An Elegant Simblr

Maybe some of you have noticed that I was inactive for a while, but now I’m back :)

Anonymous said:

Sorry kind of a stupid question but are your plant fixes going to conflict with ninthwave's Babbling Bougainvillea, vendigroth mansion and garden defaults, and nymphy's bougainvillea edits

If they modfy the same files, they will conflict. You can open my fixes and those packages in SimPE and see whether the names there are the same. @feministoboe said:

Your Maxis Plants Fix is so incredibly beautiful and so everything I've ever wanted that I just had to send you a personal message thanking you. Unfortunately I don't really play TS2 anymore and really hope someone does this for TS3 because TS3 has this issue even worse... BUT if I ever get around to installing TS2 on one of my newer computers I will DL this mod immediately. It seems like no one cared about this issue for ages and it sad for a winter-lover like me!

Thank you :) I’m actually not a winter lover myself (and at the moment I play in desert hoods with only summer and spring), I sometimes even turn off winter in temperate hoods because it’s annoying (too bad I can’t do that in real life ;)), but I do plan to play in a hood with winter at some point and I wanted the plants to look properly :) (At least the Maxis ones, I’m fairly sure most of my CC plants don’t even cover in snow.) Not sure how winter is done in TS3, for all I remember things changed more smoothly than in TS2, so I don’t know whether it’s possible to edit plants in the same way. And, thnak everyone who ever replied to my posts :)

Anonymous said:

Would you be open to sharing more pictures from tour game? I am curious about your decorations style and which neighborhoods you play

Well I do share pictures from Stangetown and its subhood Oasis Valley as those are the hoods I play :)

About

Well, performing arts centre might be too big of a name for this lot as it’s just a cafe with a stage, but I think it fits best. I was inspired by this mod – now when all sims are able to autonomously perform and watch, I wanted a place in my hood where they could do that. It’s a Moroccan style building with a nice garden and barbecue area, and it’s a no CC lot. I packed a clean copy so it shouldn’t have any references, and I tested it with a sim and everything seems usable. Lot Size: 3x3 Lot Price (furnished): §247292

Activities

Microphone

Cafe

Barbecue

Chess

Bookcase

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@teishpeach said:

Thanks for all your time and effort you put into your re-textures, mods, creations etc. Love your stuff, babe. I was riding home from work today and it had been raining, and I was appreciating the puddles along my route. I then thought I wonder if someone could somehow mod the puddles in the Sims 2! :O

Thanks! Not sure if much is possible to do about puddles though, I think they’re objects, and don’t use shaders like pond does. It probably would be possible to make them a bit more transparent or something, but I don’t think a significant change is possible.

@wellofloneliness said:

Awesome tips. If I do that can I share them?

It’s such a simple edit that everyone can do it very quickly if they want, I’ll add those tips to the post instead :)

@wellofloneliness said:

...Is there any way you could do a version of your seasonal plant update (which is 🎉AMAZING🎉) without the hedges? They're boxwoods, which are an evergreen. It would also be cool to have one where the sunflowers die back to ground level/disappear.

Those things are actually easy to change yourself! For the hedges, open the plantFixesBG file and remove shrub4-foliage-seasonal-swx05_txtr and shrub4-foliage-seasonal-swx06_txtr – that will restore the Maxis original version. And if you want the sunflowers to disappear, open the planFixesMG file, and import a fully transparent 1x1 image for all 8 TXTR files that have shrubsunflowers-foliageswx05-dm (and 06) in the name :)

About

Maxis folks were a bit lazy with seasons, weren’t they? Instead of making all the plants seasonal (at least to a reasonable extent), they made flowers covered by snow. Not sure how they though it’s a good idea, but well, time to fix it. Maybe someone has done it before, but I haven’t seen it, and well, if it does exist, an alternative version doesn’t hurt anyone. Changes:

I edited the textures so plants don’t have flowers when they’re covered by snow. Meshes aren’t changed, behaviour isn’t changed either, so the look doesn’t depend on the season itself, but on the snow level, just like Maxis shrubs have always been. I also altered the colour so leaves look dry instead of fresh and green.

I also removed shine from two MG plants as they looked weird, kind of like they were plastic.

Seasons are required. Edits for base game, BV, and MG plants are in separate files, so you can pick the ones you have required EPs for (if you have all of them, grab the file with all in the name). If you want to edit this to your liking (for example keep the hedges green) you can do it very easily. A bit more detail about how to do it here.

Conflicts

Anything that replaces swx05 and swx06 textures for shrubs, and also material files for MG plants.

Known bugs

None, as it’s only a texture replacement.

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Plant Fixes – All If you have all the required EPs, download this one. Plant Fixes – BG For base game + Seasons. Plant Fixes – BV For Bon Voyage + Seasons. Plant Fixes – MG For Mansions and Gardens + Seasons.

Recently I’ve been improving my theme and I think I’m done now :) It was a lot of work, but I’m glad I decided to do it because now the theme seems much better and more convenient. I tested my code and it seems fine, but let me know if you have any issues with it. Changes:

New header. I made it in ArtRage (and smoothed a bit in Photoshop, original painting here), and it’s similar in style to the leafy avatar I use on forums.

Images now show as thumbnails, and you can enlarge them by clicking on them, and easily view them using the mouse or keyboard. No more endless scrolling :) It works similarly to the tumblr preview for photosets, but mine is animated, shows the number of images (and which one you’re viewing), accepts more input (for example space) and fits in style to the rest of the theme.

New download page. Instead of redirecting to tagged/downloads, the button now leads to a page where I put everything I’ve created so far, split into categories.

New links table. Now when I have a downloads page I don’t need so many links leading to certain categories, and I removed them. The table looks more neat now, and I styled it better.

Posts now have subheadings. You can interact with one of them to view images.

Various animations. Things that do something when you click on them are now animated on hover to make it clear.

New notes view. Now it shows what people did with the posts instead of just avatars.

Answer posts are hidden on the main page so it looks more neat. They’re still normally accessible under the answers link and will appear in the dash (I also numbered them). However, despite being hidden they still count towards the amount of the posts per page, so now I will have an irregular number. I don’t like that but I haven’t found a way to get around it and I don’t think it’s possible.

Various style changes such as font size, blue footers with round borders etc.

On a side note, I know it’s probably annoying for some of you that I use the read more thingy, but I have lots of custom CSS and a few custom JS scripts that won’t work in the dash or someone else’s blog (because they’re part of my theme that only displays on my blog), so without read more redirecting here they would cause a big mess in the dash. It also ensures that all my posts are the same size on the main page (title + thumb).

Anonymous said:

Hi! There seems to be something wrong with the download links for the ferns, I keep getting some cheek blushes. Or is my computer playing tricks on me?

I was messing around with my HTML template for posts and forgot to swap links back, sorry for that! I fixed it now.

@lowedeus said:

Cool chairs! WCIF?

Those are by Adele, here :)

About

I posted it on MTS some time ago, so why not here :) It’s one of my community lots in Oasis Valley (a Strangetown subhood), placed next to the jungle area, and it’s supposed to look like some kind of pavillion.

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Anonymous said:

What is on your wip list?

Well I’ve started many things and I’m not sure if I even remember all of them. Definitely dirt & concrete replacements, similarly to ferns I started them ages ago. There’s more to do than it was with them though, and I don’t feel like working on it right now so I don’t know when I’m going to finish the replacements. Surely during the summer break, but I can’t tell how soon. I also started a few random things such as eyeshadows an a dress, and I made a large set of stucco walls and wood floors, which is basically ready (wouldn’t work for MAC users though). And, I plan to host a building contest on MTS after the current one finishes.

Anonymous said:

Voeille the ferns are really nice 🌿 will you be doing more plants in the future

Thank you :) Maybe I will, I create various kinds of CC depending on what I need and what I feel like making, and I like plants, so it’s not unlikely I will create more :) But I’m a beginner at meshing so don’t expect anything fancy until I get better.

@dramallamadingdang said:

Hi there, Voeille! Quick question for you. I've tweaked your 3D grasses (among many other 3D grasses) to make them visible in neighborhood view, since I'm using them extensively on a little coastline-decorating project I'm doing. I am planning to share the tweaked meshes as a "pack," once that project is more or less done. Have I your permission to include your grasses with that pack, or is that something you'd rather do yourself? I'd give you full credit for the meshes, of course.

Sure, as long as you credit me you can edit it however you like :) It’ll probably be best to credit me with a tag, then I can also get a notification and download it too :)

About

I created those ferns in February, but never got around finishing them until recently (they didn’t have snow texture and the hood deco version). Over all those months I’ve been using them a lot (I play in warm hoods without winter so I didn’t need the snow texture), because they’re so versatile that they fit everywhere, and I basically don’t have a single lot without them used. I showed a few usage examples in the pictures, I hope you’ll find a use for them in your game too :) To make the texture I used Obsidian Dawn brushes (on DA), snow is made by me, as well as the meshes. The hood version is cloned from Gwenke’s poplar, and the lot one from Maxis oleander. Notes:

I made two types of ferns, one with thin leaves and one with wider ones, and both come in two sizes.

The set has two versions – high poly and low poly. All the pictures show the low poly version, except the two comparison pictures. The high poly version has more than twice as many polys and the difference is really little, so I rather recommend using the low poly one, but if you really want them to look smooth from all angles, get the high poly one. You can have only one in your game.

The ferns are neutral with respect to routing, sims can go through them without complaints.

They look the same in all seasons (which is on purpose, because I don’t want them to change in spring and autumn), except when they’re covered by snow, as shown in the pictures.

The hood deco version can be found under flora, and the lot version is in build mode → garden centre → shrubs, each fern costs §16.

The plants don’t need tending, they never get overgrown.

All files are slaved to fernTextureMASTER.package. Do not delete that file, but you can delete any others, they’re independent. For example if you don’t want the hood version, delete all files with hood in the name.

Polygon Count

Fern 1 (thin leaves): High poly:

Faces: 2050

Vertices: 1444

Low poly:

Faces: 1018

Vertices: 810

Fern 2 (wide leaves): High poly:

Faces: 1922

Vertices: 1354

Low poly:

Faces: 950

Vertices: 746

Additional Credits

Gwenke – for generous policy thanks to which I could clone her poplar and easily make my ferns change with snow level. Obsidian Dawn – for fern brushes. @simnopke – for general help, especially with making a low poly version.

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Ferns The low poly version, recommended. Choose only one. Ferns – High Poly The high poly version, not recommended. Choose only one.

About

I decided to upload my entries for joandsarah77’s Community Spirit contest. It hasn’t finished yet, but it’s fine to upload entries already, and I’m going to use CC for the last round so it couldn’t go into this no CC bundle anyway. The contest is a foundation challenge with limited budget, so all the foundations were provided by Jo, and I couldn’t do everything I wanted, I had to restrict myself in order to fit within the limit. Those lots are my original entries, the only difference is a little detail in the first round house – for the contest purposes I edited it after packing – I had to add a smoke alarm as it was one of the requirements I forgot about, and in order to afford it I had to sell one of the lamps that are hidden in walls. So the appearance is no different, but the version in this upload has one more lamp but no smoke alarm. and hence the slight difference between here and the original entry. Round 3 house was packed before placing a landline phone, so the difference in price is even less noticeable. All the lots were packed before I moved any sims in, so they’re safe to install. I’m sure I didn’t use all the packs for all the lots, so despite the fact that they were packed with UC, it’s worth a shot with Clean Installer if you don’t have a pack that isn’t AL or MG. All of them were built in a desert hood and they fit desert best, but you can place them in a grass hood and they’ll look alright too.

Round 1

Lot size: 2x2 Price: §25000 The budged limit was 25k, and I managed to reach exactly that (but as I mentioned the price in the contest is different because of that smoke alarm & lamp thing). It was built as a house for a couple expecting a baby (hence the nursery), and I decided for the modern style with Tiki elements.

Round 2

Lot size: 3x2 Price: §35000 As you can guess, the limit was 35k, and I again reached the exact number. This house is supposed to be a kind of party type couple who likes dancing, BBQ, and relaxing by the pool. I went with modern design mixed with Moroccan for an eclectic effect. Similarly to the previous round, I hid a smoke alarm in the wall.

Round 3

Lot size: 3x2 Price: §49911 This time the limit was 50k, and the lot costs just slightly less. The house is designed for a sporty sim who wanted a modern home. I decided to build it not really on the provided foundation, so it might look a bit strange, but I like it :) The packed version doesn’t have a landline phone so place it if you don’t want to use cellphones instead. Similarly to the previous round, I hid a smoke alarm in the wall.

Round 4

Lot size: 2x2 Price: §80000 Exact price again! The family this house is supposed to be for is a retired hippie couple who loves art, flea markets, gardening, and recycled furniture. According to contest rules I could go crazy and mix plenty of styles and it’d still be fitting, but I decided to keep it harmonious and mixed Tiki with oriental touches :) In this house I used a sprinkler instead of a smoke alarm.

Additional Credits

joandsarah77 for the contest and foundations.

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More pictures are under the download link as it redirects to MTS. I decided to do so instead of posting everything directly here because of the amount of pictures – there are 89 of them including the preview as the upload contains 4 lots, and it’d be very inconvenient to link all of them here, and for downloaders to scroll infinitely.