#caw challenge

The Challenge:

Build a world based on this height map during May 2020. There’s small and medium height maps available in here.  (Just flat islands, nothing too fancy). It’s a short time, so throw away perfectionism and just play!

Choose your style, alter the heights and ad or demolish smaller islands, just keep the overall look about the same.

You can post your progress on Tumblr using the tags #CAW challenge and #mystery island.

You can also join our shiny new channel on Creators Cave Discord to discuss more!

Most importantly, don’t stress over it, have fun, and bend the rules if you need to. Also feel free to use the height map for other purposes than the challenge. It’d be awesome if there would be some ready worlds at the end of May! (Or June, or July...)

For CAW beginners: download the height map (I’d recommend the smaller) and put it in your Electronic Arts -> The Sims 3 Create a World Tool -> UserToolData -> HeightMaps folder so that it’s easier to find when you open a new world. The map is ugly, so don’t worry! I will continue my island by smoothing the edges and adding height to the centers. I’m a n00b myself but don’t hesitate to contact if you need any help.

So there’s the, umm, highly detailed and ultra realistic height map, done in Paint. Although I have to say it is based on a real island. I won’t say more so that I wouldn’t influence your vision too much.

The sculpting is practically done and the terrain painting if about half way done. I think I need one darker toned paint for a more realistic contrast. As you see, this is no tropical island...

I tested all the rocks in CAW. There’s many of them, with names that has nothing to do with how the rocks look. I’d want much smaller stones too, but I guess I should be happy, because placing them would take a year.

So the bridge... It’s huge. And I’d need different railings because these are supposed to go underground a bit and now there’s a black line showing on them. It just doesn’t look good in game, no one would build so huge railings. These pics are form my yesterday evenings test version, and I’ve redone the bridge today because it was too skew, but I tested the invisible floor on it anyway. The darn side of the floor is not invisible! Argh and asdasdasd. Any ideas?

I was first shocked how dark and grey the world was in game, but luckily I realized I should wait till mid day. And tada, it’s so bright in the picture below! That made me really love the grey and dull atmosphere in the morning, it’s so realistic.

This view really is no more, I decided I won’t use shell buildings like I was supposed to, because the island is so small and most of the buildings are very low in detail. Might keep the darker grey building if I can come up with a reason for it. Despite demolishing everything in this pic I liked it so much that it encouraged me to continue. The sea is too bright blue to my taste, but that’s not today’s task.