#29
30th Sep 2024 at 5:54 PM
Last edited by chitownriverscum : 1st Oct 2024 at
12:31 AM.
Reason: typo
An update... the basic building is done; just a matter of tweaking a few things.
As before, I made a series of swimming pools at descending elevations. Macarossi's "base game waterfall" is a bit taller than I would like, with a pointy rock part at the top, so I had to make sure that each pool was sufficiently lower than the preceding one, to accomodate the height of that fall.
Turned off CFE and connected the pools, going from top to bottom (the direction doesn't matter in terms of function, but it will make a difference in the size of the pools involved - if you go uphill, the lower pool will extend back into the hillside, and downhill, the opposite). Also interesting - the first time I did this, I mistakenly typed "off" instead of "false" in the cheat code, and it accomplished the exact same thing, which I thought was kind of weird.
With moveobjects on (or maybe "true"
), I placed all kinds of deco stuff, starting with the JB Animated Water overlays. These are 3x3, which I had to take into account when building the pools. Even so, I goofed and, rather than step backwards, I just overlapped them. It's not as noticeable as with the static colored overlays, where you definitely see the overlaps. For anyone using these, the direction of the green arrow is the
opposite of the water flow animation. Also of note: while Sims will happily swim through these overlays, they cannot
fish through them. I recommend using
Sun & Moon's Gone Fishin' mod from Plumb Bob Keep, which contains a "fish anywhere" spotter; your Sims could theoretically fish from their toilets with it (although I haven't actually tried that, so don't take my word). Even with the spot, the Sims still need a level piece of ground to stand on while they're fishing. A bunch of the Sun & Moon content requires OFB, but some parts work without it. Unfortunately, the worm baits - which are buyable even without OFB - cannot be placed on comm lots, so I'll have to have my Sims bring them with in their inventories if they want to go fishing at the Waterfall Place.
After the water overlays and the fishing spot, I started layering up the deco pond rocks. Because these are slaved, (if that's the correct term), it was a bit of a trial and error to get the correct ones to appear where I wanted. Even with moveobjects on, they sometimes wouldn't place exactly where I needed them (a crowding issue, maybe), hence the few remaining gaps of bright blue chlorine water visible at the falls... that's the next problem to solve. Even after I re-painted the pool walls and floors, the tint of the water is still obnoxious to me. Fortunately, it's only at the point where the pools flow into each other; I think it's just a matter of finding the right deco thing to mask it off. Oh yeah,
make sure CFE is turned back ON, before recoloring the pool floors.
At this point I also placed the invisible diving board and pool ladders.
Finally, to further the illusion, I placed the animated water overlays across the roadway as well (after deleting the road pavement), because having a river appear from out of nowhere at the edge of the lot would be weird. I had a moment of panic when my test Sim arrived at the lot on horseback, and instead of pulling all the way up to the "public phone" (disguised as a road sign), parked it just shy of the animation overlays. I thought this might indicate a fatal flaw, but he did in fact dismount from the horse, and went swimming, and was able to leave the lot again afterwards. The horse still wouldn't cross the stream, but I can live with that.
So there you have it. It doesn't look like I'm going to be able to use the small waterfall from
Macarossi's Pond in July set, which would probably be ideal for this project. It's in my DL folder, but I don't have Glamour Life. Unless someone can figure out how to make that work without the pack, I'll just have to find something else that could be placed in between the pool levels, to give the illusion of a short waterfall.
My beard grows to my toes; I never wears no clothes.
I wraps my hair around my bare,
And down the road I goes.
-Shel Silverstein