Date Posted: 28th Feb 2012 at 10:11 AM

Hi everyone!

So my XBox has claimed a lot of my time this last week. Like all of it really. This has literally been my schedule: Work, gaming, sleep, repeat. It was to the point where I played games until I was ready to pass out, slept much later than I wanted to (such as barely getting up in time to get to work on time) went to work and got back on the gaming system as soon as I got home. Mostly because if I didn't Mom would get there first and I wouldn't' be able to play. I'm trying to catch up to where one of my friends is in a game.

BUT I've been off the past two nights and have done a little bit of sim stuff. Dagi's coat is nearly ready. I need to adjust the mesh a bit (for almost every age/gender combo but it's only small changes) and get some recolors. That buckskin sort of recolor you were hoping for? I totally wasn't going to attempt it on GeneralZoi's mesh. But on mine, I'm pretty sure I can do it. It might take me a bit more time as recolors aren't my best and I'm going to try to make this look good.

Also I want to get back into my attempt at the Test of Time challenge. And that meant I needed to get my uniform for the females going (my particular take has some crash landed aliens rather than neanderthal sims). I really wanted a mini skirt, but all the meshes I could find had heels and I wanted boots so that it matched the males even more. So i made one and for the hell of it I made the skirt portion alpha editable. That was a pain, but I really wanted to know how to add an alpha part to a mesh, rather than simply cloning something that already had an alpha. Any how that's all done and the female suits look better and have better color than the males, but then i made the males a while ago. So that's one more thing ticked off my personal checklist. Mind you now I'm going to want to spend more time playing that than creating, but I haven't really played in a long time and maybe playing will get my creative juices flowing? I don't know.

Anyway, I hope soon to have dagi's coat done, then I'll go down my list from 2/3/4 maybe entries back. I can't remember the order right now, but then I'm also running on two or three hours of sleep. I just couldn't sleep today. So my mind is fuzzy. I'm going to go play with some crash landed aliens now. See Y'all! ~VP

Date Posted: 19th Feb 2012 at 3:41 AM

Hey Y'all!

I haven't really been doing too much simming lately. Sorry to all of you who have requests. I just got my tax refund back and bought a couple of things I've been wanting FOREVER. Like an XBox 360. And Move for my PS3. So I've been playing with my new toys. And playing some of my other computer games.

What I have done: I've been working on the coat for Dagi. Since enabling the alpha for GeneralZoi's trenchcoat accessory isn't working like I had hoped, I'm building my own. It has so far proved to be a big pain. I THINK I have the meshes ready to go, I just have to get them in game and recolor.

I just thought I'd update so that everyone isn't going "Where the hell is she?" I have tomorrow and the day after off from work, so MAYBE I'll get some stuff done. ~VP

Date Posted: 5th Feb 2012 at 4:04 AM

First of all, why is February spelled so weird? Something I've wondered for a VERY long time.

Secondly, an update on what I'm doing. I took a stab at the coat for Dagi. I got it alpha enabled. I think. I haven't actually checked that part, but I changed the right stuff in SimPE. BUT it has display bleed through issues. I thought it might be a mesh issue and attempted to edit the mesh file, and now that file crashed BodyShop. I have another idea that might work and I'll get to it eventually. When RL quits attacking me.

There's another request (just one I think. If I forgot anyone I"m sorry. You're still on my list and will get your item as soon as I can get to it) I can't remember the requester's name (don't have my notepad near me) but they would like some decorative flasks for a lab. This one may get bumped above a few other items, simply b/c of the simplicity of the object. But only if I need a break from something uber demanding (like meshing a mouse head)

No progress on anything else. I swear all I've done this week is sleep and work. If I'd stop sleeping early enough I might actually get some sim stuff done. At least I'll get something done tomorrow on my day off. ~VP

Date Posted: 26th Jan 2012 at 4:02 AM

So I've decided to try to keep everyone up to date on what I'm doing and what I'm up to next. The best way to do so: A List! So here's another list of what I'm up to. And no, this is no particular order.

1)catorix's Uber Family Dress request: It's done. But I need new pictures. I'm seriously thinking of conning my sister into picture taking for me. Or bribing her. One or the other.
2)Tonypilot, requester of the very lovely Wind Up Doll Keys, would like a Minnie Mouse Sim costume. I guess it's time to brush up on my clothing making skills. And figure out how to mesh a giant mouse head.
3)There might be a way to get the Wind Up Doll key to animate like Tonypilot wants, since using the texture is just not working for me. This one is very near the bottom of the list, I'd much rather get done the things i know how to do.
4)A pair of sunglasses from my childhood. As soon as the lens group quits being annoying these will be almost done.
5)Dagi_is_a_punk requested a sleeveless trench-like coat and pointed me to mesh that would work. I however had other ideas, and asked if generalzoi's trenchcoat accessory would be okay, especially since I don't need to edit the mesh there, simply the recolor file to use the alpha. So that's the way that's going. And Dagi is currently one of my favorite people for offering to take the preview pics! Yay! Less pictures for me to take. Or bribe my sister into.
6)aaxelsaige asked for a studded collar to be worn my adult females and males. Plus a few recolors. Nothing too diffucult but I'm going to try to get a few other things out of the way before I start this one.
7)My sister requested a few (five so far) things from me: A working version of her favorite teddy bear (with recolorable dress), a recolor of the bear's dress, a sim version of a dress we saw at the mall the other week (which coincidentally matches the bear's original dress. Guess who's doing two photo shoots in one again?), a sign for the wall to match one on her wall, and a few recolors of the Luxury sets that came with I think Glamour Life.
8)My deco dressers. The ones without slots are done. The one tile ones with slots are done. The two tile ones with slots: barely started. I tried to do one yesterday only to discover that the current files i have for these are "just cloned" They have none of the data for my dressers. So I have to edit all that in, then figure out how to make the slots work, because that first attempt was awful.
9)Finish fixing all the files for my plumbob earrings.
10) (possibly) ale_bonofiglio asked for a hospital bed where a sim can be in a coma. I'm pretty sure this can be done, I just don't know how yet. So IF I can figure out how to do this, I will. If not, he/she will have to either live without it or find another creator. But I really would like this to exist, as it seems like an awesome (and realism-adding) object.

I think that's everything. Unless you want to add my Sailor Moon project, but i haven't touched that for months. And I've barely thought about it, except when I go to test stuff and see the "Sailor Moon" folder in my downloads. Someday I might get back to it, but I'd much rather be working on all this other stuff.

So what am I doing now? Well right now I need to get ready to go to work. But sim-wise I'm working on the deco dressers and Dagi's coat. The pics of the dresses will be taken soon, and I'll probably work on my sunglasses or my sister's bear next. After that will probably be the Minnie Mouse and the studded collar, with the plumbob earrings thrown in whenever I need a break from meshing. This is most likely the order I'll so things, but it might change. You never know, I might come home from work with the strong urge to mesh Minnie's dress.

'Till next time I decide to update y'all! ~VP

Date Posted: 18th Jan 2012 at 4:48 PM

So a short update, because I really need to get to bed, but felt like letting you guys know what I'm up to.

My Current Projects:
1) Fixing issues on catorix's request of the Uber Family dress conversion. The mesh for the toddler ages had a small defect that didn't bother me, but did bother the mods, so it's fixed. But I also have to take the shadows out the chest area of the dresses so that the young'uns look properly flat chested. So no texture referencing (sad face for slightly larger files). This will hopefully be done soon.
2) Fixing KaninchenLover's request of a glucose monitor. The mesh has some issues that will not fix no matter what I do, so I may just have to upload it in its imperfect state. But right now the headache from this stems from the shadows not wanting to display properly. The silly thing is insisting on displaying the shadow texture incorrectly, so that the object appears to be sitting on a black mat. *sigh* It will do what I want in the end.
3) Tonypilot made a second request of me for a costume of Minnie Mouse, like what the mascots at the Disney Parks wear. This one's going to take me a bit of time as body meshing is not my strongest point. But having sucessfully (mostly) finally made an object from scratch, I'm a bit more confident in my meshing abilities. And the prospect of fiddling with bone weight isn't as scary anymore for some reason.
4) MSD suggested a way fro me to possibly get Tonypilot's Wind Up Doll Key to animate. I'm going to have to learn quite a bit of stuff to accomplish this, but there is hope. MSD if you're reading: thanks for the offer of the mock up object, and I will still definitely take it, especially if my attempts fail, but I really would like to learn how to do this, rather than copy what someone else did. That said, if you were to include a list of what you did to create the mock object, that would be most helpful.
5) My little sister just gave me a list of like five things she'd like me to create for her, including a version of her Build-A-Bear that she really loves. That one in particular is going to take me a while since she'd like it to have the teddy bear interactions, and that mesh WILL NOT work for Caitlin the World's Cutest Teddy Bear. So more meshing practice fo me. Her other requests are mostly just recolors that I'll get to eventually (the Luxury set in various colors) and recreating a dress we just saw in the mall and fell completely in love with. Sadly it didn't come in her size so we couldn't even look at her in it, but her Self Sim will soon be able to wear it. If I get around to doing that
6) My own project of a pair of sunglasses. The lens group is giving me issues, then there's the hassle of recolors. But they'll look awesome when I'm done
7) Finishing the slotting issues of my Deco Dressers. I really need to get on this one since I want to play some of my challenges and can't b/c of the sims flocking to the dresser issue and not wanting to mess up the prettiness of my downloaded houses.
8) Finishing the fixing of my plumbob earrings. Honestly I just need to fix a few lines in a couple dozen files. I just don't usually have the patience for long stretches of SimPE, and all my patience has been used recently in other projects, which is why numbers 7 and 8 are still hanging around.

Anywho, that's what I'm up to. Right now, I'm going to get some sleep and maybe get #2 worked on when I wake up, #1 as well if things go well. See y'all! ~VP

Date Posted: 13th Jan 2012 at 3:28 PM

Hi y'all! Just a short note here to say "Yay! I got another accomplishment!" With the approval of my Wind Up Doll keys, I have ten uploads! My child and toddler conversions of the Uber Family Freetime dress, were rejected, but I'm working on the changes needed. (Just a slight alteration of the mesh and non-referencing recolors since the referenced ones leave shadows in places there shouldn't be shadows.)

For those interested, I've done another request, an object for KaninchenLover. That should hopefully pass the mod's inspection without much fuss. Also I've got a set of sunglasses I'm working on, should the mesh decide to co-operate with me. Those are for me, a reminder of days in the past. You'll see what I mean when I get them fixed and uploaded.

That's about it, so see y'all soon! ~VP

Date Posted: 4th Jan 2012 at 3:49 PM

So a short update today, and only because I just found out something annoying. If you go back a few journal posts, you'll see that I was having issues with my recolors of my plumbob earrings and that I finally figured out that my men's earrings had gotten recategorized as female. I just now figured out how THAT happened. Because I just had it happen while fiddling with my Wind Up Doll Key recolors. I usually use jfade's wardrobe wrangler to recategorize things so save myself from having to add in hex and from hitting the commit button so many times. And usually I tick the categories I need and hit "copy to all" and usually my package has only one gender, so I never noticed any issue before. BUT when both genders are in a package, whatever gender you happen to be on, gets copied to all the other files apparently. And that's what my problem before was. I totally wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't just run all my WUDK recolors through the wrangler, before looking up the code to make them showerproof. I fixed only one of them for that as well as adding a custom icon (it was hard for me to find the right ones for my photo shoot so I figured I'd make some icons while I was at it). I went into the game to test the showerproof-ness (it works) and noticed one of my models had a flashing blue key, when it had worked just fine in the photo shoot just before. And when she took a look in the mirror half of the colors weren't showing up for her anymore. A quick look in SimPe confirmed that all the female xmol s had a gender of 2 not 1 for that color.

So at least now I know what caused the issue. It doesn't help me with the ones already screwed up, but I can watch out for it in the future. And of course I had to be "smart" and copy the files I wrangled over the ones I didn't wrangle in another folder... *sigh* I'm off to go fix these things. Hopefully I'll have these things submitted for upload before I go to bed today, otherwise I'll submit them when I wake up this evening or after work tomorrow morning. But these WILL be up soon (unless the mods have an issue). I Promise. ~VP

Date Posted: 3rd Jan 2012 at 7:58 AM

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Now that that's done, I can get to the purpose of this update that probably no one will read. The purpose is to say that I am so easily distracted. As evidenced by the fact that y'all don't have plumbob earrings for everyone. Nor can I play my challenges b/c I won't get my butt in gear and finish my deco dressers. Nor does catorix have his/her dress for children and toddlers. That last one is b/c the mods didn't like my pictures and I'm too lazy to either go take new ones or re-collage the old ones into a format the mods will like. I should go take new ones since the current ones are all taken in CAS so the toddlers are sitting down and not showing off the dress well at all.

Any way, for the last while I've been trying to make a wind up doll key for tonypilot. And aside from the toddler one not wanting to show up the stationary one is ready to go. Once I put all the files into one. I tried my hardest to make a animated rotating one. I've done everything I've been told to do, some things i haven't and everything I can possible think of. And the mesh simply will not display properly. Or rather it will not appear to rotate. As for now, the rotation simply isn't going to happen. Perhaps in the future something will occur to me and I'll get it working. Until then, y'all will have to make do with stationary ones. Assuming I don't take forever to get the toddler mesh working, or to make the recolors, or to take pictures, it should be out soon.

As to the jewelry I found, well tonypilot's request distracted me from them. A few of them are already almost ready to go, they even have proper bone weights already, which shocked me since maxis is usually not that nice. And hopefully It won't be too much work to get the rest ready to go and then the annoyance of making the recolors. I probably already stated this before, but you'll get my standard set of silver and gold, with the usual rainbow of gem colors on those that apply (one of the belly rings in particular). See my plumbob earrings if you want a preview.

And I think that's about it for now. I'm going to figure out what I need to do to fix the toddler set of the wind up key, or else copy from the plumbob earring mesh and hope things work. ~VP

Date Posted: 28th Nov 2011 at 3:40 PM

Hi!

Well I got some of the plumbob earrings done. Then I got bored. Then catorix PMed me a request to make an adult dress available for children and toddlers 'cause it would look adorable. And the toddler version does look adorable. The mesh for that one is done. I was about to get to work on the child's version and decided it would be nice if I had a bunch of the nude body available to use in frankensteining meshes (which needs to be done here since adjusting adult proportions to smaller sizes is very annoying.) And I decided that doing it via bodyshop would be very annoying since I'd have to wait for it to load, make several projects, open simpe and extract the meshes, then delete the no longer needed files. So I opted to snoop around in the game files to pull the meshes straight from the source. And in the process found meshes for 5 different jewelry pieces that never made it into the game. So I just gave myself a new project. I'm going to gather all the parts I need from the game files, finish catorix's request, then make all these jewelry pieces wearable. As for recolor options, you'll get all the options available in my plumbob earrings (which I will get back to once all these are done). Three appear to have a jewel and two don't so those two will be in my standard gold and silver. The jewels will be in my standard eight color pallet.

Barring any time-consuming complications, the new jewelry should be available in a few weeks or less. Catorix's request should be within the week. Of course you all can tell how good I am a predicting my progress just by looking a older journal posts, so don't hold me to this. ~VP

Date Posted: 20th Nov 2011 at 11:22 AM

Um... hi? I've been seriously lacking in the working on sims stuff front lately. Three days after my last post I got some seriously life changing news and that's been sinking in for the past couple of weeks. And I've had almost no time to my self. It seems I'm always either working, sleeping, or spending lots of time with my boyfriend who sadly does not understand my obsession with sims, or even my computer in general.

So have I done anything sim related? Yes, I have. I bought Sims 3 and the Pets expansion. I resisted the game since its release, then ea included little furries and my resistance crumbled. So I've spent a bit of time playing that.

And i had the sudden urge to work on my plumbob earrings just now so I'm fixing those. Their issue was that the earring in most colors was appearing twice for women and none at all for men. So when I looked in the file in SimPE I decided to take a look at the gender line and somehow without realizing it, I set all the male ones to appear as female. I've only tested the fix on one color, but as it is now appearing in the men's catalog and only once in the women's, I assume I've fixed it. So those of you waiting for these guys just may have them soon.

I'm off to fix a few more files in SimPE. Assuming I don't get tired of doing this, I may finish tonight (or this morning rather). ~VP