Green Dolphin Island: completed and uploaded!!

[ladydragon76]

By all means!  Spam those pics up! LOL.  You've actually inspired me to get back to work on my own island.  I need to dig through the game though because there have been two expansions since the last time I attempted this.  Need to grab a new list of ALL the commercial lots so I can be sure I get everything in there that I want.

[DeLouche]

OK, so I was embarassingly geeky about planning my world - before I really started building it, as part of the planning, I made a spreadsheet with the following columns:

• Lot type (all possible lots
• Whether or not they're a rabbithole
• If so, whether there are multipurpose ones (in the interests of saving space in the world)
• size of rabbithole objects (I didn't do all of these, but there are a couple of incomplete lists out there - how reliable they are varies)
• Whether I was going to use premade or building in-game
• Location in the world (I started out with a list of 'sections' of the world, e.g. old town, new town, farmland etc, then whittled it down as I started laying out roads and working out how many 'sections' I could feasibly have - this surprisingly helped a lot with the 'feel' of the world, and making it coherent)
• Checkbox for laying down a provisional lot
• Checkbox for building
• Checkbox for completing and checking the lot

I am finding this a really handy tool to keep track of what lots I want in my world, and whether I've left/made space for them. As it's obviously a work in progress, the saved version is of no use to anyone but me, but I'm happy to create a clean version and send it on. If anyone thinks this would be useful, PM me and I'll send on a clean version with all lot types, and whether or not they're (multi-use) rabbitholes. I won't be able to do this until Monday at the earliest though, I'm afraid.

[Micler]

I agree with ladydragon76! It's looking great!

[Chuckles_82]

I was just as careful in my planning on the world I am working on. I don't have much time for it, between challenges and 3 kids, but I've made a start. The other thing I took into account was that some buildings don't register on the camera for the photography skill. I think the main thing was the diners. Only the SV one works as far as I know. The RV and AP don't register.

[DeLouche]

Oh, really? That's useful to know, although I haven't taken this into account at all, when creating the world - and honestly, I'm not going to worry about it this time round (although next time, maybe I'll make an awesome retro 50s-feel place, and then the SV diner will be perfect )

Yeah, CAW takes AGES. I mean, it looks like I've done a lot this week, but I'm pretty sure things will slow down after this - it's mostly building, terrain painting, and decoration (trees etc) at this point, and building takes the longest. I've been lucky in that I've had most of my evenings free this week (and I don't have children, just a cat who likes to sit on my lap whilst I play on the 'puter), so I've been able to spend a lot of time on this so far. It really does take hours to get things looking halfway decent, and then there's continual adjusting as things get laid out... Looking forward to the building though, that's a really fun part!

[DeLouche]

Built a few more lots.. the island is beginning to develop a bit of history...


And there's a bit more character in the landscape (you can see the park stage in the distance)



And the old part of town is filling out a bit. A sim could live happily on this island at the moment. Although it would be a bit of a lonely existence.



JUst to give a bit of context, the last two updates have encompassed about 12 hours of editing - this isn't a quick process, I just happen to have had a really quiet week!

[Lunarpixels]

The island is really taking shape! I have tried using CAW but it to complicated, it will be a while before I figure it out

[DeLouche]

Artsygirl, I found Krrank's tutorials really useful - I made a really small, flat test world and just played around with the controls, getting a feel for it - it is a bit time-consuming at first, but it gets easier. A couple of things that really helped me - the camera controls are a bit dodgy, but if you have a mousewheel, and click and hold it, and you'll be able to swing the viewpoint around really quickly - great for surveying the place. Rolling the mousewheel zooms in and out - easier than remembering all the keys that do it. The second thing is, when playing with terrain, set the falloff and strength values really low (size is up to you), and it'll happen a lot more gradually - it's easier to control, and you can make more varied terrain...

Anyway, time for another update! I've mostly been building and laying trees out, but rather than show you the very subtle changes in mapview, I'm giving you a sneak peek of the secondhand shop in the old part of town...



Here's the inside - there is a book register and a consignment register, as well as a cosy reading nook in the shop itself (it's not easy to make any of this out in the pic, unfortunately)



And here is a Sims-eye view of the Old town, standing up at the fishermen's cottages on the hill... You can see the museum/art gallery behind the shopping square, and the equestrian centre and horse ranch in the distance...

[Chuckles_82]

I like the way the houses are cut into the hillside with the road behind. And the 'cottage' on the hill adds real character. You also did the beach very realistically too.

[DeLouche]

By cottage, do you mean the one in the background? Because that's actually the Abandoned Nectary from Champs Les Sims, and it's more of a mansion But thank you for your kind words! I think that the houses are set too sharply into the hill, causing some distortion of the terrain behind them... thinking of a way to sort this out, but it might just need a re-jig of the roads to squeeze a little more space in... This is actually my favourite part of the island I think - the building style is more my usual MO, and it radiates out so nicely from the harbour and market square.

[DeLouche]

I've made some invisible changes (spawners etc), and I'm going away for the weekend, so I'm not going to have any major updates until next week... Really pleased with how far along this has come in a week, so not feeling too disappointed that I won't get to do any buiilding for a while. So, I'm going to post a random picture, and the most recent full view, and wish you all a happy weekend!

Also, a question: what do people think about the 'distant terrain', i.e. the other islands? I'm not sure yet, and they've been there since the beginning.

[The Starlight Phoenix]

Your island looks wonderful, DeLouche! (I've been meaning to post this but never found the time til now, lol. ) The harbour, market and the rest of the Old Town look very traditional and slightly Victorian-esque, like the ones you see in those movies. Just a small suggestion: I think you should smoothen down the roads a little more, so that way, you don't have any rough edges or cars suddenly looking weird on top of said edges.

All in all, great job! And have fun during the weekend!

-Phoenix

[DeLouche]

Thanks I had a great weekend, my girlfriend and I went to Cardiff, saw the Dr Who exhibition, visited the castle, took a boat trip, and the sun shone - very chilled 

However, despite my weekend of relaxation, I'm a little frustrated - I just built the shells of the coffeehouse, nectary, a new starter house, and started on the library, and added some things to the poolclub, and like a fool, I didn't save as I went - so obviously, the programme crashed and I lost it all Never mind, at least now I have an idea of how things are going to look, and I'll get going on them all again as soon as possible. Agreed about the road smoothing, I'll sort that out at some later point. I want to get a bit further on in building more lots, and will tweak the terrain at a slightly later stage.

Would anyone be interested in beta-testing this world? Probably in a week/week and a half. Beta testing just involves playing in the world basically, to check and let me know whether performers can get jobs, bartenders show up, terrain looks funny, library has skilling books, spawners are accessible, houses aren't furnished, etc. I'm not expecting people to check everything, obviously, so more than one tester would be welcome! And of course, I'm playing a bit as I go along, so hopefully there won't be anything too bad. It uses all expansion packs, I'm afraid, but I'm trying to avoid any store stuff. And I think that lots/objects which require EPs will just disappear, so it still should be ok to play (although again, I'd like to know if it's not).

Edited to add: oh yes, and I've decided on the name. There's a story behind it, which will be told at a later date...

[Swirl-Girl]

I soo wish I could Beta. I really like the look, you will have to tell me the back story! (please?) Yo know, after it's all done, maybe you could PM me.
Are you including any Legacy/Dynasty Lots? And if so will they have + moodlets? Will you wait until Supernatural to finish?
You don't have to answer if you don't want to, I don't want to come off pushy.

[DeLouche]

Dynasty/Legacy lots: yes, one 64 x 64, empty, with a nice bonus moodlet I'm not waiting for Supernatural (hope to have this island finished well before it comes out), but I will try and keep some free lots for it.

Excuse my asking, but what's the reason for you not being able to beta test? Is it that you don't have the expansion packs? Or that you don't have room for a new world on your computer?

As for the story... allow me to keep some surprises for when I upload the finished world