
31. TheNubbyPeanut - R1
32. easypeaze - R1
33. fragglerocks - R1
34. EsotericPoet04 - R1
35. jillrp - R1
36. rosieruby48 - R1
37. kwuz - R1
38. gabrielorie - R1
39. Winterhart - R1
40. lamammaforever - R1
41. BitterSweetNoodles - R1
42. feldynn - R1
43. Beefysim1 - R1
44. Sookielee - R1
45. porkypine - R1
46. NgaX - R1
47. schitzwa - R1
48. kaylarox - R1
49. Cloudburst - R1
50. Linen - R1
51. dietdrpepperfan - R1
52. trench - R1
53. mnbmnb23 - R1
54. mr.moo7999 - R1
55. Bchbch Walk - R1
56. humjosh - R1
57. Gail.wyness - R1
58. NickelNicole12 - R1
59. Nightlight - R1
60. Neiflay - R1
61. Bgatot - R1
62. Sulyuki - R1
63. Simlicious - R1
64. PiT91 - R1
65. Freja - R1
66. Craggles - R1
67. Menaceman44 - R1
68. I-Am-La-Femme - R1
69. Kaospilot - R1
70. Misspsy - R1

Contest entries are now closed - you can not enter anymore! Very sorry if you missed out - but you can still post your entries in the Chat Thread. Whoever gets the most "agrees" per round (by the time each round is closed - and this won't happen early from now on!) will get a special mention in the contest.
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
Original Poster
#3 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 9:13 AM Last edited by HystericalParoxysm : 19th Jul 2010 at 7:55 AM.
Default Foundation Contest - Round 1!
Attached is a sims3pack containing Foundation #1, as well as a top-down view of that foundation. It is on a 30x30 lot (as all the foundations for this challenge will be) so it should be easy to place in your existing neighborhood.

Please note that the front of the lot is the bottom of the image shown - see the sidewalk at the bottom of the image? When you place the lot in-game, make sure that side is the front! There will be a scoring penalty if you get the lot the wrong way 'round.

Round 1 has ended!

We had an incredible amount of contestants - way more than expected! Because of the time constraints of judging, we originally limited it to 50 contestants. When that was reached super fast, we extended it just a little to allow anyone who was almost done to participate.

If you didn't get in, we're really sorry! But you can still post your pics in the chat thread so you can participate at least in some way - and we'll be doing another contest again soon, so you'll have another chance to participate in an official contest.
Screenshots
Attached files:
File Type: zip  Foundation One.zip (327.7 KB, 620 downloads) - View custom content
Field Researcher
#4 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 9:56 AM
I'll join

Please, sorry for my bad English..
Instructor
#5 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 10:09 AM Last edited by Flabaliki : 17th Jul 2010 at 7:53 AM.
The Former Graham Paulo Institute for the Criminally Insane

Over 20 years ago, to this very day, the Graham Paulo (who himself was ironically committed to the institute after attempting to rob a Police Station) Institute for the Criminally Insane burnt to a crisp leaving only a small portion of the original buildings foundations. It was believed to have burned down due to a grease fire which quickly escalated after throwing a pot of water on it.

Well, that brings you up to speed on the whole situation. 19 years later, the offspring of Mr. Paulo decided that it’d be a great idea to whip up a modern home for themselves. The only snag being they weren’t allowed to extend the main body of the house off of the existing foundations due to the fact that the site had been declared a historical landmark (yet they are able to build a modern house? Hmm, whatever.)

1 Year on, and the house was completed, here’s how the lot appears today:


Streetview


Floorplan


Living Area


Kitchen


Master Bedroom


Bathroom


Back View


Entertainment / Pool


Details
No Custom Content
Lot Price:
Furnished: $184,331
Unfurnished: $61,071
Lot Size: 3x3

Find me on YouTube!
Flabaliki - General gaming
TheSimSupply - Videos all about The Sims!
Forum Resident
#6 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 10:16 AM
Oh me too!!!

I'm not that great but it's all in getting creative isn't it!
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
Original Poster
#7 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 10:20 AM
Great! I'm really glad there's interest!

However, if ya'll could - please just post when you've got your entry ready - or if you have questions. If ya just want to express interest in joining, the Site News thread regarding this contest can be used for chatter. Thanks!

my simblr (sometimes nsfw)

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
Panquecas, panquecas e mais panquecas.
Field Researcher
#8 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 10:28 AM
totally doing this

I didn't see you there. Hello. *runs* | Visit my CFF World thread
Test Subject
#9 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 11:05 AM
I'm in.
Test Subject
#10 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 12:12 PM
I'll join.
Lab Assistant
#11 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 1:05 PM
Ill join! This may be a stupid question... but where do I get the foundation?\

EDIT: nevermind (<--I'm with stupid)

Currently not able to take requests at this time... sorry!
Test Subject
#12 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 1:45 PM
Default I will join
wow this is realy cool i gonna start building now and can i use any of the ambitions stuff please send me a PM
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
Original Poster
#13 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 1:48 PM
Yes, you may use any official content you like: base game, World Adventures, High End Loft stuff, Ambitions, or Store content, without any CC penalty.

my simblr (sometimes nsfw)

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
Panquecas, panquecas e mais panquecas.
Lab Assistant
#14 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 2:08 PM
Wait, can we include a deck?? That... would work great with my design.

Currently not able to take requests at this time... sorry!
Inventor
#15 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 2:26 PM
I believe I may attempt to give this a go lol

The Simmer formerly known as Greenlea
Helptato
#16 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 2:33 PM
Can you please do a Sims 2 one as well? There's people who don't want to get Sims 3/can't run it who would love to take part too


Emma!

Simblr
[url=https://peanutbuttersandwich.dreamwidth.org/Dreamwidth[/url]
Test Subject
#17 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 2:38 PM
thx Hysterical
and when im done what i must do (sorry im new here i only download stuff and this is the first time i join a contest)

The Demon King
Scholar
#18 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 3:28 PM
HP this is great! It'll be loads of fun. By rounds do you mean each scoring category?
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
Original Poster
#19 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 3:36 PM Last edited by HystericalParoxysm : 15th Jul 2010 at 3:54 PM.
mr.moo799 - Nope. Decks count as foundations. You can use part of the foundation to make a deck type porchy-thing though.

Sparklycookie - See my reply on the Site News thread - short answer, yes, but not right this second.

mnbmnb23 - When you're done building and decorating your lot, take the pictures specified in the first post. Then upload them to an image host - tinypic, photobucket, or modyourpanties.com. Then you'll need to make a post here on this thread, which will be your entry. Copy-paste the location of the image and wrap it in [img] tags. Repeat for all the required pics. You'll also need to write a little description for your lot - how you do this is your choice, whether you write a short blurb at the top for the whole lot, or caption each picture, or whatever ya want. Edit: I've laid this out in a step by step kinda guide at the end of the first post now.

suzetter - There will be 4 rounds - the contest will last about a month (if there are no extensions given if people need more time) with 1 week per round. So there'll be a total of 4 different foundations, and 4 different houses.

I'll try to put some of the above information in the first post to clarify for people.
Scholar
#20 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 4:10 PM
Okay, why am I time-zone stupid? CET is what time-zone code in GMT (eg. I live in Central Time (US&Canada) aka GMT -6)? I'm setting up a clock conversion on my computer so that I can keep track of when I need to have my entries in by. I'm thinking that it's GMT +1?
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
Original Poster
#21 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 4:13 PM
Delphy will be setting up a countdown clock for us - I'm timezone stupid too.

my simblr (sometimes nsfw)

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
Panquecas, panquecas e mais panquecas.
Inventor
#22 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 4:21 PM
Is it sad that I'm at work plotting out something on graph paper? lol

The Simmer formerly known as Greenlea
Scholar
#23 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 4:22 PM
YES! Thank you, Delphy! *bows down*

Man, I'd forgotten how LONG Sims 3 takes to load on my computer. And I don't even have much in the way of CC. *stares dully at the tiny sliver of green on the progress bar*
Forum Resident
#24 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 4:27 PM
Okay, I have a question about the lot. I put it on the 30x30 lot, but it doesn't look like the picture. Well, the foundation does, but the placement of the mailbox and trash can aren't. Is the side with the bay window-like extension the front of the foundation and should therefore be put to the side with street?
Field Researcher
#25 Old 15th Jul 2010 at 4:39 PM
I haven't done a contest in a long time. I think I will go ahead and try this. Im in!

Call me Sasha
Funny how when your a kid, you dream about your future and when you are an adult, you dream about going back to when you were a kid.
 
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