Day Six Behind The Scenes
Oct. 5th, 2008 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orikesWhen I got this done and posted last night, I felt like falling over. This has been such a focus the past three months that I can't believe its finally done. I'm proud of how it turned out but grateful that it's done. There were a few points where I was almost ready to chuck the whole thing and walk away from it, but I'm glad I stuck with it.
Most of you that follow this journal heard the whining back in July when I was struggling with Day Two. It got easier once I was into the plotty end of things, but man.. I felt like I was never going to be able to finish this thing and get back to actually playing and writing the main legacy.
I've got lots of thoughts about the BC, but I'll save those for behind the cut.
First, though, inappropriate dining habits FTW!
Brody in all his sloppy werewolfness is my most common walkby at most of the lots. He quite happily lets himself in to his friends houses and makes use of strangers' garbage cans when he's feeling a bit peckish.
Now, on to the behind the scenes stuff!
Despite the fact that Cecil is actually best friends with Dean (and most of the other bachelors), I don't think I could have planned a better outcome for the storyline.
When I went into this, I really didn't have much of a plan. Oh, I knew what was happening in the background. I knew that the bachelors had all been planted with a memory wipe so they didn't realize they were transplants and I knew that Rhys and Uranium were behind it with Julia as their silent partner, but beyond that.. I fake it really good.
As I've said in the past, each of the bachelors was chosen by the author I asked for a candidate. This very easily could have turned out completely differently given a different crew. Prof has said she almost gave me Dante Gabriel. I expected Robin to give me Doug or his brother and I thought that Jenn would give me Elliott or Cary. Pen could have very easily chosen Columbus instead of Scott. Ruby had four boys to choose from. Heck, Kiwi had two whole stories to choose from. Dean was actually a last minute addition after the D&D Legacy had fallen into the background.
What they gave me, though, turned out to offer an amazing story completely separate from the plot I had going on in the background. What more could I ask for with Dean and Cecil as the final remaining choices for Miranda?
Cecil is a fascinating character and he's been a joy to write. Well, once I got some insight into who he is. The first day was brutal to write as I tried to stay true to everyone's characters. Cecil was absolutely intimidating to try and capture.
I said back in the beginning that Cecil was playing to win and that was so very true. His first conversation with Miranda had a lot of glaring and sulking, but after that, he made a point of seeking her out and spending time with her. Even though he had to be goaded into having romantic feelings for her, he took to the contest aspect like a fish to water.
That didn't mean he could win, though.
Dean's been my favorite since Day One. As much as I loved all the other bachelors, I realized I wanted Dean to win very early on. There was just something about the way he and Miranda interacted that utterly charmed me. When Farnsworth got himself kicked out by rejecting her caress, I knew that Dean was going to win this. In fact, I even considered cheating to make sure he won. I didn't, but that's how much I wanted him to win.
I could see the potential in the other bachelors, but the only one I could see with her was Dean. As much as I enjoyed writing her relationship with Cecil, I couldn't see them in it for the long haul. I don't know what I would have done if he'd thrown her hearts at the last minute.
As it was, Doc called it completely. Cecil lost because he was incapable of love.
As a tangent, that final hot tub scene had an uninvited guest. I don't remember which stray this is, but he came down to the hot tub and sat there grooming himself as I tried to get pictures.
The make-out dates were fun to shoot, but I only ended up using a couple of pictures from them. Most of what I ended up using was re-staged afterwards to get better shots.
The date had Miranda make-out with each bachelor on the couch, then do a slow dance.
The twirl was completely and utterly faked. Thanks to AL, it is dead easy to get a twirl now. Kiss > Dance will throw you a twirl very quickly.
On one hand, I love it because hey, you get a twirl. But on the other hand, its a little sad because it used to be so special when you'd get one out of the old slow dance. Elijah and Shelby's twirl after their engagement will probably always be my favorite.
What wasn't faked was Cecil stepping on Miranda's foot. That was all completely random. I felt so bad for him, but again, it was absolutely perfect.
Cecil is undeniably an antagonist. He is chauvanistic, narccisistic, conniving and stiffer than a shirt in a gallon of starch. But he's not evil. Not really. Under the stiff formality is a hint of what he could have been if his father hadn't been bugnuts and his mother hadn't been too busy mothering his father rather than him. He's a wounded soul who's too egotistical to realize or acknowledge that he's damaged.
Miranda pierced that shell a little, but it was too much for her to get through completely.
Of course, that didn't make the kissing and goosing any less amusing.
I decided I didn't want to use the couch make-out for Cecil since it seemed out of character for him. While he might succumb to kissing her while they were both on their feet, sitting down and letting her that close would be more unseemly than he could be tricked into. I decided to replace it with the 'Suck Face' kiss from AL. Its cute and its nice to have an alternative, but I like romantic kiss and make-out better.
Now, on to things are not what they seem.
Someone commented that I finally found an animation to represent the forehead rub I tend to throw in to my prose a little too often. This one comes from Jaydee's animation boxes. This is from the Freetime box and its one that most good players will never see.
With FreeTime, Family Sims have the opportunity to gain the ability to plead for their children if the social worker comes. Dean is doing the social worker animation here.
There are two cheats that are absolutely essential to faking things like this. 'Moveobjects on' and 'boolprop snapobjectstogrid false'. With those two, you can turn almost anything into anything.
For most of the prison scenes, I got the sim set up with the animation I wanted them to use and then went into buy mode to move them where I wanted. These prison walls are practically perfect for many of the animations. The bars are spaced at a nice distance to allow a sim to be positioned as if they're reaching out through the bars.
For the kiss between Lipschitz and Hello, I simply had them engage in a kiss, then went into buy mode and repositioned them on either side of the bars. Once I went back into play mode, they continued with the kiss animation like normal. From there, it's only a matter of getting the shots I wanted.
Speaking of Hello and Lipschitz, everything between them was completely autonomous. Lipschitz completely ignored Miranda the whole first day of the bachelor challenge, but the moment I put him on the prison lot, he was stalking Hello. Before the first day was over, they'd autonomously popped their cherries, so to speak.
I had no idea what to do with that. Initially I'd intended to have Lipschitz and Farnsworth fall in love with one another if they were both rejected. Kiwi and Robin had both joked about it and I thought it would be cute, but Lipschitz put a stop to that with the way he mooned after Hello.
It completely stumped me at first since I had no idea how to work it into the story. Eventually the whole Stokholm Syndrome idea hit and I ran with it from there.
On to the real Eeevil of the story. Julia.
I have a confession to make here. Stepping back, it looks like I've had this idea planned out since I first introduced all the legacy sims way back when. To most people I'll nod and smile and take credit for the genius, but I'd be a dirty liar.
I introduced the legacy sims because it seemed like it would be a cool thing to do. The plotline came afterwards to justify it all. Including the unending winter. Yeah, I shoot myself in the foot with plot quite often. When I shot the warehouse scenes at the end of Chapter 3, I really didn't have a clue what the legacy sims were working on. I knew that Julia, Uranium and Rhys were the driving force behind it all, Hello was their clueless pawn, and Jack was sticking around to keep an eye on them and be close enough to stop them if necessary. WHAT they were actually doing was some macguffin I hadn't really planned out yet.
Then came the idea for the Bachelor Challenge. My foot obviously needed another hole in it, so I had to come up with some huge plotty reason to have a bachelor challenge with legacy sims. Again, I knew that Rhys and Uranium would be behind it with Julia as their silent partner while Jack would be working against them. What I didn't know was WHAT they were trying to achieve. I actually talked with Marina about this in PMs to try and work out what the hell I was doing.
Sometime between updating Day One and Day Two, I finally realized what was going on. What do most rejected legacy spares want more desperately than anything else? The power that comes with being legacy heir. Rhys' resentment at being a spare drove almost everything he did. Julia was the same way. Uranium was a bit of a different story, but she's such a sadistic chaos magnet, she'd go along with just for the ride.
So, then I started thinking. And I remember that Jet Li movie, 'One' or something like that. While I couldn't go around to other people's games and kill off sims in them, the idea could still work. It was just a matter of defining the whole multiverse idea to bring it all home.
That wasn't going to be enough for Julia, though. I don't know when I realized that, but it was fairly early on. I knew that when she showed up, she was going to be the game changer and Rhys and Uranium would lose control over the situation. Initially I was going to 'cast' some of the bin sims as goons for Julia and have them work with her, but at the last second I realized, "Hey.. I can bring in a couple more legacy sims." So that's how Cypress and Aria got added.
As far as the god powers that Julia sought, that was inspired completely by the finale of the Fitzhugh Legacy. Julia's already tasted simself powers and they weren't enough for her. The only thing beyond that would be to sieze the power of a miniverse's creator. The fact that sims aren't supposed to have that degree of power would mean little to her if she could get her hands on it.
The animation of Julia's transformation is again from one of Jaydee's animation boxes. I had no idea what I was going to do for her transformation until I downloaded the AL box and saw the witch transformation. So, I ran through the evil witch animation and it worked brilliantly. That in turn lead to me actually turning Juila into a witch so she could get the little green motes of light floating around her.
(I have a hack that prevents the skin color change. I don't like the evil witch green or the good witch gold. It keeps the sparkles, but loses the skin overlay.)
Most of the action scenes were shot in a dummy neighborhood. I copied my neighborhood folder and then ran it through ant renamer to change the hood number. It worked perfectly, so I had a complete duplicate of Terra Lostundo with everything place to mess with and have no worries. This is going to come in handy for Pseudo 4.8.
Initially, I shot the scene of Jack and crew's transformation with them having been imprisoned behind a set of bars. Then I realized that the bars made it too hard to see them. I was tired of shooting around bars in the basement, so I said screw it and reshot the scene without the bars.
This meant that Jack, Ivy and Boom Boom went through about three transformations as I tried to get all the pictures I needed. I think I have Ivy's make-up memorized at this point. As you can see from this picture, Boom Boom's toddler outfit is different than what actually ended up in the update.
With the second transformation I remembered that there was a toddler outfit to match his adult outfit. Hot damn! This also gives me another chance to show off Baby Boom Boom. Damn is he cute. Toast did a great job designing his look. He really is one of the more attractive sims out there.
I felt bad aging Jack up, thought it was fun coming up with a dorky elder look for him. Its just so NOT Jack. It was equally fun coming up with the 'homemaker' look for Ivy. While she was one of the few romance sims who could settle down eventually, there was always a blatant sensuality about her. Having that taken away was probably even more drastic than aging up Jack and down Boom Boom.
The transformation scenes were actually one of the easier effects I used in this thing. Thanks to Doc, I finally figured out how to set the camera position so you can come back to the same pot. So, I shot a bunch of pictures of the animated sims before the transformation. I then went into buy mode, moved them out, moved the transformed versions in place (or in the case of Jack, Ivy and Boom Boom, simply made the changes) and did a bunch more animated shots.
Because the camera was locked in place, the background remained stationary while only the sims themselves were moving. From there, it was a matter of overlaying about four-five versions of the same picture and then changing the transparency of each layer. They key is making sure your background does not shift at all.
If adding Cypress and Aria was a last minute inspiration, having them transformed into their opposites was a last second inspiration. I knew they wouldn't sit still for Julia taking all the power, so Julia would have to transform them somehow. I've done enough age changes, so it had to be something completely different. Considering how these two clashed, it was a logical jump to realize that Julia would turn them into each other.
Here's the side-by-side comparison of male and female Aria. She makes a handsome guy even if she makes a poor knowledge sim. The red shirt is a recolor I did just for this.
Female Cypress really does look like a man in drag. The features are different (and I can see the similarities to Cami and her generation easily), but there's just something inherently wrong about a female Cypress.
I LOVED writing the snarks between Cypress and Aria during this whole scene. Just the thought of Cypress and his arrogance trying to explain how his feminity was better than Aria's cracked me up completely.
Oh, and the black dress was a recolor I did for this too. I have much love for the 'color' option in Photoshop.
So, what happens when you meet yourself? You gossip about them with your mortal enemy.
This is one of the reasons why I did this all in a dummy hood. I knew I was going to be adding some extra characters and there was no way I wanted to deal with a male and female version of these two running around in my primary neighborhood.
Dean and Cecil's transformation was actually pretty easy. I simply pulled up the pet teleporter and found two likely suspects for them as pets. I can't remember the names of these two pets, but I think the dog is Otis. Both are available in the adoption pool, I think.
The fact that the cat playing Cecil immediately sat down to groom himself was beyond perfect. I dont' think I could have planned that any better if I'd tried.
This is my attempt at having Julia dive off the dais and tackle Miranda. It didn't come out as well as I would have liked.
So let's talk about the set. I did a lot of searching on the net to try and find something that might work. In the end, I used a hodgepodge of stuff to create my own 'thing'. The big glowy pillar things are all Star Trek cc. They're warp cores. I think the little ones are original Trek while the big ones are from Next Gen. I combined those with a bunch of the industrial decorative stuff from AL. The walls of the platforms are a transparent shower wall from some bathroom cc set on MTS2.
The 'juicer' was a bit more troublesome. Initially I intended to use some energizers. I liked the animation from a failed energize, but I couldn't find the animation to use and forcing it would have killed Rhys and Uranium. I also would have had to have been very careful with them in the background. Using the elecrocuted animations, I could set them up and leave them while everything else was being shot.
While pouring through my cc, I suddenly came across these windows. I think they're from the La Fenetere set by Windkieeper. I realized they would look awesome placed on either end of the juicer.
The only issue I ran into these is that using the move cheats near windows is tricky. The sim likes to snap to the window, so I had to remove the windows, place the sims and then put the windows back. This was especially important when I set up the 'collapsing into one another's arms' shot.
Here's another example of using the move cheats to get a shot that transforms two animations into something else completely. I think Miranda is either being shocked or frightened here while Julia is doing the CAS mean sim bear smash interaction. A little rearranging and suddenly she's grabbing Miranda's arm.
I saw a sims video that had someone hanging off the end of a roof. From there I knew I had to do that in the story. Miranda is using the military obstacle course animation for when someone climbs the wall and fails. This took a bit of setting up and she would only do the animation once before freezing.
The other key to doing stuff like this are the invisible OFB tray and the OMSP (One More Space, or something like that) objects from MTS2. Get your sim in the animation you want. Freeze the game. Move them onto the tray. Move the tray onto the OMSP, then move that into the position you want. Turn the tray and the OMSP invisible. Voila! Instant likeable hero clinging for her life to the side of a building!
One shot I'm particularly proud of is the group hug. This was actually really easy to do. I froze the game, and then queued up a hug between Miranda and Farnsworth and one between Cecil and Dean. As soon as the hugs started, I froze the game again and then moved them all into position. It worked surprisingly well. I loved the way it looks like Dean is hugging both his girl and his best friend while Cecil is tentatively touching her shoulder.
This little bit between Ivy and Boom Boom was fun to set up too. Sarah and Chris had a bunch of shots of people piled on top of one another in the last Sim Spade, so I decided to give it a shot. I used the model poses hack to put Ivy on the ground (whch gave her that sensual look) and then I put Boom Boom into a trip and fall mode. I think it was either the bowling fall or the treadmill fall for him.
Once I saw the expressions on their faces in that scene, it was easy to write.
"Hrmph. A baloon for Cecil's getaway. Did I call it or did I call it?"
Yes Doc, you were right. I almost did a spit take myself when you made that declaration in my journal so long ago.
I realized afterward that anyone who read my journal would be able to figure out who won, but it was too late to go back and take the statement back. I don't think the results were really a surprise to anyone, but still. I could have been a little more circumspect.
*snort*
As if. I've been wanting to talk about the results for EVER!
Dean and Miranda actually didn't get engaged until just recently. I waited until I had pretty much everything shot before doing the wedding itself.
While Miranda asked him to marry her in the story, Dean was actually the one to propose. That's how I got the picture of her throwing her arms around his neck. I really wish I could get that interaction more than once in a sim's life. I absolutely adore that hug.
One funny bit about the whole engagement scene.. A certain someone decided at that moment that he needed to spy on the neighbors.
Cecil's entire departure was staged, of course. He and Miranda are still best friends in game. Despite that, Cecil does pretty much write himself. He makes faces like this on his own all the time. Despite the playfulness, its easy to write him as the Professor has created him. He is who he is.
So, the wedding. This is the shot from the actual wedding. There were so many guests that the 'get married' interaction glitched up and had to be requeued. By the time that got underway, everyone had gotten out of their seats. Sims, I love you, but you frustrate the heck out of me at times.
Miranda and Dean didn't really complain. They quite happily did the Twikkii Island gesture back and forth while they waited for everyone to settle. Dean does it like a native now.
Eventually the wedding finally went off like planned. I actually shot it twice. The first time was the real wedding with the real party (it was a roofraiser), and then I just summoned most of the guests back, turned of free will, made everyone selectable (35 sims) and had them do what I wanted for the official pictures.
For the actual party, though, there was a lot of this.
Can I say again how much I love outgoing sims? Vaddi Bobo!
Considering the concentration of popularity sims, this happened all the time too. Miranda, Dean, Venus, Flavius, Sunny, Micah, Adrian Parker, Beta Thompson, and then all the half-popularity sims, including Shelby, Kiley, Persephone, and more. (Secondary pop sims also get the 'Hey, it's a popularity sim' thought bubble from everyone too).
"Hey, aren't you supposed to be flying away in a bigass balloon?"
"Cake."
"Gotcha."
Even though I tried to keep Cecil away from the party, he kept coming back to socialize and enjoy food. Who could blame him. It's cake!
He wasn't the only one enjoying the cake, though Brody seems to also like the taste of his hand along with it.
I think something about the werewolf transformation makes them even sloppier than normal. He was never a neat sim, but he's got to be the messiest guy in the neighborhood now.
This was one guest I was really glad behaved himself.
Behaving ones self did not apply to Ivy in the slightest. About halfway through the party, she stripped and got into the tub. Considering all the guests trying to go up to the pools, I kept hearing screams the rest of the night.
I wanted to include a shot of Miranda and pregnant Shelby talking during the wedding, but that just didn't work out. Shelby has been pregnant for close to five months at this point. I really can't wait to see what she gives me next. I've even got the names already picked out.
I had to throw in a shot of Stacie at the staged party, though. I think I would have done it with any of the simselves of the guy who won, but as I said above, I've wanted Dean to win forever. I actually broke down and told Stacie her guy won a couple of weeks ago. :)
Throwing the wedding really gave me a taste of my neighborhood. I desperately miss these guys. I'm going to take a couple of days to get my brain back, but I need to figure out what I need for 3.8. As soon as I figure that out, I can start playing again. I've got the dummy hood to do some of the major plotty scenes I need, so I'll probably take the main hood and just run with a rotation. I'll probably play everyone up to winter. They're all either at the beginning of summer or the beginning of fall.
Dean and Miranda's house of course starts on the last day of winter since they've just moved in. I set them to spring to get the Mustang shots (short shorts do not work in winter), so I may play them through that and give them a little time ahead of everyone else. I need to check their ages against the other gen 4 sims, though.
Finally, here are some close-ups of the group shots. The bachelors...
The villains...
The white hats...
Thank you to everyone who let me use their sims for this. Writing other people's sims is tough, but I'm really proud of how this whole thing turned out.
Complete tangent. I really wanted to use this picture of Annie, but I couldn't work it in. So, I tried to recreate it with Miranda and used that.
So, in closing.. *SQUEEE!!!* I'm so happy with these two. :)
Most of you that follow this journal heard the whining back in July when I was struggling with Day Two. It got easier once I was into the plotty end of things, but man.. I felt like I was never going to be able to finish this thing and get back to actually playing and writing the main legacy.
I've got lots of thoughts about the BC, but I'll save those for behind the cut.
First, though, inappropriate dining habits FTW!
Brody in all his sloppy werewolfness is my most common walkby at most of the lots. He quite happily lets himself in to his friends houses and makes use of strangers' garbage cans when he's feeling a bit peckish.
Now, on to the behind the scenes stuff!
Despite the fact that Cecil is actually best friends with Dean (and most of the other bachelors), I don't think I could have planned a better outcome for the storyline.
When I went into this, I really didn't have much of a plan. Oh, I knew what was happening in the background. I knew that the bachelors had all been planted with a memory wipe so they didn't realize they were transplants and I knew that Rhys and Uranium were behind it with Julia as their silent partner, but beyond that.. I fake it really good.
As I've said in the past, each of the bachelors was chosen by the author I asked for a candidate. This very easily could have turned out completely differently given a different crew. Prof has said she almost gave me Dante Gabriel. I expected Robin to give me Doug or his brother and I thought that Jenn would give me Elliott or Cary. Pen could have very easily chosen Columbus instead of Scott. Ruby had four boys to choose from. Heck, Kiwi had two whole stories to choose from. Dean was actually a last minute addition after the D&D Legacy had fallen into the background.
What they gave me, though, turned out to offer an amazing story completely separate from the plot I had going on in the background. What more could I ask for with Dean and Cecil as the final remaining choices for Miranda?
Cecil is a fascinating character and he's been a joy to write. Well, once I got some insight into who he is. The first day was brutal to write as I tried to stay true to everyone's characters. Cecil was absolutely intimidating to try and capture.
I said back in the beginning that Cecil was playing to win and that was so very true. His first conversation with Miranda had a lot of glaring and sulking, but after that, he made a point of seeking her out and spending time with her. Even though he had to be goaded into having romantic feelings for her, he took to the contest aspect like a fish to water.
That didn't mean he could win, though.
Dean's been my favorite since Day One. As much as I loved all the other bachelors, I realized I wanted Dean to win very early on. There was just something about the way he and Miranda interacted that utterly charmed me. When Farnsworth got himself kicked out by rejecting her caress, I knew that Dean was going to win this. In fact, I even considered cheating to make sure he won. I didn't, but that's how much I wanted him to win.
I could see the potential in the other bachelors, but the only one I could see with her was Dean. As much as I enjoyed writing her relationship with Cecil, I couldn't see them in it for the long haul. I don't know what I would have done if he'd thrown her hearts at the last minute.
As it was, Doc called it completely. Cecil lost because he was incapable of love.
As a tangent, that final hot tub scene had an uninvited guest. I don't remember which stray this is, but he came down to the hot tub and sat there grooming himself as I tried to get pictures.
The make-out dates were fun to shoot, but I only ended up using a couple of pictures from them. Most of what I ended up using was re-staged afterwards to get better shots.
The date had Miranda make-out with each bachelor on the couch, then do a slow dance.
The twirl was completely and utterly faked. Thanks to AL, it is dead easy to get a twirl now. Kiss > Dance will throw you a twirl very quickly.
On one hand, I love it because hey, you get a twirl. But on the other hand, its a little sad because it used to be so special when you'd get one out of the old slow dance. Elijah and Shelby's twirl after their engagement will probably always be my favorite.
What wasn't faked was Cecil stepping on Miranda's foot. That was all completely random. I felt so bad for him, but again, it was absolutely perfect.
Cecil is undeniably an antagonist. He is chauvanistic, narccisistic, conniving and stiffer than a shirt in a gallon of starch. But he's not evil. Not really. Under the stiff formality is a hint of what he could have been if his father hadn't been bugnuts and his mother hadn't been too busy mothering his father rather than him. He's a wounded soul who's too egotistical to realize or acknowledge that he's damaged.
Miranda pierced that shell a little, but it was too much for her to get through completely.
Of course, that didn't make the kissing and goosing any less amusing.
I decided I didn't want to use the couch make-out for Cecil since it seemed out of character for him. While he might succumb to kissing her while they were both on their feet, sitting down and letting her that close would be more unseemly than he could be tricked into. I decided to replace it with the 'Suck Face' kiss from AL. Its cute and its nice to have an alternative, but I like romantic kiss and make-out better.
Now, on to things are not what they seem.
Someone commented that I finally found an animation to represent the forehead rub I tend to throw in to my prose a little too often. This one comes from Jaydee's animation boxes. This is from the Freetime box and its one that most good players will never see.
With FreeTime, Family Sims have the opportunity to gain the ability to plead for their children if the social worker comes. Dean is doing the social worker animation here.
There are two cheats that are absolutely essential to faking things like this. 'Moveobjects on' and 'boolprop snapobjectstogrid false'. With those two, you can turn almost anything into anything.
For most of the prison scenes, I got the sim set up with the animation I wanted them to use and then went into buy mode to move them where I wanted. These prison walls are practically perfect for many of the animations. The bars are spaced at a nice distance to allow a sim to be positioned as if they're reaching out through the bars.
For the kiss between Lipschitz and Hello, I simply had them engage in a kiss, then went into buy mode and repositioned them on either side of the bars. Once I went back into play mode, they continued with the kiss animation like normal. From there, it's only a matter of getting the shots I wanted.
Speaking of Hello and Lipschitz, everything between them was completely autonomous. Lipschitz completely ignored Miranda the whole first day of the bachelor challenge, but the moment I put him on the prison lot, he was stalking Hello. Before the first day was over, they'd autonomously popped their cherries, so to speak.
I had no idea what to do with that. Initially I'd intended to have Lipschitz and Farnsworth fall in love with one another if they were both rejected. Kiwi and Robin had both joked about it and I thought it would be cute, but Lipschitz put a stop to that with the way he mooned after Hello.
It completely stumped me at first since I had no idea how to work it into the story. Eventually the whole Stokholm Syndrome idea hit and I ran with it from there.
On to the real Eeevil of the story. Julia.
I have a confession to make here. Stepping back, it looks like I've had this idea planned out since I first introduced all the legacy sims way back when. To most people I'll nod and smile and take credit for the genius, but I'd be a dirty liar.
I introduced the legacy sims because it seemed like it would be a cool thing to do. The plotline came afterwards to justify it all. Including the unending winter. Yeah, I shoot myself in the foot with plot quite often. When I shot the warehouse scenes at the end of Chapter 3, I really didn't have a clue what the legacy sims were working on. I knew that Julia, Uranium and Rhys were the driving force behind it all, Hello was their clueless pawn, and Jack was sticking around to keep an eye on them and be close enough to stop them if necessary. WHAT they were actually doing was some macguffin I hadn't really planned out yet.
Then came the idea for the Bachelor Challenge. My foot obviously needed another hole in it, so I had to come up with some huge plotty reason to have a bachelor challenge with legacy sims. Again, I knew that Rhys and Uranium would be behind it with Julia as their silent partner while Jack would be working against them. What I didn't know was WHAT they were trying to achieve. I actually talked with Marina about this in PMs to try and work out what the hell I was doing.
Sometime between updating Day One and Day Two, I finally realized what was going on. What do most rejected legacy spares want more desperately than anything else? The power that comes with being legacy heir. Rhys' resentment at being a spare drove almost everything he did. Julia was the same way. Uranium was a bit of a different story, but she's such a sadistic chaos magnet, she'd go along with just for the ride.
So, then I started thinking. And I remember that Jet Li movie, 'One' or something like that. While I couldn't go around to other people's games and kill off sims in them, the idea could still work. It was just a matter of defining the whole multiverse idea to bring it all home.
That wasn't going to be enough for Julia, though. I don't know when I realized that, but it was fairly early on. I knew that when she showed up, she was going to be the game changer and Rhys and Uranium would lose control over the situation. Initially I was going to 'cast' some of the bin sims as goons for Julia and have them work with her, but at the last second I realized, "Hey.. I can bring in a couple more legacy sims." So that's how Cypress and Aria got added.
As far as the god powers that Julia sought, that was inspired completely by the finale of the Fitzhugh Legacy. Julia's already tasted simself powers and they weren't enough for her. The only thing beyond that would be to sieze the power of a miniverse's creator. The fact that sims aren't supposed to have that degree of power would mean little to her if she could get her hands on it.
The animation of Julia's transformation is again from one of Jaydee's animation boxes. I had no idea what I was going to do for her transformation until I downloaded the AL box and saw the witch transformation. So, I ran through the evil witch animation and it worked brilliantly. That in turn lead to me actually turning Juila into a witch so she could get the little green motes of light floating around her.
(I have a hack that prevents the skin color change. I don't like the evil witch green or the good witch gold. It keeps the sparkles, but loses the skin overlay.)
Most of the action scenes were shot in a dummy neighborhood. I copied my neighborhood folder and then ran it through ant renamer to change the hood number. It worked perfectly, so I had a complete duplicate of Terra Lostundo with everything place to mess with and have no worries. This is going to come in handy for Pseudo 4.8.
Initially, I shot the scene of Jack and crew's transformation with them having been imprisoned behind a set of bars. Then I realized that the bars made it too hard to see them. I was tired of shooting around bars in the basement, so I said screw it and reshot the scene without the bars.
This meant that Jack, Ivy and Boom Boom went through about three transformations as I tried to get all the pictures I needed. I think I have Ivy's make-up memorized at this point. As you can see from this picture, Boom Boom's toddler outfit is different than what actually ended up in the update.
With the second transformation I remembered that there was a toddler outfit to match his adult outfit. Hot damn! This also gives me another chance to show off Baby Boom Boom. Damn is he cute. Toast did a great job designing his look. He really is one of the more attractive sims out there.
I felt bad aging Jack up, thought it was fun coming up with a dorky elder look for him. Its just so NOT Jack. It was equally fun coming up with the 'homemaker' look for Ivy. While she was one of the few romance sims who could settle down eventually, there was always a blatant sensuality about her. Having that taken away was probably even more drastic than aging up Jack and down Boom Boom.
The transformation scenes were actually one of the easier effects I used in this thing. Thanks to Doc, I finally figured out how to set the camera position so you can come back to the same pot. So, I shot a bunch of pictures of the animated sims before the transformation. I then went into buy mode, moved them out, moved the transformed versions in place (or in the case of Jack, Ivy and Boom Boom, simply made the changes) and did a bunch more animated shots.
Because the camera was locked in place, the background remained stationary while only the sims themselves were moving. From there, it was a matter of overlaying about four-five versions of the same picture and then changing the transparency of each layer. They key is making sure your background does not shift at all.
If adding Cypress and Aria was a last minute inspiration, having them transformed into their opposites was a last second inspiration. I knew they wouldn't sit still for Julia taking all the power, so Julia would have to transform them somehow. I've done enough age changes, so it had to be something completely different. Considering how these two clashed, it was a logical jump to realize that Julia would turn them into each other.
Here's the side-by-side comparison of male and female Aria. She makes a handsome guy even if she makes a poor knowledge sim. The red shirt is a recolor I did just for this.
Female Cypress really does look like a man in drag. The features are different (and I can see the similarities to Cami and her generation easily), but there's just something inherently wrong about a female Cypress.
I LOVED writing the snarks between Cypress and Aria during this whole scene. Just the thought of Cypress and his arrogance trying to explain how his feminity was better than Aria's cracked me up completely.
Oh, and the black dress was a recolor I did for this too. I have much love for the 'color' option in Photoshop.
So, what happens when you meet yourself? You gossip about them with your mortal enemy.
This is one of the reasons why I did this all in a dummy hood. I knew I was going to be adding some extra characters and there was no way I wanted to deal with a male and female version of these two running around in my primary neighborhood.
Dean and Cecil's transformation was actually pretty easy. I simply pulled up the pet teleporter and found two likely suspects for them as pets. I can't remember the names of these two pets, but I think the dog is Otis. Both are available in the adoption pool, I think.
The fact that the cat playing Cecil immediately sat down to groom himself was beyond perfect. I dont' think I could have planned that any better if I'd tried.
This is my attempt at having Julia dive off the dais and tackle Miranda. It didn't come out as well as I would have liked.
So let's talk about the set. I did a lot of searching on the net to try and find something that might work. In the end, I used a hodgepodge of stuff to create my own 'thing'. The big glowy pillar things are all Star Trek cc. They're warp cores. I think the little ones are original Trek while the big ones are from Next Gen. I combined those with a bunch of the industrial decorative stuff from AL. The walls of the platforms are a transparent shower wall from some bathroom cc set on MTS2.
The 'juicer' was a bit more troublesome. Initially I intended to use some energizers. I liked the animation from a failed energize, but I couldn't find the animation to use and forcing it would have killed Rhys and Uranium. I also would have had to have been very careful with them in the background. Using the elecrocuted animations, I could set them up and leave them while everything else was being shot.
While pouring through my cc, I suddenly came across these windows. I think they're from the La Fenetere set by Windkieeper. I realized they would look awesome placed on either end of the juicer.
The only issue I ran into these is that using the move cheats near windows is tricky. The sim likes to snap to the window, so I had to remove the windows, place the sims and then put the windows back. This was especially important when I set up the 'collapsing into one another's arms' shot.
Here's another example of using the move cheats to get a shot that transforms two animations into something else completely. I think Miranda is either being shocked or frightened here while Julia is doing the CAS mean sim bear smash interaction. A little rearranging and suddenly she's grabbing Miranda's arm.
I saw a sims video that had someone hanging off the end of a roof. From there I knew I had to do that in the story. Miranda is using the military obstacle course animation for when someone climbs the wall and fails. This took a bit of setting up and she would only do the animation once before freezing.
The other key to doing stuff like this are the invisible OFB tray and the OMSP (One More Space, or something like that) objects from MTS2. Get your sim in the animation you want. Freeze the game. Move them onto the tray. Move the tray onto the OMSP, then move that into the position you want. Turn the tray and the OMSP invisible. Voila! Instant likeable hero clinging for her life to the side of a building!
One shot I'm particularly proud of is the group hug. This was actually really easy to do. I froze the game, and then queued up a hug between Miranda and Farnsworth and one between Cecil and Dean. As soon as the hugs started, I froze the game again and then moved them all into position. It worked surprisingly well. I loved the way it looks like Dean is hugging both his girl and his best friend while Cecil is tentatively touching her shoulder.
This little bit between Ivy and Boom Boom was fun to set up too. Sarah and Chris had a bunch of shots of people piled on top of one another in the last Sim Spade, so I decided to give it a shot. I used the model poses hack to put Ivy on the ground (whch gave her that sensual look) and then I put Boom Boom into a trip and fall mode. I think it was either the bowling fall or the treadmill fall for him.
Once I saw the expressions on their faces in that scene, it was easy to write.
"Hrmph. A baloon for Cecil's getaway. Did I call it or did I call it?"
Yes Doc, you were right. I almost did a spit take myself when you made that declaration in my journal so long ago.
I realized afterward that anyone who read my journal would be able to figure out who won, but it was too late to go back and take the statement back. I don't think the results were really a surprise to anyone, but still. I could have been a little more circumspect.
*snort*
As if. I've been wanting to talk about the results for EVER!
Dean and Miranda actually didn't get engaged until just recently. I waited until I had pretty much everything shot before doing the wedding itself.
While Miranda asked him to marry her in the story, Dean was actually the one to propose. That's how I got the picture of her throwing her arms around his neck. I really wish I could get that interaction more than once in a sim's life. I absolutely adore that hug.
One funny bit about the whole engagement scene.. A certain someone decided at that moment that he needed to spy on the neighbors.
Cecil's entire departure was staged, of course. He and Miranda are still best friends in game. Despite that, Cecil does pretty much write himself. He makes faces like this on his own all the time. Despite the playfulness, its easy to write him as the Professor has created him. He is who he is.
So, the wedding. This is the shot from the actual wedding. There were so many guests that the 'get married' interaction glitched up and had to be requeued. By the time that got underway, everyone had gotten out of their seats. Sims, I love you, but you frustrate the heck out of me at times.
Miranda and Dean didn't really complain. They quite happily did the Twikkii Island gesture back and forth while they waited for everyone to settle. Dean does it like a native now.
Eventually the wedding finally went off like planned. I actually shot it twice. The first time was the real wedding with the real party (it was a roofraiser), and then I just summoned most of the guests back, turned of free will, made everyone selectable (35 sims) and had them do what I wanted for the official pictures.
For the actual party, though, there was a lot of this.
Can I say again how much I love outgoing sims? Vaddi Bobo!
Considering the concentration of popularity sims, this happened all the time too. Miranda, Dean, Venus, Flavius, Sunny, Micah, Adrian Parker, Beta Thompson, and then all the half-popularity sims, including Shelby, Kiley, Persephone, and more. (Secondary pop sims also get the 'Hey, it's a popularity sim' thought bubble from everyone too).
"Hey, aren't you supposed to be flying away in a bigass balloon?"
"Cake."
"Gotcha."
Even though I tried to keep Cecil away from the party, he kept coming back to socialize and enjoy food. Who could blame him. It's cake!
He wasn't the only one enjoying the cake, though Brody seems to also like the taste of his hand along with it.
I think something about the werewolf transformation makes them even sloppier than normal. He was never a neat sim, but he's got to be the messiest guy in the neighborhood now.
This was one guest I was really glad behaved himself.
Behaving ones self did not apply to Ivy in the slightest. About halfway through the party, she stripped and got into the tub. Considering all the guests trying to go up to the pools, I kept hearing screams the rest of the night.
I wanted to include a shot of Miranda and pregnant Shelby talking during the wedding, but that just didn't work out. Shelby has been pregnant for close to five months at this point. I really can't wait to see what she gives me next. I've even got the names already picked out.
I had to throw in a shot of Stacie at the staged party, though. I think I would have done it with any of the simselves of the guy who won, but as I said above, I've wanted Dean to win forever. I actually broke down and told Stacie her guy won a couple of weeks ago. :)
Throwing the wedding really gave me a taste of my neighborhood. I desperately miss these guys. I'm going to take a couple of days to get my brain back, but I need to figure out what I need for 3.8. As soon as I figure that out, I can start playing again. I've got the dummy hood to do some of the major plotty scenes I need, so I'll probably take the main hood and just run with a rotation. I'll probably play everyone up to winter. They're all either at the beginning of summer or the beginning of fall.
Dean and Miranda's house of course starts on the last day of winter since they've just moved in. I set them to spring to get the Mustang shots (short shorts do not work in winter), so I may play them through that and give them a little time ahead of everyone else. I need to check their ages against the other gen 4 sims, though.
Finally, here are some close-ups of the group shots. The bachelors...
The villains...
The white hats...
Thank you to everyone who let me use their sims for this. Writing other people's sims is tough, but I'm really proud of how this whole thing turned out.
Complete tangent. I really wanted to use this picture of Annie, but I couldn't work it in. So, I tried to recreate it with Miranda and used that.
So, in closing.. *SQUEEE!!!* I'm so happy with these two. :)
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-06 12:00 am (UTC)Male Aria looks a lot like her dad. Female Cypress does look freakishly like Cami and Bana, aside from the chin. I don't think either of them got the jaw from Isaac. The Vetinari Jaw does add that touch of drag. I'm glad the camera angle thing worked out for you!
Loved the behind-the-scenes stuff. It's always great to see how other people do things.
And the wedding looked great!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-07 01:13 am (UTC)Cypress as a chick cracked me up. I was actually shocked when I turned him into a woman in CAS. "Holy Crap! It's Bana and Cami.. kinda." Aria could look good as a guy with the right makeover. I think she does look like her brothers. :)