Bedroom Poll Results

Enough of the bedroom poll! It's too lengthy and I've already gotten more then enough responses to give me an idea of the answers to the two real questions in it (the first two being set up to get you thinking about your bedroom-creating habits before answering the second two).

And the results are (sorted by result)...

Which of the following do you almost always include in any bedroom, whether or not it's part of a matching set?
Bed (Duh...)
84.02% (142 votes)

End Table
64.5% (109 votes)

2-Tile Dresser
44.97% (76 votes)

1-Tile Dresser
40.24% (68 votes)

Chair
34.32% (58 votes)

Desk
26.04% (44 votes)

Bookcase
24.26% (41 votes)

Toy Box
15.38% (26 votes)

Easel
5.92% (10 votes)

Chess Table
3.55% (6 votes)

Which of the following do you most frequently find yourself wishing was included as part of more bedroom sets?
1-Tile Dresser
50.3% (85 votes)

Chair
40.24% (68 votes)

Desk
33.73% (57 votes)

Single Bed
31.95% (54 votes)

Bookcase
31.36% (53 votes)

Double Bed
28.99% (49 votes)

2-Tile Dresser
28.4% (48 votes)

End Table
27.81% (47 votes)

Toy Box
18.93% (32 votes)

Easel
9.47% (16 votes)

Chess Table
7.69% (13 votes)

A Pipe Dream Realized

Ever since I first saw cyclonesue's terrific Bang On A Can bathroom, I've had a vision stuck in my head of an entire set of pipe-based furniture. Well, last week I finally worked up the courage to ask her if she had any plans in that direction, and when she said she didn't, I asked if I could possibly reuse her pipe meshes and textures as building blocks to construct it. And, as you've undoubtedly guessed by now, she said yes! Well, after most of a week of non-stop work on it, the initial block of it is up for release. It contains fourteen meshes hitting most of the major furniture groups; a table, desk, bookcase, single and double beds, two different armchairs, a sofa, end table, 1- and 2-tile coffee tables, 1- and 2-tile dressers, and a chess table. I'd have to say this set was the most fun to conceptualize and build of anything I've done for my Sims. Even though it also required me to learn two new building skills - extending the footprints of meshes that occupy more floorspace then the original item they were cloned from (both beds and the sofa), and adding slots to items so that additional decorative items can be placed on them in buy mode (table, 2-tile coffee table, end table, bookcase, and both dressers). Okay, so that second one was actually kind of optional, but I really wanted my bookcase to have a deco slot, and then once I finally got that working I went nuts and added more slots to several other items as well. My next major project will be mastering doing the routing stuff that enables your sims to use the additional slots as well. More places for them to hide their bills, newspapers, books, etc! Yes, I did say initial set - I also have plans to try and make a pipe-based kitchen counter, a second version of the table (one with a Value door as the top rather than the window panes), numerous deco items, and, oh yes, a pipe-based easel. I'll also be releasing some additional recolours. So if there's something you would love to see added on to this set, get your requests in now! I can't guarantee I'll make it, but I'll at least consider it. P.S. - I highly recommend to anyone looking for some nice grungey recolours of the Value door (not to mention great industrial wall textures) to check out the profile of pixelhate on MTS2. His gorgeously grotty recolours of this door are the #1 reason I decided to use it as one of the repositories within this set.

Poll Results

I've decided it's past time to close down my long-running "What would you like to see me make more of?" poll and record the results for posterity.

Answers are:

Maxis-Matching Items - 46.27% (304 votes)
Bedding-Match Items - 12.02% (79 votes)
Texture-Sharing Items - 12.18% (80 votes)
Stand-Alone Items - 15.07% (99 votes)
Storytelling Props - 14.46% (95 votes)

I have to admit I was surprised to see stand-alone items get a bigger percentage then texture-sharing items. But since texture-sharing is my thing, you're not going to see very many stand-alones! Especially since things like my clutter collections steal freely from each other's repositories.

I've posted a new poll, having to do with bedrooms. I may or may not get around to making some bedroom suites in the near future (near being an indeterminate quantity that may be the same as "never", or at least "a very long time from now" depending on how the object-creating mood strikes me), but mainly I'm curious to see how other people's tastes in bedroom furniture for their sims compares to mine.

Feel free to comment with any additional information about what, exactly, you consider absolutely essential in a bedroom set, and what optional extras you most enjoy seeing.

You've Come A Long Way, Baby...

Recently I've started looking over some of my older work here on TSR and cringing over the horrible errors I made with some of them, back when I was new to creating custom content and ignorant of all the fiddly details of how to set up my things properly.

The two items I've found most immediately distressing were the horrendous shadows on the end tables for my "Window Seat" set, and how tiny the buy mode icons for my dish rack are - the latter being due to me leaving in the large-but-unused wall shadow texture planes.

So - I've fixed them! Updated .package files have been uploaded, and can be retrieved as follows:


Draining Board Set


Window Seat Set

The Clutter Continues...

Finally gotten some solid work in on the next clutter collection. Here's a little preview of what meshes I'm already made .packages of - more are waiting in the wings for me to get them polished and completed. There are some obvious flaws with the items shown here, they're still very much works in progress.

Bedding-Match BV Hotel Beds Fixed!

LyssaKi pointed out to me some time ago that the opacity plane in my bedding-match version of the single hotel bed was flashing blue. Whoops! I finally got around to fixing it - which I should have done ages ago! - and while I was at it I also made a bedding-match version of the hotel canopy bed, which I'd somehow missed noticing when making the original set. At least until the flood of "will you be making a bedding match version of the canopy bed too?" comments and PMs started flooding in. Doh. Double-Doh! All fixed now. The revised set of beds will be re-released on Monday. Enjoy!

Whoopsie!

As aikea_guinea helpfully pointed out to me today, my "grilled cheese with dart" wall object from the Crazy Clutter collection was conflicting with the "Civic Idol" poster. A fixed version has now been posted and can be downloaded here.

And I swear I still plan to make both more clutter and more frames, it's just this darn Legacy story is once again controlling the majority of my free time. The neighbourhood deciding to reach unplayable levels of lag (plus random crash-y-ness) just prior to the holidays, necessitating a rebuild, has not helped matters :)

Crazy Clutter Collection

I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, to make a bunch of "clutter" decor objects out of both new custom meshes I'd make from scratch, and existing in-game item meshes. And then the aspiration failure objects tapped me on the shoulder and said hello... So here's the first clutter collection, focusing mainly on crazy items like the sack baby, cup buddy, mop lover, and so forth. It also includes a few "normal" objects like coffee cups and darts... and Mrs. Crumplebottom's purse. All objects in the collection are base game compatible; unfortunately, this does mean that they can't be placed on OFB shelving without the aid of Numenor's "Custom objects placeable on OFB displays and shelves" hack from MTS2. They can, however, be placed on floors, end tables, coffee tables, dining tables, desks, counters, and mantelpieces (except for the lone wall-mounted cardboard grilled cheese sandwich).

1.5 Million!

Some time today the downloads counter on my mini-site passed the 1.5 million mark. I am floored! Thanks to everyone out there who liked my work enough to download it and give it a try :D

Multi-Use Photo Frames

For a while now I've been wanting to make a set of picture frames based on the photo booth picture from Nightlife; you know, the one that you can place on either a wall or on a counter, table, end table, or coffee table... Well, with much cursing and swearing and sweat, I've managed to bludgeon the files into submission and produce a beginning set of photo frames. I got really ambitious with it, and have been making frames that can be placed at different heights on the wall, so they can be combined to make interesting layouts. I'm also ambitious in that I went nuts with the repository technique (well, of course I did!) and set it up so all of the frames get their frame textures from the square medium-height frame (the same size and placement as the original photo booth picture I started from). All square pictures get their photo image from the medium-height square, all panoramic from the medium-height panoramic, and so forth and so on. This first set of frames is just the start of what should be a sizable collection by the time I'm finished; it will include more height placements for the portrait and landscape photos (currently only available at medium height in this set), and some additional sizes and layouts of frames. And recolours. Lots and lots of recolours! For one thing, I've been threatening my brother for ages with the idea of me taking off with a big chunk of his art photos (he's a devoted amateur photographer) and using them for something in the sims... I figure this is as good a time as any to actually do so!