Sims Talk: All kinds of nonsense

[strangetomato]

Like the subject line says, this post is a little all over the place, so here's a little summary for you, before you waste your precious time reading it. I will ramble about the following topics (which I have organized into a neat list for you):

- cool sim communities
- actually finding an elusive download (tip: drag your search "net" across the ocean floor, destroying everything in your path... or use google)
- a request for votes on Jaxy Rai's new hairstyle
- creating a tee shirt recolour with the J/R/O painting on it
- another cool download (+ a spoilery hint about a new character)
- ACR
- plans for May

Recently, I joined a number of new (or new to me) sim communities:


weheartoverlays  - a community for sim storytellers and moviemakers to share tips and turtorials about posing sims and using the various animation hacks.

simfic50  - Members of this community create pieces of sim fiction (between 200 and 2,000 words), based on their table of 50 prompts. Membership is open to anyone, but you must applying and be approved before you start to post.

sim_mania  - A community which presents "Mini Challenges for the Creative Simmer". The creators of this community strive to keep it fair, friendly, and fun. Sounds good to me.

So, lots of interesting things to check out there!





I was thinking of posting a WCIF post on thesims2, for a conversion of the short messy male Maxis hair for females (as seen in this simsecret post - see No. 004.), but then I decided that I would try to find it myself. I was convinced that I could find it if I searched hard enough, and I was right. It took a lot of digging, but I finally located it. It feels good to do something all by yourself.

I needed the hair for Jaxy Rai. She's getting a haircut. In my search, I found one other style that might work, as well as one I already had, so I'm going to ask for some reader participation here. Which hairstyle do you prefer for Jaxy?




Short messy Maxis male hair - this mesh has some issues, but it's still pretty cool. You can find it here.




Maxis male fauxhawk hair - I like this one a lot, with the ultra short sides, even if this mesh is also a little wonky. You can find it here.




Athena Hair by HystericalParoxysm at MTS2. This looks nice, but it seems a bit too soft and feminine for Jaxy. I'm not sure about it.

What do you think?





In my continued experimentation with recolouring objects, I created this shirt, which features the J/R/O artwork as a logo.




I like how it looks, but the image came out really blurry. It might have something to do with re-sizing. I'll offer this for download if I ever work it out and get it to look clearer. The original artist even suggested that he might fiddle with it and make a version with a nice bold black outline for the shirt, so I'll probably pester him to do that.

My simself is working Decorgal's Custom Modeling Poses Overlay Hack. (She must be wondering if she should audition for one of those Sim Top Model things... check out the furrowed brow.)

I love how the Baggy Untucked Tees for Adults by kaylynn06 at MTS2 gives her more realistic proportions. It makes her chest seem flatter, and rightfully so, but I could still trim a little more off there. I'm a pretty thin person, but not in that elusive "small waist, big tits" sort of way, and my arms are definitely not that thin. Very few females have arms that thin.





Like that baggy tee mesh, I'm also very impressed by these Men's H&M Jeans Converted for Women, also by kaylynn06. Some girls just wear big, masculine jeans. I don't want all of my female sims to be super girly, and these are perfect for a new character that I'll introduce in the not-too-distant future (probably pretty soon, because I love her already).




Here's a little sneak peek, not that it gives too much away (... or does it?). It's a nice shot of the jeans, anyway.





On ACR...

I'm thinking of adding it to my game. Maybe. It seems like I'll be able to control what I need to control, but I still have my concerns about what it could mean for my Strangetown. I'd probably have to put Ophelia on the pill, for starters. From my readings on ACR, a family sim with two (ready, willing, and able) potential mates could be a lot of trouble. Romance and popularity sims also seem to have more active ACR sex drives, so that's double the (double) trouble. Chemistry is a big factor with ACR, and I know that Johnny and Ripp would both like to do more than just blow hearts at Ophelia. (Must refrain... from making... dirty metaphors...)





Now, about my plans for May... I was thinking of challenging myself to post something every day in May. That could be an extra, a short story, drabble, photo shoot, sim discussion, challenge entry, or maybe even a tutorial (I've always wanted to make one of those... any suggestions for topics?). I'll probably fizzle out before the month is over, but I'll give it a try.

With stories and things, I have that Grunt-Pleasant short story to do at some point, the Prosperity Challenge (which is in a halted mode right now, while I consider starting a new Llama Spit Cove, designed myself using Sim City 4), and a new project to be posted on simfic50. I have no idea about the new project yet. I'm still in the brainstorming stage. I'm thinking of trying something original, so I'll lose my crutch of writing about Maxis sims (and probably my audience too, in the process).

So, as I said, this post was all over the place, wasn't it?

Also, I apologize for being severely neglectful of answering the comments on my last Strangetown update. I've been out of town for work all week, but that's really no excuse, since I was puttering around for a few days before that. I'll get to it, I promise.

Comments

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

I quite like the second haircut, the faux hawk. Not only is my favorite Maxis hair, but it is in-between the more "manly" messy cut (and I don't think Jaxy is that tomboy-ish) and the Athena hair (more feminine and "sophisticated", and I also don't consider Jaxy like that, not with that language at least!). Plus it looks fun and more umm... rocker-ish (I'm suffering from adjetive-ammnesia tonight),

I think that's a good try for a t-shirt. I like how it looks, although I guess the design would stand out more with a black border.

Hmmm... new character. I like the jeans too! I usually put complete outfits to my sims because the Maxis jeans and tops are hard to match. They look odd, or they show the belly (and in men it looks awful), especially the H&M ones.

May I play detective (or psychologist) with the new character pic? From what I've seen from her bedroom, she's into hot guys (from the calendar), art (from the easel, although that painting is pretty bad :D)and at least she supports the alien side of your story (from the poster). And she's a mess too!

I love when Sim bedrooms have personality, regardless if they have Maxis stuff or lovely custom content.

About ACR... A lot of people say they make their sims act more umm "slutty". I haven't seen that in my game. My sims woo hoo a lot, but they tend to focus on their chosen partner and are actually pretty faithful when they are engaged, going steady or married. Rose Mary Broke is a romance sim, married to Buck (a family sim). She only has one bolt with him, yet she constantly rejects other sims with higher chemistry. With Buck on the other hand... they keep woo hooing like bunnies, and she's already "on the pill" because she's on her third pregnancy already.

I suggest you get "romance mod" and "no instant loves" from Pescado at MATY. I read that ACR is designed to work with these mods too. Perhaps that's what makes my sims more faithful. Oh! One silly side of ACR is that Family sims tend to be more horny with it! So watch out for Ophelia, Nervous and Buck when you install it! :D

The posting all over the month is a neat idea. I'd be glad to read new stories or just talk about the game ^^.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I think you're probably right about the style thing, and it being more of a "rock" sort of look. All good points.

It's more the blurriness that's an issue with the tee shirt for me. If you get any closer than the distance shown in the photo, it looks really blurry. I'm sure I can fix it if I work around with it some more.

I agree with you about the problem with matching Maxis tops and bottoms. There is a lack of decent top halfs. It doesn't make sense that the H&M Stuff included jeans, but no decent tops to match with them. The men desperately need some longer untucked shirts to go with the H&M jeans. For the females, I don't mind using the "untuckables" tops, and just tucking them in with the H&M jeans (since I do love those jeans, and females can pull off a tucked tee or tank better than males can).

That was an excellent analysis of the new character's bedroom. You noticed almost all of my clues, and you have interpreted them correctly (the only thing you missed was the fact that she's a city girl - you can see Sim City out the window). I love making the home reflect the sim who lives in it. It's a lot of fun to think of those details, and it helps to develop the character.


It's your experiences with ACR that make me think I might like to use it, really. It hasn't seemed to make things really crazy and unpredictable, but it has thrown you some interesting plot developments, like the thing with Ripp and Helena, and it gave you a couple of unplanned babies, which I like. Do you set every house up with the settings you want or do you just go with the default ACR settings. How strict are you about it?

I remember having some issues with Pescado's romance mod when I looked into it. Aren't all family sims set tp be super jealous, for one thing? It makes sense in most cases, but maybe not all. Does that mod look at things like niceness as a factor too? No instant loves should be added. I've been meaning to do that for a while. That would have prevented the whole Tank/Ophelia flirting fiasco (where I accidentally saved after they fell in love, because they left the lot).

I guess the family sims are just hoping to get down to breeding as quickly as possible. I'd have to keep a very, very close eye on Ophelia. I wouldn't want to have to run a paternity test (though I think the skin colour would give away the father's identity).

It should be fun. I see no problem with finding a topic to chat about or making some little thing to share every day. I have another couple of poster designs in mind. I'm going to do some posters for the bands. (I just wished they'd update SimPE for K&B Stuff. They posted an update, but now it seems to be taken down again.)