Notes
September 09,
I've been focusing a bit of build time on the subhood and the school is completely built. I even moved in a test student to smooth out any rough edges. I'm looking forward to really getting it going, which is one of the frustrating things about making your own neighborhood completely, sometimes you feel like you are constantly building and making the world instead of playing it.
I once more managed to work in MilkShape. I wanted to try my hand at seeing if I could duplicate the results of my newspaper girl uniform. I also wanted to rework the mail delivery outfit I had since my first attempt was a bit poor. I'm pleased that I managed to work out both.
I recolored a nice outfit from MTS and added the mailbag, a new warm outfit for my mail deliverer.
The test newspaper delivery uniform worked out well, taking an outfit from Bon Voyage and editing it. I will likely try to edit
a few more outfits, some for warm and cool weather, even for teen males and offer them for download if anyone wants them.
August 16,
I’ve still been sucked into this legacy, along with a quick poverty challenge, and I’m really enjoying them. However, I did go back and finally do a bit more work on Harvest Hollow. It will be fun to get to the point where I feel I can really start to play the families thoroughly instead of the little bits here and there that I have been to test things and get things running.
While working on the town, I tried to make a small dorm-like building and then a school for the teens. For a while I’ve been puzzling what to do with them, education wise, I only knew that I didn’t want to throw them in with the kids at their school.
I do not have the University expansion pack and it is unlikely that I will get it anytime soon, if ever, so teens have pretty much become my young adults. As such, the idea of creating a sort of boarding school or university has kept coming to mind.
The small dorm-like building and school I built within the town itself looked very out of place and cramped, since I had not designed the layout to accommodate such buildings. So, frustrated, I bulldozed them and set about with Plan B, making a subhood that would be something of a collage town.
So that is what I’ve started working on slowly, and as you can see from the picture below, have really only just begun. I edited a terrain in simcity, making it smaller and more compact, as well as adding mountains and the road that starts up the mountains to Harvest Hollow. The idea was a small town nestled just at the bottom of Blackwood Mountains. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
July 4,
I've been neglecting Harvest Hollow slightly recently, mostly due to being sucked into playing a legacy in another hood and also because of my frustrations with the town vs. my computer.
Regardless, some time ago when I started Harvest Hollow, I talked about making a new paper delivery uniform. The EA one bothered me since, not only was it bright yellow, but also it had shorts and Harvest Hollow is not a very warm town. I cringed at the image of the papergirl going through the snow in shorts.
My first attempt was a bit pitiful, mostly a drawn on paper bag to an outfit. It didn't look all that great but it worked well enough. I kept it until I got a hold of MilkShape.
After going through a few tutes and many hits and misses, I finally managed to make a new paper delivery uniform for the paper girl in Harvest Hollow. All in all, I am quite pleased with the end product.
I also made a new uniform for the mail delivery but the texturing is a bit off and so it still needs more tweaking. However, it works very well for me right now so it isn't at the top of my list to do.
June 1,
Wildlife in Harvest Hollow.
Ever since hacks came out after the Pets EP, I've made sure that the annoying strays were never to be seen in my game. However, after seeing so many nice custom animals up for download, the idea struck me that it would be really nice to make some wildlife that would, from time to time, show up in lots in Harvest Hollow.
With a combination of hacks, I managed to implement a small variety of animals (deer, wolves, foxes, brown bears, and a raccoon) into
strays. After playing a few houses for a while, I was a bit disappointed that any had yet to show up. However, the other day
residents were visited by the first bit of wildlife within Blackwood Mountains.
May 14,
After play testing the school for a bit, I'm pleased that it seems as if it shall work without any problems. I'm used to having schools on a residential lot but would always get frustrated with the set up. I often don't play on lots larger than 2x2 but having both a school and a house for the headmistress/master felt too cramped. So, I devised a plan. Step one- Use the Sims 2 Categorizer to make a few of Inge's school hack items available for community lots. I believe I only had to edit the pupil token and school bell. Step two- Have Sophia (the headmistress/teacher) purchase a 2x2 community/business lot and build the school. Step Three- Use the visitor controller to only allow children onto the lot to keep away unwanted guests. Step four- play as usual with a business sign set to closed. I'm thinking that an added perk to having this on a business lot is that later on the students can sell crafts or hold a bake sale very easily. All funds will, of course, go to the school.