And with Sims3 PETS we have HORSES! That means Palousies otherwise known as APPALOOSAS!

We've been sleeping and dealing with real life issues the last couple of years during the changeover from Sims2 to Sims3 so I need a roll call of people who want to participate in this mod group.

With Appaloosas, we can finally do a decent job and create the Sims3 version of Nemeepoo (Nez Perce).

This time however, we aren't going to wait until we have a whole theme before releasing parts. We will release as soon as the products are tested and working. We found that for the Seminole project a lot of very good items don't get found when people have to scroll down through a long thread to find the offerings.

So, If you are part of this project, making as true to life as possible it is to make Sims stuff and want the N8iveSims brand on it, Join our group. Present your ideas - and if it can be created with respect and a good representation of real items we'll publish it under the mod group name with credit to you.

This group will not make trinkets or tourist glitz for the mass market. So, NO safetypin warbonnets with hot pink feathers or dreamcatchers to hang on your rear view mirrors!

We'll try to make as realistic as possible, real life, everyday items for this group. Come join us.

Please make a new post with they kinds of skills you have and if you want to create items for Sims2 or Sims3 or both.

The N8iveSims mod group was originally created and managed by porkypine. bluetexasbonnie co-managed the mod group during the Seminole theme production ...(Are you out there bonnie?). Please send questions and PM's to porkypine because I don't normally log in as N8iveSims.

I'm in! I want to start working on some hairstyles for Sims3 because the hairstyles that come with the game are..... let's just be kind and say, 'generic short styles'

Hi Porkypine!
Well, it's been a long time that I heard of the project and I'm glad to see the revival!
Of course I followed the link and the invitation.
Thank you for considering me for that again!
hexameter

Hi Hexameter! Welcome! Porkypine here. I've just downloaded the Pets version of S03 and s3pe. We have saddles & Tack! I'll extract the base parts for the saddles and such and put them here along with some sample photos. Perhaps we can get some fancy-schmancy Nez Perce horse gear put out. :0)

This time around, people can pick a project and get working on it. Creators don't have to wait around for a whole theme.. mainly because with the current presentation layout, people can't find things located in in the comments sections.

What kinds of things are you interested in working on? We need to be clear on what is Sims2 and what is Sims3 - they both have .package extentions. lol I'm going to work on the Nez Perce horse gear and Appaloosa varieties. You are welcome to join me or work on your own ideas. ;0)

Well, this is a completely new theme in Sims 3, I'll dig in my collection of pictures I saved years ago to see what is compatible to my skills in the new game. Please, give me some time. Until now I tried this and that all over the collection of items. Many of the objects ended in frustration or I lost interest in them. So I have different things "in development" but never finished them. Others are uploaded to Customsims3 and schwarzmarkt.xobor because I was too lazy to fullfill the quality demands and the complicated upload of MTS during the last year.
I'm sure I find something to start with and show it here.
hexameter

Of course, No hurry.... I'll be working on the horse stuff. Remember that there are other threads here that aren't available to the general public - we don't want people downloading stuff that hasn't been bug-checked and published. Here you go - http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=460078

Well, I've been fussing with a new bridle - Nez Perce style. noticed that some of the bone assignments aren't being picked up correctly so I'll use the next best one.

It doesn't look like much but it takes a LOT of fussing to get the shapes right.

My personal favorite appie marking pattern is the blanket, so that is where I concentrated my first efforts. All 4 of these horses are on the same body type which I patterned after the attached photo. An appaloosa should have a flat face (according fo the breed registration info found), and in the pictures of 'older' style appies, the head was often on the small side.

It was very frustrating getting the colors/patterns to look somewhat realistic. These are a compromise. The patterns are not all that close to my personal vision of perfection -- however they are as close as this set is going to get. If you will keep your comments aimed at what else you think would be nice, instead of how to 'fix' these, my tender feelings will not get bruised.

If these don't make our final cut (and I sincerely hope they will not -- because that implies that something much better was achieved), that is okay. In a few days I won't care about them at all.

I've attached the horses for others to have a starting point.

Snowflake pattern appies in real life are infinitely interesting (though not necessarily beautiful). The dark grey one looks very blue in game -- at least at the time of day I was testing. It didn't look so blue in CAS. Included a picture of a real life snowflake pattern. This one at first glance is almost ugly, but the longer I look, the more interesting and beautiful it becomes.

Good job! You have the stumpy tails down pat! I like the variety. And you're right. The snow flake is an interesting coat pattern. The only thing I would change is the short crested/cropped manes and probably just leave a regular style short mane.

When I bug check my horse regalia, I try them out on these guys! Thanks for making them so quickly. One thing is that the bridle only occupies a very small part of the texture map. The rest is the horse that I can't get the UV map for, otherwise, I'd stretch out the bridle details so teh textures look better in game.. I may have to find the full coat pelt texture and ty to extrapolate the UV mpa areas that are free for the horse gear parts.

-------

For something else to work on, I was thinking that we need to create a 'world' of North central Idaho, complete with camas prairie and mountains and broad valleys. We can make a natural area for most of the world's traditional housing and a little trading post settlement off to one side somewhere and maybe mod the rabbit holes to look like an old style sheriff's office, trading post, little town places, etc. on smaller lots for the town itself and lots of open space around the hill for our theme. I just downloaded the newest CAW.
A some pics of Wallowa Valley... Beautiful country.

I poked at the tents and both have the footprint of a doublewide bed. Too small for an actual dwelling. We may need to decorate the sleeping bags rather than use 'beds' for the tipi's. I've been playing with the horse gear so I have not paid much attention to the tipi's. but we can also make the tule long houses since they were a traditional dwelling. We may end up just using the tents as rabbit holes redesigned to look like tipi's and use the brush shelters for the cooking and daily tasks. We'd have to experiment to see what is possible... we have to solve the game's limiation for tipi design.... and family Tipi's were really big! Here's some real life ones from Fort hall pow-wow. There are also smaller ones.


.... AND a couple of pictures of Wallowa Valley, eastern Oregon...



ok... I extracted an image file of the horsehide and superimposed the image file placement for the bridle and collar. I am presuming that the blank areas on either side of the head are where the horse head mapping goes even though I haven't found the image file as of yet. The saddle and blanket are masked across the back in the area where they will actually go. The bridle and collar have to squeeze into either side of the belly. The parts at the tail end go with the hide. So there is not much wiggle room for accessories. The texture file has a separate mapping mask for raised leather design so that might be where we can use some texture So this is exactly what I needed and all I need to do to prove that the blank areas to either side of the head are the horse's face is to test paint something there.

I redid the horse hide UV map. The blue check areas are where you can place new items. The right side is for teh 'collars' and teh left side is for the 'bridles'. There does not seem to be use to either side of the head so as far as I can determine, that is a free area. Of course, I won't know that for sure unitl I put something there and see if I get interesting patterns on my horse or horse objects. I have to poke around the saddle some more because the uv in Milkshape is from the top view. There may be parts off the template for the side textures... I'll examine that more carefully when I get to the saddle. I am still working on the bridle.

I'll ask you guys to bug check it for me when I get a finished prototype.

Porkypine, there are no big difficulties to change the footprint of tents. I did it when I tried to convert my gipsy cart to Sims 3. So far I got an object that can be used like the big tent from EP1. At now I'm fighting with the complicated texturing.
hexameter

Hi! What shape and what kind of texture are you trying to make? Can you post prototype pictures?

OK, here are some screenshots of the object. I still try to fix the slots which is no big problem. But here I run into the same situation like in Sims 2 concerning the entering animations. The textures should be the same as in the old project conserving the golden patterns. I can do it as an overwrite texture but it's a matter of patience. When I finish this it will be possible to choose various wood patterns and change some other parts.
There is still some work to do on the object without working on the textures.
hexameter

Kewl! If you can get them to go inside the wagon, that would be great! I hadn't thought of that.. I was concentrating on just the tipis!

Aktually they vanish when they have entered the wagon. So this will happen too when a tipi is made from a tent clone. That would even be possible without any changes. Maybe some changes of the positions where the marking diamond appears would be necessary to complete the new object.
hexameter

That's kewl. They already have a conestoga wagon object... The game parks it in town in front of city hall? or the art musuem.. Perhaps that can be used and converted to a tent? now.. If we can rig horses to pull it.. or even oxen, that would be kewl...

oh.. no oxen.... hmmmm...... we need an ox maker.. lol

...not me though.,. I am an oxymoron.. (I know.. terrible pun)

Dag nabbit! We'll have to wait for Wes to update Unimesh. The bone assignments don't work, even when using TSR. I can move existing parts around but I can't assign bone assignments to new parts. :0(

Oh well. Off to do the hairstyle instead...

Update! Wes is fixing unimesh. While I was extracting parts for him,. I finally found the horse body mesh and made them into mannequins! Good for trying out new items while in Milkshape! They are wavefront dummies.

Good job and good news!
What could many people do without the great work Wes does for them? He is very kind to update his tools.
hexameter

wow! Wes fixed it already! He only had to make a minor change to get it to recognize more joints. The updated bone tool is in this thread for now until he moves it to his unimesh section. I'm not sure yet if he's holding out for the Milkshape 1.8.5 Beta 2 release which fixes this issue or will publish the updated bone tool separately.

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=461057

Oh, this was very quick work. A big Thank You to Wes!
hexameter

It's coming along nicely. I got the bridle shaped and am doing the bone assignments. MAN,there are a lot of them!

It doesn't look like much of anything but this is a fussy business getting the shape and the bone assignments right. Once I test the mesh, I still have to work on the textures.



Perhaps you guys can test drive this when it's ready. Race the horse, etc,. to see if the mesh goes whacky.

You're right, there are a lot of joints and it's a business of patience.
hexameter

Ok, I am back to sims. During my little sabbatical, I got a new granddaughter -- this is the first girl. Have 3 adorable grandsons, but it is fun to do pink. Have all of the relatives fed and sent home, the Thanksgiving dishes done and most of the leftovers eaten or sent away.

I'll be glad to test horses when you are ready.

Congratulations to your granddaughter!
I think this will cause a lot of exciting activities next time and for the upcoming holydays.
Best wishes for you and all the family.
hexameter