For the Sims 3, this contest will stretch your building skills as you attempt to build, not from your vision, but from the vision of real-life architects!



Each round you will be given a possibility of 100 points, plus a 10 point bonus category that will change each round. This gives you a total of 110 points per round which you can strive to obtain.







There shall be five rounds; the period and style will be disclosed at the time of the round in question.

A list of all contestants who post an entry. Please no spam-like comments such as reserve for entry or the like. Your entry will be considered part of the contest when you submit it, not a minute before.


Judges' entries shall not be scored and the judges are free to upload them whenever they wish. They are there to show an example of what the contest is about.
If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to either send me a PM or ask your question within the thread.

• Do not post replies and/or contest applications before the contest host has checked in on this thread, or your post will be deleted.
  
• DO NOT WRITE USELESS POSTS like "Hey cool contest, I think I might join." Reserve type posts and useless posts about coming back with an application will be deleted.

Welcome to Round One of the Build to Plan Contest!

This round deals with contemporary plans. Go forth and find a plan that embodies the spirit of contemporary!

The rules from above apply.

The bonus category (which I stress that you don't have to do) is this. You must take the pattern shown and use it well in one room. This means that you must take the pattern and repeat it throughout this room.

It does not matter which room, just that you repeat the pattern. You also do not have to use the same color for the pattern. It's either 0, 5 or 10 points, nothing less, nothing more. Whether you used it well is entirely up to the discretion of the judges.

If this room is not one of the required rooms for pictures, then you will have to use one of your four bonus pictures for this room. YOU MUST HAVE A PICTURE OF THIS ROOM IN ORDER TO GET CREDIT FOR IT.


The pattern can be found under the CAS tool under the sub section Fabrics, nearer to the bottom of the section than the top. It's the first, larger one. DO NOT USE THE SMALLER PATTERN: YOU WON'T RECEIVE POINTS.

If you need a screenshot of the location in CAST, then please inform me and I will try to get one. I tried with the in-game camera but it didn't work, so I'd have to do something else to get it.

The original pattern turned out to be from Ambitions, so I've replaced it with, hopefully, a base game pattern. If not, please inform me. I'll uninstall my games and hopefully find one that's just base game.

This round ends on Tuesday, September 14th, at 11:00 a.m., Eastern USA time. CLICK HERE FOR THE TIMER

Wow, that's kinda hard... I mean, you expect People to build as close to a Plan as possible and then only allow them 10 Pieces of CC... What if EA didn't make Windows similar to those on the Plan? Then you've got a Problem because a House normally has more than 10 Windows... I can either build after a Plan or a Picture or without CC, both is too hard for me :/ Though I'd love to join this Contest, I'll follow it for sure...

I'm building a new world, helping someone else with theirs and will still make sure I find the time for this! Thanks guys for doing a contest so soon- I'll help you judge another one when I consider myself a good enough builder lol.

If you use 10 of the same window, it will only count as one piece of CC. So even if you plop down 100 of the same window, it will only deduct one point.

I don't think 1 point will make all the difference in the world. The last contest we had, if you used only 1 piece of CC, that was a 10 point deduction! Yikes!

I think this will be fun and exciting. I offered to judge before I knew all the details, but now I'm sad I did because I want to build some of these house plans I've had bookmarked forever!

Good luck to everyone!

You can use the same window over and over:
This contest is about getting the house as close as possible. We understand that EA does not give you the same door and window options. We're not asking you to spend most of your time searching for or making CC that matches the plans exactly. Take what you have available and do the best that you can.

A contest is meant to be both challenging and fun. I give you the CC I do because I want the house to be close to the plan. And like the judges have already said, 1 piece of CC includes multiples of the same CC. If it were too easy, I honestly don't feel that the participants would have as much fun. And both the judges and I understand that you can't match things exactly. Try to find a plan that fits both the CC and the game content that you have. It can be done. If you're worried about losing the CC, then you can opt for the bonus category that can net you an extra 10 points to make up for the CC points you might possibly lose.



Well, I hope that you can find the time to join this contest! We need at least 10 applicants in order to continue the contest and I'd love more. You sound as though you're very busy. ^_^

Please note that any changes to the original post and the round posts will take a while to appear. If you need up to date information, please keep track of the thread in order to find things out as they happen. The time for the deadline, for example, has changed from 10:00 a.m. Tuesday, September 14th, to 11:00 a.m, eastern USA time.

I have built many houses from plans and it can be a challenge not using cc. but using a window or door that fits the style or is similar in shape/size does normally work very well. Although EA does lack in the window/door department, they do cover most bases.

Good Luck Everyone!

Will definitely have a go but have looked at so many plans tonight they are all starting to look the same... eh - and have I now totally lost the plot or did that pattern change?

Yes, the pattern changed. I hope others see that it has as well. One of my judges told me that it was from Ambitions, so I had it changed. It was my fault for not checking to make sure it was base game in the first place.

Reading house plans and trying to figure out what the abbreviations means can be frustrating for the first timer, so I have found a website that can help. It lists all blueprint abbreviations in alphabetical order for you.

http://www.thehouseplanshop.com/38/...breviations.php

I would like to join.

Do you put participants on the list after they've posted the first application?

Might have a go at this one
Two quick questions though, when we send you the link to the plan, are you going to post it somewhere so we know which one's are already taken? And can we change floor plans once we've messaged you if it doesn't work out in game?

You're more than welcome to join. However, you will not be on the list until you've submitted your entry. In order for your entry to be accepted, you'll need to either send me a PM with a link to your plan or post the link in this here thread.



Well, I do have a list of the contestants and their plans (only have one at the moment). I can certainly put up the list and links to their plans so you'll know which ones are taken. But it depends on if enough people want that and don't care if people know what they're building before hand.

Yes, you can change the floor plans as many times as you like so long as you have enough time to build it by the deadline and that the floor plan is not taken by someone else. Do try, however, to work as much with the floor plan you select before deciding that it's not doable and switch to a new one.

I'm OK with people knowing which plan I chose - I have just built the shell. I realised some time in that I have probably picked one of the most annoying and tricky plans on the whole internet but I've started so I'll finish! The diagonal angles weren't the same as the Sims one and obviously the curved stairs were a no no but have done my best with a difficult plan. That's surely more fun than just copying something simple anyway. Have to say this idea of using plans is much harder than I'd thought!

Wow, you're very quick. ^_^ Yes, building to a plan can be exceptionally difficult, and then you find that it just doesn't look very good when you're done. I hate it when that happens. I can't wait to see what you've come up with.

Okay, I'll put up a list of the plans taken in the rounds post up above, not the original post. This is so that the original post doesn't get cluttered with multiple plans for each contestant as we go through the rounds.

Thank you to everyone who's added the contest to their signature. Promoting this will help us get up to the 10 applicants we need to go forward with the contest. I'd love to have more, but we need at least 10.

I waited patiently to see what you'd come up with and it was so worth the wait, I love this idea!I love building to plans so it's right up my alley but unfortunately I have house guests early to mid Oct and probably wouldn't get the time to work on this I might still build houses to your theme as and when I can just for fun though. Hope you get your 10, good luck

Edit: I'm not 100% sure but I don't think that blue pattern is base game...I think it either came with ambitions or with the patch that came out around then....could be wrong though

Urgh, it's so tempting to just enter and not give a damn about having to miss out on points for a round or two I might wait until closer to the deadline and then if you don't have enough people I could enter just to make up the numbers for the first few rounds

Honestly, it took longer to get the contest approved then it did to come up with it. ^_^ But I'm so glad that people are finding this an interesting idea. I really wanted the contest to be a success and I figured this would be a good way to get attention and interest. I'm sorry to hear that you can't compete, although I would certainly love to see anything that you come up with along the way of the contest. I've had many people ask for a chat thread and, unfortunately, I just don't think I'm allowed to do that, so there's no other thread to just post houses that aren't meant to be entries. But you're welcome to do so in this thread.

Are you sure that the pattern is? Oh, fooie, guess that means I'm going to have to uninstall and find a base pattern to update with. Well, I'll uninstall and just check on the pattern and if it's not there, then I'll update it again. That's what I get for not doing it properly the first time. Okay, I uninstalled and re-installed on a different computer. The fabric was still there.

However, just to be completely sure, how would you guys feel about downloading a custom pattern that I'll provide? That way, you'll have it, no matter what combination of games you've got.

No I'm not sure about the pattern at all, it might've been there the whole time and it took me this long to notice I mean I only just found out sims can be professional gardeners and I've had ambitions since it came out!

Edit: At least once the application round is over you'll have an idea of what EP/SPs contestants have so you might be able to use other patterns Also, somebody told me that some patterns came with the ambitions patch so it might be that it didn't come with the actuall EP, just the patch

Yeah, I'm still discovering new patterns. I uninstalled all but the base game on a different computer, and the pattern was still there. It might've come in on the patch.

Now, what I can do, is either leave it or make a custom pattern that everybody can download. I'd wanted to avoid that because I have a feeling that some people are leery about downloading something they might not even like or use on a regular basis. But this way there'd be no mistaking what the pattern is. And this is the only round that the bonus category will feature a pattern. The challenge will change with each round.

Ok. I'm in. Here my plan:

http://www.thehousedesigners.com/pl...sp?PlanNum=5902

Okay, everything seems in order. I'll add your plan to the list. Thanks for participating!

Quick quiery just in case I do get an entry in (apparently my guests don't arrive until 5th so I'd be cutting it fine and hoping there's no delays but should manage to join the contest): For the purposes of this round does contemporary and modern mean the same thing? I've found some nice houses that are listed under modern but not in contemporary though I don't know what the difference is, I thought they meant the same thing

Anyway, I think I've decided on a plan just in tme for my printer to run out of ink so I can't actually work on it : http://www.theplancollection.com/ho...home-plan-25557