we can't do that video with those dogs

This game is not good. I do not recommend this game as a building engine. There are so many problems. This creation is an exercise in self-control (none), creativity, and working against restraints. And most of all, perseverance, because this game/build tried to kill me every step of the way. I cannot emphasize enough how much this creation was something I felt compelled to do and not leisurely. Much like any artist may feel about their work at times. I underwent a Victor Frankenstein-like state to do this. Do not try this at home!!!!

My TOOLbox....

First disclaimer: this build uses no custom content! Which is a little crazy of me. But there are absolutely no user-created items in this game. It uses pretty much all DLC though, and many debug/live edit items. (I do not condone the purchasing of DLC as EA is an evil company and also charges way too much for it). I have a total of two mods installed, both of which simply make using cheats a whole lot easier- they are primarily UI mods that utilize base game code.

These mods are T.O.O.L. and Better BuildBuy: Organized Debug, both by TwistedMexi.

TOOL pretty much lets you rescale, move, and rotate items (in any axis). Generally I use in-game commands first (ie moveobjects on, allow free item placement/not snapping to grid/to overlap with other item hitboxes), and controls such as alt to move and rotate items into place on the horizontal axes, or [ ] keys to scale roughly before i try entering in numbers. without the elevate and scale features on TOOL, the dioramas absolutely would not have been possible because they allow for the level of precision i needed. It also lets you change the color of lights in build mode!

Better BuildBuy pretty much just organizes all the debug items and makes them automatically visible, and also sets building cheats to default so you don't have to turn them on every time you launch the game.

The Process

In general, my process for creating this build was first to gather references, and focus on one area at a time. I would sometimes have to collect references again when I was in the middle of building it, or starting a new section, such as the dioramas. If you're curious, here are screenshots I used as reference!

This took... so much time. I wish I had kept track of how long but it has to be at least 40 hours. It's hard to estimate based on what the EA launcher says, though, because there were many instances (like nearly every time i played) of the game just.. refusing to close? I would save, and then separately hit exit (bc i had learned my lesson) and it would just.. freeze. Get a white overlay. I could not exit out with the x or with my taskbar, i would have to get task manager to kill it, and I couldn't always be bothered so idk how many of those are ghost hours.

I had a lot of fun getting creative with my items. I spent most of the time combing through the item catalog, and oftentimes would return to an item later and replace it with something I found on accident that would work better. There are also a lot of things I tried out that didn't make the final cut, or funny moments along the way.

Some in-progress screenshots:

Okay now that some of those fun screenshots are out of the way, let's go section by section and see what some of these items are! (and you will see the effort i put into each graphic diminish over time)(some of them are kind of big canvases/details get small so you may need to click on them & zoom in)

Hard Launch Set

I made the panel with a set of walls behind the dividers, in order to get the purple glow effect. Despite these being the actual functional part, of course, I had to include the set of neon lights behind the set that they showed in the tour, which currently just hit the back of that wall where there is nothing lol.

And last but not least on the Hard Launch set,

Richard!

Phedsheet themed video area

Here's the little corner that the monitor, camera, and lights are in-- and, at least in the tour video, this fucking ladder. I spent so long trying to figure out this ladder. Please observe a crashout over said ladder, and then the miracle that the sims gods bestowed upon me? Literally the next day? I don't know how that happened.

Admin corner

Couch/philm club section

I'm aware the bow looks dumb on the axolotl i just think it's cute okay

Dioramas

These took up the most time of everything, I think. Because each is like its own room but I ALSO have to make it tiny. Despite being a pain in the ass these were a lot of fun.

This was the very last piece of the build that I finished, so it feels fitting to end on it.

This has been a wild ride and I still miss building it sometimes. If there are any particular parts or things I missed that you're curious about, please feel free to ask! I am absolutely willing to elaborate or deconstruct bits like a sort of dissection. I very nearly broke image limit on this post tbh. Also if you want to see this lot for yourself, it's up in the gallery! Titled, as you may have guessed, "The Phasement."

And here, as a bonus for coming this far.. my descent into madness: