pushing back projects due to illness

One of the consequences of my general ill health is that when I get a cold, I get sick for a long time. Very fortunately for me this cold didn't choose to settle badly into my respiratory system; when that happens, I tend to end up in the hospital. Instead, it chose to grace me with severe head congestion. The nose part is mostly cleared at this point, but I still have severe ear congestion on the right side and mild on the left, leaving me feel unbalanced and distracted. I am having a hard time concentrating on anything because of this.

So, I'm not even trying until it's cleared. Now, it is better; I can actually hear at all out of the right ear, and the left ear is mostly cleared up, both of which represent major improvements over last week. And my voice is mostly back, though still hoarse. So I expect it won't be too long before it clears up, but by that I mean "Maybe next week I'll feel like I can concentrate enough to do things like build and finish up clothes and make my collections." This week, I'm just giving myself off, and if I happen to work on things during it, well, that'll just put me ahead...

So, um. Mid-to-late December for releases of things? A nice holiday present for people who actually like my stuff?

grrr bodyshop grrr

So, I'm having this problem with Bodyshop trying to extremely compress the original BMPs of clothing in the actual package file, resulting in what ought to be a perfectly good graphic turning into this pixellated crap. I'm not sure what I can do about it... I'm already trying to keep adjacent colour changes to a minimum but somehow it's managing to b0rk them up anyhow. So either I need to rework the base for the clothes to be even less shaded, or I need to go into each and every package afterwards and replace the files with cleaner versions (increasing package size considerably, naturally).

I don't know why I'm having this problem... I swear other people don't have this problem. It's the same sort of stupid dxt issues I've had before I tihnk, though (for instance I was going to switch to Hysterical Paroxysm's skins but I can't because as soon as they're loaded once the game ultra-compresses them for some bizarre reason, which leaves them really badly pixellated). I don't know if there's some hidden setting somewhere I could alter to try to fix this, or what. What's freaky is I don't have this issue in other games using DXT. AND I have the nVidia toolset, even (though not an nVidia card).

Anyhow, so the only Bodyshop thing I actually got done-done today was custom eyebrow colours for the characters with unusual hair colours. I also loaded in a bunch of object recolours (but haven't looked at them in-game yet) and made a list of everything I need to do the flashback scenes for Twilight Dreams, since I'm going to work on those first... mainly it involves making duplicates of the characters in different settings with different companion characters, and figuring out what buildings I need to make multiples of and how to put together the duplicates had to be done before I could build.

the full update for today

As you can see, I managed to finish the first round of Homecrafter stuff and sort and upload it. I will be finishing up some object recolours and uploading those as well, hopefully within the week. Eventually I'll be adding clothing, too.

I'm going to be redoing the shirts I did for the chicks because I want to go back and fix the detail washout, so I'm going to start over with a new and improved base so hopefully it won't happen again. I also will be working on new stuff, too. Again, hopefully I'll get it done within the week.

Tomorrow I'll hopefully be working on Twilight-Dreams specific things, including building. I guess that means I'm going to have to make a final decision on what neighborhood base to put it in. It's really not that vital, I guess, but I want to build a whole little town for it, so I've been debating about the size and layout.

I say 'hopefully', because I'm still sick. I'm hideously stuffed up, though it's better than it was a few days ago. I can't hear right and I can't talk easily. (I sound really funny when I try to talk. Imagine that exact note of the crack of a voice change from puberty, only for the entire sentence.) So my motivation is there but my energy and ability to concentrate is less so.

I would seriously consider committing murder for some steroids and some combivent or even just albuterol right now.

Anyhow, still shooting for early December for the first Twilight Dreams releases.

Custom Content Roundup

ATTENTION: If you downloaded ANYTHING but clothing or my Simself prior to February 9th 2008, please read this post.

[This note will be edited as custom content is added; it is linked in the sidebar.]

All files hosted by box.net. Due to their slightly poor navigation system, I recommend opening links in a new window/tab.

File names ending in a string of numbers represent an upload date (e.g., 080203, February 3rd, 2008), for things where I may upload another set later.

All folders now contain notes files and representative pictures detailing contents. Most folders have some subfolders; to keep this note from growing too long, the top folders are linked to but most subfolders are not.

Homecrafter

Walls (Paint | Siding | Tile Walls)
Floors (Basic Floors)

Bodyshop

Stupid DXT compression errors. Going to be rebuilding these and reuploading replacement files.

Objects

Object recolours require CEP, the Color Enable Package. Some skins recolour more than one item; this should be noted where applicable.

Object Recolours

Other

Sim packages

it's a conspiracy

My sweetie brought home a cold this weekend, and I got it... BAD. I spent most of yesterday asleep, and a large chunk of today... and I'm feeling totally fluff-brained and really, really out of it. So, um... apparently life is trying to make it so I never actually play the Sims again, or something. I don't know.

Weekend was a bust, of course

My sweetie was ill and we never did get around to doing Final Fantasy stuff, so I really didn't accomplish anything, except for redoing my custom eyes and trying 4 or 5 times to make a new version of SimMe. I'm still not 100% satisfied with the eyes I made for SimMe, actually, but I'm done playing with them, I'll deal. And the new SimMe is actually an old SimMe edited slightly (I had an old file) and done in the thin version, cuz, well, it's a fantasy game, I can be thin. :D I'll be uploading that when I upload other stuff.

Oh, I did a few other miscellaneous things, like discovering the 'shag' version of the carpet isn't looking right, so I'll leave it out. I also, surprisingly, made some makeup -- actually, just a couple extra eyeliners (including a couple Maxis things normally found in eyeshadow), a few eyeshadows, and a few face makeup recolours, the latter of which is actually for Twilight Dreams.

Today, I finished loading the painted walls and the regular tile walls. I just finished editing the mult-colour tile walls because there was a grout flaw in them, and I'll load those in (a lot fewer even with multiple versions of the half-tile, half-paint ones) along with the 20 or so aluminum sidings I have tomorrow. I also started recreating the non-shag carpet, redid one of the recurring characters for Tasogare Yume because I wanted to tweak him, and made him some custom clothing recolours.

I may finish up the carpet tonight, or go back to working on bedspreads. Not sure. Also trying to decide what else from the object-recolouring directory I want done before I start, and there's some made stuff that needs loaded into the game, too. I think I'll be able to finish the floors and walls and make a serious dent in that stuff tomorrow, unless I decide I'd rather do clothes tomorrow.

grrrrr

Okay, I am going to hunt down whomever at Maxis decided how to map bedding textures to objects, and STAB THEM WITH A RUSTY FORK.

So, I made 27 custom bedspreads, and had to throw away all but 4 because it turns out that the texture mapping on the single bed side uses the right third or so of the double bed side. What kind of crack were they smoking???

(The four I kept were recolours of one of the flowered bedspreads, so it wasn't an issue.)

So, I'm currently working on trying to make sure I've got the right saved selection for the duplicating part, so I can try to match up patterns... and in the meantime, I am going to be doing simple recolours of the textured creamy bedspread just to give myself some variety. I had some before but because of the way I separated things out there was a line down the middle of the single bed so I'm doing something a little simpler (I'd tried to take the top folded-over part and make it a separate colour but it was funking up things, so I'm leaving it the same colour as the main part.)

Needless to say, this turned out to eat up most of the time I was planning on putting into CC today. However I did get some other random things loaded (curtains and painting/poster recolours, the latter of which had two I might need to redo because of the way they are mapped).

Our plans this weekend are to spend some time (re)playing Final Fantasy 7 so I might load walls during battles since my sweetie will be the one with the controller. Also I figured out a new way to do the carpet that pleases me better though I want to do test loads of both styles to make sure it looks right, but if it does, I'll be able to recreate the carpet and add a new style (short and shag, essentially) pretty quickly -- yay for Photoshop Actions.

Progress to Date and other Custom Content Natter

As of this moment, I have loaded 715 wall files into HomeCrafter. So far since about 2:30 (Eastern) today, 220 files with the absolute longest names I've had yet, so with the renames of the files, I've typed more than enough to make a NaNo quota if I were participating, which I mention just for the fun comparison.

There are about 200 wall files left to do, but right now my fingers feel like they're going to fall off, so I'm taking a break. And then there's floors, but I need to take another look at the carpet as I'm not fully satisfied with it.

At this point every time I predict a date I end up getting sick or something else interferes with things, so I'm not going to predict a SOLID date, but I'm hoping that this means that all the custom content I really want in before I play (and that means the first round of clothes and object recolours and the rest of the stuff for Twilight Dreams, too) will be done by the end of next (not this coming, the one after) weekend, just in time for my birthday. :D Which means you should see Twilight Dreams releases by December, hopefully.

I also plan on making other stuff later, but that I'm going to work on more slowly: object recolours of stuff I think "too bad this doesn't come in x" as I play the game, more complex clothing recolours (and other age groups), some additional Homecrafter stuff (mainly some wallpaper and patterned paint that I like and want to bring in line with my main 12-20 colours, but I might do a few other things), etc.

Also, I'm going to upload stuff to box.net (I have an account associated with this gmail address) and I need to decide if I want to break it down by group of colour or by category (e.g., plain paint, paint with white wood kick, paint with dark wood crown and kick, etc.). It's by category right now, but for the collections I'm splitting into colour group as well as category, so I might package it up that way for box.net as well. I'm debating about uploading it to MTS... I suspect they don't really need a whole new batch of simple wall recolours, though, so I think I might not bother with this basic stuff.

Also, while I'm on the topic of custom content, I downloaded a bunch of makeup since it's one of those things I don't like working on, and also a bit more hair. So, see, I'm only horribly anal about some things. Makeup and hair, I'll take from other people. ^_^

I also now have a whopping THREE clothing meshes in the game, two of which are directly for use in Twilight Dreams, one of which I already recoloured (the other one's probably staying 'as is'). The third is HP's Comfy Sleepwear, which I'm a little unhappy shows up as casual everyday as well as sleep/workout clothes, but I'll live with it. I've also done one recolour of THAT, because my protagonist needed scary, scary pajamas.

Okay, now my fingers really are going to fall off, so no more til I've got more to report.

bleah

Last week, there were cramps, and then there were distractions, and then this weekend there was feeling lousy, and then there was the insomnia, and today I ended up sleeping during the day. I was going to tackle some stuff today but the way I'm feeling right now it seems unlikely, so I'll start back in tomorrow, though I might do a few more object recolours (I did a few random things last week too).