I seem to have a problem with Storytelling.

[Jelenedra]

No matter what folder I put my silly snapshots in, they won't appear in the Story editor in the game.

Am I just teh dumb?

Or is there an external way I can make stories without loading up the game?

[JadeEliott]

No you are not dumb. Stop that.

Well, there is this program, which might be dead as far as updates go, but worked fine enough for me when I tried it:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=60033

But the the best way to make stories is to skip the Maxis camera and crap-ass album all together and use a free blog service or if you are really serious, a not free one. But there are several great blogs on Live Journal. http://www.livejournal.com/

I use squarespace, LOVE IT. http://www.squarespace.com

Some people love Typepad: http://www.typepad.com

You can take pics using printscreen and a picture editing program, but I love Gadwin Print Screen:

http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/

The best parts:

You can save to jpg, the best pic format, IMHO.

You use the rectangle feature to only take pics of a certain area, allowing you to cut out the red box that shows you are on pause or queued up actions.

You can tell it which folder to save your pics to.

It is small and runs in the system tray.

It allows you to save a pic as a certain size.

It also shows you the pic you have taken BEFORE it saves it so you can make sure you like it. You can turn this feature off.

You can tell it to save the file with a certain name, and add the date/time/etc. So my pics are saved by Family NameFirstInitial-Date-number  Or PoindexterB-09-25-05-001 or PoindexterB-09-25-05-002 if it is the second pic taken, etc.

You can tell it to automatically open the pic with a certain image editing program you specify.

BUT you need to play in windowed mode for the program to work best.

*********************************

Some people really dig Fraps for picture taking: http://www.fraps.com/


A tutorial on picture taking:

http://my-sims-reality.livejournal.com/86328.html


Here are links to story websites I visit:

http://sims2.atomicspacekitty.com/

http://deception-pass.livejournal.com/

http://besetting-sims.livejournal.com/

http://my-sims-reality.livejournal.com/

http://simliterati.blog.com/

http://www.jenba.net/sims2/



Oh yeah, and my site:

http://isleofthyme.squarespace.com/

[Jelenedra]

Well, it takes pictures just fine. I just can't get it to where I can add a story to them.

I did my first challenge over the weekend and I was wanting to share. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Do they not appear in the story mode in game?

Pictures you have taken should be in MyDocs/EAGames/TheSims2/Neighbourhoods/N000x/Storytelling.

[Jelenedra]

Yeah they're in the proper folder, but in game story editor only brings up the pics that were present in the game before hand. (all the pics from the Goths and Lothario and all that)

[SIMplyLisa]

are you loading the house you took the pictures in then going into story edit, or are you loading story editor from the neighborhood screen?

There are 2 tabs for the pictures in the story editor, first tab is for the current house other tab for all the pictures in the neighborhood.

[Jelenedra]

Tried both, a big nada both ways.

[ZephyrZodiac]

That's really strange!   I can't think why you're getting this problem, it's never happened in my game, so I suppose I just assumed they'd always appear!

[cwykes]

I've done some messing around with photos and storytelling - there's a really good thread here somewhere.  You probably know more than me, but just in case...

In base game there is ONE storytelling folder for all the hoods - it's at the same level as the neighborhoods, music, packaged lots folders.  When you add an EP, that folder just sits there, but isn't used any more.  The install adds a storytelling folder inside each 'hood folder alongside characters etc.  All the exising pics relevant to that hood are copied into that folder, so everything you took before adding the EP is there twice!  Great space waster!

You might want to have a look at the filenames of the pics and the album number - it could be they just don't match for some reason..........
snapshot_00000001_2de303e4.jpg   - this one is a 'hood 1 (pleasantview) pic
snapshot_2dae7a30_2db0f595.jpg  - this one belongs to album number 2dae7a30 
webentry_2dae7a30.xml - is the album for the household who that pic belongs to. 

Only the pics with the number matching the lot's album number will show on the main album picking page for the household.
All the pics for all the households appear with the 'hood pictures on the + page.
You can open it with wordpad and edit it just fine - you won't see the pics unless you have the storytelling folder open in another window, but it's handy for fixing typos etc..