16th of October, 2017: I'm reuploading most of the pictures in this thread due to recent changes to photobucket (should've seen that one coming) and probably clean it up a bit aswell while I'm at it. The thread in the sense of development itself is downright in the grave and have been for quite a while now, however the concept is still a remaining skeletal structure and, depending on certain circumstances, may be reanimated in the near future. Just in case anyone happens to come across this or is still curious about the world.

A (somewhat) short introduction...

I wasn't very happy with Moonlight Falls, to be honest.
It lacked the spooky and ominous places, and it felt so... cartoon-ish.
So I tried creating my own world instead. My first world was going to be more medieval, but it looked pretty out of place, so I deleted it.
And then I came up with the *sarcasm*brilliant*/sarcasm* idea of making a world based on Magic Town from the original The Sims.
It all came along nicely until I realized the river blocked more than half of the Creepy Hollow (residential) area in terms of routing. And so I ragequit from Create-A-World for some months. But now I'm back and went through trial and error to get that darn river as perfect as I wanted it to be >:/.

It is intended to be a more darker, scenic world surrounded by tall mountains and dream-like forests, with as few custom objects as possible.
All of the Supernatural (EP07) lifestates should have a place somewhere. There's supposed to be a small village, a town (think Champs Les Sims) and a beach in the world, too.


So, here's how the world looks like at the moment.



Just like in the original Magic Town, the water wheel is there... just a bit smaller!

Following the Hollow Creek upstreams, the river briefly becomes shallow just prior to a series of rapid waterfalls and the sandy banks gently dipping into and protruding from the river allows for crossing; your sims are actually able to wade across it!

Located shortly behind the sandy banks, this rocky plateau will eventually lead to some forested area (yes, the tunnel is actually routable!).

Right next to it lies a mountainous abandoned mine. (Note that I plan to expand it further, but I'm just using it as a rough example for now)

The road textures may be subject to change, and I plan on remaking the swamp.

Now, I would like some help with coming up with places and areas since I'm completely at lack in my imagination department for the moment. If you've got any ideas, then please post them!
Remember, since this is my second world(or first if you don't count the scrapped one), constructive criticism is appreciated. I'm still learning!

Wow looks cool

Looks like it will be very fun to play with And I love the whole landscaping, it looks very natural.

Thank you for your kind comments!

I'm having a debate with my inner self about distant terrains, because none of them really fits the world. However, going without distant terrain does make the world look pretty unrealistic.
I mean, I could easily shape the terrain for the distant terrains, but the layout and textures aren't exactly what I want... hm.

I don't currently own Supernatural, but when I buy it, it'll be solely so i can play this world. It looks so cool already, just needs lots and sims. This is awesome, and I can't wait to see the finished product.

The Starlight Shores distant terrain might work well for you. It's dark, mountainous, and forested. The resources are here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...ghlight=distant. (Sorry, I don't know if you have to have Starlight Shores to use these or not. Perhaps someone else would know?) You've made a great start on your world. Your terrain painting is excellent!

I'm glad you people like it already, thank you!
Obsolete original post about distant terrains:

Edit FOUR: But then again, the Moonlight Falls distant terrain object is probably the best one to use. I think I'll stick with it.

Let's try again...

So a little update: I took some time to build the Creepy Hollow residential lots! Wee... kind of?
They're pretty much perfect in scale and location(luckily I still have my TS1 games!), however there are some minor and major differences, as expected. They're on bigger lots in case someone wants to expand the houses.





For some reason, the door disappeared...

I did add some extra garden features since the houses looked very... naked.

Extra screens:


(Excuse the blank fog ball(doesn't hide in EIG) and the messed up textures in the road. Not sure what went wrong there!)

More forests and mountains are coming up next!
(And yes I know I'm creating the world in the "wrong" order, but I just couldn't resist building the houses!)

On your roads, the main road texture has an overlay to look like a worn road where cars drive and such. The middle crossroads part doesn't have that, so you probably have to sort out something in the middle. The corners where here are no roads could be adjusted in a paint program possibly, I know I did on some of them. You may just desquise it with some ground paint though.

On your terrain painting, I was just thinking I would have added some dirt paint below trees, the cliffs and such. Just to make it look like nature and give it some depth.

Thank you for the tips, Volvenom! Unfortunately, the only way for the roads to not look like total crap is to make them have no detail at all, which still looks very weird and incredibly dull. Bah EA, why... why!
But yeah, I'll definitely add some dirt paint.

I'll admit it, I haven't really been working on the world for some days, but I'm considering changing the roads to terrain paint. Of course, that means a lot more work to do, but instead I get nicer looking "roads".
However, that means no cars or brooms or any vehicle. This is where I need your help, people!

Currently, the roads look undetailed like this:

And a closer look at the crossroads...


The roads would look close to something this with terrain paint:


I'm having a hard time deciding here, but in my opinion the terrain paint looks much better(even with my fast and sloppy work) than the undetailed and badly designed roads. It also looks more like the original Magic Town's roads.
But then again, there will be no cars. Well, at least not in the forested/dirt road areas of the world.
What is your opinion on this? I'm trying to make the world just as pleasant for myself as for others. Some love worlds without roads, some doesn't.

I'm loving what you have done so far, the atmosphere and feeling of the world so far is fantastic.

Myself, prefer roads, have you thought about maybe try using a gravel type of texture instead? I used one on the world I'm currently working on, I think it's a texture from Bridgeport? I don't remember off the top of my head, but I recoloured it to go better with the asphalt from the world the pets EP. It works really well and doesn't have as much of the repetitiveness that the dirt texture has.

I would use roads and make them darker similar to the painted version but a little lighter. You could always do tracks on the road like you've drawn, they just wouldn't show up in intersections. Or you could make them look like your original version but instead of having a large lighter strip down the middle that is missing in intersections you could do 2 smaller darker strips on the outside making it less noticeable that they don't appear in intersections.

I tried the Bridgeport asphalt/tarmac road and it looks much better than the dirt road, however it needs to be recoloured to a more green-ish dirt colour similiar to the terrain paint roads to fit the world. The problem is, I'm not good at this road recolouring (yes, I've actually tried x_x) thing at all, so I'll either need to find someone to help me or search around for already existing dirt road textures that matches the world, or simply just stick to an EA road... or terrain paint.
The big scumbag here is the road intersection.
Bah, humbug EA!

Perhaps one of these could work

Roads from various expansion packs http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/181739.page

Isn't it possible to have a transparent texture on the roads? :S

I tried most of those road textures listed, but sadly it's the intersection that's messing up.

Well, the only part of the road that is possible to be transparent is the sidewalk because it has an alpha channel, Theis118. I wish it was possible though, *sigh* it would make this so much easier.
The EA road doesn't look THAT bad, but the textures gets borked when it comes to the intersections, and it looks so weird. Since I'm a perfectionist, I can't allow it to look like that (xD). But I really have to figure something out, since I want the road to look better than what it does right now.

Hmm, it seems like the store team did read my mind and made a darker themed world lol. Midnight Hollow sure looks really great, those objects oh my!
I will continue to work on this world though, I hope you possible downloaders don't mind getting MH because I really want to include objects from it... I mean, it's nearly impossible not to lol!
Anyways, I'm really hoping for better roads from MH. I don't really have much to update about the world, sorry(!), but I will post an update post in the near future.

Update!

Real life is your best source of inspiration when it comes to building and terrain shaping...

So today, I started to make this pumpkin field. Drawing inspiration from my best friend's house landscaping and a tiny bit of Halloween Town(;>), I came up with this nice area...
To be honest, I'm rather pleased of the result.

There's actually a pretty macabre story about this scarecrow. Too lazy to write it down now, maybe it'll come later.

This house is actually kinda pretty on the inside, fit for one or two older sims. The best thing about it is probably the view of the forest... and the view of the pumpkin field, I mean, someone might come and steal all the pumpkins!

If it wasn't for the fact that you can't control water properly in CAW, I'd totally have a little stream running by here! Let's just pretend it has dried out or something...

And this picture is the last one for this update.
I promise, it all looks better ingame, pictures don't really do it justice...

I'm kinda saving the village/small town for when Midnight Hollow is released, so I haven't started there yet. Any suggestions, be it improvement or ideas, are very welcome.
edit: I hope this triple post will go unseen, just realized lol...

I don't usually get involved in CAW stuff (I'm desperately trying to wrap my head around it myself, building small performancefriendly worlds without deco). However, it seems to me, in my search for CAW help, that I came across a post here on MTS, with a mod for CAW, that opens for more features, one of those being a pond tool? I'll see if I can find it... - unless someone beats me to it

Edit: This http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...5#startcomments was what I came across. I can then see, that it seems to be common knowledge, more or less, so you probably know about this. Sorry, if you do, it was news to me Good luck on your project, it looks great.

Yes, I am using "SuperCAW", but the pond tool works in a really weird way. It needs deeper terrain to be properly placed, and if you raise the terrain up after making a water plane then it either looks really weird (heavily blue coloured spots here and transparent water there) or simply disappear. I can't figure out how to move it either (or where to move it). But, hey, thanks anyways!
Edit: One day until Midnight Hollow is released! I'm pretty excited, it looks very nice. Time to be more active on CAW!

I was wondering, are you making this world without custom content (including store content)?

Oh sorry, I've been busy with checking out Midnight Hollow(I really need to figure out how EA makes such nice architecture) and some IRL stuff! I'm currently working on the world at the moment though, so updates are to be expected soon.
As for your other question, I will include some really -basic- custom content and some store content for the main world (for example, Midnight Hollow items and some of the Gothic items are almost essential for this world) but I think I'll make a light version of the world for people who are interested in the world but does not use CC/purchase from the store for any reason.

Actually, I have a little of an update, or more like... a problem. The dirt roads (I ended up going with the Spooky Town dirt texture from auntielynds, link above) looks fine in CAW, but when I go into Edit In Game mode, the texture becomes some really weird light sand-like mess. I cannot figure out what causes this... I'll try to get pictures of it asap.
It seems to be fine when the world is exported/installed though... This game will never cease to confuse me...

About your problem with the little stream. You have some effects for rivers in the game, They are usually very big. One of them adds a surface like structure and if you can find a lower point to put it that could be nice. It's just to make it look good though, not really working as water probably.

The other problem you have with the texture is something I've seen lots of threads about in the caw section, but I've never had that problem so I don't know the solution.

It's currently full moon outside(and it's so dark!) and I'm so spooky delighted for some reason! Is it lunacy? Anyways, I'm trying out some different things here... screenshots shouldn't be too far away now.

Volvenom, do you mean the World Adventure river objects? Animated big "water" plane? I'm using them for the river, but sadly it's too bumpy and too many height differences to be used as a small stream.
I swear I've searched so much on the road issue though, where did you find the threads? MTS CAW section? Sims forums? I can't seem to find any threads, unless it's just me being dumb...? edit: I am dumb indeed, just to clarify.

Update
So I'm currently testing some interesting things, not much of a -world- update, but more of a lot-based one. I've been trying to make a decent waterfall that didn't bork out completely(water planes are such a pain. in. the.) but eventually it got pretty interesting...