I already discussed with Tyu doing lot 8 in the port. I'll try to keep it as a starter lot since there's not many of them but may go slightly over Also, it'll probably end up looking a bit more 'used' than rundown since I've done 2 attempts already and that's how they looked. I didn't finish them though 'cause they were getting expensive and I wasn't happy with the exterior.

Didn't realise you were matching the houses to the families afterwards, I've had a second look though the maps, completed houses and completed families...think I get it now I prefer to work with a family in mind though so I might just do that with one of the homeless families and at the end if you think the house suits them then billy bonus, if not, we'll leave it for someone else

About buydebug, I don't remember if they have icons, will need to check. That sucks about the fog emitter but I'm sure I'll survive The thing I'm finding most difficult is remembering which patterns came with ambitions. Unfortunately I think most of the ones I want to use did so I'm having to compromise a lot!

Anyway, I've got some building to do, can't hang around here chatting all day!!

You can use any patterns, because those came with updates, not the actual game.

Holy crap, really? That's literally the best news I've had all day!! (Just realised how sad my life is ) I knew the ceiling recolour thing came with one of the patches but didn't know EA would give away patterns for free....good ones at that

guyyyyyssss I need to make the graveyard today. And I was thinking, shall I just use the buydebug graves? or make a some people and kill them? Like make some people with the last names of some of the residents? im not fussed either way cuz all I'll have to do is make their clothes and faces, and that wont be too taxing seeing as theyre ghosts and no one really takes any notice of how they look haha

So I've made some progress but thought I'd check I'm heading in the right direction. I googled for inspiration but not sure if my house is more generic mediterranian than Italian? It's a bit blocky on the outside but so were a lot of the houses google threw up so I figured I could get away with it just this once (I hate blocky houses!)

Also, I've started moving onto the landscaping but I've struck a complete blank. I put a random grass thing in there but I don't plan on keeping it, it's a bit lazy and looks too neat for someone who can't even be bothered to give their doors a lick of fresh paint. I've tried to maintain a worn/shabby look throughout but it might not be that noticeable in these pics and I did go way over starter price at 21,633 unfurnished and 29,225 furnished. Who knew it'd be so hard to keep costs down on such a small lot?


Also, as you can see on the walls, I'm having a few lighting issues because of all the CFE used but I'm hoping to at least improve that before uploading. Any feedback is welcome and if anyone has any ideas for a shabby garden let me know

hey guys, so you know, im making the graveyard to be kinda unloved. weeds and stuff, broken fountain etc. if this isnt what you want, let me know before I go too far into it haha

ok so i got too far into it...
and I think it's finished. Personally, I'm not happy with it, but I never am haha








It's got a deathbush somewhere in there, and the the pond has deathfish in :D
I tried to make my own mausoleum with the rabbithole underneath, but I couldn't make one that looked right, so I just used the original one.

Craggles: its looking great! But what are you not happy with?

Misroxo: looks good, maybe some different landscaping as you had said, but the inside looks great, i love the inside bay window area! looks really nice!

tyu.

yeah that bay windows a brilliant idea
and you know what Tyu, I'm not sure... It looks too cluttered, but empty at the same time. It's hard to explain :S haha

Craggles, that looks wonderful! :lovestruc I love that it looks so old.
Hey, I have an idea for ghosts. If you download some of the completed inhabitants and age them up in cas, they would look like their family members. It will save you time to create sims and you can just make them die different deaths, lol.

Missroxor, the inside of your house looks beautiful! The staircase and second floor are amazing! :lovestruc I love the way you mixed all the different furniture too.
About the blockyness of the outside... yes, I noticed this aswell when I googled mediterranean houses. Here in Holland we have that too, where many houses are just simple blocks. But with landscaping, fences and stuff like that, you may be able to work around that.
Don't worry too much about going over a spending budget! I think it's safe to say that we've all gone overboard on that, lol! It's too difficult to make a house look realistic and keep to a tight budget at the same time. Just use whatever you think the house needs. We might end up depreciating many of the lots with Twallan's supercompter anyway.

Oh, I saw in the buydebug that the stuff has icons, but the way EA made them, you might need a magifying glass to tell them apart, lol! But many of the WA decorating stuff is free. I'm building a starter house now and use the torch light from there, instead of the one in the regular lights section. That saves about $60 per light!

Anyway, should I make a list of the buydebug stuff we can use, or are you already on that Tyu?

ooh good idea on the ghosts :D
effort though... meh I have all day tomorrowto kill people haha

Craig, I uploaded HP's sims, so you'll have more ghosts to choose from.

Some things you might want to know for the story line...
JamesIII is related to Lillith, so you don't have to make a ghost for him.
Dario has no relatives in the town, but I'll do my best to upload his dead lover Carmine asap.
Yazmin is looking for her real father, so you might want to turn her into an elder male and change his last name.
Talula lost her entire family at sea, so you can age her up and down and make them all drown, lol!
For the rest I think you can do whatever you find interesting.

Quick question about the ghosts.... will you be re-uploading the families with ghosts so the dead show up on their family tree?

Yeah, I noticed the icons in buydebug but also noticed that the occassional item doesn't have any icons...does that mean they came wih base. I noticed specifically the large pile of laundry doesn't have any icon...surely that came with ambitions. I didn't discover buydebug until recently so I don't know what was original.

As for my house....I'm really having a creativity block with that garden. Might try to start on another house and this time make sure it's a starter then hopefully the break will have done me some good and I can finish the garden, I'd rather work on something else for a bit instead of just staring at the same patch of grass for 3 days!....just gonna check the map to find a lot to start on.....

missroxor, Kiwi Tea, who build the map, suggested he could pre-populate the world. That way it can be downloaded just like Riverview. Relationships can be edited, so the ghosts will apprear in the family tree. At the moment I'm already testing our world and have edited relationship, job and skill levels with the supercomputer. Basically I'm swiching between families and just see what happens when I don't touch them. The only thing I actively do, is have them visit eachother.

You mentioned that you usually build houses with sims in mind, am I right? If you want to get started on a new home and design it for a family, there are a couple of them who still need houses. We have De Luca and the Ricci families and James Campbell III. If you are interested in building for them, you can look them up in the completed inhabitans thread. They're traits and stories will be listed there. Community lots that are still avaiable are the hospital and a small park.

Lots of updates, love days like this. (:

Rose: No, i have not started. Sorry, i have been working(i know, sounds crazy right!) On and nice job on the updates to general info!

Craggles: yea, i get you. just play with it a little more?

think thats everything, (not as much as i thought!(: )

tyu.

I didn't know it was possible to edit relationships oh well, carry on, don't mind me

Since I wasn't sure which family to go for (and didn't want to step on anybodies toes by demanding their sim lives in my house ) I built both houses with certain traits/LTW in mind rather than particular sims. Also, because I was going for starters they only fit 2 sims max. The first one that I've posted pics for I figured would suit an artist/author, somebody creative. At first I kinda had James Campbell III in mind but now I'm not so sure it suits him.

As for the second house, well I went ahead and started on it without calling dibs 'cause I was having some internet problems earlier, MTS kept crashing on me. As far as I can tell, nobodies called it - lot 26 in ther centre. Since it's out in the woods on it's own I've tried to go for a bit of a loner's (or maybe it would suit an old couple) cottage theme. Hopefully by the time I've finished landscaping it would suit a gardener. I only have the garden left to do and I still haven't reached the S16,000 mark yet so I might still produce an actual bonafide starter! Yay!! Oh, and I've tried to make it a little bit shabby again but I'll warn you now,...it's colourful, some might say gaudy....but a lot of the houses I found when I googled rustic italian farmhouses/cottages had some eyewatering decor too so once again, I thought I'd go for it. Feel free to tell me to shove it when I get round to posting pics

Edit: I'm toying with the idea of doing the hospital. I don't normally do community lots but I did a doctor's clinic for the foundations contest and that worked out ok I think...that said, don't hold it open for me if somebody else wants to do it...if I did do it though, where would I get the bit that makes it a rabbit hole? ...I really should concentrate on finishing the two I'm doing first though

Yeah, you can edit the realtionships. It's a lot of fun, because you can make enemies and lovers, so the town will really be alive from the start.

It seems like you're on a roll, missroxor! Can't wait to see that colorwork on lot 26. You were right, it wasn't claimed yet, so I'll put our name on it.
How wonderful that you can possibly make it a starter! I just finished my 3rd and it's become quite a challenge for me. For some reason I want the house to have the decorated moodlet, lol! By recoloring the pool wall and the cheapest floor, you can come a long way. And the stuff from the buydebug is a big budget saver.
Oh, and the limit is actually 16,500, so you'll have 500 more to spent.

I agree that it is difficult to just pick a family for the house, if you haven't followed their stories. The threads are so long too and even I got confused with all the drama those sims have been through, lol! Like you, I'm not sure if JamesIII would be the best choice for that house. Maybe a starving artist would be more fitting. And an elderly couple would be cute on lot 26, or maybe a grandparent and grandchild.
If you would like to do the hospital, then I can already sign you up for it. So far all of us have done community lots and it would be nice if you coud have the chance to do one aswell. I've seen the clinic you made and it looks wonderful.
For the rabbithole, you just build a really big basement, and put it in with the moveObjects on. Then you have a stairs connect to the basement, so the sims can get in. If you download the completed lots and put them in the world, you can see how the others have done it.

Here are the pictures of my starter house. The budget is 15,884. Let me know what you guys think.

Well, I didn't get that much landscaping done in the end due to budget constraints It's a bit sparse but I don't think there's much else I can do without exceding the starter budget which I don't really want to do. How on earth did you manage to have so much in and around your house Sleepyrose for less than I spent? Very nice, btw, I love what you did with that wooden floor

So here's no 26. It's finished unless there's any changes you guys want me to make. It costs 11,446 (U), 16,494 (F)


I do have a quick question though. I considered moving in a sim with maxed painting skill and doing a couple of paintings for the house...would that add to the cost of the house once the sim has moved out?

Also, the more I think about it the more I really do wanna have a stab at the hospital so sign me up It's just annoying that there's a perfect set of operating room doors ....but they come with Ambitions

missroxor.. How did you get the walls in the attic to do that? It's been bugging me since I saw it haha :D

I dunno where to ask this, but I'm trying to put the buildings in the right places in my game, and theres nothing to say where they should go. like DD's port rose houses, I was assuming they go on the little strip on the gravelly area? lol

CFE, dunno how familiar you are with it but what I did was this:

After entering the Constrainfloorelevations false cheat I used a guide wall to lower the top floor 8 clicks ( or 2 tiles of stairs/half a wall height if you prefer). Placed the roof (2 different types, the one sided straight roof is on either side for 2 tiles width) then at the end with the window I deleted the central wall tile and then replaced it. This raises that wall tile to normal height again and creates the slope at either side (normally only one tile either side would slope but I did a lot of messing around with CFE to make 2 tiles slope). Check that your roof covers the wall, you might have to adjust the angle of the roof. Then just level out the centre of the roof so that there's a slope the length of the room...not that it's visible but I always do it anyway just incase the low ceiling interferes with placing objects or something (though I usually have move objects on anyway).

If I haven't explained it well let me know and I'll do some screen shots...in fact it might be worth making a tutorial...if I get the chance I might make one this week.

Missroxor, that's very beautiful, and it looks so sweet too! :lovestruc Like Craig, I'm also wondering how you made the attic like that. It's amazing and I want it too, lol!
Right now you're just under the maximum budget, so you've done very well, considering that some of the items you used are not the cheapest. The house might look even nicer if you add a tree in the front and some flowers. Keep in mind that it doesn't nessicarily have to be a starter. We planed on having 4 of them in our world, and I just finished the 3rd. So maybe you can have this one a low to average income and the other one a starter. Would that be an idea? It will give you a little more freedom.
The reason I have so much stuff around the house is because I mostly use the pool wall, the cheapest floor, windows, doors and furniture. The torches are from the buydebug and they're free. They can be set as torch levers, but if you don't do that, they work the same way as the ones in the regular light section. So, that's how I got a bigger spending budget for landscaping and decorating items. Plus the house has the decorated moodlet in the livingroom and kitchen area. For some reason sims respond to a couple of plants and paintings more than to furniture that has a decorative value.

About the paintings, that's a wonderful idea, but unfornunately it does add to the budget. I'm planning to do the same thing with the sim I created who's obsessed with his dead lover. So I didn't decorate the first floor, because I want pictures of him all over the place, lol! But if you don't make this house a starter, then you could use those, instead regular paintings.

btw, which fish spawner did you use for the pond?

Craig, I'll make a map for the completed buildings.

missroxor, that's very interesting! A tutorial with pictures might be handy though. If you're planning to post it here, could you put it in the fun/chat thread?

Craig, the maps are up. Let me know if they are clear enough.