Dev Blog: 07/14/2021

Ack, how in the world is it the 14th already!? CoL releases in 8 days! I feel like it was just yesterday that it was announced, I can't believe how fast time is moving. 

Current Progress

📌 Medieval Dance:

Right now I've picked up another older mod that I started a while back, and then put on hold, as part of my "Complete Before CoL Releases" batch of mods, which is the dance from The Sims Medieval. Again though this is one of those moments where I'm glad I did put it on hold as it was one of those mods that turned out to be far more difficult than it appears on the surface. 

Before I was trying to override the dance animations themselves, but it didn't occur to me back then that if I did it that way I wouldn't be able to do separate dances for males or females, at least without overriding several interactions and some workarounds. Now though, I know how to edit the Animation State Machines (the files controlling what animations play) and add gender filters so that they play their own stuff separately. While it's a bit of work to setup, I'm glad I know how to do this and can apply it to this situation. You can see a bit of an example here if you're curious as to what the filter looks like:

I know it looks crazy at a glance but the only thing I had to edit was the @ClipController and add in the ParameterSelector and Choice Value male/female. Lots of copy/pasting and moving though, lol.

Anyhow, you can see my current progress in the gif at the top of the page, which still has snapping and sinking as I haven't added IK yet. I also kept the emotional overlay systems in place to give it more flavor and life, and the male in the gif is apparently bored with the dance in the beginning, though not sure if I'll keep it atm. But I've got the stereo dancing done, then need to work on the dance floor file, the synchronized dancing files (they are all separate files), and add IK and sounds next.

📌 Everyone Can Suntan

As I'm sure some of you saw in my last mod update post, I ran into some serious snapping issues for the beach towel suntanning animations which did set me back a few days in terms of work. The kids were basically snapping in half, like you can see in this gif (ouch):

And I had done 5 of the 9 animations for the beach towel (out of the 26 total I needed to do) before I realized my issue. Nothing I did fixed it, and after several tests I finally narrowed it down to my custom tools and with Pancake's help was able to solve the issue. Since this was stressing me out and needs a bit more work to finish now, I had to put it on hold for the time being but will restart it soon. At this point I'd say it won't be finished until after CoL releases since I want to finish the other mods I wanted to. 

📌 Arranged Marriages

I don't have a lot of details to report at the moment, but I did finally find the file type I needed for the test portion of Arranged Marriages called a TestBasedScore. It runs through a series of tests and applies a score (if it passes) that is added up at the end that can determine if an interaction, etc. is successful, like the funny interactions for example. 

Basically my goal is to have this file check for specific traits, a few careers, charisma and other skills, how much money your sim has, etc. and then provide a final score that determines if you are successful or not. The tests will also be in reverse for the sim that you are asking, so their traits, etc. will have an impact as well. I will have more info on this at a later date, explaining which stuff has an impact. I won't set the bar too high but I do intend for it to add a slight challenge for any sims who are lower class, etc. There will be new interactions too that add ways to increase your chances of success though! And in the future once I've done more updates there will be other ways to have marriages arranged too, so if directly asking doesn't work there will always be another way. Not that you can't try that method again later, I just mean there are other opportunities to choose from. Anyhow, I hope this part goes smoothly as there's a lot of stuff to test for. If need be I'll get the important tests done and add more in a future update.

Mods for Cottage Living

I already have a couple of mods I plan to put together once CoL comes out! Besides the obvious farming ones, I do plan to:

• Improve the picnic basket and try to add in a floor option
• Make an option for ice skating on ponds (I will also be researching swimming when I get the chance but this might not be possible)
• Make the rabbits easier to get as pets, and probably adjust and add in a few other things as I come across them
• Option to randomly fill pond with fish. I think it's a bit silly that you have to have encountered the fish first and need to choose them.

There will likely be more as I play the pack (my first time playing properly in years!) but this is what I've thought of so far from the information we've heard. 

That should wrap up this current dev blog. I have a few other (minor) things to discuss in the next post and will try to get another one going soon. Back to work for me, have a great week everyone!