April/May 2020 Summary

Hey guys! Sorry for the quietness but I've been working hard behind the scenes. Not as hard as I'd like but I've made a lot of progress regardless! No major life updates other than my son's first birthday on Sunday, so I will just jump straight into things. (I can't believe it's been a year??? Where the heck did time go!?)

Current Progress & Focus

Functional Archery Range/Gauntlet: 

I finally got the animation bug in Blender solved! I don't remember if I ever posted about this, but one of the main reasons I put this on hold is because the animations, while testing in Blender, were causing the object to flip onto it's back. With my friend brainstorming with me, I finally figured out a fix and can now proceed with importing the animations. Now that that is solved I can put this back on my radar and do a basic animation test to see how it looks in-game (and show you guys a preview)!

Bloody Vampire Bites & Wounds:  

Ahhh I'm so excited! I'm about 3 small loots away from releasing this! I could have gotten this done last week but I had other mod related stuff and distractions popup that kept me from working, and I also ran into a big bug. I'm finishing it up today and will get the info post ready to go for release, which will hopefully be in a few days. 

During my work the last few weeks though, I finally managed to get each overlay compatible with each other! That means the wrist bite will work with the neck bites, and even the mouth overlays will work if your vampire becomes a victim through mods. I am very excited to get that working as I was afraid that wouldn't be possible based on previous attempts.

Regular Sims with Ghost Abilities (aka Human Ghosts)

I can't think of a proper name for this, so if anyone has one please let me know, lol. Somebody wanted regular sims to use ghost interactions like possess, etc. and couldn't get it to work on their own, so I offered to just make it in the end and I really enjoyed the end results and decided to release it at some point. I just need to grab a few more interactions and unlock them, plus make an interaction that allows the trait to be given without a cheat. I hope to release it the same day as the bloody bites mod, but I'm not sure if I can do so with the amount of work left. We'll see!

Car VFX Removal:

The VFX mod I was working on that removed all traces of cars was a success! I still need to make a standalone version that works without Timeless and for other mods/uses, however, it's now been included in Timeless 1.5 and is available on the Sims of History Discord as a current exclusive until Timeless 2.0 is ready for release. I'm still looking into lights but man....EA totally screwed us over with how they implemented lighting. The VFX that should remove the lighting just doesn't. I've pretty much exhausted all resources related to removing lights and can't get them to work so far, but I will try again at a much later date. For now I've given my research to Neiph for him to look into, hopefully he can solve the problem or at least get a step further than I did. 

Future Plans

Now that I am finishing up these mods I can move onto other projects. I've stated before here what I will be doing next after release and these plans are still current, except for ladders! These were confirmed to be coming in the next BG patch update, so I no longer need to attempt them. I am wondering if EA is going to be doing spiral stairs next though, so I'll try to get that mod out as soon as I can so I'm not making them right when EA releases them. That would be awful! Before I work on the next batch of mods though, I will be releasing the website, my Discord, and changing the Patreon tier names, adding images, etc. 

In other news, I have a slightly clearer view on what I am working on next after those small mods and social media updates. For the longest time I didn't know what direction to take as there are so many objects to convert and so many gameplay mods I have planned (you should see my ideas list!), so I was always going back and forth on what to do. I mean, Blacksmithing from TSM was always the main project, but for smaller projects to release in-between I was lost. Within the last month though I have met new people and joined several group projects, discussed ideas with other simmers, etc. and now have a (mostly) clear path!

Elders Pack Collab: I have joined Youtuber SimmerErin's Elders Pack collab with a few other (small and large) creators! There is no info released to the public yet on what we are doing but I can promise that several of the items I am working on are pretty big! Once I get started on my side of things and they are working out, I'll start posting previews for patrons, and a preview or two for non-patrons during my monthly posts (so the usual method). I think everyone is going to love this pack, especially my newsworthy items.  ;)

Farming  Pack Collab: A simmer was asking for help on a farming pack idea they had, and since several of the things they wanted to make were already on my list I offered to join in! This just happened the other day so the collab is in it's early stages, but the outline and ideas already look great. History players will especially love this pack!

Medieval World Collab: Speaking of history players, The Sims Plus is creating a Medieval World override! They joined the Sims of History Discord and was looking for creators to contribute to the world, and I offered to join of course with my conversions. I'm planning to do (if things workout of course): the messenger box, kingball (a sport from TSM), stocks, and if time permits, the pit (with the monster!!). I'd like to add more but the potential release is at the end of the year, and I'm not sure what else would fit, but that's the plan so far! I have run into a small snag with my converting process though since TSM is slightly different from TS3, but my friend Pancake is looking into it and I should be back on track hopefully soon.

While I wait for my friend to finish, I'll be focusing mostly on the Elders Pack objects first and get started on Part 1 of my Blacksmithing project: Mining interactions and skill! I'm still trying to figure out the best way to handle details in Part 1 but my ideas for it go beyond just collecting ore for blacksmithing! I want mining to be able to stand on it's own if people choose to not download blacksmithing, so I'm hoping to add more details for people to use.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the updates! My next post should be about a mod release, and hopefully in the next few days!