Busy Busy Saturday
Feb. 8th, 2025 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickLot to do today on the old interwebs and in the old vidya games -- but, happily, I did indeed get it all done:
Sims 4: Moving this to the top spot on the Day Off list today because I actually did most of my playing today BEFORE lunch! You know, in the service of getting the house and all the pics ready for drafting out the Polyheart OT3 House Post over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) this afternoon. And I’m pleased to say I had a very good, very productive day over in the old building save:
A) Started, of course, with adding all the final finishing touches to the house – which, uh, took a bit longer than anticipated, because, well – this is me we’re talking about. I couldn’t stop myself from fiddling more than I’d planned to. XD But I got everything sorted that I wanted to get sorted and then some – here, let me take you through it room by room:
I. Alice’s Room – I wasn’t actually planning to do much of anything in Alice’s room – but when I went looking around for stuff to do in the house, I happened to notice that the nice cushy Lovestruck rug I’d put under her new sitting area was actually sticking out through the wall and into the bedroom a little bit. ^^; The dangers of placing stuff with “bb.moveobjects on…” Anyway, I got that fixed – then noticed the Cottage Living bunny statue on the side table was more “cream” than “white” and recolored it to a proper white swatch. And then I thought “I’m not crazy about those white rabbit decals on the wall by the tripod there – where else can I put them?” and started fiddling around with those – ended up sizing them down one so I could stick them under the window by the chess table. Then I was like “she needs more stuff on her walls – how about I get another copy of that High School Years ‘Free Association Collage’ wall art (the one that features all the painted records) and see if there’s any – ooh, a swatch of black and white photos! I should totally use those...huh, wonder if there’s any more ‘photos’-based wall art I can use in here? Let me use the text search and see what comes up –
“THE MOSCHINO STUFF PHOTO EQUIPMENT SHELF, HOW CAN I NOT USE THAT?!” XD So yeah, I ended up fiddling around with that for a while, and – with the help of old MOO – got it mounted on the bit of curved wall next to the green wall “backdrop” I set up the other day, complete with a spare nice base game camera and a red tissue box (intended to be cloths for cleaning lenses) atop it. The abstract painting that was previously there (which I think came with Dine Out, but don’t quote me on that) got moved to the bit of curved wall next to Alice’s desk (maybe the shelf could have gone here, but I liked Alice having all her photography stuff in one specific corner), and that HSY photo collage that prompted the whole thing got hung up on the wall next to the tripod. It felt right to have it there! :) Oh, and I put a photo subject mark on the grassy rock rug in front of the “backdrop” to make everything feel that much more professional. :p Always helps the subjects to know where to stand! Final addition to the room was to stick the Discover University red circle rug, sized down slightly, under the chess table so it would be a little comfier to sit there. *nods* So now Alice’s room is truly complete! :) Very glad I stumbled across that Moschino shelf, honestly – I really think it adds something to the place!
II. Big Bathroom – In my quest to replace the rug under the towels, I ended up replacing the one under the bathtub itself, with a fancy Get Famous swirly rug that came as a “corner piece” – it fit perfectly in the corner under the tub (with a little help from MOO) and looked a lot better than the old round spot I had there before. As for the rug under the towels, after going through all my options multiple times, I eventually went for the Lovestruck cushy rug in the brighter red swatch, sized way down, as it looked the best out of everything. And then I stuck a second copy in front of the toilet so they’d all have a cozy place to flex their toes while having a poo. XD Look, it felt right!
III. Hallways – Again, I wasn’t actually intending to do anything in the hallways, but when I looked at them today, I was like “...these things need runners, don’t they.” So I spent an absurd amount of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do for runners, as I wanted all three of the Key Colors (red, blue, and yellow) represented, but none of the rugs I was looking at seemed to properly fit the job –
And then, near the end of the session, my brain smacked me upside the head and went “one Vampires runner in the red-and-yellow swatch down the left-hand hallway, one in the blue-and-yellow swatch down the right-hand hallway.” *shakehead* Little embarrassing it took me that long to figure it out...but yeah, I got there in the end! I also added some extra decorations – namely, in the left-hand hall, I ended up adding a yellow laundry basket with folded red and blue clothes that I found while looking for yellow stuff to put in Smiler’s room by the washer/dryer stack, and swapping the single bottle of detergent that comes with Laundry Day with the bigger fancier “bottle of detergent and box of powder” set that comes with Get Famous (it’s for one of the commercials you can do as an actor) atop the dryer; and in the right-hand hall, I hung up the Parenthood family bulletin board in the black board and dark wood frame swatch! Mostly because I found a different family noteboard (I forget which pack it came with) and tried to hang it up there, only to realize the little shelf for the whiteboard markers stuck out too far in the narrow hall. XD The Parenthood one still fits and works just fine!
IV. Smiler’s Room – The room that got the most love today, I ended up fiddling around with this a LOT before I was truly happy with what I’d wrought. You may remember that I really wanted to add some other activity to Smiler’s room to fill in the final blank corner? Well, after trying both the smaller karaoke machine and the smallest one-tile bar I could find, I decided both were too big –
But while I was looking through the “creative” section under the “Activities & Skills” category – I happened to spot the microphones. Talk about an obvious answer to all my problems – those explicitly give you singing skill, AND with one of those Smiler could do comedy too! So, now in Smiler’s room, we have –
a. A fancy base game gold-and black microphone facing out from the left-hand corner of the room by the door, with two City Living fancy shiny drapes in gold and purple on the walls behind it (MOOed perfectly into place, of course)
b. Their fancy desk and computer in the right-hand corner of the room by the door, with a pile of Discover University books (in purple and yellow, natch) and the Lin-Z smart speaker in black and gold MOOed into place on either side of their fancy curved widescreen monitor (because if I didn’t properly slide them around, they’d clip through the edges of said monitor – I also moved the pen holder up onto the little higher “bar” of the desk and MOOed THAT into the perfect position too) – I also put the fancy geometric “subway” rug (forget what pack it’s from, I THINK Get Famous?) under the desk, as it fit the “techy” theme of that spot
c. Their chemistry station in the right-hand corner next to the desk, away from the door, with the “Decaf Underfoot” Get Together rug under it where a Sim would stand (as I believe it’s meant to be rubbery and thus would be perfect for chemical spills) – I also had to move their “fume-dispersing” range hood down a little, as I realized upon checking the top of the build that it was sticking through the roof. XD Whoops!
d. Their Lovestruck guitar, with the Island Living “Laughing Man” wooden wall decoration and a dripping purple Lovestruck neon heart in the final corner, next to the wall fan (which ALSO had to be lowered as it was sticking through the ceiling).
e. And in the middle of the room, I sized their Moschino yellow-and-black stripey rug back up and stuck THAT under their yoga mat, as it looked better there than the “subway” rug did (and provided a soft place for Smiler to stand while playing guitar/singing at the larger size) and put a decorative pile of clothes near the end of the yoga mat to represent the fact that I have Smiler as a bit of a slob who tends to leave their clothes lying around (drives Alice and Victor slightly nuts sometimes). So yeah – now their room is properly finished too, yay!
B) Now, all of that above took me all the time I had before lunch, so I didn’t have any time to take pictures. So I saved, closed, went and had my bowl of ham-and-bean soup with nice bread, then returned to the game once I’d finished eating and all the dishes were done and whatnot to get the shots I wanted. I started with some pretty standard shots from the standard angles you get in Sims 4 Build/Buy mode, doing walls up and walls down – but I really wanted to get into the build and show it off properly. And for that, I really thought I needed the “free camera” mode. So I enabled that and tried to figure out how it worked. I quickly learned that you moved around via the pretty standard “WASD” combination, and that you could raise and lower the camera with E and Q respectively –
But, to my deep annoyance, I could not figure out how to rotate the camera. So I went to Firefox Focus on my phone and started searching. I tried a couple of sites, but none of them had the “this is how you rotate the camera” tip I actually needed –
And then. I came across the YouTube video “how to use the Sims 4 free camera in live or build mode #sims4” by sahm and bean. Who specified that you have to CLICK THE MOUSE so your cursor goes away, and THEN you can move the camera around however you want. Yes, a simple thing, but I didn’t KNOW. So I gave that a whirl –
And holy fuck guys Free Cam Mode is so cool. Like, I’ve always wondered how James did Sims-eye-view tours of his builds, and now I know, and it is awesome. :D It’s just – I could get right up close and personal with my own build! I could see it roughly how my Sims would see it! I –
Could finally understand why people paint the ceilings in their build, because yeah, that plain white plaster IS a little dull, huh? XD I resisted the urge to do more fiddling, though, and instead contented myself with taking a BUNCH of pictures, both in “free cam” and normal modes. I definitely had my PICK for the post draft!
C) And then we came to the one disappointing bit of today’s Sims 4 session – me trying once again to find some CC that I could use to make Smiler’s eyes the proper shade of glowing yellow again. I thought I’d found a winner with the “Dazzling Light” eye collection made by Pralinesims on Patreon, as they were Maxis-match and included a version of the occult eyes as facepaints so anyone could use them –
But, well, not only does the facepaint version of the eyes not glow (which I suppose isn’t surprising, as they’re makeup, not real eyes), when I checked their version of the yellow vampire eyes against the Maxis version, I realized THEY’RE THE WRONG COLOR. Pralinesims had softened the yellow in their version, which, uh, no. Smiler’s supposed to have the BRIGHT yellow eyes from the actual game. *sigh* Ah well, I tried. Next step is to download the Valicer trio from the building save into my Library, and from there maybe turn that Smiler back into a vampire so I can put on the actual Vampires eyes that I used originally. We’ll see if they stick on their face or not while they’re still an occult– the unlocked versions I tried from another creator before sure as hell didn’t!
Tumblr: Busiest place on the web today for me, that’s for sure –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Made some good progress over here on my stuff, I am pleased to report:
A) After writing up the above summary of my time in Sims 4 today (and doing my best to keep up on my dash), I then headed into the Drafts on here and wrote up two posts about the completed (mostly – as I noted, I never actually did the landscaping, so maybe I’ll take a crack at that later) Polyheart OT3 House! One showing off the house at all the normal camera angles, and one showing off my “tour” pictures taken with the Free Cam. :) And yes, splitting it up like that WAS necessary, if only because I ended up with 37 pictures total across the two posts (13 in the first one, 24 in the second). XD I’ve gotten the main text and the tags done on both – tomorrow, I will tackle the mildly-terrifying project of alt-texting all the images. (Just remember, Vic, the people who use that feature don’t actually WANT you to go into THAT much detail…)
B) Then, tonight, I reblogged a post shared with me by my tumblr friend WeirdKev: one about trans and non-binary Girl Scouts you can order cookies from online! Which seemed nice, and a good thing to spread the word about, especially given the Trash Fire currently burning down trans rights in office. *sigh*
C) And finally, after that, I made a post of my own – revealing that Chapter Two of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” is up! :D I’m – not sure if anyone has seen it, as I posted it at 9:30 PM and activity has been kind of dead on my dash, but it’s out there, and I’ll reblog it at a more reasonable hour tomorrow. *shrug*
Valice Multiverse – Just the one anon ask over here, talking about the history of the movie “Nosferatu” – how it started life as the result of a German guy wanting to adapt Dracula, being unable to get the rights, and doing his movie anyway with all the names changed and a few key details changed (like the “Mina” dying at the end); how Stoker’s widow sued and was like “I want every copy of that movie destroyed;” and how the movie somehow managed to survive anyway in a few bootleg prints, leading to that famous moment where the titular character appears in an episode of Spongebob Squarepants. Yes, really. XD High School!Alice replied that it was a very odd history of a movie, and she really wanted to know what Nosferatu was doing in Spongebob, with Smiler suggesting the creators were just fans of the movie and found it amusing. I mean, seems logical to me! XD
Writing: As indicated in the “Tumblr” section above, I spent my evening getting the second chapter of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” cleaned up and posted! :D Which went MOSTLY smoothly, though I did accidentally close out the tab where I was using fanfiction.net’s Doc Manager to do the final editing pass on the chapter right near the end (since it’s easier for me to do it there and then copy-paste the edited text into AO3’s text editor). *sigh* Fortunately I always make sure to mirror my edits in the document itself, so I just had to reupload the chapter and pick up from where I left off. And given it was a very short chapter, that was not very painful at all. But yeah, now that’s out in the world, and I can move onto Chapter 3 – aka the chapter where they actually murder Bumby. Ehehehe >D
YouTube: Well, I got to this MUCH later than I wanted, thanks to everything above, but I did get to it, and I did watch both videos that I wanted to watch today, plus a tiny bonus (beyond the video I mentioned above, that taught me how to use “Free Cam” in Sims 4) –
A) The end of my workout video from Thursday and Friday – “I'm trying Rags to Riches in The Sims 2,” by James Turner! And it was a bit of a tragic ending for poor Semaj, I’m sad to say. This is what happened –
I. After waiting around for ages, occasionally pestering customers looking at the car, Semaj finally got a Silver Sales badge and was able to pester one of the customers into buying it! ...said customer then couldn’t actually get to the register because of the “ghost” of the car blocking his path (basically the game was acting like the whole car was still in the way despite there only being a restock sign there on the driveway in Live mode) and got pulled into a water balloon fight (in the middle of WINTER, mind), making James worried he was going to run away and steal the car. XD Fortunately James was able to figure out the problem of the “ghost” car, get it out of the way, and complete the sale, getting a nice $7K from it. Hooray!
II. He then decided that, as much as he wanted to eventually set up his own dealership (testing out a lot in the world to see how much space he would need – lots, basically), he really needed to sell more, smaller stuff if he wanted to properly grow his business, turn a profit, and eventually buy the community lot that would become his car lot. So James repurposed the carport into a little makeshift shop with the money he earned from the car sale, and stocked it with, amusingly, RC cars and helicopters (plus one console for gaming). This store worked a LOT better than him just selling rotting sandwiches, figurines, and super-expensive cars in his driveway, and he got his first rank-up after a day of heavy sales, choosing the perk that reduces his wholesale prices and makes restocking cheaper as the most logical. Though for some reason Semaj still didn’t get any badges for being a cashier despite all the sales. That badge takes AGES to earn, it seems.
III. While all this was going on, he also kept going to work in the Business career, trying to earn more cash to pour into his business – and despite constantly picking the wrong thing for the chance cards, he managed to get promoted a few times, getting all the way up to Junior Executive! With a nice bonus thanks to that aspiration perk that gives him extra money in every paycheck. So everything was coming up Semaj, right?
IV. Well, the problem was, despite doing so well, Semaj had never gotten a chance to get off his lot and have some fun. So James, wanting to explore, sent him out to the local arcade in Veronaville to play some pinball and meet some people (he needed to make a friend to get promoted anyway). He then got curious/concerned about what happened if Semaj was at the community lot when the carpool rolled around (I think the game just ignores that because you’re off-lot) and tried to have Semaj go back home –
Only for the game to freeze. And when James restarted – he discovered Semaj’s house was for sale. And that Semaj was nowhere to be seen in the Family Bin. And when he loaded in, some people named the Larsons were suddenly living there (though I’m not convinced he didn’t accidentally move them in while trying to enter the lot, as he did so after clicking around in the Family Bin). So basically, thanks to the game freezing mid-lot-load, Semaj got banished to the ether, and James’s grand plans all ground to a halt. I was wondering why I kept seeing a video in my Recommendeds from James called “The Sims 2 Rags To Riches – Part 1!” I thought he’d just misnamed the video, but nope – that’s his restart. Hopefully with a better knowledge of the quirks and glitches of this rerelease. *sigh* Good luck with the next attempt, James – we’re all rooting for you!
B) The latest from GrayStillPlays in my Subs – “Which waterslide launches you the farthest in GTA 5?” A relatively short video covering questions like “at what angle does a waterslide launch you the farthest?” (the 60 degree angle, apparently); “can you get down a waterslide that is made of ‘sandpaper,’ aka a material that stops you from sliding?” (yes, if you get a big enough jump); “does ragdolling help you launch yourself down a waterslide further?” (yup, makes a surprisingly big difference in fact); “can you use this yeeter to yeet yourself up the slide and land in the coffee cup hidden in the rocks below” (yes, though the more impressive bit was when Gray ALMOST yeeted himself off the slide and ended up STANDING ON THE LIP for a second – that is not an easy thing to manage!); and “can you launch yourself between these slides suspended in the air and make it to the end?” (yes, but it took quite a few tries). So now all of our questions about GTA V waterslides should be answered, yay~ Nice to see a simpler one for a change – especially one that makes me think of summer. Oh, it feels so far away…
C) And a surprise 22-second clip from C. M. Alongi in my Recommendeds – “CaFae Legends Teaser Trailer!” A little animation teasing her new series, where she talks about the history behind the myths, legends, folkore, and creatures featured in her CaFae Latte series! Sounds like it’ll be interesting – though I still have a lot of CaFae Latte to catch up on first. XD
Whew -- as I said, lot to get through! But I'm glad I did. :) And now it's time to wrap things up tonight and head to bed. Goals for tomorrow include wrapping up my drafts for the upcoming Valicertine's Week as much as possible; playing Fallout 4 and starting "The Big Dig" with Bobbi; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; getting in a workout; and keeping up with the Sunday Two of Gray and Jon. Should all be doable, I hope -- night all!
Sims 4: Moving this to the top spot on the Day Off list today because I actually did most of my playing today BEFORE lunch! You know, in the service of getting the house and all the pics ready for drafting out the Polyheart OT3 House Post over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) this afternoon. And I’m pleased to say I had a very good, very productive day over in the old building save:
A) Started, of course, with adding all the final finishing touches to the house – which, uh, took a bit longer than anticipated, because, well – this is me we’re talking about. I couldn’t stop myself from fiddling more than I’d planned to. XD But I got everything sorted that I wanted to get sorted and then some – here, let me take you through it room by room:
I. Alice’s Room – I wasn’t actually planning to do much of anything in Alice’s room – but when I went looking around for stuff to do in the house, I happened to notice that the nice cushy Lovestruck rug I’d put under her new sitting area was actually sticking out through the wall and into the bedroom a little bit. ^^; The dangers of placing stuff with “bb.moveobjects on…” Anyway, I got that fixed – then noticed the Cottage Living bunny statue on the side table was more “cream” than “white” and recolored it to a proper white swatch. And then I thought “I’m not crazy about those white rabbit decals on the wall by the tripod there – where else can I put them?” and started fiddling around with those – ended up sizing them down one so I could stick them under the window by the chess table. Then I was like “she needs more stuff on her walls – how about I get another copy of that High School Years ‘Free Association Collage’ wall art (the one that features all the painted records) and see if there’s any – ooh, a swatch of black and white photos! I should totally use those...huh, wonder if there’s any more ‘photos’-based wall art I can use in here? Let me use the text search and see what comes up –
“THE MOSCHINO STUFF PHOTO EQUIPMENT SHELF, HOW CAN I NOT USE THAT?!” XD So yeah, I ended up fiddling around with that for a while, and – with the help of old MOO – got it mounted on the bit of curved wall next to the green wall “backdrop” I set up the other day, complete with a spare nice base game camera and a red tissue box (intended to be cloths for cleaning lenses) atop it. The abstract painting that was previously there (which I think came with Dine Out, but don’t quote me on that) got moved to the bit of curved wall next to Alice’s desk (maybe the shelf could have gone here, but I liked Alice having all her photography stuff in one specific corner), and that HSY photo collage that prompted the whole thing got hung up on the wall next to the tripod. It felt right to have it there! :) Oh, and I put a photo subject mark on the grassy rock rug in front of the “backdrop” to make everything feel that much more professional. :p Always helps the subjects to know where to stand! Final addition to the room was to stick the Discover University red circle rug, sized down slightly, under the chess table so it would be a little comfier to sit there. *nods* So now Alice’s room is truly complete! :) Very glad I stumbled across that Moschino shelf, honestly – I really think it adds something to the place!
II. Big Bathroom – In my quest to replace the rug under the towels, I ended up replacing the one under the bathtub itself, with a fancy Get Famous swirly rug that came as a “corner piece” – it fit perfectly in the corner under the tub (with a little help from MOO) and looked a lot better than the old round spot I had there before. As for the rug under the towels, after going through all my options multiple times, I eventually went for the Lovestruck cushy rug in the brighter red swatch, sized way down, as it looked the best out of everything. And then I stuck a second copy in front of the toilet so they’d all have a cozy place to flex their toes while having a poo. XD Look, it felt right!
III. Hallways – Again, I wasn’t actually intending to do anything in the hallways, but when I looked at them today, I was like “...these things need runners, don’t they.” So I spent an absurd amount of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do for runners, as I wanted all three of the Key Colors (red, blue, and yellow) represented, but none of the rugs I was looking at seemed to properly fit the job –
And then, near the end of the session, my brain smacked me upside the head and went “one Vampires runner in the red-and-yellow swatch down the left-hand hallway, one in the blue-and-yellow swatch down the right-hand hallway.” *shakehead* Little embarrassing it took me that long to figure it out...but yeah, I got there in the end! I also added some extra decorations – namely, in the left-hand hall, I ended up adding a yellow laundry basket with folded red and blue clothes that I found while looking for yellow stuff to put in Smiler’s room by the washer/dryer stack, and swapping the single bottle of detergent that comes with Laundry Day with the bigger fancier “bottle of detergent and box of powder” set that comes with Get Famous (it’s for one of the commercials you can do as an actor) atop the dryer; and in the right-hand hall, I hung up the Parenthood family bulletin board in the black board and dark wood frame swatch! Mostly because I found a different family noteboard (I forget which pack it came with) and tried to hang it up there, only to realize the little shelf for the whiteboard markers stuck out too far in the narrow hall. XD The Parenthood one still fits and works just fine!
IV. Smiler’s Room – The room that got the most love today, I ended up fiddling around with this a LOT before I was truly happy with what I’d wrought. You may remember that I really wanted to add some other activity to Smiler’s room to fill in the final blank corner? Well, after trying both the smaller karaoke machine and the smallest one-tile bar I could find, I decided both were too big –
But while I was looking through the “creative” section under the “Activities & Skills” category – I happened to spot the microphones. Talk about an obvious answer to all my problems – those explicitly give you singing skill, AND with one of those Smiler could do comedy too! So, now in Smiler’s room, we have –
a. A fancy base game gold-and black microphone facing out from the left-hand corner of the room by the door, with two City Living fancy shiny drapes in gold and purple on the walls behind it (MOOed perfectly into place, of course)
b. Their fancy desk and computer in the right-hand corner of the room by the door, with a pile of Discover University books (in purple and yellow, natch) and the Lin-Z smart speaker in black and gold MOOed into place on either side of their fancy curved widescreen monitor (because if I didn’t properly slide them around, they’d clip through the edges of said monitor – I also moved the pen holder up onto the little higher “bar” of the desk and MOOed THAT into the perfect position too) – I also put the fancy geometric “subway” rug (forget what pack it’s from, I THINK Get Famous?) under the desk, as it fit the “techy” theme of that spot
c. Their chemistry station in the right-hand corner next to the desk, away from the door, with the “Decaf Underfoot” Get Together rug under it where a Sim would stand (as I believe it’s meant to be rubbery and thus would be perfect for chemical spills) – I also had to move their “fume-dispersing” range hood down a little, as I realized upon checking the top of the build that it was sticking through the roof. XD Whoops!
d. Their Lovestruck guitar, with the Island Living “Laughing Man” wooden wall decoration and a dripping purple Lovestruck neon heart in the final corner, next to the wall fan (which ALSO had to be lowered as it was sticking through the ceiling).
e. And in the middle of the room, I sized their Moschino yellow-and-black stripey rug back up and stuck THAT under their yoga mat, as it looked better there than the “subway” rug did (and provided a soft place for Smiler to stand while playing guitar/singing at the larger size) and put a decorative pile of clothes near the end of the yoga mat to represent the fact that I have Smiler as a bit of a slob who tends to leave their clothes lying around (drives Alice and Victor slightly nuts sometimes). So yeah – now their room is properly finished too, yay!
B) Now, all of that above took me all the time I had before lunch, so I didn’t have any time to take pictures. So I saved, closed, went and had my bowl of ham-and-bean soup with nice bread, then returned to the game once I’d finished eating and all the dishes were done and whatnot to get the shots I wanted. I started with some pretty standard shots from the standard angles you get in Sims 4 Build/Buy mode, doing walls up and walls down – but I really wanted to get into the build and show it off properly. And for that, I really thought I needed the “free camera” mode. So I enabled that and tried to figure out how it worked. I quickly learned that you moved around via the pretty standard “WASD” combination, and that you could raise and lower the camera with E and Q respectively –
But, to my deep annoyance, I could not figure out how to rotate the camera. So I went to Firefox Focus on my phone and started searching. I tried a couple of sites, but none of them had the “this is how you rotate the camera” tip I actually needed –
And then. I came across the YouTube video “how to use the Sims 4 free camera in live or build mode #sims4” by sahm and bean. Who specified that you have to CLICK THE MOUSE so your cursor goes away, and THEN you can move the camera around however you want. Yes, a simple thing, but I didn’t KNOW. So I gave that a whirl –
And holy fuck guys Free Cam Mode is so cool. Like, I’ve always wondered how James did Sims-eye-view tours of his builds, and now I know, and it is awesome. :D It’s just – I could get right up close and personal with my own build! I could see it roughly how my Sims would see it! I –
Could finally understand why people paint the ceilings in their build, because yeah, that plain white plaster IS a little dull, huh? XD I resisted the urge to do more fiddling, though, and instead contented myself with taking a BUNCH of pictures, both in “free cam” and normal modes. I definitely had my PICK for the post draft!
C) And then we came to the one disappointing bit of today’s Sims 4 session – me trying once again to find some CC that I could use to make Smiler’s eyes the proper shade of glowing yellow again. I thought I’d found a winner with the “Dazzling Light” eye collection made by Pralinesims on Patreon, as they were Maxis-match and included a version of the occult eyes as facepaints so anyone could use them –
But, well, not only does the facepaint version of the eyes not glow (which I suppose isn’t surprising, as they’re makeup, not real eyes), when I checked their version of the yellow vampire eyes against the Maxis version, I realized THEY’RE THE WRONG COLOR. Pralinesims had softened the yellow in their version, which, uh, no. Smiler’s supposed to have the BRIGHT yellow eyes from the actual game. *sigh* Ah well, I tried. Next step is to download the Valicer trio from the building save into my Library, and from there maybe turn that Smiler back into a vampire so I can put on the actual Vampires eyes that I used originally. We’ll see if they stick on their face or not while they’re still an occult– the unlocked versions I tried from another creator before sure as hell didn’t!
Tumblr: Busiest place on the web today for me, that’s for sure –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Made some good progress over here on my stuff, I am pleased to report:
A) After writing up the above summary of my time in Sims 4 today (and doing my best to keep up on my dash), I then headed into the Drafts on here and wrote up two posts about the completed (mostly – as I noted, I never actually did the landscaping, so maybe I’ll take a crack at that later) Polyheart OT3 House! One showing off the house at all the normal camera angles, and one showing off my “tour” pictures taken with the Free Cam. :) And yes, splitting it up like that WAS necessary, if only because I ended up with 37 pictures total across the two posts (13 in the first one, 24 in the second). XD I’ve gotten the main text and the tags done on both – tomorrow, I will tackle the mildly-terrifying project of alt-texting all the images. (Just remember, Vic, the people who use that feature don’t actually WANT you to go into THAT much detail…)
B) Then, tonight, I reblogged a post shared with me by my tumblr friend WeirdKev: one about trans and non-binary Girl Scouts you can order cookies from online! Which seemed nice, and a good thing to spread the word about, especially given the Trash Fire currently burning down trans rights in office. *sigh*
C) And finally, after that, I made a post of my own – revealing that Chapter Two of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” is up! :D I’m – not sure if anyone has seen it, as I posted it at 9:30 PM and activity has been kind of dead on my dash, but it’s out there, and I’ll reblog it at a more reasonable hour tomorrow. *shrug*
Valice Multiverse – Just the one anon ask over here, talking about the history of the movie “Nosferatu” – how it started life as the result of a German guy wanting to adapt Dracula, being unable to get the rights, and doing his movie anyway with all the names changed and a few key details changed (like the “Mina” dying at the end); how Stoker’s widow sued and was like “I want every copy of that movie destroyed;” and how the movie somehow managed to survive anyway in a few bootleg prints, leading to that famous moment where the titular character appears in an episode of Spongebob Squarepants. Yes, really. XD High School!Alice replied that it was a very odd history of a movie, and she really wanted to know what Nosferatu was doing in Spongebob, with Smiler suggesting the creators were just fans of the movie and found it amusing. I mean, seems logical to me! XD
Writing: As indicated in the “Tumblr” section above, I spent my evening getting the second chapter of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” cleaned up and posted! :D Which went MOSTLY smoothly, though I did accidentally close out the tab where I was using fanfiction.net’s Doc Manager to do the final editing pass on the chapter right near the end (since it’s easier for me to do it there and then copy-paste the edited text into AO3’s text editor). *sigh* Fortunately I always make sure to mirror my edits in the document itself, so I just had to reupload the chapter and pick up from where I left off. And given it was a very short chapter, that was not very painful at all. But yeah, now that’s out in the world, and I can move onto Chapter 3 – aka the chapter where they actually murder Bumby. Ehehehe >D
YouTube: Well, I got to this MUCH later than I wanted, thanks to everything above, but I did get to it, and I did watch both videos that I wanted to watch today, plus a tiny bonus (beyond the video I mentioned above, that taught me how to use “Free Cam” in Sims 4) –
A) The end of my workout video from Thursday and Friday – “I'm trying Rags to Riches in The Sims 2,” by James Turner! And it was a bit of a tragic ending for poor Semaj, I’m sad to say. This is what happened –
I. After waiting around for ages, occasionally pestering customers looking at the car, Semaj finally got a Silver Sales badge and was able to pester one of the customers into buying it! ...said customer then couldn’t actually get to the register because of the “ghost” of the car blocking his path (basically the game was acting like the whole car was still in the way despite there only being a restock sign there on the driveway in Live mode) and got pulled into a water balloon fight (in the middle of WINTER, mind), making James worried he was going to run away and steal the car. XD Fortunately James was able to figure out the problem of the “ghost” car, get it out of the way, and complete the sale, getting a nice $7K from it. Hooray!
II. He then decided that, as much as he wanted to eventually set up his own dealership (testing out a lot in the world to see how much space he would need – lots, basically), he really needed to sell more, smaller stuff if he wanted to properly grow his business, turn a profit, and eventually buy the community lot that would become his car lot. So James repurposed the carport into a little makeshift shop with the money he earned from the car sale, and stocked it with, amusingly, RC cars and helicopters (plus one console for gaming). This store worked a LOT better than him just selling rotting sandwiches, figurines, and super-expensive cars in his driveway, and he got his first rank-up after a day of heavy sales, choosing the perk that reduces his wholesale prices and makes restocking cheaper as the most logical. Though for some reason Semaj still didn’t get any badges for being a cashier despite all the sales. That badge takes AGES to earn, it seems.
III. While all this was going on, he also kept going to work in the Business career, trying to earn more cash to pour into his business – and despite constantly picking the wrong thing for the chance cards, he managed to get promoted a few times, getting all the way up to Junior Executive! With a nice bonus thanks to that aspiration perk that gives him extra money in every paycheck. So everything was coming up Semaj, right?
IV. Well, the problem was, despite doing so well, Semaj had never gotten a chance to get off his lot and have some fun. So James, wanting to explore, sent him out to the local arcade in Veronaville to play some pinball and meet some people (he needed to make a friend to get promoted anyway). He then got curious/concerned about what happened if Semaj was at the community lot when the carpool rolled around (I think the game just ignores that because you’re off-lot) and tried to have Semaj go back home –
Only for the game to freeze. And when James restarted – he discovered Semaj’s house was for sale. And that Semaj was nowhere to be seen in the Family Bin. And when he loaded in, some people named the Larsons were suddenly living there (though I’m not convinced he didn’t accidentally move them in while trying to enter the lot, as he did so after clicking around in the Family Bin). So basically, thanks to the game freezing mid-lot-load, Semaj got banished to the ether, and James’s grand plans all ground to a halt. I was wondering why I kept seeing a video in my Recommendeds from James called “The Sims 2 Rags To Riches – Part 1!” I thought he’d just misnamed the video, but nope – that’s his restart. Hopefully with a better knowledge of the quirks and glitches of this rerelease. *sigh* Good luck with the next attempt, James – we’re all rooting for you!
B) The latest from GrayStillPlays in my Subs – “Which waterslide launches you the farthest in GTA 5?” A relatively short video covering questions like “at what angle does a waterslide launch you the farthest?” (the 60 degree angle, apparently); “can you get down a waterslide that is made of ‘sandpaper,’ aka a material that stops you from sliding?” (yes, if you get a big enough jump); “does ragdolling help you launch yourself down a waterslide further?” (yup, makes a surprisingly big difference in fact); “can you use this yeeter to yeet yourself up the slide and land in the coffee cup hidden in the rocks below” (yes, though the more impressive bit was when Gray ALMOST yeeted himself off the slide and ended up STANDING ON THE LIP for a second – that is not an easy thing to manage!); and “can you launch yourself between these slides suspended in the air and make it to the end?” (yes, but it took quite a few tries). So now all of our questions about GTA V waterslides should be answered, yay~ Nice to see a simpler one for a change – especially one that makes me think of summer. Oh, it feels so far away…
C) And a surprise 22-second clip from C. M. Alongi in my Recommendeds – “CaFae Legends Teaser Trailer!” A little animation teasing her new series, where she talks about the history behind the myths, legends, folkore, and creatures featured in her CaFae Latte series! Sounds like it’ll be interesting – though I still have a lot of CaFae Latte to catch up on first. XD
Whew -- as I said, lot to get through! But I'm glad I did. :) And now it's time to wrap things up tonight and head to bed. Goals for tomorrow include wrapping up my drafts for the upcoming Valicertine's Week as much as possible; playing Fallout 4 and starting "The Big Dig" with Bobbi; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; getting in a workout; and keeping up with the Sunday Two of Gray and Jon. Should all be doable, I hope -- night all!
