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Calcinidae Bay Lot Tour: Marine Discovery Centre

I finally got around to picking the terrains I wanted to use for Calcinidae Bay's subhoods, so the Bay now officially has a(n as-of-yet unnamed) Downtown! Yay! Let's take a look through the only currently-finished lot there, the Marine Discovery Centre and Aquarium.

First I wanna shout out @dirtfauna for suggesting I build an aquarium and getting me thinking about this in the first place! As I was putting on the finishing touches I was also inspired by seeing @lolabythebaysims's gorgeous lot influenced by the Belle Isle Aquarium.

Before I get into the lot, I need to show the original Sims 4 shell for reference. It's "what the.. shell?" uploaded to the Gallery by simbellaz, and as you'll see, it was both perfect for and wildly impractical as the basis for an aquarium.

I don't normally go for shell challenges that have so many internal walls, but all those little 1-tile-wide hallways were practically SCREAMING to be made into fish tanks! The external "walls" you see added to my TS2 shell are all either actually half-walls, fences, or just windows placed with moveobjects, all of which are allowed within a standard shell challenge. It may seem like a cop-out, but it's more limiting/challenging than you'd think.

But enough preamble. Let's take a look inside!

The entrance is also a small gift shop. It seems like every aquarium I've ever been to has also sold jewellery. Don't ask me about my tiny penguin earrings.

I really wanted a "fish tank tunnel" vibe, and the effect was... almost perfect, lol. Close enough for a shell challenge IMO. I so so badly wanted to break my CC-free rule to place some fish shaders, but I'm glad I stuck to my guns because I think the solution I came up with looks goofy but effective. (Plus you wouldn't see them in build/buy anyway.)

Ooohhhh jellyfish tank ooohhhhhh they're so lifelike and graceful

I have my fun.

That little "airlock" room is a fun pirate-y undersea exhibit that connects to the outside and is probably where school field trips would loop around rather than heading upstairs.

Through the pirate's cabin is a touch pool and tactile play room where kids can inspect rubber anatomical fish models. I like to imagine the TV plays a short looping movie featuring a B-grade celebrity talking to a cartoon bass about the water cycle, fish spawn, and pollution.

The outdoor area is where the field trip groups would probably eat their packed lunches, fill out activity sheets, and take a commemorative photo with the world's worst greenscreen that's supposed to make it look like you're underwater but just ends up eating half your hair and shirt.

If you're not a student and you're just here for the love of fish, you'd probably head upstairs to get a closer look at the fish tunnel, smaller specialty tanks, and the squid/octopus models. (This room is technically considered outdoors thanks to the shell so tbh I'm not sure how lighting/temperature would behave during gameplay.)

The third floor has more tanks, some hands-on displays about aquatic plants and marine ecology, and finally a room with the actual floor-to-ceiling aquarium objects.

I thought this would be an interesting lot to run as an owned business, so I included a small employee area tucked behind the guest toilet block on the ground floor. It also helped to naturalistically answer "how would Sims feed themselves if their outing wouldn't stop complaining they were hungry," a concern I keep in mind whenever I make a lot I think would be a nice place to take a date.

And here's the floorplan! This lot had a pretty severe ugly stage but I'm really really happy with what we ended up with and the vibe I achieved without any CC. Hope you enjoyed reading this far and that it could give you some decorating inspiration!

[rockethorse]

Hiya :) ! (First off, love your creations & thank you for sharing <3) I'm especially loving your Cottage Maid dress, but have an issue with the shoes being invisible. I have a default replacement of the base game maid dress that shoe swaps the outfit with docs that seems to be causing this. (It won't let me post the link but it's the gardenofshadows one found on the sims 2 default database). Would it be possible to request your Cottage Maid outfits to be replaced with docs like that?

Hi! Yes, I keep forgetting to mention that if you have default replacements for outfits (especially NPC outfits) then my recolours may not work correctly. Is there any chance you could reply to this post with a link to the specific default you use, and I'll see if I could make the textures work with it?

Also, thank you for your kind words! ♥

[rockethorse]

Ta-dah!! I'm learning to convert stuff, finally! It's all thanks to GoS's "Conversion Immersion" theme, so head on over to take a peek. It's a dual theme with "Sim's Best Friend" and so there's also some new stuff there for pets!

Read More & Download @ Garden of Shadows

[rockethorse]

people you'd like to get to know better 🐎

Thank you for the tag @goatskickin! *hoofbump*

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last song: Let's go with St. Vincent - Los Ageless as the last song I consciously chose. It's on a character playlist I was feeling the other day while I was drawing 🕺

favorite color: As a kid it was lime green, and I still like it a lot, but after taking stock of what colours I'm actually drawn to the most, I gotta say orange and yellow! It even reflects in my Sims games LOL

currently watching: I just started Bang Brave Bang Bravern, and I'm rewatching House (which is giving me all kinds of early-2000s, photoskinned-House-and-Wilson-TS2-Sims flashbacks, and also the urge to build a hospital)

sweet/savory/spicy: I do love spicy foods, and I definitely don't hate sweets. But if I'm given a choice I'm always gravitating towards those savoury, carby, rich goodies ;) The ultimate though is something that mixes all three!

relationship: I am very happily taken and have been for a very long time ♥ We've been saying he's gonna teach me how to 3D model for Sims purposes for years lol. One of these days...

current obsession: How fast my new computer is! I'm still not used to how quickly my game runs or loads, so I'd say I've become obsessed with building in the Sims again in a big way. But while my computer was busted I got back into traditional art for a little while so now I'm rediscovering markers, pencils, watercolours, etc...

last thing you googled: Literally the apartment base lot restricted build tools cheat lol. I hardly ever use it and it's so long I never remember it, but I finally added a Downtown to Calcinidae Bay so I was tweaking my old Ann Gheld Building apartments to fit there. I did not orchestrate the last thing I googled to be Sims-related

TAGGING: @vegan-kaktus, @tvickiesims, @simmer-until-tender, and the million other Simblrs I wanna know better but am forgetting in this moment! Tag yourself!

[rockethorse]

This is the most fun thing I've built in a while. It's also completely useless as a functional lot because there's nothing to do. I didn't know about the actual aquarium's secret basement speakeasy until I had already built up the exhibit hall.

[rockethorse]

the "hates building/decorating and just wants to play" to "never plays only builds/decorates" pipeline

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was paid 2 thousand dollars to draw this

[rockethorse]

I'm enjoying my Ultimate Collection install so far, but neighbourhood deco disappears in lot view WAY easier and it's bugging me. Both n'hood deco and nearby lot imposters disappear if the camera gets anywhere close to them. I don't remember this bothering me in my last game, so is this an UC problem or am I missing a fix/mod/cheat to stop this behaviour?

[rockethorse]

[rockethorse]

Potter's Paradise | CC-Free

Hello hello, another little CC-free shell challenge house for download. This is 1 bedroom (with a studio that could easily be turned into a second bedroom), 1.5 bathroom, fully-furnished and oh-so cheery!

There's a small fishpond out the front Sims can technically fish out of (though I recommend just feeding them) and a little BBQ area & produce garden around the back. The TS4 shell adapted for this lot is the "Yeehaw" Shell Challenge by lilsimsie.

Download "Potter's Paradise" @ SFS

[rockethorse]

Mid-Century Burst | CC-Free

A tricky little shell challenge that you can get some use out of too! Tried to dig into some 70s inspo for the exterior on this one. This is 2 bed, 1 bath, fully-furnished and CC-free. Because of the limited size of the main shell, I added a detached garage with an apartment on top, which adds +1 studio bedroom and +1 bathroom.

The TS4 shell challenge I used for this lot was called "BubbleShell3" on the gallery from the ID "bubblesisgaming". I'm also playing around with using random palette generators for room inspo, this time from ColorHunt. It's been fun and I recommend using it to get out of your comfort zone!

Download Mid-Century Burst @ SFS

[rockethorse]

Calcinidae Bay Lot Tour: the Public Schools

Let's take a closer look at a few of Calcinidae Bay's community lots - its public schooling! This screenshot is actually three lots, with two lots overlapped using the Lot Adjuster. On the left is the high school, on the right is the primary school, and between them is a shared gymnasium and a semi-public oval (sports field).

More pics & CC-free decorating ideas below!

As always, these lots are based on shell challenges. The high school and primary school are actually shells that were made for me by @hugelunatic as stocking stuffers back in 2022 (I didn't forget about them!) The shell from the gym/oval lot is actually the smaller canteen building, with the gymnasium being auxiliary (because it had to be such a specific size/shape), and that shell is a 4T2 adaptation of LilSimsie's "Yeehaw" Shell Challenge that I grabbed off the gallery.

Starting with the high school:

If you peeked at the original shell, you'll see there was a two-storey 1x1 "column "room" in the middle of the lot, which made me think of a bell/clock tower and inspired me to use these shells for schools. Normally when I adapt a TS4 shell challenge to TS2 I choose the placement & orientation on the lot, but because these lots were made natively in TS2 I decided to keep the lot size & distribution as they were. This gave me a lot of additional space around the main building that was perfect for adding extra amenities like a library.

The ground floor of the high school has an administration area, lockers, mixed bathroom, sick bay, staff room, and two general-use classrooms that can each fit six students.

The teacher's lounge/staff room, and a small display/awards case. I needed something to do with that little triangular pocket, and now it's one of my favourite features. :)

Upstairs is two specialised classrooms - a moderate science lab and an arts room. I would have liked at least a home ec classroom as well, but I guess that'll be reserved for the eventual private school.

The canteen (cafeteria) is a separate demountable building with outdoor seating, some of it under a shade cloth. The library is also a separate building with a small computer bay and a group study area.

Moving on to the primary school, a much older and smaller building with some minor remodeling so the two schools look cohesive:

The inspiration for my gameplay/lots is a mish-mash of different cultural influences, but I play my schools like the standard Australian system; kids start in reception (about age 5) and attend primary school all the way through to year 6 or 7, then go to high school from year 6/7 through to year 12. Separate middle schools are much less common, and this matches with how the game itself handles kid vs. teen education.

I design my lots kind of "representationally", to get the best balance between realism and playability. While I enjoy including some details that don't provide actual gameplay, I don't want to build enormous, cumbersome lots just to achieve a 1:1 scale when my Sims will never actually need that much space. Plus, most shell challenges tend to be smaller, which I like. Hence why this school has only two classrooms, one for junior primary and a more structured classroom for upper primary.

There is a small admin area downstairs. Upstairs is the sick bay and a modest teacher's lounge/staff room.

The primary school doesn't have its own library, but it does have a small separate building that we in Australia would call OSHC - Out of School Hours Care. It's a service parents can book to drop their children off before school starts, or arrange for them to attend after school finishes until they can pick them up. They provide snacks and some edu-tainment activities. Lots of kids also attend OSHC over school holidays.

The primary school canteen/cafeteria is also a separate building. Both school canteens use the University cafeteria stove, so with the right mod students will be able to grab food there. In addition to an outdoor eating area and a small playground, there is a little produce patch between the two buildings where students are taught about horticulture.

And finally, the lot that joins the two schools, the shared gymnasium and Calcinidae Oval.

The canteen/cafeteria itself would generally not be open during school hours. Instead, the school and/or local council would operate it for profit or hire it out to a third party when the oval was being used for local sports teams and other events on weekends, holidays, and after school hours. Right now it's set up for just such a soccer match.

The inside of the "tuckshop". There is a bathroom on the bottom floor accessible from the outside of the building, while the top floor has two changing rooms for students or local teams.

The gymnasium also serves as an assembly hall for students of both schools. I think the teachers would either have a collapsible stage at the far end of the court, or just stand up in the commentator's booth to give the announcements. Underneath the commentator's booth is the equipment storage shed where many a teen couple has probably sneaked off to make out.

The back view of the tuckshop and the carpark shows how this lot overlaps with the primary school. The existing primary school is blocked from Sims walking through it by a combination of real fences and this hidden CC-free invisible fence.

And that's it for this tour! I'm pretty happy with how these lots look, how I utilised the shells, and how they all fit together in the neighbourhood. I want to have more lots overlapping and slotting together like this to give Calcinidae Bay a more seamless, open feel, like the hood really is connected.

I'll finish this post with some floorplans - if you read all this you're a champ, I hope it gave you some ideas for your own game, and I'd love to know what you think!

[rockethorse]

My 10-year-old computer died, my new one finally arrived, and you'd best believe the first thing I did is install TS2. I still need to get my old files off my old hard drive but I'm finally biting the bullet and installing the Ultimate Collection rather than trying to reinstall from disks on Windows 11 and ... I wanted to weep lmao. Everything loads so FAST it almost scares me. I thought I was used to the game loading fast when I took out all my CC, but that's NOTHING compared to this. Fully optimised TS2 on a modern computer is frightening

It's also a good opportunity to start my DL folder from scratch with a better organisational system and being stricter about what I know I will/won't use. Challenging myself to CC-free builds has pushed me even further into a MM-game and now I'm embracing it. Like, I'm flirting with the idea of not having reflective pond water? Just changing the colour, but keeping the slab-o-blue vibe? Who am I? Beach lots would look ugly as hell but maybe I can make it work.

Anyway, a very exciting new development in my Sims career :)

[rockethorse]

Custer's Market from Oldtown :)

I have always loved this lot from TS1.

[rockethorse]

The Sims 4 Backyard Stuff Is Now Free For All

After My First Pet and Romantic Garden, now The Sims 4 Backyard Stuff is being offered for free. Just like the previous two stuff packs, it is expected that this offer is for a limited time only.

This DLC was first released on July 19, 2016. As its names suggests, it focuses on outdoor Summer activities and brings two lawn slides, a bird feeder, a set of windchimes and a tray and pitcher for cold beverages, amongst other furniture pieces and Create a Sim items.

The Sims 4 Backyard Stuff can be downloaded for free wherever you get your packs, both on PC and console.

Down below is a full list of all the official retail stores providing this offer:

EA App / Origin

Steam

Playstation Store

Microsoft Store

[rockethorse]

Video of my new sculpture - LIFE-SIZE The Laganaphyllis simnovorii (Cow Plant) 🐮🌱

[rockethorse]

So I said that I was going to work on remaking the Magic hood and then the vacation hoods after that. But I got bored with that crap and now I'm remaking Bluewater Village instead.

For anyone that played in my old Bluewater Village makeover, this is some of the improvements:

All lots have flat lot edges (I didn't know how to flatten them when I made my first makeovers)

Decreased lot sizes when possible

Lot makeovers have either been updated with less flora/better deco while other lots had to be made over from scratch

Changed the whole road system to be more "tight-knit"

Less hood deco but still well decorated

All residential houses are now next to each other

I'm going to build a new cemetery

Added Pepe's Pets but removed Dynamite Duplex (that lot is now in Pleasantview)

It's still a work in progress!