Screenshots of Sim Acres As I Populate

Hi, everyone. Yes, believe it or not I'm still testing Sim Acres now that I'm populating it. I am currently looking for any tell-tale glitches or visual gaffes.

Below are some screenshots of the town with the sim families I've added to the town:

Sim Acres Update--Currently Creating Families and Populating

Although I haven't posted in some time, rest assured that I'm still working on Sim Acres. Last week, I went through the apartment buildings in Downtown to make sure that everything was fine but found a few annoying errors that needed to be fixed. Hopefully, I've caught all of them. In any event, I'll be going over the world again in the near future just to make sure.

Right now I'm creating families and populating the world at the same time. It'll take me a little while because I have to not only write the backstories for each family, but assign all the sims jobs. So if you're waiting for Sim Acres to be completed, stay tuned. It's still coming along.

Soft relaunch of Riverside

Last Friday, I reuploaded a slightly tweaked version of Riverside but didn't think to announce it because it wasn't a major overhaul. But I changed my mind and decided to announce it anyway so that everyone knows what was changed:

New Band Platform at Kiki's Karaoke
There's a new room on the first floor of Kiki's Karaoke where bands can now perform.

New Stage at V's Flying Coffeehouse
V's Flying Coffeehouse has been remodeled with a new stage.

Fixed This Guy
I accidentally had another sim from Oceanview, Mac McGinty, as one of the Bodine brothers. Now Mac is back safely in his home in Oceanview and no longer a victim of identity theft in Riverside. :-)

Additional Community Tables
There are more picnic tables in-world for your sims to eat at when they buy ice cream treats.

Fixed Glitch at Riverside Gate
The walls were misaligned near Riverside Gate.

Reduced Household Balances
All the families of Riverside had a ridiculous amount of money in their household balances. Now no one is stinking rich anymore, and this will lead to a more interesting game.

Added More Trees in Rural Area
The area around the Bodines, Beaumonts, and Dauterive seemed a little sparse, so I added some trees to spruce things up.

That's about it! Simply click on the link below to download Riverside v.2.

[Download Riverside @ My Sims 3 Studio]

Sim Acres is Back on Track [WIP]

Well, after messing around with Oceanview again this year, I am now back to completing Sim Acres, my third world. I'm not sure yet how soon it will be released, but just so you know, it's about 95% done. I have almost everything in place--including my families. I just have to place them, play test Sim Acres again, and see whatever additional tweaks I need to spruce it up.

Below are some of the latest pictures:

Screenshots of Oceanview 2.0

Oceanview 2.0

New Version of Oceanview is Officially Released

When I last posted in July, I was working on a new world, Sim Acres. However, I got sidetracked over the summer with Oceanview, my very first world. What wound up happening was that I learned so much while making Sim Acres and Riverside that I went back to Oceanview to apply what I had learned from those two worlds to improve on it.

Well, after much further ado, I am happy to say that the new version of Oceanview is out and ready to be downloaded.

Specifications:
Below are the specs and some other important information you need to know:

• Populated
• Requires the following EPs--Ambitions, Late Night, World Adventures, Generations, Showtime, Seasons and Pets
• May include some Registration Rewards content from Ambitions, Late Night, World Adventures, Generations, Showtime, Seasons and Pets
• Requires Riverview, from the Sims 3 store
• Completely CC-free!
• Has a tiny handful items from these SPs--High End Loft Stuff, Fast Lane
• Is a very large world--166 lots, so best for midrange PCs and up
• Is a Late Night world, meaning that there will be no spawning wildlife (sorry)

[Download Oceanview Here]

Okay, so you're probably wondering what I changed. Below is a rundown:

Create a World Tips and Tricks: Adding a Food Truck to Your World

If you're making a city-themed world, you'll probably want to add a bunch of cool food trucks to it. There's just one teensy, weensy little problem. The food truck parking spot doesn't show up in Buy Mode at all, not even in buydebug. You could try using a mod, but the problem is that modded food trucks will stay parked at the same location day and night instead of moving around like they do in Bridgeport.

A food truck that I added to my world, Oceanview

Luckily, there's an easy way you can add food trucks to your world:

Create a World Tips and Tricks: Super Caw

Hi! This tutorial has moved to its own site, located at The Sims Depot, located here:  

http://www.thesimsdepot.com/sims-3/sims-3-help-center/create-a-world-master-class/how-to-use-supercaw/

If you found that helpful and would like more, feel free to view the rest of The Sim Depot's "Create a World, Master Class" collection of tutorials. 

More Updates from Oceanview Revamp

I am still pretty much knee deep redoing parts of Oceanview to fix some errors and improve the look of the world. Today, I had to go in and replace the global layer, because it was riddled with error objects. If you're working on a world in CAW and find that it keeps crashing while saving or is laggy and slow in gameplay, I highly suggest doing the same. For a tutorial of how to clean your global layer, check out this tutorial at Mod the Sims.

Otherwise, here are some more pics of some of the work I've been doing lately:

Revamped City Hall area

Another pic of City Hall, with new park facing the building

Brewster Terrace

Overview of revamped Downtown area

Pics from Oceanview Revamp (WIP)

Currently, I am working on a revamp of Oceanview because of some nagging issues I've always had with parts of the world. This week, I spent some time to play test it and took some screenshots along the way so you could see some of the revisions I've made:

New park venue in the Downtown area, including a Showtime stage

Almost done revamping Oceanview

If you read my last post from July, you learned that I was in the process of cleaning up Oceanview, the very first world I published at The Exchange. As you can see, it must have been quite an ordeal, since I am only just posting an update a month later!

Right now, I'm almost done. I just have to play test Oceanview. Once I see that everything is in order, I'll reupload it and go back to finishing my third world, Sim Acres. 

Currently Retooling Oceanview

Oceanview, in case you don't know, was my first world. Because I was still learning CAW as I was building it, it was pretty unpolished. Well, now that I have several worlds under my belt and know what CAW is capable of, I decided this past week to go back to Oceanview to apply what I've learned all these years to polish it up.

Oceanview

Back to Playtesting Sim Acres

Well, looks like I'm back to playtesting Sim Acres after some major work I did last week. There were a lot of boo-boos in the apartment buildings and a few routing issues I had to fix, but right now, as of the latest testing, everything is "so far, so good:"

This apartment had an issue with the elevator which has since been fixed.

The Pump It Up! Gym. I think I might change the interiors somewhat.
It needs a speaker as well. 

Sim Acres Botanical Gardens

This is another apt building that had issues. It's been fixed.

Currently on medical leave, will be back soon!

Hi, everyone. I'm just posting a quick update. Right now I'm in the middle of recovery after surgery, so I've taken a break from building and posting on the forums. However, the way things are going, I'll probably be back up and running in about a month. Till then, Happy Simming! :-)

Sim Acres (WIP)-- Some Pics from Playtesting

I did some more playtesting this week of Sim Acres, and I'm really pleased with what I'm seeing so far. I'd say that the world is about 65% complete. Most of the lots are done, but I have tons of landscaping to do, as well as spawners to add.

In any event, here are some more snapshots I took recently:

Riki's Tiki Tavern

Sim Acres (WIP)--Pics of Sim Acres Beach, Maxine's Dive Bar, Kam Fong's

Wheee! So last night, after some major redeveloping and the addition of two venues, I playtested Sim Acres again. It's a good thing, too, because I'm discovering a minor routing issue from the Downtown Library, but it's nothing that can't be fixed:

Park with stage. I think I'm going to rename it Kaminsky Park.

Sim Acres (WIP)--Bar Hopping, Part Deux, Plus Shorelines

I tested the venues in Sim Acres again last week to make sure everything looked the way I wanted. I was pleased with what I saw, but some of the venues still need a bit of tweaking:

The Pink Palace, the Exclusive Lounge. This is turning out to be one of my favorite
venues in Sim Acre next to Riki's Tiki Tavi and the Aqua Velva Poolside Club. 

Sim Acres (WIP)-- Botanical Garden and Festival Grounds Complex

About two weeks ago, I started working on the Botanical Garden and Festival Grounds complex, which is made up of two lots. I think I'm pretty much finished. I just need to add some finishing touches.

Festival grounds in the foreground, with botanical gardens in the background

Festival fairgrounds (Summer)

Botanical Gardens at night

The screenshots don't look like much, but these two lots look really nice in-game, especially because of the bamboo and cherry trees.

Sim Acres (WIP) --Suburban Shopping District

I've spent so much time building up Downtown and the Art Deco district that I've been neglecting the suburban area. Because of that, this past week I decided to finally spend some time there.

Main Street of the suburban shopping district. 

The suburban shopping district, looking west.

Hogan's Deep Fried Diner

Create a World Tips and Tricks: Viewing Your World During Different Times of the Day

Hi! This tutorial has moved to its own site, located at The Sims Depot, located here:  

http://www.thesimsdepot.com/sims-3/sims-3-help-center/create-a-world-master-class/create-a-world-tips-and-tricks-viewing-your-world-during-different-times-of-the-day/

If you found that helpful and would like more, feel free to view the rest of The Sim Depot's "Create a World, Master Class" collection of tutorials. 

Sim Acres (WIP)-- Venue and Bar Hopping

Well, having built all these venues, I couldn't resist play testing Sim Acres to see how they looked in game, and I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with what I'm seeing so far. Unfortunately, poor Betty Jackson was put through the ringer, as I had her bar hopping like crazy for several sim hours. Needless to say, she wasn't only exhausted but pretty darned slosh when I was through with her!

And away we go!

Sim Acres (WIP)--Military Area

I was getting stuck for the longest time trying to figure out how to fill out this area of Sim Acres. Then I got the idea to build an army-themed neighborhood, which I've never built before. In my other worlds, I would just plop the military base in one spot, drop a few trees, and that was it. But this isn't really what a military base would look like in real life. There would be barracks, houses, and other structures, so that's what I built.

Overview of military neighborhood. It's about 60% done.

Sim Acres (WIP)--Underground Scene (Club) and Other Pics

This week, I built a club called the Underground Scene in Sim Acres that is several basement levels deep. It was my first time experimenting with more than one basement level in The Sims 3. I wish I had experimented with basements sooner, because it was fun playing around with them.

What I like about this club is that it looks completely different from what you would expect on the ground level. I think when people take their sims here, they will be pleasantly surprised by what they find.

The Underground Scene Club

Create a World Tips and Tricks: How to Build Apts from Scratch Using Shells from Sims 3 Late Night

Okay, so if you're trying to build a Bridgeport-style world in CAW, you are probably just dying to populate it with the cool apartment buildings you can find there.

One fast and easy way of doing this is to save all the apt buildings in Bridgeport to library, then add them to your world in Edit in Game. But what if you're bored to death of those Bridgeport apartments and want to build apts from scratch using those cool buildings (aka shells)? Simple! In this tutorial, you will learn how to do that in ten steps.

Create a World Tips and Tricks: Fixing The Apartment Building Unclosed Room Glitch

This entry was inspired by a problem I noticed with an apartment building I made in Riverside. There's an annoying bug that can happen when you're building an apartment using a Late Night shell from buydebug. What happens is that a room will behave as if it's still open, even though you closed it on all four side. You can tell something is wrong when you notice sunlight inside of it during the daytime and moonlight during the night (the room will have a bluish tinge to it).

More Pictures of Sim Acres (WIP)

I've been working on Sim Acres a lot this past week. Right now, I'm focusing on editing and completing lots and filling out districts, but haven't really done much painting or landscaping yet.

Here are some pictures as this world is shaping up. I'd say it's about 50% done at this point.

Vito's Junkyard

Even More Pictures of Riverside

I've been playing Riverside with even more depth this week, so I figured why not post more pictures?

One of the Valentis at a Simfest

New World: Sim Acres (WIP)

Well, after the release of Riverside, it looks like I've become obsessed with world building--and after I told myself I would never, ever build another world after Oceanview. Silly me!  :-P

In any event, the new world I'm currently working on is Sim Acres, yet another city. I'm building it specifically for my TS1 families that I remade in TS3, and when I populate it, I'll try and include some famous TS1 EA families, including the Pleasants, Mashugas and Roomies.

As you can see from the pictures below, it's fairly underway, about 45% done. I haven't added all the trees and little details yet and only done some minimal painting.

I'm really hoping that I get this world out before the year is over. It's funny...when you're building a world and it's nearly halfway done, you think, "Oh, I'll be done in no time, maybe two months tops!" Then before you know it, it's a year later and you're still rebuilding sections and tweaking everything. I hope that won't be the case for Sim Acres and that it'll be completed by the summer.

More Pictures of Riverside

Below are more pictures of the new world I've completed, Riverside, which is available at my Sims 3 Studio:

Riverside Live Venue

Riverside (Formerly Bakersfield, Sim Acres) is Now Officially Complete!

Boy, is my face red! For over a year, I've been working on a second world. First it was called Sim Acres, then Bakersfield. Now it has a new name: Riverside. This was literally a last minute, decision, too! I was this close to finalizing the world when I decided to name it after this building called the Riverside Towers. Makes sense, after all, since there's a huge river that divides the city.

Now here is the less than embarrassing news. Riverside, formerly Bakersfield, formerly Sim Acres, is 100% complete and ready to be downloaded. Before you download it, here are some photos to whet your appetite: