strangetomato: (Default)
Strange Tomato ([personal profile] strangetomato) wrote2008-09-06 06:59 pm
Entry tags:

Sims Talk: Natasha Una, AL talk, and new Sims 2 Store hairs

As you can see by the title, I have a couple of things to talk about.

The first is Natasha Una. She's great. I love her. I have plans to include her in my story as one of my big names in the sim art world. Yesterday, I mentioned to smjoshsims that I was thinking of making a little short piece of writing to introduce her, but that hasn't happened yet. I'm thinking I'll hold off on that and just drop it into an actual chapter now. I did, however, play her lot today, and I have some pics to share.





I was trying to see what I could come up with for grilled cheese sculptures and art objects, and even after only playing around with it for a short time, I can see the potential. This one looks pretty stupid, but it's so rich with meaning. *wink* You have to read the didactic panel to really understand.




But the real gem was this grilled cheese mobile, à la Alexander Calder.

I had Natasha purchase the Mostly Modern Art Gallery in Desiderata Valley, and that's where she sells her work and the work of others. Despite having ACR installed, she has the sex drive of a ball of yarn. Her ACR clock is at -24, she doesn't have the hots for anyone, and she doesn't seem to care. She loves grilled cheese, baby!




Tash: Come to me, my delicious grilled cheese!

I gave her a makeover with an AL hair and outfit. It seemed appropriately arty to me, but a little less like a hippy (or, at least, a more stylish hippy).

Also, please notice the use of the awesome new feature to move items up and down the walls. *grin* VERY cool. When combined with moveobjects, you can actually make things fit on the wall together in ways that were impossible before.




Tash: Behold my grilled cheese, my knee sock that's falling down, and my AWESOME CEILINGS!

You can actually apply any floor tile to the ceiling, which is also very cool. The plain white ceilings are automatically applied beneath a floor tile (wihout the floor tile on the level above, you get no ceiling), but then you can customize to your heart's content. I didn't bother, so there's no example to show you.




Tash: Ahhhh, my tasty, tasty muse.

I love how quickly they eat the grilled cheese when they conjure it. It saves so much time.




Here's her living room, with some redecorating. It's all Maxis content, except for Pixel 's sci-fi paintings. The ability to raise and lower the paintings is a sanity saver for me. Having things hung too high or too low is a major pet peeve of mine (and thankfully, it's impossible to have them tilted), so this makes me happy. There were many paintings that always looked like crap if you had panelling on the wall, but now the problem is easily solved.

Elsewhere in Desiderata Valley, I tested a new Sims 2 Store hair on dancer, Sharon Wirth.






Poppin' and lockin'!

I find it funny that this is supposed to be zombie hair, but I like it better than many of their attempts to make cool hair. It reminds me a little of the femullet that Edie wears. I like it.




I also like the new longer cornrows and braids (I'm not completely sure if I'm sold on the beads, but that could be easily removed). I'm considering this as a future hair for Ophelia, since it continues with the braid theme. I was trying a new look on Johnny too, in the background there.




I'm not sure if I'll change it or have him keep the other one, but this Maxis Dreams hair does sweep to the same side as his other two hairstyles, so it would seem like a natural progression. I do sort of like it on him. I think it works well with the shape of his face.





 
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[identity profile] strange-tomato.livejournal.com 2008-09-08 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
*points towards MATY and winks*

You'll want to visit
this thread.

Aww, thanks! :) I'm sorry to hear that you couldn't sleep, but thanks for reading my story. I really appreciate it (especially any nerding out you do - that's such a compliment), and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I had to think for a minute about where that line was used, since it was pretty far back, but I remember... it was when Johnny was flipping out over Ripp and his baths, right? *snicker*

"But you're not even DIRTY, Ripp!"

Oh, he's dirty... ;)

[identity profile] birdtooth.livejournal.com 2008-09-08 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
thanks!

yes, the baths. that line has been stuck in my head aaall day.

oh, also: can i ask how you take your pictures? they are so nice and clean.
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[identity profile] strange-tomato.livejournal.com 2008-09-08 03:23 am (UTC)(link)
I just use the in-game camera (tab mode) for my story pics, but I occassionally do nicer ones by taking screencaps. I think the clearness comes from my graphics card (an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT) and having everything at the highest setting. I get crisp shots from the game camera, so I'm lucky like that.

I use gunmod's camera mod (from MTS2) also, but that's more of a conpositional thing. I much also say that having ceilings is helping my framing in a big way. I can play around with angles more easily, and I love it.

[identity profile] birdtooth.livejournal.com 2008-09-08 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
how do you take screencaps? my in game camera is so-so, but the pictures are always too small for my liking.

ugh, sorry to keep asking so many questions. i am still kind of new at the sims. :x
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[identity profile] strange-tomato.livejournal.com 2008-09-09 01:13 pm (UTC)(link)
No problem. :)

I'm using SnagIt right now, but I'm just using a free trial, so I don't know if I'll stick with that one, when there are free programs available. I do like it, though.

Another (free) program that I'd recommend is Irfanview. Music_simbol posted a tutorial on using it here:

http://music-simbol.livejournal.com/58450.html

You can usually specify the button you'd like to use to take the screencaps. I usually go with print screen, like the default screencapping system, but you can choose almost anything.

Once you have your screencaps, you'll need to use some image editing program to crop them. I use GIMP because it's free for anyone to use and does a lot of the things Photoshops does (but Photoshop still does way more). It's more than enough for sim photo editing purposes.

I hope this helps!