#maybe i need to delete all my cc and start fresh?

[loomsims]

trashed out z on youtube is too freaking funny 😭 they make playing ts4 look like so much fun :(

[pudding-parade]

Tutorial: Importing an existing world into CAW

Note: I did not write this tutorial! I copy/pasted it from here. I just don't have confidence that TS3 websites will remain viable in the long term, so I'm preserving this mostly for my own future reference. But, maybe it will be helpful for other folks like me who aren't very CAW-savvy and just want to make some edits to an existing world in ways that you can't do in-game. The slightly edited original post is pasted behind the cut.

1) Install the world in the usual way in your fresh game folder. If it is a real prerequisite, in that Riverview objects are used in the world, you'll need to install Riverview too. Of course this also goes for Barnacle Bay or any other custom world EA may release separately. This is also a good time to check in your Installed Items whether any "foreign" CC came with it.

2) Start CAW and make a new world. It will ask for a .png, press the … box and you'll get a few 'starters', choose any. Accept all the rest and OK. You don't need to worry about parameters for your world as they will be overwritten later anyway. Save As the new world with a name you will use temporarily, not the definitive name you want to give it. Let's call it Temp.world for now. Close CAW.

3) Open S3PE and browse to the The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds and you'll find your Temp.world file. Open it.

4) Use Resource->Import->From package… and browse to your The Sims 3\InstalledWorlds and open the world file you want to "import". Accept the default settings for Import, when it asks you to save between packages, say No. It will show a progress bar so you'll know it's done. This may take a while.

5) Sort the resources by Type (click the "header") and find UNKN 0x296A6258 there. If all is well you should have two, one already deleted (struck out), right-click the other and select "Deleted" to delete it too. At the bottom of the file you should have two WPID resources, one already deleted, delete the other too.

6) Use the "close" button in the upper right to close S3PE. It will tell you the package has changed, choose Yes to save the changes. The reason for doing it this way is you'll know it's done when the S3PE window closes. This may take a while.

7) Start the CAW tool and open your Temp.world. Wait until the render window shows you a reasonable picture of something in the world. This may take a while and there is no real progress indication.

8) Right-click on the Temp.world on the left pane (World Layers) and choose Add/Edit description. Make sure the Name and Description fields are filled in. You can use your final name and description here. Also make sure there is a .png for the thumbnail. If there isn't, browse up one of the samples you got earlier or make sure you have one ready. This needs to be in the 24-bit 256x256 format!

9) Save As the world with the final name, let's say Final.world. It will give you a "wait" cursor for a while and then a normal cursor. Don't touch it!! It's not done! Leave the computer to it until a window pops up informing you the world is successfully saved.

The opposite direction is quite simple, just start CAW and use "Export world". It will put a .sims3pack in your The Sims 3\Exports folder. You can take that out and put it in the Download folder and install it as usual.

[glowyjellyfish]

I spent all evening weeding out modern and duplicate CC from my new game folder, and when I get through what is obvious I am going to carefully load the game. Maybe tooltip stuff first so I can more easily tell what files to remove, I am not using the in-game delete anymore if I can help it! I was keeping an old Sun&Moon set, but think I should probably toss it and reinstall fresh, especially since I don’t want a few parts for this game (dragons and griffins mostly; this game is pretending to be historical). There’s also an unfortunate volume of medieval CC just chilling in this not-even-medieval CC collection, and I want to toss most of it, replacing some with updated versions, but mostly making sure what I have is viable for the 18th century.

I also have a small pile of loose rules. And I think I’ve decided that with proportionate aging, it makes the most sense to advance the year in sync with ages—each sim day is three months, so that’s one year every four days and five years every seasonal year. I’ll just have to include round numbers separately, and think of the seasons and seasonal years as being vaguely GoTish. This is close to being half the advancement speed of a “default age + advance the decade when the first sim born in the decade becomes adult”, which seems about right considering how much longer Proportionate Aging takes. I am probably going to start it with a date like 1751, or similar to make it not take too long to advance far enough to actually change the CC. There are definitely not enough 18th century CC variations to theme a whole town for each decade! I’m basically gonna go “colonial/Georgian/pirate > regency > early Victorian with the big skirts > mid/late Victorian with the bustles > Edwardian > THEN each 20th century decade I can find respectable content for”

And I have mostly named my founders: James and Mary Shepherd, who are cultists and will have sheep or cows (sheep match their name, but cows are more useful…); Edward and Patience Threepwood, fishers whose kids may turn pirate; William and Catherine Farmer… farmers, who will have 3-5 Sun&Moon crops randomly chosen; Robert and Eleanor Partridge, woodcutters and carpenters who will also have one type of fruit tree; and Jonathan and Sarah Cole, who will be my miners or stone workers. The Shepherds are gonna be white and blond because of who I am basing them on, but everyone else I’ll randomize. This is my own fake history and there will be POC amongst my settlers.

I also decided my native population (which again I need to name properly) is going to start with three randomly rolled families, to give them a sort of head start. I wasn’t sure what kind of names to try and use, and landed on some basic nature names that don’t match common English surnames, and right now I have Mossfoot, Redleaf, and Blackfeather. Maybe Sunfeather? Maybe make them all two words? Idk. The natives will have a wider variety of harvestables available to them, and can’t open businesses. They share resources amongst themselves, but can also sell or trade to an individual sim if they have extra.

Lol this always happens, it takes so long to set up, I use the time to make lots of detailed rules, and then I lose interest. Maybe the weekend will help!

[aharris00britney]

ASKS 19

It’s 6am and Brandon woke me up when he got up to go to work so now... i answer asks bc i cant sleep. 

@mileyzangel said: Can you please make a Harley Quinn hairstyle from both Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey?

I went and watched Birds of Prey the other night and it was really good. Brandon went to sleep I think tfgvhb. But I doubt I’ll try doing her hair from either of the films. @enriques4 is working on one for her Birds of Prey look if you are interested in that <3

Anonymous said: is tiny living worth it? im leaning towards the gameplay although i love cas. is the gameplay as bad as people say?

I honestly don’t think the new beds do anything. They’re... there. Lmao I think the CAS and buy items are very nice. If we get some cc murphy beds then that would make them a lot more usable tbh.  

Anonymous said: how do you and ayoshi keep making some fantastic collabs?? y'all are literally the first people i go to when I make a fresh install and I can't wait to see what you do next

Anonymous said: AxA CC KINGS!!!

Anonymous said: you guys didnt have to snap like that on AxA

Anonymous said: I LOVE EVERY SINGLE PACK U AND AYOSHI DO PLEASE KEEP MAKING MORE

Anonymous said: another iconic ah00b x ayoshi collab YAS LESSGOOOO

We put a bunch of cc ideas (hair and clothes) in a discord server we have together and then work on the stuff together on call usually so each item is the way we both want me. Like for example i’ll be meshing the Ivy top while he works on texturing the ribbed version.  We also only do collabs when they happen, we didn’t plan AxA 2019 or this new set, mainly just made cc starting in May and wrapped it up in July to release in August. Then this time we started making stuff late December and got most of it done by the time I got done with my break. Having a planned collab/deadline makes stuff less stressful and the stuff usually turns out better imo

Anonymous said: hi! ur sims are so prettyyyy what skin texture and eyes do u use?

Anonymous said: hi! wcif the eyes of the sim in the edit that Dogsill edited for you please? thank you!

Anonymous said: Hi! I really love the way your sims looks so, I was what skin and eyes you use?

I actually am changing my default eyes so I need to update my resource page soon ;n; but the skins they use are all listed for each sim on the resource page here

Anonymous said: you always name axa packs by the year but this one was named after a season those that mean.... 👀

We are wanting to do something in the fall, just not sure how our lives will be then ya know? There’s a chance that this will be the AxA 2020. Since we weren’t sure I didn’t want to label it that if 2 AxA’s release this year lmao

Anonymous said: what game is the pokemon thing you're playing!? pls help a guy out i'm in love with the art style

Pokemon Sword and Shield (I have shield) for Nintendo Switch. I’ll prob post more pics once I get some new shinies :P

@kristabunny said: lol is it bad that when I saw your Santana hair I read it as Satan Hair XD

tbhhhhh it was lowkey referencing that lmao. I made the hair in October for a speed meshing video and since it was around Halloween I was like “lemme give her an almost demonic name” also Santana from glee is a queen

Anonymous said: Tbh I absolutely adore your female cc but I LIVE for your male cc!!!

Thank you! lmao the only thing I can take full credit for is the AxA male hairs. I mesh the clothes for packs but ayoshi does the texturing for them.  

Anonymous said: Could you have a go at the updo Dua Lipa has on the cover of her Future Nostalgia? The high bun with a flick in it and the strands of hair down the sides. Thanks if so :)

I’m not the biggest fan of the hairstyle tbh ;n; but we will see. (Physical is a serve, just saying)

Anonymous said: So ive never played pokemon before until my friend gave me a copy of pokemon moon. I love cats so of course my starter was a litten, but i had no clue about evolutions or anything like that. I was heartbroken when my cute litten turned into some big man cat :(

omg noooo ;n; yeah Litten is a cutie... incineroar is... well I got used to him tbh and kind of like him now? I absolutely hate scorbunny’s evolution (and most of the SWSH starters final evolution) so I think that made incineroar slightly better in my eyes. My shiny litten will be staying a kitten however :)

@multifandom-slytherin said: Hello! I love your cc! Would it be possible for you to make the bangs from your Bree Hair a separate accessory that you can put with other hairs (for example the BG low ponytail)? Thank you so much!

Anonymous said: have u considered making or allowing someone to make an acc version of your handmade bangs?

I have thought of doing accessory bangs tbh, I just like... don’t like using accessory bangs myself. So I’m not sure if I’ll end up doing it. I might try it for myself and see how many hairs they work with, and if it is a decent amount I’ll release. 

Anonymous said: First off I want to say how amazing all of your hairs and collabs are! Second I was curious if you ever thought of going back to your old hairs and updating their thumbnails / display indexes so they matched your stuff now?

I really really wanted to have all my 2019 hairs updated by 2020. It was only January 2019-April 2019 that needed updated (thumbnails and display indexes). But I just lost motivation for doing it. I will focus on it next time I have a big break from school. Also planning on updating select stuff from 2018 and 2017. 

Anonymous said: please put Sophia Barker in the gallery. PLEASEEEEE it's the most beautiful sim I EVER seen! >:3 PLEASEEE!!!!!!!!!!

She should be on there? I think? Make sure you have CC enabled and if you can’t find me through the gallery her tray files are here

Anonymous said: Hi! After the recent patch I started having a small issue with Bree hair(without bangs), when I zoom out it looks like a completely different hair, something similar to that one basegame hair that's layered with tips pointed outward but longer. Thought I'd let you know, maybe others have had a similar issue or maybe I need to change a setting or something. Love your work so much!

Really surprised this is the first time someone told me about this lmao. The hair should be updated now on SFS/Patreon <3

Anonymous said: I tried to look around for this on your "Asks" portion before bothering you (so sorry), but do you have a link perhaps for all the lips you use on your models? Are they in game or a cc you create? Thanks so much! Love all of your work! I'm super new to cc stuff and I found yours like 2 days ago and have been going nuts with downloads lol 

like presets? None of my cc models use a lip preset. I do use this slider on some of them though. For lipsticks, that is listed for each model on my resource page <3

Anonymous said: i’ve been looking for a hair like lexi that i actually like forever and now i find it but it’s for paterson peeps and i’m like actually broke and i’m like :/

im sorry ;n; at least it wasn’t too long of a wait? :/ I hope you liked the hair

Anonymous said: I can't find your jisoo ponytails in your downloads?

they’re in my retired section... may they rest in peace. scroll to the bottom of my downloads and youll see ‘RETIRED.’ click that for the retired download page. 

@eclypt-0-sims said: Hi, I recently started making MM hair and I know you're probably an expert at this but; every time I go into CAS to test a hair, all of my accessories clip with the hair. Like the hair texture would cover some glasses if my sim was wearing glasses. I don't know how to fix it, someone told me to delete an eye weight in blender but I don't really understand weight painting that much, any suggestions? love your content btw

this is a late as hell reply i’m sorry. I think that you have texture where the glasses texture would be. Hair texture should only be in hair section or hat section (if you don’t want it hat compatible). Here is a UV map layout that I use for making hair textures. It shouldnt have anything to do with weights

Anonymous said: Do you use reshade when you take previews for your cc? and also is the tropical punch ombre overlay a palette or did you make it?

I do use reshade when I take cc previews. It adds a bit of saturation to my sims and gives them some shadows under their chin/clothes. Nothing major. Also, myself and @imvikai came up with the tropical punch palette together.

@little-eris​ said: You probably have answered this before but who drew your tumblr icon? I’ve seen the same art style with other simmers 👉🏼👈🏼 it’s super cute!

thank you! here is their twitter 

Anonymous said: The male sim in your Tiny Living review looks soo familiar; was there inspiration from anyone IRL? The person he reminds me of isn't even famous so I don't even know! He is very pretty though *-*

He was a gallery sim that I just revamped a bit so I’m honestly not super sure lmao. But he is very attractive yes I agree

that concludes this ask ceremony please collect your things and move to the exit to your left. fvghbjn if you sent something I didn’t answer and it was off anon I’ll get to you soon (person who asked what beards I used for AxA... I see you)

[jenba]

Advice on how to cure CC-Addiction? My PC is specially built for Sims and large games in general but my CC folder is making my game lag noticeably. I mainly have Build/Buy CC T-T any help is appreciated! Thanks!

Hi Anon! I’m sorry to hear about the lagginess! CC addiction is real, and it can be difficult to deal with. Here are some things you can try:

Try to pare it down to just the essentials. I find it helps to restrict whole categories of stuff, because then it’s easier to say “no”. XD For example in my main gameplay save, I allow myself default replacements only (skin, eyes, etc.), my favorite make-up (just to have a few more options), and then gameplay mods that I find essential because they either fix things or make gameplay less frustrating/more fun. I won’t allow myself to download any clothing, accessories, or build/buy items, because I know once I start, I won’t be able to stop. XD (And actually I’ve been thinking of going completely vanilla for my main gameplay because I like to build CC-free, and it’s just easier to not have to take out my Mods folder every time I want to do that.)

Restrict yourself to maybe two or three of your favorite creators. If you can’t live without a certain creator’s stuff, then only allow yourself to download their items (and only the things you really love). This can be really tough since there are so many fantastic creators out there, but it can make it easier on your CC folder if you keep it to just a few! Plus it’s more convenient to update things after big patches because you only have to visit a few creators/wait for them to update.

Throw out your mods folder (or copy it somewhere else for awhile if you hate to delete it completely) and start fresh. Then only download something when you’re playing/building/decorating and feel you really NEED it. Usually when I do this, I realize I don’t really need as much CC as I thought. Of course there’s always the danger that you download something you need, then see something else you like, and just HAVE to download that as well, and then the CC avalanche begins again. XD But it can be really refreshing and liberating for awhile to start completely clean!

The “peace of mind” factor. When you’re tempted to download more CC, think about how less laggy your game is without so much of it, and how you can spend more time playing and less time downloading/sorting/testing/deleting it, etc. You can be totally relaxed when patch time rolls around, because you won’t have a bunch of things breaking your game (just the patch itself, lol). I used to spend way more time on CC management than I did in game (especially back in the Sims 3 days), and I don’t miss that at all. 

Anyone else have some tips for CC-reduction or for going completely vanilla??

[ajaysims]

rambling

so I spent 4 days off work with pain... again... and because I am me, I decided that what I really, really needed, was a retro mid-century/fallout pre-war themed hood. so I spent 4 days just searching for and downloading cc.

I haven’t even created the hood.

who knows if I’ll ever get around to it. I swear I go through ideas so fast that I don’t even get to *realise* the ideas at all. and sometimes I think that I like the idea of playing sims more than I like the actual playing.

and I want to get back to pleasantly ever after because I have so much plot written for that, but the game keeps crashing and I’m not entirely sure why, but I suspect that it’s just that my little laptop can’t handle big, fully-populated hoods... and pleasantview is biiig.

there’s a few solutions to that, which are not all mutually exclusive: - I kill off/move to bin some households and delete some houses, and generally reduce the content of the game as much as I can. - I try splitting Pleasantview up into multiple subhoods, so that I’m only playing a little part of the town at a time and the rest of the map is empty. If I get the house placement and deco right, this won’t be a problem in screenshots, but for me it will feel less immersive. - I stop building full community lots and instead only construct a few ‘scenes’, like shooting a movie. At the moment the lot that is crashing the most is the school lot, because it is HUGE. If I trimmed that lot down to just a shell/externals and then a couple of rooms as I need them, then... again, ok for screenshots, not for immersion/playing.

I guess my problem is I am coming at this as a simmer used to gameplay rather than pure storytelling. I don’t really need a full school for the story, just a few locations, but that game-play part of me wants to build and decorate the full thing so I can play out a full school. :/

but I think I need to separate it out. If I feel like gameplay, I can play in one of my small miminally-populated hoods and mess around. If I want to storytell, then I need to start thinking about it more in terms of shooting a movie/tv show with limited ‘sets’ rather than gameplay.

And I think the reality is that I am going to have to start from a fresh pleasantview, split it up, rebuild it, maybe with community exteriors in the main hood and then interior scenes in a subhood somewhere and try to keep things as minimal as possible.

aaaand instead I will probably spend another few days finding cc and houseplans for this retro hood I may not ever create ;)

[professionalgrowth-julia]

Efficient Time Management by Chris Croft

Can you find ways to automate repeating tasks and problems?

If you are a manager, only solve creative problems

Delegate repetitive tasks to someone else or create systems to avoid repeating problems

Managing repeating problems

Prevent the original problem

Automate or delegate tasks

Improve processes

Notes: - Ask why more than what, dig deeper to the cause and fix the root of the problem - Food for thought: What are your repeating time wasters? 

How to reduce inefficiency?

Start with a reliable foundation - tools you use to run your life

Don’t tolerate anything inefficient or unreliable - it is worth spending money and time to fix it

My Value per Hour:

(Hourly rate) x 2 = Real cost

(Real cost) x 2 = Total value

Annual Salary/2,000 = Hourly pay

Hourly rate x 2 x 2 = Total value

How to improve your desk?

Get rid of the loose papers on your desk

Make sure your desk is well suited for you

Think about your desk’s line of sight

What should be on your desk?

Computer

Jobs-to-do list

Blank paper - paper is better to visualise instead of digital

Pens or pencils

Notes: - A neat list is much more useful than a pile of papers - Messy desk is distracting - Pomodoro Technique - work for a set amount of time and then reward yourself

Put things in the right place

Have spares of everything

Put things in clear sight where you can’t forget them - batch things together to save time

How to reduce your filing?

Use search to find the emails you’re looking for - customer name, company name, product name, date

For paper, try an app like Evernote for photographing and digitally filing documents

Filing system: (1) To-be-filed box, (2) Trash bin, (3) Can’t decide box

Notes: - Set up an auto-tagging system to help organize emails with similar content - Once can’t decide box is full, throw it away

How to maximise spare time

Use technology for work

Have a plan

Carry reading material (book or kindle)

Be idle, enjoy nature, or socialize

Notes: Falling back on TV or social media should be the last on your list

Listen more to save time

Things to avoid talking about: 

Details

Circular situations

Anything out of your control

The past

The future

Yourself

Use a master list

Should include all the big items

List can be in any form that works for you

Putting a list on the wall is preferred (visibility)

Set aside time to create and update your list (~15 mins to get it done)

Reason: - It’s better to know that not know. If list is too long, you need to either delegate or delete it - Allows you to plan and manage your time

Use a daily list

Use a daily list in conjunction with the master list 

Master list: Big-to-dos

Daily list: Smaller parts of larger projects

Should have less than 10 items

It is important to keep the master list and daily list separate

Daily lists must be done daily (not only under stress)

Notes - Writing daily lists in the evening helps because it’s quiet, it gives you closure for the day and helps you overcome procrastination

Get the most out of your calendar

Always keep it with you so that you use it everyday & all the time

Put in appointments with yourself to think & plan (one per day, ~30 mins)

Keep your calendar 25-50% empty to allow for inevitable problems

Use the unbroken chain by noting deadline dates in your calendar

Notes: - Small amount of planning adds up to significant planning

Write everything down

Big items goes into the master list

Small items goes to the daily jobs-to-do list

Timely items goes into the calendar

Reasons: - Helps you to not forget anything - Allows you to plan - Provides time for important tasks

Use paper or not?

Evernote

Multidevice access

Sharable content

Backup capability

Searchable

In a meeting, writing maybe condoned (even on ipad, but writing)

Tips for recording

Use the dictate feature on your phone

Use abbreviations

Hard edges for your tasks

Separate jobs into must do and might do

Never allow system to be ambiguous 

Notes: Read “Getting things done” by David Allen

Filing by date

Great for:

Timely event such as hotel bookings, conference & meeting agendas 

Repeating tasks

Following up on delegated tasks

Two options to do it:

Ring binder

Filing cabinet segregated by month, and then date

Filing by context

By location

By person

By customer

By activity

Notes: - Use “Any do” app that allows you to set Location reminder - Keep all your lists in one place

Tips for typing

Use dictate feature on your phone (beside the type bar)

Try using a bluetooth keyboard

Save time typing

Keep emails short

Learn to type really well

Use auto correct for mistakes 

Standard paragraphs in Evernote

Maximise productivity from apps

Evernote 

Online notebook

Stores text, photos, recordings

Accessible from many devices

Searchable

Includes text recognition software

Wunderlist

Free

Easy-to-use

Syncs across devices

Interactive

Shareable

WorkFlowy

Free

Syncs across devices

Good for brainstorming list

Tag tasks using hashtag

Trello

Similar to Kanban system

Moving things between lists

Good for consecutive task for one or more persons

Notes: - Email isn’t a jobs-to-do system

Make the most of Word and Excel

Microsoft Excel

Pivot tables

AutoFilter

Conditional formatting

Lookup tables

IF commands

Microsoft Word

Use AutoCorrect

Learn keyboard shortcuts

Learn to insert tables

Learn and use styles

Communicate via the cloud

Viewable anywhere

Always up to date

Control over who views and edits

Use the right medium

When to make a phone call?

For back and forth

For gauging reactions

When to use email?

To avoid chatty people

To leave a paper trail

To respect other’s time

To write and think carefully

Notes: - Use the medium the other person likes best

Make email easy for the receiver

Use a clear title

Use one subject per email

Delegate one person per task

Be clear when you CC

Have a detailed footer

*Email tips: include the original email

Make sure you get a reply

Replies are more important than read receipts

Did They Reply (DTR) System

Set up an email folder

Set up a rule to place all messages with “DTR” in the Did They Reply folder

Good for important email

For people whom you do not trust

For Gmail, use labels

Make sure you don’t get a reply!

Reduce incoming emails

Be assertive

Add “reply not required”

Try a different medium

Check emails at the right frequency

Check two to six times a day

Constantly checking emails can be distracting and time consuming

Checking more frequently doesn’t always increase response time

How to empty your inbox

Inbox Zero

Keep your inbox completely clear

Deal with easy tasks now

Add harder tasks to jobs-to-do list

Once you’ve assessed each email, remove it from your inbox

Inbox is just an arrival place, while jobs-to-do list is a list of tasks

If your inbox is too overwhelming, give yourself a fresh start

Notes: - Advantages of Inbox Zero: (1) Nothing gets forgotten, (2) you can decide what tasks to do

Do it tomorrow?

Two-minute rule: If it can be done in two minutes or less, do it!

Do-it-tomorrow rule

Unless the task is urgent, add it to the do-it-tomorrow list

Everything gets pushed back a day

Take control of your time to be more efficient

Tips for filing of emails

Inbox (things i have not seen yet, checked every hour or two)

Deleted

Done

Deal with later

Notes: Important things can be searched and placed into Evernote Boolean search: Search for specific things and exclude others Autofiling: Set up rules to automatically filter emails (not a good thing)

[itssimplesimblr]

Hi may I ask you what happened to your through the decades legacy and where all the posts went with Louis, you know the diary type style legacy you were doing? I dont mean to sound rude but I really liked that one!

i really liked it too nonny :(( i deleted it bc i wanted to go super minimal cc, but tbh i loved the archer’s too! i had plans for them, maybe i’ll re-try them in at a further date in a modern-style or something!

the reason why i deleted their posts was bc i’m super ocd about my tumblr, it was literally killing me inside (not trying to be dramatic) that i had posts on my tumblr which i wasn’t continuing anymore. i’ve had this habit for about a year now, and tbh i hate it a lot :(( i also delete my saves when i ‘discontinue’ them so there’s no way of them actually coming back from their original save

i was originally planning on continuing them, but tbh i rlly hated the fact that i was very minimal cc apart from my decades & tta save! again, it was always on my mind & i just wanted a fresh start tbh :(( i’m really sorry to everyone who liked my previous gameplays, but i might end up giving them a character in my harvey legacy if ppl do actually miss them that much!!

i never realised that u guys actually cared that much of what i posted, i’ll try to keep it in mind the next time i feel the need to purge all my posts! but ivory recently had kiddos in my game and i’ve already got a story for gen 2! it feels just like the old days where i’d plan like 10 generations in advance, which was one of the main reasons why i loved the harveys so much & actually played until gen 4!!

[cezzysims]

Well, the posts out of order are the least of my worries. Our computer had a hard drive issue that destroyed all my save files and screenshots.

I will start over, but it will be 100% from scratch. I need to get all my mods back, maybe some CC, who knows?

Mostly I will be backing up my saves often. We didn't expect to have any hardware failures so soon after getting the damn thing.

Anywho, all the content will be moved from this blog. In actuality what will probably happen is I will post the rest of the content (probably out of order, whoops), make a blog to archive all this, reblog all the posts in the proper order, move the links and things there, delete the original posts, and basically just start this blog over. It's not ideal, but I don't have much of a choice. Because I'm doing this though, I'm super excited to ask for households the community has made, CC recommendations, or anything really. Looking forward to a fresh start on the Sims, as my game files have gone through 8 years of my bs and I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did with only the one file ever getting corrupted.

I'll be fucking damned if my 100 baby challenge gets thwarted again. It'll be nice to start it in the sims 4 with mccc so I'm not having to manually story progress everything! And having a computer that can run the sims 3 with all the packs is liberating and I can do so many more things in the 100 baby challenge because of it.

[glowyjellyfish]

Gather round, children, for the legend of Grimwood Abbey

(that’s the tiny pre-MCC I mentioned the other day. I only came up with this concept, oh, over a year ago. Dropped it to play a nice easy modern Megahood. I don’t have much wherewithal.)

...so I have spent two days on the weekend so far just working on getting my CC sorted out so I can consider starting this. Yesterday the big issues were a. realizing it was super inefficient to delete stuff in-game one by one even though it’s nice to be able to see it, and becoming paralyzed with indecision about whether to take the time to hunt down unidentified files by hand, or continue spending time deleting dozens and dozens of recoiled by hand… eventually I did a little of both, but boy I gotta use some kind of tooltip renamed now huh… b. I am not good at Delphy’s Download Organizer. I don’t understand it. Why is there no “how to use” documentation. So then I set it to scan for orphans or duplicates, stare hopelessly at the results unable to figure out what is the best course of action, and then quietly quit it to yet again… move files around manually. Don’t get me wrong, I was able to use it to shove several file types into correct folders, but my real issue would be so easily solved if there was a thoroughly explained duplicate scanner that I was able to trust. Ugh, I probably should have started by moving all the files to one big folder and sorting them from there but WHATEVER.

Because, you see, like many simmers, I have been collecting my cc since roughly 2004. I legit cannot remember if I have lost the whole thing and had to start over, but this collection can certainly be traced back to my first laptop that could run the Sims 2. For the longest time, I merely collected a big pile of everything shiny and cool that caught my eye, resulting in a big mixed-up mess combining modern and medieval fantasy and sci-fi and random fandoms and steampunk and everything I ever enjoyed. That… was not sustainable. I tried keeping individual folders within Downloads for specific genres, with the idea that I could swap them in and out for different hoods. Alas, that was too time-consuming for my taste, and I ended up with the same basic downloads folder but very lightly sort of organized but not really.

Sometime within the last ten years, I started trying to cultivate different downloads folders of broad genre categories, all neatly saved on a big flash drive. That’s all well and good, but copying and backing up that shit took away precious hours I could be using to play. Not only that, but it was very rough trying to separate my downloads folder properly—some stuff worked well for multiple genres! So I ended up making copies of the whole downloads folder to build these alternates, which I could then whittle down to only the stuff I actually wanted in there. This medieval alternate downloads folder therefore also contained the folder I’d labeled Medieval CC in my last attempt at organizing, and just to be sure I copied everything over and back repeatedly. And you know how it goes—every time I got excited about the idea of an MCC, I had to go out and download anything new or shiny. And oh yeah, had to stock up on defaults because now I could be using a solely medieval downloads folder! And this new CC would get plonked right into the DL folder, nary a care for organization because I needed to play before I lost interest!

So I had at least two, possibly three copies of all the same content in a collection of medieval CC that’s been building for, let’s call it 15 years more or less. I can’t trust the download organizer—like sir are you showing me all of them? do I throw all these out or leave one behind?—and doing it by hand is extremely tedious, carefully removing all txt and preview files to improve my load time. And actually playing a year-old story concept is delayed yet again.

I’ve got a Megahood set up that I can start converting to medieval whenever I get my act together, and I still that that sounds like fun but also waaaay too big a project for me (latest issue: wait if the capulets and montagues are traditionally alike in dignity is it wrong to make the Capps gentry and the montys merchants? But if I make them both gentry it’ll be an entire damn subhood of nothing but gentry!). I also have the same old MCC hood I started building a year ago, restarting after years of having the concept ready (this one is Algary and it is the one i was building a castle for; it has a few interesting rolled families to start with such as the gentry family having no sim older than teen and me choosing to set that up as the direct heir and some cousins, and a peasant family that involved two elderly ladies who were in love and joined households after their obligatory husbands died, pooling resources to care for their families, but one of them was gonna feel obliged to head off to the church and repent while the other cared for the kids and became a midwife). And then there’s the new guy, Grimwood Abbey, whose concept is only a year old but I sure hope I can follow through on it because it is quite small. Even then I can’t decide yet whether to start with one household (everybody living together for protection!), two households (the church vs the knights), or several households (each knight beginning in their own household with their squire). The latter would make it easier for each knight to earn their own money and compete to purchase gentry approval from the church… but idk.

Anyway. After all that I am really hoping I am about ready to actually play a bit. Even just making some sims and buildings. Today I need to progress further in weeding out CC, try to find a way I can do that more efficiently, maybe find some nice standardized set of makeup and default eyes and skin to use rather than the haphazard collections I barely touch (I prefer to lean toward maxis match over Shiny Realistic skins where everyone has auto makeup, but I’m sure there is something nice out there that suits my needs), and I unfortunately saw some nice medieval clothes I don’t have while downloading a whole fresh set of Sun&Moon Star Factory stuffs (which, I had multiple copies of! Didn’t know what was updated and what was outdated or what! So I threw out everything I had and re-downloaded the entire collection, which may have been a bit drastic but it definitely worked. Also, why is there no complete user guide for this. A “how to get started” or something. Whatever.), so I also gotta download that. Then maybe I can make a test sim to make sure defaults and stuff work okay, and then maybe download some medieval lots to speed up the building process? And then I can play one of my various hood concepts finally actually? Maybe?

TLDR: I am getting frustrated because I have so many downloads, many of them duplicates within folder within the main folder, that it’s taking me all weekend just to straighten them out (and even then I might not be able to finish, despite it being a 3 day weekend where I live). I swear, it would be faster just to throw it all away and start over, except I can’t do that because I am clearly a CC hoarder and I might need a piece of CC that can no longer be downloaded.

...thus goes the preliminary legend of Grimwood Abbey and the horror story of Getting It Set Up. Someday, someday...