Still no sign of land. How long is it?

I didn't really do any editing for TD over the weekend like I thought, although I did get some more S&S college played. Some folks are graduated. Some have a bit longer to go. Should be able to do it fairly quickly next time I load up the game.

Skipped Simming yesterday because I felt a little burned out on the concept of college, and because, honestly, I've been dithering about something in the script for TD#5. It's a scene that would be much easier to convey in a real anime, where I could have sound effects and stuff, and I'm worried it's going to come out a bit confusing. I might throw in some description about it to help. Also, I just edited the pics and text for the the first scene and ended up almost completely rewriting the narration in it, hopefully to better effect than what was in the script.

I also tweaked a couple of the standard slides. The title screen didn't look right to me so I redesigned it with the flow from logo to title in mind; the preview page frame got a layer effect to make the frame stand out better; the pre- and post-commercial shots had their colours tweaked. There's going to be a second set of those in the second half but I'm keeping these for now. Also I already put together the commercial, and actually am pretty pleased with it. I think the legacy writer in question will like it, but I'm never sure.

The next two scenes have some heavy graphics editing to do so I'm taking a break, but I am going to try to get some more done today. I don't know if I'll finish, though if not I think I will tomorrow.

glitches and other things

Today is apparently the day for weird friggin' glitches.

This week...

...I intend on getting Twilight Dreams #5 done. I've got a complete shot list and just took a last look at the script. Then I took a look at 6 through 9 (yeah, I got 9 done), and did about half of 10. I know what goes in the other half, I just need to break it down into shots and dialogue/voiceover. So today or tomorrow I'll work on shooting the shots.

bleah

I'm not going to bore you with the details of why I've not posted anything, blog or otherwise, except to mention "8 days of migraine symptoms", and now I'm done.

State of the Simming

Okay, I actually have been doing stuff, albeit still slowly.

Dr. Horrible Lives, and So do I

Okay, first, the non-Simmy stuff: they put Dr. Horrible back up as a hulu stream, which I found out about yesterday, so I've now gotten to see the whole thing. I think I'm kinda a little in love with Neil Patrick Harris. Not quite "OMG I want to make babies" with him—though granted I don't want kids anyhow and besides, he's, y'know, gay—but definitely I'd love to see him do more stuff like this. Also, I hunted around for news about whether or not they were doing a soundtrack (they are) because I absolutely need a copy of "Brand New Day" (or whatever they end up calling it) so I can listen to it 138904832 times in a row nao plz. As it is, I rewound the video half a dozen times to listen to it. Also I tried to take some screencaps though they kept ending up blurry, so I guess doing any icons out of it will have to wait til I own an actual copy, which will happen. Cuz, $6 at iTunes? I think I can squeeze $6 into our budget in the near future.

molasses

Pictures are sorted and split, one set for the chapter I'm working on and the rest thrown into a folder for a second chapter later.

I really need to go comment on some recent releases, aside from the brief comments a couple people got on LJ posts... maybe not today, but I am reading even if you aren't seeing comments...

The molasses? That's my brain.

More later, I hope.

no, not dead

And all the Gen B kids are finally in college. I just had another of those easily-distracted weeks, and this weekend is just gonna be worse because the Gub'mint Stimulus Check came and we're getting new games with part of it.

I will work on sorting pics and writing as quickly as I can, though don't expect to see an S&S update until after the weekend, and TD probably... end of next week, maybe? I'm not making any promises. But I'm trying to make a schedule for rotating through games so this stops happening.

I seem to have fixed my hair binning issues. I think. I do tend to bin hairs unless they're advertised as binned, plus I have some rules for what bin things go in (a lot of things people call brown I think of as dark blonde, and if I genuinely can't decide if something is red or brown I throw it in custom, for instance). Anyhow the problem seemed to be putting white hairs in custom even tho I marked the elder as elder. I changed it so all white is now just elder and if I really want white hair on a younger person I'll export and import it.

I'm still not sure who is going to be heir. Without giving anything away, I can at least give you a taste of my dilemma. One kid I might want because they're the only one not a certain Aspiration and the only one with Akio's eye colour is also the best looking. One of the others rolled bi, which isn't necessarily a reason to not use them but does mean that if the person they end up liking best is of their own gender I probably would want to skip them. More than likely I'll post some pics and stats after the chapter is out (on LJ only for the cut tag) and see if anyone has an opinion, though I'm not going to hold a real vote, just solicit some feedback.

Have a good weekend. I'll be adventuring in the north and building galactic empires, so I'm sure I will. ^_^

oh hai, i'm going to bed now

Was up Very Late last night, then didn't get enough sleep. Then I napped in the afternoon and woke up to a BSOD. However despite that nothing seems to be wrong with my computer. As opposed to my guy's computer, which suffered RAID issues earlier.

Anyhow, I've made it through a few rounds of Saints and Sinners households. There are 6 kids (in three households) and one on the way. Five of six are male. The game obviously was not interested in making me cute little girls. Or something. The one girl hasn't toddlerized yet so I have no idea what she will look like.

I also got my kitty and puppy breeders set up. Kitty breeder's first kittens are on the way. Puppy breeder hasn't bred yet, but I quit out so I could eat and then go play Guild Wars, and I think next time I load the house the dogs are friendly enough to have them go mate.

Pics of the breeders' cats and dogs will probably be bonus slides for next chapter.

Tomorrow I may not Sim. I've got other stuff I want to catch up on. Also, I need to make like a gallon of fresh salsa, because I can. This requires a lot of cutting of things and will take a while. However, even if I skip the day for Sims purposes (or just go noodle around with the pet breeders) I still probably will have an S&S update fairly soon.

Now I go eat cookies and go to sleep.

Twilight Dreams and Misc.

Episode 3 of Twilight Dreams is ready (click):



Also crossed off my to-do list were two more buildings for S&S, leaving two. I may just wait to make them since neither of them is likely to be used much for a while, and I want to play, darn it.

I also fixed a couple people's last names/household names (I wanted to hyphenate for Adrian, and Abby's household name was not her married name), and took a backup of both 'hoods since I did some minor building in TD too.

Over the weekend I might play S&S but I also notice a bunch of people updated recently so I want to read and maybe comment. :)

So far today...

I'm probably still going to do a bit more Simming tonight, but even if I don't, I got a fair amount done.

Twilight Dreams - All shots are done. I do have a lot of editing this time around (you'll see why), but I think despite that I might have Episode 3 out tomorrow night. If not, sometime over the weekend... I have to be a bit more vague there because weekend Simming time is erratic.

On the topic of TD, episodes 3 and 4 are really closely linked in a way but I have a video to go with #4, so it's likely to be a while, though hopefully nowhere near as long as the gap between the #2 and #3. ^_^ In a worst case, I might release the video a little after the episode, though, depending on how long it takes. There's also going to be another little extra, again either with or soon after the episode. By the end of Episode 4, you should all have a much better idea of what's going on in the series as a whole, too...

Saints and Sinners - Only one more building built, but I also laid down the rest of the lots and some decoration. Of the remaining four buildings, I expect two to be quick to build and two to take a while... but none of them are as complex as the new Garden in the City. Which, btw, I'm probably going to upload to box.net, as soon as I figure out what to do about CC. I suppose I could bin the lot, duplicate it over in my test 'hood, and replace the CC with Maxis-issue decor... dunno, yet.

Incidentally, I'm sitting on 230 pictures for S&S already, though admittedly a lot of that is excess toddler stuff. But I probably could put together an update out of what I already have, so the next one shouldn't take long to do overall.

Some Progress is Better than None

Yesterday was a deliberate Sims-free day. I had other stuff I needed to do. Doing it caused me some backache, though, so I've been a little slow today because I'm finding sitting up a long time a little uncomfortable. Still, I've made some progress.

For Twilight Dreams, I made a revised shot list, double-checked the script while I was at it, and marked off the shots I already had.

For Saints & Sinners, I've now built 3 of the 8 things on my list for downtown, including a revised Garden in the City (my Hanging Gardens inspired lot). I actually did have the original despite the HD crash because it was still available on the Sims' site, but I decided to take advantage of a few of the additional things available in BV and rebuild... also I built it a bit larger, a bit more accessible (the outbuilding and the second floor are visitable in this version), and with a large space for the inevitable water-balloon fighting and whatnot that Sims insist on doing. Also I threw in a bar for a small hunger boost as well as the original coffee thing. Of course, there's only two bathrooms now, heh. I may go take a look at the layout and see if I can fit in at least one more somewhere, but I doubt it.

Anyhow, here's what I have of downtown so far (clickable):



Aside from the Gardens, there's the Winter Park and an art gallery. The unbuilt lot you can see is going to be a restaurant.

Progress and April+Early May Plans

There will be a Saints & Sinners update this week. I'm almost done with college (Abby's graduated and moved into her new house, Aaron's most of the way through his last semester, Adrian's got a year to go). I may want to play ahead a bit before tackling the actual update, so I have a head start on the next one. I think I'll be playing regularly again now... the anniversaries of suck are past, and my distractions, while still distracting, are less so lately. So, you might even get two in short order.

I've got Twilight Dreams exactly half scripted, and of the remaining half, half are planned out. (The whole storyline is technically planned out, but the third quarter of the plotline is detailed and separated episodically more-or-less, but the final quarter is not.)

To do list for the rest of the month and into the end of next week:

* Get the college chapter out for S&S.
* Play ahead a bit, so I can try to have another update out soonish.
* Build at least half of the planned downtown lots and the two remaining planned main 'hood lots.
* Come up with names for the lots. Right now they're all "General Store", "Club", etc. Boring.
* Populate downtown with a small batch of townies.
* Figure out what's left to do for E3 of Twilight Dreams. I actually have a shots list, I'm just not sure what shots I already have.
* Put together E3.
* Start shooting E4 and maybe video for the Next Video.
* Try to get another script or two done for Twilight Dreams. This isn't vital, but I'd like to do it.

I've actually got a small list of stuff post that, but it's stuff that I don't think I will get to by then. I think if I play at least some every (week)day I can get this all done, but we'll see if I actually do play every day.

Yeah, I think I'll play me some University

Since it's the end of the week anyhow I think I'll stick to Saints and Sinners for today and get some quality Generation A college time in. I can put together the next Twilight Dreams next week.

I have plenty of free time[1] since I'm not working and all[2] so it's not like a day or two is really going to matter, and this early into a legacy everything goes by really quickly. Once I have multiple families going it'll slow down anyhow and I won't have the "but I've already gotten so far!" feeling as often, too.

So there will likely be another Saints and Sinners update next week, and hopefully Episode 3 of Twilight Dreams as well, probably late in the week.

[1] But not Free Time. Since I'm not getting it. Yes, the hobby thing could be interesting and yeah, I'll probably look at other folks' use of it and think of ways I could use it, but, well, I think I'm going to avoid adding the complexity to my legacy and avoid giving EA any money right now.[3]

[2] Yeah, I have nothing better to do than to sit around and play Sims all day. Well, that's not true, there are other things I should or can do (and I do them), but until I can get my health problems under control, working isn't going to be one of them.

[3] I suspect at some point I'm going to have to give in about putting Securom on my computer and/or rewarding EA for releasing bug-filled games, but now is not when that will happen; so far I remain resolute.