Date Posted: 10th Nov 2011 at 9:03 AM

I'm making bottoms. Perfectly normal, non-sci-fi bottoms.

Something is very, very wrong with this picture...

Date Posted: 26th Sep 2011 at 8:13 PM

My computer and my monitor are once again on speaking terms.

That is all. .

Date Posted: 22nd Sep 2011 at 12:07 PM

Well, it looks like the graphics card in my desktop computer thought today is a good day to die, 'cause that's just what it did. I tell myself that it could be worse, it could have been the hard drive and that would have been BAD (even though I've got much better at backing things since I got my external drive, I haven't got around to do it for my newest things - like my slotified bookcase), but it's still incredibly annoying, esp. since I won't be able to get a new card until next week. (I know, it's Thursday and next week isn't that far away... but right now it feels like forever.)

I do have my notebook (that's what I'm typing on right now), so I'm not computer-less, but Sim-wise it only has the basegame and Life Stories. Also, the screen is too small for me to be able to run SimPE without having to scroll like crazy. So... no modding for me until I get a new graphics card.

I try to look on the bright side, though. No modding and no playing Sims (well... no playing Sims without going nuts because I miss my CC and EPs, anyway) means I can get some un-distracted writing done! Granted, the latest version of my last story is on the hard drive I can't access, but I know where I left off and can pick it up from there (even if I can't do any editing of what I've written previously). So that's good.

Which isn't to say I won't be deliriously happy when my new graphics card is installed...


Edit: Yayness! It looks like I can get the new card on Monday already, Tuesday at the latest. This makes me a happy Nix. While my notebook comp. is great for its size, it is a notebook and tiny screen is tiny.

Date Posted: 11th Sep 2011 at 12:16 PM

I haz slots.

I just thought you should know that.

Date Posted: 9th Sep 2011 at 5:44 PM

Excuse me for a moment while I pat myself on the back and tell myself I'm a genius for getting my object to work completely by accident.

People more clever than I could probably have told me this already, but there is a way to have your Sim go to the routing slot of a two-tile (basegame) bookshelf without getting a routing slot failure after adding the "do NOT use Maya model footprint" line!* And it's much, much simpler than I would ever have thought, too.

You move the mesh.

Not with your 3D editor, though, that won't do any good. You move it with the CRES.

I know, I probably should have realised this long ago, but what can I say, the CRES and I have fallen out of touch; we never write, we never call... (Read that: I haven't touched a CRES in any way, shape or form since I made the skeleton for my animated mobile.) And knowledge that isn't used, isn't retained, at least not in my brain.

*sings* My Sims can go to the routing slot, my Sims can go to the routing slot...!

...and NOW I can get to the slotifying!


* Yes, I know you can get around the routing slot failure by having the Sim go to a relative position instead, but with a bookshelf, it makes the animations look odd. Even if it is a Trek bookshelf I'm making, I don't want the books to materialise out of thin air.

Date Posted: 5th Sep 2011 at 5:25 PM

My brain is weird. (And I have an MRI scan to prove it, too. ) Here I was watching the remastered edition of Star Trek II, and suddenly, I find myself planning how to simmify the shelf with deco Kirk has in his living-room. "It will be an emptied bookshelf; I'll probably make a wall-mounted version as well; it will be fun to play around with the TXMT to make the metal frame shiny; it should have three slots on the top and bottom shelves and at least five on the middle one..."

Only problem is, I've never made a bookshelf, let an empty one with slots. But, slots have been on my "should learn" list for a while now, only I've never had a good reason to learn it... but as they say, there's no time like the present!

Besides, I know a certain Starfleet Sim who really would like to have a shelf like that in her quarters...


Edit: The shelf is currently being UV mapped. Tomorrow, I shall tackle the slotifying.

Date Posted: 18th Aug 2011 at 8:08 PM

I must admit I rarely visit the MTS index page - I usually get to the places I want to go to on the site either through bookmarks or from my own profile. But yesterday, I ended up there by more or less by mistake - and almost fell off my chair.

The newest find in the Finds box is the Leefish Mobile from leefish.nl (which is a great site that you need to visit right this instant if you haven't already).

I made that mobile! (Yes, I like mobiles that go 'round and 'round. So? ) It's a leefish.nl exclusive, too, so you won't find it anywhere else, neither here at MTS nor on my blog. I'm just sayin'.

ZOMG, I have a find!! Wheee!

Date Posted: 25th Jul 2011 at 1:38 PM

With all the things that's been happening IRL in this part of the world over the last few days, I haven't quite been able to focus on simming. Thus, I completely missed yesterday's date.

Yesterday was my five-year anniversary of joining MTS. I remember how thrilled I was to find this place that was not just filled with downloads for The Sims 2, but with quality downloads - unlike some other places I'm ashamed to admit I frequented at that time, *cough*TSR*coughcough* where it was quite hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. (What can I say, I was young and stupid, all right? )

One thing I still couldn't find here, though, was Star Trek uniforms - or rather, Star Trek uniforms that didn't use in-game meshes that weren't quite right for the job. With the help of Tig's excellent tutorial, I started taking my first, tentative steps towards making my own body meshes. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, I know how to make things I hadn't even dreamed of five years ago (and thought might possibly involve sacrificing a small goat at full moon, they seemed so incomprehensible and unreachable). Almost all I know, I've learnt here, from people who are happy to share their knowledge and to help others. Tig, HP, Echo... you're still my heroes after all this time.

And now I'm off to celebrate this day in style. After all, who needs fireworks when you can blow up BHAVs, right?

Date Posted: 16th Jul 2011 at 9:54 PM

I just noticed I've got Scotty - I mean, the Warp Core Engineer achievement! Wheee! This makes me a very happy Ocampa indeed!

I shall celebrate this momentous occasion by having another cup of tea - Earl Grey, hot, of course.

Date Posted: 8th Jul 2011 at 12:22 AM

Through my blog I just found out that somebody (henceforth called "1") actually referred somebody else ("2") to my base-game compatible posebox tutorial to try to figure out why 2's posebox was crashing 1's game. (2's surprised response was, "but the tutorial I followed didn't say anything about that!" Me, I'm not surprised, because in my experience most posebox tuts don't contain any information about how to clone something so that it doesn't require all your installed EPs. That's why I wrote my tutorial in the first place, even though it's all pretty basic stuff if you make objects.)

Now there might actually be a posebox maker whose future boxes won't crash the game for somebody who doesn't have all EPs installed even though the maker does. Woot! I feel as if I've done a good deed - or at least as if I didn't waste my time writing the tut after all.