Behind the Scenes - Chapter Four, Part Six (A & B)

[orikes]

Warning: LOTS of Sim Stuff Ahead. :)

Part Six is finally done. I originally wanted to get it all into one update, but the idea for the Twikkii Island segment grew so big that I had to split them in two. Now that it's done, though, I want to keep talking about it, so I decided to do a 'Behind the Scenes' thing. Consider it a DVD extra without the DVD!



First, I want to show off Terra Lostundo. I'm getting closer to being happy with how the neighborhood as a whole looks. When I first started the legacy, it was an undecorated hood and the only lot in the entire thing was the Legacina lot. It's a little hard to make out, but the Legacina lot is the one almost in the center, but a little up.

All of the main line descendents live in this neighborhood with the only exception being Ophelia who lives in Downtown with Kirstial and Grimlock. All of the simselves, most of the legacy sims, and placeholders live downtown. The Romans and Sunny Goodytwoshoes live in this neighborhood, but their houses are off screen.



I'm always torn on the thought and talk bubbles. On one hand, they can really add to the humor of a scene, but on the other they can get in the way when the sims are talking about something completely different from what you need them to be talking about.

As you can see, Venus and Persy were happily talking shoes while Brody shifted into werewolf form. I thought this was hilarious, but I couldn't work it into the update as well as I wanted, so I ended up editing out the whole talk balloon.

Other times, I'll just edit the image in the thought balloon to be what I want. I never learned the Prof's trick of changing the subject. I've got a whole folder full of icons from the game (exported by SaraMK at MATY), so I just grab what I need and drop it in.



I always end up using a little creative license anyway. Anna didn't leave after the date and Venus was in the background the whole time. They were all there as Meadow decided to give birth on the stairs.

Speaking of which, Meadow seems to like finding the most inconvenient places to give birth. So far, she's chosen the landing of the stairs and the smallest bathroom in the house. I'm sure they're going to give me at least one more baby, so we'll see where that one takes place.



Ah Charlie and Vic... How I miss them. It was really hard to say goodbye, but it was definitely their time. Their last day was a busy one. They did train Charlotte in all her skills in a single day. Despite that, they still find time to get funky with one another.



Grim did oblige the two by taking them both on the same day, but he did it in such a way that it was hard for me to get good pictures. I mean, what the heck am I supposed to do with him sticking his bony arm straight through Charlie's chest like that?



"Wow, that's a handsome guy. I wonder if I should introduce him to my daughter when I have her?"

My version of Pleasantview is a very odd place. I dump all sorts of extracted sims in there to get cover pictures, added scenes, and so on. I needed a good 'young' picture of Charlie and Vic, so I grabbed their selves from Pleasantview to do so. While I was on the lot where Vic lives with clones of Zoey and Christian, this happened.



"I'm telling you, BW, Orikes is dead once I get through puberty! AGAIN!"

I've been planning the 'fall out' from the destruction of the temporal hole for some time. I vassilated back and forth on what age to put the simselves at, or to do it tall of them. In the end, there are a couple of exceptions, but it was more an issue of logistics than anything else.



What was funny was seeing quickly the simselves all started acting like kids. I mean, they're all kids at heart, but it took maybe a few minutes of being kids before they started acting like it.

The one glitch I ran into is that those simselves who had jobs STILL had jobs listed after they were aged down. The Professor's carpool showed up as normal. I had each of them call up and quit their jobs.

Oh, and I avoided the dreaded Mini-Toast Issue with the social worker by aging them all down to toddler first, then triggering a birthday to child. This way they all started with a clean slate as far as school went.



Godfrey really does seem a bit confused by the whole thing. Ultimately, I had fun giving each simself a new look for being a kid, but hopefully keeping it in line with how their adult self looked. I'm looking forward to showing off more of them in the next update. At least, I hope to be able to fit it in. There's definitely more to that part of the story, even if it isn't going to play a HUGE part in things to come.



I did discover a bit of an issue with ACR and hotels in Bon Voyage. Normally, the extra hotel rooms are supposed to go blank like dorm rooms do. For some reason, they don't do that like they should for me. So, when Elijah and Shelby's timer went off, they decided to use someone else's hotel room...



...even though their whole family was in there watching television.

I didn't even attempt to try and work that into the story. It just hurt my brain too much.



Of course, with the importance of the secret lots, I had to have Elijah and Shelby get the maps. I had forgotten that it was actually Venus who had the Witchdoctor Hut map, so the newlyweds had to get all three.

Elijah did not have the best of luck. He eventually got all three, though.



And, of course, Shelby was pregnant the entire time. I ended up using maxmotives quite a few time since her hunger and energy would drop like rocks constantly. I think she threw up at every single destination. It was a race to get them home between destinations and get the next vacation booked. I think she popped within an hour of getting home from the last vacation.



Quite often my little plotty things are the result of what my sims do and not what I plan. Elijah's axe throwing contest was all because he autonomously went up to this guy and had the worst conversation I've ever see him had. They were both making the ugliest faces at one another. It was obvious to me they were having a 'size' contest.



Steve's original name was 'Amar'. I really couldn't see having a Bigfoot named Amar, so he got a name change. Other than that, he's all himself. He loves giving Bigfoot hugs.



I mean REALLY loves giving Bigfoot hugs. He certainly didn't help Shelby's morning sickness.



I ended up making more 'sets' for this update than any other. This is the 'High Forest' that Elijah and Shelby got lost in. I originally tried shooting it all on the real Bigfoot lot, but I thought his hut was just a bit too silly and there weren't enough surrounding trees. So, I created a lot in Three Lakes and had Elijah and Shelby buy it. This one is actually in the greater Terra Lostundo hood.



The rest, including the Ninja Dojo, were all in Pleasantview. The Dojo ended up being the staging area and it was clone-Elijah and Shelby's home lot. As you can see, there's a lot of crap in there that wasn't there when I actually shot the scenes for that part. The big blue wall is where I shot the cover poses. I use the bluescreen technique to try and get a clean image to paste over.



I think of all the bits, I was most frustrated with the Ninja part. It didn't flow as smoothly as I wanted it to. The transition to them being caught didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I had this great idea of them standing in the water after having been chased there, but.. feh. It works okay, but I wasn't happy with it.

I am glad the Komei-Clones worked as well as they did, though.



The beach lot was one of my favorites. Those big pillars are from Castaway Stuff which was extracted by MATY folks along with the core functions to actually make them work in the game. I'm not going to leave them in indefintely, but it was nice to have them for this.

By the way, this lot was owned by the Ramaswamis. The unnamed native with Talin was Sanjay. Talin himself was a clone as well. I couldn't find Pleasantview's version of Talin in the summoning tools, so I had to recreate him.



The monkey temple and the piranha river were both on the same lot. I did download some jungle foliage from MTS2 to fill out the look. I was pretty happy with the way this lot looked.



The waterfall was a bit frustrating. The main part of the waterfall was from MTS2, but it was very difficult to place. I couldn't get it to look like it was actually touching the water. Itw as essentially a floating fountain where the water shoots out of a big rock. That's why I have all the trees there to cover up the rocks. I was happy with how it looked in the end, but it was a bear to place.



I went to all the trouble of turning on all the graphics so you could see the 'fishies', but then never used a shot that actually had them in it. Ah well.



The entrance to the monkey temple was my favorite piece. The funny thing was that I never intended for it to be spewing lava. That was all the witchdoctor's fault. This was his home lot (even though he's never seen on it) and the first thing he did before I turned off freewill was throw some soap in the Nunchuck fountain. After that, the lava never turned off. I couldn't have planned it better myself.



The temple interior was another lot completely. It really is a twisty maze of walls.



Here you can see the 'secret' passage and how it connects to the actual temple. Neither Elijah or Steve could actually get into the passage, but it still served its purpose.

Oh, and the hot coals were another thing snagged from Castaway Stuff.



This lot was owned by Julien Cooke, the guy that comes with Freetime in every sim bin. He was not happy with me changing his look.



This is a better view of the altar/dais where the witchdoctor and Shelby were. My only regret with this piece was that I couldn't disguise the flame jets a little better. They were a great effect, but the mechanical parts look so out of place.



Ah, my big simian toddler. It was fun shooting pictures of him to make him look different each time. The only image I actually edited was the close-up of his face after the gate fell. I needed a different expression.



The ninjas and the witchdoctor's followers were all the same sims.



In fact, Akane, the Ninja leader, was the guy in the gorilla suit. I figured her face was distinctive enough that it would be too obvious if she was in native clothes. So, I threw her in the gorilla suit and put face makeup on her to disguise the look.



I love this picture for some reason. Couldn't find a reason to use it, but I do love it. You can just hear the witchdoctor saying, "Oy vey.. what are you doing!?"



There was an additional obstacle for Elijah and Steve, but I decided to cut it. After the secret passage way, they found another tunnel that was blocked by a cowplant. I really needed to trim some scenes to get this one to fit, so this was the one that went.



Did you know that Bigfeet can have different face templates? Terra-Lostundo Steve has the Brandon Lillard face with that nice, friendly squishy nose. Pleasntview Steve had the pointy, stabby death nose of Kennedy Cox. I was tearing my hear out at this point. There was no way I was going to be able to pass this bigfoot off for the other. Luckily, they CAN use the face lift machine.



Speaking of Steve, once he has the right face, he does have some of the best expressions. He was very fun to use. There was only one person who beat him out in the facial expressions department..



My Shelby. How I love her...

And that's it. :) Enough babbling from me. I had fun with this update, even if it took much longer than it should have.

Comments

[wtsims.livejournal.com]

Hah, I actually asked in my comment if you were using motive cheats. Guess that answers that!

I like seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff. Since I'm doing Twilight Dreams, other people's tricks are handy to know about, too, but it'd be interesting anyhow. :)

You can change subject by clicking on a Sim in conversation and there's a "change topic" (I think, or something similar) option... if they're talking already it might not take right away, but if you get them right before they respond it works.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

Hey, did I remember to include you in on my link to more animation hacks recently? (http://www.jd-movies.com/freetimebox.php).

I tried not to use the motive cheats that often, but it was all used for plotty stuff. I avoid using it like a plague on the home lot. I figured for the clone-versions, it was no big deal. On those lots, I actually turned off free-will too. The first time I've ever done that, but it does help for big scenes like these.

I've learned a lot studying other people's tricks too, so if there's anything you want to know more about, let me know. :)

[styxldy.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks for posting this! It's SO fun to see everything that went on behind the scenes of your update. I knew it must have taken a lot of work, but sheesh! That's a LOT of work! lol...But it shows - the update was pure awesome-filled fun.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

It took a bit to coordinate, but it really wasn't that hard for me. The hard part was making myself wait on playing the neighborhood while I got everything put together and then written. :)

Thank you!

[ndainye.livejournal.com]

Loved seeing the behind the scenes, now I want to see the Director's cut!

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

Oh god... even thinking about a Director's Cut makes me want to go hide under my bed. :)

[toastsims.livejournal.com]

dang, so much work! the temple set alone is so overwhelming. I am in awe of your ability to build these flawless sets!

the idea of a bigfoot getting plastic surgery is pretty hilarious to me. imagine if it "backfired"!

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

The sets were mostly just me playing around. :) With the inner-temple, I just built walls until I figured each part looked okay and then decorated. The only frustrating part I ran into was when I tried to make a broken bridge over the spot where the witchdoctor cut down the bridge. I actually had a broken bridge there that looked pretty cool, but I it kept messing things up. So I just took it out and pretended it was down in the water.

You should have heard me ranting at the computer when I realized the Bigfoot had the wrong face. :)

[ahrubyblue.livejournal.com]

OoooOOOOoooohhh!! Thank you so much for sharing this! I love behind the scenes things. It's always interesting to get explanations for the how or the why things are done and to hear the thought process that goes into all of it. Doubly so here as you really are so good at so many different things and you manage to combine them all into this cohesive whole that rocks people's socks off (and makes me want to write even more incoherent run-on sentences than usual, when I'm not too busy being completely dumbstruck).
Moving on...

You said that a lot of it is autonomous (like the size convo) but how much do you actually use things like the animation hacks? I'm always curious about that.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

I love your run-on sentences, Ruby. :)

As far as the animation hacks, it depends. I like getting natural reactions from when they're just being themselves, but if I know I want something very specific, I'll pull out the hacks. Usually if it's a staged scene (like any of the action scenes), I'm using the animation hacks. I would say that 90% of what happened in the temple was staged and set up with animation hacks. I know all of Shelby's animations were from that.

Very often, especially in these big scenes, I'll use the animation hacks where the animation loops. So I'll set several sims to doing one thing while focusing on another. In the scene where they were caught by ninjas, I had Elijah doing some sort of talk animation where he was trying to explain thigns, Shelby was looping the embarrassed animation, and the Komei-clone was looping the OFB customer yelling animation. I then just take a crap load of pictures and use what I think will work.

Another time I use animation hacks is when I want a specific emotion or interaction for the story, but I don't want to actually damage the sims relationship. Best example is Aeric and Venus. They were never actually mad at each other, and in fact where hopping together between the sheets almost daily. So I used the animation hacks to set up their arguments.

There's a lot of variation in the animations themselves, so sometimes you can get some awesomely nuanced expressions in the same animation.

And there's me talking way too much. :)

[ahrubyblue.livejournal.com]

Using an animation hack to avoid damaging a relationship is a really smart thing to do. I can't believe that's never occurred to me before. I could have saved myself a lot of hassle (not to mention roach infestations) in a few different situations.

That's not talking too much! It was talking just the right amount and I'm mad appreciative. You've given me a lot to mull over. :)

[cori-chronicles.livejournal.com]

How fun! You have a lot going on with your Sims! Just... wow!

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

This was so great! I love seeing their facial expressions, especially Shelby's in that last pic! I love it. Seeing these types of things really make it all the more interesting to read, knwoing how much work went into it. This is amazing. :D

[mmmfobbs.livejournal.com]

I would agree, reading all of this certainly doesn't lessen my appreciation for the chapter, it increases it! Thanks for linking!

[jengagne.livejournal.com]

That shared hotel room: ... ... ...
*giggle!*