Baby's First Command: An Animated Starship Mobile

UPDATE Aug 21, 2011: I've made a change to the pie menu functions so that the animation starts and stops immediately on command, without the action showing up in the Sim's queue (just like a lamp turns on and off right away). It's a minor change, but please redownload if you don't want to wait until your Sim finishes his dinner before the mobile does what you've asked it to do.

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If you want your little Starfleet brats to become good starship captains when they grow up, you'll need to start them early - and what better (or earlier) way to start the Starfleet indoctr- I mean, grooming, than with a starship mobile hanging over your wee one's crib?

But this isn't just any starship mobile! No, this mobile really is boldly going, if not not quite at warp speed: it's animated and spins clockwise. With this to inspire them, your Simlets will be ready for those Starfleet Academy exams in no time!

Just in case your Sims (or you) don’t want a mobile that's spinning 24/7, the animation can be turned on and off. It also won't start automatically when you place the mobile, but will wait until you actually tell it to start.

The mobile features four different classes of ships together with Spacedock, and it has six recolours. The arms of the mobile and the ships are two different subsets, so you can mix and match the recols as you'd like.

This is a detailed mesh, so the poly count is a bit high: 2195. (This is actually an improvement - it started out at almost 2700. ) If you're on an old computer, you may want to limit the number of mobiles per lot, and I also recommend that you keep the animation turned off in case it makes your game lag.


The mobile comes in a one-tile version and a version that's centred on two tiles - useful if you want the mobile to be centred over a crib or a child's desk, but don't want to use cheats. Now, I'm a big fan of the repository technique, but I know that not everybody is, and I also understand that some of you might not want more than one 2200-poly mobile in your game. Therefore, I've made two sets:

- a repository set, for those of you who want both mobiles (and know your computer can handle it) but not the double amount of recols; the one-tile mobile is the master file

- a non-repository set, for those of you who only want one of the mobiles or don't like repository things.

Only choose one set! Both sets use the same GUIDs (let's not waste GUIDs here), so you can only have one set in your game at the time.


The mobile can be found under Misc. -> Children. The one-tile version costs $50 and the two-tile one $51, so you'll be able to tell them apart easily in the catalogue. It is base-game compatible and has been tested on a computer that's never known anything but the basegame.

Model Credits:
Irina (adult):
- hair by SussisSoGoodSims (recol by me)
- skin by astiees
- make-up by Bruno and SLU (Face Kit)
- clothes by me

Nadya (toddler):
- hair by Mikexx2
- skin by Rensim (dead site)
- everyday clothes by fakepeeps7
- PJs by CarmeeKitty

All free, of course.

Polygon Counts:

Item	Polys	Vertices	Price
Animated Starship Mobile	2195	1519	$50
Two-tile Animated Starship Mobile	2195	1519	$51

(Nifty table thingy by Leesester)

Additional Credits:
First and foremost: Echo! Without her excellent tutorials and advice on just about everything object- and animation-related, this item would never have existed. Thank you for so generously sharing your knowledge with the Sims community!

Also, Leesester, without whose help the two-tile mobile wouldn’t be recolourable. (Bad Nix for not updating her MMATs!) Thanks for saving me from getting any more grey hairs than I already have, Lee.

I've used Milkshape for the mesh, UV Mapper Pro for the UV maps, Photoshop 7 for the textures and SimPE to put it all together.