#56
22nd Sep 2024 at 6:47 PM
Last edited by LUCPIX : 22nd Sep 2024 at
8:54 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by purplewowies
Exciting Level 1 scenario updates!! (But no object. Yet!) On the test lot I have managed to:
- Verifying every part of the scenario appears to run (i.e. all the parts directly actually copied from the original Level 1 iff run as expected)
- Allowing the player to set the household funds to match the Steering Committee lot (a personal choice, for realism)
- Allowing the player to set the motives to match the Steering Committee starting motives (technically a choice on the player's part but needed in order to keep the scenario from immediately completing if the motives for "Ross" are too high already)
- Resetting the scenario if you want to play again
- Keeping the object from running until the player marks setup complete (i.e. the player sets the motives, budget, etc. and then tells the object when they're done and THEN the level runs)
- Allowing manual setting of the Sim to be used for the stack object!! I DID IT!!!!
I'm glad Level 1 didn't need that last bullet, because the fact it didn't allowed me to take enough time away to really think methodically about what needed to be done to make the manual selection work. And by that I mean focus on other things (the fresh/from-scratch bhavs for budget and motive setting) and then realize what to do out of nowhere while I was watching something.
(I would have needed to figure it out before moving onto the other scenarios because I don't think automatic selection would be as usable in the Sam/Mercedes (/Ross) ones.) As it is, I think I'll leave the behavior of allowing the game to pick a Sim in Level 1 but any other levels I might work on in the future will require the player to pick the Sims the scenario will use.
The object still needs some polish. I need to clean up some parts (the several SEVERAL bhavs and menu items I added to troubleshoot, I need to add some menu checks for some stuff, etc.), figure out some weirdnesses (of note: the game can decide Ross is happy even if he's hungry and I don't know why but I might leave it in if I can't figure out), and make sure none of the places it can potentially end in an error or break are still in the object (of note: I'm pretty sure the object will immediately begin to error if Ross dies). I also want to use the beta match objects in the "real" lot and test things there.
But this is MAJOR progress!!
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Don't know if it fully applies to this case/you already did it/it makes the scenario super hard, but consider applying some kind of "Expression"-based conditional branch where it is determined that the scenario can not be fully completed until Ross'
Mood character data is no less than 100 — in other words, until his plumb-bob is the greenest it can be! I don't know think ordinary players like me have mastered the art of keeping the Sims' mood bars showing all the 5 green stripes past the 2 first minutes of gameplay.
Love this dynamic where the player can customize part of the lot's/character's setting before the scenario per se kicks off! You might want to script different difficulty levels for it, as long as it's plausible and makes sense!
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On my end, I likewise ain't short of tiny+fun+annoying challenges. The large tv object has been easily the toughest one to port to date! Aligning its graphics' X/Y placement to its prototype equivalent is a piece of cake as it's always been when it comes to previous conversions, but the object is natively so messed up it's really hard to tell if the fact that it's manifesting itself a bit oddly in my game is because of a local whoopsie or it's something its og Maxis equivalent already suffers from!
The good news is that, 90% of times, the latter case is the definitive answer..
Left pic is a prerelease snapshot, right pic is our current conversion attempt.
Right pic is a prerelease snapshot, left pic is our current conversion attempt.
Also: asking TMOG to autoalign the most distant sprites' position taking the coordinates of their closest zooms as reference normally takes me to SUPER unsatisfying outcomes, which is an unusual obstacle that wasn't present in the making of previous CCs. It's basically the program's own way of saying:
"There isn't such a thing as easiest path right here, you brat If you want a TV... EARN IT!!". Moving any of the layers away from their intended position as an attempt of making them look more "natural" does not help either, so we're talking about a precision task here. We can assume the work involved rewards one extra human capital points or whatever. Wait... this whole CC making thing is supposed to have a POINT in the end... right?
Yeah, it's a super weird process, or I'm making it weirder than it should, but I can systematically preview that my next post will already contain a download link for those interested. I think our Sims will love it.