OFB for Builders

[Renatus]

It's not the tunic over pants thing that's the problem here. Heck, that was even a hot trend for a while. No, it's the way that Maxis utterly butchers each and every trend that they dump in the game. Tunic over pants were actually even quite popular w/ custom creators, but in their hands, the stuff actually looks *presentable*.

I'm missing something, I think. What's so bad about their meshes/textures?  I still don't see anything wrong with that screenshot, and other than the cap it's something I'd wear, pinstripes and all.

Them calling that raised level thing "split-level" irks me for some reason.  It's not like it puts it on another level or makes it compatible to put on a hill or something.

They aren't wrong by calling it a split-level, though, because the term definitely applies to what they've put into OFB.

I personally would rather have the Maxian Clothing than Custom Clothing, because it probably won't make my game explode.

Okay, that's a new one. Since when does clothing make a game explode?  It seems to be the most benign type of custom content!

Also, you know those screenshots are doctored and they have godly cards running it right?  They probably won't look that nice when you get the game if you don't have the best hardware.

Yeah, ya think? 

Despite all of the desperate raining on of parades, I'm still excited!

[flowerchile]

Here's my question.."What self respecting guy tucks his T-shirts into his above navel waisted pants"?.

[Renatus]

Here's my question.."What self respecting guy tucks his T-shirts into his above navel waisted pants"?.

Now THERE is a question! I have an answer to it, too - people in IT with a strong case of DORK. I used to work with a lot of them. Management types seem to be fond of that look, too, and get really bent out of shape at anyone who wears their shirt untucked (i.e. doesn't look like a bunchy old person). I'm not surprised a lot of that got into the base game. 

[myskaal]

I think the point of bad taste is that many times bad taste = a damn good laugh. Watching randomtownie5001 walk past the mall in dress shoes, knee high socks, plaid  green shorts, a long sleeve red check button up, and a cowboy hat gives me a good chuckle. Since I'd never download such an esemble myself I thank Maxis for having bad taste.

I'm hoping upon hope of hopes that Maxis will be including the ability to add levels on top of levels.. or at least a cheat for it.

[maxon]

I've been building with the new split level in my head: stairs in a corner. The tool looks like it will allow for one landing four steps up--same height as the foundation tool is now. So to go circular: do you think the level tool will allow multiple levels on itself? You know two levels for the next four steps in a circular style stair case, then three for the next set to the next landing and then up to the second floor?

Yeah I've been asking that too - it looks to me though that they've just made the foundation useable upto a wall.  You can't build one foundation on top of another - or at least I've never tried.

[flowerchile]

I think the point of bad taste is that many times bad taste = a damn good laugh. Watching randomtownie5001 walk past the mall in dress shoes, knee high socks, plaid  green shorts, a long sleeve red check button up, and a cowboy hat gives me a good chuckle. Since I'd never download such an esemble myself I thank Maxis for having bad taste.

What are you talking about? They are SANDALS; there's another question.  Sandals?  At least the women get thongs, much more fashionable.  My male Sims all wear the Uni outfit, you know; the one with the handbag.  Bring in the hippy tunics, niice.

[flowerchile]

Here's my question.."What self respecting guy tucks his T-shirts into his above navel waisted pants"?.

Now THERE is a question! I have an answer to it, too - people in IT with a strong case of DORK. I used to work with a lot of them. Management types seem to be fond of that look, too, and get really bent out of shape at anyone who wears their shirt untucked (i.e. doesn't look like a bunchy old person). I'm not surprised a lot of that got into the base game. 

Maxis should contact the dudes from "Queer Eye".  Nah, they're not much better.

[J. M. Pescado]

Oh, the EP will be out on the release date, even if it's a bugtastic mess!  I've not seen them delay one yet.

That's because release dates are determined arbitrarily, as opposed to by completion of anything.

[idtaminger]

I'm missing something, I think. What's so bad about their meshes/textures?  I still don't see anything wrong with that screenshot, and other than the cap it's something I'd wear, pinstripes and all.

The loose top over baggy pants, paired with manly sandals, over a washed out pink tank top? There's absolutely nothing redeeming about it. Bad proportion - washes out any semblance of a figure. I'm not advocating skin-tight here, but rather, fitted would have been the way to go. Bad color scheme - washed-out pink over dull black is bad enough, but to add a mess of a print to the mix? Ugh. The bracelet - where does gold come into the color scheme? The color's just all over the place. The sandals - possibly the worst part. It looks like it couldn't decide whether it was a loafer or flip flops. And the screwed up design on the shoe - what were they going for? Jackson Pollock with glitter?

If any celebrity/pseudo-celebrity ever wore this thing, they'd be slapped on worst-dressed lists the world over. But they have stylists for that. All I'm saying is that Maxis should invest in one too.

Here's my question.."What self respecting guy tucks his T-shirts into his above navel waisted pants"?.

A guy who doesn't enjoy getting laid. 

[vilia]

If any celebrity/pseudo-celebrity ever wore this thing, they'd be slapped on worst-dressed lists the world over. But they have stylists for that. All I'm saying is that Maxis should invest in one too.

I thought they got some designers in that had worked on Toy Story or was it Toy Story 2? scratches head

[Inge]

We used to call split level houses "mezzanined".  If you just build the floor a bit higher in one corner it's called a "raised floor"

[Emma]

Split level without cheating! Yay!

[Renatus]

The loose top over baggy pants, paired with manly sandals, over a washed out pink tank top? There's absolutely nothing redeeming about it. Bad proportion - washes out any semblance of a figure. I'm not advocating skin-tight here, but rather, fitted would have been the way to go. Bad color scheme - washed-out pink over dull black is bad enough, but to add a mess of a print to the mix? Ugh. The bracelet - where does gold come into the color scheme? The color's just all over the place. The sandals - possibly the worst part. It looks like it couldn't decide whether it was a loafer or flip flops. And the screwed up design on the shoe - what were they going for? Jackson Pollock with glitter?

If any celebrity/pseudo-celebrity ever wore this thing, they'd be slapped on worst-dressed lists the world over. But they have stylists for that. All I'm saying is that Maxis should invest in one too.

Oh... okay, it's High Fashion Crazyland logic.   I won't argue the point any further as I can't take seriously the reasoning of any industry that tells it's budding designers to draw fashion figures 10 heads tall to make the clothes look good*.  Anything after that little leap is so far removed from real human beings it has no relation to me whatsoever.




* Human beings range from 3 heads (dwarfism) to 9 heads (gigantism) tall, with dead average being about 7. In day to day life one is likely to see people from 5 to 8 heads tall.

[Sagana]

Truthfully, I really dont like any of the textures that Maxis uses for much of anything, but I do like the meshes and that is the important part, the hard part.

Yes, exactly. I want more meshes from Maxis and don't care what the textures look like, so I can have more recolors that don't require new meshes. I wanted tea-length dresses, and then the modding world learned to mesh and I got them. But a lot of people each make their own new mesh and now I discover I have a trillion - well ok, more like 6-10 - meshes that are all basically the same. What would be really good is if someone organized meshing the way the color enabler and simPE did for recolors. Put up a mesh archive and when someone needs a different mesh to make new clothes they look there first, and if it's there download the one they need. If it's not, then they make it and put it on the archive. And anyone who needs a mesh goes there and downloads it. That's probably never going to happen - very "community sharing" kind of thing and not "this mesh is copyrighted by me, don't even think about looking at it sideways" (someone is going to fuss at me, I suppose and I'd never get my download fix (and I do appreciate creators, I'm addicted) but it sure would help.

I'm not excited about the "split levels". I expect they'll be about like the halfwalls (which are really just indoor fences) - ok, but they don't fix anything so you still need the cheats and the complicated way to make it look like you want. Hopefully it'll work for circular stairs though, as I keep forgetting to put the stairs in *before* I build the rest of the house and you can't add them later. Maybe they'll be better than I think and in any case, nice for bandstands and the like.

[jack_d_spratt]

so you still need the cheats and the complicated way to make it look like you want.

I expect this is true, because how in the world are they supposed to anticipate everything that we might imagine to build?  It will be another tool for the toolbox (hopefully).  I'm looking forward to those octogon and conical roofs; I want to build attached towers that aren't too much taller than the house and there is just no clean way to bend floors for those.  No overhang looks terrible, a full tile of overhang is too much, angled walls on the towers run into all kinds of problems...

[angelyne]

I ALWAYS wish I could delete Maxis stuff -- there are tons of walls, floors, and clothes that I will NEVER use and it makes me crazy just to look at them!

I know what you mean but the problem would be with people who upload houses to the exchange.  What if you deleted some of the content they are uploading? So they probably went with undeletable content for that reason.  In any case, since most custom content gets placed first in the inventory, you rarely have to look at the Maxis stuff.

The main problem with Maxis furniture is that nothing matches, so it's hard to build a pulled together decor.  IT always ends up looking vaguely tacky, like a second rate vegas casino or hotel.  (or what I imagine one to be, if such was to exist)

[BlueSoup]

I think it's the weirdest thing that all the custom floors are placed at the front of the catalogue, except for carpets, which is at the back.   

[angelyne]

You know which building feature I can't wait to get my hands on ?  New roofs!  Right now I am favoring victorian style houses, which often require a round or hexagonal roof.  That's just not really possible at the moment. 

[Sagana]

I agree about the roofs. You can do it by bending floors as Jack Spratt mentioned above, but I never have been able to get that to work worth a darn (I'm not much of a builder or an anything else-r as verified by my lack of available custom design :) so I do hope it really works.

Just... I was all looking forward to half walls. I use them a lot. And then just kinda disappointed with the way they work - more like fences - so I still need to do halfwalls the way MikeInside shows. Which I think is complicated. So I'm not getting my hopes up about split levels. I don't want to be crushed, even if the tumble is only half a level ;)

[Batelle]

The split level tool will bring me slightly closer to being able to replicate my favourite pub- it's two stories but the first floor has four levels- you go up from the foyer four steps into the actual bar area and past the bar you can go down eight steps into one dining area or up eight steps  to another dining area (which is not the second floor- that would be three inches above your head  ).   

About every house I make could use the split level tool to add dynamics.  Even my own house, which is resolutely monoleveled, has a small raised area for the woodstove that I can't really replicate right now.  I don't like making sunken rooms because it's difficult to manuever the camera around in there. 

[simmiecal]

Just... I was all looking forward to half walls. I use them a lot. And then just kinda disappointed with the way they work - more like fences - so I still need to do halfwalls the way MikeInside shows. Which I think is complicated. So I'm not getting my hopes up about split levels. I don't want to be crushed, even if the tumble is only half a level

N00b question - what's the difference between the Maxis half walls and MikeInside ones? I never did anything with half walls before they were available in game, so I never bothered to look at the "cheat" way to do them since I thought it was the same.

[nectere]

MikeInside teaches you how to make half walls which are just squished walls. Its a normal wall that uses the elevation cheat to squish  it into a half wall or any other height you deem.

Mikinside is hosted by MTS2 so you can find links to his tutorials over there. So they are not his walls, just a technique for making them look like that, that he decided to share with the masses. Its not like he invented it or anything.

Now Fatd on the other hand at MTS2 did invent half walls, sorta. You start with a full wall and place his half wall invention on it like a window and it turns into a half wall. (in appearance) Its very similar to the Numenor window wall technique, Fatd took a lot of cues from Numenors creation.

So there you have it. Using elevation cheats is fairly simple, you just shouldnt over use them because you can easily get lost in the maze of elevations, especially if you are new to it. I use modified walls to make attached garages. By modifying the wall code to not require a flat bottom, you can use it next to foundations and all kinds of other areas that normally a regular wall wouldnt go. This also greatly helps in making split staircases and multi level rooms.

[simmiecal]

Mikinside is hosted by MTS2 so you can find links to his tutorials over there. So they are not his walls, just a technique for making them look like that, that he decided to share with the masses. Its not like he invented it or anything.

Now Fatd on the other hand at MTS2 did invent half walls, sorta. You start with a full wall and place his half wall invention on it like a window and it turns into a half wall. (in appearance) Its very similar to the Numenor window wall technique, Fatd took a lot of cues from Numenors creation.

I guess I have used "Mike's" half walls  when I've done split levels and attaching garages to homes with foundations. The little light bulb went on - I think the difference is that with the half wall made using the constrainfloorelevation cheat, you can build wall on top of "half" walls whereas the Maxis half walls can't be built upon.

[Sagana]

Mikinside is hosted by MTS2 so you can find links to his tutorials over there. So they are not his walls, just a technique for making them look like that, that he decided to share with the masses. Its not like he invented it or anything.

Now Fatd on the other hand at MTS2 did invent half walls, sorta....

Creating, discovering, "inventing" a process is every bit as important as creating and producing an object :p

Walls made with Mike's half-wall tutorial perform the same as any other wall in the game - they can be stacked, wallpapered, gates, arches, doors and windows can be added to them, wall lights placed on them, floor put on top of them, roofs on them, etc. The only difference between a cheated halfwall and a regular wall is that it's half-size. Maxis half-walls are like fences - they are the color they are, they don't stack, they won't hold up a floor, you can't put a window (or an iron arch type thing from a partial glass window) in the top of one, etc.

[tunaisafish]

Creating, discovering, "inventing" a process is every bit as important as creating and producing an object :p

Add 'testing' and 'providing feedback' to that list too
'Brainstorming', as well - how many hack ideas have been inspired from MATY threads alone.

<group hug>

Maxis half-walls are like fences - they are the color they are, they don't stack, they won't hold up a floor, you can't put a window (or an iron arch type thing from a partial glass window) in the top of one, etc.

The Maxis half-walls are grey, and you can put wallpaper on them.
You can't recolour the wooden bit at the top which is proabably what you were *thinking* when you typed that 

Am I missing something - Are there going to be prebuilt spiral staircases ?

I did manage to make a lot once with modular stairs going up in stages on different levels of foundation.
It worked fine in one house, but in another 4x4 plot the modular stairs became connected somehow.
Sims would walk up the internal stairs, and end up at the top of the ones in the garden.