More Awesome Than You!

I've read a few times on this forum that people are getting 4 lightening bolts in their relationship panels. The most I've ever gotten is 3. Everything I've read has said the system is 1-3 lightening bolts. Are 4 possible? If so, what does it take to get there?

Same here, Brynne. I've only seen three.

Yeah only three, the guide says 3 also, but it is sometimes wrong. there are 5 options (3,2,1,none, x) maybe that confuses people? Or maybe they can't count.

I am relatively sure I've had four.  I'll have to take a very close look again, though, because my eyes aren't quite as good as they used to be.  It's possible that what I thought was four were actually three.

By carefully using the debug cheat to perfectly match up two Sims on aspiration and sign, as well as turn ons/offs, I've had 3 lightning bolts, so I don't think there is 4.

I've also only seen 3 and only heard claims of 4 with no personal direct evidence so I'm skeptical.

I've matched up sims astrological signs, etc so they are perfect fits for each other, and I've gotten 3 lightening bolts. I can't see how I could make those sims any more perfect for each other. I was disappointed when I read a couple of people mention 4 lightening bolts. I thought maybe they weren't so perfect after all.

I used the word "perfect" too many times in this post for comfort. I need a thesauraus.  :P

My all male sims have 4 bolts with the female sims. That's because I arrange the compatibility according the Zodiac signs, and choose for them the same turn-ons and offs.

Sometimes, when I acquaint between a male and a female, I see in the pie menu (i.e. entertain, talk, etc) 6 or 7 bolts, and when they are friends - I see 4 bolts.

The best matches are: Scorpio vs Picses, Aquarius vs Capricorn, and Scorpio vs Leo. The turn-ons I choose are always fitness and blond/red hair; but even without the turn-ons, the Zodiac signs are very important.

The one match which sometimes succeed, and sometimes doesn't, is Aries vs Taurus. Brandi Broke is Aries and married to a Taurus - and the match is perfect.
Dustin is Taurus, and I matched him an Aries girl - and his wishes were all the times about other females, except his mate. I got mad, and killed him, kept him 3 days dead, then resurrected him; from then on, after he got engaged and married again - he doesn't dare to wish flirts with other femals, he knows that it's his only chance to survive...:).

Gali are you talking about the number of new pie menu options that are bolted? I was refering to the number of bolts on teh sims picture.

No, in the sim picture I see 4 bolts - but when I interact for the first time between a male and a female, and open the interaction menu, I see 6 or 7 bolts on interactions like Admire, Hug,  Kiss, etc. After that the bolts dissapear, but according to this, I know that the couple fits. When they are friends - in the picture I see 4 bolts.

See, I'm doing all that, too. Not getting more than 3 bolts, though.

Those bolts in the interaction menus just mean that because your sim has chemistry with the one you are interacting with (I don't think it matters how many bolts they have on their picture as long as they have at least one and have some chemistry) you can perform certain interactions at a lower relationship score than is normally required.

So if for example (and I am just making these numbers up) hug takes 10 lifetime and you at 8 with that sim, if you have chemistry it may let you do it and show the bolt to signify this. But then if you do the hug and it takes their lifetime up to 10, then you are at the normal required level and the bolt disappears.

Try to make them with close characteristics. My sims are (no matter of the Zodiac sign):

neat - 8
outgoing - 3/4
nice - 8
active - 7
playful - 5/6
etc

Do it with a cheat or an external program. Now you will see for sure the 4 bolts.

I've noticed that sims with 3 bolts for each other can do all the romantic interactions a lot earlier than I would have dared to try before! Most of the time all I have to do is the initial flirt. From then on, they're all over each other. I also had a teen couple autonomously fall in love. I created the girl as the perfect match for the guy. He was just getting to know the girl, and I was working on getting his brother acquainted with his perfect match when I heard the harps play for the first couple. I don't know what happened, but they did it all on their own. I thought that was pretty cool.

Gali - Can you post a screen shot for us?  The best I've seen in any pairing is three bolts.

Lol, I don't know how to do it. I capture with the camera and the video only the lot, but not the characters.

Will appreciate any help...:).

do a ctrl-alt-printscreen.... then get out and go into word or something and paste it. then its in a regualer file.

Y'know a screen capture of the picture with 4 bolts would put this questions to rest.

The Prima Guide can be wrong, but it says only 3 bolts is the highest possible.

Also, the strongest Zodiac sign combos are the reciprocal ones -- meaning the signs are mutually attracted to each other.  This is because the attraction of each sim toward the other is calculated based on sign compatibility and then averaged between the two when figuring out chemistry.  So reciprocal attractive signs yield the highest aveage.

Thus the best combos according to Prima are:

Pisces - Scorpio
Pisces - Gemini
Aquarius - Capricorn
Aries - Taurus

Conversely the reciprocal repellent signs are:

Aries - Cancer
Taurus - Virgo
Gemini - Capricorn
Leo - Capricorn
Libra - Scorpio
Scorpio - Aquarius

Every other combination is either one-sided attraction, neutral, or one-sided repellant.

I did, but the file is too big. I'll send you a zipped file if you want. Just e-mail me, through the members' list...:)

Anyway, I have a female - Andrea (Scorpio) - who has 4 bolts with Alexander Goth (Cancer, engaged to her), Beau Broke (Scorpio), Dustin Broke (Taurus), and the 3rd son of Brandi - Skipi (Picses).
 

gali if you hit the C button in the game it takes a snapshot. Then you can find them in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N00X\Storytelling (where the X in N00X is the # of your neighborhood, so Pleasantview would be N001, Strangetown N002, Veronaville N003, your first custom neighborhood N004, etc)

Those screenshots, unlike pressing the print screen button, are already in jpg format and are compressed at a decent file size. You can also go into the options panel and make the quality and size of the pictures bigger as it defaults to medium.

But the in-game screenshots don't include the UCP do they?

Oh yeah, duh, they don't. I forgot about that. :p Never mind then.  :-[

I use the printscreen method, paste it into irfanview, then upload it to my account at photobucket.com. I've never had a problem with file sizes on this site, and I have posted a lot of pictures and screenshots. Too many, I'm sure. ;) How are you doing it, Gali?

I use the TS1 program SimCamera so I don't have to flip between the game and Photoshop or PSP. You can save either jpegs or bitmaps and choose which button you want to use to capture the images. You can download it from here (http://caro.vardari.to/), it's 8th on the list.

You know IrfanView has a screen capture utility built unto it.  I think you can hit the key "C" to activate, otherwise its in the pulldown menu.

When its active, you can get screen capture while focus is in any other application (including The Sims 2!) by pressing Ctrl-F11.  That's the F11 function key.  It'll capture the current screen including the game's control panel and pop you back to IrfanView's focus.  That's how I capture really large screens for the Sims 2.

You can start IrfanView after the Sims 2 is up and running by pressing Alt-Tab to get back to Windows.

By the way, does anyone know how to totally hide the control panel on the game's screen?  So that you have a completely unobstructed full-screen view?

Hit the TAB key, it'll put you in the cameraman mode or whatever they call it. You can use the arrow keys and your mouse to zoom, rotate, etc. Just hit TAB again to go back to the regular view.

I had no idea! Should make things a little less tedious.

That calls for a big DUH!!  Of course I don't use the camera mode that often.   ::)

Thanks!

Well, I sent to Brynne the picture I made (smaller), and hope that she will know how to paste it here...:). I always get a message that the file is not writable...sheesh...:).

Okay, will check my inbox. Thanks!

Hey, can you send it to me in its original size? I'm trying to enlarge it a bit, but it's too blurry. I was going to post it anyway, but photobucket is down for maintenance.  :-\ 

OK...:)

edit:  just did it...:)

'kay, I got it, but it's still too small to see anything. Isn't this fun? I will post them as soon as photobucket is done with its maintenance, if I'm still awake, then.
What you could try is putting the screenshot into windows paint or something. If you've already resized it, though, I won't be able to restore it to its original size. Maybe you could do another screenshot then, paste it into paint, save it as it is, send it to me and I'll take care of the rest. Sorry to put you through all this Gali. You have the patience of an angel. We just wanna see what 4 lightening bolts look like! I'm jealous  ;)

Here's a link to some screenshots I posted earlier. I am trying to get yours at that clarity, though a bit larger:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=899.msg32947#msg32947 (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=899.msg32947#msg32947)

I love love love your avatar. It makes me smile every time!

Ok, I pasted it in a small Windows Paint program, but it's very large - 2.5 Mega...:).

About the jelousy of the 4 bolts - I didn't intend to reach them, because every now and then some of them wants to flirt with Andrea, although she is very faithful to her Alexander.

Skip Broke was a Romance sim, and all his sons inherited some of his romance genes...:). They love their mates, but always want to flirt with other females too, even with elder females...:).

So, I am always in Stand-by with the Simpe, to decrease relationships when needed...:).

If you have Windows XP and Microsoft Paint, when you save the file, just select a filetype other than .bmp. I recommend .PNG, as it is good quality, and a low(-ish) file size.

Thanks, Venusi, I tried it, and indeed it was 1.5 Mega...:) - still bif file.

Okay, here ya go...

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/4boltscrop.jpg)

Errr.....I only count three bolts......

It does look like four at first glance, but if you actually look at it closely, it's only three.

Me too.... Looks like the threes I have gotten in my game.  Sorry Gali.

C

That's what I thought, too, but then again I do need to make an appointment with my eye doctor. I thought I'd let you guys decide. The bolts are rather scrunched together, so I can "see" where that mistake might be made.
Thanks for your patience, Gali!

Lol, to me they look four! - After all the trouble I made to Brynne, perhaps I need a new pair of glasses...:).

You and me both...to the optometrist! ;D

edit to add:
it was no trouble, Gali. You're the one who did us the favor!

Tired of the constant PrintScrn - paste thingy? Try fraps (found at www.fraps.com (http://www.fraps.com)). It uses bitmap formats, but I think even under WinXP you can convert them to jpg. You can even record videos at full screen size, up to 30 seconds. Oh, and check your frame rate.  :)
Doesn't do squat about poor eye sight though. I still order my lenses manually!  :P ::)

My favorite screen capture program is Gadwin PrintScreen. Best used with windowed mode since in full screen mode in some games it can bump you out of the game. I like it for the fact that it actually shows you that it did in fact take the picture. I have used some other programs that don't, and often noticed missing shots where I thought I had taken the picture but apparently the program didn't catch the keystroke. It's also packed with other features, saves to multiple formats including JPG, names your files what you want, and captures a full screen, selected window, or a rectangular area of your choosing. It's easy on system resources. And it's a free program with no nags.

Gadwin sounds intriguing. I'll have to look into that.

I bopped in here so I could add to this topic because I, too, said I'd seen four lightning bolts on the relationships panel.  Like Gali, from a distance it seriously looked like 4 bolts.  Last night I loaded up my game so I could check, and sure enough there were really only 3 bolts.  I sit something like 2.5 feet back from my 17" monitor and I had to get within 6 inches of the monitor and look through the bottom of my bifocals in order to see it really was only 3! ;D  Neither game nor web designers realize just how hard all this is on older eyes.  ::)

I had to count the lightning bolts several times to make sure there were 3 and not 4.
That will teach me to play without my glasses on.

I've only *just* realized if you mouse over the relationship bars, there's a pop-up that lists the options and tells you what they mean (married, etc.) and the lightning bolts are on it. It lists one as mild chemistry, two as medium and three as ...something good, I've forgotten the word :) It only goes up to three. And tells you the crossed out one is negative chemistry. Long as I've had this game, anyone would think I would have known that was there, but...

I'll give it a try. (here's the link btw for anyone else who is interested: http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/ (http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/)). Fraps shows you that you've taken a shot only when it shows framerate as well (a black box encircles the fps count).

How on earth do you get 3 bolts? Most I've got are 2 and that even with blind dates payed up full amount.

And what is it exactly besides turn ons/offs that counts for compatibility of Sims?

Oh and the picture posted above DID show 4 bolts for me at first when I first glanced at them. It wasn't until I glared close at them that it turned to 3 bolts. The bolts trick the eye. I think its the small ness and their shape. And yubb. I need/wear eyeglasses.

Three bolts isn't as hard as one might figure, IF you create the sims for each other, and once in a while they'll be lucky and find another sim with which they're totally compatible.

As far as I can tell, the bolts are based on compatible aspirations, possibly compatible astrology signs and turn-ons.  Say for example you create two family sims, make one with brown hair and glasses, then create their partner with a turn-on for brown hair and glasses, and create the first sim with turn-ons that match features the second sims have you're going to have three lightning bolts.

Often if you find sims with two lightning bolts for each other, you can bring them up to three by either changing their turn-ons to match the other sim or changing features about the other sim to match turn turn-ons. :)  Of course that isn't going to work if their attraction is purely physical already, like my sims Burleigh and Ally.  He's a money sim, she's a knowledge sim.  His turn-ons are set to her features and her turn-ons are set to his, so the best they're ever going to get is two bolts.  Oddly enough, though, I have another couple of sims, one knowledge and one money and they have three bolts for each other.  I'm thinking in these two cases having or lacking that third bolt may be a case of their astrology signs.

Ok so.. I thought that you got a lightining bolt for each of the follwing:
one for matching aspirations
one for matching zodiac signs
one for matching turn-ons (only 1 match needed)
So you get 3 bolts if all of these aspects match. Isn't this right?

Here a doubt i have:
Are lightning bolts the same for 2 sims? i mean, if i have a sim with 2 LB for another sim, will that sim also have 2 LB with my sim? or LB is not necessaryly the same amount for both sims?

I have a pair of sims that I married b4 NL and when I got NL without changing any turn ons or offs, they had three, pretty good match on my part, if i do say so myself.

As far as I can tell, that's pretty much the way it works.  I don't have the strategy guide so kind of have to make guesses and sometimes I guess wrong. ;)

Yes--it seems to me that the two sims in question will have the same amount of lightning bolts.  Just as an example, I had a sim go to a Downtown lot last evening and check out another sim.  He thought she was ultimately hot, so I had him ask her if she liked what she saw.  She did the old, 'Oh my gosh I think I'm gonna throw up!' thing and when I checked his relationship bar the lightning bolt had a red X through it.  So even though he thought she was great, there was negative chemistry between them.

 :D HA HAAAA HAHAHAHAHAH, It just hilarious that "Oh my god i tihnk im gonna throw up" animation!!! and all those little red X flying around.. poor male sim of yours... hahahah...

Now, back to the topic, i don't know if i understood what you said. You mean that the male sim had some LB on the womans portrait, but then after asking her if she liked what she was seeing, a red X appeard over th LB?
Or the red X was always there?

I'm not sure I remember, but it seems to me there were no lightning bolts on her portrait until after he asked her, then the red X showed up.  I could be mistaken, though.  I've got a flu bug right now which is seriously affecting my brain function.  :P

Really? Mine always have the same number, I think - so far. When my "hat sim" isn't wearing her hat and her husband's score drops to 2, so does hers. But when she's wearing it, they both have 3. Maybe turn ons and turn offs change for both sims, but the other compatability traits only for the sim in question or something (like if the signs were only partially compatable)?


I'm pretty sure lightning bolts don't show up until you've done some sort of flirt interaction (checking the other sim out or something). Just scoping the room or talking to a sim will give the ones on the possible socials but not the ones on the portraits (so you can tell they're attracted but not  how much chemistry there is).

 Maybe I'm just stupid but I still see 4 there even when I press my nose to the screen.  Why am I seeing 4 and other people seeing 3 lol

Perhaps this will help. I've coloured the middle bolt on one of the characters red.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/velax/Avatars/4boltscrop.jpg)

Aha!  I think I see now...thanks haha..for a minute I thought I thought I was going crazy lol

I think I understand.  If you look at the edges of the bolts, you sometimes see 4.  If you look at the yellow part, you see 3.  I just tried it and saw 4 bolts myself.  Something weird about our perception.

Hook

wow! those are some ugly sims!

I don't think they are ugly, but they sure seem to like they're makeup. They'd give David Bowie a run for his money. ;)

LOL, the first one on the left is Alexander Goth - that's the most pretty I could make of him. I am going to use the surgery and see if I can fix his big nose...:)

The second is Beau Broke - he is very pretty, but he clapped hands on his tumbnail. I don't like the tumbnail, but it's his choise.

The third is Dustin Broke - same as Beau...

The fourth is Skipi Broke - the 3rd kid of Brandi; He was with black hair, but I changed it to blond.

...These are the sims the game give us - I complainted a long time ago that most of them are ugly. I put a lot makeup on them (eye shadow, eye lashes, lipstik, etc) to make them more attractive...:).

It seems it didn't help much...:).

But my CAS sims are beauuutiful, really...:).

hahaha :D nevermind, it's just that i hate make up, specially on male faces.
I actually like sims with some different or noticeable facial features, because most of the sims with regular facial structure look very similar. if you put the same hair on them, then it's almost impossible to tell who is who

Weeelll, I, as a female, prefer the makeup on the males' faces...:) - I hate beards and mustaches. Once I ate near a male with beard and mustaches, and almost puked, because all the food he ate was glued on his mustaches...:). Just waited to get out fast this restaurant...:).

Yeah, don't you just hate it when your sim comes home unpromoted and you realize that you've sent his brother to gain the necessary skill point instead?   Gah!

I try not to put obvious makeup on my male/toddler/child Sims, but some really need it.
I pretty much use the same 'eyeshadow' (no makeup, just eyelids) eyelashes that look real, (but not made up) and I have 2 lipsticks (Helaene and Getskintight) that are natural looking. I don't like facial hair either though I have a few good scruffs and goatees.
It's hard to get a decent looking Sim when you put the Maxis defaults into the gene pool.

Isn't it funny how different people's tastes run?  I like manly-looking men, rugged, nice noses (think Harrison Ford, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Christopher Lee, Sean Bean, Cliff Simon), and facial hair is awesome!  Oh yes, I've seen guys with beards who end up with half their food in them and I know a lot of men who have really ugly, scruffy beards, too.  But both my hubby and best friend's hubby have very nice beards and amazingly enough you generally won't find food crumbs in them. ;)

To me, those sims in make-up look like *gasps* girls!  :D

I like your sort of man too Misty. I perfer a guy who isn't afraid to get a little dirty. I still drool over Ewan McGregor in Revenge of the Sith, in fact I made a sim of him for my neighborhood. Very nice addition to the gene pool. ;)

I also like facial hair. i like beards . not long beards though. just that kind of beard very well trimmed. and i don't like mustaches.

I think everyone has very different standards of beauty, which is reflected on thier sims (some of those beauty pagents at MTS2, hooo-boy) ^_^

Nobody wears makeup in my game, except maybe some custom eyeliner (to give some sims that tired baggy eye look)
I think too much make up on sims makes them look like streetwalkers  ;)
Even ladies go around without any make up, no false advertising going on in my game!
Full beards are ick, but trimmed is cute. Sideburns have gotta go!

For the guys, I like the less rugged looking ones, but for the simple fact that the handsome rugged ones tend to pass on thier more dominant features to the female children  :D  quite scary to pop out a kid with daddy's schnoz  ;D

When a sim is just beyond help, hair in the face or the mime makeup  is what I slap on them. Lets me know from a distance the fugly ones are coming  :D

When I first started playing I didn't use much make-up.  Then during the past few months I've got into it a bit more.  I don't like to use gaudy-looking make-up, just a little here and there to help bring out their features.  Of course once in a while I have a Romance sim that I dress and make up so she looks more the part.  I've got to where now I'll grab hold of any Townies and service people on my lot and fix them up, too.  With the new turn-ons and such in NL it just doesn't seem right letting the poor service workers look like peasants all the time.

I use some 'makeup' that really just gives the sims a more realistic look like eye folds, eye bags, sometimes I'll use one of the realistic normal lip tone color lipsticks I have etc. So my male sims don't really look made up at all. I also use contact lenses to change eyecolors, particularly on dark skinned or Asian-looking townies with light eye colors :p

Funny thing is, with NL for a while I was giving my straight female and gay male sims makeup or full face makeup as a turnoff and completely forget that a lot of my sims have what the game technically considers to be make up.  :o

Yeah, I've had the same issue.  Full face makeup often is used in the context of changing appearance with age lines, not actual "makeup".  Hairfish has also created some excellent subtle effects that give your sims eyelids, but they are classfied under "eyeshadow".  And just recently I got into Dr Pixel, et al, earrings and jewelry creations forgetting the fact that these are classified as "glasses".  So now I have to be real careful when thinking about Full Face Makeup, Makeup, and Glasses as turn-offs.

I know it would be adding yet another couple of bitmaps, but we really need a "genetic mods" layer for the face similiar to full face makeup as well as a whole body "non-genetic" makeup layer so that people can do body scars and tattoos and not resort to making them skin tones.  Uni gave us some clothing skins that have tattoos in them, but the tattoos disappear when your sim takes a shower!  :D

I've a big "hairy guy" fan as anyone who has followed my mods for body hair knows.

But I really have to say that Maxis dropped the ball on facial hair for male sims.  The 3D model facial hair that came with the base game was generally made with reflectivity turned up way too high on the objects' surfaces.  That's why the standard hair colors for them are so much brighter and yet flatter and don't match the standard hair colors. I've tried modding them by changing the colors in the textures, but you generally cannot get a real good color match without loosing a lot of details, especially on the black and brown colors.

If I get into doing some 3D meshing mods -- and I'll start looking into it after I finish school -- I'm going to try to take those models and fix them first since no one has stepped up to do so yet.  That and see if I can't create some other kids of beards, goatees and staches that have volume but aren't so dang long or big!

I suspect with the whole vampire overlay thing that tatoos and such will be possible at some point in the future. Who knows, maybe the next expansion will let sims open a tatoo parlor. ;) At any rate, the base code for being able to put another layer on top of the body's skintone is definitely there now with NL.

That would actually be really cool. If they push the whole "user modified, sim made" angle in this EP, I may just buy it. If it turns it into a Tycoon game . . . maybe not.

Anyhow. I really, really wish there were more layers to the skins, and that they could be mixed and matched genetically, so you could get a little more of a "blending" simulation, but still with discrete points. (like in real genetics. lots of discrete bits looks like blending, but has more interesting properties)

...and I am a big fan of your mods! ;)(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/Sims2%20blog/pjkaraoke.jpg)(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/Sims2%20blog/justinhot5.jpg)

My sim men tend to be clean-cut and boyish, as demonstrated by Joe and one of his sons, Justin (by Bella) in the above pics, and with another son, Josh (by Brandi Broke),below (Joe's in the middle). That's the way I like 'em in real life.

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/Sims2%20blog/3guys.jpg)

It must be something about  Alexander lol...in my game as a teen I put makeup on him too  ;D

As an adult I didn't find him too be too bad...his nose is still huge and he needed some facial hair

I dunno for a while there I was stuck in a huge rut of making my sims either extremely beautiful or extremely "normal" looking but eventually got bored.  Sometimes its more fun to throw in a wacky feature or two and see how it comes out in later generations.

I would so love to see many more options of 'personalizing' sims though.  The ideas of adding on things that aren't just skins or clothing would be great.

I used the Surgery object (tough name, lol), and now Alex has a pretty short nose, phew!...:).

To tell the truth, in RL I don't like hairy man, and I prefer the males to be more "feminine", lol. Slim, blond, green eyes, and Greek pretty nose and face. No makeup, of course...:)

That's why I am not so happy to play with the pre-made sims, and that's the reason I use on them a lot of makeup...:). It makes them more attractive...:).

I am very happy I did the Surgery to Alex - now I can pass to Strangetown and do the same to Tank and Buck - Ripp has quite pretty nose...:).

I like green eyed, clean-shaven men with neatly cut hair. Don't like long hair, facial hair or excessive body hair.

Of course I've never had a boyfriend because I'm a hopeless computer nerd and totally socially inept to boot.

If you open SimPE and go to the Nightlife tab where it shows the turn-ons and turn-offs, you'll see tattoos listed.  This is definitely one that doesn't show up in the game currently.  I saw that and said, 'Hmmm.  Suppose in the business expansion your sims will be able to have a tattoo shop?'  I can see we're on the same page there. LOL

LOL! It's so funny how we all have put extreme makeup on Alexander. What else can you do with a sim who looks like...that? Here's what he looks like in my game. He's a cross-dresser :D

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/alexandergoth.jpg)

yikes!

The only Maxis defaults I use are the NPCs for challenges that require such, because I find the offspring turn out progressively uglier through each generation. Those squinty eyes from Pao the mailman have haunted my Legacy family for 7 generations and the monkey faced Sheldon (also mailman) did the worst things to my first Email family. In cases of extreme ugliness, I occasionally resort to makeup, and have a few faceblend nightmares where they wear mime faces from toddlerhood, only removed for a quick check after age transitions (nope, still ugly, it stays on)
See 3rd generation Email. No amount of makeup can help this guy. Side View, he got dad Ricky's nose.

(founder-grandma in bottom left corner... may she burn for that single accident that lost me the challenge)
(http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b226/zeljka/Miscellaneous/1.jpg)

I have very few Sims of any gender with such obvious makeup, though I do have certain females who are a little more obvious in their uh, sexuality. I do also have a few very pretty men of all aspirations, but they just turned out that way (no help from me apart from careful breeding)

Wow. That's quite a jawline. He'd be cute if it weren't for that jaw/mouth combo.

I've found I kinda like weird looking Sims.  Otherwise, everyone looks the same. 

Unrelated, I must ask - what is the purpose of all those easels?

that guy looks like he stuck a pencil in his mouth lengthwise.

He was a decendent of the Email Challenge (found here) no walls, no toilets... I found the selling of masterpieces invaluable for keeping my pre-university Sims in a platinum state so they could use the energizer whenever they needed to. They were all maxed skills and didn't have much else to do, so it was just easier to have a stockpile of them.

Andygal... you are so right, probably biting it while he suppresses those 'urges' to potty until he gets to work.. heh heh

Exactly what I was thinking!

I guess I'm sort of odd about Alexander Goth. I'd mentioned before in another thread that he's sort of grown on me, like a sims version of Egon from the movie "Ghostbusters". He's not all that bad looking to me with a shaggy haircut, the light beard/mustache thing going on and a pair of the rimless glasses. Before the reinstall he was married to Lucy Burb and had two really cute kids (Brendan & Fiona) and a third on the way. Since the reinstall Alexander brought Lucy home from school again  ::) they quickly became best friends and are going steady. So I'll probably marry them to each other again, makes it easy. Some things in the game seem to be inevitable.

I have had four sims like that in Legacy families!  In fact, it's one of the reasons my last Legacy family got flushed down the toilet.  I don't care if they're not beautiful, but when these guys aged they just looked deformed!

In my new neighborhood I generated almost all the NPCs using the NPC maker and only let certain genetic traits in.  I'll no doubt still wind up with a few funny lookers, but at least hopefully they won't end up with the trick jaw.

The really funny thing is that with my very first Legacy family that ended up wiped out with a HD format, I'd made it to the fifth generation of adults and with a couple of exceptions who turned out funny looking but lovable, this was an extremely beautiful family.  The funny-looking ones were throw-backs to Remington the pizza guy, and as funny as that face is, I really do love it. :)

So has anyone other than me successfully defeated the E-Mail Challenge yet, or is it more awesome than you?

I was wondering where I could find your work? And also, if you or someone could make the full beard/big mustache look more realistic, that would be great! I never use those because they look so fake, like a little kid wearing a costume for a play or something and I would love to be able to use them.
In regards to Remington the Pizza Dude, he and Brandi Broke paired up in my game and had some really great looking kids :D

Alexander Goth isn't *that* bad I guess.  And being a guy myself, the thought of slapping makeup on him makes me cringe uncontrollably, so my opinion may not hold any water with you ladies.

But still...

A little facial hair goes a long way in taking attention away from that nose. (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/chipmc/snapshot_afdca8af_f007ba8b.jpg)

Some different glasses is a must. (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/chipmc/snapshot_afdca8af_cffc5daf.jpg)

Different hair style as well. (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/chipmc/snapshot_afdca8af_8fe87c3d.jpg)

And old Alex is quite presentable. (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/chipmc/snapshot_6dae6a73_6fc4ed7a.jpg)

(Forgive me if these are bad angled shots.  I was more keen on capturing Cassandra's face in the first shot and the hot alien girl's face in the last...)

Besides, its not the looks that count.  Its what's on the inside that counts!  You shallow freaks!  *shakes fist at all of you*

Hopefully AllenABQ won't mind my posting the link to his site, here: ;) They really are some of the best looking skins I've seen. If not the best looking. I use them almost exclusively in my game.
http://www.hairysims.com/ (http://www.hairysims.com/)

I think the actual files are at MTS2, but they're linked to from his site.

you should see the kid I got from Remington the Pizza dude, there is pictures of him in my Rivera family story (Andygal666 on the offical BBS). He fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, then got dragged back to the top and fell down the ugly tree again. No amount of makeup could have saved HIM. I'm almost glad I lost that neighbourhood. If I'd had to look at his face for much longer I'd probably have gone crazy and uninstalled the entire game.

Could I get ALL of these for download please... ;D :-[

I second that! (or should I say, Me too! Me too! lol) And thanks for the link to AllenABQ's website, Brynne.

LOL! I just sent Justin off to you after reading your request in the other thread, virgali! I suppose I could package Joe and Josh up, as well...
I don't know why, but I'm tickled at how much people seem to like my simmies!

No problem!
I may try to package these guys up later on if you still really want them. Justin's been quite popular, lately, but it's nice to see his dad and brother getting some attention, too! Gives me a warm fuzzy... ;)

I'll have 'em all too thanks!!! lol

vecsta02@hotmail.com

Me too? Always looking for masculine simmies.

abnhansen@hotmail.com

I'm thinking my simmies may need their own website ;). Actually, I'm working on that.
Okay, I'll work on packaging Josh and Joe later today. Right now I'm in the middle of a juicy storyline with Josh and his other brother's wife...who is currently being attacked by Brandi Broke (who is the mother to both Josh and the cheated-upon son).  Brandi just witnessed a little "flirtation" between Dayna and Josh. Oops. And not at all contrived. ReallyandImeanthat. See the familial chemistry thread for more background, lol.
And, of course, the pic. That's  Joe and Bradley cheering on the Dayna/Brandi fight. Bradley apparently doesn't think to question why all of a sudden his mother is attacking his wife. And that would be Josh on the front porch, innocently playing punch-you-punch-me with his uncle (Joe's brother, Gary). Josh and Bradley both flew out of the room when the fight began. :P
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/ScreenShot004.jpg)

Just to let those of you who requested Joe and Josh know, I have written your names and email addys down. I have not packaged the guys up, yet, but will do so as soon as I get a little sitch straightened out in my game. Things are a bit haywire at the Goth-Bayfield house at the moment, and I just can't bring myself to shut the game down!
Just wanted to explain, since I said I'd have them out today.

Geez, look what you've started now, Brynne! :P

Might as well send them to me too while you're at it...

I'd really like to have them too. laurebircher@wanadoo.fr.
Thanks in advance
pioupiou

It was funny because yesterday I got an email from my email service warning me about sudden bandwidth usage. I hardly ever use my email account and then, whammo, Justin-clones flying everywhere! A few megabytes here, a few megabytes there lol

Okay, rainbow and pioupiou, I have you both on the list. I'm thinking I'm going to wait a day or so to send them, in case any other requests come in. Just so I can send them off in one fell swoop.

Soon you'll have to set up your own website:  Brynne's Justin Clones R Us or something like that.

Don't think I haven't considered that! I'm in the process of setting my sims 2 blog up (not on the official site, due to adult subject matter), and thought I might have to add a few of my sims for download, seeing how popular they've become!

I answered you on a previous thread yes I want Joe and Josh and hopefully youll eventually package up Justins Kids . yep your sims are Popular  for sure, my problem is I can create gogeous females in CAS but the males  are always way more difficult for me. Tara is the first really  drop dead gorgeous female  I actually sat down and used the slides to get her face absolutely perfect. I made the effort knowing I was going to pair her off with a pixelated hottie. I didnt want  to chance the ugly baby syndrome with her that frequently occurs with born in game sims. So the DNA had to be perfect in both parents ;D

I made two CAS sims that were very good looking, but all of their kids had weird features because their features didn't blend very well. :(  I used plastic surgery on the kids to modify the features that were too much.  I have heard that if you mess with the facial modifiers too much you get away from the standard faces and it will make the kids look strange.  Anyway, I was disappointed that two great-looking sims could have babies that were so ugly.

1Justin ahd Joshua  have the same DNA as they are identical except for birth sign,clothes,aspiration and job.Justin is the Justin Brynne sent only Tara was created CAS

That seems to be true. I've had some really good looking sims have some really "egads! who beat you with an ugly stick?" type of kids and some unattractive sims have very nice looking kids. I recently paired George McCarthy and Meadow Thayer and I'm very curious to see how their kids turn out (I hope they don't get his nose!).

Josh is (oops! was) married to Meadow Thayer and they have a daughter. Her name is Tabitha-Thayer. She's very pretty! This is her with Josh and Meadow. Tabitha-Thayer is in the front wearing purple. Ignore the hourglass. I was having screen shot issues lol. Tabitha-Thayer is married to John Burb.
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/tabthayer.jpg)

Wow! She looks just like Malibu Barbie!

She does, kinda, doesn't she?
I was happy to see she didn't inherit Meadow's chipmunk cheeks. I was worried about how she'd turn out. Although I actually think  Meadow is pretty, too. I just didn't know how her features would blend with Josh's. And her grandmother is Brandi Broke, after all.  :P

Where did you get Tabitha's dress?  It's beautiful.  And her hair?  I think Brandi Broke is rather pretty.  In my game her name is Brandi Williams.  She married my CAS Sim Bruce Williams, and they had 7 beautiful children, to make 10 kids for Brandi.  I don't think I'll be having that many kids again though.  One of her daughters looks so much like her though that sometimes I think it's her even though they have different hair and clothes now.

I always choose Meadow to send her to college - she is gorgeous! In my game she is married to Ripp Grunt...:).

If she is married to John Burb - what happened to Jenifer? Are they divorced?

I'm not sure where I got Tabitha's dress from, but her hair, I'm pretty sure, is from TSR. It looks like maybe Neptune Suzy's work. I could be wrong. I've had it since waaaay back when, so it's probably pretty far back in TSR.
I'll see if I can find the dress for you.

Jennifer is engaged to my sim, Justin. They got divorced when Jennifer caught John flirting with Justin's ex-wife. And Justin and Jennifer bonded over that.

Send them to me too.  Please. :)

cat_52@hotmail.com

Okay, you're on the list.

Can I jump on the Justin and Josh band wagon and have them sent to me also please.
gypsylady_@hotmail.com

Just Justin and Josh, or Joe too?

oops forgot Joe sorry Please him too.

Thank you

Okay. Added you to the list lol.
I just want to remind everyone it will  take a day or so. Don't think I've forgotten!

Must have more pixellated hotness from you!

Give me Joe and Josh, please.

Alexander ain't that bad once you get used to his ugliness. I've given him a lovely fiancee to mate with. It'll be interesting on which side of the attractiveness spectrum their kids will turn out to be.

Okay, adding to the list of pixelated hotness-seekers!

I "prettified" Alexander with tons of makeup. I'm trying to get him to look like a drag queen, but so far he's not pretty enough. :P 

I was actually thinking Paris Hilton myself, but then again it's pretty much the same thing.  ;)

She's got too much of her body covered to be either, actually.  ;)

Nah. Paris Hilton ain't as pretty.

lmao, too true in both cases.

I dunno why, but I always have to have at least one of the 'pink princess' archetype sims in my game. And of course they're always blonde.  ;D

may I jump on the "j" bandwagon too please? lmollett1@mindspring.com

I recently realized that I don't care for blonde sims (excpet George McCartney or whatever his name is)... I don't know why, but I'm more or less ignoring their existance. I have a large family that more or less looks alike and they're all brown haired/brown eyes. I wanted to mix them up a bit so I was giving them all different hair colors as turn-ons, so they'd get some variance with kids and all, and it wasn't til I had one that had blonde hair that I realized how rarely I send my teens and YAs out with a blonde (either sex). I had to go looking for someone cute.

I have a couple of those blonde princesses, now that I think about it.
Josh's fiancee, Monica:
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/monica.jpg)

Joe's wife, Marina:
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/marinacloseup.jpg)

Joe's daughter, Shellie (by his first wife):
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/shellie.jpg)


Josh and Monica make really good looking kids, too. They have triplet teens, 2 boys and a girl. Monica also has a son by Josh's brother, Bradley (a little indiscretion on Bradley's part, but, hey, Bradley's wife has been sneaking behind the house to make out with Josh for a long time. What goes around comes around, dearest Dayna!), and he's also very good-looking. And his cousins are also his siblings  :P And to add even more to the confusion, Monica has a son by her first marriage, Giles. He's the boy in my avatar (he's an adult, now though), and he is married to Joe's daughter, Samantha. Very messed up family tree!

Josh and Monica's trips, Shep, Sydney, and Scott:
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/trips.jpg)

...and their brother/cousin, Cam (Bradley's son with Monica. Cam doesn't know Monica is his real mother, so shhhhh. Dayna adopted him.):
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/cam.jpg) 
 

edit to add:
added you, sagana. In the same post as the blonde invasion, no less!

Wow. He looks very cute. The rest of them remind me a lot of Don Lothario's boys in my game. But this one is a hottie.

Cam looks like a YA version of Scott and Shep, to me. As a teen, he was nearly identical to them. So I figure this gives a pretty good idea of what Josh's boys will look like in college. They all have Monica's eyes and Josh and Bradley's (who are very similar in appearance, as well) mouth. Sydney looks more like Monica all around, though.

Here's my Alex Goth.  At first I thought he was a bit scary, but he grew on me and I worked with him.  He doesn't look too bad IMHO.  He's married to Angela and Dustin's oldest daughter, Dominque.  He is Fortune and wanted to be a Criminal Mastermind.  Here is a portrait Dominique painted of him.
(http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/rainbow2k/snapshot_eef48155_0eff5a0b.jpg)
Their wedding night...
(http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/rainbow2k/snapshot_eef48155_0eff05c4.jpg)
Here he's with his mom Bella at his sister Cassandra's house.
(http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/rainbow2k/snapshot_6dae6a73_6f759039.jpg)
Here he's listening to a joke from his brother-in-law, Cassandra's husband Joe.
(http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/rainbow2k/snapshot_6dae6a73_4ef0a2a2.jpg)
Here he is holding his nephew Damien (or was it his niece Raven?)  I can't tell which one now.  :-\  Cassandra and Joe had so many kids and they all looked alike as babies.
(http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/rainbow2k/snapshot_6dae6a73_2ef0a32f.jpg)
(http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/rainbow2k/snapshot_6dae6a73_0ef0a3b3.jpg)
Giving Dominque cooking lessons so she can make Celebrity Chef. :)
(http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/rainbow2k/snapshot_eef48155_cf017116.jpg)

thanks! <laugh> your blondes look great. I believe that's the 3rd custom blonde hairstyle I've seen you use and been impressed with (goodlooking towheads). I think I must avoid blondes as I was one as a child (ending up with that awful color everyone that hates you insists on called "dishwater blonde" so I tend to be attracted to something I consider different and better :)

(I'm just now getting my own back - my hair's going to streak gray and white like my mom's did and it's fun. Everyone thought she dyed hers - that people's hair didn't come that way naturally, not salt and pepper but literally streaks - but hers did and mine is working on it. Kinda fun to have interesting old lady hair ;))

I was a towhead as a child, too, and am now a "dishwater blonde". No grey for me; hair refuses to do anything but dishwater blonde without chemicals involved.
On a sidenote, my husband's aunt was called "toehead" as a child because she sucked her toes.

Okay, I have a question that I didn't want to make a whole new thread for. I've taken up too much of this board as it is.
I have quite a list of people to send my sim guys to. Is there a more efficient way to do that than through email? Besides putting a public link somewhere, that is. I'm very happy to share my stuff, but I do want to keep tabs on where it's going, and don't want to make it open to everybody in the world. Mostly out of respect for anyone whose custom content I used to create these sims. Like AllenABQ- I used his skintones. But also because I'm just weird that way.  In other words, I don't want to submit it to, say, TSR or anything. Or the exchange. I've been emailing the rar files to people, but it takes forever and a day to send each one off, not to mention I have a bandwidth limit. I don't know a thing about this stuff! It would be nice if I could upload it somewhere, but only have to email a link to those who requested the files, so there's still some privacy involved. Kind of like when pay sites email a link to a download once you send them your cash, only I'm not charging, of course. Am I making any sense at all? Any suggestions?

How about a Yahoo group?  You can make it private, unlisted, invite only, friends only, and stuff like that.  You get 20 MB of space per group.

No suggestions on where to host it, but if you send out one email with attachment with everyone's name in the TO line you should only have to send it once.  Instead of sending a separate email to each recipient.

I sincerely hope that:

a)  this makes sense
b)  this isn't so obvious as to be insulting. :)

Hook

good I dea we used to do that in a loop I belonged to a long time ago

MistressofMerlin, added!
Thanks, guys. Good suggestions. I may look into that Yahoo group thing.
No, Hook, wasn't insulted at all! I got a message from my email provider saying something about bandwidth usage and it mentioned sending...well, I'll copy and paste it.:

This warning has been caused by an unusually high amount of bandwidth
being used by your account. Most commonly this warning is triggered by
sending a large message to many recipients. Email is an inefficient
method for distributing large files, and a separate copy has to be sent
to every recipient. For instance if you send a 5MB file to 5 people,
that takes 5*5MB = 25MB bandwidth, plus 5MB to send the message from
your PC to the server.

I was confused by the whole bandwidth thing, which is why I'm looking for a more "efficient" method. 

Sounds like the "send to multiple recipients" thing wouldn't work then.  Sorry. :)

Hook

Nope. My goofy email account...grrrr

How about getting your own webpage on geocities?  Upload the file, make a link for it and tell people where to go.  You get about 15MB space for free.

The problem with Geocities is that it seems to have a ridiculously low bandwidth cap, which is fine and dandy for those with text only pages, but isn't very useful in trying to distribute files.

Here are two suggestions:

1) Open a gmail account and use it to send out the emails.  I send LOTs of MB of files a day this way and have never gotten a warning.

2) Open a gmail account, send the file from that gmail account, TO that gmail account.  Give out the login/pw to that gmail account to anyone you want to have the file.  gmail has something like 2 gigs of storage now (it grows by the second) and you can send attachments up to 10 MB in size.

Or, you could always pay for service. 1and1 has an okay plan I used to use for 4.95 a month.

I have my files on a yahoo group, now. Yay!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/joebayfield (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/joebayfield)

I guess I need an invite to do more than read the messages?

Or I could just pout about being left out and no one liking me and stuff...

Did you not get an invitation, either? Hmmm...I must have done something wrong. I have you on the list, so I don't know what happened. I'll try again. Check your email.

I could have typed my email wrong or confusedly....

I should pm you instead of posting, hm?

I just figured it was that blonde crack...

thanks Brynne  .Im sure about now Justin is having caniptions as his 1 bedroom Bachelor Pad  has just been Invaded by 7 sims ;D hope he wasnt woohooing when I sent them there I cant remember what he was doing when I left his house the other day :P and Brandi has a whole new look now

Justin & company came just in time for my pleasure sim Selena Singleton.
She was feeling all lonely in my mostly empty custom hood.

Thx! 8)

Justin is a skirt chaser in my custom neighborhood.

Maxis generally has NO IDEA of what constitutes a good looking guy. All they need to do is go where people upload sims and check out the guys where people leave the most comments! It's not hard! Or they should employ some heterosexual or bi female testers and gay or bi male testers to make some gorgeous guys... and if they already do, then they ought to be LISTENING to those people when told, "HEY! These fella's are UGLY! Use these attractive ones instead!!!"

I think they marginally improved in nightlife... but, for true eye-candy satisfaction, I *HAVE* to make my own guys, and that way, I get exactly what I want... my preference is definitely for boyish-looking adults that I consider pretty and beautiful and handsome.

Thank goodness for the plastic surgery reward item. Shame it can't be used on townies until you move them in. There should be an ability to "influence" townie friends to let you give them surgery in-game! Maybe I could make that a hack request somewhere...

you could always use Merola's mind control mirror to make them go to the machine.

You can use the InSimenator's temporal mod adjuster to give anyone on your lot a makeover or facelift.  You can do the same with Danny's red burglar alarm that comes with his woohoo sims set (I forget what it's called).  You can also change sims turn-ons/offs with it, even non-household sims.

I didnt know that do you have a link to his site?

http://www.valdea.com/

Very handy thing to have
I couldn't live without the dma thingy

Yes, that's what it's called.  Thanks Brynne!

thanksfor the link

I really wanted to thank you for recommending this program. It is really EXCELLENT. Once I figured out how to get the program to automatically add a date and time to my pics and number them and put them in the right directory automatically, it is superbly helpful. I also use the rectangle feature (which isn't that hard considering having to clean up all those thumbnail files the game litters your storytelling folder up with) so I do not get that red rectangle or any queued action icons in the pic. Super program and free! Yeah!

Thanks!

Jade

I should add my thanks, as well. I've been using this program in favor of the ingame camera, lately. Very nice!

Generally, I only have FFS and TwoJeff's hacks or objects...  I made an exception for Carrington's (?) "safe! no cooking fires!" one though, because cooking fires royally p*ssed me off.  Perhaps I'll cave and get this mind control mirror, though...

Thankyou for the tip on how I can do this in-game without resorting to SimPE!  ;)